Long as they let me have it. But having been on the air this long, i can tell you even in these weird times, there is sort of a constant i can describe to you. One thing that has progressed steadily and without change since i have been doing this, and its this shift that has happened in the news environment in which we work. Its that our friends and colleagues in the conservative media over the years, they have become more and more their own thing. Like i said, ive been doing this for more than a decade. At the beginning of me doing this show, i think it was fair to think of our friends at the Fox News Channel and conservative talk radio and in other conservative media i think it was sort of fair at that time to think of at least most of them as our, like, legit professional rivals. They were people who were coming at the news from a very pronounced rightwing view, perhaps a very partisan proRepublican Party view, but at least we were all doing the same kind of work. At least we were all covering the same stuff. Thats how it started when i started doing this business, started working in this business. But over this past decade or so, steadily that has decreased year after year to the point where now even in times this weird, conservative media is like earth 2. Like all the rest of us are on earth 1, and they are on a completely different planet in terms of what the news is and what it means to cover it. And the conservative media is as influential as they ever were, if not more so, when it comes to republicanelected officials and conservative voters in the Republican Party base. But the conservative media, the most influential parts of it really are living in and describing and now promoting a completely different world than the one that all the rest of us live on here on earth 1. Again, this is something that predated this crisis that we are in. I have seen in happen steadily, this change, over the past 11, 12 years. But in the context of this virus, you can see it now in some weird and really specific ways. For example, you can see it in how the conservative media has been really, really excited about sweden. Its not usually their kind of thing, sweden. But in this case for coronavirus, theyre all about sweden. The national review, has sweden found the right solution to the coronavirus . Multiple segments on prime time fox news shows where the hosts have invaied against how terrible the United States has been in our response because really we should be more like sweden. Lets do what sweden says theyre doing. Theyve got the right approach to this. Do you remember the talk radio host glenn beck who was on fox news for a hot minute . He has a website that still exists there today at the glenn beck website, they are still hyping sweden and how swedens response has been the best in the world, and that should be the one that america emulates. Now, this stands out to those of us who still live on earth one because sweden is not who these guys usually root for, right . Sweden is the kind of highperforming Big Government scandinavian country that american conservatives like to vilify and describe as a terrible place. So its interesting. Its unusual, right . Why is the protrump conservative media now hyping swedens response to the coronavirus . Well, its because sweden didnt do a stay at home approach. They didnt close themselves down, which sounds awesome, right . What theyve decided to do is not do anything. It must be working great. Wouldnt it be amazing if that really was the right way to deal with coronavirus . Wouldnt that be great for the u. S. If we didnt have to do anything either . So youve got, you know, multiple fox news segments both in prime time and in the morning hyping sweden. Theres Newt Gingrich on fox friends saying how hes known all along that the swedes would take the right approach and america should absolutely emulate what theyre doing. I mean on earth 2 over in conservative medialand, what the swedes have done has not only been really attractive in terms of it having no cost to the way we live our lives, its been super successful. So its a win win, right . Where the rest of us live and die on this planet, swedens lets not lock anything down approach has actually been pretty disastrous. Its been pretty lethal. Heres sweden against their similar neighboring countries. Heres denmark, for example. They actually had a pretty hard time for northern europe. Heres finland, well below denmark, doing pretty well. Heres norway, swedens closest neighbor. For good measure, heres iceland, which has been so aggressive particularly with testing. But theres sweden up top with the largest death toll of any of its similar countries. And that is the result of their approach that fox news and conservative media has been hyping for weeks now, which is that they did very little of a lockdown. I mean its very appealing, right, in an ideological sense that sweden decided we dont need to lock everything down. Lets keep it all loose. But it turns out the virus doesnt care how cool that sounds. Our friends in conservative media are neverthele theless in with this idea. And so with the helter skelter encouragement of president trump, weve now got red state governors all over our country saying, you know