On this juneteenth, the city of tulsa, oklahoma is in a mood of both celebration and apprehension depending on who you are. The trump base comes to the city for an event that represents everything wrong with the president s leadership particularly in this moment. There is the obvious Public Health problem. Here is what the seven day rolling average of new coronavirus cases in tulsa look like. That big spike on the right shows just how quickly it has been spreading over the last few days. In fact, the numbers are looking so bad across the entire state that a black lives matter event scheduled tonight in Oklahoma City was postponed. Local Public Health officials from tulsa have been pleading with the president all week to cancel the rally. Just yesterday a local doctor, an Emergency Room Physician wrote an op ed writing im a tulsa Emergency Room Physician and a conservative and the rally is a terrible idea. Even more insane is that they are doing it indoors. We are still learning day by day about this virus, the two things that are becoming more and more certain as time goes on is that its better to be outdoors than indoors and it is better for people to be masked than unmasked. And, yet, with that knowledge, with access to the cdc, right, in his own most hard core supporters lives in his hands, what is the president going to do . Hes going to hold an indoor no mask required rally. The president s press secretary says she wont be wearing a mask. Quote, its a personal choice. Some concerned tulsa businesses asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to intervene. Today the Oklahoma Supreme Court denied that request saying, they didnt really have standing. And amidst all this, the president has been bragging about the fact that a million people, a million people, good for you, have requested tickets for the rally. You know what . If you have that many people who want to attend, i dont know, why not use one of the big outdoor venues in the area . Turns out there is an enormous football stadium at the university of oklahoma. They could hold an outdoor rally there with 80,000 people. Outdoor, masked, lots of people cheering you with adoration, making you feel something inside of yourself that you cant feel otherwise, they could do all that. But theyre not. Not doing that right now. Donald trump is going to set off what looks like a Public Health bioweapon in tulsa at an event comprised of his own, most loyal, most supporters. The nation is experiencing the most prolonged street protests. As the nation confronts the legacy, history of white supremacy, the president who has shown his deep seeded bigotry at just about every turn, who has defended the monuments to confederate traders who said, when the looting starts, the shooting starts, he planned this rally at the site of one of the worst massacres in tulsas greenwood neighborhood then known as black wall street. On may 30, 1921, the mob game to greenwood. There was a whistle that blew. And then the mass invasion and the destruction of greenwood began. When the smoke cleared in the Early Morning of june 1st, 1921, black wall street lay in ruins. This is by far the largest single incident of racial violence in all of american history. On top of that, the president originally scheduled this rally today on today, juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the end of slavery. It marks a day when a Union General arrived in galveston, texas to announce they were free. It was two years after when that news finally got to them. That is where donald trump planned his first rally. On juneteenth just by the site of one of the worst racist slaughters in history. But all the similar bo similath Peaceful Protesters and those who assemble with violence. Please understand you will not be treated like you have been in new york, seattle or minneapolis. It will be a much different scene. We all know what that means. In fact, in that tweet, its not hard to pick up the disquieting echo of the threats of white mob violence that hung over the slaves of texas for the freed men of tulsa, oklahoma. At the same time, the mayor of tulsa lifting a curfew. For my friends, everything. For my enemies the law. If you wear a maga hat, youre outside the law and its reaches. If you are a protesters, well, the baton is going to come down on your head. And i want to make this abundantly clear. There are people that think the president s rally tomorrow night is an absolutely terrible idea, including top members of his Coronavirus Task force. Trumps Top Health Official who warned the rally could be a, quote, super spreader event that could lead to more infections and more deaths. The president doesnt care. Neither do his aids who want to get him out of the funk hes been in for weeks by having a rally. If that means jeopardizing lives, so be it. The republican mayor of tulsa said he understood peoples concerns but also it was a tremendous honor the president would select tulsa for its first rally. We just believe in freedoms in oklahoma. If you want to wear mask, we want you to do it. If you feel safer at home, we dont want you to come to that rally. But if you do feel okay, we want you to come to the rally and have a good time. Were going to be very safe and we think its the right time. Im joined by someone now who does not feel the rally should go forward. The only africanamerican member of the tulsa city council. Let me start and ask, what is the mood in your city like this evening . Its very tense. Its very tense. I have talked to a couple of my colleagues, and they are concerned as well. So its just tense. We are in position as a city counselor where were not being apprised of the security measures and whats going on. So that is