Zwlfrmgts more than 1 million new infections in just the past week. Governors forced to implement their own mitigation efforts, including shutting down businesses. The transition still stalled. Heath experts warning delays could hurt the coronavirus response, including the vaccine distribution. Transitions are important. More people may die if we dont coordinate. If we have to wait until january 20th, it puts us behind. This is new day with Alisyn Camerota and john berman. Zrjs th this is new day. We begin with a warning from president elect biden about the critical challenge that lies ahead in distributing a vaccine. More people may die if we dont coordinate. That message appears lost on President Donald Trump and other Republican Leaders. The outgoing president continues to block president elect bidens transition. This morning 73,000 americans are hospitalized with coronavirus. That is the highest total ever. More than 166,000 new cases were reported yesterday. Thats the most ever reported on a monday. As of this morning, president elect biden won the popular vote in this country by more than 5. 6 million votes. That number is still growing. He received more votes than any candidate in history. His margin of victory stands at 3. 6 and growing. Thats more than the winner in 2016, 2000, 1970. This morning there is new reporting that key republicans are looking for ways to invalidate that victory. In a stunning new interview, the republican secretary of state in georgia says he felt pressured by senator Lindsey Graham to throw out legally cast votes. The reporter who broke that story joins us a little built lat bit later. Omar jimenez is there. I understand that inmates in el paso have been brought in to help transfer the dead . Reporter thats right, john. Inmates that volunteer are being outfitted with full ppe to help morgue personnel as the medical examine a examiner struggles to keep up with the bodies. Thats the reality in el paso as it is in too many cases as they approach record levels of covid19, surpass them or in some cases found themselves at risk of being overwhelmed. An unending surge in coronavirus cases nationwide. The United States reporting another 166,000 new cases on monday, more than 73,000 patients are currently hospitalized with the virus. Hospitals are overwhelmed nationwide but especially in rural communities. And in st. Louis, thaehealth officials warns they run out of icu rooms in december. The state reported 10,000 new cases monday. This after newsom pulled the emergency brake on the States Reopen and has placed 41 of the states counties in the highest tier of restrictions. Were seeing case rates and positivity rates increase. No longer concentrated in just a handful of counties. Reporter in oklahoma, bars and restaurants will close at 11 p. M. And tables must be at least sex feet apart to quell the current uptake in cases. Now is the time to do more. We need to pull together. Oklahoma, i need your help. Reporter the hardest hit midwest is seeing an aggressive spread. The region has some of the highest sevenday test positives in the country. Iowa is reporting more than 50 of tests coming back positive. The governor is issuing a mask manned day where physical distance cant be maintained. President elect biden urging the nation to wear masks amid the upswing. I strongly urge you are to do it. Theres nothing macho about not wears a mask. Asouth dakota seeing an alarming uptick in cases. In el paso, medical examiners are having inmates help move the bodies. After Pharmaceutical Company moderna released preliminary trial data saying its vaccine is nearly 95 effective. Dr. Anthony fauci saying the cavalry is coming but the cavalry is not here yet. So what we should do is we should make the hope of a vaccine motivate us even more. As far as the daily fight goes, the vaccine is still in the minds of many. The state of texas what been fighting and won an Appeals Court decision as leaders here try to get on the same page of how to fight this pandemic from the ground, especially when youre considering this has only grown in urgency here when you you look at the total population. It translate to one in every 25 people here in el paso actively has covid19. That is just amazing. Its the time for leadership. Its the time for people to step up and start to agree on measures to fight this. Please keep us posted. This morning joe biden is the president clinton. He will be sworn in in january. Today the biden team has assembled a group of its own experts who will brief the president elect today. Jessica dean is live in delaware where we really have some important staff announcements today, jessica. We reporter well get to all of it, john. The Biden Transition Team will tell you theyre able to work around the trump administrations refusal to begin this formal transition process. Theyre doing everything they can to work around that. The stonewalling is not only threatening National Security, biden himself said yesterday its also threatening american lives because theyre not allowed to coordinate on the Coronavirus Vaccine distribution plan. An urgent warning from president elect joe biden calling the trump administrations refusal to coordinate