what . Screw it. Lets tear the lid off. The swedes did it. It was great. I keep hearing in conservative media how everybody has been overreacting and you dont really need to do anything. So thats the way we should be governing here. So in florida, you know, the beaches, let her rip. Mississippi beaches too. In texas and in mississippi, the state parks. Pry it loose. Sure, why not . South carolina, georgia, theyre opening the beaches. Its almost all the stores in georgia. Theyre going to pour everyone into dinein restaurants again as of next week and theaters too. And, heck, you know what . Lets start doing elective surgeries again too. Why not burn all that ppe . The Health Workers dont really need it, do they . Im sure theyll be fine. It will all be no big deal if we wish it was so. Lets reopen everything. Redstate governors, now lets just reopen. Come on. Has this really been such a big deal . In arkansas today, where there never has been a stayathome order, theyre now reporting 600 coronavirus cases in just one state prison in lincoln county, arkansas. In north dakota, where there has never been a stayathome order, there appears to be a good a new goodsized outbreak at an energy plant in grand forks. Again, thats north dakota, 128 cases associated with that plant already. In abilene, texas, today, where theyre very excited to open as much as they can as quickly as they can, abilene, texas, today, its a cookie country, a place called abimar foods. They had one case in that factory on march 30th. By april 10, they had five cases. Now they have 50 cases and are shut down, hoping to reopen. But they did go from one case to 50 cases in less than three weeks. So i dont know. Maybe i dont know. The green bay pressgazette is reporting on what theyre calling an explosion of cases associated with a meatpacking plant on the east side of green bay in brown county, wisconsin. Theyve now got hundreds of cases there. 22 people hospitalized in brown county, wisconsin. Theyve called in the cdc to address that explosive outbreak there. The cdc has also been on the scene in south dakota at the big outbreak at the smithfield Meat Processing plant in sioux falls, where there are as of today, 863 known cases of coronavirus associated with that one Meat Processing plant. Theres no stayathome order in south dakota even with nearly 900 cases associated with one facility. The National Guard has now been brought in to start to build field hospitals to handle overflow coronavirus patients both in sioux falls, south dakota, and in rapid city. South dakotas neighboring states of iowa and nebraska also dont have stayathome orders. They are also now contending with multiple outbreaks at Meat Processing plants, including a plant in madison, nebraska, now where workers were first advised that some of their colleagues had tested positive as of friday last week. That plant for now is staying open. Iowa has what appears to be a large outbreak at a meat plant in waterloo, iowa. Local officials including the county sheriff and the mayor of waterloo, iowa, have been begging for that plant, a tyson pork Processing Plant, to be shut down, but so far they are keeping that waterloo, iowa, plant open and running despite the large outbreak there. Today there are other outbreaks now being reported at Meat Processing plants every you look. In tar heel, north carolina, in logans port, indiana, in goodletsville, tennessee. In worthington, minnesota, where today they had to shut a large plant that has over 2,000 employees. If youre noticing a theme in terms of meatpacking plants being involved, youre not making that up. This may end up becoming a real issue for the supply chain for packaged meat in america. But whether or not it comes an issue for our overall supply chain, in the right now term it is a huge issue for the people, for our friends and relatives and neighbors who work in these big plants where the pay is low and the conditions are close and the outbreaks just keep coming in plant after plant after plant. This is from nbc nightly news tonight in a feature on that huge outbreak at the smithfield plant in sioux falls, south dakota. Reporter this smithfield pork Processing Plant, one of the areas largest employers, is now a coronavirus hot spot linked to nearly 900 cases. Now we are hearing about conditions inside from a current longtime employee who wished to have their voice disguised. I started getting really super concerned when a person on my line was diagnosed with covid19. Reporter the worker says this is a picture of the cafeteria outfitted with cardboard dividers and yellow tape for social distancing. But the employee tells us that is nearly impossible. Theres people standing in line outside. Theres people inside in the locker rooms, people walking down the hallway, and theres no way of being six feet apart. Reporter in a statement to nbc news, smithfield says its extremely proactive in responding to covid19, supplying masks and face shields for employees and paying workers who stay at home when theyre sick. The plant is now closed indefinitely. A lot of us were getting scared knowing that if we didnt show up for work, we might not have a job. And a lot of people were worried about their family members, bringing it home