JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: in the wrong direction.

Authorities attempt a course correction in their pandemic response, as COVID-19's daily death toll tops 1,000 in the U.S. for the first time since May.

Then: rising tensions.

The U.S. orders a Chinese consulate in Houston closed, alleging theft of data and intellectual property.

Plus: the hunt for a vaccine.

As medical developers race against the clock, questions remain about the cost and delivery of an eventual prevention.

And America addicted.

The pandemic causes a dramatic rise in overdoses, as people struggling with addiction lose access to treatment.

DR. CALEB ALEXANDER, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Addiction is a disease of isolation, and no one chooses to have addiction any more so than someone chooses to have diabetes or multiple sclerosis.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."

(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: More deaths, more infections, and more restrictions.

The spread of the coronavirus pandemic shows no sign of easing, and officials are scrambling to respond.

Stephanie Sy begins our coverage.

STEPHANIE SY: This summer surge of infections is now fueling a surge in deaths, more than 1,000 over 24 hours for the first time in weeks.

As of today, California leads the nation and confirmed infections, with state officials hoping they can cope.

DR. MARK GHALY, California Secretary of Health and Human Services: I think we all looked at our initial strategy of trying to be prepared for a number of days with a high number of cases and ensuring that we have the surge capacity in our hospital system.

STEPHANIE SY: In Texas, more than 500 women at a federal medical prison in Fort Worth have tested positive, one of the largest prison outbreaks to date.

Elsewhere, Washington, D.C., Ohio, and Minnesota joined the growing list of governments issuing mandatory mask orders.

And the surge has forced more schools that planned to reopen in the fall to opt for remote instruction instead.

All of this is testing delays, and shortages in personal protective equipment are again growing acute.

At a House hearing in Washington today, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Pete Gaynor, acknowledged shortcomings.

PETER GAYNOR, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency: The majority of PPE is made offshore, China, Malaysia, Vietnam.

This is a national security issue, PPE, and we have seen how critical that is to protecting lives and minimizing suffering.

So, I -- we are on a path to increase U.S. -- production in the U.S. STEPHANIE SY: And the Department of Health and Human Services signed a nearly $2 billion contract today with Pfizer and a German-led biotech firm for the first 100 million doses of a potential virus vaccine by December.

But the vaccine has not completed clinical trials, much less been FDA-approved.

Meanwhile, in The New York Times, Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned of critical data gaps in an opinion piece.

And he said the government's lack of coordination is hampering efforts to stop COVID-19's spread.

On the economic front, efforts continue at the Capitol to craft a new relief package.

Senate Republicans remain divided on how much to spend and on what.

But there is talk of a short-term extension of unemployment benefits.

They're due to expire on July 31.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Stephanie Sy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: With more than 1,000 deaths reported yesterday, many states are struggling to contain COVID outbreaks.

As we just heard in Stephanie's report, former CDC head Dr. Tom Frieden says, to do that, the country urgently needs much better collection of data.

Dr. Frieden joins me now.

He ran the CDC from 2009 to 2017.

He's now president of Resolve to Save Lives.

It's a global health initiative.

Dr. Frieden, thank you so much for talking with us.

And before we talk about your plan, let me quickly ask you about the testing delays, which we are learning are an even bigger problem than we had realized a few months ago.

What can be done about this?

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, Former Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: It's really important to focus on what matters.

There's been too much focus on the number of tests, and not enough focus on whether they're being done in the right way, on the right people, with the right actions taken when they come back.

There are different types of tests out there.

The biggest problem are in the large commercial labs.

Tests that come back five, six, seven days, let alone 10 or 14 days, are of very little use.

So, if we hear there are 500,000 or 700,000 tests done, that's much less relevant than knowing what proportion of tests come back within 24 to 48 hours.

We need to focus on what's important, so we can improve our response.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Dr. Frieden, you are calling in your proposal for the states to do a much better job of reporting data, essential data, on this coronavirus outbreak.

What is it that is not available now that is needed that we need to know?

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN: Judy, what was really surprising in this analysis is that it's not the states' fault.

There isn't a national standard.

And the two crucial things that we don't have access to are, what is our personal risk of getting infected with COVID if we go out, and how well is our government and society doing in our community to reduce that risk?

If we know those two things, we can focus and improve and get back or get to the new normal.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what's it going to take to get that information?

Is this easily gettable, or not?

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN: Some of it is.

We identified 15 essential indicators.

Of those 15, nine are pretty easily achievable, not very easily, but most places can get that, at least most of that, in some way.

Some of it needs to be done much better in terms of race, ethnicity, age, other information on cases, hospitalizations, cases and deaths over time.

So I think we can get some of that information fairly soon, but, really, the more important information is about how well our response is going, whether tests are quick, whether patients are getting isolated promptly, whether contacts are being identified and quarantined before they develop the disease.

These are the essential measures that we need to track and improve to be able to get our society and economy back.

