A very good thursday morning to you, im jim sciutto. Im poppy harlow. Think about this number for a moment, sit with it. Already more than a quarter of a million americans have lost their lives to covid. Hospitalizations, cases, deaths, all continuing to surge. Health experts warning, still despite all this the darkest days are ahead of us. This as we head into the Holiday Season, the former acting director of the cdc warned moments ago all of us need to scale down our thanksgiving and Holiday Plans so we can actually celebrate in the future. If we can get through this winter together and do this, the vaccines are coming. Ive never been as hopeful as i am now, but we have to come together, give people what they need through this winter so when the spring comes we can have a new beginning. Listen to those words there. Patience for a new beginning. Also this morning, president elect biden says the Trump Administrations transition roadblocks could delay the distribution of a vaccine when its ready, real consequences to this. Prompting fears that the president is adding fuels to an already out of control pandemic. Deliberately . We have a lot to get to this hour. Lets begin with natasha chen in florida, a state dealing with another surge but it appears, theyre not confronting it. Reporter the state crossed 900,000 cases yesterday and since we last spoke with you, there has been a lot more cars joining the line here for covid testing. And you know, this line goes all the way back this direction to your right. And the testing happens all the way in the garage. So this is really intense. Weve met some people in the line who tell us that they want to get tested before the holidays, before they see their families. Theres one teacher we spoke to who is particularly concerned about this rise in cases and says with florida being in phase 3 with no capacity restrictions on businesses, maybe its time to consider rolling that back, but we havent heard much from Governor Desantis on any changes like that. The concern is similar across the country. And lets show you a graph of why that is. The seven day average of new confirmed cases is now exceeding 150,000 daily cases. An average we havent seen since the pandemic began. The Positivity Rate right now across the country hovering around 10 . Also as bad or worse than it was since the beginning of the summer. And the hospitals are being taxed. If if you look at the map of which states are in red, those are the ones that saw record hospitalizations on wednesday and the seven day average for people hospital hiized, that is shooting higher than its ever been. And the confirmed deaths, the seven day average not as bad as the beginning of the pandemic but trending in a troubling direction. As i mentioned, there were some people we spoke to, a couple of women who said they clean hospitals for a living, a couple of guys waiting in line saying they may have been exposed to someone whos positive. So there is concern here. We have asked Governor Desantis press office why he hasnt publicly addressed coronavirus since early november, compared to the summer surge when he was giving regular press conferences. Right now local jurisdictions cant super cede what the state is asking for. They can have mask mandates but cant restrict capacities of restaurants without telling the state the Economic Impact of that. Its the indoor spaces that the data shows the virus is spreading. Thanks very much. There is encouraging news and this is important for the people most vulnerable to the virus. Astrazenecas Coronavirus Vaccine appears to work safely in older people, some of the most vulnerable. Our health reporter, Jacqueline Howard is with us. Good morning, how significant is that . Reporter this is significant. Its pretty promising. What we know, these new Study Results just came out and they do suggest that astrazenecas covid19 vaccine candidate was found to be well tolerated in older adults and found to elicit a similar immune response as weve seen in younger adults. We know thats promising because older adults are at an increased risk for a severe disease. And the data is coming out after we heard from pfizer and moderna on their covid19 vaccine candidates. And when it comes to those two companies, they are more likely to be the first to submit their data to the fda but now that were hearing from astrazeneca, this just adds to the growing hope that is out there for these vaccine candidates. So what traps are there still to run through, not just for astrazeneca, but the pfizer, the moderna vaccines that have shown enormous progress in the last few days . Reporter right. There are more steps we have to think about storage and distribution, how many people are willing to take the vaccine. But also we have to think about the number of doses we have for the u. S. Population. Heres a time line of how many doses we might expect in the coming months when it comes to pfizer and moderna. By the end of december we expect to have about 40 million doses. In january, another 50 million. And february and march another 60. If you add those all up, that adds to about 150 million doses. But keep in mind, this is a twodose shot, so you need two doses per person. 