Worldwide Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses 600,000; Trump: I Would Not Consider a National Mandate on Mask-Wearing
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Was that her wedding dress?</s>PHILLIP: Apparently. It must be pretty nice. I would take it.</s>BLACKWELL: I mean, she's kept it that long.</s>PHILLIP: I would take it.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Next hour of your NEW DAY starts right now.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Another day, another incredible surge in coronavirus cases across the United States.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lot of frustration, a lot of anger that we're in this place. We shouldn't have been in this position. We are the example of why masks are important.</s>GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R), GEORGIA: Mayor Bottoms' mask mandate cannot be enforced.</s>MAYOR KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS (D), ATLANTA, GEORGIA: The people in our state are dying. And perhaps didn't know anyone who've lost a loved one to COVID-19. I do.</s>REP. JOHN LEWIS (D), GEORGIA: We cannot give up now. We cannot give in. Keep the faith. Keep our eyes on the prize.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think he is probably one of the more greater titans of the last century.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His youthful spirit and his fight was very contagious and filled everyone up that was around him.</s>BLACKWELL: Top of the hour now. It's always good to be with you on a Sunday. I'm Victor Blackwell. You're watching NEW DAY. It is July 19th.</s>PHILLIP: And I'm Abby Philip, in today for Christi Paul. The coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than 600,000 people all around the world. But the global epicenter is right here in the United States of America. COVID-19 is killing hundreds of Americans every day.</s>BLACKWELL: And for a fifth day in a row, Texas reported more than 10,000 new cases. In a try to speed up testing, the FDA has approved pool testing. That means that the samples from -- up to four people can be tested at once.</s>PHILLIP: And in an interview set to air today, President Trump says he will not consider a national mask mandate, citing personal freedom.</s>BLACKWELL: And a new Senate bill is creating some strife between the White House and Senate Republicans. A source tells CNN that the Trump administration wants to block funding for the CDC for contact tracing and testing in the next round of stimulus spending. Let's go to Florida first, though, where two counties, at least two counties are under a curfew to fight the spread. Governor Ron DeSantis, though, says that he's not going to implement that statewide mask mandate.</s>BLACKWELL (voice-over): There are alarming new coronavirus numbers coming from Florida. The latest from state health officials on Saturday. More than 10,000 new infections and 90 deaths in one day.</s>MAYOR DAN GELBER, MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA: All the mayors and commissions and managers are obviously troubled and we're all consulting with one another to figure out what the next step will be that will help us tamp this down and reduce the trajectory.</s>BLACKWELL: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told reporters Saturday that the state will not prosecute people for not wearing masks. Texas is also reporting shocking numbers. More than 10,000 people tested positive in that state again on Saturday and health systems are being stretched.</s>MAYOR STEVE ADLER, AUSTIN, TEXAS: There are parts of the state that are seeing so many cases with intensive care units so stressed that are asking for the ability to exert some local control and make choices that are the right choices for their city and I wish my governor would give that to them.</s>BLACKWELL: Coronavirus cases are rising sharply in Georgia, too. The governor and the mayor of Atlanta are fighting over how to handle the pandemic.</s>MAYOR HARDIE DAVIS, AUGUSTA, GEORGIA: With the governor's efforts around trying to mandate that, we couldn't enforce our local executive orders. Many of our cities across the state of Georgia exacted them anyway out of an abundance of caution and concern for our cities.</s>BLACKWELL: The CDC is offering new guidance for people who have tested positive for coronavirus, whether they have symptoms or asymptomatic. The CDC now says that those people may quit isolating ten days after symptoms first appeared as long as 24 hours passed since the last fever without use of fever medication, or if a fever has passed without use of meds and two tests taken more than 24 hours apart come back negative.</s>DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: The CDC is giving us a better sense of the calipers around when that period is. The same point that the public should understand remain clear. Number one, everybody ought to be masking and staying socially distant because you may not know that you're spreading it even before or without symptoms. If you have symptoms, after they subside, we have a better sense of when you can assume that you're not shedding virus. This is really what the CDC is explaining to the public.</s>BLACKWELL: With the surge of cases over the last few weeks, models now predict more than 150,000 deaths linked to COVID-19 by August 8th, according to an ensemble forecast published by the CDC. And coronavirus is spreading around the world. The World Health Organization reported Saturday more than a quarter million new cases.