If we get this right, our kids will be able to go to school in the fall, we will be able to go back to work, our economy will recover, and we will save tens of thousands of lives.

But if we're flying blind, and we don't know how badly we're doing, we're not going to improve it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I want to quote a doctor at Vanderbilt University who was quoted in a New York Times story today about your proposal.

William Schaffner said he welcomes your proposal, but he says few states have the expertise and money that is needed to generate this data, to analyze this data.

He says it's a great ideal, but it's not something that many states can realistically or realistically afford to do.

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN: Well, Bill Schaffner is one of my favorite infectious disease experts.

And he just about always gets it right.

I think he's correct that states are looking at an enormous challenge.

The data feeds coming in are complex.

They're not necessarily accurate.

There's a problem with duplicating patients.

But the CDC has sent out more than $10 billion to state and local health departments.

And Congress this week is debating the next supplemental appropriation.

There's definitely a need for improved data systems all over, county, state and federal.

If we don't have those, it will be hard to get this information.

But many states have some of this information, and most states can get most of it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I think some people may be listening to this, Dr. Frieden, and saying, wait a minute, if it's just a matter of asking questions, putting some information into a computer, it doesn't sound like it's that difficult.

What do you say to that?

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN: Well, one of the challenges is how heterogeneous our health care and laboratory system is in this country.

So, one health department might be getting data in from hundreds or thousands of different providers, in dozens or hundreds of different formats, at different time frames.

We and my organization Resolve to Save Lives have worked with one state to streamline that information, de-duplicate it.

It's a big job.

It's hard.

It doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done.

The other big part of this information is program information.

And, there, it's not just about information.

It's about the job we're doing, contact tracing, reaching patients, telling them they're infected, offering them services, getting them isolated.

That requires a large number of highly trained people, disease investigators, interviewers, who have a combination of social work skills, medical knowledge, detective skills to find people, and counseling skills to support people with COVID and their contacts.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A spokesperson for the CDC is saying that: We're already doing this.

We are already in touch with the states to do, what, 14 of the 15 measurements that you're calling for.

So they're saying they're almost there.

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN: Well, what we see in the data from publicly available Web sites is that not a single state in the country had most of these indicators up.

And most states in the country only had about a fifth of them available on their Web site.

So, we're a long way from where we need to go.

But I do think that, with pressure on states to put this information up and support to states from the federal government, from health care providers, from the community, and demands that we should know what's our risk and what's our response, we can see a lot of progress.

And that can get us all on the same page.

If we're on all the same -- if we're all on the same page, we can improve our performance and begin to get the upper hand against COVID.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC, now with Resolve to Save Lives, thank you so much.

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN: Thank you, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: The U.S. ordered China to close its consulate in Houston by Friday, the latest move in an escalating campaign of pressure.

The State Department cited concerns about espionage and intellectual property theft.

We will look further into this story after the news summary.

President Trump announced today that he is sending hundreds more federal agents to Chicago, Kansas City and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to fight violent crime.

They will be drawn from the FBI, the U.S.

Marshals, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and from the Department of Homeland Security.

Local police will also receive millions of dollars in federal aid to hire more officers.

In Chicago, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot angrily dismissed the president's announcement as a political stunt.

She also appealed for public help, after 15 people were shot outside a funeral home on Tuesday.

Officials say the shooter fired from a moving vehicle in a gang-related attack.

The mayor called for an end to the bloodshed.

LORI LIGHTFOOT, Mayor of Chicago, Illinois: This senseless violence, this cycle of retaliation, picking up a gun, many times in petty grievances, picking up a gun, that solves nothing, but causes so much lifelong pain.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Separately, a federal judge today heard arguments over federal agents sent to Portland, Oregon.

The state alleges that they have made illegal arrests and want an injunction.

The Trump administration says their mission is defending federal property amid ongoing anti-racism protests.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted today to remove a bust of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, who authored the infamous Dred Scott decision.

In that 1857 case, Taney of Maryland upheld slavery and said blacks had no rights that whites had to respect.

Today, his bust sits outside a room in the Capitol where the court met for decades.

But Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer, also of Maryland, said it's time to promote the nation's true ideals.

REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD): What Dred Scott said was, black lives did not matter.

So, when we assert that, yes, they do matter, it is out of conviction and conscience and appropriateness that, in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, that the land of the free include all of us.

JUDY WOODRUFF: A bust of Thurgood Marshall, the -- a Maryland native and the first black Supreme Court justice, would replace the Taney image.

The bill also calls for removing statues of pro-slavery or Confederate leaders.

But it is not clear if the Senate will agree or if President Trump will sign it.

The House also approved the Great American Outdoors Act today.

The landmark legislation would pump nearly $2 billion a year into improving national parks, fighting climate change, and locating parks in inner cities.

The bill already passed the Senate.

It now goes to the president.

In Israel there were fresh protests overnight aimed at ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Clusters of demonstrators clashed with police outside Netanyahu's official residence.

