Unfolding Cross America from beaches to bars. Up in the air, the future of flying in america. Were going to tell you what is at stake for both travelers and the airline industry. Good morning, everybody. It is saturday, may 9th. Good to have a reminder in there. Im lindsey riser. That, indeed. Im kendis gibson, everybody. Lets take a live look at boston this morning. Beautiful day. The sun came up around a half hour ago. Its that time of year. Its going to deal with a blast of Winter Weather later on today. And so will the rest of the northeast. A lot of people may weather were dealing with. 2020 is bringing everything. Forecast for locausts is coming up next. Some parts of the northeast could see about 6 to 8 inches of snow and about 75 million americans could be waking up to freezing temperatures. Just a reminder, its may 9th. Lets start by getting you up to facts across the country. Rhode island and nevada lifting some stayathome orders while implementing new restrictions avenue of this weekend. Nearly every state in the country has eased lockdowns in some ways. California governor gavin newsom signed an executive order yesterday ordering all voters in the state to receive a mailin ballot for the california election. This makes california the first state to alter voting plans for the pandemic. Walkin plans will still be available. And new developments today on another case of coronavirus at the white house. Katie miller, the press secretary to the Vice President , mike pence, tested positive for the virus friday, making her the Second Administration staffer known to have become infected this week. She is also steven miller, a close adviser to the president s wife. So its quite there in the inner circle. Well have more on that in a minute. But first, more on a tyson food plant in iowa. More than 1,000 workers have tested positive for covid19 or for antibodies. Thats around 37 of the plants workforce. This comes as tyson resumed operations at the plant this week. Officials say theyve implemented new safeguards. Nbc news has not confirmed this reporting yet. And this morning, there are 1. 2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus across the country. More than 78,000 people have passed away as a result. And now to the white house where two people working there have testeded positive. Monica alba joins us. Whats the reaction there . Are there concerns other staffers could be at risk . Absolutely, guys. This is significant. Back in march, an aide to the Vice President tested positive for coronavirus, but what was clear was this person does not have close contact with the president or the Vice President. All of that has changed this week as we see two close aides to each man test positive in what is absolutely the first sign of the virus coming closer and closer to the president and Vice President. Katie miller has tested positive at the white house. This comes as daily testing for the president and Vice President and those who spend the most time around them. Katie miller had a negative test on thursday, but a positive test on friday and that was as the Vice President was traveling to iowa. So they had to remove some staffers who had contact with her from the plane before he could make that trip. So that brings up the issue of Contact Tracing which were told the white house has started to do this week and theres other procedures theyve implemented like a deeper cleaning. Theyve allowed nonessential personnel who may have come in contact with these two aides to decide to selfquarantine on their own, but essential personnel will continue to work and be closely monitored. But the president raised some eyebrows yesterday and some comments about how this virus may, in his words, go away without a vaccine, which we know is months if not longer away. Take a listen to what he said. I feel about vaccines like i feel about tests. This is going to go away without a vaccine. Its going to go away and were not going to see it again, hopefully, after a period of time. What evidence have you seen that this is going to go away without a vaccine . I just rely on what doctors say. They say its going to go that doesnt mean this year. Doesnt mean its going to be gone, frankly, by the fall or after the fall. But eventually, its going to go away. The question is will we need a vaccine. At some point, it will probably go away by itself. So as we reach more than 1. 2 million cases and 78,000 deaths, i think theres a lot of surprise at the president s comments there that this may just go away on its own. And we should point out katie miller is married to steven miller, one of the president s closest aides and speech writers. He, we are told, tested negative for coronavirus yesterday but will continue to be monitor ed and tested given his close proximity to his wife. And we should point out that there are no doctors saying it will just go away, poof, like s osmosis. There has been information about shelving the nations top advice for guidance for opening. The cdc had put together some advice on how, in certain countries, in the country in certain businesses they will be able to reopen going forward. But the ap reported a few days ago that that guidance had entirely been shelved by Top White House officials. Now were learning that just days after the ap reported that, the white house has now asked the cdc to resurrect parts of that guidance. And even more significant now, we heard from White House Press secretary saying the cdc director had not approved that guidance. What these emails show in terms of what the ap is reporting is that he actually did do that. We should note the ap has reviewed these emails. Nbc has not verified them independently, but we have reached out to the white house. Kendis and lindsey. Monica alba there at the white house, thank you so much. Appreciate it. New today, businesses large and small are opening their doors for the First Time Since the start of the pandemic. So take a look at all this green, right there. Most states are at least partially lifting restrictions and opening up their economies. Corey kaufman joins us from new york citys times square. With this look, trying to see how theyre going to look forward for Small Businesses and business owners, this has been a difficult decision. Tell us about it. Yeah. Quite a difficult decision because not only do you have to balance the safety of your employees, your customers and yourself with reopening and all of the rules and restrictions that will be in place there, but you also have to hi about your bottom line here and make a very difficult decision, which one is more important. Thousands upon thousands of businesses having to make that decision this morning as more States Reopen and list those restrictions. As we mentioned, most states will have most restrictions or some restrictions listed. That includes florida, ohio, south carolina, mississippi and oregon where restaurants, bars and personal Care Services are open, but with restrictions. In arizona, which saw its highly daily covid death toll recently, hail, nail and waxing salons can get back to work. In iowa, malls and campgrounds are reopening as well as that troubled tysons meat packing plant that had to shut down to decontaminate. In michigan, low risk work like outdoor work and construction work can resume. Same in colorado where telecommuting is encouraged and towns are trying to bring back tourism, like north carolina. We heard from surf citys mayor there. Our businesses