It does feel like the news is coming through a fire hose, but we have all got to pace ourselves and this is no time to check out and this is getting close enough to the election that we are starting to realize that whatever it is that the candidates, each of them, might want to focus on in terms of making their best case, whatever they feel like is their strongest ground to stooand on, events are overtaking them. What this election is going to be about is actually whats going on in the country right now. Not what either of the candidates might do or say. To that end, i would like to introduce you to kyle doshen. He is an icu nurse. He works in duluth, minnesota. Its just after midnight. I am just getting off a really busy shift in the covid19 i icu. Tonight i wtaking care of a couple of covid patients. Man, there seems to be no end in sight with this pandemic right now. There is no end in sight for this virus. There is no vaccine. There is no true therapeutic that destroys this virus like wed hoped for. We just have a lot of ancillary care. And i need to warn everybody, yes, everybody, anyone can get sick from covid19. Weve seen people in their 40s to people in their 80s that end up in our icu. Im exhausted. You know, im exhausted. My coworkers are exhausted. I think i speak for the majority of Health Care Workers right now. Were tired. You know, were sick of covid19. We really are. There is no end in sight. And thats one of the most disheartening things. And we keep seeing increasing trends of covid19 cases across america right now. Its sad. It really is. I havent seen my friends since march. I havent seen my grandparents in over a year. But, like i said, there is really no end in sight. This is just kind of going to be how life is for the time being, which really stinks. Hi, im emily capps, i am a cna at gove county medical center. Covid has struck this place pretty hard for us. And it has been very hard for us cnas and nurses and everyone that works there because we see your family members that are getting sick and dying and we are holding their hands and hugging them and comforting t m them. We try to make days a little brighter while were working. We just want to see them smile. And its hard to do with this pandemic. Because we have lost a few people, and its been hard because we have cared for them for so long and we truly do love them and we miss them. And when family cant come in, it really it breaks our hearts. It breaks our heart that they cant come in and see their family that is sick, but we do everything we can to connect them. Well make phone calls for them. Facetime them. Its just hard. Thats emily capps, a cna who works in quinter, kansas. Today we have had what is the largest number of new covid infections in this country on any single day since the pandemic hit. We just hit a new record. This is the screaming headline right now at the washington post. America hits highest daily number of coronavirus cases since pandemic began. The nation is poised to enter the worst stretch yet of the pandemic with hospitalizations rising in 38 states. I wanted to show you those statements tonight from kyle, the icu nurse, and emily, the cna, in part because of where theyre from. Mr. Doshen is working in a ful covid unit in duluth, minnesota. Emily, the cna, she is in quinter, kansas. Quinter, kansas, population 1,000. Thats where it is. Its four hours drive northwest of wichita, if you are trying to find it on the map. It is as rural as Rural America gets. But thats whats happening now. Thats whats driving this in the country. The last time we had case numbers anywhere near this high literally most of the cases in the country at that time were from a handful of large paplation states, florida, california and texas and arizona. Now its not a handful of states. Its everywhere. And there is Something Else i want to point out about where we are right now. Could we put the national graph back up for a second . Look at where we have been. Not just where we are right now, but where we have been. That first peak that we got in early april was terrible, right . Went up to like 30,000 cases a day. Just atrocious. Thousands of americans died. We had 100,000 people dead by the end of may because of that peak in new cases that we saw it had early april. But look how we got to that peak. We got to that peak from here on the graph. Look at the baseline we built up from in that case. When we got to the first peak we were starting at zero. It was a new virus. The novel coronavirus. We started with basically zero cases in the country in january, february, and we went in that first peak from zero cases up to 30,000 cases a day. But then after that first peak, and we started to come back down, we didnt come all the way back down. We didnt go all the way to zero. We never got below an average of 20,000 cases every day. That meant when we started to surge again, we were surging from a higher point. There was tons more virus circulating in the country at a baseline level. And so because we were building on a bigger baseline, when we had a second surge while there was higher amounts of virus circulating out there every day, our second peak ended up being that much higher, right . Our second peak ended up being twice as high in terms of the peak rate of new infections because our baseline started higher. Right . And in that second peak tens of thousands of people died. Thats when we hit the second peak in the high summer. We ended up with 200,000 americans dead by the third weak of september after we saw that huge peak in cases in the high summer. Now here is the problem right now, because after that second scary second peak in the high summer when we dropped back down again not only did we not go to zero. We didnt go back to where our baseline had previously been. When we dropped down after that second peak, our new baseline didnt spend much time