Transcripts For MSNBCW Meet The Press 20200504

The data shows that remdesivir has a clearcut significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recover. How long until we have a treatment or a vaccine . Ill to Sir John Bell from Oxford University, where a promising vaccine study is well under way. Also, declaring victory . I think when you ask how did we do . I think they with a spectacular job reporter with more than 60,000 dead and 30 million out of work, is the Trump Administration risking its own Mission Accomplished moment . And pole vault. Joe biden takes the lead in the battleground states but calls are calling for investigation into his accuser tara reade. Here is a look at my upcoming guests. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press and our continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Announcer from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history. This is meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. It was on january 6th that the cdc first issued a travel notice for wuhan, china. Consider what has happened in less than four months time. More than 1. 1 million confirmed cases of covid19 have been diagnosed in the u. S. And more than 66,000 americans have died. The American Economy shrunk by nearly 5 in the First Quarter with the worst yet to come, and some 30 million americans have filed for Unemployment Benefits just in the past six weeks. Those are the sobering numbers, but this has not been like other crises. Think 9 11, oklahoma city, even the challenger accident. Instead of being united in grief, much of america is divided by politics. We see it in the antisocial distancing protests in states extending stayathome guidelines. We see it in a gallup poll that finds 44 of republicans would be willing to return to normal activities now with no restrictions while only 4 of democrats say the same thing. We see it in Vice President pence not wearing a face mask at the mayo clinic where its the rule. We can even see it in the wall street journal report that the Trump Campaign has ordered red trump branded face masks for supporters. It all prompted this statement yesterday from former president george w. Bush. In the final analysis, were not partisan combatants, were human beings, equally vulnerable and equal in the eye of god. Much of that good news is obscured by the intensifying debate of how to open the country. Were going to open safely and quickly i hope. The president is pressing states to end stayathome orders, and by tomorrow, 33 states will have begun the process of at least partial reopening. After federal social distancing guidelines expired on thursday. Mothers day is coming up. Your mama told you to wash your hands and cover your nose and mouth if you cough. As long as we do those simple things and use common sense, we ought to be just fine. They did misleading pictures acting like, you know, this was like lollapalooza on the beach. Has there been some type of major outbreak . No. In michigan. Swastikas and confederate flags, nooses and automatic rifles do not represent who we are as michiganders. Nothing i want more than to just flip a switch and return to normal. But thats not how its going to work. Unfortunately. On tuesday, the president promised to meet the testing benchmark set by a harvard study. Youre saying youre confident you can surpass 5 million tests per day . Is that were going to be there very soon. On wednesday, he walked that back. I didnt say it, but somebody came out with a report saying 5 million. I think that was from the harvard report. But we are going to be there at a certain point. Even so, the president and his political aides are trying to recast the federal response to the pandemic as a success story. We did all the right moves. I think we did a spectacular job. We have saved thousands and thousands of lives. I can even make that, if you want, hundreds of thousands of lives. The government, federal government, rose to the challenge, and this is a Great Success story. The language is nothing new. For month, as the death toll has risen, the president has declared in some form or another Mission Accomplished. When you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple days is going to be down to close to zero, thats a pretty good job we have done. As we near the end of our historic battle with the invisible enemy. We can begin the next front in our war, which were calling opening up america again. Back in late february, you predicted that the number of cases would go down to zero. How did we get from your prediction of zero to 1 million . Well, it will go down to zero ultimately. President s own Public Health experts warn against reopening too quickly. You cant just leap over things and get into a situation where youre really tempting a rebound. But, perhaps motivated by the political calendar, the white house is presenting a rosier timeline. Early summer, we could be in a much better place as a nation. May is the transition month, may and june probably. By june, a lot of the country should be back to normal. Joining me now is dr. Tom inglesby, the director add the for for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of health. Welcome to meet the press. Let me start with a simple question. 