are suffering bad. So this will give them some relief. Plus give the people that want to come and vacation a relief, as well. As of three days ago when we got the order, everyone is so excited to come back to work because we this is our income. This is the way we support our families. I feel like lets just see what it is and open it up and lets see if its going to be okay. If its going to be okay, well stay open. And it certainly hasnt been an easy and smooth transition. Georgia has now seen a 40 increase in covid cases. In california, you can go to the dmv, but you cant get to restaurants or shopping malls for weeks, maybe even months at this point. And a handful of states do still remain with stayathome orders with no future plans solidified yet to reopen. Theyll be looking at that later on this month, including louisiana and, of course, right here in new york where we are and a very chilly and empty times square. Yeah, corey water a winter coat and earmuffs in may. New jersey extendsing their stay at home through midjune, as well. Breaking news now, and new reaction as questions swirl over the origins of covid. Theres a new report this morning that says the World Health Organization is in talks with china to send a mission there to investigate the source of the virus. Joining us now live from geneva is tarik yasharivtz, spokesperson for the World Health Organization. Good morning to you. Thank you so much for being with us. What would investigators be looking at . Would you be working under the premise that this is strictly an animal born virus . All evidence we have that points out that this is a disease that the virus has been in a bad population and that most likely there was an intermediate species that transmitted the virus from bats to humans. Its extremely important to understand what intermediate animal we are talking about in first that we prevent that it happens again, but also to understand that the virus better. But, again, there are researchers in china have been done and would be willing to help because understanding the violence and its source is very important from a Public Health perspective in order to reduce the possibility of future exposures. So are you all certain it does not come from a chinese lab . Of course, youve had the secretary of state back here in the United States as well as the president who say they have seen evidence that it did can, in fact, start in a chinese lab. Who says what . Well, we would be happy to receive any information that would enlighten us regarding the source of the virus. But, again, all the evidence we have and a number of researchers have looked at the information thats been provided and it points out that its an animal source virus. Its very close to sars. Thats why the name of the virus is sarscov2. But, again, any information that would be welcome to help us understand this issue better. And tarik, the World Health Organization has said recently theres still a long way to go to work through the pandemic. Everyone the at home wants to know how much longer will we have to slog through this. What do you think in terms of globally and the United States . Its very difficult to predict. We see Public Health measures taken in a number of countries around the world that work in a way that the number of new infection sess diminishing and we understand that countries want to ease the restrictions. As you have said in your previous reporting, we have to really take a caution so we dont have to go back to the lockdown. So we issued a guide yansz ance countries to tell them, you need to have these steps, you need to have a Public Health system and Hospital System ready for any surge. You need to be able to test, treat and isolate people who are sick, you need to be able to contain any important new cases. You need to look for a high vulnerability, places like Care Home School for older people. And this is something that countries really would need to do gradually when they think about easing measures, introducing a physical in the workplace and things like that. So we dont know how long this will go for. We know we are at least a year, a year and a half away from a vaccine. There is also a number of trials on different therapeutics to see if any of them can actually work. But i think before we get to the solution, there are therapeutics and vaccines, we have to be careful that we dont go back to very traumatic experience of lockdown that many countries experienced. You know there are a lot of people, at least here in the United States, that are looking at the World Health Organization with a little bit of a side eye after the activities of the last couple of months. You guys early on were listening to what china was saying, traveling to china and saying, yes, they were being on the upandup. Weve come to learn that they had more cases than they actually were saying. You guys took a long time to declare this a pandemic when there were tv networks that were declaring it a pandemic because they kept waiting for you guys to do it. Do you feel like you were complicit in some of all of this or take responsibility at all for why we may have been a little bit behind this virus and getting ahead of it . I think its very important to understand issues before we make such a claim. This is the highest level of alert that we have under International Health regulations. It is a document that has been agreed by all Member States. There is no category of pandemic in that document. So w. H. O. Really raised the highest level of alert on january 30th. After that, it was just a question of whether we would characterize the situation as a path to pandemic or not, but we followed the rules and the procedures that could be put in place by Member States. We also work with the data that are provided to us by everyone. We know that a number of countries do not report every case. Its not always easy to report every case. Some countries have testing policies that definitely do not catch everyone who is infected. Other countries have been found in a situation where Health Systems have been overwhelmed. So they were not be reporting. And this is new, a new disease. What we were saying about in china was that china did increase the infectious Infection Prevention control measures within their health facilities, that they did introduce very drastic measures in wuhan. China also shared the genetic sequence with the whole world which helps other countries to prepared. Right now, its really important to focus on providing Member States, at least from the w. H. O. Perspective, to provide all the Member States with guidance to work on a solution such as vaccines and therapeutics, but, again, we have to look across the board and see what countries are doing or not doing and how we can all get some lessons from this. Agency part of his criticism, President Trump has stopped some funding to the World Health Organization. How damaging is that to you . Obviously, we regret that decision. We hope this decision will be reconsidered. The United States is the biggest single contributor to the w. H. O. A number of programs may be affected, including vaccine programs, polio, so there are a number of other than covid19 areas of w. H. O. That may be affected by this. All right. Thank you for joining us. Devastating new unemployment numbers that show just how far the American Economy has sunk over the last two months and how quickly it could come back. 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