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Florida Governor Issues Stay-At-Home Order; Health Care Workers At Risk; Trump Administration Projects At Least 100,000 Americans Will Die From Coronavirus. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired April 01, 2020 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN. Thank you for being with me.

The next two weeks will be painful. That is the stark warning from President Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who says American should prepare for a reality where 100,000 people are killed from coronavirus in this country.

That is if everyone is doing his or her part by staying at home and staying away from others. The surgeon general's advice to Americans, treat the federal guidance as a national stay-at-home order.

Right now, the death toll in the United States has surpassed 4,000. It is nearing the 4,600 mark. And more than 200,000 people have been infected.

As the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, put it this afternoon, this crisis is going to change this nation. We are never going to be the same again.

I want to bring in CNN's Erica Hill, who is live in New York this afternoon.

And, Erica, Governor Cuomo had a terrifying prediction for the number of cases in the state earlier today and announced some pretty drastic steps.

ERICA HILL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, he did.

One of the things he said about the cases, Brooke, is, he talked about -- we talk so much about ventilators and the need for ventilators. And the governor saying he wants to have that stockpile ready when they're needed.

He said, of the people who end up on ventilators, about 20 percent of them will not get off that ventilator. Translation, they are likely not coming out of the hospital. He said, the longer people are on ventilators, the more they could fall into that category.

That is absolutely a sobering thought. He also talked about the number of cases here in New York and why it's important for people around the country to pay attention to what we're seeing here.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): To the extent people watch their nightly news in Kansas and say, well, this is a New York problem, that's not what these numbers say. It says it's a New York problem today. Tomorrow, it's a Kansas problem and a Texas problem and a New Mexico problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: So, as we talk about so often, it is spreading, but it never hurts to repeat that again and again.

Another thing that came up, Brooke, we talk so much about which states have stay-at-home orders, which ones don't. How are they being enforced? Well, the governor was asked specifically. We have seen these pictures of people going down to see the Navy hospital ship Comfort and how close they were to one another as they went down to see that ship here in New York City.

He was asked about that, whether there need to be more strict guidelines. He said the NYPD does need to be more aggressive in enforcing that, Brooke.

BALDWIN: And we have been talking so much about people on the front lines, doctors, nurses, hospital staff. What about first responders? What are the details you have as far as how many first responders in New York City are testing positive?

HILL: A lot, is the short answer. I believe we're up to 1,400 for the NYPD testing positive, but 17 percent of uniformed officers have actually called out sick.

That does not mean, again, that they have all tested positive, but that's more than 6,000 officers who have called out sick. When it comes to the FDNY, the firefighters, more than 280, Brooke, have tested positive, and the governor also telling us just a short time ago that here in New York state 1,941 people have now died as a result of coronavirus.

BALDWIN: So hard to just wrap your name head around these numbers, and the worst, as they say, is yet to come.

Erica, thank you in New York City.

President Trump tried to deny his previous downplaying of the virus, saying he wanted to be optimistic. But now the dire prospect of the 100,000 to 200,000 American deaths in the next 30 days seems to be now sinking in.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins joins me now.

And, Kaitlan, Vice President Pence said in an interview with our own Wolf Blitzer that the president never dismissed the virus?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

And, Brooke,, of course, we know that's just simply not the case. The president repeatedly did so, though you saw him yesterday try to frame his past stances in a different light. But when asked about that today, listen to how the vice president worded what he believes the president has been saying over the last several months.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't believe the president has ever belittled the threat of the coronavirus.

The president is an optimistic person.

We have been -- from the very beginning, when the president suspended all travel from China and stood up the White House Coronavirus Task Force in January, we have been hoping for the best, but planning for the worst.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: So, Brooke, the vice president there is trying to argue the president has never belittled the coronavirus outbreak here in the United States.

Of course, we know that the president has on multiple occasions downplayed it. He said he believed it would be gone by April, when temperatures warmed up. Of course, here we are, on April 1, and now we are learning just how dire the death toll could potentially be.

And the president has extended his guidelines for another month. He said he believed the -- when we had over a dozen cases here in the United States, that it could go down to zero. Of course, it has not. It has instead skyrocketed.

And officials yesterday were warning it's only going to get higher in the next few weeks, as testing has improved. And, of course, the president repeatedly compared it to the flu, something that even his own health experts on stage would say it is nothing like the flu. It's much deadlier, something the president himself now acknowledges, as he did in that briefing yesterday, that the coronavirus is not comparable to the flu.

