[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn:] Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in THE SITUATION ROOM. We're following breaking news. The coronavirus death toll in the United States is now nearing 139,000 people. That comes as the country set another record for one-day new cases, 77,000. And that's the ninth record high in the last month. A new record also at the World Health Organization. In just the last 24 hours, it's had more than 237,000 new cases reported worldwide, putting the total at more than 13 million now. There is also breaking news out of California where the Governor Gavin Newsom has just announced that most of the state's schools will not reopen for in-person classes as the state reports nearly 10,000 new cases and 130 deaths in just a single day. The House Education Committee, meanwhile, plans to hold a hearing next week on reopening schools but now accuses the White House of blocking the CDC director from appearing. Our national correspondent Athena Jones begins our coverage this hour. Athena, a record number of new coronavirus cases as these pandemic rages across so much of the United States.
[Athena Jones, Cnn National Correspondent:] Hi, Wolf. That's exactly right. The picture here in America is not a pretty one. And as you mentioned, we just learned more than 230,000 new COVID-19 cases have been reported to the World Health Organization in the last 24 hours. You know, the U.S. accounts for about a third of those cases. And it really boggles the mind to think that the most powerful country in the world is so far failing to get the coronavirus under control. And that's because too many leaders and too many individuals are not taking the steps that dozens and dozens of countries have proven work to stop the spread of the infection.
[Jones:] It's a new epicenter for the virus.
[Unidentified Female:] We are at a boiling point.
[Jones:] Florida now leading the nation in cases per capita.
[Alberto Carvalho, Superintendent, Miami-dade County Public Schools:] We are at the center of America's epicenter for COVID-19.
[Jones:] The virus even forcing the temporary closure of part of the state's emergency operation center after a dozen employees tested positive. The toll on southern Florida particularly evident as hospitals in hard-hit Miami-Dade County have started to overflow. Intensive care units now at 119 percent capacity. Coronavirus infections now trending upward in 38 states. With national coronavirus case numbers hitting new highs on a near daily basis, topping a record 77,000 on Thursday. The nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci with a warning.
[Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases:] People keep talking about the possibility of a second wave in the fall when you're having, you know, up to 70,000 new infections in certain areas of the country, that's something you need to focus on right now as opposed to looking ahead at what's going to happen in September or in October.
[Jones:] And the debate over masks rages on.
[Fauci:] Masks are important.
[Jones:] Despite clear guidance from public health officials.
[Fauci:] I would urge the leaders, the local political and other leaders in states and cities and towns to be as forceful as possible in getting your citizenry to wear masks.
[Jones:] Colorado's governor now says data from cities with mask mandates convinced him to issue one statewide.
[Gov. Jared Polis:] The areas that had mask requirements had 15 to 20 percent more people that wore masks and even more importantly, they had substantially reduced spread of the virus.
[Jones:] Meanwhile in Georgia.
[Dr. Kathleen Toomey, Georgia Public Health Commissioner:] We continue to see outbreaks in workplaces, in businesses, in congregate settings, daycares, camps, fraternity houses, many churches.
[Jones:] A legal battle over the mayor of Atlanta's mask order.
[Gov. Brian Kemp:] Mayor Bottom's mask mandate cannot be enforced. But her decision to shut her businesses and undermine economic growth is devastating. I refuse to sit back and watch as disastrous policies threaten the lives and livelihoods of our citizens.
[Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms , Atlanta:] What I see happening is that the governor is putting politics over people for the governor to sue us on a mask mandate when the CDC has told us that it helps save lives really speaks to the lack of leadership.
[Jones:] In Washington where hospitalizations and deaths are on the rise, Governor Jay Inslee banning all live entertainment indoors and outdoors.
[Gov. Jay Inslee:] Today's rollbacks may be a forerunner to additional rollbacks. And we cannot rule out the potential for another stay-at-home order this year. And perhaps not in the too distant future.
[Jones:] And one more thing about schools. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced today that the majority of schools in the state will not be reopening for in-person instruction in the fall. We're talking about all public and private schools in 33, about half more than a half, of the state's counties which are all being monitored for a surge in coronavirus cases. Schools in those counties will not be allowed to reopen unless they meet strict criteria. Wolf?
