Illness in one of the volunteer participants. This is a standard precaution they say as the Company Reviews all of the information. But as we wait for a vaccine, Top Health Experts are demanding more testing as a way to try to get a handle of this. Directors for the National Institutes of health say test as many people as possible. A new report from the Rockefeller Foundation at Duke University suggesting that the bar should be set at 200 million tests per month. Now, to be clear thats not an unusual message. Health experts have been saying the key to stopping the outbreak is widespread testing and Contact Tracing and it works but the u. S. Remains without a National Plan to do so. Lets begin with the latest on this halt to astrazenecas trials. Cnns medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us now thats why you do the broad trials to confirm it is safe. How significant is this effect on one patient in the trial . This could be very significant, jim. When they have an unexplained illness among their study subjects. When youre testing tens of thousands of people in your trials, theres a chance one will get an unexplained illness. You have to stop down and dont vaccinate any more people and see if its vaccine related. Thats why the trials are so unpredictable. This is why we should not believe donald trump when he says, yep, i believe well have a vaccine by election day and we shouldnt listen to the pharmaceutical executives when they give rosy forecasts. Yesterday, one connected to the Pfizer Vaccine said our vaccine is nearly perfect. How can you say when it hasnt been tested . You dont know if Something Like this will happen. In fact, one of the others said all last spring well finish first. You dont know. Vaccine trials require a great deal of humility. And elizabeth, until we have very broad not just a vaccine, but very broad vaccination, a key issue here in being able to really get control of the pandemic is testing and you have the nih coming out this morning speaking loudly in support of very broad testing. Basically, as i read it saying test everyone you can, but that stands in contrast to the cdc guidance. Who should you believe . It stands in contrast. This was quite an amazing statement from the heads of various institutions within the National Institutes of health saying we need to test people who have been exposed to someone with covid. They have been close to someone with covid for more than 15 minutes. They might be fine, but they still need to be tested even if theyre asymptomatic. That stands in contrast to what the cdc said. You dont need to test people who are asymptomatic or presymptomatic. I think what the nih is saying is what most experts are saying. You do need to people, if they have had an exposure. I asked dr. Fauci about that last week. I mean, it seemed he was trying to walk down that nih announce there. Thank you very much. Joining us now is dr. Richard besser, former acting director under president obama and he led the response to the h1n1 response to the epidemic. First, the astrazeneca trial. As Elizabeth Cohen is noting, this is why you do broad based phase 3 testing. What does this tell you . Clearly, theres a lot of political pressure to fast track vaccine approval here. Does this kind of thing give pause to the folks in charge of giving that approval . Can it help stand in the way of that political pressure were seeing . Well, i hope it reinforces what youre just saying, the value of doing these large trials and not prejudging the outcome. You know, i continue to talk about, you know, if we have a vaccine rather than when we have a vaccine. Because theres no guarantee that we will have a safe and effective vaccine. Im optimistic, but lets wait and see what these trials show. I also thing though, jim, its important not to overinterpret the pause in the astrazeneca trial. This is why you do these big trials if you see something, you stop. You investigate, you see was this related to the vaccine or not. You know, in the large trials you have hundreds of thousands of people in vaccine trials. You will see life events. You will see people who die from other things totally unrelated. Someone has a heart attack or has cancer. But if someone died in the vaccine trial you have to look to see what happened. If its related to the vaccine, that will raise some questions, okay, is this type of vaccine a safe vaccine and proceed. This is what you expect to see. Its good sign theyre taking the pause and hopefully it will increase the pressure to let cdc and fda do their jobs and make sure that we dont get a vaccine approved before we know its safe and effective. Yeah, dr. Besser, both dr. Fauci yesterday saying that its just very unlikely that there will be an effective vaccine before election day. Adding to what the chief adviser to operation warped speed said its extremely unlikely, but not impossible. Explain to our viewers why youre at the point of an if, meaning there may not in your opinion be a vaccine that is broadly taken and proves effective so that we can all get back to life as normal before. Like this may change everything for us going forward. Yes, thats right. Poppy, there are billions of dollars hundreds of billions of dollars that are being invested to try and get us a safe and effective vaccine and i think thats terrific. And im optimistic. But if you look at the history of vaccine development, hiv, malaria, dengue fever, diseases that have killed hundreds of millions of people around the globe, we dont have vaccines for those yet. So theres no guarantee that well have one. And we have to make sure that every effort is done to make sure that if we have one, its scaled up and its produced and its great the efforts that are going in that way. But we cant prejudge the notion that there will be one. Thats what these trials are for. All of the data we have