Officers said they arrested 34 people and broke up the gathering.

Netanyahu is under fire for his response to COVID-19 and his trial on corruption charges.

Twitter says that it is banning accounts and content linked to a far-right conspiracy theory.

QAnon alleges that President Trump faces enemies in the so-called deep state.

He, in turn, has promoted various QAnon posts.

Twitter says that it is acting to bar any posts that could cause harm to others.

And on Wall Street today, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 165 points to close at 27005.

The Nasdaq rose 25 points, and the S&P 500 added 18.

Still to come on the "NewsHour": the U.S. orders a Chinese consulate closed, alleging theft of data and intellectual property; medical developers race against the clock, as questions remain about delivery of an eventual vaccine; drug overdoses increase dramatically, as people struggling with addiction lose access to treatment; and much more.

A global fight escalates again.

Today's move to close the Chinese Consulate in Houston is the latest action by the Trump administration against Beijing.

Nick Schifrin reports on what is at stake.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In the courtyard of China's Houston consulate, Chinese staff in a hurry.

They burned documents in drums last night, after the administration ordered the consulate closed, citing a pattern of Chinese theft and espionage.

MIKE POMPEO, U.S. Secretary of State: We are setting out clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave.

And when they don't, we're going to take actions that protect the American people.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Administration and intelligence officials tell "PBS NewsHour," the Chinese have used the Houston consulate as a hub for espionage.

Just yesterday, the Department of Justice for the first time accused Chinese hackers of working for both personal gain and the Communist Party.

JOHN DEMERS, U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security: China has now taken its place, alongside Russia, Iran and North Korea in that shameful club of nations that provide a safe haven for cyber-criminals, in exchange for those criminals being on call for the benefit of the state.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But senior officials tell "PBS NewsHour," today was also about diplomatic reciprocity.

In January, out of fears of COVID, the U.S. evacuated its Wuhan consulate.

It has not reopened, because of a dispute over whether U.S. employees have to quarantine and take COVID-19 tests upon arrival at Chinese airports.

Longer term, U.S. officials say they want to reduce their footprint in China.

In addition to the Beijing embassy, the U.S. has five consulates on the Chinese mainland and the Hong Kong consulate.

Senior officials say they have accepted the likely permanent closure of one consulate, and intend to move it elsewhere in Asia.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin warned of that likely closure today.

WANG WENBIN, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman (through translator): China strongly condemns the decision and urges the U.S. side to immediately recall the wrong decision.

Otherwise, China will take legitimate and necessary countermeasures.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Publicly, Chinese diplomats emphasize mutual respect and criticize U.S. policy as self-defeating.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave a major speech on July the 9th.

WANG YI, Chinese Foreign Minister (through translator): The current China policy of the U.S. is based on ill-informed strategic miscalculation, and is fraught with emotions and whims and McCarthyist bigotry.

Its suspicion about China, which is totally uncalled for, has reached a point of paranoia.

NICK SCHIFRIN: But the administration is clear it will continue to target and penalize China until its behavior changes.

After Beijing passed legislation that restricted Hong Kong's freedoms, President Trump signed a bill that allowed new sanctions.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Thank you very much, everybody.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And then a series of speeches, National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien on the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP.

ROBERT O'BRIEN, U.S. National Security Adviser: The CCP's stated goal is to create a community of common destiny for mankind and to remake the entire world, according to the CCP.

NICK SCHIFRIN: FBI Director Christopher Wray: CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI Director: If you are an American adult, it is more likely than not that China has stolen your personal data.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And Attorney General William Barr: WILLIAM BARR, U.S. Attorney General: The ultimate ambition of China's rulers isn't to trade with the United States.

It is to raid the United States.

NICK SCHIFRIN: U.S.-China relations are at their lowest point since relations began in 1979.

Take the case of Houston.

MAN: The eyes of Texas were on Deng Xiaoping today.

NICK SCHIFRIN: In 1979, then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited the city and the Johnson Space Center.

Houston was the first Chinese consulate in the U.S.

But while some China-watchers worry about the confrontation, the Trump administration says it's overdue.

MIKE POMPEO: For an awful long time, our policies simply reflected allowing China to engage in behavior that was radically unreciprocal, enormously unfair to the American people, and, frankly, put America's national security at risk.

And so we have begun to turn that around.

NICK SCHIFRIN: And we explore today's decision and overall U.S.-China policy with Susan Thornton.

She had a 28-year career as an American diplomat focusing on Asia.

She's now a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School.

And Gordon Chang lived and worked in mainland China and Hong Kong for nearly two decades, where he practiced law.

His latest book is "The Great U.S.-China Tech War."

Welcome, both of you, to the "NewsHour."

Susan Thornton, let me begin with you.

Do you believe the closure of the Chinese Consulate in Houston is in U.S. interests?