below 40,000 new cases a day. And now that huge, high baseline number is where we are climbing up from. So how high are we going to get this time . I mean, our peak number of infections keeps getting higher with each subsequent surge because with each subsequent surge we are building on an increasingly large baseline. An increasingly large baseline of virus circulating in the country. And that is happening over time. As time moves from left to right on this graph, you can see our country increasingly failing over time. And getting worse and worse and worse at stopping the spread of the virus, which is why our peaks keep going up. If we cant get our baseline down ever, if each new baseline between these surges is higher, then each peak is going to be higher, too, and that many more americans are going to die with each surge. So right now we never got low, right. Right now this new surge that weve got right now is coming out of a baseline of 40,000 cases a day with a ton of virus circulating in the country. And where we are right now heading back up to a new peak, who knows how high its going to be. We have a 40 rise in hospitalizations in this country in the past month. In the past week 14 states have set hospitalization records. And we are just getting worse and worse and worse at even trying to contain it in some places. Yesterday in one county in idaho Regional Health board had a meeting. They heard from their regional epidemiologist that the hospitals in that region of Northern Idaho were hitting capacity, their major local hospital had the previous day hit t99 capacity after doublin up patients in rooms and buying more physical hospital beds to try to put patients in there. The local health board responded to the news from the epidemiologist by voting at that meeting to repeal the local mask mandate. They got told their hospitals are at capacity, there is nowhere to put patients anymore th and their response was to get rid of local mask mandate. Thats Northern Idaho. One county over from where President Trump recently tweeted in support of a local antimask rally. Yeah, take off the masks, open everything up. And now here is what you get. Soaring covid19 infection rates in coeur dalene and the surrounding communities of Northern Idaho has pushed Kootenai Health hospital to surge. New patients could be sent to portland, oregon, or seattle, washington for treatment. Hospitals in nearby spokane, washington, are in the same situation. All regional hospitals are experiencing the same situation. I love that the president last night tried to spin the idea that covid19 is a blue state problem, right. The president in the last week has told us that covid is caused by masks and he tried to sell us last night its caused by blue state governors. North dakota has the worst covid19 outbreak on earth, and north idaho has nowhere to put their patients anymore. But the president is cheering on the antimask folks there and the local officials are listening. This was President Trumps visit today to the largest retirement village in america. Its a retirement village. That means its all Older Americans in this crowd. Let the record show, let history note that this is what the president of the United States did today on the day the country had more new covid infections than any other day thus far in the entire pandemic. Thats how he gathered his fellow americans together today. So close. Get closer. Anybody wearing a mask in that picture . I see one . Maybe . Here was Bloomberg News this afternoon. President donald trump is forging ahead with break necessary pace of rallies in battleground states during the final days of his Reelection Campaign as a wave of new coronavirus cases smacks the United States. Trump stage six roallies in florida, ohio, wisconsin, north carolina, and New Hampshire as he rushes to make up ground on democratic nominee joe biden. The president is expected to draw thousands of unmasked supporters to each of hes rallies running the risk of seeding new outbreaks as virus cases hit levels unseen since the summer. And now we know surpassing even the worst of the summer. Thats Bloomberg News today. Here is usa today tonight. As President Donald Trump jetted across the Country HoldingCampaign Rallies the past two months he didnt just defy state orders and federal health guidance. He left a trail of coronavirus outbreaks in his wake. When u. S. Cases started climbing in midseptember trump did not aller his Campaign Schedule but held four rallies a week. He stopped in minnesota where blue earth counties coronavirus growth rate was 15 before trumps rally. It grew to 25 afterwards. Three days later the president was in lackawanna county, pennsylvania, where the coronavirus growth rate jumped from less than 3 before his visit to more than 7 after his visit. Even in states where cases were already rising, the spikes in at least four counties that hosted trump rallies far surpassed their states overall growth rates. In two of those counties the growth rate was more than double after the president s visit. In minnesota where the president held his rally in bemidji the case rate swelled by 35 compared to the states 14 . Marathon county, wisconsin, the case count surged by 67 after the president s visit. Even though the overall growth rate in the state was less than 30 3erz at the time. You know, it is one thing to be mad at this president for presiding over the worst botched Covid Response of any nation on earth. And 220,000 of our fellow americans paying with their lives because of it. Its one thing to be mad about him botching the response in terms of governance, including the news tonight that it turns out he disbanded the federal Vaccine Safety Office last year. Yeah, well never need that. When will we need a federal office to oversee vaccine safety issues . We dont need that. Lets throw that out and not mention it to anybody. Youll recall