seen so far thats been optimistic has been done in dozens of people. Thats not enough to give you anything but a signal that its okay to move forward with the larger trials. And russia is moving forward with testing on just 78 people. Lets talk about broad based testing to hear that from the nih, its not new. You know, every expert has been saying you have to Contact Tracing. Does it make a difference at this point . The federal government has decided not to go down this path. Where does that lead us as a country . Yeah, i think the nih is saying more than that. If we get to the point where we had, you know, a cheap point of care test, something where you could do a quick swab and get a result, it might change how we approach kids going back to school and teachers and staff where you could test people every day. You wake up in the morning you do a test. If youre negative, you go to work, but if youre not, you stay at home. Clearly everyone in Public Health is saying the same thing. If you have been exposed to someone who has a Covid Infection you need to be tested. And its really important that were breaking data down by race and ethnicity to make sure were testing everywhere because this is having dispar it impacts on communities of color. And with the schools opening, im afraid that will be amplifi amplified. Thank you, dr. Besser. Lets talk about the newer hot spots in the midwest. Omar jimenez, you have just learned that the university not too far from you where you are in Downtown Chicago is enacting a two week quarantine. Reporter thats right. Bradley university put in a quarantine and is moving to all online classes as they are seeing dozens of the students test positive on the campus and they said they were observing large and small gatherings where people were not Wearing Masks and not physical distancing and they can trace a lot of the cases to the gatherings. This quarantine is meant to give them time to give them a handle and access the virus extent on campus. We have seen it play out at the university of iowa, for example. Their Athletics Program is now resuming voluntary and mandatory workouts after stopping everything altogether with 93 athletes testing positive. The recent wave of testing got it down to 21 which is good news. When you look at the university as a whole, since they began tracking cases back on august 18th, they have had more than 1,300 people on campus test positive for coronavirus and according to their own dashboard those are just selfreported cases. When you expand to look at the region as a whole, there are a lot of states in the red when it comes to confirmed cases per 100,000, for example. Numbers that have increased we have seen in some cases over recent weeks. And when you look specifically within that at the things look a little bit better i should say when you compare the numbers from the previous week to the last week as well and when you look at states in general and confirmed cases in total, illinois does lead the pack but they have set record levels of testing here in the state as their Positivity Rate has been right around 4 . Poppy . Omar, thank you. And rosa flores, florida has gotten some of the figures under control. Whats happening there . Give us your best assessment as to where florida stands. Reporter you know, jim, if you look at the big picture, florida is definitely heading in the right direction. The Florida Department of Health Reporting yesterday 1,823 cases, the day before that 1,834. Look, we hadnt seen such low numbers since mid june, but there are two concerns looming right now. First of all, the potential effects of the labor day week and also the return to facetoface instruction. At least 1. 6 Million Students in this state are now learning facetoface. Now, i wish i could give you an exact number of how many students, how many teachers have contracted the coronavirus, but the state of florida still has not relied this information. I continue to push. The last email i received from the state was the state was working on how to structure the report to release data. But they havent released the data. We know that two counties have been very good about releasing this information. I just heard back from martin county. That county reports that 433 students have been transitioned to Remote Learning because of the coronavirus. And Hillsborough County which launched their own dashboard shows that 60 students so far have contracted the coronavirus and 148 employees as well. Look, in the two biggest counties in the state, most impacted by the coronavirus, jim and poppy, they are still in virtual learning. Im talking about broward and miamidade where i am. But they are planning to take a look at the metrics within their county at the end of this month to determine if they can then transition to facetoface learning. Rosa, always pushing for the answers, thank you. Let us know what you do hear back. Still to come the president calls on his supporters to act as poll watchers to prevent what he says will be voter fraud without any evidence. On the same night that a top election Attorney Says that the party tried for decades to find double voting, but never did. And through the president is encouraging people to do it. Plus, taxpayer dollars for trumps defense. The doj asked to take over the defense of President Trump in a defamation filed by e. Jean carroll, a woman who claims he raped her in the 90s. And wildfires burning in california, one burning in the area about the size of central park every 30 minutes. The size is off the charts. Well speak to someone in charge of battling those blazes. Honey . New nyquil severe honey is maximum strength cold and flu medicine with soothing honeylicious taste. Nyquil honey. The nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever best sleep with a cold medicine. To put the darkness of the past four years behind