outbreak a global pandemic. our senior medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta joins us to explain why. what makes it a pandemic? there are criteria that are somewhat defined to call something a pandemic. let me preface by saying this terminology that we re going to start using now isn t so much to cause panic but rather to really cause a focus on preparedness. sanjay will join us in a moment. more than 525,000 americans have died since sanjay made those remarks. but this morning there are so many positive signs. 2.2 million people a day are getting vaccinated. the cdc has new guidelines for 30 million people who are fully vaccinated. if you are one of them, the cdc says it is safe to gather with other vaccinated people indoors without masks. and vaccinated grandparents can safely visit unvaccinated grandchildren. but the experts say we re not out of the wood yet. coronavirus variants could still trigger another deadly surge, especially as states relax their guidelines.
cotton? brian, what i would say is some of those proposals i could support if joe manchin and i and the rest of my colleagues were state legislatures in arkansas or west virginia. but there is really no basis for washington to be dictating this practice to the states. some states have longer early voting periods. some states have no early voting periods. some states have no excuse absentee, some states have excuse only. i think that s fine. it s actually a resilient part of our democracy that each state, really each county runs its own election systems. brian: right. so although i don t agree with joe manchin on this specific bill, i am pleased of that joe has once again reiterated to his more radical colleagues that he is going to respect the rules and the customs of the senate. if the democrats wanted to enact their agenda, rather than changing the senate rules, maybe they should change their agenda and focus on bills that are a little more popular. brian: so there is this
today, the president heads to missouri for republican senate josh against claire mccaskill. they are neck in neck in the polls. as we see, believe it or not, gang, the first votes of the 2018 midterms in wyoming, vermont, casting ballots. steve kornacki is at the big board for us. what do you have? what are you hearing? the earlest of the voting. new jersey doing no excuse absentee. two states are going to get an early start. we are probably going to be spending a lot of time talking about this. let s start, you mentioned minnesota. these are the congressional districts of minnesota. this is one of the most interesting individual states. why? these two districts here, two and three, this is a story we are familiar with. the twin cities area, each is a