[King:] Moments ago, the top infectious disease expert in the country, Dr. Anthony Fauci, giving his advice as the country goes through the summer coronavirus surge. And 38 states heading in the wrong direction. A new daily record yesterday for coronavirus cases, new infections. Dr. Fauci says do this.
[Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases:] I can say, as a public health official, that 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.
[King:] Defining as forceful as possible as a fight in the country, including, in Georgia, the governor says wear a mask but he won't mandate it. He's now suing the city of Atlanta. The mayor there says I will require masks to be worn. Let's go straight to Georgia. Dr. Harry Heiman, assistant professor at Georgia State's School of Public Health. Doctor Heiman, welcome. Thank you for your time today. You hear Dr. Fauci. We know that masks work. In your state, cases are heading up and the governor and the mayor are in a spat over a mandate. What is your take?
[Dr. Harry Heiman, Clinical Assistant Professor, Division Of Health Management And Policy, School Of Public Health, Georgia State University:] What's my take is that we are seeing very consistent behavior from our governor. I would say, at every step, he's failed to show the kind of leadership that we need to appropriately respond to this pandemic. I think if you look at what's been going on in Georgia, candidly, it is not a lot different from what's going on nationally. There's been a failure of both the political and the public health leadership to do what needs to be done to address this pandemic. So in Georgia, we were slow to close the state back in the spring. We were the first to open. There was an opinion piece in the "Wall Street Journal" touting the Georgia model. And public health people warned at that time, if we do that, we can reasonably predict that in two to three months we will be looking at surging cases, surging hospitalizations and surging deaths. Guess what? Here we are. I think, you know, it's hard to fathom that something as straightforward as mandating masks has become a political issue when the public health data about the importance of that is compelling.
[King:] I want you to listen. This is just this morning, Kathleen Toomey, the Georgia public health commissioner, talking about you mentioned cases, hospitalizations, death rates she is also saying, when you do all the testing, the positivity rate is going up. Listen.
[Kathleen Toomey, Georgia Public Health Commissioner:] Our test positivity rate, on average, is 13.6 percent, which reflects community spread at this time. And hospitalizations have increased 39 percent over the past week. We continue to see outbreaks in workplaces, in businesses, in congregate settings, daycares, camps, fraternity houses, many churches.
[King:] It's the list. It is the list there. This is not a meat packing plant. This is not one church. It is everything. It's everywhere. How do you bend that curve, sir?
[Heiman:] What's stunning, John, is that, in the face of this surging pandemic, there's a failure to adequately respond. I mean, you know, there was narrative both in Georgia and across the country about, well, you know, we are doing more testing, that's why there are more cases. Oh, well, we have more cases but they're younger. They're not ending up in the hospital. Now the hospitalizations are surging. Well, they're not dying. Guess what? Now they're dying. So there is this continued effort to change the narrative. Again, the fact that our commissioner of public health can say, unequivocally, that this is out of control at a time where their own containment strategy and contact tracing is only reaching about a third of cases is just unbelievable. The way you bend the curve is that you apply the policies that we know that work. Number one, you walk back the reopening. You know, if you think about the settings they just talked about, churches, we have amusement parks, camps, days cares. You know, we need to walk that back in a meaningful way. We need to mandate masks and support local leaders to do what they need to do to protect their population. Look, the number-one responsibility of government is to protect the safety and security of their population and we are utterly failing.
[King:] Doctor Heiman, appreciate your time today. We'll keep in touch as Georgia and the rest of the country goes through this summer surge. And we hope, we hope very much the numbers change soon. Appreciate your time, sir. More ahead for us, including the troubling national trends and the White House's response. But first, we want to take a moment to give you an update on our 2016 "CNN Hero" of the year. He had to close his center for disabled youth in Columbia when the pandemic began. But quickly reorganizing his efforts now to ensure that children and their families get the support they desperately need.
[Jeison Aristizabal, Cnn Hero:] This is their second home. And they really, really miss the foundation.
[Aristizabal:] We're supporting the families and the children, first of all, with food. We're providing in-home therapy, in-home medical attention. School via the Internet. We provide virtual classes. The emotional and psychological part has really affected them. We have an entire team of professionals who give emotional support.