150 million only would vaccinate about 75 Million People. There are 330 million americans in this country. So there is hope that there could be more than just two vaccine candidates which could help with vaccinating more people. So thats something to watch as more data come out from different vaccine makers. This would go from a medical challenge overcome now to a logistical, supply challenge. Jacqueline howard, thank you so much. All students in new york city Public Schools have now transitioned to Remote Learning sadly until further notice. Dealing with it in our house this morning. That comes after the city yesterday reached the 3 Positivity Rate threshold. Lets go to polo sandoval, whos in new york. I ask this as a journalist and as a parent whos going through it. I know this is the threshold the mayor said, but the governor had questioned if thats the right call. And the governor has the power to override what the mayor has done here in new york city, does he not . Reporter he absolutely does. In this case the governor, at this point, at least so far saying it is the mayors prerogative to shutdown the schools at least for now, hoping to prevent this whiplash effect for many parents since last week. Mayor bill de blasio had been warning them not only was this possible but it was likely as we got closer to the 3 threshold number, talking about that 7 day Positivity Rate we reached yesterday so as a result schools are closed here. This is obviously and understandably fuelling frustrations for parents. There is the additional burden of seeking child care, but also the big argument that many parents here have for mayor. They plan to petition the mayor today, you stop inperson teaching but keep bars, restaurants and gyms open. To that point we have heard from officials that you should hold that, that is still a real possibility, we could get there. But one concern coming from one local official saying this Remote Learning has the possibility of hurting many of the students, perhaps those most vulnerable. Perhaps those who live in ho homeless shelters, do not have Internet Service or perhaps require special education teaching. And the governor, going back to andrew cuomo, in remarks saying yesterday he certainly understands the mayors action here but at the same time he would have liked to see the schools stay open especially with the infection rate in the schools. Saying the schools often have a lower infection rate than surrounding communities. So my preference is always to keep schools open unless there is a high infection rate, which there is not. The number 1. 7 , which is minimal. And many parents feel their kids may be safer in class. As for reopening that could potentially happen as early as the week after thanksgiving. Well have to see. We appreciate the reporting, polo, thank you very much. Dr. Lina wen is here. You know what its like as a Health Commissioner of a big city to deal with big, hard, impossible decisions like this. But the fact that in the schools the latest reading was a. 17 infection rate there, was this a was this a wise move knowing all the negative consequences also of kids staying at home, by the way, most parents cant work from home. The reality is most people are essential workers and have to leave to go do their job. That leaves their kid alone or with child care if they can scrape the money together to pay for it. Poppy, this is such a difficult situation, because on the one hand i understand that new york has gone through so much. Theyre seeing the cases surge, and they want to prevent a situation like what new york saw in march or april. But on the other hand, we also know exactly as you said, the many challenges that come from school closures. I think a lot of people are really upset, why is it that bars and restaurants and gyms are open but schools are not, shouldnt schools be considered essential. I think it depends on what is the problem were trying to solve. If the problem is were concerned about community spread, schools are not a significant contributor to community spread, especially elementary school. But is the problem is teachers are concerned about their own health maybe there are other things we can do, provide n 95 masks, allow some teachers to work from home who are particularly vulnerable. But solve for the right problem here. Lets talk nationally because you wrote in an oped people need to stop talking about a lockdown, which the president elect said hes not in favor of, but its important to have a compromised strategy because for this to work you have to bring in a bigger tent here, you cant have a blue state and red state strategy. What is the compromise that works to save lives . We know a National Lockdown is not going to happen. We have governors that have not even imposed mask mandates at this point, the idea theyre going to agree to a lockdown is not going to happen. We know that half of the American People are saying theyre not going to abide by a stayathome order, there are targeted measures we can implement, including mask mandates and reducing the highest risk settings and asking people for the time being, not forever, but as a temporary measure, to not get together indoors with people because we know that hope is on the horizon here, we have to get through this winter. How tragic would it be if we know that a vaccine is coming but people are dying in unprecedented numbers now. I think we can frame this differently. Lets not talk about a lockdown, that conjures up this all or nothing response but lets talk about temporary measures in conveying passion and empowerment rather than sow confusion and anger. We