Until at least october, and a growing number of major retailers mandating customers wear masks in their stores nationwide, walmart really leading the way, enforcing the policy starting today. Also, Delta Airlines is starting another screening process for passengers who cannot wear a mask on board for health reasons. Theyre even asking those passengers to consider not traveling at all. As for the president , he is not just standing by his response, his more than 140,000 americans have died from covid19, he is once again in a new interview downplaying the severity of the pandemic. Well get to that in a moment. Lets begin in the state of georgia which saw a weekend of record cases. Dianne gallagher joins us from atlanta. Good morning, dianne. Reporter good morning, poppy. Look, things are going in the wrong direction all across the country right now. 31 states are seeing an increase in their new cases of covid19, and the u. S. Passed the 140,000 mark when it comes to deaths since the start of this pandemic. Now, Vice President mike pence is holding a close call with u. S. Governors to talk about covid19 this afternoon. Were seeing cases in states just like georgia that are hitting Record Numbers of new cases in some of these states from just this weekend, poppy. The Governor Brian Kemp there is seeking a restraining order, so not only just to remind people, he sued atlantas mayor last week for mandating masks in atlanta. He hasnt sued other mayors of other cities in georgia, like athens who well have later on in the program for doing the same. Now hes trying to essentially muzzle her, get an injunction from the court so she cant speak about this and speak freely to the press. Is that right . Reporter no mask mandates but definitely an injunction to muzzle the mayor it looks like here. The Governors Office says that this is essentially because they view her comments and her comments to the press and press releases as confusing for business owners, essentially this emergency injunction requests that they prevent the mayor of atlanta from speaking to the press or issuing any press releases about her covid19 restrictions, because they go above what the governor has put out in his Public Health emergency executive order. Thats essentially the root of that lawsuit he filed against her as well but of course this takes it a step further, essentially saying that they want to make it to where she cant speak about it at all. Now the mayor has said thats not going to happen. Shes going to continue talking about it and continue telling people to listen to the science, so they can stay safe. There hasnt been a court date yet set in this lawsuit, poppy. Okay, dianne, wow, this escalated. Thank you very much. Miguel marquez my colleague is in arizona for us this morning. Good morning, miguel. That is a state that i think its sort of a mix of some positive news and a lot of bad news. What is the state of arizona experiencing right now . Reporter the state is at a crossroads. The case numbers here, that rate of positivity is through the roof. It leads the nation, about 24 , about 24. 5 of all people tested here, whether an emergency test site thats been popped up for the next 12 days or so, about a quarter of the people being tested here are positive. Over the weekend, they shattered the number of deaths recorded in a single day, 147 deaths on saturday, but the rate of transmission is down slightly, so if i have it, the rate at which i spread it to others is down slightly. The rate of hospitalizations, those using hospital beds across the entire state is down slightly, but we speak to health care professional, after health care professional. We spoke to one doctor who says they are overwhelmed. They have been going at it nonstop. Right now some Health Care Professionals are starting to get sick. If people are sick, the nurses are sick, and when this started, im a researcher. I wanted to save the world. I had all these ideas to solve this. My colleagues, we had all of these ideas to solve it. I want to make this out alive. Thats my goal. Im in the age that can die and i dont want to get it, so im worried. Im worried about the winter. Im worried a lot of people are being naive about this. Reporter arizona is looking at the fall, which will bring people back to this part of the country, and that may spur even more virus spread. They have so much virus out there right now that its going to be very difficult to pull it all back in. Remember, in midmay, arizona opened up the state aggressively, they went from zero to 100 basically. They didnt have sort of the stages and stems are steps lists like you have in other places. The numbers have climbed exponentially. They have tons of virus in the community. The big question facing the governor and lawmakers here is how do they stick to the plan to open schools in august . Supposed to open august 1st, the governor pushed that back to a hopeful date of august 17th. Poppy . 87 doctors there pleading with the governor to push it back even more. I just wonder what the response has been to that, what youre hearing anecdotally from parents and folks, because miguel, to hear that doctors say i just want to make it out of this alive just says so much. Reporter yes, so the governor has said this week, next week, theyre going to make that decision about when schools will reopen. He has basically hedged his bet and said august 17th is an aspirational date. Well see. This group of doctors wants it pushed back to at least october, if not farther. The issue is ten kids spread it. If they can, is it going to sicken kids . The research is not perfect out there. There is indications that yes, no matter the age of the children, they can spread it around. The older the child, the more possibly they can spread it to other adults. Does it make some kids sick . There are some diseases that can completely devastate children so its a very, very tough question, and how you get back to normal now all this virus out there, you know, look, you get this thing from work, from community spread, which