Now demanding people wearing a masks. If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now i really do think the next six, eight weeks we could get this under control. Many still refusing. Doesnt make sense. Why are we Wearing Masks to be outside . The amount of people who think they dont need to do something is enormous. President trump continuing to deny the reality on the ground as states like georgia set new case records. Georgias been a great example of a state thats done it all right. And demanding schools reopen, despite the risk. We have to reopen the schools. Get them open. When he says open, he means open the schools. Science does not stand in the way of it. Why does the u. S. Trail the industrialized world in controlling the virus . Are things about to get worse . And what can we do now to emerge from the crisis . Plus, the passing of an american hero. Got to do something. Remembering john lewis, civil rights leader, congressman and and the conscience of a nation. Welcome to sunday and a special edition of meet the press. Announcer from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is a special edition of meet the press with chuck todd. Good sunday morning. America today is mourning the passing of the civil rights icon, moral leader and congressman John Lewis Lewis died friday night at the age of 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Among the countless tributes for louis came this one from his house colleague James Clyburn. The country lost a hero last night. We literally lost an icon, and i lost a personal friend. We will have much more on the life of john lewis including an interview with congressman clyburn later in the broadcast. We are going to begin with our failure to confront the coronavirus pandemic. It was just a month ago rising case numbers that Vice President mike pence wrote an oped saying, such panic is overblown. We are winning the fight against an invisible enemy. No, were not. We averaged w. H. O. Case number from monday to friday of this past week. France averaged 455 new cases. Germany averaged 408 new cases italy 182. And the United States nbc news recorded an average of 69,60 new cases per day. With the country topping 70,000 new cases two of the past three days now, does that sound as if were winning this fight how did this happen . We are the richest country in Human History with an unmatched medical infrastructure and a literate, educated populace. Yet today we stand uniquely covid19 a world that once looked up to us to do the impossible now averts its eyes over our failure to do the possible. In this special editions meet the press ill talk to the head of the National Institutes of health. Two medical experts, two governors and an educator to trace how we got to where we are and where we go from here. We begin with the alarming reality the United States finds itself on the wrong side of this death struggle. Government is not going t be the answer to all peoples problems Georgia Governor Brian Kemp suing to blom atlantas mask requirement. It is really a distraction from what the real enemy is here and that enemy is this virus thats killing people in our city. Georgia is ju of 18 states in the socalled red zone identified by the white hous Coronavirus Task force in a report sent to the states but not made public. The report recommends georgia mandate statewide wearing of clothfaced covering outside the home. Around the country new cases are surging unto more than 75,000 on friday with 41 states seeing an increase over the last two weeks. Now in some of the worsthit states, death records are also being set daily. When youre on the hamster wheel and a lot of people die, its tiring. 28 states and the district of columbia requires masks outside the home. Folks, the numbers just do not lie. I am announcing a statewide mandatory mask wearing. But some governors ar still resisting, got tested yesterday for covid19 and the and the results came back positive. In light of your diagnoses, are you considering or thinking about a mask mandate now not thinking about it mask mandate at all. The top nine u. S. Brick and mortar retailers now requiring masks in their stores. But on friday, mr. Trump made it clear that he will not call for a National Mask requirement. I want people to have a certain freedom, and i dont believe in that, no, and i dont agree with the statement if everyone wears a mask everything disappears. Voters approve w in an interview wednesday President Trump continued to paint an alternative reality. We want the schools open and georgias been a great example of a state thats done it all right. A special place. Great people and theyve done really well. Really well with the virus. When he says open, he means open school, kids able to attend each and every day at their school the science does not stand in the way of it. Should not stand in the way of it. Reporter it escalated into a character assault on dr. Fauci by two of mr. Trumps closest aides, and Peter Navarro published an oped calling fauci wrong about everything deputy chief of staff shared this cartoon or social media work criticized for antisemitic imagery. What happened with Peter Navarro in the editorial i cant even comment on that thats beyond my comprehension why he did that, but i do not believe that the white house is trying to discredit me. Though mr. Trump insists he has a Good Relationship with fauci, on friday he again singled him out for criticism. Dr. Fauci said dont wear a mask our surgeon general, terrific guy, said, dont wear a mask everybody saying dont wear a mask all of a sudden everybodys got to wear a mask. And joining me now for his first broadcast interview during this pandemic, dr. Francis collins, director of the National Institutes of health and worth noting technically Anthony Faucis boss dr. Collins, welcome to meet the press. Let me just ask the basic first question that ive asked a number of people that are in this