on the coronavirus pandemic not only dangerous but deadly. More people may die if we dont coordinate. Reporter biden says hes making it a priority. Getting the vaccine and a vaccination, though, are two different things. The sooner we have access to the administrations distribution plan, the sooner this transition would be smoothly move forward. Reporter while the white house has said its pan demic plans are available, experts on the Advisory Board say thats not enough. We need to be in the room or at least in the zoom meetings with pfizer and moderna as well as local Public Health departments. Reporter the white house blocks him from the president ial daily brief. Biden, playing down the situation, referring to Vice President elect kamala harris. The good news is my colleague is still on the intelligence committee. She gets the intelligence briefings. I dont anymore. Theres a number of republicans calling for that. I am hopeful that the president will be mildly more enlightened before we get to january 20th. Reporter as the president pushes lies about voter fraud to defend his loss, new accusations that Top Republican allies senator Lindsey Graham is trying to help him. Georgias secretary of state alleged graham hinted he should try to discard some legally cast ballots as he oversees the recount. He asked that the ballots could be matched back to the voters and i got the sense that it implied that then you could throw those out, really look at the counties with the highest frequent error of signatures. So thats the impression that i got. Reporter graham called the claim ridiculous, saying he just wanted to understand the ballot verification process. President elect biden saying trumps refusal to accept defeat is uncomprehensible. I find this more embarrassing for the country than debilitating for my ability to get started. Reporter now on some of these future white house staff announcements, were learning more this morning. Were told that congressman Cedric Richmond is expected to join the Biden Administration in a senior role of some sort. He was the cochair of the biden campaign. Weve also learned that the campaign manager, Jen Omalley Dylan will be joining as deputy chief of staff, the first woman to successfully run a Democratic Campaign and now she is headed to the white house along with joe biden. Thank you for all of those updates very much. As for the National Security threats, the New York Times reports that President Donald Trump asked senior aides last week for options about striking irans main nuclear site. Sources tell cnn u. S. Military commanders are anticipating the outgoing president will order a further withdrawal of u. S. Troops from afghanistan and iraq before he leaves office. What have you learned more about these stories, Barbara Starr . Reporter the president aiming to draw troops down to keep just 2,500 troops in each country. 2,500 in iraq compares to the 3,000 there right now, 2,500 in afghanistan more substantial because there are currently about 4,500 u. S. Troops in afghanistan. Lets take afghanistan for just a meinute. What does this mean . Everybody wants troops to come home, nobody wants to be at war. The u. S. Did sign an agreement with the taliban about the eventual withdrawal of u. S. Troops. This would accelerate it. So what leverage is left now may be the key question. The call i ban were supposed to bring violence down in that country, they have not done that, with more troops leaving to get the leverage may be very difficult. At the end of the day it leaves both afghanistan and iraq without the number of u. S. Troops that commanders at least right now believe are necessary to help maintain security in both those countries. It closes future options out to potentially president elect biden. All of this supposed to be done by january 15th, five days before he leaves office. Thank you for giving that context. This morning coronavirus hospitalizations are at an allteam high. Governors forced to enact stricter regulations. Thats next. Insulin injections can make diabetes complicated. Meet omnipod it delivers insulin through a tubeless pod. Just one small pod replaces up to 14 injections and today you can get started with a free 30day omnipod dash trial at omnipod. Com. No more daily injections. 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Youd at least think hed want to go off on a positive note. Thats president elect joe biden criticizing President Trump for not doing more to control the coronavirus pandemic. More . Anything. N anything. As this virus spreads rapidly across the country, this morning more than 73,000 americans are hospitalized. Thats the highest total ever. Joining us now is the dean of the National School of tropical medicine at Baylor College of medicine and dr. Hotez, its astonishing how checked out President Donald Trump is as the rest of us are in the grip of this National Nightmare that gets worse every morning. We just showed the hospitalizations. I also want to show the new cases what that graph looks like, this Mount Everest of a graph of new cases, yes, that means more people are being tested. Why would more people be tested . Because ne hathey have symptoms theyve had exposure. Being