safe. i won t allow the teachers union to politicize the surge or pandemic in general. people are nervous, they re scared, i get that. the thing to do is to lean into the facts and the science and not abandon them in a panic. joining me now is nbc news correspondent meghan fitzgerald in chicago, nbc news senior business correspondent stephanie ruhle, and dr. natalie azar from the nyu langone school. we ve seen restaurants, stores, manufacturing companies that are dealing with massive amounts of cases, reinstating mask policies at some of these places to tamp down on it. then there s the police shortages, the fire shortages, the hospital shortages. this is a i don t want to even say involuntary shutdown for a lot of the industry in this country but that s