[15:05:13]

BALDWIN: What about this, Kaitlan, that today the surgeon general said mitigation is the key to defeating this virus, but the president is not pushing all governors to issue stay-at-home orders?

I'm just wondering why.

COLLINS: Yes, we have about over a dozen states that still have not issued these orders. The surgeon general today would not explicitly say that he believed

all states needed to. He was saying it was up to governors to make their own decisions for their states, though, of course, that seems to go directly against what you're hearing from the officials who say all of these states need to follow these federal national dispensing guidelines that they put out yesterday, the ones that they reissued, in the next 30 days.

And that's only to keep the death toll right now, based on their models, at 100,000. So they couldn't really provide a good argument for why every state shouldn't do this. Of course, it's likely you're going to see a lot of these states come under more pressure than they already have to issue these stay-at-home orders, because they are talking effectively -- or here at the task force talking about how effective those measures in the states that have issued stay-at-home orders have been.

But, so far, the surgeon general this morning would only say, basically, in his opinion, that those guidelines they put out yesterday are stay-at-home orders for the entire nation.

BALDWIN: All right, let's talk about some of those measures. Kaitlan, thank you.

Joining me now is infectious disease physician Dr. Luciana Borio, who was a former FDA chief scientist.

So, Dr. Borio, thank you for being with me. And I hope you and your loved ones are well.

When you hear the new projections, they show we could see 100,000 deaths from this virus in just 15 days from now, what is your reaction to that?

DR. LUCIANA BORIO, INFECTIOUS DISEASE PHYSICIAN: Well, we're facing an unprecedented public health crisis in this country and around the world.

And my first reaction is that it's so critical for everybody right now to heed public health advice and to shelter in place, because, right now, each and every one of us have a role to play. We are public health.

And then I think it's really critical for us to do everything we can (AUDIO GAP) to deploy testing.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Yes. The complicating factor in some of this is -- is people being asymptomatic, that the CDC director said that as many as 25 percent of coronavirus cases show no symptoms at all, that you can walk around with coronavirus for weeks and not know you have it.

So how big of a threat are those cases to you?

BORIO: Well, they really help propagate the epidemic in a much more faster scale, which is why it's so important to do the testing for individuals that actually are showing up sick.

Right now, the testing is not broadly available to those who need it, because only with testing we can trace and act. If we know somebody is positive, we can actually recommend isolation, and we can trace their contacts and recommend that those individuals also go into quarantine.

And that will avert the spread that we're seeing today. It will slow down the epidemic. We will need to deploy technology to do that on a large scale. We can't do that the way we normally do that, with which -- with boots on the ground, pen and paper and spreadsheets.

We will need to deploy technology because of the scale of the problem, but in a way that really respects our deeply-held values for privacy. That's the challenge.

BALDWIN: What about this whole conversation about wearing masks? I want to play some sound for you. This is the surgeon general just this morning talking about whether or not they will start issuing mask guidance to Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JEROME ADAMS, SURGEON GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: We're learning more and more about this virus. As Kate mentioned, we now know that there's a significant amount of asymptomatic spread.

And the task force has asked the CDC to look into whether or not we should change our recommendations to prevent people from spreading the novel coronavirus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, Dr. Borio...

BORIO: Yes.

BALDWIN: ... there has been mixed messaging on masks. Do you think Americans, every American needs to start wearing them?

BORIO: Well, the issue here is that these masks seem to protect -- to prevent infection from spreading, for people that have the disease, if there are masks, it may decrease the chance of giving it to somebody else.

And I think this. What CDC is doing, the analysis, is that, what is the potential impact if everybody is recommended to wear a mask in public? Right now, even a very small or modest impact would be really helpful, because we don't have all that many tools right now to combat this epidemic, until the vaccine becomes available again.

So, even a modest benefit would be of tremendous value.

BALDWIN: So that's a yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Do we all need -- so, that's a yes, we need to wear masks?

BORIO: I'm going to wait for CDC to make the recommendations before I begin to wear my mask.

And we have to be careful not to divert any resources from the health care system, because our priority should be protecting our health care workers.

Otherwise, I'm waiting for -- eagerly waiting for the guidance.

[15:10:00]

BALDWIN: Got it. I got it.

South Korea and the United States got its first coronavirus cases on the very same day, back January 20. And right now, when you look at the situation in South Korea, they have fewer than 200 deaths. And among other measures, they use masks.

How much was that a factor in their success?