33 states are doing this. We noted that 18 states have hit their oneday case total high of those 33 in the last two weeks. So technically not meeting those phase one metrics. Are we ready to be doing this as a country . I think we need to be Going Forward very cautiously. I think if you look at the overall country numbers, were about 200,000 new cases a week at this point. And in the last month, we have had something on the order of 60,000 deaths. So most of the illness and death has occurred over the last 30 days. So overall as a country, we still have long way to go. But the states are in very different places, and some states, a small minority of states, are beginning to get closer to the white house metrics of two weeks decline, and so in those places, if they have other capabilities in place, iable to rapidly isolate and trace the contacts of patients with covid, if theyre able to diagnose very widely everybody who has symptoms of covid, not just the sick people, but everybody, then those states would be the places where it would be least risky to go ahead and begin to reopen. Are we do we not have the Testing Capacity right now to give the states the security they have of making these decisions . How much is this somewhat guesswork because of our lack of surveillance capabilities when it comes to where the virus is in many of these places . I think there still is a lot of uncertainty, but there is a range of diagnostic testing capability across the country, and you can tell that in the percent of persons who are positive. In some states, theyre testing so many people that the percent of people who are positive is very low, and thats a good number. In other places, the percent of people testing is very high, and thats worrisome. So it depends on where you are in the country in terms of access to testing, the operations around testing, and its like a patchwork across the country. Is there a way, when were you going to know whether this is a mistake or not . Is it basically waiting the next two to four weeks in the incubation periods . Yeah. For this disease, its going to take about two weeks, two to three weeks for us to begin to see trends that come out of the changes in social distancing. So a measure taken this morning, you probably wont see a change in hospitalization rates or icu capacity until two or three weeks from now. So thats the nature of the disease. Its going to take a little time for things to get into the system. What is something that these state Health Officials dont have access to data wise that you wish they did before making these decisions . I think we should in the coming weeks and months, we need to get a much better handle on the number of mild and moderate cases of disease that we have. The good news is that many, many people do not get seriously ill with this disease. But the bad news is that were not capturing those people in terms of numbers for the country and if we dont know who they are, then we cant break their chains of transmission. We cant isolate them, we cant quarantine their contacts. So we need to know much more about the mild and moderate illnesses around the country, and that will and with more diagnostic testing. I want to ask you something that somebody wrote about the cdc. It was i think a colleague of yours at Johns Hopkins, no, excuse me, at harvard. But it was sort of the odd lacking of missing data that the cdc normally tracks. He said if you wanted to find out how many people had tuberculosis in this country in the last year, ask the cdc. You want to know about Health Care Associated infections, ask the cdc, but ask how many covid19 tests have been done, and the cdc doesnt have an answer. Want an update on how many people are being hospitalized, the cdc isnt tracking it. Want to know if social distancing makes a difference . The cdc doesnt know. What is going on . Are we missing a huge component of our Public Health response . I think we do need more data, clearly, i certainly agree with the need for the dada the doctor outlined there. I think that were tracking this epidemic in a different way than we have tracked others. We havent had this urgent need to understand hospitalizations on a daytoday, weektoweek base as we have for some of the other things we have confronted before. And we need to get better as a country. If you look at state Health Department data right now, some states are not reporting their hospitalization data. We live in a federal system. If theyre not reporting at a state level, its hard for the cdc to get that data in real time. We all have to collectively get better. We should all be rising. Lets get a realistic timeline. Next three months, next six months. A lot of people are concerned about the fall. How concerned are you . And is there any way of avoiding a bad fall outcome at this point without either advancements in a treatment or a vaccine . Well, before we even get to the fall, i am worried that we will have small waves in various places around the country for the coming months. Hopefully, we wont. But as we begin to ease social distancing in various places in the country, this virus is highly transmissible. Nothing has changed in the underlying dynamics of this virus. If we stop social distancing altogether tomorrow, we would recreate the conditions that existed in the country in february and march. What we ned to do is continue to our best possible effort, all of the individual efforts were making around social distancing. Staying six feet apart, Wearing Masks when in public, avoiding large gatherings. To the extent were able to do that over the next couple months will dictate how we do as states and the