and spreading it to them. Thats nbc nightly news tonight, a report from that smithfield pork Processing Plant. Even in the case of these large outbreaks at these workplaces, in most cases we dont have everyone who works at these places being tested. Even at these plants where there have been hundreds of cases among coworkers there. Thats in part because access to testing has been so scattershot, so slow, so stymied, so random. Speaking of random, one place they actually have newly been able to wrangle some tests as of this weekend is the state of maryland. Why are they able to get some tests, access to tests this weekend in maryland . Well, its because that states republican governor, larry hogan, was apparently able to get his wife to call individual companies in south korea, and thats because she speaks fluent korean. She was able to use her own connections and her Language Skills to buy maryland a half million tests from south korea, which were flown over to maryland on a Korean Airlines jet this weekend. So thats one way you can get tests if youre a citizen of an american state who has that series of circumstances lined up to make it possible. Ohios republican governor, mike dewine, was also able to get his hands on some tests, enough to Start Testing all staff and prisoners in ohio state correctional facilities. It is a good idea to test people in facilities like that just like its a good idea to test all patients and all staff in places like Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities. Ohio Governor Mike Dewine has been able to line up enough tests to do that in ohio state prisons. That effort has resulted in what we now know in what is now the largest known outbreak of any kind in the United States. An outbreak in ohio surpassing even the size of the smithfield pork plant in south dakota. Marion Correctional Institution in marion, ohio, is now reporting more than 1,800 coronavirus cases among prisoners and more than 100 cases among staff at that prison. That means that nearly three quarters of all the prisoners in that one state prison are known to be positive. They are now deploying the National Guard to go help at that facility in ohio. But, you know, theres nothing that sets apart the marion Correctional Institution from every other prison of its kind. The more they test, the more theyre going to find. Now, as i said, ohio is now doing this widespread testing in its prisons. In addition to the marion Correctional Institution, which has what we believe is the largest outbreak in the United States, that same prison system is now reporting more than 1,000 cases among prisoners and staff at a different ohio prison called pickaway. Theyre also reporting 150 cases among prisoners and staff at a prison hospital called the franklin medical center. Youd think if there was one type of state Correctional Institution that could potentially handle this sort of thing, it would be a correctional hospital facility, but theyve got more than 150 cases. Where you test, you find incredible prevalence. And americas original sin in terms of the way weve responded to this epidemic is that weve never had widespread testing. Still to this day its spotty. Its where people have connections. But still with our lack of access to testing, what we know of is 772,000 confirmed cases in the United States of america and more than 41,000 dead americans already. But thats with terrible access to testing. Everywhere people can finagle enough tests to do widespread testing, they are finding way more cases than they thought possible. Among Homeless People at a boston homeless shelter. Among women turning up to give birth at a new york city hospital. Among the general public in santa clara county, california. Among the general public in los angeles which just today reported results of a large general public screening today. In all of these places you are finding much higher prevalence than the people who are doing these studies and doing these screenings expected before they started doing the tests. Weve now got more than 40,000 americans dead. Weve got new outbreaks almost every day, including of hundreds of cases, right, in rural states far from the coasts, both in workplaces and in places like prisons. Anywhere people are being tested, we are turning up large numbers of americans who turn out to be positive. And if youve got testing, it ultimately depends on whether your governors wife speaks some korean, right, or if youve got some other kind of lucky connection that gives you access to tests. T testing is still absolutely hop scotch all over the country in terms of whos got access to it and who doesnt. But even with that, weve got, you know, threequarters of a million cases. Weve got more than 41,000 americans dead. Weve got these huge outbreaks all over, not just in new york and new jersey, but all over in the heartland. Thats whats happening now on earth 1, here where we all live. On earth 2 in conservative media, which is all the president cares about in terms of messaging and how people hear him, on earth 2 everythings totally better now, right . We should do like the swedes. Rip the lid off. Never mind the death count. It will all be fine. In a country that has a bifurcated outlook like that, right, here