SUSAN THORNTON, Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State: I would just put this in context, to begin with, and note that, you know, closure of a consulate outside of wartime is an exceedingly rare move in diplomacy.

So, I guess, this is the only unilateral closure of a U.S. consulate that I'm aware of, other than the Russian San Francisco consulate in 2017, which was a very different circumstance and involved a lot of discussions with the Russians ahead of time.

I think many other countries share our concerns about China, the challenges that it poses to international law and order and to our economic competitiveness, but this kind of action gives the impression of recklessness.

And it's not really clear to me what it accomplishes.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Gordon Chang, recklessness and not clear what it accomplishes.

Do you believe the closure was in U.S. interests?

GORDON CHANG, Author, "The Great U.S.-China Tech War": Yes, I certainly believe that this was the right thing to do.

The State Department talked about protecting U.S. intellectual property.

And the Houston consulate is known as a hub for espionage.

We have been talking to China about hacking and all the rest of these things for about three decades, and yet we haven't gotten anywhere.

We had the agreement with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in September 2015 for countries not to hack each other for commercial purposes.

We had the Section 301 tariffs that were supposed to be a remedy for the theft of U.S. intellectual property, but China has continued to steal U.S. I.P.

in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Yes, you could say this is unfortunate, closing the consulate, but we had to do something to try to get China to stop this dangerous activity.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Susan Thornton, as we just laid out in the piece that aired right before we started, there have been a series of speeches by U.S. administration officials laying out some of the concerns, including the ones that Gordon just mentioned.

Do you believe that kind of rhetoric is helpful toward achieving what the U.S. is trying to do with China?

SUSAN THORNTON: Well, I think, from where I sit, the real problem is that we need a very nuanced and thoughtful strategy to take on the very complicated challenge that China presents.

And, right now, it seems like we have a tough attitude and a lot of provocative measures that don't account for a strategy and don't have any clear accomplishments.

I mean, our trade balance is worse than it was when we started this so-called China strategy.

Our position in the Asia-Pacific has deteriorated.

And I think a lot of countries are looking at what we're doing and not sure that we have that kind of clear strategy thought through.

And I think I will just associate myself with the words of a pretty wise elder statesman I heard yesterday, who said that, in this competition, if China comes out on top, it will be because things happened in the U.S., not because of things that happened in China.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Gordon Chang, respond to those arguments that Susan Thornton sees a tough attitude, but no strategy, and actually negative consequences to U.S. decisions.

GORDON CHANG: Well, I know Susan talked about a thoughtful and nuanced strategy, and that certainly sounds good to the ear.

The problem is, we have had thoughtful and nuanced strategies for decades.

And while we have done this, China has not moved in the right directions.

You know, we had hoped to integrate China into the international system, that it would enmesh itself and become benign.

But, unfortunately, China has moved in very belligerent and provocative directions.

And so we need to change strategy.

Now, this strategy is pretty young.

And I can understand her comments that it doesn't seem like it's working.

But I actually do believe that it is.

But, in any event, I don't think we had any choice but to try something different, because what we had been doing for decades just wasn't working.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Susan Thornton, if I could ask specifically about what the Trump administration has done and has done something different, as Gordon Chang just put it, new visa requirements on state-sponsored reporters, sanctioning individuals deemed responsible for the crackdown in Xinjiang, extended bans on the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, stated China's South China Sea claims are without merit, began to punish China over Hong Kong, et cetera.

There's actually a longer list.

Do you believe that those decisions, some of these decisions, have been the right ones?

SUSAN THORNTON: Look, Nick, I don't want to get into every single decision and the merits and demerits of it.

And we don't have time.

But what I would say is that the U.S. serves a special role in the world because of our values and our example.

And in many of these measures, what we are doing, in pursuing reciprocity with China, is that we're going down into the ditch with China, and we're trying to see who can go lower.

And I think, at the end of the day, the Chinese are going to win that fight, and I don't think it's a fight worthy of the United States.

We have always maintained the openness of our society as a positive attribute.

We have been confident in our foreign policy and in our economic competitiveness.

And I think we should remain so, and I think we can beat China on that kind of a strategy, and not this kind of provocation after provocation, and going into the ditch with them.

That's my view.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Gordon Chang, when I ask senior U.S. administration officials what their goal is, it is to, as you know, change Chinese behavior, both short term and long term.

Do you think that's possible?

GORDON CHANG: It may be very difficult, because China's brand of communism, I think, is not capable of reform.

You know, we have tried to do that for five decades, and we have not achieved the results everybody was hoping for.

And we may very well have to decide with regard to China the same decisions that were made in the 1940s and 1950s with regard to the Soviet Union, that this was a competition which, unfortunately, was a zero-sum game.

It was China's existential challenge to the United States.

And if we're going to defend ourselves, it's not going into the ditch with China.

It's actually trying to preserve our way of life, our freedom, our economy, and we are going to have to take measures that will cost us.

We cannot think we will engage in five decades of misguided policy and not end up costing ourselves as we try to extricate the United States and the international system.