country. In the fall, we have an additional challenge, influenza will reappear, and at that point, covid will be mixed with flu and both will be contributing to hospitalizations and icu beds. So well have two concurrent large Public Health challenges at the same time. I am worried about the uptick in hospitalization rate and more people needing intensive care in the fall, but im still i dont think people should think that there will be a lull, that just because the summer is coming, were going to have a lull before the fall. It would be wonderful if that happens, but i dont think we should at all assume that at this point given the nature of this virus. And im going to leave it there because i think thats the single most important takeaway viewers need to have. Dont call it a lull. Its unlikely were going to have a lull in the summer. Dr. Inglesby, thanks for starting us off with your expertise on this. Much appreciated. Thanks for having me, chuck. Joining me now are two state officials central to making decisions about when and how their states should reopen. Dr. Scott harris is the state Health Official officer for the Alabama Department of health, and dr. Joneigh khaldun. Thank you both for joining, and so, i want to start with you, dr. Harris, since alabamas doing a lilt more opening right now than michigan, although compared to some of your southern neighbors, i would argue you guys are being a bit more cautious than others. But tell me the metrics you used that gave you the confidence to advise the governor at beginning some phased in reopenings. Sure, so we have followed a number of metrics like i think most states have, including the white house plan for reopening. The gaining criteria im sure you have talked about many times on the show. Theyre certainly part of the things we have considered. We have not fully satisfied all of those criteria, but we felt good about our numbers, felt good about our Hospital Capacity. What our governor chose to do is make a very measured step, a very gradual reopening of certain types of businesses. We did not proceed to a full phase one reopening like was in the white house plan. Things like Entertainment Venues and gyms and inperson dining, we have not chosen to do that so far, but we think this is just a gradual first step. What data are you missing, dr. Harris, that you wish you had but whether its capacity or other reasons you dont have. There are a number of things. Clearly, we would like to make sure were testing to the level we would like. We probably have a total amount of Laboratory Bench capacity to do the number of tests that we would like to do, but those tests are really unevenly distributed throughout the state. If youre in a bigger, more urbanized part of our state like Jefferson County where birmingham is located or Madison County where huntsville is located, you could probably have really good access to testing wherever you like, but in some of the more rural parts of the state, were able to get testing done, but there are definitely barriers for people to obtain that, particularly if they have to find transportation or dont have ready access to a health care provider. We have also been surprised to find we have not necessarily gotten negative test results reported to us. Its hard to come up with a good denominator, so we have reached out to all of the labs who report to us, but many of them are out of state, and its just difficult to get all that information. Dr. Khaldun, let me ask the question sort of slightly different. What are you seeing in your state that makes you uncomfortable advising the governor to begin even a partial phase one reopening . Yeah, so here in the state of michigan, we have over 43,000 cases and over 4,000 deaths. And so we are actually third in the country when it comes to states and the number of deaths. While we have seen certainly significant improvements over the past several weeks, our hospitals were over capacity, particularly in the Southeast Area of the state several weeks ago. Were still having parts of the state that are seeing an increase in the rate of rise of cases and we know their Hospital Capacity is not what it should be. We have to get our testing up, as i know people across the country are working on. While were cautiously optimistic, we still think we need to be very careful. All right, but dr. Khaldun, what do you say to those in the state who are going, you know what, yes, southeast michigan is being hit hard. Are you not comfortable having sort of a lets isolate parts of the state, tougher stayathome measures for southeast michigan, lets loosen things up in more rural parts of the state . Why are you not there yet . So we actually look at this data on a daily basis regionally. So again, we are still seeing, for example, on the western side of the state, that there are actually increases in the rate of rise of cases. We have several outbreaks there. We also know, again, in some of our rural areas, the number of hospital beds is actually not what it should be. Many of our hospitals in our rural areas are actually at capacity. So every part of the state is different. Even in southeast, quite frankly, even though were seeing a decrease in the rate of rise, were still seeing many cases and many deaths every day. Were going to be working on loosening or dialing up as far as how were reopening the economy. The governor has actually already started that but we have to do it in an incremental datadriven