concerning even further. What is your if you could get your way here, i mean, what would you like to see happen just, i guess, first just the Public Health level. Are you concerned about this as a Public Health event and what do you think should happen . Im absolutely concerned about the Public Health. As you mentioned earlier in the segment, the original tulsa Juneteenth Celebration was canceled due to covid. If i had my wish, we wouldnt be having juneteenth and we wouldnt be having a rally five or six blocks down the street. Sorry, im having a hard time hearing you. But we would be at home, safe at home. Thats my wish as a Public Health professional. Im in Public Health 20 years, and im very torn about being here tonight. What is the mayor and other folks in the city, i mean, is there a concern about this all being outdoors . Right now you are outdoors and youre masked. We got some pretty good evidence that being outdoors and masked is better than indoors and unmasked. I mean, does the mayor this is not a partisan thing. Is there concern from other people about being indoors . Yes. I mean, there is certainly that indication. He has said that. But its just not showing through action. And i think because the president , who he is, exceptions are being made, not only for the rally but also for his supporters. The bok center where that rally has been held was closed down until the end of july. That decision had been made. But when he made a call that he wanted to come to tulsa, then an exception was made. We had a curfew. The mayor signed an executive order just yesterday establishing a curfew. Now the president is coming and that curfew has been lifted. So it is clear that the gop is controlling this state and this city and this community right now and its very frustrating because we are putting all citizens at risk. So the bok arena, it had been shuttered by order through july. There is an exception made for that to hold a rally. The curfew got undone. Yes, today. Today. I was shocked when i saw it come through because once again even as a city official, were finding this information out when everyone else is finding it out. The press is letting me know whats going on in my own government, in its very freakin frustrating for me. I have constituents reaching out to me, asking me questions and i cant give them answers. Im upset, clearly, and i think we have a tense situation. Im sitting here looking at little babies out here celebrating and dancing and having fun, but they have no idea what could potentially happen at any second, and im concerned about that. I mean, is there at least this is there spatial separation at least . I know there are celebrations today for juneteenth. Youre at one. There have been all day in your city of tulsa, oklahoma, as there has been around the country and there are a lot of folks lining up around the arena and sleeping outside of it. Do you think spatial consideration should be maintained at the very least . No. Its almost impossible. Out here, its outside. I can clearly see people trying to make sure they observe spacing requirements. And its easy to do that outside. You just cant do that indoors, especially when you are talking about a group of people who think wearing a mask is a sign of weakness because their leader, the leader of this country, is saying dont wear masks and Wearing Masks is a sign of weakness. And so i have not gone to this part of town for the last couple of days since people started coming in. I have intentionally avoided where the bok center is, and i just plan to we hope to shut this rally down before dark so that we can get home. Were going to encourage people to go home and be safe. But, yes, people are Wearing Masks. We have hand washing stations out here throughout the crowd, and we are encouraging people to be as safe as they possible can. Im walking up to people and saying, please put a mask on. We have free masks available to most people. For the most part, people are saying, yes, theyre putting a mask on and theyre trying to be observant as much as we can. But we need to be at home. There is no question about that. We need to be at home. Also, if i could, i just want to take a few minutes to acknowledge may i finish . I just want to acknowledge the memories yeah, i just want to acknowledge the memories of Joshua Harvey and eric harris. I dont want the issues or the concerns with what has happened to them by dying at the hands of Law Enforcement in this community to go unnoticed or to be forgotten, so i just want to acknowledge their memories and respect their families by calling their names. Tulsa Council Member who is there at that Juneteenth Celebration. A member of the city council in the city of tulsa, oklahoma, which is in the National Spotlight for obvious reasons tonight. Thank you so much for your time tonight. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next, Award Winning documenttarian with a Campaign Rally in a city that once saw a massacre. He joins me to discuss the meaning of this moment next. How they gonna pay for this . They will, but with accident forgiveness allstate wont raise your rates just because of an accident. Cut is that good . No you were talking about allstate and. I just. When i. Accident forgiveness from allstate. Click or call for a quote today. If yoyoull get 2 vyears or 20,000 miles from allstate. Of scheduled carefree maintenance. 3 years or 36,000 miles of 24 7 roadside assistance. 4 years or 50,000 miles bumpertobumper limited warranty. 