in the real world, a dizzying, spiraling out of control epidemic that is growing everywhere, including in the places with the fewest hospital beds per capita, but one where simultaneously theres this ideological imperative in conservative media and conservative politics to tell everybody everythings fine and this has all been an overreaction. In a bifurcated world like we have here, how do we expect this to go over time . How do we get out of this if with 41,000 americans dead over the course of a month, the word from the right on that is that everythings fine. Its all over. Were going to be good. Ive just the guy to talk to about this when we come back. Stay with us. Stay with us its a great escape. So many Great Stories from amazing people. It makes me want to be better. It changes your perspective. It makes you a different person. See what listening to audible can do for you. 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Thats why, when every connection counts. You can count on us. This weekend as protesters egged on by the president called for the end of measures to slow the spread of coronavirus in multiple states and as some redstate governors began rolling out the reopening of gyms and salons and nail places and restaurants by the end of this week or next week, sure, why not . This weekend while that happens, New York Times reporter Donald Mcneil published an in depth look at the path ahead. He spoke with over 20 experts in Public Health, medicine, epidemiology. He says, quote, the path forward depends on factors that are certainly difficult but doable, they said. A carefully staggered approach to reopening, widespread testing and surveillance, a treatment that works, adequate resources for health care providers, and eventually an effective vaccine. Difficult but doable. The question of course in this country is whether difficult things are indeed doable right now. Reporter Donald Mcneil has been a guest here several times since this pandemic began. He was here the very first night we switched to covering this thing full time. Hes covered epidemics and outbreaks for decades. When i spoke with him almost a month ago just as shelter in place orders were starting to be enacted across the country, he said on this show, quote, this is just an attempt to freeze everything in place. Then the real work begins. Would that that real work had begun. For instance, mr. Mcneil said at the time that containing the virus would likely require quarantining infected people away from their families. That is the stuff that we havent even started to take in this country. But in this latest report, Donald Mcneil conveys this warning from epidemiologists. Quote, if americans pour back out in force, all will appear quiet for perhaps three weeks. Then the Emergency Rooms will get busy again. Joining us now is Donald Mcneil, science and Health Reporter for the New York Times. Mr. Mcneil, im happy to have you back with us. Thanks for making time. Thank you. You know we yeah, please. My report was so gloomy that my editors wanted it made a little more optimistic, and you just read one of the more optimistic paragraphs that was inserted in it. You know, a sort of belief that everything will work out thanks to American Ingenuity and scientific advancement. Were in for some tough times, which is kind of the point of that piece. That comes through. Dont worry, they didnt rosy it up too much. But let me ask you about the distance that you see between where you think were going and the morbidity and mortality that lays before us and the kinds of decisions that are being made now to loosen all the restrictions, to open up different types of businesses and places where americans can congregate. How big a chasm is there between where you think were going and those kinds of policy decisions . Its huge. I mean, look, the picture that has been coming out of the white house for a number of weeks is that dont worry, this will all be over in a couple of months. Well be able to go back to bars and restaurants. The football stadiums are going to be open in the fall and life will be back to normal. And i think its become a little clearer to a lot of people, even people who see that not everything is rosy and sweetened, realizing that, you know, maybe were going to have to be a little more careful about this. But the truth is, you know, were not sure how Many Americans got infected in the first wave. But the estimates ive seen is between 3 to 10 of the country. In a country of 330 Million People, that means about 300 million of us are still vulnerable to the virus. And theres no scenario in which 300 Million People can come running out onto the streets and beaches and hopping back onto the subways and going back into our offices and piling in for the basketball season or baseball season and not have this start all over again. And last time you saw it from the white house. We were on the trajectory up to somewhere between 1. 6 million and 2. 