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Erin Burnett Outfront

New Model: U.S. Death Toll Could Reach 300,000 by December, But 70,000 Lives Could be Saved by Consistent Mask-Wearing; Trump, Without Proof, Says Vaccine Could be Ready by Election; MLB Tightens Rules: On Planes & Buses Personnel Must Wear Surgical or N95 Masks, No Cloth Masks Allowed; CDC: Don't Wear Masks With Valves or Vents; Germany: We Don't Want to Become the U.S. with Coronavirus; New York Attorney General Files Lawsuit to Dissolve NRA. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired August 06, 2020 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[19:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Erin Burnett OUTFRONT starts right now.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next the breaking news, a key model projecting 300,000 American deaths this year, almost double where we are tonight as the President blames the nation's governors. What happened to I alone can fix it?

Plus, the CDC tonight says do not wear masks with valves or events and Major League Baseball today banning cloth masks when traveling. So what masks should we all be using? I'll ask my guest, an engineer who's going to give you a live demonstration.

And the New York Attorney General is going to dissolve the NRA saying the NRA has been used as a personal piggy bank. She's going to lay out exactly why. The Attorney General is OUTFRONT. Let's go OUTFRONT.

And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.

OUTFRONT tonight, a grim new projection, 300,000 American deaths by December. That is according to the influential new model used often by the White House. They do say though that if everyone wore masks, the same model would project 70,000 of those lives could be saved.

It comes as the United States' death toll tonight is just shy of 160,000, so it could double by the end of the year, but masks could save 70,000 of those. It's pretty incredible. The number of cases tonight nearing 5 million.

And yet today, when confronted with the grim situation facing this country with these terrible projections, the President pointed the finger of blame at the nation's governors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERALDO RIVERA, IHEARTRADIO HOST: Looking back on this awful play that's now killed almost 160,000 Americans, there were some missteps. Don't you wish you had done some things differently? DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that first of

all the governors run their states, so you understand that. That's the way it's set up. I mean, that's the way it's supposed to be.

But no, I think we've done an unbelievable job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: No mistakes. Blaming the governors. Is this the same President Trump who said he alone can fix just about everything.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I understand the tax laws better than almost anyone, which is why I am the one who can fix them.

I can fix the trade deals and make them phenomenal.

Our roads and bridges are falling apart. I alone can fix it.

I can only tell you I can fix the inner cities.

When I look at the failing schools, the terrible trade deals, the infrastructure crumbling in our inner cities, I know all of this can be fixed and I can fix it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: All those things fall under the governors too. So he goes from fixing absolutely everything, I alone, to passing the buck. He's never put forward a national strategy to deal with coronavirus. As a matter of fact, it has been 125 days as I speak to you tonight since the CDC urged every American to wear a mask and yet you can count on one hand the number of times the President of the United States has publicly worn a mask.

And tonight, again, the CDC says masks alone could save 70,000 of those deaths over the next few months and Trump still is not modeling that behavior. His lack of leadership on this has left a gaping hole when it comes to America's response. And the people who have had to fill that hole are the very governors Trump blames. Thirty-seven states now have a type of statewide massive mandate, including 13 with Republican governors.

There are eight states, half of them led by Republican governors, now banding together to go it alone and do their own testing. Listen to what the governors of this country of both parties have said on this show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ROY COOPER (D-NC): As governors, we've had to step up and do the job.

GOV. LARRY HOGAN (R-MD): The frustrating thing was that governors were out there scrambling around trying to figure out how to solve this crisis when we did need more leadership and a number of these major issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: This comes as President Trump is tying a vaccine to his reelection.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm rushing it. I am. I'm pushing everybody. If you had another president, other than me, you wouldn't be talking vaccines for two years.

RIVERA: So what's the earliest we could see that, a vaccine?

TRUMP: Sooner than the end of the year. Could be much sooner. These companies are fantastic.

RIVERA: Sooner than November 3rd?

TRUMP: I think I think in some cases, yes, it's possible before, but right around that time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will that help you in the election?

TRUMP: It wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't hurt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: It wouldn't hurt to get that vaccine. I mean, let's just be - go to the first things first in that conversation he had with Geraldo. It is insulting to every scientist and doctor and expert who are working night and day to get a vaccine to suggest that they would not be working as hard to suggest that it would take them two additional years if Hillary Clinton just happen to be president. That's just that's just awful. It's not true.

