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President Donald Trump Extends Social Distancing Guidelines Through April; Louisiana Lieutenant Governor: We Will Run Out Ventilators This Week; Experts Warn Detroit Trajectory Could Be Similar To New York; Former NFL Player Dr. Myron Rolle On Front Lines Of Pandemic; Dr. Deborah Birx: Federal, State And Local Governments Share Responsibility. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired March 30, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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


[12:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Well, I hope experiences helps us catch up and I hope in a few months to see you in a Democratic Convention and meet you in your town if that happens that's one of the things we'll keep on the asp rational. Representative David Bowen, thank you so much.

And welcome to our viewers in United States and around the world, I am John King and this is CNN's Continuing Coverage of the global Coronavirus pandemic. Just last night a dramatic shift from the President of the United States from wanting to return America to normal by Easter, two weeks from now, to now keeping the country shuttered for another month possibly two.

The way the President got there his team told him he could save lives and referred a worst case scenario where a millions of Americans would lose their lives to Coronavirus. But even the rosiest of U.S. Coronavirus forecast is still stunning and sad.

The top Trump Administration Infectious Disease Expert says again this morning, expect 100,000 to 200,000 Americans to perish, that's the best case scenario. Stop and think about that scale for a moment. Its college football stadiums where at the people a median size city likely perish.

Plenty of evidence of the widening shut down this morning in Arizona schools will stay closed through the end of the academic year. In Maryland, not long ago the Governor issuing a stay-at-home order that goes into effect tonight.

And then Vermont, a directive from the Governor, anyone from out of state must self-quarantine for 14 days. The New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio just moments ago say expect a harrowing next two weeks. Especially he says if he can't get help from the Federal Government to triple the number of hospitals beds available in New York City.

Experts warning more will die if the dire supply shortages in hospitals and hot spots across the country aren't quickly addressed. But the President again this morning says it is the state's job to solve their own problems. CNN Brynn Gingras is live for us in New York City. Brynn you hear the numbers from the Mayor you hear the numbers from the Governor, New York is still on the up when it comes to the curve here.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and really what the Governor has said John is that all hands-on deck at this point. We knew it was going to get worse and that's exactly what we are continuing to see more than a thousand deaths because of the Coronavirus here in the State of New York alone.

Listen, they are flooding resources to these hospitals. We are talking about doctors and nurses and we're talking about equipment, personal protective equipment and ventilators however it is still not enough.

Even on "New Day" this morning the Mayor said that Sunday could be d- day here in New York if they don't get even more supplies. So it is a dire situation and of course we are seeing that in the hospitals.

My colleague Marquez given that exclusive look of hospital beds just lined up in the hallway. We know from the statistics that the New York City Hospitals System, their E.R.s are doubled what they usually are, they are tripled the ICU units than what they usually are.

I mean, these are staggering number that this city is having to deal with. Now you said yourself the Mayor just said as he welcomes "Comfort" of course that is a floating hospital that is certainly going to provide some comfort to the people who are working on the front line but they need to triple the amount of bed they have by May.

So there are a lot of things that are working that are in place. But I want to make this really good point and that's John the city now saying you can be fined for as much as $500 if you don't practice social distancing. There is going to be a warning and then possibly a fine.

That's important because that's another step that the city has to take in order to get everyone to comply so that we can bring these numbers down. John.

KING: Attempt to bring these numbers down. Another reminder we are still early in the challenge. Brynn Gingras thank you so much for that live reporting straight from New York. Loud warnings today from Louisiana officials, they say they are in serious trouble. Experts think Louisiana will see New York-like Coronavirus trauma in its hospitals.

Louisiana's Governor says his state has only 192 ventilators despite requesting 12,000 from the Federal stockpile. This morning the Lieutenant Governor says Louisiana needs more ventilators, they need them soon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GOV. BILLY NUNGESSER (R-LA): Well, I think the ventilators the answer is no. We went out I think April 4th or 5th is based on people that are going on ventilators. So we absolutely need more. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Louisiana has more on the coming Coronavirus challenge.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is going to be a crucial week here in the city of New Orleans and across the State of Louisiana as we continue to see the number of Coronavirus cases spiking by the hundreds every day.

We are now up to more than 3500 Coronavirus cases here in the state, nearly 1400 of those cases are here in the city of New Orleans alone and there have already been 151 deaths. And the reason why this week is so crucial is that state officials, the Governor is saying that this is the week towards the end of this week we'll begin to see extreme shortages on the equipment necessary to help many of these patients battle the infection.