NICK SCHIFRIN: Gordon Chang, Susan Thornton, two sides of this debate.

Thank you very much to you both.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It might be the most pressing question in the world: When will we have a COVID vaccine?

This week has seen a number of headlines on this front.

And, today, the Trump administration awarded a nearly $2 billion contract to Pfizer and a German biotech firm to potentially deliver 100 million doses by the end of the year.

There have also been early, but encouraging results from other trials.

Miles O'Brien is here to help sort through it all for our reporting on the Leading Edge of science.

So, Miles, hello to you.

You have been spending a lot of time on this.

Tell us, how soon is it thought that we might have a vaccine, and how much vaccine are these companies that are developing them promising?

MILES O'BRIEN: Judy, it's just unprecedented, when you think about it.

Here we are, about six months since the Chinese published the genetic code of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the novel coronavirus, and, currently, there are about 140 vaccine ideas, not in human trials, and about two dozen in the midst of human trials.

Now, yesterday on Capitol Hill, representatives of three of the big pharma companies testified before Congress and indicated they are prepared to begin mass testing on humans to see if these vaccines are effective by the end of the year.

And I can tell you, no one would have predicted this six months ago.

JUDY WOODRUFF: If they're moving this quickly, though, Miles, how do we know that they're not cutting corners?

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, they are cutting corners, but they say not on safety.

What they're doing, Judy, which is kind of clever and risky, is, they're manufacturing vaccines that they are currently testing.

The idea is, if they go through the trials and they're effective and they're protective and they get the green light, the pump will be primed.

And if not, if they don't work, they will just have to incinerate and just take that risk.

Now, members of the Congress on that committee are concerned that there might be pressure on the FDA, political pressure, to green-light a vaccine that may not be protective enough sometime this fall, perhaps even before the election.

The bar set by the FDA is 50 percent.

That means at least 50 percent of the people who are inoculated would have some defenses against this novel coronavirus.

Now, here's a short excerpt from the committee chairman, Frank Pallone, Democrat of New Jersey - - he's chairman of the House Committee Energy and Commerce -- along with Macaya Douoguih, who is with Johnson & Johnson.

REP. FRANK PALLONE (D-NJ): I want you to kind of assume what, unfortunately, shouldn't happen, which is, you know that the FDA is approving the drug, even though it's only 10 percent or 20 percent effective.

Will you tell us that?

Do you feel an obligation to tell us that and give us that information?

DR. MACAYA DOUOGUIH, Johnson & Johnson: We would design our trial actually to target the efficacy that's outlined in our target product profile.

The study would fail if it hit 10 percent.

We would make those results available, but we would not feel comfortable bringing forward a product that did not -- that was not found to be efficacious according to what we put forth in our protocol.

MILES O'BRIEN: The one advantage in all of this, Judy, is the nature of science.

It is the open enterprise, and transparency is what it's all about.

And if there was an attempt to make any of this secret, it's hard to overstate the hue and cry from researchers.

And the other thing is, too, if people are going to confidently take these vaccines, you need transparency, so they understand what's in them, and what the side effects might be.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Miles, what is the latest information in these peer-reviewed journals?

And is there reason for optimism?

MILES O'BRIEN: In a word, yes.

There were three papers that dropped early this week, two of them peer-reviewed in the British journal The Lancet from the Oxford-AstraZeneca team, CanSino team, and then some preliminary results from the Pfizer-BioNTech team.

And, in all cases, no serious side effects, aches and fever, that sort of thing that you might get after a vaccine, but nothing serious, nothing adverse.

And here's the key thing.

They have all generated what appears to be a pretty solid immune response, with antibodies, which in -- they go after the virus itself, and T-cells, which are in our blood system, and they are designed to go after the cells that have been infected with the virus and kill them.

So, all these vaccines are in a position to go to what they call phase three trials, meaning large numbers of people, to see if they're protective enough.

We're talking about studies of 30,000 people or so.

And that will determine if the vaccine is good enough to be released to the public.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Miles, when we talk about dosages that people would receive, we're talking about two doses of a vaccine per person.

Is that right?

MILES O'BRIEN: Yes.

So far, those three contenders we're talking about and the ones that are at the later stages all, it appears, would require two doses, which, of course, complicates things.

We are talking about, after all, potentially the entire planet needing it, seven billion people times two.

That's a huge supply chain issue, to say the least.

This brings us to an important point.

We don't know how long the antibodies effect, the T-cells effect, the immune response will last.

There's no shortcut on the long-term efficacy of these vaccines.

Chemist Derek Lowe is a veteran new drug investigator, and he is the editor of a very influential blog called In the Pipeline.

DEREK LOWE, In the Pipeline: There is nothing in those papers, and there is no way there could be anything, because that is one of the major unsolved questions in vaccine work and in immunology in general, is, how long immune memory lasts and why it lasts longer in some cases.

