1,000 covid related deaths in a single day. Now President Trump in his first Coronavirus Briefing since april is doing an aboutface about where we are in this crisis. He is now admitting things will get worse before they get better, and thats not the only eyebrow raising comment hes making. Well have more on that in just a moment. But right now california is on the verge of surpassing new york. Once our countrys pandemic epicenter, as the state with the most reported coronavirus cases. This deepening crisis and speaking cases there has pushed californias governor to consider rolling back its reopening efforts, and the mayor in los angeles is weighing a full shutdown. Nbcs Steve Patterson is in los angeles for us today. Steve, californias ability to at one point flatten the curve was called the california miracle. Now the state is adding thousands of cases a day. Whats happening there . Reporter we remember a time in which california was held up as this gleaming example to the rest of the nation. It was set as a beacon for the rest of the country as to how to socially distance, get people off the street, flatten the curve. At one point the numbers looked like theyd be so dramatic at the beginning of this and they wound upcoming up short, so the state reopened through a number of phases, but since then there has been an explosion of cases, and the dale averages i think so far has been the scariest numbers. Were seeing about 9,000 cases statewide every single day. About 92 deaths on average every single day. Of course, in different areas its exploding even further. Here in los angeles county, approximately 40 of the cases make up the state. Hospitals are struggling as well. Breaking records, about 28 of the last 30 days. The good news is that capacity at most hospitals specifically in the hardest hit areas in l. A. County do have available beds. Were here at st. Josephs. Theyve got about half the beds that are full so they could handle the surge. However, with the number of cases that are exploding. Its hard for state officials to get a handle on whats happening. One of the big avenues to do that, of course, as we have been mentioning since the beginning of this is Contact Tracing. Since the numbers are become so vast so quickly, so hard, so fast, its hard for those Contact Tracers to keep up. The health and Human Services secretary spoke about that just a few days ago. I want you to hear about the challenge he says the state is up against. Listen to this. At the level of transmission were seeing across the state, even a very, very robust Contact Tracing program in every single county will have a hard time reaching out to every single case. No one has anticipated building a program to Contact Trace the level of cases that were seeing here. L. A. County Health Officials say about 50 of people were asked to give their information to participate in Contact Tracing actually dont do that. Theyre having a problem on the other end of getting people activated and motivated to be able to do that to track it through the state. Chris. Scary to say the least. Steve patterson, thank you for that. Meantime in texas, hospitalizations just hit a new alltime high and just as School Reopenings are weeks away. Texas schools will have inperson teaching as an option and austin is now stockpiling millions of ppe for teachers and classrooms when inperson classrooms return. Priscilla thompson, dr. Mark ascot with Austin Public Health predicted that reopening schools could lead to 40 to as many as 1,300 deaths. What are you learning as austin is getting ready for this new reality of school during a pandemic . Reporter chris, a very stark warning he issued there. Thats something schools have been thinking about for a while, how to keep students safe. I actually want to take a look. Were here at the austin isd Operations Center where you can see there are boxes of hand sanitizer, disposable face masks as well stacked up here. This is just a fraction of the 3r ppe that the district has gathered. Im with linda coronado, the ace stand director of housekeeping and operations for the Austin Independent School district. Talk to me about whats here and how youre getting this out to the roughly 130 schools in the district. Sure. Behind me you have disposable face masks. We have over 3. 2 Million Masks for our students districtwide. We also have hand sanitizing pumps. We have ordered over 50,000 to distribute to all the campuses districtwide as far as face shields. We have our Operations Team here sending all the supply to all the different campuses. Reporter you all have been stockpiling this for a while even when it was kind of hard to come by, these items. Im curious if you can talk to me about why you started to decide to start gathering so early . Did you experience any issues in terms of supply chain. Reporter our cfo for the district was paying really close attention to the media, what was happening throughout the world and just put a Team Together and said we need to order all this ppe for our students so we are safe and ready to start the school year. She wanted to make sure we have face masks, face shields, hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes. We now have that and were ready to go. Linda, thank you. Reporter chris, you see a glimpse of how these schools are preparing. Austin isd is slated to open for inperson schooling in around six weeks. The t e. A. Released initial guidance saying the district in texas could remain virtual for up to eight weeks. Well be watching that very carefully. Chris. Weve heard a lot of teachers express concern about ppe. Its good to see in austin theyve been proactive. Thank you for that report. Were also considering to see the dangers posed to the elderly living together in close quarters. New reports that 13 nuns in a con vented outside of detroit