approach. I got to imagine both of you are feeling pressure, whether its pressure from friends and family tired of the quarantine, pressure from friends of yours who maybe run businesses, or fullon political pressure. Dr. Khaldun, let me start with you. How have you handled it, and have you been getting how have you handled the public blowback, and how do you strike the balance in your own head where you feel youre giving fullon medical advice versus let me give you the best medical advice i can for the policy you want to implement the possibly you want . This is not personal. People hire me to give medical and Public Health advise and thats what i do. I talk to the governor and other folks in the Governors Office on a regular basis to tell them the facts. These are the number of tests were currently doing. This is where we want to be. This is whats going on with our hospitals. Again, if we dont do well with these social distancing measures, more people will die, and that is just the facts. Dr. Harris, how have you how much have you felt that pressure . I mean, obviously, its significant, as you know. There are many alabamans that just dont have the option of making a living under Certain Health orders. We have to find a way to strike the right balance there. I think our governor has done a great job of trying to balance the health of the economy with the health of average alabamans. My job in Public Health is to give her the best Public Health information i can. We present the data on just as dr. Khaldun said, on how many cases we have and what our deaths look like. I think alabama has been a little bit different. You know, every state is different, and there are 51 different plans for reopening, i guess, because were all trying to look at the data and make our own decisions with the best information we have about how to proceed. But there are people who are certainly want to maintain their livelihoods, their businesses, and we have to balance that with keeping everyone safe and healthy as much as possible. Dr. Harris, are you concerned that georgia has been more aggressive, and for instance, senator doug jones in alabama has encouraged alabamans to be careful traveling to georgia. Its obviously, we look at that very closely. You know, there are certainly some good aspects about having every state having its own plan because every state is a little different, but clearly, all states affect the others. So were watching that very closely. You know, what we have done in alabama, i think, is, again, have the sort of measured approach. And i think what i have heard many states say, and what our governor has certainly said, is that these arent steps forward that are just going to ratchet forward and can never come back. These are gradual steps. And we certainly, you know, will consider dialing things back if we see an increase in cases. So i think thats the approach that probably all states would want to take. We see where we are after changes are made, and then make changes if necessary. Dr. Khaldun in michigan. Dr. Harris in alabama. Thank you both for sharing your expertise and sort of the regional observations that you both can share with the country. Good luck and stay healthy out there. Thank you. When we come back, the race for a Coronavirus Vaccine. Im going to talk to a professor of medicine at Oxford University in the uk, where they have gotten a head start in testing a vaccine that they believe is showing real promise. That is next. Welcome back welcome back. The race for a Coronavirus Vaccine is on. And nowhere is there more optimism or perhaps progress than at Oxford University. Theyre testing a vaccine that has shown success in rhesus monkeys. Whats more, theyre ahead of competitors because earlier testing of the vaccine for other viruses has shown it to be safe in people, so human testing can begin much sooner. Joining mow now is Sir John Bell, the regius professor of medicine at Oxford University and hes going to tell us more about this. Welcome to meet the press, sir bell. Let me start with this question. One of your colleagues used the percentage of 80 chance that this vaccine is at least somewhat successful in the next year. Are you that optimistic . And are you at all concerned our optimism around the world for what you guys are doing has gotten a bit overexuberant . Yeah, so obviously, people who have dedicated their careers to this kind of a problem have a tendency to get excited about the prospects because the prospects are pretty good. I certainly wouldnt put the possibility at 80 . Thats a pretty big number. But were gradually reeling it in bit by bit, and as every day goes by, the likelihood of success goes up. Youre in the midst of you want to start some human trials. One of your potential hurdles is the lack of outbreaks, right . In order to do this, you need to try your next set of trials. Do you know when youre going to be able to do this . And where are you looking . Are you looking at places like india . Where are you looking to do these trials . So, we have still got lots of disease in the uk. We probably have something in the order of 15,000 to 20,000 transmissions a day in the uk, so theres no shortage of disease here. And well push we have already started clinical trials, so we have already given the vaccine to about 1,000 people. And were going to grow that pretty rapidly. We have consolidated the phase one and two programs because we are pretty confident that the