We are just going to have to wait it out and keep an eye on it and say, OK, we are now recommending our booster at the two-year level, or whatever, or we may have another vaccine by then we like better.

But there is no other way now than to just wait and see.

It's frustrating, but that's the state of the art.

MILES O'BRIEN: And the same goes for safety, too, Judy.

There's no way to do a shortcut on that.

There could be some long-term effects of these vaccines.

It's highly unlikely, but researchers say, given the global pandemic and the emergency surrounding it, this is probably worth the risk.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, it does sound promising.

But, Miles, what is known about how much this is going to cost and who's going to pay for it all?

MILES O'BRIEN: Well, the taxpayers are funneling a lot of money right now.

All of us are funneling into this Warp Speed program to fund some of this.

But the question is, how will the dosages be paid for at the other end?

At the congressional hearing yesterday, executives from Pfizer, Moderna and Merck said they would, in fact, be seeking a profit on these vaccines.

But AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson said they would deliver the vaccines, if they were successful, to the government at cost.

Presumably, they would distributed for free.

But, of course, the key thing is, how do you determine -- how do you determine what cost is, Judy?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Wow.

Something that everybody is interested in.

Miles O'Brien following the vaccine story.

Miles, thank you.

MILES O'BRIEN: You're welcome, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Drug overdoses killed nearly 72,000 Americans last year, a record high, according to preliminary data released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It now appears that 2020 is on track to be even worse, as the nation has seen a startling rise in overdoses just in the last few months.

William Brangham examines what could be behind these disturbing numbers.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In early April, like so many Americans, 31-year-old Sara Wittner was struggling with the new realities of life during the pandemic.

So, she called up her dad, Leon.

LEON WITTNER, Father of Sara Wittner: When the pandemic started, she asked if she could come live with us, because she wanted that family support.

She knew that the worst thing for her to do during this pandemic was to sit at home alone.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I spoke with Leon, and Sara's sister, Grace, via Skype near their home in Broomfield, Colorado.

They told me that Sara had struggled with addiction for eight years.

It started when she was prescribed opioids after she had surgery on her ear in 2012.

But prior to the pandemic, she'd seemingly turned a corner.

She was working at a local health association, and was planning her wedding in the fall.

GRACE SEKERA, Sister of Sara Wittner: I wasn't as worried about Sara now than I was about her in the past.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The family says, Sara completed multiple treatment programs in recent years, including 30 days of in-patient treatment in January.

She was also regularly attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

GRACE SEKERA: In addition, she would just be able to call a friend and go get coffee and have that one-on-one connection.

And that was extremely helpful to her.

So, all of those things combined, I think, really helped her sobriety.

And then that was completely gone when the pandemic hit.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Sara was also told there would be a delay in her medically assisted treatment.

She was taking monthly shots of Vivitrol, which is a drug that helps block people's cravings for opioids.

LEON WITTNER: She normally had a 30-day appointment to have the Vivitrol shot, which is what the time that it really is effective for.

And, because of the pandemic, they pushed all the appointments out, and her appointment ended up being at 45 days, instead of 30.

And that... WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, normally, she would get a shot every month, pretty regularly, every 30-day window.

LEON WITTNER: Yes.

Yes.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But then the pandemic stops that normal process?

LEON WITTNER: Yes.

It added 15 days onto that process, and that 15 days were a tough 15 days for her.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That delay, her dad says, led to Sara relapsing.

On April 16, one day before her next Vivitrol shot Sara was found by her sister Grace unresponsive in her bedroom, a syringe in her hand.

Sara died.

Her dad believes it was an overdose of fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid.

LEON WITTNER: She passed away on Thursday morning.

And the real unfortunate piece for us is, her doctor's appointment for the shot was Friday.

So, it was like she was going to make it to that last -- that one last time, I will be fine, and then I will get to the doctor, and I will be OK. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Tragically, Sara Wittner's story is becoming more common across the U.S.

While overdoses were already on the rise before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the public health crisis is only making matters worse.

Drug-related deaths have risen, on average, by 13 percent so far this year, according to data collected from both local and state governments.

And the American Medical Association recently reported that 39 states have seen a spike in opioid-related overdoses.

In some places, like Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, opioid overdose deaths have doubled since last year.

In nearby DuPage County, they are up by about a third, according to coroner Richard Jorgensen.

RICHARD JORGENSEN, DuPage County, Illinois, Coroner: When I looked through these deaths, overwhelmingly, these were people that lived alone.

They were having financial difficulties, marital difficulties, previous problems with addiction, or mental health problems.

So, these are the very needy of our society.

And what do they need?

They need community.

DR. CALEB ALEXANDER, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Addiction is a disease of isolation, and no one chooses to have addiction any more so than someone chooses to have diabetes or multiple sclerosis.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Dr. Caleb Alexander is a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

He says another effect of the pandemic has been a massive disruption to the illegal drug market.