he also disbanded the Global HealthSecurity Office at the white house in 2018 because thats something obama made, so it must be terrible. So he got rid of it and then we got the coronavirus and then we got to worse than anywhere else on earth. Its one thing to be mad at this president for plea siding over what really is the worst botched Covid Response of any major nation on earth. One that keeps getting worse over time. Right . An epidemic that keeps getting larger and larger and larger while the president is the one person in the country doing more than anyone else to undermine the things we need to do to get it under control. Liberate michigan, tear off your masks, idaho. Its one thing to be mad at how terrible he has run the how terribly he has orun the federa government when it comes to this disaster. But it is another thing to come to the realization that he really is Johnny Appleseeding this thing all over the country. I mean, he is like a universal donor for this thing. His actual campaign, his personal egofeeding desire to do large inperson unmasked events, even specifically at events reserved just for old people, even in places where the virus is running rampant and the hospitals are full to bursting, that isnt just, you know, callous or tone deaf. That is one of the things that is driving this epidemic into the stratosphere right now right as we head into the election. He is an epidemiological menace. I mean, in office, sure. But actually in person is what i mean. We are 11 days out. While President Trump held his scattered showe superspreader event today, Vice President biden gave a speech on covid and how he would handle the coronavirus differently. Look, you all know this. The American People have always given their best to this country in times of crisis. This time isnt any different. I am not joking when i say this. I think every day about the brave doctors and nurses and hospital workers, police officers, firefighters, emts, other First Responders who not figuratively but literally are putting their lives on the line day in and day out to care for people. I think of the essential workers who carry the rest of us on their shoulders through these many months, the Grocery Store clerks, the delivery clerks, the drivers, the folks on the assembly line, the meat packers and so many more. People too often overlooked, too often overlooked. Undercompensated. They have given the best to their country when we needed them the most. There is no challenge. There is no challenge we cannot meet. No enemy we are unable to face. No threat we cant conquer. We stand together united, bound by our common resolve, determination, and values. Folks, together we can harness the unlimited potential of the American People. Not just to giet back where we are before the virus hit us, but to get back better am i promise you and you know in your heart we can do this. We must do this. And we will do it together. You know we can do it. This is the United States of america. We are 11 days out from the election. We have just hit the highest number of new Coronavirus Infections we have ever had as a countryism went to bed last night thinking about the debate and not sleeping. You know, thinking about all of the lies and stuff and did i fact check enough of them when i first came out of the debate coverage and i went through a bunch of what i thought were the most dangerous lies and couldnt i have squeezed more in there. I was thinking about is it going to effect the campaign, the punches that lanlded, what didnt. But i woke up this morning that the single most telling thing in the debate was when the president tried to turn off the questions about covid because he was done talking about it. He really did at one point in the debate, i am not sure this was widely noticed, but i noticed it, he tried to call an end to covid as a topic of discussion . T in the debate. He said to finish it, trying to make them stop talking about this topic. When it hit, what happened . What did the president say . He said, dont worry, its gonna go away, be gone by easter, dont worry, warm weather, dont worry, maybe inject bleach. He said he was kidding when he said that, a lot of people thought it was series. The things the president said, even today he thinks we are in control. We are about to lose 200,000 more people. President trump. Look, perhaps just to finish this, i was kidding on that, but just to finish this perhaps just to finish this. Just to finish this. Kropt to talk about this this anymore. Could we just not . Yeah, turns out you dont get to turn this off. Not when were search plus months in and its the worst its ever been and getting worse in almost every corner of the country now by the minute. Not as we are heading towards what looks like a third peak that will dwarf anything we have been through and we have already loss 200,000 of our fellow americans. Thanks in part to your personal actions even jond the way you screwed up your job as president , you dont get to turn it off. This is what the election is about. Just to finish this . Okay. 11 days. I dont know who is going to win the election and neither do you. I think that the Trump Campaign and the Republican Party think they are going to lose this election. I dont know if theyre right, but they are behaving in a way that indicates they think they are going to lose and they are trying to cash in as much with their power now as they can before the election arrives. They are rushing right to the last hand in the deck already in terms of what they can try to do to the election. I mean, the Trump Campaign is risking having its staff jailed in pennsylvania for intimidating voters by videotaping people as they dropped off their ballots at drop boxes in philadelphia. Thats almost the definition of voter intimidation. How about having armed men show up at a polling place . Armed men who say they were hired