tested is kind of a pain. You only do that when you are worried that youve been exposed. And thats what that curve looks like. What are you seeing this morning . You know, alisyn, one thing you cant hide are deaths. And now the deaths are starting to come. Were regularly over a thousand deaths per day. The projections are were going to move towards 2,000 deaths per day and maybe higher than that. Within a few weeks, covid19 will be the single leading cause of death in the United States. We are looking at 150,000 americans who will lose their lives between now and a couple of weeks after the inauguration. These are individuals who do not have to lose their lives. We can prevent all of those deaths if we can just organize ourselves, wear masks and then in the areas where were starting to see the surges on intensive care units, get people to stay at home. Thats when the case mortality rate really skyrockets. Its when we start seeing surges on icus and hospital staffs get overwhelmed. Were starting to see that in north dakota, south dakota and thats when the deaths are really going to start to rise. Remember what this looks like a few months from now. Were going to have vaccines. So all of those people who die could have normal life span had we kept them alive by enacting aggressive measures now to get them vaccinated. In the past, alisyn and john, when ive spoken about the importance of aggressive social distancing and the masks, i never had a bracket on the side. Now i can say its not in perpetuity, its not forever, this has a short time limitation to it, just hang on for a few more months, get your mother, father and brother sister vaccinated and they will have a normal life span. I dont know how to push that any harder. The fact that we have no leadership in the federal government, nobody in the white house saying that, in fact we have somebody in the white house who scott atlas and his colleagues who are putting out aggressive disinformation goes beyond heartbreak. There are almost no words to describe it. Can you can missouri, wisconsin, michigan to those states seeing the same problems with icus. Where its not happening quite yet, it will soon at the rate were going. You just offered more leadership than weve had from President Donald Trump. This morning hes getting pleas from his own political allies to do more. Listen to West Virginia governor jim justice. How do i feel about the masks . I dont like them. I dont want to wear them. I am Donald Trumps best friends. I absolutely stand with guns and for life and for no new taxes, for balanced budgets, but more than anything, i want us to get more control, more control over this terrible virus thats just eating us alive. I want us to absolutely wear a mask. Wear a mask he says and West Virginia mass mask mandates for indoors. We are seeing new measures being put in place by state governors. California is rolling back some measures right now, michigan. Other states now doing things because they have to. So what are the most important things to do . Wear a mask, yes, but what other measures do these states need to put in place . This is what weve been seeing all year, a very fragmented response without any guidance or leadership from the federal government. The states have had to figure it out themselves and they dont have the epidemiological horsepower to do this. This is why weve wihad 250,000 americans lose their lives. The fact that were even discussing masks now is just ridiculous. Of course we have to have masks but were going to need more now. Weve got to prevent those surges on intensive care units. The minute you start getting icu staffs overwhelmed, the mortg e mortality, death rate goes sky high. The focus is to save lives so we can get people vaccinated. In each state there needs to be a plan in the absence of federal guidance to go ahead and do everything you can to save lives. Nothing could be simpler at this point. Many places are still okay. We dont have to do aggressive social distancing, others are in an absolutely catastrophic situation. Examples, el paso, north dakota and south dakota. Just do this. We need more Republican Leaders to step up. This is mostly in the middle of the country, mostly red states. We need strong Republican Leaders to get together and talk to all of the governors and get fl buy their buyin at this point and throw out these fake ideologies that not wearing a mask is tied to political allegiance or calling covid19 a hoax or saying that the deaths were due to other causes that was all do you to a deliberate Disinformation Campaign that came out of the white house. We need republican champions to step up and say forget all of that stuff, we have to step up and make sure masks are available. I think that the messaging, even just the word lockdown, which is something you hear from scott atlas, President Donald Trump. Not being able to go to a bar after 10 p. M. Is not a lockdown. You can call it safety measures. But they call it lockdown as if theres some sort of nationwide, you know, lights out situation. Its just not true. Thats not whats happening. Each given is taking their own approach bassed upon the metrics theyre seeing and now youre seeing Stanfo