5 years of connected services. And for 6 years you wont have paid any interest. Down the road, youll be grateful you bought a volkswagen today. And ask your doctor about biktarvy. Biktarvy is a complete, onepill, onceaday treatment used for hiv in certain adults. Its not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights hiv to help you get to and stay undetectable. Thats when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. Research shows people who take hiv treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit hiv through sex. Serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. Rare, lifethreatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. Do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. Tell your doctor about all the medicines and supplements you take, if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or if you have kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis. If you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. Common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. If youre living with hiv, keep loving who you are. And ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. If youre living with hiv, keep loving who you are. 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It is titled general order number three, which you can see on the top left of the paper next to the stamp. It was issued on june 19th more than two months after the civil war official ended. It took so long because texass confederate constitution prohibited freeing slaves. They had to physically get to texas for their freedom. Many americans were largely unaware. But the emancipation holiday started in the shadow in fact 1866 black laws passed just after the end of the civil war to restrict the freedom and the founding of the kkk. And juneteenth was first celebrated publically but during the crim crow area those celebrations largely had to take place in private. Juneteenth then reemerged in the 1960s and became a holiday in 1980. One american thats unaware of the significance is of course the president who scheduled his first big 2020 make America Great rally for today. The location he chose for his rally is tulsa, oklahoma where we were just showing you just blocks from the greenwood Business District known as black wall street. In 1921 white men stormed the area, burning businesses to the ground, killing as many as 300 black residents. It was the very type of racial violence that pushed juneteenth out of public view for decades. There was a whistle that blew. And then the mass invasion and the destruction of greenwood began. It goes block by block. Any africanamerican man who resists are shot. Others who are still there are all rounded up by mob members, by police officers, by the special deputies. Whites will then break into businesses, loot what they can and then set them on fire. 2019 pbs documentary, boss, the black experience business which is streaming now for free. Joining me now is the Award Winning film maker behind that stanley nelson. Hes directing terror in tulsa the rise and fall of black wall street. It is a great joy to have you on, stanley. I wonder if you could talk about how you first learned of this story and why it is so significant, so emblematic. You know, i think it was always a myth that i kind of heard about. And its that kind of thing for africanamericans. You know, we kind of have heard about it. We dont know the details. I think were able to investigate it in a five minute piece in boss, but the film that were working on now will be much more expansive. You know, its just one of those iconic moments for africanamericans, and what we found when we did boss was that its not its not the only time this happened, that so many times africanamerican businesses were destroyed either by mobs or boycotts or laws that destroyed them. And so it is really important that we understand that history. Its kind of what were all looking at. How did we get to this moment . And thats one of the ways that we got in this moment that were living in now. Yeah. The story of the of the massacre that happens there, which is a story of a sort of white mob that sort of, you know, destroys the core of black business in tulsa, kills hundreds of people and then faces essentially no consequences, that kind of vigilante violence is a huge part of the story of post reconstruction america where essentially equality was taken back away from africanamericans through this kind of mob violence. And i think that part of the american story is a really an undertold one. What do you think . Yeah. I think that thats a story we dont know. But i was thinking about it a little while ago. You know, there are other stories that are just as amazing. There is a story that we have in boss about a guy named fuller who had a Million Dollar company that sold soap and puerfume. He sold it to white people, to white women. When it was found out that this black man owned the company, the company was then boycotted all around the country, and it went out of business. Wow. Just because it was a black manned who owned this company. And you are someone who has been making films about africanamerican society, culture, politics and history for decades. We have seen in the last several weeks street protests and political activation unlike any we have probably seen in a generation. How do you make sense of this moment as someone who has studied the history of this . I think its one of those things. I mean, thats how movements start. They start because people are outraged. And i think its a great moment, you know, in our history. Hopefully it keeps going. You know, one of the great things to see is that there is so many young people out there and, you know, there are black people, white people, asian, latinos, everybody is out there. It is almost like this country has just had an awakening. You know, we have had enough. And thats a good thing. And, you know, i think that trump