The Governor says by this weekend, there could be a shortage of ventilators across the state. The Governor said he has requested some 12,000 ventilators and that so far he has only received 192 of those and the Governor says none of those comes from the national stockpile.

[12:05:00]

LAVANDERA: So there is a great deal of concern as medical officials here and medical experts say that we still have not reached and probably won't reach the peak of the number of cases that they are battling here at least for several more weeks and that equipment shortage coming at the wrong time so a great deal of stress about that.

And really state officials are also urging people to change their behaviors and really buckle down on social distancing. Over the weekend here in New Orleans in arrest warrant was issued for a man who let second line parade as part of a funeral gathering.

That arrest warrant had to be issued the Mayor and Governor issuing stern warnings that that will - that kind of behavior will not be tolerated as they're really asking people here to buckle down and pay attention to these social distancing norms that that's the one thing that everyone can do, to help battle through this outbreak of Coronavirus here in the State of Louisiana. Ed Lavandera, CNN, New Orleans.

KING: Michigan also getting quite a bit of attention as it deals with a dramatic surge in cases, specifically the City of Detroit now with more than 1500 cases. This morning the Nation's Top Infectious Disease Doctor Dr. Anthony Fauci added Detroit to a list of cities he says are on a very dangerous trajectory.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You want to start seeing some flattening out and turning around of the curve and coming down. It was not doing that. If you look at New York, it was doing this. If you look at New Orleans, it was doing this.

Detroit is certainly going to start doing that. It would not have been a good idea to pull back at a time when you really needed to be pressing your foot on the pedal as oppose to the brakes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With me share her insights on this challenge Dr. Teena Chopra she is an Infectious Disease Specialist at the Detroit Medical Center and a Professor in Infectious Disease at Wayne University.

Dr. Chopra, this is a question I keep asking almost like a broken record. But when you look at the challenges, is today better than yesterday? Or is today getting worse as Dr. Fauci puts Detroit on the places where the arc is going in the wrong direction?

DR. TEENA CHOPRA, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST, DETROIT MEDICAL CENTER: Morning. Definitely today it is getting worse and it is going to get worse as Dr. Fauci rightly pointed out. Detroit is on the same trajectory and even worse than New York and I think that the fact that Detroit has a unique characteristics you know high risk population and the fact that Detroit is socially disadvantage also puts us in a unique situation and in a more steep trajectory.

KING: And so what is your sense of where we are today? Your Governor and the President sparing at times. The Governor is saying I'm just trying to get what we need here in the State of Michigan when it comes to ventilators when it comes to masks when it comes to roads, when it comes to other personal protective equipment.

Is the state and is Wayne County in the Detroit area in better shape now? Are the urging calls being heeded or you still in a dire situation?

CHOPRA: We are still in a dire situation absolutely. And we need more and more resources. I do hear more resources coming our way but we are still struggling. All of southeast Michigan is struggling and both with beds as well as with more resources in the form of staffing.

KING: What is the biggest surprise for you as you look at the case data, as we try to learn for your studying what you could get on paper if you would, from China from South Korea, from Italy even from New York?

Now you have real-life experience real data in the State of Michigan. What are you learning about COVID-19 that most surprises you?

CHOPRA: The most important thing in Detroit is the growth rate is very high and the numbers of new cases are high. So when our county or a city has both high growth rates and the number of new cases are very striking.

In the City of Detroit, as I said high risk of obesity diabetes, hyper tension or heart disease, all of these are very high risk factors and we are on - one of the top cities with higher prevalence of all of these risk factors. And these are the same risk factors we're seeing in our COVID patients. Also, a lot of our COVID positive patients are coming to us when they are already very severe. They are coming to us when we need to intubate them right away and put them on ventilators. And that is again very much because of the fact that they have - they are socially disadvantage and the fact that they have all these high-risk factors.

KING: The people who have these high risk factors, obesity, diabetes, heart conditions you went through the list there most of them or at least many of them are known to the medical community. Is there a concentrated effort a focused effort to make sure that they have heard three or four or five, six times from people keep your distance stay away follow these guidelines you are most at risk?

[12:10:00]

CHOPRA: Absolutely. The State of Michigan and the City of Detroit has done an amazing job in communication and Rain State Universities in collaboration with the university group, physicians group here is doing a great job in testing a lot of these individuals.

Especially our front line staff, our front line providers to make sure we can increase and ramp up our testing efforts to get as many people as possible and to make sure that we get them when they have mild illness rather than severe illness.