[Blitzer:] Athena Jones reporting for us. Thank you very much. Let's go to the White House right now. Our chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta is joining us. Jim, lawmakers, they want to hear from health officials about reopening schools. That's such a critical issue. But now there's new controversy. Tell us about that.
[Jim Acosta, Cnn Chief White House Correspondent:] That's right, Wolf. Just as the coronavirus is slamming the U.S. with a shocking surge in cases, the White House is blocking officials from the Centers for Disease Control from testifying at a hearing set for next week on the safety of sending children back to school during the pandemic. The White House said now is not the time for CDC Director Robert Redfield to appear on Capitol Hill. But the committee holding the hearing said lawmakers were requesting that anybody from the CDC make the appearance, not just Redfield. The latest poll show, Americans are quickly losing confidence in President Trump's handling of the virus, and we are told some of Mr. Trump's political advisers see opening the nation's schools as a potential way to win back suburban women voters who have turned against the president.
[Acosta:] Even with coronavirus cases soaring across the U.S. and parents becoming nervous about sending their children back to classes in the fall, the White House is now blocking officials from the Centers for Disease Control from appearing at a hearing next week on reopening schools. The chairman of the committee said in a tweet, "It is alarming that the Trump administration is preventing the CDC from appearing before the committee at a time when its expertise and guidance is so critical to the health and safety of students, parents and educators." The move comes as the CDC has postponed its plan to release proposals for reopening classrooms. Earlier this week, the CDC director was touting mask use as critical to healthy schools.
[Dr. Robert Redfield, Cdc Director:] To me, face coverings are the key. You know if you really look at it, the data's really clear. They work.
[Acosta:] The administration's push to reopen schools is flying in the face of stunning spikes in cases across the U.S. Dr. Anthony Fauci said part of the problem is that some states simply opened up too quickly.
[Fauci:] We put out guidelines from the Coronavirus Task Force that had what's called a gateway if you pass that gateway, you would then go to phase one. And if you were there at a certain amount of time and the cases were steady and going down, you would go to phase two and phase three. So, when you look at that, clearly, there are some states that actually skipped over one or more of those what you call benchmarks or checkpoints.
[Acosta:] An undisclosed document drafted by the Coronavirus Task Force and obtained by the Center for Public Integrity recommended that 18 states roll back their reopening plans. But that would mean going against the president who said he is determined to keep those kinds of rollbacks from happening.
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] And now we're open. And we will stay open. We are not closing. We'll put out the fires as they come out.
[Acosta:] A new ABCWashington Post poll found only 30 percent of Americans approve of Mr. Trump's handling of the virus, down from where that numbers stood in May. A nearly two-thirds now say they don't really trust what he says about the pandemic. That has White House officials wondering out loud whether the president should appear more engaged.
[Kayleigh Mcenany, White House Press Secretary:] His approval rating on the pandemic was higher when he was at the podium it. It was at 51 percent in March. And I think people want to hear from the president of the United States, he still addresses it, he still talks about vaccines and therapeutics
[Acosta:] But for the president, appears to have moved on. Holding events that aren't related to the virus and sticking to topics that score points with his base.
[Trump:] Dishwashers, you didn't have any water so the people that do the dishes, you press it and it goes again and you do it again and again. So you might as well give them the water because you'll end up using less water.
[Acosta:] Now the public may be seeing more of Dr. Anthony Fauci over the coming days, after blocking Fauci from appearing on television interviews over the last several weeks. Administration officials say they're allowing the doctor to appear more regularly on the television networks. In the meantime, we're learning tonight that White House officials and some campaign advisers are hopeful that the president could potentially be more engaged or appear more engaged on the coronavirus issue. Potentially appearing and resuming those Coronavirus Task Force briefings that we saw so much of earlier this year. There are other ideas being
[Blitzer:] A lot of advice said mostly with the president accepts them and when he rejects. All right. Jim Acosta reporting. Thank you very much. Let's get some more on all of this. Joining us now our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, let me get your reaction first what Jim has just reported about the Coronavirus Task Force briefings possibly returning. What's your reaction to that news that they might actually come back maybe even on a daily basis? We haven't seen that in quite a while.
[Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Cnn Chief Medical Correspondent:] I think it would be important, Wolf. I think when those briefings first started, I mean, I think it gave a certain level of seriousness to this, as a daily reminder of things. There's going to be some days where there's really important news that the country needs to hear from this task force. I think, Wolf, when the briefings went away, I think there was a lot of people who sort of thought, well, look, this thing is sort of over now. We were hearing from them every day. We're not now. So, you know, we must be sort of through the woods on this. So, I think we're clearly not, and I think the Coronavirus Task Force briefings coming back would be a signal that that's the case.
[Blitzer:] And what's your reaction, Sanjay, to the news that the White House is now preventing the CDC director, Dr. Robert Redfield, from testifying before the House of Representatives next week on the critically important issue of when and how schools should reopen for in-class for in-class teaching?
[Gupta:] Well, this is the biggest topic I think right now for for a lot of people in the country, certainly parents who are trying to figure out what life's going to be like in the next couple of months. We interviewed Dr. Redfield last week, talked a lot about schools. And you'll remember, Wolf, I mean the CDC did release this guidance for schools, pretty commonsense guidance, right? Stay six feet away, masks as much as masking policies, hand hygiene stations, all this sort of stuff, stuff that you probably could've figured out. Then we heard from the vice president that, look, these these recommendations were too strict and they needed to go back and revise them. And we talked to Dr. Redfield, he basically said look, I'm not revising those, I will provide supplemental material but that's it. Some of those revisions were supposed to come out today. They didn't. We were looking forward to hearing Dr. Redfield testify. It sounds like that's not going to happen now. So, you know, I think this is just another example of us not getting the type of knowledge, you know, practical, accessible, actionable knowledge that I think people absolutely need right now.
[Blitzer:] We certainly do need it. And all this comes, Sanjay, as the United States keeps setting and then breaking the record of new cases reported in a single day. Yesterday it was 77,000 new cases here in the United States. Just how dire is this situation, Sanjay, right now?
[Gupta:] Well, you know, Wolf, it's you look at the graphs and you see the sort of linear change. You see that two-dimensional graph. I think what a lot of people pay attention to as well is the pace at which this is increasing and the pace at which these numbers are going up is very concerning as well. So, they're going up, but they're going up at an increasingly rapid pace. It's kind of like a big steam ship in the ocean, Wolf. It's gaining momentum. And no matter what even if you can basically hit the brakes on this thing, it'll still take a long time to slow down. So, the more momentum the steam ship gains, the harder it's going to be to slow down. You know a few weeks ago we could have said, hey, look, if you do these things, less aggressive sort of things, it's likely to really slow down the momentum. But now that you got all this inertia in those numbers and that growth trajectory, it's becoming harder and harder to slow down. It's going to require more and more aggressive treatment the longer we wait, Wolf. And we're waiting a long time here.
[Blitzer:] We certainly are here. And we've also learned, Sanjay, that this unpublished report prepared for the White House task force recommends that 18 states now roll back their reopening. Are many of those so-called red zone states actually taking the right steps right now to save lives?
[Gupta:] Some are doing more than others, Wolf. They're doing these sorts of surgical strikes, if you will, closing beaches, some have put in mask ordinances and things like that. But you know this goes back to the same gating criteria that the Coronavirus Task Force released from the White House, you know, a few months ago now. The same it was all there. I went back and looked at that again. I've looked at some of these recommendations that were never released to the governors. But, frankly, it was stuff that you could have figured out. Because if you have a five-day increased spread, community spread in your community, you needed to go back. You needed to revert to an earlier phase. And you needed to put certain things in place before you could even go into the first phase, you needed to have had a 14-day downward trajectory, adequate testing in place, and adequate hospital infrastructure. Wolf, we see, obviously, in many states around the country that's not the case. We still don't have enough testing. Hospitals are redlining, Wolf. And that's going to be a significant problem.
[Blitzer:] A very significant problem. Let's not forget, Sanjay, and I just checked in the past few days nearly a thousand Americans have been dying from coronavirus every single day. 943 on Thursday, 941 on Wednesday. 900 on Tuesday. Mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, good friends, they are dying as a result of this and it's simply and awful situation and a horrible failure on the part of our leadership. All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much. Just ahead, we'll get new insight on the worsening crisis from the director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins. He is going to be joining us later here in THE SITUATION ROOM. We have lots to discuss.