2 million deaths. And we havent lopped off very much of that whole equation and made those people immune. A tiny proportion of the country is immune now. So well go back on the same track again if we come out, and thats people have to realize this is going to be a slow, careful coming out, and weve got to watch when tony fauci uses the expression the virus will tell us, he means if we have widespread testing all over the country, and those tests have to be rapid, a study came out today saying were talking about 5 million to 10 million tests per day we need in order to really have a good eyeball on the situation in the country. When we get there, we can watch those tests and when the positives begin to go up, we can say, okay, time to socially distance a little more. Lets back off not into a total lockdown but into enough lockdown so that the curves instead of going up begin to go down again. Its you know, what it looks like on the models is were no longer on that giant alpine spike up to 2 million deaths, but instead its going to be sort of like a series of shark teeth, some deaths and then we go back into lockdown and the deaths come down. Then some deaths and we go back into lockdown and it comes down. And this may continue until we have a vaccine or a prophylactic pill, which may take a while, 18 months minimum. Let me ask a cynical question, i guess, a nonrosecolored glasses question of you given that scenario. I do not have faith in our governing capacity as a country, particularly at the federal level but also in a lot of states, to think about us being able to ratchet social distancing measures up and down based on epidemiological imperatives. I just dont think that were nymph nimble enough and science based enough to do that as a country. So i look around and i see the president insisting on opening things up, redstate governors insisting on opening things up, and i cant imagine that they will ever ratchet things down again in the other direction because theyll see it as a political failure. If they do open things up and never ratchet things back down, what happens to that curve . Do we go back to the sort of alpine slope up to potentially millions dead . I dont necessarily agree with you. I mean i think a number of governors are very clued up on this, andrew cuomo being one of them, gavin newsom being another, mike dewine in ohio being another, and theyll recognize it. The other governors are going to see a significant chunk of their voters die, and they will get the lesson. It may take a couple of waves of the pandemic, but theyll figure it out. And, you know, theres an expression in the army. You know, sometimes to get the attention of a mule, you have to take a two by four to it. You know, thats kind of what were looking at here. It may take the deaths of some people for governors to realize that running out into the open is not safe, and i, you know, hope that the populace will be more sensible about that and the governors will realize who theyre putting at risk. Its going to be their own people. But thats learning the hard way, and its i suspect thats whats going to happen in some states. Thats terrible. I mean i believe you, but thats terrible, and i feel like i have already been watching at a micro level. Ive been watching medical associations, nurses associations, hospital associations tell governors, please dont do this. Please give us a stayathome order, or like in the case of nebraska, theyre going to reopen this gigantic mall just outside omaha, and the Nebraska Hospital Association has said to governor ricketts there, please, for the sake of the hospitals in this rural state, do not do this. And hes blown them off, and hes going to open that stuff up anyway. Im really worried that the feedback loop here isnt working in terms of medical expertise. Well, the diamond princess didnt work out as expected either. Sometimes, you know shall the epidemiological models on the diamond princess said even if there was a couple of cases onboard, if you locked it down, you would have they had 712 cases, so something went badly wrong on that ship. We learned that theres a lot of super spreader events. You know, weve learned that pastor in virginia who decided that, you know, god will protect me or ill be washed in the blood of jesus and that willing protective. He died. He infected his wife. People learn lessons the hard way. We saw chris cuomo on cnn quarantining at home and doing it about as perfectly as you could. There he was in the basement, his own bathroom. Wife left the food at the top of the stairs. Kids didnt come down. And yet his wife ended up getting infected. You know, this is how the the virus teaches us lessons and thats a lesson weve known in the 19th century, in the 18th century, in the 17th century. We sort of forgot it in the 20th century in the age of vaccines but were being reminded of it again with this virus because we dont have anything to stop it except basically common sense. One of the things that you wrote about this weekend in the times that ive been really thinking a lot about is the idea of giving people an option to quarantine away from their families. You wrote about some of the controversy and the differences of Expert Opinion as to whether or not america could pull that off. And some people say, you know, americans, you could never separate them from their families for this sort of thing. Theyd never do it. Other people say, you know, given the option to recuperate somewhere safely where they werent risking infecting their parents