Good evening and welcome to msnbcs continuing special coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Im lawrence odonnell. We begin tonight with the numbers. The number of reported coronavirus cases in the United States is now over 963,000. As of tonight there are more than 54,000 reported deaths linked to the coronavirus in the United States. Those statistics get grimmer every day, but in some parts of the country the numbers do seem to be moving in the right direction. New york suffered 367 deaths in the last 24 hours, and that is about half of new yorks peak of deaths per day nearly three weeks ago. For Many Americans, this weekend actually felt like a weekend for the first time in a long time because they got a full weekend break from the tension of watching the president of the United States discuss the coronavirus pandemic in the White House Briefing room. That means the country has now lived through two consecutive days without having to watch the president of the United States suggest that americans do things that could kill them. That also means because we dont have a new medical threat from the president to deal with, we can go straight to our medical experts tonight to get their view of the latest important developments in the coronavirus pandemic as some parts of the country begin to try to reopen some businesses and recreational activities. Leading offer the discussion is the director for the center of Vaccine Development at the Texas Central hospital. And the director of the internal Medicine Department and professor of Infectious Disease at the university of nebraska medical center. Dr. Hotez, we are going to cross the million mark this week. This is going to be one of those weeks of real significance in the statistical pattern of whats happened in this pandemic. But in your view, where are we as some parts of the country seem to be reporting numbers moving in the right direction, other parts of the country seem more eager than others to reopen . What are you looking for this week . Right. Well, thanks for having me. You know, its unfortunately the states that are proposing to reopen are not necessarily the states that should be reopening right now. There are many states where the projections indicate that we wont really be in a position to manage the possibility of a resurgence infections unless we keep that social distancing to the early part of june. That means the entire month of may. Frankly, there are very few states that have the appetite to keen the social distancing in place for that full month of may. So were probably going to open up sooner than the models would recommend when we can do it safely. So the big question is going to be, are these states, which are proposing to reopen their economies, putting in place the belts and suspenders that we need to make certain that we can detect new cases as they go up . Are we are the states prepared to do the testing in the workplace . Are the states prepared to do the Contact Tracing . Are those states prepared to have in place the syndromic surveillance and the communication to the public . The answers im getting from city and county Health Directors is no, they dont have guidance, in many cases they dont have guidance from the cdc. Theyre on their own. They dont have detailed granular plans in place, and they need help and advice. So this is a situation that worries me where we could, therefore, see a resurgence as we move into the summer or fall. It wont happen right away. It will be a lag. But then we could start seeing a big sharp increase again. Dr. Khaleel, i know you take a worldwide perspective on this and a National Perspective on it. Because youre located in nebraska, i wonder if you could also speak to what its like in the middle of the country, in that area of the country that doesnt have the kind of population density that we see elsewhere, and what are the things to watch for in that part of the country . Thanks, lawrence. The, you know, we have not been having the prevalence that you see in the coasts, but we are still seeing substantial increase of cases on a daily basis. But whats interesting, and i think that comes to your question, the very important question that you made, is that we are not even talking about state by state. We are talking about really county by county. We are talking about, you know, region by region. So, for instance, we do have areas, for instance, in nebraska where i am where we have not had really a substantial increase in the number of cases. Contrary to some other counties west into the state. The way that the state is approaching is individualizing the opening and the social distancing and the business in each specific area. So i think this is going to be really key for our country to not only get the economy back, but also save lives at the same time. We can do both at the same time. I dont think there is any kind of issues being brought at the same time. We have this conversation where either one or the other. We can save lives and open the economy at the same time, but it has to be done in a very, very specific, almost surgical way in which you know which county, which area of your state you can do that safely or not. And as peter mentioned, the other way to that is a very close watch to the new case testing and tracing. There is no other way to do without good science. Dr. Hotez, what youve both described as the necessary condition for realistic reopenings, those conditions just dont exist anywhere in the country. There is no place in the country that im aware of where they are capable of doing the kind of Contact Tracing that youd want them to do, or even the scale of testing that you would want them to do. Do you see someplace in the country that is going to get to this level in the foreseeable