</s>BLACKWELL: Kristen Holmes is up next. She's live at the White House. So, we heard Governor Ron DeSantis will not be enforcing a statewide mask mandate and we know the president won't be enforcing one either.</s>KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Victor. And that's not surprising, Ron DeSantis and the president are very close and they have been really in lockstep for most of the response of this pandemic. Now, what was shocking about President Trump's remarks was not necessarily that there was not going to be a mask mandate. I think he has been clear on his feelings when it comes to masks. It was the reasoning why. He said that people need to have certain freedoms. The reason why that conflicts with what we've heard from the administration, that's why it's striking. I went to Louisiana with Vice President Pence this week. He wore a mask the entire time. He took it off to speak in front of people when he was socially distanced and then put it back on. He has encouraged wearing masks. All of the top health officials, part of the coronavirus task force, are encouraging wearing masks. But the president is still not on board. In fact, the director, Robert Redfield, of the CDC, he this week, if all of us would just put on a face covering for four to six weeks, we could drive this epidemic into the ground. Now, it was this remark that President Trump was responding to when he said there wouldn't be a mask mandate. Take a listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want people to have a certain freedom. I don't believe in that, no. And I don't agree with the statement that if everybody wears a mask, everything disappears. Hey, Dr. Fauci said, don't wear a mask. Our surgeon general, terrific guy, said, don't wear a mask. Everybody was saying, don't wear a mask. All of a sudden, everybody has got to wear a mask. And as you know, masks caused problems too. With that being said, I'm a believer in masks. I think masks are good.</s>HOLMES: So he ends with "I'm a believer in masks", but almost all of the context before that would suggest otherwise. I want to say two things here if there are viewers who are watching unsure of what to believe. Health experts have said that masks cannot cause problems. If you are breathing normally anyway, you can breathe normally with a mask on. Dr. Fauci and the surgeon general did, in fact, say not to wear a mask early on. It's important to note that. There are two reasons for that. There was not enough information about how the coronavirus actually spread. They didn't know that's how it spread. The other part, they were trying to reserve masks for medical professionals because there was a shortage of masks. So, two things to note. They're very important. And again, top medical experts in the country continue to say that people should wear a mask every single day, try to maintain social distancing as we try to get through this pandemic and continue to see cases surge across the country.</s>PHILLIP: And we'll talk to a couple of those experts just in a few minutes. Thank you, Kristen Holmes. And joining me now to talk about this is Dr. Raj Kalsi, board certified emergency medicine physician, and Dr. Bernard Ashby, a cardiologist in Miami and Florida State, lead for the Committee to Protect Medicare. Good morning to both of you. Look, I think you were both able to hear that clip from President Trump on this interview airing later today. He made a couple of claims. First of all, claiming that there were potentially problems associated with mask-wearing and also that, you know, that these doctors, Dr. Fauci and others, were wrong about mask wearing. We're seeing these numbers going all in the wrong direction. Dr. Kalsi, what do you make of the fact that President Trump continues to be so resistant to not just a mask mandate, but even just clear mask messaging at this stage in the pandemic?</s>DR. RAJ KALSI, BOARD CERTIFIED EMERGENCY MEDICINE PHYSICIAN: I think we need to resort now, America, to listening to science and local governance that is supporting our safety. I'm struggling in the emergency rooms that I work in. I work in several. I'm trying to convince people who are nonbelievers. They're listening to leadership that are telling them that masking is an issue of politics and freedoms in this country. You have the freedom to die from COVID, the freedom to be with this disease for weeks and months. That's also your freedom. And all of us in health care will fight for that freedom to keep you alive and well. But unfortunately, we're running out of steam. We need help.</s>PHILLIP: Yeah. It doesn't seem to be coming from the federal government. Dr. Ashby, I want to talk to you about what's going on where you are. We're seeing some of these numbers in Miami-Dade County. Forty percent increases in a couple of weeks in coronavirus patients. ICU beds are filling up. More patients on ventilators than have been all month. What are you seeing in your practice and are these patients -- I'm curious about what you think about where we are in terms of the cycle between illness and hospitalization and then mortality.