BORIO: It's difficult to say for sure. They use masks, but they also did a lot of testing, broad testing across the population. And they also did the contact tracing through digital technology that I mentioned earlier.

So they're actually detecting the cases. They are testing. They're tracing and they're taking action. So I think that there's not -- it's difficult to know exactly which factor has been most important, but all of it together, the good news is that we know that all of this together can help slow the spread.

BALDWIN: And we can all do our parts to flatten that curve.

Dr. Luciana Borio, thank you very much. Be well. I appreciate it.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Coming up next here on CNN: just terrifying stories from health care workers on the front lines. We will talk to one doctor who says this is the worst situation she has ever seen in her decades of experience, and she's scared.

Plus, a nurse who was infected with coronavirus and still treating patients -- how she had to defy her hospital to even get a test.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BALDWIN: We're back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

One of the most concerning parts of this outbreak is the fact that there's still no telling how many doctors, nurses, EMTs may be infected with coronavirus. And the pace of the pandemic is putting a strain on their bodies, the shortage of masks leaving them exposed putting the entire health care system at risk.

CNN's senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is here with the story of one of these heroes.

And, Elizabeth, a story like this, it could be happening anywhere.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It absolutely could be happening anywhere, because we are not looking for this in the United States.

Brooke, this nurse was very smart. She suspected that she had coronavirus, but she had to pull a trick in order to get herself tested.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN (voice-over): This nurse says she worked for about seven days at two New York City hospitals while infected with the coronavirus.

She went undetected because her hospital wasn't testing the staff. She doesn't want to reveal her name or where she works for fear she'll be fired.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two weeks ago, I was feeling back pain, a lot of back pain. And then one night I had really bad chest pain.

COHEN (on camera): Did you ask your hospital to test you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was told the hospital was not testing staff. That's what I was told when I asked about getting tested.

COHEN (voice-over): She continued to work.

(on camera): So you wore the same mask the entire day from patient to patient to patient?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Yes, we do. I'm touching that mask. It's on my face. I'm putting it back on. The virus flies in the air. It goes right up in my nose. It's so easy to get contaminated when you have to put on something that already has virus on it.

COHEN: And you wore the same gown all day from patient to patient to patient?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, the same gown.

COHEN (voice-over): She says the emergency room refused to test staff, so she went there in the middle of the night, when she knew a friend would be on duty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I said, please, just this one time, do it. I just want to make sure I don't have it, I don't want to spread anything. She said, OK, and she tested me.

COHEN: It took five days for the results to come back. She tested positive.

(on camera): Do you worry that you might have infected patients?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, definitely. I'm worried I infected staff members, visitors, patients.

COHEN (voice-over): We shared the nurses story with the author of "Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals," Dr. Peter Pronovost.

DR. PETER PRONOVOST, AUTHOR, "SAFE PATIENTS, SMART HOSPITALS": That story's heart-wrenching. And as a clinician or just a human being, it's horrible.

COHEN: Pronovost says he wishes the U.S. could do what's being done in some other countries.

At Hadassah Hospital in Israel, utilizing tests that aren't needed for patients, they test all health care workers every five days.

DR. YORAM WEISS, HADASSAH MEDICAL CENTER: we feel that this is extremely important in order to protect our entire work force and our patients.

COHEN: But this can't be done in the U.S.

PRONOVOST: Sadly, we just don't have enough test to do that right now.

COHEN: Which is how this nurse ended up working while infected. Fortunately, she's feeling better now and is an isolation at home.

(on camera): Do you think right now there are doctors and nurses working in the hospitals where you work who are positive for coronavirus?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I do.

COHEN: Does that scare you?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it does. Nobody wants to get this virus.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: Brooke, you were talking earlier in your show about people who have coronavirus, but are asymptomatic.

So, at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, they have found 17 health care workers who are positive and had no symptoms, including just today a nurse in the ICU who is positive, but had no symptoms.

BALDWIN: Wow.

COHEN: She's working with fragile patients. They had no idea. There's no way to catch these patients unless you do this kind of screening.

BALDWIN: I heard Sanjay say you could be walking around for weeks and not even know you have it.

How would you screen health care workers who have no symptoms or merely mild ones?

COHEN: Right.

So what you have to do is this large-scale surveillance like they're doing at Hadassah. You have to test everybody.

You -- so, obviously, if people have symptoms, they come to you and you diagnose them, and you hospitalize them or send them home or whatever. But if you really want to catch everybody, you have to routinely every couple of days test your entire clinical work force.