future . Yeah, well, again, its not just the number of tests and its having a system in place. Its having the create not a new, but added on Health System infrastructure that allows us to do all those things. Its not that complicated, but it is very labor intensive. And it needs very granular guidance. We heard last week from the governor of new york, Governor Cuomo saying hes basically going to bring on mackenzie to advise him on how to do this at the granular level. We shouldnt be asking the governors to be hiring mackenzie or Management Consultants to advise us how to do this. And so we urgently now need to put those plans in place. What youre seeing in many cases is governors are getting out there and theyre putting in place economic recovery teams. Theyre bringing in some of the best Business Leaders in the state. They are creating this economic recovery plan. But there is a Situational Awareness missing. There is a gap missing. Its not being timed to the recognition that unless you simultaneously have that Health System in place, that infrastructure in place to detect new cases, the whole thing is going to fall apart. And im very worried as we move into the summer and fall months that all that just as we are about to show some signs of recovery, that it will collapse again. And this will be very destabilizing for the nation, especially when its going to come at a time of a very contentious election cycle in the fall. Im worried about a lot of political foment and discontent unless we can figure all of this out. Dr. Kalili i think as you know, in government when the experts make the case for what they need, the politicians and the people looking at the budgets often come back with, okay, but can we make do with this . And it seems to me that one of the comebacks that the experts are going to have to deal with within the next month are the politicians, especially in the states, saying look, we are not going to be able to hire armies of hundreds of thousands of contact tracers. What can we do if we cannot do Contact Tracing . What if we can just do testing . What can we do without Contact Tracing . Because the federal government has said, were not going to hire them. States dont have the money to hire them. Are the cities going to Fire Police Officers so they can hire contact tracers . If the government comes back a month from now saying we cannot hire people to do that work, how can the states proceed . Lawrence, this is a very important question. So, lets go back to the stimulus back from the congress, trillions and trillions of dollars. All these trillions of dollars are going to just fly away very fast. Theyre going to patch holes in the economy if we dont act simultaneously on tracing and clinical research. That would be really not a wise move to just trying to put the money in one side and not the other. If you dont put money automatically now we should be testing, tracing 24 hours, seven days a week, 360 days a year. We should be doing that right now. And whats interesting is that coming to your question, how we get this money, this we are talking about at the most, billions of dollars. If youre going to really test and trace, lets say 10 million, 20 Million People a day can be achieved in this country. The only way to achieve is spread the money where the money needs to be put, in science, scientific data. If we take a little bit, just a little bit of this money that is being is coming from the congress to hire people in Public Health states and hire people to trace to do the test, im talking about billions. Im not talking about trillions of dollars. We could stop this outbreak so fast. And i think its really its not that complicated. Its incredibly simple. I dont understand where the money is being located. The money is being allocated to so many things except where it needs to be put, in Public Health, in hospitals, in states. We could the only way to defeat the virus is with science. If you dont have science, well be chasing our tail and were going to have more economic downfalls and were going to be patching holes and its going to be a terrible cycle. The money has to go into the Public Health, to the scientific data. Otherwise, honestly, lawrence, were not going to defeat this virus. We can hope they heard you in washington. Dr. Andrej kalil, thank you for joining us. Dr. Peter hotez, thank you for starting us off tonight. When we come back, the mayor of atlanta is up next on the weekend when georgia tried to reopen some businesses. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms joins us live from atlanta next. Ext. The 3 40 midshift migraine medicine. Introducing ubrelvy™. Its the migraine medicine for anytime, anywhere a migraine attacks without worrying if its too late or where you happen to be. One dose of ubrelvy™ can quickly stop a migraine in its tracks within two hours. Many had pain relief in one hour. Do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. Few people had side effects, most common were nausea and tiredness. Ask your provider about ubrelvy™ or access doctors from home with telemedicine. Migraines can strike anytime, anywhere. Ubrelvy™. The anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. [ siren ] doug give me your hand i can save you. Lots of money with Liberty Mutual we customize your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Tums ver bell rings la stick when heartburn hits fight back fast. With tums chewy bites. Beat heartburn fast tums chewy bites theaters to reopen tomorrow, but amc Movie Theater chain is announcing that it will not reopen any theaters in georgia until at least july. More than 23,000 cases of coronavirus have been identified in georgia. 