vector itself is safe, because its been used in about 5,000 people already up to now. So thats allowed us to really accelerate the phase one program, and we hope that there would be enough disease that we would get evidence that the vaccine has efficacy by the beginning of june. Whats the likelihood that if this fails as a vaccine, there will be something that is usable as a therapeutic . And im just wondering, in the reverse, as we hear good news about, for instance, remdesivir, on its ability as a therapeutic, how helpful is that in the development of the vaccine . So probably its helpful for sure, its probably not helpful in the development of the vaccine. I dont think it really it works by a completely different mechanism. It works on gotcha. The rna preliminaries which is completely different replication method in the virus. Were stimulating the immune response to the virus, which is at the other end of the Therapeutic Options that weve got. So the two are probably not connected. But both could be helpful steps to try to get the virus under control. Theres been some concern that you guys are going too fast, that and its not just you. Its all of the labs that are attempting to get a vaccine. That theres such pressure coming from National Governments that some safety protocols will be overlooked. Im sure you, like others, are claiming youre meeting all the protocols, but there has to be some concern that the pressure is going to create gaps on this. What are you doing to try to prevent that . Yeah, so youre absolutely right. Its a big issue for us, is trying to be sure that we do this quickly, but we dont miss out any of the key safety steps. I think weve got reason to believe that the efficacy, the efficacy of the vaccine in terms of generating strong antibody responses is probably going to be okay. The real question is whether the safety profile is going to be fine. So thats actually the main focus of the clinical studies. We did all of the preclinical work you would expect anybody to do, and although some companies have left out, for example, primate studies, they havent done as many preclinical studies as we have, we did all of them. We did mouse, ferret, primate. We wanted to get a good read on whats going on. And now were being very careful in the clinic to try to monitor exactly whats happening. But you know, that doesnt mean there wont be safety signals because there may well be and well be on alert to see if we can see them. When is the next time you will find out if this is not going to work . You know, theres these different moments where youll find out, oh, we can go to a next step. When will you know if this isnt going to be a successful vaccine effort . Yeah, so i think there will be primate data released this week. That will be an important milestone. And then well have to wait until theres enough incident disease in the phase two cohort, which has been vaccinated now to see whether we have largely eliminated the disease in those vaccinated with this vaccine as opposed to the placebo. Thats really the test. Thats what well probably get a signal based on current levels of the disease, well probably get a signal in early june. Were ready to move trials overseas if the disease peters out in the uk, so we have sites already in play in other bits of the world where its active. Were pretty sure well get a signal by june of about whether this works or not. And finally, do you have a sense of if this will be a onetime vaccine or something closer to the flu where perhaps we have to have a different vaccine due to a mutation every year . Yeah, so coronavirus doesnt mutate at the pace of flu. And as a result, i suspect we may need to have relatively regular vaccinations against coronavirus going into the future. That, of course, remains to be seen, but thats my bet at the moment, this is likely to be a seasonal Coronavirus Vaccine. Sir john bell at oxford, the whole world is rooting for you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks so much. Take care. When we come back, finding a vaccine is one thing. Fixing our economy is another gargantuan challenge. As we go to break, look up in the sky. Its the navys blue angels and the air forces thunderbirds flying around the country in honor of the Nations Health care workers. Welcome back. The panel is with us from their remote locations. Nbc news capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt. Former congressional budget director and current president of the American Action forum, douglas holtzeakin, and dr. Nahid bhadelia. We have done a on the vaccine, on the reopening. But lets talk about the economy. Just give us your big picture sense. You hear about 2008, you hear about the Great Depression. How would you describe where were at right now, and where you think were realistically headed . Well, chuck, we had some horrific economic data. We saw the largest onemonth decline in consumer confidence, the largest onemonth decline in consumer spending. We had 30 Million People apply for Unemployment Insurance in the past six weeks. I think its fair to expect that over the months of april, may, and june, well see National Income decline by 10 . The worst year in the Great Depression was 12 . Were going to experience that this spring. Do you think, doug, i want to stick with you for a minute. Do you think the ideas that have been perkulating in Congress Left and right in general have been meeting the moment or do you feel as if in some