KING: Dr. Chopra, thank you so much for your time today. More importantly thank you for all the work that you and your colleagues are doing as we fight through this in days in the weeks and months ahead.

CHOPRA: Thank you.

KING: Thank you very much. Up next for us, a Former NFL player turned doctor describes life on the front line of this pandemic. Plus, medical workers are also trying to help every patient while facing staff and supply shortages.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ELIZABETH STACHTIARIS, BROOKDALE UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL AND MEDICAL CENTER: Today has been crazy. We are very short staff, we are short supply. The last few weeks every day we in-charge nurses are giving up a baggy of goodies essentially personal protective equipment that we are supposed to make last throughout the day.

I currently did not get one today because we are out of the N-95 mask that we get. I only get one in the morning. I am on the side that is intubating critical patients. The one that I have in my bag here right now again is from my last shift we just don't have enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00] KING: Massachusetts now has nearly 5,000 confirmed cases of Coronavirus and at least 48 deaths. One of the doctors on the front lines at Massachusetts General Hospital is the Former NFL player Myron Rolle, he is a Neurosurgery resident. Doctor Rolle says the staff there is facing the same type of shortages, protective equipment that we see across the country.

DR. MYRON ROLLE, NEUROSURGERY AT HAVARD/MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITA: So here is typically where our masks would be for surgery. But because they are needed elsewhere there are no masks right now.

KING: Dr. Rolle joins me now from Boston. Dr. Rolle, okay, I mean, let me ask you after seeing that video and the empty shelves. If you listen to the White House team here Washington, they say the supply lines are now open things are getting better and everything is shipping by the pallet to where it is needed. Is that your experience on the ground today? Is it there yet?

ROLLE: Well, our hospital is I think one of the larger hospitals in this New England area. And although we don't have our masks may be where they typically would be for surgery for instance I'm going to go operate on someone, that's where the masks would be now. They're more on a centralized location and being dispersed around the hospital for all employees.

So I think that the N-95 masks are still being provided and accessible to our staff member but right now certainly resources are low and everyone is trying to conserve as much as possible to protect themselves to take care of these patients.

KING: Part of the uniqueness of this challenge is people like yourself to use a sports metaphor playing out of position. You are a Neurosurgery Resident now helping in the fight against the coronavirus. Tell me what that is like?

ROLLE: You know I had played football in my whole life. One thing that football taught me was to be able to adjust and adapt especially when there is something on the field that you did not anticipate or you didn't prepare for.

And I don't think we all anticipated or prepared for the number of patients that are coming in the influx and severity of this disease? How infectious it is? It is novel and it is taking a greater and multi disciplinary approach to try to fix it and mitigate it.

And so we are Neurosurgery Residents are attending our staffs were being recruited to even help in the surge clinic which is a hospital within a hospital - that kind of triages and mans this clinic to help patients who are coming off the street with symptoms in COVID-19. So we are being team players and doing the best we can.

KING: Well, take us inside give us a description of what it is like to be rushed into a surge clinic when you have to deal with all these patients coming in both with the treatments and stress of that as a healthcare worker worrying about your own exposure and even as you try to help saving lives? ROLLE: Yes, you know so typically my day would be taking out a brain tumor or helping or attending degenerative spine disease case or something of that nature. Now the shift has been on you know how do we keep these patients oxygen saturations high? How do we get the right scan or right test getting the right consults infectious disease or - to really see and manage these patients. It is hectic.

And as you mentioned we have to protect ourselves with necessary gear so that we are valuable member of the team to be able to treat these patients. You know our primary focus a Neurosurgery Residents and Neurosurgeons is to fix surgical disease, but right now the call and more pressing and more vulnerable state of patient is to do what we can for these COVID-19 folks and that's what we are doing.

KING: And you see the lines in Massachusetts. I keep doing this on television and I hope I can stop pretty soon. But you just see the line of Massachusetts now sixth in the country in terms of the number of cases it is going up. You are seeing it in real time play out. What's the stress on even a great hospital like Massachusetts General and where do you see this heading?

ROLLE: The stress is real Mr. King. I think that our hospital has adjusted. Now when you walk in, every staff member that part of MGH community has to wear a mask there is hand sanitizers everywhere. Elective surgeries are cancelled or postponed. Visitors are not allowed to be here anymore.

Our Neurosurgical floor has been converted to a COVID-19 only floor. So a lot of things day-to-day are changing. But I give credit to our hospital administration for keeping us informed and addresses what's happening what ways we as practitioners can use best practices and methodologies to treat these patients.