916 people have reportedly died of coronavirus in georgia. The epicenter in georgia is, not surprisingly, its largest metropolitan area of atlanta where its mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the mayor disagrees with the governors decision to allow businesses to reopen. Joining us now is atlantas mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms. Madam mayor, thank you very much for joining us tonight. We really appreciate it. So, what happened in atlanta this weekend . Suddenly it was legal to operate a hair dressing salon or tattoo parlor. Did people just flock to these businesses . Well, ive gotten mixed information on that. And first of all, thank you for having me. Ive heard reports of people standing outside of salons, nail salons and hair salons. I think part of that is is part of the social distancing, not allowing all of the customers in at once. But then ive heard from Restaurant Owners and hair stylists and others who said that they absolutely will not open up until its safe to open up. And i think the thing that is really heartbreaking for me personally to hear is that people are having to make this decision between putting food on their table and whether or not they go back into an environment that, by all accounts, people realize will not be the safest environment. And thats why i think it is incumbent on us as leaders to make sure people arent having to make those choices. That these Small Business loans are getting into the pockets or these loans are getting into the pockets of Small Business owners. And people who need it the most. Yeah, i mean, theres a couple things going on here. One is something ive been saying for several weeks now, which is its not up to government to decide when a private business opens. Its true that the governor can allow a hair dressing salon to open, but its up to the owner of the hair dressing salon or the Movie Theater, as amc proved, its up to the owners of the Movie Theater to decide whether to open. And its up to the moviegoing public to decide when they feel safe buying a ticket even if the theater is open. And so we have yet to see exactly what the full consumer response to these kinds of openings might be. You know whats most frustrating for me is when i hear people say they are adults and its their decision if they go out. Well, its a bit more to it than that. It may be your decision to go out, but you dont determine whether or not you get sick and whether or not you go into a hospital, take up a hospital bed, and possibly infect the men and women in the hospital who are caring for you and putting their lives on the line. So i think people need to think past the first step. Certainly there is an economic consideration, and that consideration is very real. But the consideration of choosing between your health and going to a Movie Theater or going to a bowling alley, i think its very selfish on the part of people who dont have to go to work. I think that we have to be considerate of the people who are putting their lives on the line to take care of us. And when i look at these numbers in our state, im extremely concerned. The 7 00 p. M. Numbers, the death rate was up 34 from last week. And the positive infection rate up nearly 29 . We are not headed in the right direction in this state. I want to bring a subject in we just discussed in the previous discussion, which is just the issue of Contact Tracing because there is an awful lot that we need to do that were not close to being able to do on testing in order to make it safe for people to go back to work. But every expert says in addition to testing, youre going to. Have to do Contact Tracing. If someone tests positive, we have to be able to test everyone they came in contact with. Contact tracing involves a massive government hiring program to hire people to do this. Is your budget in the city of atlanta, does that budget have room for hiring new people to do this kind of work . Absolutely not. Like so many entities across this country, we are facing a budget shortfall in the city of atlanta. Thankfully weve been very thoughtful about how we spend money in the city, so we do have a bit of a cushion with our reserves. But our revenues will be down. The state of georgia is facing a 4 billion budget shortfall over the next few years. And we arent even testing asymptomatic and people with mild symptoms yet. So we know its a part of it. The testing, the Contact Tracing, the isolation and all of these things that we have not perfected. But if we look across the globe, what weve seen is that countries that have worked to socially distance people from one another have had more success than weve had in the United States. And weve also seen that people who have opened their doors too soon have said that they regret taking action as soon as they did. And it is extremely frustrating and concerning to me, but i say this repeatedly. This is the time that i certainly hope that im wrong and the governor is right, because if he is wrong, more people in our state will die. Mayor, what do you need from State Government and what do you need from federal government . What we need from federal government is we need money in the pockets of people who are having to choose between going to work and staying home to save lives. We need to make sure that these federal dollars are getting into the pockets of the Small Business owners. We need to make sure that we have more testing in this state. We set up additional testing sites in our state, but it is still not enough. Were still lagging behind with the numbers. So even when i look at our 7 00 p. M. Numbers, i know that they arent accurate because we arent getting realtime information. We need rapid testing. We need people to be able to quarantine and to isolate away from their families when they test positive. Theres still so much work to be done, but m