And second, a vaccine should have nothing to do with politics. Yes, vaccine by November ready for mass use would be great. That would though exceed all of the experts optimistic expectations, so to push or rush a vaccine out before the election, acknowledging that that would help your campaign is concerning and it is raising alarm bells.

[19:05:05]

A letter signed by nearly 400 health experts is pleading with the FDA for more transparency. They write, "We can only perform as advocates if we ourselves are persuaded that the vaccine truly is safe and effective."

Jeremy Diamond begins our coverage OUTFRONT near the White House tonight. Jeremy, the President certainly is pushing a vaccine, right? In his own words, he's rushing it.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And every day, Erin, seems to bring more wishful thinking from the President, more misinformation as it relates to Coronavirus. And today it was indeed on that issue of the vaccine with the President making this evidence free claim that a vaccine could be ready by the November 3 election. It was strange, of course, from political perspective, as to the President claiming that a vaccine will be delivered by then when there is no evidence from the scientists that that is actually going to happen.

In fact, every medical expert, including Dr. Anthony Fauci who commented on this just yesterday has said that a vaccine likely the earliest timeline would be the end of this year or the beginning of next year. So the November 3rd timeline doesn't bear any scientific veracity to it, but it's just the latest example, Erin, because just yesterday it was the President making this comment about children being immune from the virus, of course, they are not. And the President also claiming yesterday that this virus would somehow simply disappear.

Now, today, the President was traveling out into the country. He was in Ohio where he visited a manufacturing plant, but the President wasn't very focused on coronavirus. Instead, he seems more focused on this 2020 re-election with the President turning a taxpayer funded events into really what we saw was a campaign rally speech with the President going off on various tangents, including going directly after the former Vice President Joe Biden and once again raising questions about his mental fitness, Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Jeremy, thank you very much.

And I want to go now to Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Professor William Haseltine, best known for his groundbreaking work on HIV/AIDS. Also, the author of a COVID back to school guide. Thank you both.

So Sanjay, the President said he wants to rush. He's rushing a vaccine. He says hopefully by election day won't hurt him at reelection. Look, that would be a record accomplishment. I just want to remind everybody, when this conversation first started about a vaccine, we would have been lucky to have one that we knew was safe and effective a year from now and maybe even later.

Now, we're talking about optimistic projections by the end of the year and he's now saying ready to go fully safe, effective by the end of October. Does that concern you in terms of a rush?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is very fast. There's no question about this. It's unprecedented in terms of its pace and, Erin, it's impossible, I've covered the story for six months to truly disentangle anything completely from politics. I mean, that's the nature of what things are right now.

Having said that in your opening comments, you're saying, look, we got to trust the scientists who are working on this. They would have been working just as hard. I think also the people who are going to evaluate this as well, I've talked a lot of sources within the FDA, there's many layers, ultimately, and people are looking at this data and then reporting up to other people.

So also you got to have some trust in that review process, in that regulation process. We as journalists are going to have to really meet demand full transparency of the data and be able to independently evaluate this. So, ultimately, I think I'm not worried that a unsafe product would come out, but the process that - it's tough to disentangle things from politics.

BURNETT: Well, it certainly is. And Professor Haseltine, I want to play a little bit more about what the President said about potential vaccines. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said that a vaccine could be ready around November 3rd. Are you optimistic that that will happen, and will that give you a boost in the election?

TRUMP: On the vaccine?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: I am. I'm optimistic that it'll be probably around that date. I believe we'll have the vaccine before the end of the year, certainly, but around that date. Yes, I think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Professor, obviously, it usually takes years to develop a vaccine, not months, by any standard, you've got everyone in the world working on this. It has moved incredibly quickly. What are the risks of rushing anything at this point?

WILLIAM HASELTINE, CHAIR AND PRESIDENT, ACCESS HEALTH INTERNATIONAL: Well, I can tell you one thing for sure is that by October, November or December, we're not going to know it's safe. You can't know that. It's going to take at least a year follow up to know a vaccine is safe.

So we're not going to know the most important thing for our children and our older people who are going to be sensitive taking this whether it's safe or not, you just aren't going to know. You may have some safety data that's far different from saying you're going to give it to 300 million people and not expect some lethal and other very serious side effects, you just don't know.

Secondly, we're not going to know if it's really effective. You do not have time to know how long it's going to protect you.

[19:10:00]

How well it's going to protect you between now and the end of the year is less than six months. You just don't have time to know what it's going to do.