DR. CALEB ALEXANDER: If you think about the ways that the pandemic has ground the economy to a halt, that's occurred in the illicit drug markets as well.

So, for example, it's decreased the transport of drugs across borders, but it's also disrupted local drug markets and introduced much greater uncertainty regarding what substances are what, and how individuals that do have opioid addiction can find those.

And this is one of the reasons that the increased mortality rates that many states have reported due to fentanyl are so concerning.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Alexander says, in normal times, a disruption in the illegal drug market would likely help funnel more people into treatment.

But for many facing substance abuse disorders, access to treatment has also been disrupted by the pandemic.

CHUCK INGOGLIA, President, National Council for Behavioral Health: Because of social distancing, you can't have as many people.

In an inpatient facility where you may have had two or three people to a room, now you only have one, or in some of the group situations, you're also having much smaller groups.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Chuck Ingoglia is the president of the National Council for Behavioral Health, which represents more than 3,000 treatment organizations around the country.

Ingoglia says fewer patients has meant less revenue this year, and more than 40 percent of the organizations he represents could be out of money in six months.

CHUCK INGOGLIA: And at a time when more people will be experiencing depression, anxiety and/or substance use disorders, it's the last thing we need to do, is to lose facilities.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: President Trump has often cited both the rise in suicides and drug use as a reason to open up the economy quickly.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: We have to get our country back.

People are dying the other way, too.

When you look at what happens with drugs, it goes up.

When you look at suicides.

I mean, take a look at what's going on.

People are losing their jobs.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But of the roughly $3 trillion in relief funds that Congress has given out since the beginning of the pandemic, only a fraction of 1 percent has been designated for mental health and substance abuse treatment.

Back in March, the federal government relaxed some of the barriers around the prescription and dispensing of the most commonly used medications to treat opioid addiction.

For example, methadone clinics can now prescribe up to four weeks of the medication at a time, rather than requiring daily visits.

JEN CUTTING, Recovery Coach: I can get you that information, so that maybe can make things a little bit easier for you.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But for those on the front lines of the addiction crisis, the toll gets worse every day.

JEN CUTTING: I probably personally know of 11 people who overdosed in the last three months.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Jen Cutting is in recovery from heroin and methamphetamines, and now works as a certified peer recovery coach in Upstate New York.

She says, both the pandemic and the government's response to it has upended life for many of the people she cares for.

JEN CUTTING: It's a cluster, to be quite frank.

And you go, and you take people who are already closed off and operate in a very, very small circle, and then tell them they can't even have that circle.

And they're like, and on top of it, here's $1,200 bucks, and see you later.

Bye.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This is the unemployment or the government's -- the check people are getting.

JEN CUTTING: The stimulus.

The unemployment and the stimulus all came at one time.

You have people who are struggling with their sobriety.

You gave them a boatload of cash and told them to stay in their home and don't do anything.

So, imagine if the entire country was on a diet that couldn't eat chocolate and then, all of a sudden, they were putting chocolate out on the street.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Back in Colorado, Leon and Grace Wittner say they have been shocked at how many people have reached out to them with similar tragic stories.

LEON WITTNER: The numbers of people that I have come in contact with that have lost a loved one to either overdose or suicide during this pandemic is staggering.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Are you convinced that, if it were not for this pandemic, that Sara would still be alive today?

LEON WITTNER: Had she of just gotten her shot at 30 days, she would still be planning her wedding with Grace right now.

She'd be at her job working.

It's no one's fault, but we have to find a way to fix that, because it's a terrible loss of an amazing person.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The Wittners say they plan to hold a funeral for Sara this Saturday in Broomfield, Colorado.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm William Brangham.

JUDY WOODRUFF: On Tuesday, President Trump signed a memo that aims to bar undocumented immigrants from being included in the census count that determines how many members of Congress are allocated for each state.

Lisa Desjardins explores what it means.

LISA DESJARDINS: The 2020 census is a once-in-a-decade feat, a count of the U.S. population that will affect policy and power for years.

But it faces unprecedented issues, from the pandemic itself, to political debate over how it should be run, including the president's latest memo.

Joining me to help understand all of this is NPR's Hansi Lo Wang.

Hansi, thank you so much.

And let me start right off with the president's move.

Help us understand it.

Can the president, in fact, block the census from counting undocumented immigrants?

HANSI LO WANG, NPR: Well, I think the thing to take a look at is the Constitution.

Let's take a look at the actual text of the Constitution.

The 14th Amendment of the Constitution, the actual text says, "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state."

And it's the whole number of persons because the 14th Amendment was enacted after the Civil War, after the ending of the counting an enslaved person -- an enslaved person as three-fourths of a person.

And more than 200 years, the country has included both citizens and non-citizens, regardless of immigration status, in the population counts that determine how seats are divided up in Congress.

So, President Trump would be going up against more than two centuries of precedent, and also another part of the Constitution that says it is Congress, not the president, who has the final authority about the count.