is a big part of it, you know. Hes like the unspoken monster gorilla in the room. We have just had enough, enough of this racism that exists in this country. And young people, i think, really want to change it. This is, of course, juneteenth, and i think its being celebrated in a way it probably hasnt been celebrated quite before, particularly i think large parts of White America that i think didnt know about the holiday or sort of knew about it. I think its going to be a National Holiday at some point. How important is this kind of commemoration, this sort of historical story telling. It is incredibly important. You know, for me personally it is one of those things where i didnt know i needed it until today. I didnt know i needed it until today, and today was just amazing to see our ancestors celebrate it, you know. Our ancestors who lived and died so that we can be here and struggled through, you know, one of the cruellest institutions thats ever existed in the history of the world. And they struggled through it and they survived. And so, i think, you know, for me, all day i just was kind of glowing, you know, in the midst of everything that were going through. But i think its a huge thing. Im with you. I feel like there is a real push and that this will be a National Holiday. And, you know, its something that we dont have. There are very few commemorations of what the enslaved people went through. You know, and thats really important, that we celebrate those who are enslaved and stop celebrating those enslavers, and i think thats a huge move for this country. It is interesting that it is a texas holiday, this moment that of course gets taught, right . I mean, the emancipation proclamation, the abolition of slavery as a, oh, look, we got it right in the end, this storybook of american history, but the fact that that sort of defining moment of liberation isnt celebrating is striking, like its a thing to celebrate. Yeah, its a huge thing. And, again, its celebrating our ancestors and were celebrating the right thing that the people who went through held to make the world that we live in now. So its just a huge thing. And i hope its a step that we take. You know, one of the great things is again to see everybody celebrating today. You know, its marvelous to see people of all kinds celebrating those who are enslaved and lived their lives under that system. Stanley, you have been working documents black life in america for decades that this feels like a sort of cross roads, a very perilous moment. You talked about the awakening. But i feel here listening to your voice today, there is a kind of lift and optimism in how you are viewing this moment. Yeah. I mean, im very optimistic. You know, i have three kids. You know, theyre two 21yearolds, twins and a 30yearold and theyre out there marching. Theyre part of this, and they want change. Thats where it starts. I feel really optimistic about it. Its a terrible time. You know, we have this pandemic, and then to see those people lined up to see trump, you know, is, you know, horrible. But i also have great faith in young people and people who are out there trying to change things for the better. I have just got to be optimistic about it. Well, i was lucky enough to meet your daughter once. She actually babysat one of our kids. Stanley nelson, thank you so much. Thank you. Next, a look into the cult of trump rallies and the supporters willing to enter a room filled with thousands of people in the middle of a pandemic just to get a glimpse of the president. When you think of a bank, you think of people in a place. But when you have the chase mobile app, your bank can be virtually any place. So, when you get a check. You can deposit it from here. And you can see your transactions and check your balance from here. You can detect suspicious activity on your account from here. And you can pay your friends back from here. 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Before treatment your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms such as fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches or coughs, or if you plan to or recently received a vaccine. Nothing is everything ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. The kind of people who are going to a trump allry amidst a pandemic, people are going to travel from all over the country, camp out in line, those people are going to be, by definition, the hardest of hard core supporters. Their relationship with trump and trumpism is more than the person they vote more or the politics they have. It is something far more deeper. This new profile for vanity fair argues that trump rallies have become a kind of religious experience, detached from mundane arguments or even reason. The joy is not partisan. It is the ecstasy of liberation. They have transcended compromise and entered into the light undelighted and pure. Joining me now is Jeff Charlotte who spent much of his career reporting on the intersection of religion and politics and two of his books on this topic have become the basis of a Netflix Documentary series called the family. I have been a fan of your work for a long time. The piece does not disappoint. And i thought the sort of religious frame work you bring to it was really illuminating. What did you feel like you were discovering as you spent time in this milieu. Something has changed in the years of trumps presidency. I found something, a prosperity gosp gospel, a get rich quick promise. Now its much darker and i liken it nothing to the nos tick gospel, this idea that all knowledge is hidden, that elites are in this vast conspiracy against us and only the great man himself, trump, by pushing aside expert knowledge can we get to the