[15:20:08]

That is not easy. And even more so, there just aren't enough tests to do that. Here in Israel, they are doing this with excess tests. They have enough tests for their patients and enough tests to do that. Sadly, we don't have that here.

BALDWIN: Just the -- that you nurse that you spoke with wore the same gown to patient to patient to patient. It's frightening.

Elizabeth, thank you so much for bringing her story to us.

COHEN: Thanks.

BALDWIN: And we wish her well.

Coming up: the desperate pleas to get back on land, with one cruise ship off of Florida with four dead passengers, and even more sick.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:25:35]

BALDWIN: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis finally issuing statewide stay-at-home orders, after coming under fire for taking so long to do so.

Emergency operations directors saying that they were not alerted about the restrictions going into effect on Friday and are now scrambling just to prepare. And, right now, there are dozens of foreign passenger ships off the coast of Florida, including the Zaandam cruise ship, where passengers on board have died.

The ship pleading with Florida to allow them to dock in their waters.

CNN's Rosa Flores is live for us in Fort Lauderdale.

And, Rosa, what is the latest with these cruise ships?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, it's still in limbo, Brooke. We know that Broward County commissioners and the Unified Command are the ones who are going to make the decision whether this ship is going to dock in Fort Lauderdale or not. And they met for five hours yesterday, and they tabled the decision until tomorrow.

They did not accept the cruise line's plan, their proposed plan, which included allowing the passengers that don't have flu-like symptoms to get off the boat and go home and for all of the passengers with flu- like symptoms to stay on board in quarantine for 14 days.

And they also asked for two hospital beds, because two individuals on board need that type of treatment. But, as you have heard, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has said that he doesn't want the ship to dock here. He has said that he would rather have medics be flown out to the ship and treated that way, because he wants to make sure that he has hospital beds for Floridians.

Well, in the last hour-and-a-half during a press conference, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that he would accept the Floridians to get off the ship and come to Florida. We know that there's at least 49 of them. We know that there's 305 U.S. citizens, 247 Canadians.

But, Brooke, may I highlight that all of these are human beings who are on this ship? And so, right now, as you mentioned, some of them pleading on Facebook, one of them sending a very powerful letter to the governor, making a plea, asking for mercy and compassion.

My producer Sara Weisfeldt has been in contact with one woman who says she's a Floridian and she says that people on the boat are losing hope, because they are following the news, and they know that their ship is still in limbo.

BALDWIN: And just to imagine. We mentioned that one ship with -- is reporting the four bodies on that ship, right? Four people have passed away.

And I'm thinking, if I'm a passenger on that ship, how am I being protected? I mean, what measures are being taken to protect those other passengers from getting coronavirus?

FLORES: You know, Brooke, it is a nightmare.

We know that that's the Zaandam ship that has some passengers. But the cruise line, Holland America, brought over a sister ship called the Rotterdam. They allowed some passengers that were not exhibiting flu- like symptoms to transfer over to the Rotterdam.

And they also allowed medics and also medical supplies to be transferred from the Rotterdam to the Zaandam to try to help people, so they can treat people on board.

But, as you might imagine, these individuals are in their staterooms. They're quarantined. They describe what they're living as hell, and they're trying to figure out what is next for them. And their family members are very concerned. We have gotten e-mails. We are in contact with some of them via social media, others via WhatsApp, depending on devices that they have.

We're actually getting messages from lawmakers in Maine asking us about some of these passengers, because some of the passengers have not been able to communicate with their family members.

So a lot of intense moments, Brooke, as people on the ship plead for mercy and compassion, that Florida can open its doors and allow it to dock.

BALDWIN: Of course they're concerned. They have every right to be.

Rosa, thank you in Fort Lauderdale.

With me now, Mary Ellen Klas, Tallahassee bureau chief for "The Miami Herald" and "The Tampa Bay Times."

So, Mary Ellen, thank you for being here.

And, I mean, with regard to Florida, and, as we mentioned a moment ago, Governor DeSantis just finally issued that statewide stay-at-home order. What the heck took him so long?

MARY ELLEN KLAS, "THE MIAMI HERALD": Well, Florida is really important state for the president, and the governor is really close to the president.

And so the governor has been very careful never to get ahead of the CDC guidelines. And so he has not done what a lot of other states have done, even though Florida has a very large elderly population and people who are very -- who are vulnerable to this --

[15:30:00]