[King:] It is disappearing; those are the words of the President of the United States when it comes to the Coronavirus. Now the numbers that tell us something completely different from what the president tells you. If you look here at the 50- state trend map right now, orange and red are bad. You see all that orange and red. 31 of the 50 states reporting more new infections now compared to a week ago. 31 states. You see essentially the whole northern half of the country with just a couple of exceptions, other states as well. 31 states trending up right now. As the president says, we've turned the final corner. 16 states holding steady. Only three states reporting fewer new infections right now compared to a week ago, they are the green states on the map, 31 trending in the wrong direction. With higher cases comes traditionally, sadly more deaths. 21 states right now reporting more deaths this week compared to the data one week ago. 12 states holding steady. 17 states trending down. The projections or the death count will start to go back up at the moment; we'll show you the numbers in a minute. That is not the case, but 21 states reporting more deaths right now. You see the swathe of the big jumps in these states right through here, the deeper red. Positivity rate is what tells you that, one number; you have more cases today and the likelihood of more cases tomorrow because of positivity. The deeper the color, the higher the rate. 23 percent in Idaho, 23 percent South Dakota, 18 percent, Iowa, 16 percent Kansan, 20 percent Wisconsin, high positivity. Again in a lot of the states particularly, they are going through the cold earlier than the southern part of the country, a high positivity rate which just tells you more cases today, more tomorrow, community spread when the numbers are quite that high. Here's the case trend line in the United States. And again the president says it is disappearing, active voice. No, it is climbing right now. We are going back up, not down right now. Saturday, 54,000 cases, on Sunday that dropped to 44,000 cases. Let's hope it keeps dropping. But on Sundays, the weekends it tends to dip a little bit. We will watch this in the week ahead. But the trend line is what matters. The seven-day moving average going back up. Here's the worry public health officials have. If from 20,000 you got up close to 70,000, what happens if you start at 40,000 and start heading back up? That is the worry of public health officials as it gets colder. The death trend line right now as I noted is down. Plateaued down here, 398 deaths yesterday. Everyone is horrific. But 398 lower than what we saw back in August and September. The question is can you keep it here as the case count goes up? That is one of the big challenges. This is also a number we're talking about again; it's been months, but hospitalizations. Look, summer surge, came down, hospitalizations nationally starting to trickle up a little bit. And if you look at states right here, nine states had record hospitalizations. Nine states with record hospitalizations on Sunday, including my colleague Poppy Harlow talking earlier today to a Health Care Administrator in North Dakota who says, she's simply overwhelmed.
[Renae Moch, Director, Bismarck-burleigh Public Health:] Right now, our hospitals have less than 20 beds available across the state in North Dakota. We have some hospitals in very rural areas that are having difficulty meeting the demand and having to send patients to different areas across the state of North Dakota and even had to send out of state at some point to Sioux Falls and also Billings, Montana.
[Poppy Harlow, Cnn:] To send people out of the State of North Dakota because you don't have enough resources to take care of them.
[Moch:] That's correct.
[King:] Sad to listen to that. Joining us, CNN Medical Analyst, Dr. Celine Gounder, she is the Former New York City Assistant Commissioner of Health, and Host of the Epidemic Podcast. To hear that, Dr. Gounder it's a flashback to earlier in this crisis, months and months ago when we thought maybe there would be a plan in place to help all states deal with this. But North Dakota is among states with record hospitalizations and yet, listen to the President of the United States. He says that we've got this wrong
[Trump:] Through the power of the American spirit, I think more than anything else, science, medicine will eradicate the China virus once and for all, we'll get rid of it all over the world, it's going to disappear, and it is disappearing.
[King:] It is not disappearing. And yet we hear that from the president. Instead at any detailed plan from the administration about how to deal with what is unmistakably a fall spike right now?
[Dr. Celine Gounder, Cnn Medical Analyst:] John, we are seeing an increase in particular in the upper Midwest and the Rocky Mountain States right now. And that's concerning, because these are areas that have fewer health care facilities, fewer doctors and nurses. And so, they're very quick to get overwhelmed. But it's not just about those rural parts of the country. Here in New York City where we were hit really hard in March and April, cases are on the rise, hospitalizations are on the rise. And just over the weekend, I was touching base with some of my colleagues around the country. And many of us are still in rationing mode with respect to personal protective equipment. We haven't learned the lessons from the spring. I literally have been using the same face shield since March. We still get three N95 mask at the hospital per week, and those are meant to be single use masks.
[King:] That is sad to hear that, again in the context of when the president speaks about Coronavirus, he says he is fine, he is going out on the road and it is disappearing. Not here is what the administration is going to do to help you deal with this next wave if that's what it is? And to that point, the IHME, the University of Washington has a projection. Now I was just noting one of the good, I'm going to use the term good, I don't like the term good, because any death is a sad death, the numbers have been down recently. But the IHME projects that we will get to 394,693 deaths, projected deaths by February 1st. You see the 214,000 where we are right now, just shy of 215,000. That would be a much higher daily average. Do you see that as inevitable now that we see the case counts spiking up at around 50,000 new infections a day?
[Dr. Gounder:] Well, a lot of this is being driven by the rate at which things are increasing and will health care systems be overwhelmed? Right now, we're at about 50,000 new cases per day. IHME is predicting 300,000 new cases by the end of December per day. 300,000 cases per day. And so, even if there have been attempts at least in some parts of the country to maybe scale up health care capacity, that's still woefully under prepared in terms of staffing, hospital beds and just basic personal protective equipment. When health systems are overwhelmed, death rates shoot up.
[King:] Well, the President of the United States instead of speaking to the issues you have just raised that is hitting back on the road today. And he says his doctors have said he is fine. This is from Dr. Sean Conley, the president's physician. In addition to President meeting CDC criteria for the safe discontinuation of isolation, this morning's COVID PCR sample demonstrates by currently recognized standards, he is no longer considered a transmission risk to others. That's what Dr. Conley says, he raises some questions here, more than he answers them. The president tweeting out a total and complete signoff from White House doctors yesterday that means, I can't get it, immune, and can't give it. Very nice to know. Is the president immune?
[Dr. Gounder:] The very short answer to that is no, we have no data to show that the president is immune. We're not even sure if anybody is truly immune, and if so, how to best measure that and how long that lasts? The only measure that's been recorded of any kind of immunity with respect to the president is his antibody levels. He was treated with antibodies. So of course you're going to see positive antibody results. Those are the antibodies he was given by Regeneron.
[King:] Dr. Gounder, grateful for your insights as always, I wish I didn't have to hear those answers after month's later still about PPE, about hospitals overwhelmed. Appreciate your joining us to help us understand these facts. Up next for us, Iowa one of the many states where Republicans are worried the president struggles will hurt Republican candidates from the Senate and down ballot.