us. To end the anger, the insults, the division, the violence, and start fresh in america. We can stop focusing on a president that thinks its all about him, and start focusing on whats best for us. We need to get control over the virus. Donald trump failed. Joe biden will get it done. We need to help working families. Joe bidens plan rewards work, and makes the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. We need to take the next step in health care. Joe biden will lower premiums and reduce drug costs while still protecting those with preexisting conditions. We need to take on Climate Change and protect Social Security and medicare. Weve had four years of a president who brings out the worst in america. Isnt it time we had a president who brought out the best . Im joe biden and i approve this message. And all the moments you havent hi love, cant wait got the ring yes and with jared it doesnt have to were all finding ways to keep moving. But how do we make sure the direction were headed is forward . At fidelity, youll get the planning and advice to prepare you for the future, without sacrificing the things that are important to you today. Well help you plan for healthcare costs, taxes and any other uncertainties along the way. Because with fidelity, you can feel confident that the only direction youre moving is forward. Well, the u. S. Is announcing that it is drawing down the number of troops in iraq. Yeah, part of a broader effort by this president to reduce troop deployments in a number of countries. Barbara starr is at the pentagon. Barbara, im curious what senior military officials thought of this. Think its the right idea at the right time . Well, good morning, jim and poppy. This is something that they were perfectly willing to do. It was announced earlier today in baghdad, taking the current level of about 5,200 although many will tell you its less than that, drawing it down to about 3,000 during the month of september. General frank mckenzie, the commanding general, talked about this earlier today in baghdad and why the military thinks its a good idea and general mckenzie said in part, let me quote, this decision is due to our confidence in the Iraqi Security forces increased stability to operate independently. The journey has been difficult and the sacrifice has been great but the progress has been significant. Youll recall when u. S. Troops several years ago first went back in to iraq to try and push isis back in large part it was because iraqi forces were not able to really fight against isis. So the last several years has been a massive training and Assistance Program to get them to this point, but its interesting theyre being so blunt, 3,000 by the end of september, because its President Trump who so often who said he doesnt want to signal military moves to americas adversaries and right now, signaling to iran thats stepping up the support for militia activity inside iraq, according to the u. S. Commanders. He made his desire public on reducing forces in afghanistan. Barbara starr, thanks very much. President trump digging in on his strategy to cast doubt once again on the integrity of the u. S. Election. Got to be careful with those ballots. Watch those ballots. I dont like it. You know, you have a democrat governor, you have all of these democrats watching that stuff. I dont like it. Watch it. Be poll watchers when you go there. Watch all of the thieving and stealing and robbing they do. Because this is important. We win North Carolina we win. Where is this evidence . Also a Top Republican election attorney someone whos done this for 40 years this morning is shooting down those claims laying out all of it in his Washington Post oped saying the party has searched for such voter fraud for decades in vain. Our White House Correspondent john harwood is with us. Good morning. To hear this from ginsburg says a lot. It absolutely does. Theres no Greater Authority within the Republican Party on Election Administration than ben ginsberg. But what we have seen from the president is in recent days his rhetoric on race, on law and order, on the integrity of the election itself is getting more and more raw and incendiary. Now, you could hear a little bit of important art in that clip from President Trump. He was bathing in the reaction from crowd. He loves being among his supporters but its not hard to imagine well move from where the president is casting doubt on the integrity of the election to where hes actually mucking up the administration of the election itself. You could imagine, for example, that in the same way that vigilantes have entered scenes of protest in oregon, in wisconsin, where two people ended up getting killed and one of the supporters with the long gun has been charged with homicide, you can see people trying to intervene at election polling sites. Hes suggested of course that people show up having cast an absentee ballot and try to verify that their ballot was cast or vote again and in that case, again t, the potential for chaos is palpable. Thats one of the risks that the president is creating right now. This is the latest in the series of times that the president has called for supporters to vote more than once which is illegal. We have seen an attempt by his adviser to say thats not what the president really said. What is the answer you get from the white house here . Is the president encouraging people to vote twice and do they have any defense for that . Theyre trying to make a distinction, jim, between actually voting twice and having sent in your absentee ballot and going to check and see if it was recorded. The challenge of course is that if the ballot was sent inclose enough to the election, it wont be marked on the poll watchers poll book that will allow them to say, no, you have not voted. In that cast, you can cast a provisional ballot, but if people try to