just heard from a single mother of a 14yearold boy, her name is karin smith, last hour. Her story is tragic. Theyre scraping to get by, her son said we should get an rv and live in a walmart parking lot. She had a good job in march with the department of ed. Can you speak to congress why stimuluses matter so much for Peoples Health . We have asked people to give up so much in this pandemic and in the absence of a National Response weve seen a lot of people step up, including millions upon millions of americans who have done exactly the right thing and unfortunately have lost their livelihoods and lost so much in their lives. We need to help them through this, we need to recognize that Something Like housing and food, these are also Health Care Issues as well. How are we going to ask people to quarantine for example if they have nowhere to live . We have to get people through this challenging period. We can do it as a country, we can hunker down and get through the next several months but we cant do it without congressional support. Theres a new cdc ensemble forecast encompassing a number of forecasters here that projects up to 290,000 deaths from covid19 by december 12th, about three weeks away. Thats a daunting figure there. Tell us what we can do to stop that from happening. Well, the number of deaths that were going to see in three weeks time or four weeks time reflects the actions that we all take right now. I am so worried about whats coming up with thanksgiving. And i also just want to say, i understand i understand that people are worried, theyre stressed, they havent seen their loved ones, they want to see their loved ones now more than ever. But we cannot do that in person, indoors safely this thanksgiving. Also, having one test is not sufficient. Some people are getting a test thinking that will make it safe for me to see my loved ones, but the test only measures your covid activity at this point in time. I think its so critical for everyone to remember if you want to see people indoors, you have to quarantine and then get tested. Thats the only way you can do this safely. Otherwise, we just should hunker down, use an abundance of caution and plan for thanksgiving in july. It saves lives. It appears to be as simple as that. Doctor leana wen always good to have you on. We appreciate it. Thank you. Still to come this hour, as President Trump falsely cries fraud, top current and former officials are reaching out to president elect bidens team to cooperate regardless of what the president claims. And georgia, been waiting for this, expected to announce the results of the hand recounts today. Spoiler alert, the results do not change the fact that president elect biden won that state. Also, south dakota is one of the top five states in the country with new cases per capita, the governor there still not issuing a mask mandate. But in the biggest city, sue falls, they just have. 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Its kind of obvious the motivation for that is an analysis of whats good for the government, whats good for the country. I did reach out to the white house today to ask them to comment on our reporting that there is a back channel effort of some people in the administration, even some former officials admitting on the record that theyre talking to the biden transition. Didnt get any response at all from the white house, not really surprising, its not only awkward but people here are also well aware of what happens to officials in the government who dare to cross the president on an issue that hes sort of dug in on. Nonetheless, there are apparently people doing that. A couple quotes from colleagues, theres been informal outreach from inside the trump government to the biden team. Nothing that would get them in trouble, the quote says, an offer of help. And the biden people essentially say, back channel isnt good enough, it requires more than former officials stepping forward, gsa, the services administration, should follow the law and ascertain the results of the election. So this ascertainment issue, the acknowledgement by the trump government of joe biden as the president elect is important. Especially over at hhs because as you know theyre trying to roll out a vaccine. By the way, some people here at the white house say their rollout plan is already on the record so theres nothing biden really needs. Of course, biden could have different priorities, jim and poppy. Joe, thank you for the reporting. Joe johns at the house. Lets go to georgia, an important state, a statewide audit now being completed. They counted the ballots by hand. Amara walker is in georgia. Some counties uncovered votes not originally counted but big picture this has not changed the outcome, joe biden won the state. Reporter if you talk to the georgia secretary of state, he has been maintaining that he is confident that the results of this hand tally are going to reflect what we saw from the original tally. As you said, the report of this audit is expected out around noon and we already known that 112 of the 159 counties have reported virtually no discrepancies. Like you mentioned, jim, whats been getting a lot of attention is the fact that more than 5,800 uncounted ballots were discovered during this audit process. And out of in the three of the four cases what happened was the ballots were scanned onto a memory card, but the last step of uploading that