Transcripts For CNNW CNN Tonight With Don Lemon 20200717 : c

Transcripts For CNNW CNN Tonight With Don Lemon 20200717

This is cnn tonight, im don lemon. 11 00 p. M. Here on the east coast, and we have some breaking news for you. A new record for the number of coronavirus cases reported in a single day in this country. More than 71,000. The death toll passing 138,000. At least 39 states seeing a number in the rise. Florida seeing a Record Number of new cases and Record Number of deaths from the virus. Hospitals in florida filling up. In texas, more than 10,000 new cases today that many state also recording its single highest day of covid19 related deaths. Texas and arizona bringing in refrigerated trucks as morgues fill up. Joining me now, cnns correspondent john harwood. John, this virus is spiraling out of control. 71,000 cases reported just today, and thats a new daily record. Hospitalizations are on the rise again. We talked about this remember when we talked about florida opening up and georgia opening up and all the other states that were opening up and maybe they were doing it too soon . And now the prediction and projections have met the reality here. What on earth is going on . When is the president going to listen instead of today talking about dishwashers and showerheads . Its really remarkable, don. Weve gotten used to the last couple of weeks the president in effect deciding that the coronavirus problem is too hard, avoiding it, trying to talk around it. But its also the things that hes talking about are remarkable that he was doing in the rose garden today. He is harking back to the america of the 1960s, when he was coming of aaron when white chris chance were still 80 , 85 of the population and appealing to an elect rat from back then. He talked about rolling back environmental regulations today. You half expected him in all this talk of shower heads and dishwashers to say, we could save a buck if we got rid of air bags and seat belts on automobiles. He also was talking about rolling back Racial Justice fair housing legislation which he said would wreck the suburbs, white suburbs. First off, suburbs are not all white anymore. They once might have been. Second of all, people dont want to roll back those protections. It was the same way he talked the other day about why are black people getting killed by police . And he said, oh, white people are. This is a throwback vision shes stuck on and theres no evidence its working for him economically with Public Healther and poetically. And its a mystery why he sticks with it. Going to find out soon if its working. Trump has no plans to handle this crisis. Hes ignoring the medical experts, pretending everything is fine. Moneys of americans are dying every single day. It is fair to call this a dereliction of duty, john . Certainly sounds reasonable to me that to the Public Health experts that you talk to as well. The president seems to have crossed his fingers and decided that his strategy, his plan at this point, is to hope for therapeutics and vac seecines m sooner than people expect and meantime try to talk up to economy, talk about ways to boost the economy, like talk about deregulation. Obviously the economy is being eld back infinitely more by the coronavirus. Uncertainty among businesses, among regular people, than its a counterproductive strategy, and hes not willing to pay the shortterm costs of an aggressive, effective effort to deal with it. Yeah. And finally just the other day, yesterday or the day before, he wore a mask. He was talking about how big joe bidens mask is. His mask was huge. But i digress. I dont know if you saw mary trump on rachel mad doe. Listen to this. I want people to understand what a failure of leadership this is, and the reason hes failing at it is because hes incapable of succeeding at it. It would have required taking responsibility, which would in his mind, have meant admitting a mistake, which in his mind would be admitting weakness, which in my family was essentially punished with the Death Penalty so symbolically or otherwise. What i think we need to grapple with now is why so many people are continuing to allow this. The fact that he is dividing us at the expense of peoples lives i mean, what, 140,000 americans and counting are dead, and the vast majority of those people did not need to lose their lives if only donald had said, listen to the scientists, wear a mask, stay home. She did not mince words there, saying his arrogance cost lives. Well, right, and the scientists hes not listening to are saying things that are inconvenient to him right now. Hes not absorbing the information. Hes not reacting to changes in the situation. He was very slow, as we know in the beginning, downplays the coronavirus, because he thought it would disturb the economy, and that was his greatest asset. Then he did was forced to deal with it, and we did go into a significant element of shutdown nationally, but as soon as he got some positive news there he raced to reopen the economy again, and hes certainly not veering from that. Thats the inability to adjust, which is crippling him. Nancy pelosi said today, donald trump is like the man who wont stop and ask for directions. Hes not asking for directions from Anthony Fauci and other Public Health experts and as a consequence, were seeing this incredible brush fire across the country. When you dont ask for directions what happens . You usually get lost, you run out of gas. You get lost. You run out of gas and there you are stranded just you and yourself. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. You bet. I want to go to andy slavit, the former acting administrator at the center for andy, good to see you. Wish it was under better circumstances. Tonight only two states are seeing a decrease in cases. Delaware and maine. Weve known about the virus for six months. Whats happening . Sadly, i think the foot that came off the gas in the beginning of may in the white house, within the country, sent a signal to folks that this was over and people were all too eager to get back to their lives. Unlike the rest of their world, we forgot the fact that the virus was still out there and that the virus is still deadly and this is what viruss do. Too many people who were all too happy to go along with it. So i think right now my sense is that its impossible to ignore whats going on any longer, even for the white house. I think thats why youre seeing a lot of finger pointing and blame game. I think well see more of it. Thats not constructive. Theyre doing everything but rolling up their sleeves. Andy, several countries reported zero coronavirus deaths in the last seven days. What are they doing that we arent . Listen, im sure theyre socially distancing, theyre wearing masks, theyre taking it seriously at the very least. Well, you know, its a great question, and its the right question. I think it sends a signal to all americans, its not that this is impossible. We are acting like this is impossible. You can go anywhere from greece to the Czech Republic to vietnam. Were talking about countriesed that that had a strategy and stuck with it. Deborah birx had a strategy. It was the day before trump tweeted liberate minnesota, liberate michigan. States with rapid increases in cases. If we had done some simple things you talked about many times on this show, which is get enough testing for people so we dont have wild spread, do contact tracing, wear masks, all of those things work. None of those things are complicated. We should be at this point in time in july, we should be enjoying essentially not a normal summer, but a much more normal existence than we are now, and i think thats sadly due to the white house. This is very troubling, because the Trump Administration now is rerouting coronavirus Hospital Data to health and Human Services instead of sending it to the cdc. You used to work at hhs. Does that make any sense . It doesnt make any sense. Theres no explanation that were going to get that makes any sense. I read through the explanation theyre giving today. The cdc is charged with essentially monitoring Public Health and Public Health information and sharing it with the public. They werent going a fabulous job before this, but this going on is people acquiescing to politics. What this means now is political leaders, not scientists, are going to be the ones getting the data. Im quite sure theyre going to be forced to share it with us. This isnt quite the ussr and chernobyl. Youre that optimistic about that . Because what other reason would they have to reroute it than they dont want to numbers getting out . John hopkins has this data. This isnt a place where you cant hold this information. We have fabulous reporters at cnn and other outlets. Theyre going to get this data, so i think theyre going to be forced to release it. Theyre going to spin it through their political lens. Because remember, theyre not doing enough testing, so we have no idea whats going on in terms of case count. We have way more cases than are actually out there. The only solid number is hospitalizations because testing numbers no longer mean anything, because theres just too much spread. Then they take Hospital Data and say, wait a minute, thats going to be important. Let us politicians get this information out as opposed to letting the scientists get that information out. So i would bet you there will be something that comes out, but i bet you its paint in the a way that eases the burden on his political story. Andy, thank you. Appreciate it. Have a good evening. Be safe. I want to get to cnns nick watt on with the very latest on surge of cases across the country. Reporter this is texas now, six months into this pandemic. Refrigerated trailers deployed to store the dead. In dallas, san antonio, down near the border, morgues are filling up. Im pleading with everybody. Here in our neck of the woods in our community, i need everybody to help us and do their part. Reporter and in corpus Chris Christi . We were doing fabulous. After memorial day skyrocketed. Reporter yesterday, more than 1,000. Similar situation over in miami, where hospitals are now at 95 capacity. Were at the highest level of ventilators that we have seen throw the pandemic. Reporter 39 states are heading in the wrong direction, with average case counts rising. Today, cvs, target and publix joined the list of retailers requiring masks. Mask mandates now in at least 39 states but not georgia, where the governor banned local municipalities from making them mandatory. Hes suing atlantas mayor whose mandate is in place. I was furious. Lost for words. Made no sense to me that at that time when our Corporate Giants are mandating masks where the state of alabama is mandating masks, where florida, 20 miles south is the hot spot of the nation the fact that were arguing about masking i dont understand that in the middle of a pandemic. Reporter example, this Utah County Commission go into the masks in schools and abruptly ended. We are supposed to be physically distancing, wearing masks, and so reporter the president kind of agrees with those boos. Were going to be putting a lot of pressure on open your schools in the fall. Reporter not one of the 20 largest districts in the country has committed to in person teaching, but the state of florida says its ready, even as miamis mayor pleads for federal guidance. There was guidance in terms of reopening, in terms of the gating criteria, but there wasnt any guidance in terms of if theres a second spike like were seeing right now. How do you go backwards . What are the metrics . So were struggling. Reporter nick watt, cnn, los angeles. Coronavirus cases surging across the country. Well continue our update right after this break. Do i use a toothpaste that whitens my teeth . Or one thats good for my teeth . Now i dont have to choose. Crest 3d white. It removes up to 95 of surface stains. And strengthens enamel. From the number one toothpaste brand in america. Crest. Texas seeing a single day record of coronavirus deaths, reporting 129 deaths today. Two counties in the states starting to run out of room in morgues and bringing in refrigerated trailers to help the capacity. Joining me now, dr. David purse of the houston