truth and really fair out our enemies and destroy them. It is about destroying an enemy within now. Yeah. And its also about the falsity of the world that you see before you, which i think relates to the qanon Conspiracy Theory that there is a famous trump line about, you know, everything you are seeing and reading isnt true, right . That when the people i come out and hire say im exactly the crude and competent brute i look like, theyre lying. But there has to be this willed religious feeling to constantly be seeing the world getting information and discounting that as like a false consciousness. A false consciousness or, rather, you learn how to read what the actual evidence is. And for instance, many of the folks i met at these rallies, whether they were investment qanon or never heard of it, i kept coming across this idea. In trumps tweets, some of them wear tshirts that say trumps tweets matter. Every typo, every misspelling, especially the strange capitalizations are actually messages and you have to study them like scripture to understand the real meaning beneath the veneer of the bumbling buffoon. There is also the fact that these have aged, right . And you talk about it taking on a darker past where its like a grateful dead show or a fish show. There is a subculture. There is institutions, a universe thats grown up around this as a genre that i dont think was necessarily quite there in 15 and 16. Now its a thing. Its a happening. Its a thing. I mean, theres people who go and have been to dozens of rallies. One guy is called the trumped up cowboy. And he pays for a group of teenagers. Says he found them in the woods of kentucky, which sounds strange, and they go to rallies all over the country to spread the world. Trumps Campaign Manager even sort of name checked these guys. Some people have gone to dozens. 68 rallies one person had. They get campers and they travel around the country. So they had a grateful dead connection, that phish connection, that absolute devotion. It doesnt matter what happens at the rally. At one i went to trump must have spoken to for two hours. A lot of people left early. I would speak to them and said, are you disappointed . They said no. It didnt matter what was said. It was the ritual. Right. What do you think i mean obviously we have seen interviews with people going to these rallies saying, look, if trump says its safe, its safe. I saw someone say if i have to die, i have to die. There is people willing to take the risk. I get it. There is lots of people in the streets protesting for a cause they thought mattered a lot and knew they might be taking risk on so people make those balanced judgments. But im curious what you make of people showing up go to an indoor masked rally in the middle of the pandemic. I think its a very different experience than what we see with folks protesting oftentimes we should say taking precautions as they do so. But this is an idea that you are protected by the hand of god. I mean, that we all heard that joke when trump jokingly referred to himself as the chosen one. But when you go to the rallies and you talk to people, you find that idea of divinity played over and over again. He really is gods chosen one. And that means that the rally itself has this sort of spiritual protection. The coronavirus, whether you believe in it as a conspiracy or you think its a real problem, its not going to touch you at the rally. You are going to be sort of magically protected. How representative the big question that hangs over american politics, right, is we know there is these people. There is some tiny subset of people. There is a person that goes 68 times. You go out in concentric circles. There are people go to one rally. People put up a window sign and wear a maga hat and then there is people that vote for donald trump. What is your understanding of the size of this world . I think thats one of the really key things. When you go to the rallies, most of the press, as you know, stays in a press cage. I think there needs to be more of an engagement with people. We need to look at these rallies not as religious events. The qanon believers, thats a small subset. Those ideas have infull trailtre much broader movement. Trump calls from the stage about invisible enemies. A real moment for me, i was talking to one women and she was deeply invested in qanon. She believed not only are democrats elites invested in child trafficking, theyre actually invested in cannibalism. So i turned to the people around me who werent they were not you know, they had gone to this one rally. These werent people on the trump trail. I said, do you believe this . And some pisaid, well, i dont know. Its hard to say. No one was saying, thats crazy. Thats insane. It is all within the realm of possibility. And then trump comes on stage and starts talking about horrible, horrible stories. I mean, really gory violence. And he stands up for a long time and he says, there is more i cant tell you. That experience is confirmation of their beliefs. Right. Its an incredible piece of work. You should definitely check it out. Thank you so much for making some time for us tonight. Thank you, chris. Coming up, a doctor on the steady climbing number of coronavirus cases in the u. S. And why experts around the world are watching with alarm. I use rakuten to get cash back instore and online. Or anything i want to buy is going to be on rakuten. Rakuten is easy to use, free to sign up and its in over 3,000 stores. I buy a lot of makeup. Shampoo, conditioner. Books, food. Travel. Shoes. Stuff for my backyard. Anything from clothes to electronics. Workout gear. I even recently got cash back on domain hosting. You can buy tires. To me, rakuten is a great way to get cash back on anything you buy. Rack it up with rakuten, sign up today to get cash back on everything you buy. As we see new coronavirus outbreaks spreading in cities and states across the country, we appear to have reached an Inflection Point in the disease. You know, for a very long time there were these two offsetting trends, the areas of the biggest early outbreaks like the new York Metro Area were declining rapidly while places that were not very hard hit initially were rising although kind of slowly. And together they sort of cancel each other out. Right . It looks like we have crossed over that national divide. It has been for several weeks we had a case count that plateaued and held steady. Now cases nation rally are rising in the aggregate. Heres the thing. All the other major western countries have clamped down on the virus and not us. The red line in this graph is the European Union. And the blue line is the United States. And you can see how the European Union, like us, peaked around 30,000 cases per day right around the same time we did. Now the whole European Union is averaging around 4,000 new cases per day. The United States hasnt broken below 20,000 new cases and is now on its way back up. And part of what makes that chart so frustrating, so maddening is that for a while europe was sort of in the same position we were. I mean, in the beginning of the outbreak, they did not do a great job either. We watched as hospitals in italy were overrun and the disease hit spain and france and sweden. The u. K. No longer part of the eu of course. We were a basket case, but so was europe. People here, we used to look at the countries that had done a bangup great job to contain the virus. And we would say, well, we can never have success like them. Our cultures are too different and we didnt experience sars firsthand and were not on an island. So the last refuge was that europe was there and is also struggling and a way of making us realize how were dealing with the virus. That is now gone. Europe has suppressed the virus, and we have not. We are doing a terrible job containing this pandemic, ashbly worse than anywhere in the world with the exception right now of brazil. In fact, countries who have contained the virus are now concerned about our growing rise in spaces. One disease specialist told the Washington Post it really does feel like the u. S. Has given up, and we should be worried because if there is one thing we have learned about the disease already has we have gone through this is that it has a very long fuse. I remember speaking into this camera back in early march as more and more cases were confirmed here every day noting that it was strange how few people were dying from the disease at that point. And experts would say, just wait. Look at italy. Look at spain. And by midapril, the coronavirus was the leading cause of death in this country ahead of cancer and ahead of heart disease. I have that feeling again watching the cases grow in arizona, texas and florida, that moment between the lightening and the thunder wondering when were going to feel the force of the skies above us. I hope im wrong. But i fear its all happening again. Volkswagen today. Youll get 2 years or 20,000 miles of scheduled carefree maintenance. 3 years or 36,000 miles of 24 7 roadside assistance. 4 years or 50,000 miles bumpertobumper limited warranty. 5 years of connected services. And for 6 years you wont have paid any interest. Down the road, youll be grateful you bought a volkswagen today. And ask your doctor about biktarvy. Biktarvy is a complete, onepill, onceaday treatment used for hiv in certain adults. Its not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights hiv to help you get to and stay undetectable. 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This is the point when states are opening back up even though we havent suppressed the virus. And what happens next . No one really knows. Here to help me get my head around whats going on, dr. A ashish jha. Dr. Jha, this is how i thought we would do this. Im going to appoint myself the optimist here and throw out a number of optimistic scenarios about what were hearing and then ill hear your response. The first optimistic scenario is even though were seeing rates of growth that are very high, the overall levels are still very low. Were not dealing with levels like what we saw in the new york outbreak. What do you think of that . So, chris, thanks for having me on. I like that idea. Its true that were not where new york was. But the problem of exponential growth is once it starts growing and gets momentum, it becomes very hard to slow down and stop. And so the trend here is very concerning. And we can reach very high levels very quickly, if we dont begin to head this off. The other so the other idea is that when we saw the real the crazy levels of exponential growth, right, when this thing went through wuhan, lombardy, and new york, maybe the three worst outbreaks in the world, maybe madrid as well, you didnt have any real social distancing in place, you didnt have masks, you didnt have the basic advanced preparation for what this thing can do, when you had an r, the transmission number of around 3, that maybe you can get it to over 1, but nothing like that, and then thats a kind of like survivable or dealwithable level of growth. So i dont think were going to deal with that kind of an outbreak in this country, hopefully for the rest of this pandemic. But lets play out the kind of the rt of 1. 2 or 1. 