ways members of congress havent fully grasped how big and how gargantuan this is . I think Congress Deserves credit for moving quickly, moving dramatically. If you think about whats going on, were losing 10 of National Income. The socalled cares act borrows 10 of National Income and is trying to distribute it to americans in the form of Unemployment Insurance, loans to businesses, grants to businesses, checks. Thats however just a bandaid. The real work has to be to get the economy to stop falling. We cannot do that continuously, so we have to get the economy moving again. There, youre add the tough intersection of the Public Health mission, which is the primary objective, also the most important economic policy. Right, and dr. Bhadelia, i feel like this is the challenge you in the Public Health community and Health Officials in general, there is life and livelihood, and that balance, and what do you fear from that the pressure Public Health officials are going to be feeling about reopening the economy, what do you fear thats going to lead to . Chuck, you heard tom inglesby talk about the fact the conditions havent changed from when we put the lockdown into place, which means reopening is this balance of restarting the economy against acceptance of the risk that we will get more infections. And of course, those infections will result in hospitalizations and deaths. When you look at the preparedness of the states, its kind of a patchwork. So the capacity, the poor capacities in certain terms of testing, dr. Inglesby mentioned the fact of how many people you test, and w. H. O. Says if youre testing to a point where more than 10 of the people youre testing are still coming back positive, youre not testing enough. Of the 33 states, 12 of them have rates above 10 . When you look at icu capacity, of those 33 states, eight of them have already hit their head room for icu capacity. When you talk about contact tracing, theres a hopkins study that says we need 100,000 contact tracers and npr did a study of all of the states, 41 states responded and said we have about 7,600 contact tracers and were looking to hire 36,000 more. Were not there in terms of capacity or its a patchwork where some states are potentially doing it better than others. So my fear as it is with a lot of Public Health folks is insuring that states meet those capacities before they take the risk of putting particularly the vulnerable among our communities at risk. So nursing homes, prisons, minority communities. Let me ask you the question this way. Over the last two months, in the medical community, what have we learned enough and with the news on remdesivir, how much now how much capacity has that bought us . How much of an ability that we know there is some best practices that can lessen the time in the hospital or lessen the mortality rate . How comfortable are you getting that were there where that can allow us to have some more reopenings . Were definitely in a better place than we were in some ways. So one part is our Testing Capacity is better. If you look at the numbers, about a month ago, we were testing ten people, you know, eight to ten people per 1,000, and were now testing 18 to 19, so thats better. Remdesivir is promising in the fact that it provides you with the proof of concept as dr. Fauci said that drugs like it or in itself could help reduce mortality, but we still need a whole other range of drugs such as we need medications that if youre exposed potentially, it keeps you from getting sick. And then from what we know about this disease, you know, were learning that its basically making the body attack, uses the bodys immune system to basically attack itself. The virus wreaks havoc. And a lot of drugs are still in the works, havent shown are starting to show some promise, but we dont have a slam dunk in helping with that aspect of the disease yet. Let me move to the politics. Kasie hunt, were going to get in front of the split screen, the senate is coming back, the house isnt. The senate is saying, well, look, we have to tough it out, essentially. The house is saying its not safe. Its the divide were seeing in america in some ways between left and right. And chuck, youre even seeing it in who is deciding to wear masks when they come up to capitol hill and who isnt. And you know, this is emerging as the kind of partisan divide that i think if you listen to the experts like those that we have just been talking to, you know, if americans are not all on the same page about engaging in the Public Health protection measures, it gets a lot harder to get to the point where you can feel confident in reopening, that everybody will remain healthy. And the longer that this goes on and the sharper those divisions become, the harder the Overall Mission is. And you know, dont forget, every month that goes by, were a month closer to a president ial election. And thats going to influence so much of this conversation as well. Im curious, kasie, the whole testing weirdness of the senate. The president said, oh, use this quick testing feature we have been using at the white house, and then mcconnell and pelosi decided not to accept it. What is going on there . They dont think that they should be seeing having access to things that regular Everyday Americans dont have access to. And in that way, the imperative is a little different. My question is, if they do bring the house back, its different than the senate in that its 435 people. They