memory card onto the county systems did not happen, but state Election Officials say this was human error, these were isolated incidents and not a sign of widespread fraud. Also, look at the sort of republican makeup of those counties, which is also notable here that the president is complaining about that. Is it the case that state Election Officials expect him to request another recount . Reporter they are working, poppy, under the assumption that the trump campaign, President Trump will be requesting a recount. Theyre allowed to do so under the law and they have until tuesday to request a recount and the state has already procured a high speed scanner. So they are expecting it, although theyre saying we dont want to put our election workers through this laborious process again because they expect if theres a recount, itll be done by computers, which means the results will be virtually the same as the hand audit, poppy. Just to be clear, theyve done a hand recount, if theres another recount it would be a computer recount, is that reporter right. Technically this is an audit under a new state law passed in 2019. But yes, if there were a recount it would be done by computer scanners, correct. Understood. Okay. Thanks, amara for the reporting. South dakotas largest city is issuing a mask mandate even as the governor of the state refuses to do that. But does it go far enough . The governor of sioux falls is with us next. When i was in high school, this was the theater i came to quite often. The support weve had over the last few months has been amazing. Its not just a work environment. Everyone here is family. If you are ready to open your heart and your home, check us out. We thought for sure that we were done. And this town said not today. Yits more than just a house. [music playing throughout]oday. Its a kitchen thats been passed down, along with the recipes. Three generations on the wall. With room to grow. The rhythm of home. The smells, the sounds, the flow. The feeling of owning a home is not black or white. Citi is working across our business to make Home Ownership a reality for more black americans. But some cant do it alone. They need help to stay home. And stay safe. They need us and we need you. Home instead. Apply today. New aveeno® restorative skin therapy. With our highest concentration of prebiotic oat intensely moisturizes over time to improve skins resilience. Aveeno® healthy. Its our nature™. All right. Welcome back. South dakotas governor this morning still defending her Covid Response as cases are soaring across that state. Some have said that my refusal to mandate masks is the reason why our cases are rising here in the state of south dakota, and that is not true. But the numbers they are tragic and they do not lie. Right now south dakota ranks second highest in the nation in the number of covid cases per capita. The spike in cases has led the largest city in the state to issue their own mask mandate. That is sioux falls, south dakota. The mayor is with me now. Thank you for being with me. First of all, im so sorry for what you guys are going through. I know its tragic and its been deadly for far too many. You now have voted for this mask mandate, mayor. But just about a week ago you voted against one and said its not an effective way to control a pandemic that doesnt know where sioux falls city limits are. I wonder what changed your mind . Thanks for having me on. One clarification, i didnt vote to approve it, actually. Our council got the votes to approve this. So i didnt have to vote to approve it. Do you approve of that move . I do approve of their action. Im not going to veto it and i have veto power. I think whats changed is a few things, one is for the first time in a week one of our Large Health Care systems came out and said we need this, that hadnt happened to date. Also the state medical association asked for that as well. And we amended it so theres no penalty to the ordinance. Thats a talking point, theres no penalty for noncompliance. Thats the compromise and the interesting waters were in right now with this topic of masks. You have the freedom, personal Liberty Group is against masking, and then you have those who feel that penalties should be very, very severe for those who dont comply with masking. By not having a penalty i think what were trying to do is appease the people in the middle. The 60, 70 of people who say if its City Ordinance im going to follow it. You have offenders who say im not going to touch this because theres no penalty, so why would i do it . Thats okay. Thats their right. But hopefully it changes some behavior a little bit. So on your point about the state medical group just finally saying we should have a mask mandate. The cdc has been recommending masks, you know, since april 3rd and the two main Hospital Systems in sioux falls have both had it posted on their websites for weeks now pleading with people to wear masks. Yeah. And i have been running psas and marketing messages. Obviously we know masking is a basic Infection Control tool. And people will even debate that science. I dont buy that. We know that masking helps slow the spread of a virus. Including your governor in a recent oped saying its debatable. She has some valid points in that what we havent seen is mandating masks slowing the spread. Masks slow the spread but mandates have been all over the board with some cities and states that have mandated it and its maybe made a dent and theyre on the same trajectory up shortly after. The challenge is finding consistent data sets saying when you do these three or four actions, it flattens the curve. We saw the governor in iowa change course there, mandate masks. The governor of north dakota said on friday, our situation has changed and we must change with it. I ask you because of your residents and people like chris borkman, who we heard from this week who lost her husband there in sioux falls to covid. Listen to what she said and what her husband said after being air lifted to minnesota for treatment just days before he died. I wanted him to come home. I always thought he would come home. When they flew me over here, i literally didnt know if i would see the next day. It makes me more nervous. Do you think that more measures to mitigate the spread of covid earlier could have saved lives like john borkman . Well, thats the question that well always ask and well never know the answer to that. I think what i have to look at is saying, okay, within my 80 square miles of sioux falls, south dakota what are the steps i can take . We see countries now, new york city a great example of pulling kids out of school because of a 3 Positivity Rate they hit, that comes with another set of unintended consequences and Public Health issues. So those are the decisions that we each in our own individual communities have to wrestle with and say what works in new york may not work in sioux falls and tallahassee. I wish there were more consistent measures we could all take that we knew would have impact but the data is so wild on what works and doesnt work we wrestle through this day by day to figure out how we can keep the cases low. I hear that on the schools im going through it in our own household this morning, i get it. To be clear for our viewers, you have been clear on the mask science, that the masks work and theres no question about that. So i want people to understand that. The question is about a mandate. Let me ask you this final question. One of your big concerns has been dividing your Community Even more. Basically pitting people against each other, right . Umhum. I want you to respond to what one of your residents, am my billows said last thursday at a city council meeting. Viruses are so small that expecting a mask to block them is like expecting a chain link fence to keep out mosquitos. Its false, but she believes it. How do you combat effectively that misinformation for your community . Poppy, thats a great question. So were battling the covid pandemic, im battling the infodemic and the politicalization of the pandemic. Those are three issues i deal with every single day. I am a purple city in a red state. And this has been an extremely divisive issue. Probably more than other cities. So what i have to do is just trust the information that i know, trust the cdc, trust the experts and say, hey, we know this is a basic Infection Control measure. I wish we didnt have to mandate it, i wish you would just do it, but absent that the council did decide to do the mandate and we hope it has some effect in our community. We hope it does too and we wish you a lot of luck. Thank you for being here mayor. I appreciate it. Thanks, poppy. Of course. Jim . 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Elderly dementia patients on latuda have an increased risk of death or stroke. Call your doctor about fever, stiff muscles, and confusion, as these may be lifethreatening, or uncontrollable muscle movements as these may be permanent. These are not all the serious side effects. This is where i want to be. Talk to your doctor and ask if latuda could make the difference youve been looking for in your bipolar depression symptoms. President elect joe biden is set to hold a Virtual Meeting today, of course, about the covid pandemic and its going to be notably with a Bipartisan Group of governors. This call comes as the Trump Administration continues to stone wall formal transition efforts despite a bevy of experts warning about the consequences. The latest projections show that death figure approaching 300,000 in three weeks. This matters. Cnns jessica dean joins us from wilmington, delaware now. What is the biden team doing to overcome these roadblocks . Reporter well, guys, they are pushing ahead in all of the ways they know how. That includes having their scientific advisers, meeting with drug makers like pfizer to talk about the vaccine. And it also includes, as you not noted, this meeting today with a group of governors from the National Governors association, republicans and democrats coming together to talk about the coronavirus pandemic likely to talk about Vaccine Distribution, states, of course, going to play a major role in that in streamlining the process. We know that joe biden has said he wants to put a mask mandate in place when he assumes office. Expect for them to talk about these sort of things. We know biden and his Transition Team have been reaching out to local officials, people in the medical community, Health Community trying to do what they can to get around the fact they cant talk to the people they need to speak to maybe the most, which are the ones that hold the current data, the federal officials making the plans for the Vaccine Distribution process, theyre not allowed to talk to each other right now. Biden talked a little bit about the whole