Interview With Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ); New Model Predicts 201,000+ Deaths By October, Blames Easing of Social Distancing for New Spikes.
TAPPER: A disturbing projection in our health lead. The United States could see more than 200,000 coronavirus deaths by October. That's according to a new model often cited by the Trump administration. The IHME model points to states such as Florida which is seeing a record of new cases daily and blames officials who relaxed social distancing measures too early. CNN's Erica Hill now takes a look at what we need to do to prevent this.</s>DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CHIEF, DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL: States are not opening gently. They're opening with lots of crowds. They're opening with lack of face masks.</s>ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Those behaviors could lead to more than 200,000 coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S. by October, according to a key model. The science is clear, wide use of face coverings can help slow the spread. Airlines taking note. United warning refusal to wear one could land you on a restricted travel list. Speaker Nancy Pelosi might make them mandatory on the House floor.</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERLGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The best thing, don't gather in crowds. But if you are going to, please wear a mask consistently. Keep it on, don't take it off.</s>HILL: The Trump campaign says masks are not required at this weekend's indoor rally in Tulsa.</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're also looking at another venue. We're also looking at outside activities.</s>HILL: North Carolina weighing new rules for the entire state.</s>GOV. ROY COOPER (D-NC): We want people voluntarily to do this. But we are looking at additional rules to potentially make these mandatory.</s>HILL: It's among 18 states reporting an uptick in new cases over the past week. Florida, one of eight shown in deep red, numbers there up more than 50 percent. Athletes at Indiana University and Ohio state must now sign a pledge acknowledging the risks of the virus and agreeing to certain health safety measures, as hope dims for return of Major League Baseball.</s>ROB MANFRED, MLB COMMISSIONER: It's just a disaster for our game.</s>HILL: The league and the players union still at odds, "USA Today" reporting several players and staff have tested positive. Washington Nationals pitcher Sean Doolittle the timing of this leak is suspicious. The NBA is scheduled to return without fans on July 31st. The head coach for the Denver Nuggets revealing he had the virus in March.</s>MICHAEL MALONE, DENVER NUGGETS HEAD COACH: I got coronavirus and I kicked its butt.</s>HILL: New York will host America's tennis major, the U.S. open, later this summer.</s>GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): The tennis authority is going to be taking extraordinary precautions.</s>HILL: And Nathan's annual hot dog eating contest will also be back this July 4th, though no spectators this year, which may be for the best. As we continue to look for treatments, some interesting news out of the U.K., Jake. A preliminary finding from a study there found that a commonly used steroid actually did really well for some of the sickest patients, some of the most severe patients. They are reducing their risk of dying by a third. Now, it's important to point out, these were patients who needed to be either on a ventilator or also have oxygen, but, again, encouraging news there, especially given that this is a common steroid that in some cases can be just $8.</s>TAPPER: All right, Erica Hill in New York, thank you so much. Joining me now from across the river is the Democratic governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, who dined with President Trump over the weekend. Governor Murphy, thanks for joining us. "The New York Times" obtained audio of a phone call between Vice President Pence and governors yesterday. The vice president said in part, quote, I would just encourage you all as we talk about these things to make sure and continue to explain to your citizens the magnitude of increase in testing and that in most of the cases where we are seeing some marginal rise in number, that's more result of the extraordinary work you're doing, unquote. But, health experts say that's not necessarily the case, that positive tests in many states are increasing more than the testing is increasing so that there is spread. Were you surprised when the vice president said that?</s>GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): Jake, good to be on with you. I have to say I wasn't terribly surprised. I actually didn't read it that way. We lived through hell and back, and we're finally coming out of it. We've got almost 13,000 lives lost. At the very peak of this, when we were ramping our testing up aggressively, and positive cases were going through the roof, we were very clear that it was both because of community spread and because we were testing more. So I know New Jersey well. I can't comment on the other states. But my gut tells me if a state's cases are on the rise and they are ramping up testing, it's probably partly due to both community spread to some extent as well as wider access to testing.</s>TAPPER: According to "The Times," the president also told governors to consider any new outbreaks embers, in other words, small issues that can be handled and are not part of a larger problem. This feeds into a perception that the Trump administration is trying to downplay threats that states such as New Jersey are still facing.</s>MURPHY: Yes. Listen, we're not done -- I know what we're doing here and we're not downplaying it. Again, we've had an overwhelming loss of life. But the curves, all the metrics that we look at, the rate of infection, the positivity rates in terms of how many folks who were tested are positive, new hospitalizations -- I'm knocking on wood here, Jake -- those are all going dramatically in the right direction allowing us to slowly but now surely open up. But we've got our eyes wide open. Could this -- by opening up even if we bat a thousand and do everything the right way, could this still come back? And sadly, the answer is, it's probably a question of when as opposed to if. So ramping up testing and contact tracing and isolation, all of that, to have that in place to give folks confidence that we can quickly spot it, surround it, drive it to the ground, that's where we're spending a lot of our energies these days.</s>TAPPER: And, as you know, New Jersey, even if the numbers are going in the right direction, your state lost 51 people to coronavirus. Just yesterday with nearly 500 new cases, just yesterday and you have not ruled out shutting down businesses and restaurants and other places -- again if social distancing isn't followed and cases begin to spike, go in the other direction. What would make you shut down businesses in New Jersey for a second time? What's the standard there?</s>MURPHY: Yes. I think -- by the way, you're absolutely right. We have to reserve the right to hit the emergency brake here. I hope we don't have to and we went into this with a pea shooter in terms of our capacities for testing, for contact tracing, for isolation, for all of the ICU beds, ventilators, et cetera. We're much better prepared now than we were three or four months ago, not just our state but as a nation. I think if you saw a sustained increase over a number of days of rate of transmission, positivity rates, and new hospitalizations, if we saw a string that was a real trend, some number of rolling days on average, that would be very concerning. And we would -- we would need to consider action at that point.</s>TAPPER: I do want to ask you while I have you here about issues of race and policing. You've said that you support the New Jersey attorney general's decision to publicly identify every officer in the Garden State who's been fired, demoted, or suspended for more than five days for disciplinary issues. Are you working on any other types of policing reforms?</s>MURPHY: Yes. So last year, just to put a little history here, I signed an independent prosecutor's bill. And I'm very happy I did that. So if there's any death or shooting involving a law enforcement officer, that must go through an independent process ending with a presentation to a grand jury. The attorney general's reviewing all use of force. We haven't looked at that in 20 years in New Jersey. He has banned in all but very limited circumstances chokeholds. We are -- we are now going to be a state that licenses and goes through a process of licenses -- licensing rather all of our law enforcement members. And there's a whole range of other legislation that we're working on with our legislative partners including addressing our criminal sentencing and disposition laws. So, there's a lot of moving parts here, as there should be. Words matter, but actions matter even more. So that's what we're pursuing aggressively right now.</s>TAPPER: All right. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat -- thank you so much for your time, sir. We appreciate it.</s>MURPHY: Thanks, Jake, for having me.</s>TAPPER: A new study showing children are half as likely to be infected with coronavirus. What might that mean for going back to school? That's next.