are scattered across all corners of this country, all coming back. The risk is very high. Will those rank and file members say, this is something that we need in order to be able to function . Pelosi and mcconnell are relatively old school in their thinking about things like this. I mean, there was a lot of reluctance in the beginning to even close tours at the capitol, and nancy pelosi was saying were the captains of the ship. We are the last to leave. At the end of the day, concerns among her members pushed her to change course on that. All right. Douglas holtzeakins with the economy, nahid bhadelia, and kasie hunt on politics. Kasie, youre going to stick around. When we come back, how attitudes about the pandemic have changed over the last seven weeks. When we started our business we were paying an arm and a leg for postage. I remember setting up shipstation. One or two clicks and everything was up and running. I was printing out labels and saving money. Shipstation saves us so much time. It makes it really easy and seamless. Pick an order, print everything you need, slap the label onto the box, and its ready to go. Our costs for shipping were cut in half. Just like that. Shipstation. The 1 choice of online sellers. Go to shipstation. Com tv and get 2 months free. Welcome back. Data download time. As some states begin to reopen, Many Americans are trying to adapt to this new normal. A survey has been asking if americans feel that the worst of the pandemic is behind us or is yet to come. In week one, which was the week starting on march 15th, only 7 of registered voters said the worst was behind us. By week four, beginning april 5th, that number only rose to 11 who felt that way. By week seven, beginning on april 26th, 29 , four times the original number, did believe the worst of this virus is behind us. In week one, more than a third of americans said they were very concerned about their familys financial stability. By week four, that had slipped and is now down to 27 as states begin to reopen some businesses. While americans are feeling likely better about their physical and financial health, theyre also increasingly resigned to the fact this is not ending anytime soon. On week one, only a quarter said they expect the pandemic to last six month or more. That ticked up 11 points by week four. And now, a majority, 56 , believe the pandemic will last six months or more. Which is probably why when asked about a return to some precovid19 activities, many say theyll move slowly. In some cases, very slowly. More than 60 of americans who fly regularly said this week that they would wait at least four months before flying again. And 42 of regular air travelers said they would wait even longer, seven months or more. Nearly half of those surveyed remained concerned about their health. They seem to agree that coronavirus is difficult to manage, causing pain, and its not going away anytime soon. When we come back, were going to turn to politics. Joe biden has denied the allegations made by tara reade. Has he said enough . Thats next. These days staying connected is more important than ever. So were working 24 7 to maintain a reliable network, to meet your growing internet needs. Were helping customers who are experiencing Financial Difficulties stay connected. Were increasing internet speeds for low income families in our internet essentials program. And delivering selfinstall kits to your door. Nos comprometemos a mantenerte conectado. Were committed to keeping you connected. For more information on how you can stay connected, visit xfinity. Com prepare. What do you look for when i want free access to research. Yep, td ameritrades got that. Free access to every platform. Mhm, yeah, that too. I dont want any trade minimums. Yeah, i totally agree, they dont have any of those. I want to know what im paying upfront. Yes, absolutely. Do you just say yes to everything . Hm. Well i say no to kale. Mm. Yeah, they say if you blanch it its better, but that seems like a lot of work. Now offering zero commissions on online trades. We charge you less so you have more to invest. Welcome back. Kasie hunt is still with us. Joining us is amy walter, National Editor of the cook political report. All righty. Let me play one of the bites from joe bidens interview on morning joe from friday. Here it is. Would you please go on the record with the american people. Did you sexually assault tara reade . No. It is not true. Im saying unequivocally, it never, never happened. And it didnt. It never happened. Amy walter, the New York Times is not satisfied with the Vice President s answer. In fact, they write, mr. Bidens word is insufficient to dispel the cloud, and the inventory should be strictly limited to information about mrs. Reade and by a panel put together by the dnc and foster as much trust in its findings as possible. How much appetite is there in the Democratic Party to do something as extensive as the New York Times is outlining . Not much, chuck. And i think for a lot of republicans and conservatives, the idea that the dnc is going to put together an unbiased panel to look through the documents of joe biden is kind of stretching it. Look, chuck, we are in the place where we have been for so much of these last couple years especially in the light of this me too movement about the fight not just over who to believe but the fight over hypocrisy. Thats where a lot of this debate is being centered on. Democrats, including joe