</s>DR. BERNARD ASHBY, CARDIOLOGIST: So, great question. Thanks for having me on. Florida, in general, is doing poorly when it comes to controlling this virus, Miami-Dade in particular. We are at a point where there's a rapid rise in the virus, a rapid rise in the virus. The hospitals are overwhelmed at this point. The ICUs are over capacity. My hospital in particular is at capacity. And this virus spread is going on unchecked. We're doing piecemeal approaches to try to reduce the transmission. But it's not nearly enough. We need more backing from our federal, state and local officials to bring this virus to heal. But that's not occurring right now. So, the medical professionals, we're doing our jobs. The case fatality rates are decreasing because we are actually much better at treating the virus. We're using methods such as early use of remdesivir, dexamethasone, trying to avoid folks getting on the vent and using high flow oxygen. But we can only do so much. And so, now, you are starting to see an uptick in the death rate. So, over the past few days, we've been well over 100 until yesterday. And that's an ominous sign. The fact that we have no definitive plans to decrease the spread of the virus is very concerning to say the least.</s>PHILLIP: Yes, at the same time, back in Washington, we're reporting this morning that President Trump and the White House are at odds with Senate Republicans over this issue of whether the CDC and the states need more money for contact tracing and testing. We've been hearing these reports for days and weeks now. Testing in particular seems to be at an acute problematic level right now. People are waiting long periods of time for tests. Do you think there's more money needed, federal funding to go towards both of those issues? Will it help you at this point in time, Dr. Ashby?</s>ASHBY: The fact at that that we're having the conversation is a problem. The answer is yes. We need resources and support. We need to treat this like a FEMA level disaster response. I'm a Florida boy. America is or at least Florida, we're in the eye of a hurricane right now. So, we need to have disaster relief kind of mentality. And the fact that we're talking about or debating whether or not we need funds and resources to support our ability to control the virus is, to me, is just, you know, insane. So, my message to the leadership is just do your job. Leave medical professionals to doing our job. Just do your job, have our back, have your communities back or have our community's back so we can bring the virus under control and people can go on with their lives and not worry about literally dying, because many of my patients, especially my clinic, they're literally worried for their lives and they've been on lockdown since February.</s>PHILLIP: Yes, Dr. Kalsi, just this weekend, the CDC put out some new guidance for what people should do if they're treating themselves at home. I know this is a real issue for so many Americans who are maybe not hospitalized but they've been diagnosed with the coronavirus. The -- what's key about this is they're saying after ten days of first showing symptoms and at least 24 hours have passed since your last fever, you can leave isolation, or if your fever passed without medication and you've taken into negative tests, and then for people who are asymptomatic, which we also are seeing a lot of, you can see people can discontinue isolation after ten days after their first positive test if they haven't had symptoms and they can also leave isolation if they have taken two negative tests. Dr. Kalsi, are we learning more about how -- you know, the duration of the virus, how contagious people are. It seems we went from 14 days to ten days. Is that significant? And do you agree with these guidelines based on what you're seeing in your practice?</s>KALSI: You know, I trust that the CDC is using good judgment and good clinical data to make the decisions. But boots on the ground, this is entirely arbitrary to me. When they put out statements like this, that -- what's sort of imperative to making this happen is that people can get rapid tests. Rapid tests means same-day results or even same-hour results. We're just not getting results for days. So that breaks down the entire component of 10 to 14 days. It's a moot point for me because what's happening is that in that same household, if we don't know who is infected. Other people are getting infected. If people are waiting for this result and going on about their lives, they're infecting other people in the same time. So, 10 to 14 days doesn't make a lot of change for me. Boots on the ground, I'm still seeing people co-infecting other people in the household. People at work, and the blue collar community, my -- my community in particular, they're the ones coming in, getting admitted and having the worst symptoms of this disease.</s>PHILLIP: Yeah. It all does seem to come down to this issue of testing. Can we get people test results quickly enough that they can actually isolate themselves and not infect others? Dr. Raj Kalsi, Dr. Bernard Ashby, thank you both for joining us this morning.</s>ASHBY: Thanks for having me.</s>KALSI: Thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is in the hospital. Department spokesperson says he has a minor non-coronavirus-related issue. There's no more information about his condition provided by that spokesperson. But they said that he, 82 years old, is doing well and should be released soon. All right. Still ahead, there's a growing push to rename the site of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, in honor of Congressman John Lewis. Up next, we're going to hear from a leader of this effort to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the message from the great, great, great granddaughter of the Confederate general and KKK leader on the real legacy of the Confederacy.</s>PHILLIP: Plus, millions of families all across the country will have to decide soon if they are going to send their kids back to school or continue with virtual learning. We've got the executive director of the National Home School Association with us this morning on advice for turning your home into a classroom.