have died, ages 69 to 99. In florida, the number of infected residents and staff at elder care facilities has more than doubled in the past three weeks. Health officials there say more than half of the deaths in the state have been residents or staff at longterm care facilities. Nbcs dasha burns joins us from dasha, 154,000 people in florida in nursing homes. What do officials think can be done to protect them . Reporter the situation you just described has everyone from local and state officials to leaders in the industry on high alert. One expert i spoke with this morning likened the situation to a category 5 hurricane. That is the level of threat this vulnerable population is facing right now. Just this morning, the governor tweeted new action on the part of the State Government for these longterm care facilities. He said, i directed the Florida Health department to send Incident Management Teams to florida longterm care facilities back in march. We are deploying these teams for a second statewide mission protecting vulnerable the vulnerable remains a priority. I spoke to the head of the task force on longterm care facilities in hialeah, a city with the largest concentration of these facilities in the state of florida. He talked to me about what it is that these facilities need. He says they need more support. Take a listen to what he said. There are many facilities in hialeah that are running low. So thank goodness we have the Emergency Management department at the county that does provide an emergency supply until the facility is able to obtain their shipment that they ordered. But at the end of the day, were experiencing less and less of that. Reporter representatives from these facilities have also emphasized testing. They need more of it and they need a quicker turnaround in order to protect not just the residents, but also the employees who are often out in communities where spread is high and then coming back and working at these facilities. Chris. Dasha burns, thank you so much for that report. The state of georgia just saw its second deadliest day of this pandemic, 78 more deaths reported on tuesday as cases are climbing steadily along with hospital admissions. With the virus spreading through the state, different cities have to forge their own path which has led savannah to steam up with new york state. Earlier this week you might recall Governor Cuomo flew there to meet with the mayor. Threw this Partnership New york is helping savannah set up testing sites and providing equipment like gowns, face masks and testing kits. Joining me is the mayor of savannah, van johnson, a democratic. Mr. Mayor, i want to ask you, as you see cases in hospital admissions climbing in the state, how worried are you about the wrong trajectory, frankly . Im extremely concerned. All of our data points show were heading in a wrong direction. For us as a city, about 150,000 people thousands of visitors coming from around the country. This is very distressing to us. One of the most beautiful cities in my opinion in america and a destination for so many people. Talk about what is the crux of this new partnership with new york and why the interest, frankly, from Governor Cuomo in savannah specifically. Well, we were blessed to be knowive. Im a native new yorker by birth. So i had some familiarity with what was going on in new york. My parents are still in new york. The governor and his team took notice of what was happening here in savannah. We have forged a wonderful partnership. The governor and his team with here earlier this week. They brought over 165,000 items of ppe. Our population is about 150,000. More importantly, we had an opportunity to learn from winners when you want to win, you hook up with winners. New york has shown the country how to look coronavirus in the eye and successfully win. We want to know how to do that, too. If new york can do it, savannah can do it, too. So the governor helped set up new testing sites in your city, but we have seen test results increasingly are delayed in states across the country. Frankly, its very easy where i live here in new york city to get tested, not so easy to get results back quickly. First of all, how much of an impact do you expect these testing sites to have overall, and will that be diminished by the fact that, frankly, most places cant get results back fast enough . Do you have a plan in place to address that . It is a twoedged sword. One issue we or working with in terms of helping to get tests processed, we also know in order to isolate, to be able to identify where this virus is, where the hot spots are, we have to do testing. On one end of it, we have people on the ground here from new york which will be here for the next couple of weeks, and were testing. Were trying to do 500 at least a day. In addition to the testing were doing with our health district, and were trying to find alternative ways to make sure we get this processing done quickly so were able to know within a very reasonable period of time whether people are negative or not and whether theyre positive. People need to know. So how difficult are you finding that to be . As you well know, mr. Mayor, months ago back in march and april there was a call for the president to get the federal government involved to make sure ppe was available, to make sure the tests were available, to make sure companies were ramping up to process those tests. How much of a struggle has it been for you to find a place that can get the test results back to you quickly . I think thats going to be in how we as a nation have handled this pandemic. The reality is we needed a consistent plan, a consistent plan of action to be coordinated in what we do, that our federal government and our State Governments are talking in the same voice and our local governments are speaking in the same voice. We know that has not happened. So, therefore, on the ground where people live, on savannahs streets, people are extremely confused. For us, our role is to be able to take it one piece at a time, to be able to look at best practices, to be able to connect with what peopere people have d well and working with our health community, our Faith Community and our community as a whole to have people understand how serious of an issue this is that we face. Mayor van johnson, we wish you well. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us this morning. We appreciate it. And were following breaking news in chicago where police are investigating a driveby shooting outside a funeral. 15 people were shot. Police say someone inside a car opened fire on a group of people as they were leaving the funeral last night on the citys south side. Two of the victims are in Critical Condition and six in serious condition. Its the latest flashpoint as the city continues to see a surge in violence this summer. It happened just hours after the mayor announced that federal agents were headed to the city to work with Chicago Police to try to curb the violence. Coming up, joe biden is on offense while President Trump seems to find himself backed into a corner. Well talk about how both seem to be changing up their strategies as we hit an Inflection Point in the 2020 campaign. From negotiating with democrats over the new Coronavirus Relief bill, republicans are constituent battling it out amongst themselves. What we know as the clock ticks down on the chance to extend Unemployment Benefits for millions of americans. The 2020 campaign this morning at an Inflection Point. The intensity ramping up on both sides. We just got word that joe biden is going to unveil a notsosecret weapon, barack obama, with their first event together in the same room. Here is a preview. I dont understand his inability to get a sense of what people are going through. He just cant relate in any way. Well, one of the things that i have always known about you, joe, its the reason why i wanted you to be my Vice President and the reason you were so effective, it all starts with being able to relate. So contrast tazeen with the current president who was alone in the Briefing Room with poll numbers dropping trying to reboot his campaign with a reintroduction of the Coronavirus Briefings and backed into a corner by rising coronavirus deaths, hes changing his once rosy predictions. Some areas of the country are doing well, others less well. It will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better, something i dont like saying about things. Thats the way it is. Thats the way we have. The republicanled Homeland Security committee is denying to nbc news theyre taking Oppo Research from biden on the russians but wont they if theyve taken any materials at all. Peter baker, chief White House Correspondent for the new york times, always good to see you. Looking at totality the last 24 hours, there seems to be realization in the last 24 hours that the clocking is ticking, while the biden camp is trying to bring out the big guns and take advantage on what the polls show is a very wide opening, peter. Thats exactly right. You heard the president at his briefing yesterday to take a more serious approach to the virus that hes been dismissing out of hand the last few weeks. He used the phrase big fires to describe whats happening in florida. Other parts of the south and the west. He urged people to wear masks, to stay away from packed bars. It doesnt mean he decided to turn completely around. He did commend his handling of the virus and make specious claims factually. I think theres definitely a recognition that this has to be taken more seriously, this is not going away the way he hoped it was going to go. I think as you point out in your article for the times, he continues to falsely insist that the mortality rate in the u. S. Is among the lowest in the world. All you have to do is look at your newspaper to know the number of deaths is up 62 over the past few weeks. He tells people to wear masks, the night before he wasnt wearing one when mingling with his guests inside a hotel in washington. How nervous are you hearing people in the white house or in the campaign about whether he can sustain this . If nothing else, he was disciplined in the amount of time he stood behind the podium yesterd yesterday. This is different than march and april that he enjoyed so much and his advisers thought was counterproductive. Instead of an hour, hour and a half, he was out in 27 minutes. He stuck to the stript most of the time if not all the time. He did express concerns in the outbreak in the way he hadnt in the last few weeks. I think this is a white house that understands hes being judged on his handling of this virus and that right now the polls show that most of the public is not satisfied with that, even people who otherwise support him and that, therefore, he needed to demonstrate once again that he is taking it seriously, promised what he called a relentless effort to tackle the outbreak. If he cant get control of this virus in the fall, theres not going to be a rebound in the time he wants to see in the november election. This is a threat to his presidency. He sees that. Trailing Vice President biden by double digits. Whether he can turn it around is unclear. Hes promising a vaccine, but that wouldnt happen no matter what. Testing, he brags about the number. It takes four or five or eight days to get the result back, thats fairly problematic if youre trying to open schools again or open businesses again. I think its beginning to recognize in the white house that theyll be back. At the same time you didnt see Public Health experts, dr. Fauci, dr. Birx. This is still a president who preferred to talk about violence in the streets beca