1. You still get hospitals starting to get overwhelmed which is what were seeing right now, in several places. Arizonas hospitals are starting to get full. A lot of places in florida, parts of texas. And that just keeps going. So then you have choices. Youve got to do masks, you have to start peeling back some of the relaxations youve had. If you dont do those things, you may be looking at shelter in place again. We may not have a lombardy style outbreak but we have to get out of this or we may be looking at shelter in place. This apple news was striking, it marks a kind of first, they basically are closing a bunch of retail stores. Its like the first step back, its the first kind of moment of refren retrenchment in the u. S. Its not like the only ones doing this but that apple moment to me was a striking one, its not going to go all in one direction for the duration of this pandemic. Yeah, so to me, that apple store closing, a couple of things. First of all, you know, its a reminder that whatever policymakers do, even if governors or legislatures are in denial, businesses have to deal with the reality on the ground. And the second part is that we are going to see these kind of he be ebbs and flows, things are going to get bad and well have to pull back. Its a reminder that were not done with this pandemic. So much of the federal government has treated this in the last couple of weeks as, were done, were moving on, were now thinking about the rest of the year. Were not done. We may act like the pandemic is something were done with, but the pandemic is not done with us. And that is what reminds us. So here is the other this is the other hail mary thought ive been having. Ive been talking to a number of people about this. If you look at new deaths, fatalities, they were very similar curves, almost bizarrely so. Theyve diverged, theyve diverged in the u. S. And globally. Theres two viewpoints, one is that were between the thunder and the lightning, its a lag and well get new cases growing. The other is younger people are getting infected or we have better protocols in places like Nursing Homes, we have better ways to protect vulnerable populations such that we dont have to produce the shocking fatality rate that it did when it first hit the country. What is your hope for that . So i think thats possible. Im hoping that it wont be as bad. But its not like were going to see lots of cases and not a lot of beds. I think actually well see a good number. The reason is this. We have not figured out how to protect Nursing Homes, we have not figured out how to protect the elderly. The idea that you can let young people get infected and protect a large portion of the population. Sweden has played around with this, no one has figured out how to do it. It turns out older people live in the same society as younger people, and they interact. And we cant shut away a chunk of our population for a year. It just wont work. The other quick thing ill say is younger people do get sick and do and die from this virus as well. We will see a lot of suffering if a lot of people get infected. I saw this today out of the state of oklahoma where of course the rally is going to be, that the Nursing Homes, theyre going to start allowing visitors, and that the masks will be available to visitors but not required either. And, i mean, that just seems that just seems nuts to me, just completely nuts. We should require people that visit Nursing Homes to wear masks, right . You know, its striking to me that we are not willing to just make compulsory a set of things thats going to help us get through this pandemic. Last week i was hearing about nightclubs are open in phoenix. Okay, look, i love nightclubs as much as the next guy but maybe during the pandemic we can live without nightclubs and do masks for everybody. Thats not a huge burden. But it doesnt seem like were willing to make those decisions. This is the thing thats driving me insane about this moment, is that it seems if we were smart and had good policy and things were we could have a kind of 90 of normal life, where, you know, illness and fatalities were pretty suppressed and contained and we werent all just in our houses, home schooling our kids, that we could have like 90 normal. And instead its like, were trying to get 100 and were going to end up with 50 normal, because you cant have 100 normal. Exactly. Were in the middle of a pandemic. I like to remind people, were in the middle of a pandemic. Like, this is serious stuff. And part of the problem, just to be very clear about this, is that we have a federal government, a federal leadership that is desperate to move on and put this behind us. And it is actually i think incredibly difficult to manage that, because theyre not letting science and evidence drive their decisionmaking. And that makes it much harder for the rest of the country to function. Thats literally the rest of the world is looking at us like a basket case and shaking their heads, as they should be, for precisely the reason you articulated. Dr. Ashish, its always great to share your expertise, thank you very much. Thanks, chris. Thats it for all in this evening. Happy friday, rachel. Happen friday as well, have a very good weekend. I want to tell you, chris, between the thunder and lightning thing that you were talking about between the case numbers and death numbers from the virus, it resonates so perfectly for me in terms of how i have been feeling and how i have been dreading these last few weeks. Im both mad at you for putting that in my head and also thankful to have it, that was very clarifying. Yeah, its really worrying. All right, thanks, my friend, i appreciate it. Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour, happy to have you here this friday night. It was not raining in dallas, texas today but lots of people held umbrellas outside anyway, big umbrellas, bright yellow umbrellas painted with the names of