theyre both seeing in arizona right now because they open so rapidly and the third place, schools. So if they open up the schools as well, amid all of this virus out there, theyre going to have a very tough time. When arizona shut down in march, there were a thousand cases a week. Last week there were 26,000 cases in the state. Thats the decision that theyre wrestling with right now. And no mask mandate across the state, right . Cities can decide but no statewide mandate . No mandate across the state. No mask mandate across the state. The governor wont do it. Most big cities, most counties have put one into effect so effectively much of the state is but the governor has not map dated a mask. He wears one in public. Hes not antimask but there was a period where he didnt engage fully in that. He opened up the state very quickly, completely aggressively and now this is what were seeing. Poppy . Miguel, thank you for that reporting on the ground. We appreciate it very, very much. There are no more warnings for not wearing a mask in miami. Starting today, people caught without a Face Covering will start facing fines immediately starting at 50, at least 49 hospitals and Health Care Facilities across florida are completely out of icu beds. So far, more than 350,000 people have tested positive for covid19 in florida. If the state were its own country it would have the seventh most cases in the world. Im joined by carlos migoya, president and ceo of jackson health, miamidades Public HealthHospital System. Its good to have you. Thank you for being here, and not only how many people youre treating, but you have 13,000 employees that work across your health care system. The increase in covid19 patients, carlos, in the last month, 226 . You said a few days ago we have plans b, c and d as to how we convert our recovery beds and how we convert other things to icu beds. Were not at that point at this time. How close are you . We continue to teeter every day. Good morning, poppy, thank you very much. Jackson memorial our main hospital is used to that because we have complex surgeries between transplant, neurosurgery and open heart and teeter with the icu beds. Were building 100 new icu beds but unfortunately not going to be around until the end of the year. So really every day its a challenge of how we make sure we do that, with the current icu beds. We have like you said plan b and c, how to have additional beds and even though weve seen a little bit of a growth of 60 in the last 14 days and icu only 18 , we expect those numbers to grow a little higher and for that reason we may be putting plans b and c into place. Wow. We talk so much about available icu beds or icu beds not being available. I think its important to focus on the staff. You have so many, 13,000, and how exhausted theyre getting and how sick some are getting. Last week there was more than 150 of your staff were out with covid. I wonder what that number is now and also your response to some of the doctors there. Er dr. Mark zupino said its not just about having available beds for the patients. We need the support staff, the nurses, the techs to take care of them, and theyve been hiring many more nurses he says to help out. What is the strain like on your team right now . Well, were going to, we are in the fifth month already of this infection here in south florida. So obviously thats a huge challenge, the anxiety, the kind of work these people are doing, and the fear goes with it, its really amazing and frankly, when you look at the health care workers, its extremely important the kind of work theyre doing and the challenge that theyre under is extremely difficult. I will say this. Today we have right at 200 employees that are out with positive covid. Of those, only 37 are nurses. We have 4,000 nurses. So from a percentage standpoint its not a big number. I will say the state, Governor Desantis helped us out quite a bit providing an extra 200 nurses to us at this point in time and actually been extremely important for us. Weve also hired another 90, 100 nurses but all of that is influx at this point in time. Its a challenge and a lot of anxiety for everyone. Speaking about your employees, a union that represents 5,000 of your health care workers, they are asking for hazard pay, and they say our workers are being worked past their limits. We lost lives from this pandemic. We face a real risk of losing more before its over. Are you able to and open to paying them increased wages for being on the front lines . You are in quite a financial precarious position yourself as a Hospital System right now. We brought this point up originally ourselves to the unions, and frankly, at this point in time weve lost in excess of over 80 million and not been able to catch up with the federal support but we have not gotten any funding from hhs for the last three payments that theyve done, specifically to the safety of the hospitals and hot zone hospitals of which we qualified for both and did not get any on either of those things. Were financially challenged and i know at one point a bill looked at hazard pay. We would love to be able to do Something Like that but financially we cant do it and frankly, no other hospital in the country is doing it at this point in time. Not that were looking at sxwrus other hospitals but financially we couldnt do it either. Thank you, carlos, very much for your time this morning. Good luck to you guys. Thank you. As the cases are going up, the president s poll numbers especially on handling covid are going down. Still he is Standing Firm on his strategy or lack of an actual plan in the pandemic. The question politically is why. Well talk about that. Another violent night in portland, oregon, federal forces using tear gas to disperse protesters. Well take you live there. And the search is on for a gunman reportedly dressed as a fedex driver who opened fire at the home of a federal judge in new jersey, the judges son was killed, her husband was shot. Well have a live report from there as well. From prom dresses. To soccer practices. And new adventures. You hope the more you give the less theyll miss. But even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past. They may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. Lets help protect them together. Because missing menb vaccination could mean missing out on a whole lot more. Ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination. With spray mopping to lock away debris and absorb wet messes, all in one disposable pad. Just vacuum, spray mop, and toss. The shark vacmop, a complete clean all in one pad. President trump continues to say that his relationship with dr. Fauci is very good. The question is, if that is the case, why does he still continue to criticize him in public . Listen. One of your closest aides, one of your righthand men, dani daniel skovina put out this, dr. Faucet, which shows him as a leaker and an alarmist. Hes a little bit of an alarmist. Thats okay. Our john harwood joins me at the white house this morning. Good morning, john. Glad youre with us. It was remarkable. He almost said it in passing, but it means a lot to say that hes a little bit of an alarmist. It does, and its something that doesnt make sense to the vast majority of americans who consider Anthony Fauci a trusted source of information but makes sense within the mind of donald trump because donald trump cannot accept that things are not going well. One of the things that mary trump, his niece wrote about in her book a legacy of the damaging environment in which the president was raised was what she called toxic positivity, that is to say the compulsion to view things as going well in any setting, to protect your ego and your image. The president gave abundant evidence in that interview with Chris Wallace that he is psychologically incapable of accepting the gravity of this situation. So when you talk about rising case counts, he says thats because our testing is so great. And when you talk about what about the rise in case counts . 99 of those cases are harmless. The president , when he was challenged by Chris Wallace, who said we have this Johns Hopkins shows we have the seventh highest mortality rate, he says no, we have the lowest mortality rate. He cannot process and synthesize bad news. Its not comforting for americans who are looking for a realistic portrayal of the situation from their commander in chief, but its why you see americans in very large numbers now saying they dont trust what he says about the crisis. They disapprove of his handling of the crisis and they favor joe biden in november by substantial margins. And john, youre pointing to the polls that Chris Wallace pressed him on also over and over in that interview, that he is at least writing off every single one of the polls, writing off the methodology, pointing to 2016 even though a lot of the methodology has changed since then. What about his team . Are they worried about that . Because it is across the board that fauci is trusted more than the president by a wide margin on covid. So you know, are they worried about the fact that he just does not think clearly . He doesnt think its the case and all he does is call the polls all fake . Sure theyre worried. He replaced his Campaign Manager last week, but dismissing the polls as fake is part of the same toxic positivity. He said well i have polls that show me leading in the battleground states. Nobody has good polls that show the president leading in the battleground states but he feels compelled to say that. Now part of the evidence that his team is taking it more seriously is the interview admiral giroir did with alisyn in the believe hour. He said were taking this as a very grave situation. So there are people within the government, within the administration who are acting to try to contain the pandemic. Its just that the president cannot acknowledge or embrace what theyre doing or lead that effort himself. John harwood at the white house for us this morning, thank you for the reporting. Lets talk about the health side of all of this now. The Health Implications of not taking it very seriously. With me is dr. Aneesh hidalga, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins center for University Health security. Its good to have you. I dont want to make you wade into politics. I wonder if you could talk from a Health Perspective about the Health Implications for the American People of the president just this week calling dr. Fauci alarmist. Its very damaging. Its been something that has been a constant part of this pandemic response, trying to separate what the president says from what actually needs to be done, and this unreality that we see some of the highest leaders in our Country Living it in this evasion that has made it so much harder to do the right thing. We have been making the same mistake over and over again since january. Its important to remember we didnt have to have this experience in the United States. It could have been like taiwan. If we had the leadership taken the plans that had been made time and time again, different administrations, actually implemented them doing testing, tracing, isolating but we have not done that in the beginning of the pandemic and not doing it now. Doctor, you bring up the example of new zealand, which i think is fascinating, just talking about what it shows us a nation can do to prevent even the need for all this political controversy over masks now which i just dont understand, but explain the point youre making and what lesson can be learned from how new zealand has handled this . The reason why we have to think why were worried about going outside, why were worried about public places, we have no idea who is infected and who is not. That was the situation back in march in new york. Thats clearly the situation now, places in florida and arizona, and if you dont know who is infected and who is not, you need to wear some kind of Face Covering because there are people out there that are spreading this infection that dont know theyre contagious or kind of hiding their symptoms or blowing off t