transition process yesterday. Take a listen. I am optimistic, but we should be further along. Theres a whole lot of things that we just dont have available to us, unless its made available soon were going to be behind by weeks or months being able to put together the whole initiative relating to the biggest promise we have. Reporter right. And they did make the coronavirus pandemic, getting it under control, absolutely central to their pitch to americans when biden was running for president. He promised to get it under control. And they know what a giant logistical challenge its going to be to get the vaccine to millions of americans. And we also heard from their covid Advisory Board earlier this week theyre not getting access to data, like the amount of ppe thats available, how many hospital beds are available, things like that they want to be on top of to track how things are ebbing and flowing across the country. We expect to see president elect joe biden giving remarks later this afternoon on this. Well watch for those. Jess thanks for the reporting. The nfl is rolling out strict new coronavirus guidelines. This after one team says it will be without most of its defensive starters this weekend due to covid. Well have more. Sofi made it so easy to pay off my student loan debt. They were able to give me a personal loan so i could pay off all of my credit cards. I got my mortgage through sofi and the whole process was so easy. 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We are seeing the physical manifestation of this hunger crisis in america right now. Food is being distributed behind me to about 1200 families. If you look at this line, these are the people waiting for food. Theyre waiting for their thanksgiving meals. We spoke to the organizer and she said that she is seeing a 75 increase in need since last year. And that is largely in part because of covid and the amount of people that are unemployed. Ive spoke to several in this line. They said that theyve never been to a food pantry before. They are here for the first time in order to get a meal to feed their family. And this is not just happening here in brooklyn. This is happening across the country. We know that about 6 Million People have fallen into poverty in the past year because of the pandemic and feeding america is expecting about 50 Million People to be food insecure in 2020. The stimulus that these people waiting in line need in order to survive is nowhere in sight. A lot of federal protections are expiring by christmas at the end of this year. It is really not a good sign for people who are in need. These are just some of them right here in this line today here in brooklyn. Jim, poppy. Weve seen lines like that across the country. It is sad to see. Its a hard fact of this new reality. The College Football schedule has been thrown into disarray with more games being called off due to coronavirus concerns and infections. Andy has more in the breecher repo bleacher report. Reporter good morning in the past hour marylands game with Michigan State has been cancelled. Marylands head coach and 15 players tested positive, so for the second straight week they had to cancel their game due to covid. This weekend, 15 of the 62 games scheduled are not going to be played due to the virus. Every conference around the country has had to postpone or cancel a game this week. This comes after the same number, 15 games, were called off last week. Teams running out of dates to make these games up. When it comes to the playoffs at the end of the year. The executive director of the committee telling us they would not replace any of the top four teams if one of them was unable to play due to the coronavirus. Nfl games continue but the commissioner without making all teams operate under the intensive coronavirus protocols for the rest of the season. Previously they were only for teams with a positive test or who played against someone who did. But starting saturday all meetings will be held virtually or large spaces approved by the league. Mouth and or face shields are mandatory during practices. A memo sent to all teams go dell says the upcoming holidays, beginning with thanksgiving next week will introduce new risk of exposure that we need to address now. And the latest round of testing results released by the nfl, 52 players and personnel had tested positive for the virus. And the las vegas raiders, they could be without most of their defensive starters for this sundays game against the chiefs. Seven players were added to the covid19 list yesterday, only one player tested positive but the rest of them are deemed high risk contacts. If they continue to test negative they could be allowed to return for the game on sunday. But as cases rise around the country, football is not immune to this and weve seen how games have been affected. Andy, thanks very much for the reporting. And thanks for joining us today. Well see you tomorrow morning. Im poppy harlow. Im jim sciutto. Newsroom with kate bolduan will start right after a short break. When i was in high school, this was the theater i came to quite often. The support weve had over the last few months has been amazing. Its not just a work environment. Everyone here is family. If you are ready to open your heart and your home, check us out. We thought for sure that we were done. And this town said not today. 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