Public Health authority. Thank you so much for joining us, doctor. Cases in texas still surging. Houston is among the worst hit places. Icu beds hovering at surge capacity. Talk to us about how serious the situation is there right now, please. Well, the situation is serious. We judge it by, you know, our hospital situation. And our Hospital Partners are doing a really great job of coming one extra space for patients but quite honestly, what is forgotten in all of this is that the other illnesses like heart attacks and strokes and tumor receptions and so on and so forth, those things are continuing in at the same time, so its not just all about covid disease. Yeah. So dr. Purse, Texas Governor abbott saying he wont shut down texas. Listen to this. People are panicking thinking im about to shut down texas again. The answer is, no, that is not the goal. What i want to do is make sure that everyone begins to wear a mask so that we will be able to get covid19 under control so we wont have to shut texas back down. Quite honestly we have been covering this, the governor since this all began, he was not on the mask band wagon. He resisted calls for a mask mandate for weeks before finally giving in. Now hes saying everyone wearing a mask is the only way to get this under control. This shows the peril of not listening to the experts, no . I agree. We should have been following this from the science standpoint all along. Instead as a nation we let this become a political issue. Yeah. The army is now in houston to help with hospital capacity. Harris county officials have said that nrg stadium could be used as a last resort medical shelter for coronavirus patients. Do you need that help right now . Not right now. But as you know, we do have a small medical unit in town already that set up a 30bed hospital, but lets face it in a city this size thats a tiny drop in the bucket. The goal should be to get things under control so we dont have to use those assets. Even if the the countys Field Hospital were to be set up, at maximum its another 150 beds. Thats still a tiny number. That is not the answer. The answer is for us to somehow slow down the spread of virus and get control of the situation. I want to put up for our viewers these refrigerated trailers that are helping out with morgue capacity in parts of texas. This was what it was like at the peak of the virus in new york. Could this have been avoided if texas reopened for carefully . Im not saying slower, but just more carefully . I think so. I think two things happened in texas. When the governor opened things up he said he was going wait two weeks and a few more days to see what happened. In Public Health theres a rule that whenever you make an intervention you need to wait two weeks to see what happens. The mistake in retrospect is that people didnt go from 0 to 65 Miles Per Hour on day one. While the governor gave 18 days to phase two, the flawed thinking was we would know at 18 days the impact of phase one. What we now know is we didnt begin seeing that until the 23rd, 25th of may. By that point were in phase two and the populous had the false sense of security that the we thinker is much warmer. Must be why things are still good. We went from 0 to 65 not in phase one, but in phase two. Dr. Purse, thank you so much. Be safe, please. Hopefully next time i talk to you theres better news. Thanks for having me. Arizona also facing a dire situation. Health officials announcing theyre bringing in hundreds of nurses from out of state to help fill the gaps. I want to bring in now an emergency physician at Valley Wise Health Medical Center in phoenix. Good having you. Good to be back. Last week you were telling me how icu capacity in arizona was surging so badly toud send people away to make room for coronavirus patients. Whats it like now . If somebody is extremely sick of course were going to keep them in the energy unit. The problem is theyre backed up that theyre staying in the Emergency Department for a long time. We do our best to treat them, but there are certain things that require inpatient medicine. It has gotten extremely hot in arizona. There are people coming in with heatstrokes, infections like they did always, even before the pandemic and on top of that you have to covid patients. There are people waiting in line to get tested and fainting literally while getting a test and come to the o. R. Because theyre getting a test and fainting. Youre getting the patients coming to the o. R. Were backing them up in the Emergency Department to take care of them, but despite that we have the highest positive rate in the country. Which means its widespread in the community, and i dont know when this is going to level off. Goodness. Are there treatments that youre using that are helping . And if so, what are they . Zblinch so there are some treatments we have. Dexamethasone we know can help. Remdesivir can help a little bit, but there arent clear cut benefits. Aye got a really great drug. Its called masks. They decrease disease transmission more than any other drug we have out there. If people just wore them, it would be amazing. The transmission rate could be so low. I know companies can make a billion dollars off it, but masks work. Everybodys been saying it and its the best drug that we have. I hope people are listening to you and heed your advice. Deaths in arizona, doctor, now quickly, trending upward. In arizona hospitals run out of icu space, what is going to happen to that curve . Well, you have been watching the curves. A lot of people talking about, is there a plateau, is there not . Its like talking about a clogged sink with the fougaucet thats still running. As long as the water is running youre at risk of flooding. Thats the situation were at right now. The sink is back up with water and were hoping, maybe if we turn the faucet down a little bit that would be okay, but we need to unclog it, for people to get healthier, be less sick and come out of the icu safely. There are multiple residents in our hospital that are sick. Which is really upsetting to me. One resident emailed me yesterday to s

© 2025 Vimarsana