That's why the companies that are most responsible are saying it's going to take a longer period of time. That doesn't mean that you can't twist, distort, let's even call it warp the process. So you get something that looks like it's approved. Remember, hydroxychloroquine was emergency use authorization approved

before it was yanked and people were horrified that that happened but it did. And I'm afraid it may happen again under this enormous political pressure. Look, what's happened to the CDC recommendations against opening and for school reopening. They've been distorted. They've been warped and it could happen again.

BURNETT: Well, it's a pretty interesting point you raised about hydroxychloroquine. Because you're right, it did get that approval. They then had to rescind it.

Sanjay, this comes as Ohio's Governor Mike DeWine tested positive and he tested positive right before he was set to meet with President Trump. The only reason we understand that he got tested is because he was going to meet with President Trump, right? So they don't want to let - President Trump who by the way says you test too much, we test too much, but the governor of a state only was able to get tested because he was meeting with the President, right?

So the President was protected but plenty of other people weren't and this is a governor who wasn't even able to get tested. It's pretty incredible, isn't it?

GUPTA: It really is. I mean, there'll be a great retrospective on this at some point to say, hey, what exactly happened with testing here. Because this was a failure really all around. I interviewed Dr. Fauci yesterday, he said unacceptable period. That was his quote when it comes to testing.

Two things struck me about what happened with Gov. DeWine who we hope does OK. It sounds like he's feeling well.

BURNETT: Yes.

GUPTA: Or not having symptoms. But one thing is that the idea that there's this testing that is considered assurance testing, right, to give you assurance that, in fact, you are not carrying the virus. We're nowhere close to that in this country. We're mainly testing people in hotspots that have symptoms. We're not really doing surveillance testing to get an idea of what's actually out there.

Then, this idea of assurance testing, which, Erin, my kids are - I think about going to school like how do I know that they're not going to unintentionally infect somebody or they're going to become infected by somebody who didn't know they had it. We're nowhere close to that assurance testing, unless you're going to visit the President that should be available much more widely.

And second of all, these tests aren't perfect. There is a false negative rate. So you still need to wear masks, because if the goal is to not spread this, you have to do both.

BURNETT: All right. And, of course, the great irony of the president saying people - there's just too much testing. He says there's people in manuals that say that which there aren't. When he is the one who benefits from the fact that there is any testing at all, right, we already know we can - Gohmert and the congressional the candidate in Texas, and now DeWine, all of these people were going to be around the President. They all had coronavirus. He would have coronavirus at some point.

Professor, DeWine was working though, the Governor, till he tested positive two days ago holding a briefing on his state's response to the pandemic. Obviously, he, as of now, does not seem to be symptomatic. But this seems to be part of the problem, he would never maybe have known he had it and, obviously, could have totally unintentionally been infecting other people.

HASELTINE: That's very true and, in fact, it's one of the insidious parts of this virus, the great majority of people don't even know they've had it. The way we should think of testing is retest the worried. We don't test everybody.

Now, project that on the schools. Are we all going to be testing the worried and not everybody who might be infected? The best data we have now suggests that we miss nine out of 10 actual infections. How do we know that? We test for people who have had the virus by looking for antibodies in their blood? It's 10 times higher than the number you get for those who have actually tested positive and that's not just in this country, it's in Spain and many countries.

We're testing worried, not the people who might actually be spreading the virus.

BURNETT: And Sanjay, just a quick follow here. DeWine spoke this afternoon. I just want to quickly play what he said about the response, he's getting from some people to his diagnosis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): Well, I've already got a few checks. Not so nice text from people about that and sort of - we told you this was all fake and we told you that wearing mask didn't matter. But look, we know it does.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: And Sanjay, here we are, 70,000 deaths the CDC says could be prevented. About 140,000 additional they're projecting by the end of the year if people wear masks and you have people who still believe that wearing masks doesn't matter and that it's a hoax. It is unbelievable and the President could do a lot overtime change that, couldn't he?

[19:15:02]

GUPTA: Oh, yes, absolutely. I mean, there needs to be a national mandate on masks. I think, we could make so much progress in this country if we did that. But you're seeing the kind of thinking that's getting in the way and some of that, unfortunately, is enabled by the President, by other people who are saying it's not that important or not demonstrating it themselves. This is the worst public health crisis in our lifetime and the fact

that we could make significant progress, the mask, why don't we do that?

BURNETT: All right. Thank you both very much. Sanjay will be back at the top of the hour for our global coronavirus town hall. It begins at eight.

And next, all masks are not created equal when it comes to aerosols, which are those microscopic particles that linger in the air for long periods of time and could be inhaled even with a protective barrier. So masks work, but which ones. I'm going to speak to an expert who will give us a live demonstration.