Coronavirus Task force over the last couple of weeks. Why are we doing so poorly compared to the rest of the industrialized world in combating this virus well, good morning, chuck, and, yeah. I am wearing a mask and i have worn it since i left my home t come here to our little studio at nih t only other perso ill take it off for this interview. I didnt want anybody to think we take masks as something optional for people who want to premises themselves and people around them. Why are we doing so poorly well, its certainly the case that when you compare our experience with europe, which your numbers just did, we basically did good job in new york and new jersey and connecticut with that terrible crisis that happened and took many lives, which we should never sort of pass by without saying what a terrible tragedy that has been. And basically steps were put in place and if you look to see whats happening now in those areas, they came down very close this was just a new york problem kind of went about their business, didnt really pay that much attention to cdcs recommendations about the phases necessary to open up safely, and jumped over some of those hoops. And people started congregating, not Wearing Masks and feeling like its over and its summer, and maybe it will all go away. Now he we are with almost 70,000 new cases per day, from my perspective, quite concerning the number of hospitalizations, which is very close to being as high in the country as it was back in april. So, yeah weve got to really double down here and i hope today, chuck, we can talk about things that bring us together. Not things that divide us. We americans are pretty good at rising to a crisis we got one now lets see what we can do together. Well, thats the question can this be done without federal leadership i think basically we americans are individuals, and if given the appropriate information, and if its not sort of confused by a lot of other conspiracy theories were capable of figuring out what to do if we want to see this current surge, and its a real surge, to turn around, as you just heard from the head of the cdc, all americans need to recognize its up to us wear a mask when youre out of your house that is protecting other people from you, because you might be that person whos infected and doesnt know it yet and its spreading virus around. Do that social distancing thing. Dont congregate in large groups especially not indoors and do the handwashing we can turn this around, and w dont have to wait for some sort of serious highlevel edict to say so this just makes common sense at this point it ought to be something we all do. All right you just referenced the cdc director. I dont mean to nitpick on this, but the president directly contradicted and even said i dont even think hes right about that that if everybody wore a mask how do you at all get us rowing in the same direction if you have that high level of a contradiction . Well, it is bizarre that we turned maskwearing into something political. Imagine you were an alien coming to this planet earth and looking around, looking at the Scientific Data going from various place to plashce looking to see whos Wearing Masks, you would be totally astounded, puzzled, amazed, wonder what is going on here how could it be something as basic as a Public Health action we have very strong evidence can help seems to attach to peoples Political Parties . For starters, could we just walk away from that and say, this is about all of us. We are americans were pretty good at rising to a challenge, a crisis. Weve done so before in wartime. This is not a war but in a certain way it is against an enemy which is called the virus, and that virus is very sneaky and stelly, and our best chance is for all of us to get together and do the right thing, and stop fighting so much about the divide between different political perspectives which is just getting in the way. Let me ask you this should americans be concerned that the advice that does come out of the task force is somehow getting watered down by political pressure well, im part of the task force. Ive joined those meetings. The Vice President presides over them theres a very thoughtful exchange of information. Dr. Birx presents the latest data in terms of whats happening across the country we debate many things. Theres a lot of work that goes on there about how best we can distribute resources that are needed right now trying t figure out, for instance, how remdesivir, the drug we know that can help people who are really sick in the hospital, get to the people who need it. Thats not getting distorted in any way. That basically is Going Forward and the actions decided during that task force meeting. Its no longer, of course, coming to the press room for a big press briefing, but the work of the task force goes on. Lets talk about the issue of testing. Theres a report this morning the white house is actually pushing back on a congressional proposal that would add more money to your budget, by the way. More money to states and, for testing, and Contact Tracing are you guys on the task force recommending less money to states for testing and Contact Tracing . The task force as far as i know has not been engaged in that particular debate about funding in this next congressional supplement thats under serious consideration in the congress. And theres always a back and forth between white house and congress when it comes to appropriations process and apparently the opening bid from the white house was a bit surprising, certainly for many of us who were certainly hoping to see more in the way of support, but this is one of those things that will play out over the course of the coming days lets see where it ends up. What can the federal government do right now to improve the testing lag issue . Okay were still make an argument we need to do more testing a lot of people make that argument, but the real problem, and i