or kids or relatives, a lot of americans would elect to be in that kind of facility if it was safe and if it was free. Where do you come down on whether or not america should be trying to do that . Epidemiologically, its obviously the wiser way to do it. In the real world, do you think we do have those kind of centers for people to be on their own . Absolutely. I think its a mistake to think the chinese are wildly different from us. The chinese love their families just as much as we do. The chinese originally in wuhan were reluctant to be taken away from their families. In china, children were taken away from their families and taken into Pediatric Centers to recuperate. And no one liked that. And, yes, there were some people who were literally dragged out by the police and flung into ambulances kicking and screaming. But ultimately it became clear if you see the infection rate within families and you see the older members of the family get very sick or die, you begin to realize, you know, this is a good policy to i mean imagine if you had any infectious disease, you wouldnt want to give it to your family. So its actually an act of love to separate from your family rather than act of love to insist that, you know, katie bar the door. Dont let those Health Inspectors in, and im not going to go. So after some resistance, people will go as they did in china, as they have in singapore and as they have in a number of other countries. It just i mean once again, its the two by four to the head of the mule in the beginning to make people realize the wisdom of the thing. Donald mcneil, New York Times science and Health Reporter. Sir, thanks very much for your reporting on this and for coming back to talk to us again. I appreciate it. Thank you for inviting me. All right. Much more ahead here tonight. Stay with us. H us the nerves in your colon. Miralax works with the water in your body to unblock your system naturally. And it doesnt cause bloating, cramping, gas, or sudden urgency. Miralax. Look for the pink cap. You dont just own horses. You own a pasture. A barn. And hay. Lots of hay. You need a tractor built to get every job done right. The kubota l series tractors. Yoat natures way, that startsn with quality ingredients. Like our sambucus made from elderberries grown and picked at their prime. Choose the way to quality immune support, choose natures way sambucus. I want to give you a fuller report on something i just mentioned in that conversation with don mcneil from the New York Times. We reported friday night here on the show about a growing coronavirus hot spot, outbreak, place to worry about in grand island, nebraska. Grand island is the Third Largest city in the great state of nebraska. As of friday, grand islands per capita infection rate was higher than in some areas of the country that have the worst nationally known outbreaks. But in grand island, the icu at the one local hospital that theyve got was almost full last week. Things havent improved. The infection rate is still growing rapidly in hall county. More than 50 new cases being reported each day. The director of the Health Department there said today that grand island, nebraska, is, quote, going into a rather dark couple of weeks. Both she and the mayor of grand island have asked the republican governor of nebraska, pete ricketts, to please issue a stayathome order to try to help slow down the spread of the virus, to reduce the number of deaths. But the governor has said no, not only is he not doing it statewide, but, no, they cant do it locally. Nebraska is one of the only states in the country now without any kind of stayathome order anywhere in the state. And now on top of that, this week the Nebraska Crossing mall in gretna nebraska, just outside omaha, theyre planning to reopen their doors as of this week, as of this friday morning. The owner of the mall says he wants to give the retailers in his mall the opportunity to test out best practices for how theyll ultimately open all their stores nationwide. He wants Nebraska Crossing open first. Its right on the interstate too so people can come from all over. What this means is that in lieu of a statewide stayathome order, this one mall owner in nebraska is setting his own Experimental Health care policy for that whole part of nebraska and honestly anybody who wants to drive there. The employees at that mall are not pleased to be involved in that grand experiment. One store manager at the mall telling the local abc affiliate in omaha, quote, we dont want to go risk our lives and our health so people can come shop. Another saying the mall reopening is, quote, making us look like we signed up to be guinea pigs. And its not only the mall employees who are pulling the alarm here. We talked to the Nebraska Hospital Association asking for their professional opinion about whether or not this mall in their state should be reopened this week. They gave us a stark answer. Quote, this move is in direct contradiction with Public Health guidelines. Quite simply it is irresponsible for a nonessential retailer to open its doors to the public at this time. Quite simply irresponsible. In this these few holdout states, the ones who have refused from the beginning to tell anybody to stay at home, right, refusing to tell businesses to shut down, we are starting to see the effect of that lack of statewide policy. Activities are continuing, are resuming over the objection of local and state officials even as local case numbers and local outbreaks start to spike. One alarmed local official who has been doing his best against very stiff opposition in these circumstances is going to join us next. You will want to meet him. Stay with us. And you can see your transactions and check your balance from here. And pay bills from here. Because your bank isnt just one place. Its virtually any place you are. Just download and use the chase mobile app. Visit chase. Com mobile. Anna could only imagine a comfortable nights sleep without frequent heartburn waking her up. Now, that dream. Is her reality. Nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts, for allday, allnight protection. Can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn . Bshouldnt prevent you from pushing your limits. Because every baby deserves the very best start in life. Because a changing environment should mean caring for the land that takes care of us all. At bayer, everything we do, from advances in health to innovations in agriculture, is to help every life we touch. At bayer, this is why we science. 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Heres sioux falls, south dakota, on the map where that outbreak was. Drive an hour east of there, northeast of there, and you will hit worthington, minnesota, which is basically east of there, right . Home to the jbs pork Processing Plant where more than two dozen employees have also tested positive. Both of those two plants you just saw on the map are now closed for the time being. The one in south dakota and the one in minnesota. It may be no coincidence that the fate of those two plants are sort of twinned. The governor of minnesota has pointed out, quote, there are a lot of family members that work in both those plants. Theyre only about an hour apart. Weve seen outbreaks like this, though, in state after state. Nearly a dozen meatpacking plants in seven different states have closed because their workers have been getting sick and because nobody can quite figure out how Meat Processing workers can safely work alongside one another without running the risk of transmitting the virus among them. One of the states that has had trouble is iowa. Over the weekend, iowa saw its biggest oneday spike in new cases driven largely by new positive tests at meatpacking plants. Just in the past hour, Blackhawk County, iowa, is reporting 42 of its coronavirus cases are coming from the local tyson fresh meats plant, which is in the town of waterloo. 356 cases and 3 deaths county wide in Blackhawk County as of this morning. They believe that 42 of that toll comes from that one plant. That plant in Black Hawk County, iowa, is nevertheless still open, still running. The governor says she has no intention of closing it. So the plant remains open over the vocal objections of local officials, including the Black Hawk County sheriff who has been inside the plant himself, who has been very critical of conditions inside the plant, saying he believes the Company Operating that plant is concerned much more about their production rates than they are about their workers safety. The sheriff of Black Hawk County told reporters last week, quote, my personal opinion is that it should be closed. We need a hard boot reset on that plant. I think we need to be able to sort out and cull the herd between the haves and the havenots there. I think we need to deep clean that facility, and i think we need to restart that plant on a clean slate. That was before the latest numbers rolled in. Joining us now is tony thompson, the sheriff in Black Hawk County, iowa. Thank you for being with us tonight. Its my pleasure. Thanks for having me. So if you could tell us a little bit about the plant in waterloo, in Black Hawk County that has had this outbreak. The governor has talked about her concern that there is a considerable outbreak there. I know its a large facility. It employs a lot of local people. I know youve been inside and youve been critical about whether or not theyve done what needs to be done to keep people who are working there. Sure. Its a plant that employs about 2,700 employees. They process about 20,000 head of hog a day. It is a big part of the agro business, agro economy of the Black Hawk County, waterloo, and the state of iowa. So i dont disparage the governors opinion that certainly with an agriculturalbased economy, that this is important. But having been in that plant and recognizing i dont necessarily blame the local plant management, staff. Theyre probably walking that precarious tightrope between, you know, corporate tyson policy as well as, you know, what they feel in their heart is right. But what we saw a week ago friday with less than maybe a third of the plant wearing proper masks and ppe and knowing at that point that they had positive test cases coming out of that tyson plant, today weve got 356 cases and 3 deaths. You know, that plant is the biggest hole in our county defense right now, and its crea creating risk to the entire 132,000 to 135,000 population of my county. And for me to sit back and idly allow that to go unchecked or at least not mention and fight for it is absolutely wrong. We have seen the company say that their workers safety is their highest priority. We know how important the plant is economically. We know how important plants like this are collectively in terms of the nations food supply. Absolutely nobody is questioning any of those things, but it is disturbing to hear you say that as recently as last week, after they already had a lot of known cases at that plant, only you said less than a third of people inside the plant were wearing masks. Do you feel like its within the countys power or within the state governments power to compel the plant to create safer conditions if they are going to keep this thing going to make sure that everybody has masks, to do other things to keep employees further apart from one another, to do anything else that Public Health officials believe would be necessary to stop the case numbers from going up there . One of the reasons why our county officials all got together and signed this letter to tyson corporate was to encourage them to be good partners, to be good citizens with us, to recognize that every time somebody leaves that plant carrying the virus out of that plant with them, theyre giving it to their families at home. Theyre going to the Shopping Center that all the rest of us that are Grocery Shopping at. Theyre knowingly allowing those folks, their employees, to put all the rest of us at greater risk. And so locally at that city county level, we dont have the ability to compel them to close or to work with us to try and come up with a creative, ingenious way of i think i used that hard boot reset kind of approach. But the state has that authority. The Iowa Department of Public Health and certainly the governor have the ability to do that. She said she wont. But at this point our numbers jumped from 192 to 356 in two days, and we are probably going to continue on this trend if i Pay Attention to the numbers that our disease investigators are paying attention to at the county Department Health level, were on pace to be over 1,000 simply because were Contact Tracing and surveillance monitoring all of these folks and short of testing all these folks, the danger is real right now. And unfortunately the risks are significant for not just people that work in that plant. Until we can get that plant clean, until we can figure out who has it and who doesnt, were putting everybody in my county at risk. Tony thompson, the sheriff in Black Hawk County, iowa. Thank you for speaking out about this publicly the way that you have. Im sure this has been incredibly challenging and scary in Black Hawk County. Thanks also for letting us know at the National Level whats going on. Id ask you to please keep us apprised and please come back to let us know how things are going as you continue to pursue this at the local level. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. All right. Well be right back. Stay with us. L be right back. Stay with us try making it smaller, and youll be surprised at how easily starting small can lead to something big. Start stopping with nicorette. Balanced nutrition for strength and energy. Whoohoo great tasting ensure with 9 grams of protein, 27 vitamins and minerals, and nutrients to support immune health. You ever wish you werent a motaur . Sure. 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For sparklingclean dishes, the first time. Cascade platinum. An employee working at a hospital in las vegas says that she felt pressured to go to work despite feeling sick. She later registered a 102degree fever while she was on the job. She told her supervisor, and the supervisor reportedly said in response, quote, take some tylenol and youll be fine. Quote, v. A. Officials have instituted policies under which employees who work with covid positive patients before their status was known and therefore were not wearing proper equipment should nevertheless continue to work until they themselves develop symptoms. According to employees at multiple v. A. Facilities, those who take time off to selfisolate after potential exposure without experiencing symptoms risk being labeled awol, absent without leave, which is a status that cuts off your paycheck and negatively impacted any future pay. One nurse says that when the virus first started to spread, employees were told to quarantine for 14 days after an exposure. That was reduced to seven days, then three, and now nurses must continue working unless they develop symptoms even when they know theyve been exposed. Long history of happy talking the situation on the ground in terms of whether or not there is adequate protective equipment for staff, what the rate of exposure is for their staff. I mean, were seeing the v. A. Say things that seem not credible when you compare them with a ground truth from their employees at multiple levels through this epidemic. The question is why . Why the v. A. Is trying to keep glaring unmet needs under wraps and secret from the public. Tomorrow night well have a special report on that. Thats it for us tonight. Well see you again tomorrow. Time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Cant wait for tomorrow night