Plus, Germany taking extreme measures to prevent the spread of the virus. Their mantra, don't be like the United States and they are doing something, frankly, jaw dropping.

And details of the lawsuit alleging self-dealing and corruption in the NRA. What do you hear what they're claiming, thinks millions spends on lavish personal vacations, private planes and personal use. I'll talk to the New York Attorney General suing to dissolve the NRA.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:19:49]

BURNETT: Two states setting records today; Tennessee reporting its highest number of Coronavirus deaths in a single day and Indiana with the most number of cases. This as there are more troubling signs across the country. Martin Savidge is OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: This is a predictor of trouble ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Experts worry about the percentage of positive test results in the country on the rise in 33 states. In a private call with state and local officials, White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx outlining areas in danger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: We are concerned that both Baltimore and Atlanta remain at a very high level. Kansas City, Portland, Omaha, and of course what we talked in the Central Valley.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SAVIDGE (voice-over): The nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr.

Anthony Fauci, warning even a small uptick, a fraction of a percent is a problem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: It's a clear indication that you are getting an uptick in cases which inevitably, as we've seen in the southern states leads to surges and then you get hospitalizations and then you get deaths.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): Louisiana and Mississippi topped the list of states with the highest per capita rate. Dr. Fauci says it's still possible to get coronavirus down to manageable levels by the November election if people do the right things like wear masks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... wearing mask at all times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): Across the country, states, cities even sports are cracking down on people doing the wrong things. The Governor of Rhode Island is asking residents to report people gathering in large numbers not wearing masks.

And in Los Angeles County where infections among young people 18 to 29 have nearly quadrupled since June. The Mayor of Los Angeles is authorizing the city to shut up water and power to properties where big parties are held. Health officials are appealing to young people to be the solution, not the problem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: Don't be the weak link in the chain, be a very strong part of the chain of ultimately getting us down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE (voice-over): Major League Baseball also cracking down after COVID operates on two teams. New Rules threaten players with suspension for failing to wear a mask at all times when not on the field and requires that surgical or N95 masks be worn while players are on buses and airplanes, cloth masks are not allowed.

When on the road, players and coaches also have to get permission before leaving the hotel. And college football could face its own challenges.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK EMMERT, NCAA PRESIDENT: I think it's going to be very dependent upon what we do as Americans. The trend lines right now, of course, are very challenging in some parts of the country. They're awful. (END VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Getting back to the subject of masks, the CDC is not recommending that people wear masks that have these things, kind of like valves or vents on them. Some people like them because they say they can breathe easier. The problem is they may help protect you from coronavirus, but they don't prevent you from spreading it, if you have it. Your breath goes out through the valves.

A mask is supposed to be to twofold protection and prevention. Delta says, by the way, they wouldn't count this as a legitimate mask on any of their flights, Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Martin, thank you very much. And important for people to realize that a lot of people wear those vents. They don't realize that it's pointless in terms of spreading it.

Joining me now is Linsey Marr. She's a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech and one of the few academics in the field of aerosol science who's also an expert on viral transmission. So, Professor Marr, this is what you know and you know it better than anyone. You have been saying for some time that airborne transmission is a way this virus can spread. The WHO only recently revising its position to concede that this can happen, that the virus can linger in the air indoors, it can hang out there and spread.

And I'm going to show a simulation from Florida Atlantic University, which shows how droplets from coughs travel and remain in the air. You say the spread could very likely be through aerosols that are even smaller than those droplets. So tell me what they are, how long they stay in the air, if I walk in a room and someone walks out, am I just walking through a cloud of virus if it's there?

LINSEY MARR, PROFESSOR OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AT VIRGINIA TECH: Droplets are coming out when we cough, but also when we talk and this simulation shows someone, a mannequin coughing, it's a simulated cough and these droplets are actually on the larger side compared to what comes out when we're talking and coughing. There's a lot more that we can't see that are too small.

These, what we call aerosols, are really just microscopic droplets, so kind of like what you can see there, but just smaller and too small to see. And those can stay floating in the air for hours at a time and the good way to think about how they behave is to think about a cigarette smoker if you're close to that person and you walk through that plume, you're going to breathe a lot of smoke. But if you're farther away or if the person has been gone for a long time, there will be a lot less virus in the air.

BURNETT: Right. It's still there, you can still smell it. It's an interesting analogy. So I know you've been testing the effectiveness of all these masks, right? People are trying all sorts of masks and you've been doing it on mannequins. [19:25:01]

So you found that all of these cloth masks people are wearing are not created equal and I want to give you a chance to show so people understand. So show us what you found with these cloth masks.

MARR: Well, what we've been doing is testing in the laboratory using a mannequin. I brought an example here. We put a hole in the mouth in the front and it goes through the back. There's some black tape around there to keep the foam from falling apart.

And if we want to test how well the mask protects others, we put the mask on the mannequin and then we use a nebulizer, kind of like what people with asthma might use to administer medication. And it generates droplets that are similar in size to what we call for what comes out when we talk or breathe. And we run that through the back of the mannequin and so the mask is blocking some of that.

We put this into a chamber like a big box and we have an instrument in that chamber that also measures the droplets that are in the chamber. So we can turn this on and then we measure our droplets. Hopefully there's not much, meaning that the mask is blocking a lot and then we can also pull the mask down and in that case we'll see a lot more droplets in the air.

Now, if we want to see how well the mask protects others, we instead take our nebulizer and fill up the chamber with droplets and we then measure what comes through the mannequin's mouth through the back and we can do that again with and without the mask on to see how well the mask works.

BURNETT: OK. So when you tested, you've tested, it looks like you kind of have the ones we all have from Amazon, right? I've got mine here somewhere. Everyone has those and a cloth ones, right, ones with vents, you've tested them all which ones work the best?

MARR: We found that fabrics that are heavier and with a denser weave work better. Microfiber cloth works really well for smaller particles, smaller droplets. Whereas a cotton T-shirt isn't so good for those smaller ones. But for the larger ones that are still too small to see, but the larger ones where we think most of the transmission occurs, almost all masks are good at blocking at least half of those.

But if we go back to the smaller ones, then that's where the fit of the mask is really important and even if a fabric is really good at blocking those smaller ones, if it's stiff and it creates gaps around your face when you're wearing it, then you lose that efficacy.

BURNETT: All right. Well, thank you very much. I think that's really helpful for people to understand, especially in the fit, I think we've all experienced those gaps on the sides so that's really important. All right. Thank you so much, Professor. I appreciate your time.

MARR: Thank you for having me.

BURNETT: And next, as we hear daily calls for more testing in this country, would you believe me if I told you testing actually dropped over the past week, because it did.

And the powerful NRA feeling heat tonight from the New York Attorney General who is suing alleging corruption, personal massive corruption at the highest level, saying millions of dollars were filched to finance lavish lifestyles and paying people for silence. She wants the NRA gone and she'll be OUTFRONT to tell you why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:32:03]

BURNETT: New tonight, President Trump claiming that other countries are now doing worse than the United States in fighting coronavirus and saying that other countries are putting out false numbers.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

TRUMP: You know, they don't talk about other countries. And a lot of these countries that were doing so well, a lot of these countries, now they have big flare ups, big flare ups in Italy and Spain right now and France. And you look at our statistics, you know, we're a bigger country and you have to look other countries don't report real numbers.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BURNETT: But as our Fred Pleitgen reports from Germany, the mantra in that country is, don't become the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): It's the new normal for anyone arriving at German airports, get your suitcase and then get a coronavirus test.

Toby Rosen (ph) just got back home to Berlin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The line's been pretty short. It's only, like, 30 minutes. I think I get results in the next 24 hours.

PLEITGEN: Germany is offering all travelers arriving here free coronavirus tests. And starting Saturday, people coming from high-risk areas will be required to get tested on arrival.

(on camera): The German government says it doesn't want the situation here to deteriorate, for instance, the way it has in the United States with tens of thousands of new cases every day. That's why they're taking the drastic step of offering everyone who enters the country a coronavirus test.

(voice-over): Germany has the capacity for about 1.2 million tests per week, official data shows, and Berlin says the pandemic remains under control here. There's only been one day with more than 1,000 new infections in the past three months.

Even as President Trump continues to falsely claim the U.S. is doing better than countries like Germany.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you look at death --

REPORTER: Start to go up again.

TRUMP: Well, right here, United States is lowest in numerous categories. We're lower than the world.

REPORTER: Lower than the world?

TRUMP: We're lower than Europe.

REPORTER: In what? In what?

TRUMP: Take a look. Right here. Here's case deaths.

REPORTER: Oh, you're doing death as a proportion of cases. I'm talking about death as a proportion of population. That's where the U.S. is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, et cetera.

PLEITGEN: Johns Hopkins data shows that both South Korea and Germany indeed have a much lower number of coronavirus deaths per 100,000 residents. Today, Germany's health minister says the drastic increase in testing is part of a broad strategy to prevent new lockdowns and to save lives. In my view, it arises from an obligation for us as a society to look after and protect each other, he says.

And there are other strict measures in place. Travelers from high-risk countries who are not residents of Europe are banned from coming here altogether.

[19:35:02]

The U.S. is considered a high-risk country with the Trump administration still failing to contain the outbreak.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: And, Erin, it's still not clear when Americans will be able to enter Europe. The E.U. so far is saying that the numbers simply have to go down in the U.S.

Meanwhile, the Germans are saying they believe that, of course, what they're doing right now at the border with testing everyone is very expensive, takes a lot of effort. But they also think it is already paying off. They say about 2 percent of the people tested at the border tested positive for COVID-19.

And, of course, they say everyone they can filter out and isolate is someone who's not going to be affecting other people as Europe is, indeed, trying to stop the pandemic in its tracks before it returns in full force -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Fred.

Now, I want to go now to Dr. Jonathan Reiner, medical adviser to the George W. Bush for eight years and now at cardiac cath lab at G.W.

So, you heard Fred, Germany, you know, going to now, if you come from high risk countries, starting Saturday, you required to be tested. The United States is high risk but technically Americans are banned unless you have residency status now. We're not even like high risk, we're so high risk we don't even get to the border for Germany.

They're doing this though so they don't become the United States. What does that say to you?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, that's not the kind of American exceptionalism that we've been proud of, you know, for the last century.

Look, Germany has really flattened the curve in their country. Although cases have spiked in Germany, they had about a thousand cases today, they had 7 deaths. The U.S. had 1,200 deaths today.

Germany has excess testing capacity. Germany can scale up their testing. They're doing that now. They have pop up testing stations in airports. There's no charge for testing for anyone in Germany. And they have the ability to expand.

Our testing is sort of maxed out right now at about 4 million to 5 million tests per week. We need to rapidly expand that but we've really been stuck here. In fact, for the last several days, our testing has dropped a bit.

BURNETT: Let me ask you about that because it has. We were at 800,000 tests a day, 900,000 tests at one point, which is nowhere near where we need to be. We're now at 682,000. Ashish Jha, right, the testing expert, he says we need to be at 4 million tests a day, a day, to reach suppression levels. And we're clearly not going there.

REINER: Right. We need to be at 30 million tests per week and we're doing 5 to 6 million tests per week. One way to look at whether we're doing enough tests again is to look at the positivity rates. So, if you look at our numbers of tests in the United States, it's dropped in some of the southern states and southwest states where the virus is really very active.

So, although the number of tests or positives in places like Mississippi has gone down, the positivity rate remains about 22 percent. Same thing for Florida. The number of positive cases in Florida has dropped, but that's really a function of less testing. Positivity rate in Florida remains about 17.5 percent.

The U.S. as a whole, our positivity rate is about 7.6 percent. It's plateaued there. It had been as low as 4.5 percent in June. And we're stuck about 7.6 percent.

Our best states are doing really well. New York has a positivity rate of about 1 percent.

BURNETT: Right.

REINER: It's just a little bit higher than that in D.C. But it's really patchy around the country.

BURNETT: Right. You've got Connecticut at 0.2. Just to make the point where it's bad it's really bad and it's going to ricochet.

You have things in South Korea, you know, your cell phone number is taken if you're positive, your credit card number, your GPS coordinates put in a system so people can look at where you were, not where you say you were, where you were and trace it down.

Now, what will never happen here, but some of that could happen, right? Now we're not contact tracing nothing. You have a party in Greenwich and parents don't want people to know so they don't tell the truth about where their kids were.

REINER: Yeah. So, you know, Google and Android have a technological solution for this. We have to be willing to accept it. That is everyone walks around with a contact tracer in their pocket. Everyone has a cell phone.

And the technology to identify who you're close to during the day exists. It would be a change in what we consider our, quote, privacy in this country, but we have the ability to know where we've been and who's been with us and then contact trace from there. And we may get to the point where we really need to do that.

BURNETT: All right. Dr. Reiner, thank you.

And next, taking on the NRA, a lawsuit just filed alleging jaw dropping corruption. I mean, this is awful what they're alleging. The attorney general wants the powerful group dissolved and she's OUTFRONT to tell you what she found.

And memory loss, double vision, trouble comprehending a simple text message. I'm going to speak tie woman who survived coronavirus months ago and still all those things happening to her now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:43:58]

BURNETT: Tonight, the NRA countersuing New York state's attorney general after she sued the NRA and said she wants to dissolve it. Letitia James claims the group lost more than $63 million over three years because of widespread pattern of corruption and self-dealing by its leaders, including CEO and executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, the name we all see with the NRA.

The suit claims he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on private plane trips for himself and his family, including times he wasn't even on the plane, including at least eight private plane trips to the Bahamas, trips to Africa with his wife for all-expense safaris gifted by a vendor, and spending $3.6 million in two years on travel consultants, and the list goes on.

OUTFRONT now, the Democratic attorney general of New York, Letitia James. Attorney General, I appreciate your time.

I mean, these examples do sound awful. You say you found example after example of wrongdoing, financial mismanagement, total corruption -- like Mr. LaPierre getting a $17 million contract with the NRA without board approval that paid him even after he lost -- even after he would lose election as executive vice president.

[19:45:01]

What else did you find out?

LETITIA JAMES (D), NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL: So, what we found out is that the NRA diverted millions upon millions of dollars from its charitable mission. And it's unfortunate that Mr. Wayne LaPierre and three of the members of leadership who include Woody Phillips who was the treasurer, the chief of staff Joshua Powell, as well as the counsel John Frazier, all of them engaged in basically the looting of the charitable assets of this organization.

And it's unfortunate that they failed to assure -- to subscribe to standard fiscal controls. They failed to respond adequately to whistleblowers. They failed to look at related party transactions. They concealed and nature and scope of whistleblower concerns, and they failed to review potential conflicts of law. And, obviously, they failed to follow the law as well as possibly the Internal Revenue Code.

As a result of that, our complaint lays out all of the facts that these four individuals engaged in, as well as the NRA, and what we are seeking is that this corporation, which was formed under the not-for- profit law in the state of New York, that it be dissolved. We are also seeking that these four individuals no longer serve in leadership position at the NRA and that they not serve on any other board in the state of New York.

And last but not least, that they account for the amount of money that they looted including but not limited to their exaggerated compensation.

BURNETT: So, look, what you allege happened here is awful. You use the word "looting". It would seem a fair description for some of this that you allege in the suit.

But let me ask you this. You know, you say dissolving the group. Why -- why not just remove these guys and have them pay whatever legal price they should pay for what they did if you can prove they did it? Why do you need to dissolve the NRA?

JAMES: Because it was more than just these four individual defendants. It was the NRA as a corporate structure. It was the 76 members of the exec committee who basically turned a blind eye. It was those individuals who were on the auditing committee who turned a blind eye. There were those individuals who were on the compensation committee who turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to all the whistleblower concerns and all of the allegations with regards to financial impropriety.

And that is why the NRA to this date is operating in a deficit. And it's unfortunate that they violated their fiduciary duty and that they engaged in this type of activity which inure to the benefit of themselves as well as their family and close friends.

BURNETT: So, they're now countersuing you, right, for defamation. They say violating their rights. They say your suit is baseless, I'm sorry, Attorney General.

And then they continue and I quote them. You could have set your watch by it: the investigation was going to reach its crescendo as we move into the 2020 election cycle. It's a transparent attempt to score politics and attack the leading voice and the opposition of the leftist agenda. This has been a power grab by a political opportunist -- a desperate move that is part of a rank political vendetta.

JAMES: I think --

BURNETT: They were referring to you as a political opportunist, the desperate.

You know, it is less than three months before the election. Do they have a point that this is political?

JAMES: No, it's not politics at all. This investigation began in 2019, and the complaint lays out all of the allegations and the facts, and again, the conclusions of law.

So, it's unfortunate that they would engage in name-calling. It's unfortunate that they would ignore the facts that lay bare in the complaint.

But the bottom line is this: no one is above the law. And no matter how powerful you are including the NRA. And it's unfortunately flouted the law. They evaded the law. They did not have financial controls in place.

And what they did is they rewarded their friends and they paid them with consulting contracts for their loyalty. And anyone who complained who stepped out of line unfortunately was dismissed.

And that, again, is in violation of the laws of the state of New York. And as a result of that, I have a duty and an obligation and a responsibility to follow the law and to ensure that mission of all not-for-profits, including the NRA are protected. In this particular case, they were not protected. They benefitted Wayne LaPierre and his leadership team. And for that, it should be dissolved in its entirety.

BURNETT: All right. Attorney General James, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

JAMES: Thank you, Erin.

BURNETT: And next, brain fog, double vision, other problems that won't go away. I'll speak to a coronavirus patient who has recovered from the illness but not -- not from all of these very troubling issues it has caused for her.

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[19:54:07]

BURNETT: Tonight, tremors, memory loss, double vision. Just some of the symptoms coronavirus survivors are experiencing, months after they were diagnosed.

OUTFRONT now, Hannah Davis. She had coronavirus back in March, 134 days later, still experiencing debilitating effects. I know many of them neurological.

And, Hannah, look, I really appreciate you taking the time to be with us and share this with the people because those symptoms I just described are yours. And I know you've been saying sometimes you can't even comprehend a text message.

I mean, tell me more. Tell me about what you're still dealing with.

HANNAH DAVIS, HAS LONG TERM EFFECTS OF COVID-19: Yeah, my first (AUDIO GAP) text message, it's been for me I've had, you know, the CDC listed symptoms like cough and fever, as well as kind of endless neurological issues like difficulty reading texts, difficulty following conversation.

[19:55:06]

For a while, I was unable to kind of follow the plot of a movie. I was kind of just watching kid's cartoons for a while to pass the time. And before COVID, I worked in machine learning and artificial intelligence. All of this has been very new to me.

BURNETT: So I know it's been -- this is all encompassing. It's all parts of your life, even simple tasks like packing. You know, tell me about that, even something like packing, how is that now just so much more difficult?

DAVIS: Yes, I went through a move halfway through this. My lease was up and I haven't been able to work. I just wanted to be a little closer to family. I had this whole experience where I kind of just wasn't able to like make a list and follow the list and, you know, put things in boxes.

It's a very hard feeling to kind of describe, but it is just a very, very extreme brain fog, just issues of concentration and executive functioning that's made it difficult to kind of participate in world fully.

BURNETT: So, Hannah, you're saying it's hard to participate in the world fully. And just to be clear, you worked in artificial intelligence. I mean, you're not able to go back to work obviously, right, because of this? I mean --

DAVIS: For now, absolutely. You know, my neurologist believes that people with COVID and people with long COVID are experiencing something along the lines of a traumatic brain injury, and the recovery time is going to be similar to something like a concussion where you're looking at -- I mean, I'm looking at six months to a year probably for the neurological issues alone.

BURNETT: I mean, look, that's terrifying, and I'm really sorry, because I just -- it's your whole life and that uncertainty now that you're facing. I'm sure it's terrifying. You're young. You're only 32 years old. You were very healthy.

So when you see people out there, all these new infections being driven by younger people who think that, you know, it's only serious if you're old, you know, what is your message to people like that right now?

DAVIS: I absolutely have to tell them that this is very serious. You know, we were told for a very long time there were two presentations to COVID. Either you were severe and probably were going to die or you were asymptomatic. It turns out this third very common presentation, we're getting initial numbers that, you know, look like 35 percent of the population is not recovered by the two to three-week recovery period.

We ourselves found that if you're not recovered by day 27, the chance of being recovered by day 50 is only 20 percent. So these are very, very extreme, very long recoveries, very painful. They completely change your sense of self, they change your relationship to other people. They change what you're able to do in the world.

You know, we have a lot of people in our support group and that we studied were athletes before hand that are just not able to go back to that. So this can happen to you.

BURNETT: Hannah, I appreciate you taking the time and sharing it. I hope that it is a full, full recovery and that you can go back to all that fulfilling work you were doing. Thank you very much for sharing this with us.

DAVIS: Thank you so much.

BURNETT: And also tonight, it is now less than three months until Election Day, CNN Films and HBO Max taking you behind the scenes of what it's like to cover the campaigns nonstop, following the women who brought you many of these stories every day.

Here's a look at our new documentary "On The Trail" streaming tonight on HBO Max.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is nothing like the rush of covering a presidential campaign.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are CNN's eyes and ears on the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need to stand by and be ready to go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The imbeds, you're on a campaign bus, you're at a rally. Your life is not your own.

We are in the thick of it right now. We get a front row seat to history.

TRUMP: I am your president of law and order.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We thought 2016 was crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don't really breathe until the day is over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You feel like you have to say something. Because if you're not going to say it, who is?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What we have is an economic crisis. A health crisis. Social crisis.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This moment is unlike any other.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The question of what kind of leader, do I want has never been more real than right now.

ANNOUNCER: "On the Trail: Inside the 2020 Primaries" only on HBO Max.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Don't miss it. And thanks for joining us.

CNN's global town hall "CORONAVIRUS: FACTS AND FEARS" starts now.