can tell you ive had own family members have to wait five to seven days to get to get the results. That becomes useless at some point if the youre asymptomatic. What do we do to fix that . Good. Getting to the science here. Chuck, i like this part. So the average test delay is too long youre absolutely right. Averages around the country is about three days, but in som places agency long as a week and that undercuts the value of the testing. You do the testing to find out whos carrying the virus and isolate them so they dont spread is around. Its very hard to do that when theres a long delay getting results. Nih is deeply engaged in an effort to develop an additional array of tests that can be done in what we call point of care. Most of the tests done right now you have to have the swab and then you send it off to a central laboratory. Theres a time in order to do the delivery of the sample then they have to do the testing. Theyre kind of backed up. It takes a while to come back. We need to do things more on the spot actually, theres a number of new technologies coming along that look very promising in that space. We need to invest a lot of money and the government is willing to do so scaling those up just this week, you might know, we will be sending to about 700 or 800 Nursing Homes these point of care tests. The ones that have just gotten fda approval in a place very high risk. People who walk in for their shift will find out if they have a virus and find out in less than an hour thats the kind of things we need more of and the kind of thing i personally along with many others in other parts of the government are working on night and day to do a better job of it. Youre right we have to come up with a better turnaround. Let me ask you a couple questions on the back scene. First of all, the hacking issue that apparently russians were behind was nih targeted did you guys lose any Key Information . Its not entirely clear to me what this was all about and how we certainly are deeply engaged in this vaccine effort about to have its phase three trial started in the next day or so, initially designed a few hundred yards from where im sitting right now at nih, and certainl we are always under Cyber Attacks of various sorts i would say most of what we do in science, we publish it. Put it out there people dont have to go hacking to go find it. Were all about transparency so im not exactly sure what serious risk is involved here. Mischief, yes, but serious risk . Im not so sure. Whats your greater concern on vaccine the ability to distribute it or fear from the populace that the rush to a vaccine may make it unsafe i think all of those are significant concerns lets look at the Positive Side here, chuck. This has been an amazing trajectory weve been on only in january was it clear that this was a virus that might spread to the rest of the world. Within a day or two after getting the genome sequence of that virus our colleagues had started to design a vaccine which just 62 days later would be injected into the first phase one trial participants that data, just published three days ago, looks extremely good, that this vaccine was able to generate high levels of neutralizing antibodies in virtually everybody who got it so were on a good path here, and we will, by the way, need, as we go into this phase of recruitering people for clinical trials, need people to sign up. Go for it. If you want to be a part of this next phase of figuring how these vaccines work, all youve got to do is go a website. Its a long url called coronavirus prevention network, all one word, dot org. Coronaviruspreventionetwork. Org. About 100,000 people have already indicated their interest by registering for this, and you might then get called especially if youre in a site where well do recruiting which is in the place where the virus is spreading mostly in the south. So come on, yall. Take part in this. Obviously we need especially people who are at higher risk, africanamericans, latinos, come on, yall. Right. And final question, dr. Collins. Has anybody at the white house asked you to demote or to phi dr. Fauci, and if they did, would you do it . Nobody has asked me to do that and i find that concept unimaginable, and i am amused everybodys calling me dr. Faucis boss, because his real boss is his wife christine who might have something to say about that. Dr. Francis collins, head of the National Institutes of health, appreciate you coming on i know its not an easy stwhags youre in, but its important that the public hear from ou, so thank you for doin this, sir. Thanks a lot, chuck nice to be with you. You got it. When we come back, im going to talk to two governors one democrat, one republican, and how theyre handling the sharp increase of covid cases in their state. Colorado cgrsmonesan and ohios congressman. Theyre next. We could never do what they do. But what we can do it be a partner that never quits. Verizon is the most Reliable Network in america. Built for interoperability and puts First Responders first, giving their calls priority, 24 7. We do what we do best so they can too. Come on in, were open. All we do is hand you the bag. Simple. Done. We adapt and we change. You know, you just figure it out. Weve just been finding a way to keep on pushing. As we mentioned earlier, 41 states have seen an increase in cases in recent weeks. Meaning them is colorado where jared polis issued a statewide mandate and mike dewine put 60 of his States Residents under a mask order. Both jared polis and mike dewine join me now. Governor polis, id like to start with you. Cases have been on the rise in colorado since the middle of june. Why this week . Why not sooner . What took so long . You know, before weigh had the mask requirement we had 60 of our state under municipal or county mask requirements, but what we realized what we needed at this state was clarity of message. Youre in colorado. Youre visiting colora