biden, but a lot of democrats and liberals who held one standard for folks like Brett Kavanaugh and seem to be holding a different standard for joe biden. This, chuck, reminds me a little bit of the battle we saw in 2016, and quite frankly, we still see today with evangelicals and their support for donald trump. How can you support this personal who is going against the standards you set for somebody else . At the end of the day, this is what voters are left with. Not so much who they believe or dont believe but how they battle this cognitive dissidence, and usually partisanship is what breaks the tie. And kasie, on social media, its basically the hypocrisy of the defenders of the party of bill clinton and donald trump. Right . Thats what every social media debate devolves into, whataboutism on the part of those two gentlemen . I think also to amys point, republicans are focusing on how Brett Kavanaugh was handled and how the media handled Brett Kavanaugh. How democrats talked about Brett Kavanaugh. Theyre not talking about donald trump because the reality is that they cant. Because the list of accusers that this president has is very long, and you know, each individual accusation has a different set of facts, a different set of claims. In the case of joe biden, there is one, and that claim is now being explored and theyre having to grapple with it, but youre right that, you know, this debate has become very muddled and devolved into lobbing charges back and forth. At the end of the day, i think americans who care deeply about this issue and care about women and harassment and changing that culture, at the end of the day, this is going to be a choice between joe biden and donald trump. There are two separate sets of facts there. Voters will be able to make up their own minds about that. Kasie, i think without the piece of paper showing up, but i am curious, how Many Democrats on capitol hill are empathetic, do you think, quietly, are quietly empathetic with the call by the New York Times for some formal investigation . Chuck, i dont know if theres a huge appetite for that. You talk about shifting the debate into a different sphere, the email question around hillary clinton, thats kind of the first memory that democrats have. And you know, i think behind the scenes, the Biden Campaign is very much trying to focus on insisting theyre not going to get into a situation where its but her emails. But i do think, you know, democrats want this campaign to be as clean and straightforward as possible, and to extent there are questions about transparency, thats going to be a problem for every democrat, and particularly women democrats. They have been the ones who have had to answer questions about this accusation. Nancy pelosi has defended joe biden, Kirsten Gillibrand as well. The easier the Biden Campaign can make them in terms of answering our questions in hallways the happier democrats are going to be. As difficult as perhaps friday and the weekend has been for joe biden, amy walter, if you just looked at the polls, the last two weeks in particular, i mean, whether its a battleground state or a quasibattleground state, it seems as if it doesnt matter if its a national poll, a state poll. Biden is ahead or on the move everywhere. How much of it do you attribute to just the pandemic and donald trump . And how much of this is democratic rallying around democrats rallying a bit around biden . Yeah, it seems more like the former, chuck, that this is as much about donald trump as anything else. I mean, what you noticed over this last couple of weeks is that, you know, voters are expecting their political leaders to meet the moment. A lot of governors have and youre seeing their Approval Ratings up in the 70s in some cases, close to 80 . Donald trumps are back where they have always been because he met this moment in the same way he meets every moment. Its polarizing, divisive, and putting people back into their political camps. The one thing i will note, though, chuck, is for as strong as joe biden is looking in those states, and in national polls, what you also see is that President Trump hasnt cratered. And his overall vote share, if you look at the matchup between joe biden and donald trump, doesnt match his Approval Rating in a lot of these states. In other words, he still has room to grow in these states. Theres a group of people saying i like the job that the president is doing. Im not yet quite ready to say im going to vote for him. Its easier for trump to getthosis people back. They havent defected, at least not yet, to joe biden. Its a reminder, amy, and something john reese and i talked about yesterday. Hes still in his range. His trading range. May be at the low end of his trading range, but hes still sitting in his range. And we know what that means. Anyway, kasie hunt, amy walter, thank you. Thats all we have for today. Thank you for watching. Thank you for trusting us here at nbc. Stay safe. Be well. Practice social distancing. Well be back next week because if its sunday, its meet the press. The u. S. Death toll from coronavirus now topping 60,000. President trump is insisting that it is safe for states to reopen. Plus, new reporting about how some vulnerable republicans are choosing to distance themselves from trumps response to the pandemic. And new details about what joe bidens accuser says could and could not be included in the alleged Sexual Harassment complaint she says that she made against him