So it is very stressful even for big hospital like MGH and I am certain that's happening around the country it is not just unique to us here.

[12:20:00]

KING: And what are the challenges of that? You are turning place everywhere on the country people are turning places in the hospital that were designed and some of them are waiting areas they are now treatment areas. You mentioned neurosurgery area is now COVID-19 area.

It is fantastic that people are showing the flexibility to respond to the challenge. With that comes a significant challenge both in terms of maybe there is no equipment in the waiting area now it is a hospital bed. There is very different equipment in Neurosurgery now you have to deal with COVID-19, how do you get through all that?

ROLLE: Yes, it is very difficult it is retraining actually some of the nurse parishioners, nurses and even the doctors on how to manage these patients and what to do on like said on a day to day basis? For this aspect of medicine is certainly much different.

And I would say this too the patients who are waiting on the wait list for a Neurosurgery procedure now have to sort of be pushed back even further and they're dealing with symptoms because of their--

KING: Well, a little issue with our signal there. But I want to thank Dr. Myron Rolle fascinating insights there. I really appreciate it. This is where we are in the new world of technology but Rolle we appreciate it very much if you can still hear me. Up next for us here the politics of the health crisis the disagreements and the tensions between Governors and the President.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

KING: The President's tone has shifted significantly on the Coronavirus. He now says the restrictions will stay in place for all of April but there has been one constant even as we get a lot of change from the White House. The President bristles at criticism. He wants credit from the states.

What he says the Federal Government has done so far to respond to the Coronavirus crisis. Joining me from Washington is CNN's Jeff Zeleny and Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan, I want to begin with you and let's just listen to the President when it comes to Governors the President says I am doing a great job, you should recognize it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: --all she does is - she has no idea what's going on and all she does is say oh, it is the Federal Government fault. We have taken such great care of Michigan. Don't call the woman in Michigan. It doesn't make any difference in what happens.

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): I don't have energy to respond everything. What I am trying to do is work well with the Federal Government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Governor Whitmer even this morning going on television again to say you know there is no such thing as partisanship right now but there is partisanship at some hours everyone says let's step back from this. The President himself yesterday saying we are all in this together. But when it comes to compliance from the states he bristles and shoves back.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes and John, I think the President realized politically speaking it was not a good idea for him to be going after those Governors in the way he was. He's been doing this repeatedly with the Governor of Washington, calling him a snake saying he also urged the Vice President not to call him either.

And aides told the President after that happened last week at that briefing where he was saying you know I told Mike not to call if this is what's going on referring to the Vice President, of course, they realized that was a political mistake and it was not a good idea for the President to be picking these fights with these Governors at a time like this.

Because of course there has been a lack of coordination, and these states are desperate to get more supplies for their hospitals. But you saw the President trying to say yesterday that he was not going after them, he wasn't attacking them of course that does not match up with the President's past statements and what he said on this.

And Governors know that the President is keeping a close eye sources say based on who is praising him and which Governors are criticizing the Federal Government.

KING: And one of the remarkable things Jeff as you do see sometimes Governor Cuomo of New York is hot at the President and other times he's very complimentary. Mayor De Blasio today very complimentary a lot of people have learned in the Trump age if you say nice things about the President especially if you're on television, you are more likely to get his attention and what you are looking for.

What has been fascinating is Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx has moved the President. A week ago he was talking about opening the country they have moved him now to leave the standards in place the restrictions in place for all of April.

And the President says it could go well into the month of May. Here is another one I want you to listen to. The President keeps saying I am going to help the states when I can but this is a state's responsibility when it comes to masks when it comes ventilators. Listen to Dr. Birx.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: It is our job collectively the state and local governments along with us to ensure that the hospitals are receiving the supplies they need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Those are not words that the President uses because he uses sometimes it are us versus them or how dare you criticize me? I am not going to take or at least share any of the responsibilities of the problem.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: No question. And these Governors are in a crisis state. This is as Governor Whitmer we've heard just says this morning she is not inclined to fight the President. She does not have enough time to do so. So for the next period of weeks, we probably are going to see at least in television interviews some flattery of the President because indeed it works well.

Look at Florida Governor Rhonda DeSantis, he has a very good relationship with the President and so far they've gotten most everything that to they have asked for. So most Governors are breathing a collective sigh of relief but the President made the decision he did yesterday at the Rose Garden that gives them some time. If he had gone the other way what is happening out in America is very alarming and they could not have controlled that. But John, the question is as this does sort of move west across the country.