LISA DESJARDINS: You know, we at "NewsHour," myself, and a lot of our politics team love talking about the census, and it's because it's so important.

Can you just remind folks what's at stake here?

Why does the census matters so much?

HANSI LO WANG: It matters because, when you're talking about the census, you are really talking about power, and you're talking about money.

And this is the power and money of the people living in the United States.

This is how the country determines how it distributes an estimated $1.5 trillion -- with a T. -- a year in federal tax dollars for Medicare, for Medicaid, other public services, how that gets divvied up to local communities.

This also determines how many congressional seats, Electoral College votes each state gets.

And this is data that informs how voting districts are redrawn once every 10 years after the census is -- after the census is counted.

So this has impacts on the balance of power from local government all the way up to federal government.

LISA DESJARDINS: You know, there's another political storm around the census as well.

The president has appointed a new deputy director for policy and an assistant to that person.

Some in the statistics community say they're not qualified.

Can you talk about that appointment and why it is controversial?

HANSI LO WANG: The Trump administration, they think, these two brand-new appointments, two new top-level positions that never existed before at the Census Bureau, a deputy director of policy, Nathaniel Cogley, a political science professor, he's being appointed at a time where there already is a deputy director at the Census Bureau.

And it's still unclear to me and to the public exactly what does Nathaniel Cogley, this deputy director of policy, what he does at the Census Bureau, and also what his senior adviser, Adam Korzeniewski, what he does.

Both of them have qualifications that don't seem to quite match with what the Census Bureau does.

It's a federal statistical agency focused on survey methodology, statistics, economics.

Both of these appointees don't seem to have much of that background, based on their resumes.

LISA DESJARDINS: And then we come to the public health crisis itself.

Let's look at a map quickly.

This is a map of the Americans who have responded themselves to the census.

The darker states have the higher response rate.

On average, just over 60 percent of Americans have responded.

But, Hansi, by my account, that leaves over 100 million people at least that the census still has to contact.

Where is the agency right now on completing the census on time?

HANSI LO WANG: The Census Bureau has a big job to do.

About four out of 10 homes have not been counted yet.

And it has given itself until October 31 to try to complete this count.

It's trying to send out door-knockers to do in-person interviews with households, because, at this point of the census that, historically, these are households that are less likely to fill out a form on their own, and they will require convincing and person-to-person interaction.

And that is a big challenge, at a time where we're all trying to keep social distance.

There are a lot of public health concerns.

And there's some parts of the country that are under lockdown, and may be under lockdown when door-knocking is supposed to roll out nationwide on August 11.

LISA DESJARDINS: Hansi Lo Wang, our eye on the census, thank you for all of your work on this.

HANSI LO WANG: You're very welcome.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Four years ago, the Chester Children's Chorus, a group based near Philadelphia, recorded an original song called "I Still Can't Breathe."

It was their response to the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and others.

The chorus members have since grown to be teenagers and young adults.

Now, as Black Lives Matter protests continue across the country in the wake of George Floyd's death, these young people see their song as, tragically, still relevant.

Their story comes as part of our ongoing arts and culture series, Canvas.

CHORUS (singing): Can you hear me?

I still can't breathe SKYY BROOKS, Chorus Member: When we performed "I Still Can't Breathe," I was around 10, 11 years old.

When I hear the song now, there's a huge sense of deja vu.

JESSE BRITTAIN, Chorus Member: Four years ago, I was a kid singing this song.

Now I'm an adult, and I'm a grown man, and the same things are happening.

SKYY BROOKS: It's literal.

It's also a repeat of the words of Eric Garner's last words before his life was taken from him.

And it's also a metaphor for the black experience in America.

CHORUS (singing): Why are you afraid of me?

JESSE BRITTAIN: The song is talking to those people who are constantly denying that there is a thing such as racism.

SKYY BROOKS: There is a sense of hope because there are young kids singing it, but there's also a sense of helplessness also because there are young kids singing it.

Young black children realize what's going on.

And some adults don't know what's going on or refuse to believe what's going on.

CHORUS (singing): My love, my love is just like yours.

JOHN ALSTON, Director, Chester Children's Chorus: I don't want people coming away thinking what a beautiful song that is.

Why should we be hearing black men begging through a choke, I can't breathe?

Why should they be pleading?

CHORUS (singing): Why are you afraid of me?

JOHN ALSTON: What's different is that the pandemic has given many white Americans the time and the emotional space to think about something more important than going shopping, or going to a movie, or going out to a restaurant.

So, all of the distractions have been taken away from us.

JESSE BRITTAIN: This new generation that is coming up, we have the power to change things.

We have very large voices, and people are just now starting to listen.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And we need to listen to these young people.

On the "NewsHour" online right now, we have answers to your COVID-19 questions, including how to clean your mask.

Our essential FAQ is on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.

And that is the "NewsHour" for tonight.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

Join us online and again here tomorrow evening.

For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon.