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President Trump Pushes to Reopen as Regions Plan for Closures; Interview with Public Health Researchers Christine Tedijanto and Anne Rimoin; Interview with Stanford Economics Professor Matthew Gentzkow. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 15, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: -- on May 1st. And as that date draws near, the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is managing expectations, saying, quote, "There's going to be a great deal of variability," end quote, when social distancing guidelines are eased, depending on the region of the country.

Dr. Fauci reaffirmed that the social distancing is working.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: There are still a couple of cities, right now, Savannah (ph), that we're worried about that haven't yet peaked and turned around.

There's no doubt, what we've seen over the last several days, is a flattening-out. And even when you get to New York, it's actually starting to come down regarding admissions, hospitalizations, need for intensive care and intubation. Hopefully that trend will continue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Still, the progress comes as the United States reaches an unprecedented number of deaths in one day: 2,405 people succumbed to the infection. Cases have now surpassed two million worldwide.

Health policy experts say that essential to any kind of return to the life we knew -- or a form of it -- is development of a vaccine against the virus. And one official is now offering a faster timeline for a possible vaccine, at least for emergency use. For more on that, CNN's Erica Hill joins me now.

So, first, talk about how the governors are preparing for what the future may look like.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR AND NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The governors are very much focused on what is affecting their communities, Anderson. And we just heard from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who talked about reaching this plateau. There are some good numbers in terms of hospitalizations, but what is key to all of this -- and what we just heard from Dr. Fauci -- is, you have to maintain the status quo in terms of social distancing.

And to that end, the governor, announcing an executive order today, Anderson, for face coverings in New York State if you can't maintain social distancing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HILL (voice-over); More masks, more time apart, more testing and more realistic expectations.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: If we move too quick, we put 50,000 people in Yankee Stadium and that's part of why you see a resurgence of the disease, that would be the worst of all worlds. We've (ph) got one chance --

HILL (voice-over): As the president continues to push for a symbolic May 1st reopening, officials around the country are focused on their communities, many following the lead of California Governor Gavin Newsom, confirming this new normal is here to stay.

In New Orleans, the mayor, suggesting major events like Jazz Fest won't be back until 2021. Mississippi, the latest state to close schools for the remainder of the academic year, as experts predict the virus will return.

ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL: We're going to have another battle with it, you know, up-front and aggressively, next winter. This is why it's so important we take the time now to really improve our testing capacity, expand our public health capacity to do early case recognition, contact tracing and isolation. I call it block-and-tackle, block-and-tackle.

HILL (voice-over): Los Angeles, now offering same-or next-day testing to its 10 million residents. Anyone with COVID symptoms is eligible. Major League Baseball, pitching in for antibody testing. Players, their families, concession workers: some 10,000 volunteers in total, part of a nationwide study to better understand the infection and its spread.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: It is very hard to bring this to scale quickly. And we need the federal government to be part of this.

HILL (voice-over): As New York cautiously embraces a plateau, Georgia prepares for a potential surge and Midwestern states discuss a coordinated regional plan to reopen, similar to efforts in the Northeast and on the West Coast.

GOV. KATE BROWN (D), OREGON: This is not a light switch going on or off. This is going to be making a change, testing it, modeling it and then seeing whether it works. And then if it does, you can make another change.

HILL (voice-over): Also key to any lasting change? A vaccine.

KIZZMEKIA CORBETT, NIH RESEARCH FELLOW LEADING COVID-19 VACCINE RIALS: We're targeting fall for the emergency use. So that would be, you know, for health care workers and people who might be in constant contact, in risk of being exposed over and over.

HILL (voice-over): For the rest of America, that vaccine is likely at least a year away.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: And one other note from Governor Cuomo. He said because the situation, rather, is stabilizing here in New York, saying he will never forget the generosity the other states showed New York State. He's actually sending out ventilators: 100 ventilators will be sent to Michigan, Anderson; 50 are headed to Maryland in an effort to help mitigate the death rates in those states.

COOPER: Erica Hill, thanks very much.

Christine Tedijanto is a graduate student at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She's part of the research team behind a study showing social distancing in the U.S. may be needed until 2022 unless vaccines become available quickly.

Anne Rimoin is an epidemiology professor at UCLA as well as the director of the university's Center for Global and Immigrant Health.

Welcome to both of you. I want to just play for our viewers what Dr. Fauci says about the potential for a recurrence.

[14:05:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FAUCI: I hope we don't get a second wave. Is it possible that we do? Yes, it is possible. What I hope we'll be able to do -- and I believe we'll be able to do -- is respond to that in a very, very vigorous way because we will have had several months to get all of these cards in order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Christine, your team also suggested coronavirus could become an annual occurrence like the flu, if there's no permanent immunity. And that date, 2022, I know freaked out a lot of people. Can you just explain sort of how you got to that?

CHRISTINE TEDIJANTO, GRADUATE STUDENT, HARVARD T.H. CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Sure. So we use a mathematical model to try to understand how factors like immunity (inaudible) disease dynamics over the short and long term. Essentially, this disease is not going to stop spreading until we have sufficient immunity in the population, whether that comes through natural infection or through vaccination.

And so what we see is that with the goal of turning on and off social distancing measures to maintain within our critical care capacity, if we turn them on and off to maintain within that critical care capacity, population immunity is going to build up fairly slowly and likely won't build up to sufficient levels until about 2022.

But this is under one scenario, one model that we lay out as one case to evaluate.

COOPER: Anne, a draft memo obtained by "The Washington Post" shows that the CDC and FEMA have issued conditions for states to reopen, including what they say -- call a "genuinely low" infection rate. We've known that asymptomatic people could transmit the virus, but a new study is showing that people are maybe most infectious before they show symptoms.

I'm wondering what changes you think should be made to existing protocols, if any, to allow for a more accurate reading of the infection rate.

ANNE RIMOIN, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AT UCLA: Well, Anderson, I think it's really important to stress this issue of asymptomatic infection, and how this plays out in terms of the spread of the virus.

We've just published a paper that's in preprint right now that shows very clearly that the use of cloth masks, worn by everyone in the population, will reduce the spread of the virus significantly, and can bring this reproductive number that we've been discussing down very, very low, perhaps even below one.

So this is very, very important. When people are asymptomatically infected or presymptomatically infected -- like you just noted, where people are most infectious right before they show symptoms, when they can actually do something about it or have some indication that they have it -- we -- they must -- you know, we need to make sure that people are doing everything they can.

So this whole idea of everybody has to act like they have the virus, wear a cloth covering or some sort of face covering to be able to prevent spread of droplets -- I always like to say, Keep your droplets to yourself -- this will reduce spread.

And I think that what we've just seen with the governor of California, the governor of New York, the mayor of New York, the mayor of California, leading the way, making sure that these things are in place? This will go a long way and also feed into these guidelines that you're discussing right now.

We have to do everything we can. We don't have the testing in place, we don't have the contact tracing and all these other pieces in place right now, so what we can do are these blunt measures. And that will help dictate how and when we might be able to slowly reopen.

COOPER: And, Christine, with the studies that you were doing, that 2022 date, in order to -- that's the date that herd immunity, enough people in the population would have immunity? That's without there being a vaccine. Does --

TEDIJANTO: Correct.

COOPER: Is that based on the idea of kind of social distancing methods going up and down and kind of rolling social distancing methods? TEDIJANTO: Right. So what we do in our paper, is that we evaluate

what would happen is we were to turn on and off social distancing at certain times, at certain thresholds that we define as thresholds that will maintain the critical care needs within the United States capacity.

So of course, it is a simplified model that assumes that social distancing can turn on and off immediately, which is not the case. It should be gradual, and we should see not a sharp, but a gradual return.

But -- and also -- but we also see that if we are to increase critical care capacity or decrease the probability or the likelihood of needing critical care, that's also going to give us more space and more ability to build up population immunity faster.

COOPER: That's really fascinating. Christine Tedijanto, appreciate your work. And Anne Rimoin as well, thank you so much.

The FBI, with a warning to businesses that employees may be trying to take advantage -- or some employees might be taking advantage of the pandemic by faking positive test results, we'll take a look at that.

[14:10:00]

Plus, could your approach to social distancing have everything to do with your political ideology? We'll explain.

And also, why some of Florida's richest neighborhoods are guaranteed a coronavirus test even though testing throughout much of the state remains slow and unavailable to many.

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COOPER: A warning from the FBI, and a disturbing report about the economy. I want to go to some of my CNN colleagues for headlines from around the world.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Rosa Flores in Miami, where the Florida surgeon general, Scott Rivkees has advised that social distancing will be the new normal until a vaccine is developed. Now, these comments appear to be in contrast with Governor Ron DeSantis and President Trump, who have suggested reopening sooner.

[14:15:08]

Now, Rivkees warns that even though the cases in the state of Florida appear to have plateaued, this is not the time to let the guard down. Total cases stand at more than 21,000, deaths at more than 570 with about 60 percent of all total cases in the southeast counties of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dianne Gallagher in Atlanta. As questions continue about the pandemic's eventual impact on the U.S. food supply chain, there is growing concern about the workers inside these meat processing plants across the country, with likely thousands already impacted by the virus.

In Colorado, the union says a third worker from that JBS plant in Greeley has died from the virus. This comes as the governor now says that they will keep it closed as long as it takes. He would like to see testing of all employees before it is reopened.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I'm Josh Campbell in Los Angeles. As U.S. companies face record losses, the FBI, warning private industry they now have something else to worry about: fraud by employees. In a report issued Monday across the nation, the bureau, warning that employers should be on the lookout for fake documentation submitted by employees indicating they have tested positive for COVID- 19.

Now, while the FBI didn't provide any raw data to suggest this is a widespread problem, there have been incidents in recent weeks where employees will fake a doctor's note to get out of work. The bureau, warning this type of scam can cause significant financial loss to companies. The FBI, recommending that supervisors call the number listed on a medical form in order to determine its authenticity.

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Julia Chatterley in New York with an economic reality check. When the U.S. economy shuts down, so do our wallets. Retail sales data today, the weakest on record, falling almost nine percent. We did buy some things. We bought liquor, we hoarded groceries we shopped more online. But things like cars, clothes and bars were left far behind.

But here's the key. We were only in lockdown for two weeks of March. The fear now is that the April numbers could be even worse.

COOPER: When it comes to social distancing, Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. may have strikingly different behavior patterns. An early research paper suggests that U.S. areas with a higher concentration of Republican voters may be engaging in less social distancing compared with other areas during the coronavirus pandemic.

I want to bring in Stanford University economics professor Matthew Gentzkow, who's leading the study in progress. Matthew, your researchers using, what, smartphone data to track foot traffic?

MATTHEW GENTZKOW, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: Yes, that's right. We use GPS data from smartphones, so there's a panel of about 10 million smartphones, and the data are collected by a company called SafeGraph that aggregates them and makes sure privacy is protected, and then we can look at traffic patterns in different geographic areas.

COOPER: And how do you know someone's a Republican or Democrat by looking at their smartphone location data? Is it just based on sort of political voting patterns?

GENTZKOW: Yes, no, that's a great question. We actually can't see at the individual phone level, who's a Republican and a Democrat. So what we're doing is just comparing counties in the U.S. that tend to vote Republican and counties that tend to vote Democratic.

COOPER: And so basically, what have you seen so far?

GENTZKOW: So I think there's maybe two main findings. So the first is, if you just compare red and blue counties, there is a pretty substantial and significant difference in how much social distancing people are doing.

And then the second thing is, if I just told you that, you might ask, well, isn't that just because the hardest hit places so far -- like Washington State and New York City and so on -- are Democratic areas? And so maybe all that's going on is that Democrats live in the places where the virus has been most severe.

So the second thing we do is try to adjust really carefully for all of those kinds of factors: how bad the virus has been, what kind of lockdown orders you're under, is it a city, is it a rural area.

And after we control for all those other factors, the partisan differences remain substantial and significant. So we estimate, after controlling for all of that stuff, there's about a 20 percent different in the most Republican places and the most Democratic places and how much people are continuing to go out to restaurants and stores and parks and other places around.

COOPER: And I mean, I guess the supposition would be people getting news or information or believing different sources of information. Is there any way to prove that next step, or not?

GENTZKOW: I -- well, I think the answer is no, we can't prove that next step. And I think it's important to remember, there are a lot of good reasons why some people might do more social distancing than others. They might -- you know, you might be at more risk or less risk, you might have a job that requires you to go out --

[14:20:06]

COOPER: Right.

GENTZKOW: -- or might not. So we can't really nail it down. But what we do is, in addition to the GPS data, we also survey about 2,000 people to try to get more traction on what are their beliefs, what do they really think is going on.

And we even pay them to make predictions about how many cases and deaths there are going to be over the month of April. Or we tell them we're going to come back and pay them if their guesses are right.

And when we do that, we see people's beliefs are really quite different. So Democrats predict this is going to be a worse epidemic than Republicans do by a fairly substantial margin. And so we can't prove that that's why there's a difference in social distancing, but it's consistent with all the mixed messages that people have been getting from politicians and media, leading to those differences in beliefs.

COOPER: It's fascinating. Matthew Gentzkow, appreciate it. Thanks very much.

GENTZKOW: Thank you so much.

COOPER: Up next, while the most exclusive private island off Miami guarantees antibody tests for everyone on the island, the actual city of Miami sees a starkly different reality and need. We'll look at that.

Also still ahead, how Japan is confronting a very disturbing projection. The country's health minister, warning 400,000 people could die if more isn't done to contain the virus.

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[14:26:03]

COOPER: One of South Florida's most exclusive enclaves is covering the cost for workers as well as people living there, to get tested. Fisher Island is home to hundreds of wealthy people and a medical facility run by the University of Miami Health System. A Health System spokeswoman said testing is under way now to check to see if people have been exposed to COVID-19 and developed antibodies.

But the news has sparked anger as statewide testing remains out of reach for many. Miami-Dade County's public school superintendent tweeted in response, "I cannot reconcile the shoeless, mask-less, hungry children we fed today with this headline. Everyone on exclusive Fisher Island, even the staff, can get tested for coronavirus." The man who tweeted that, Alberto Carvalho, joins us now.

Florida -- thanks so much for being with us. Appreciate it. Florida has more than 22,000 cases, nearly 600 deaths, only about one percent of the population has been tested. If you can't just talk about the level of testing in your county, and if you've reached out to, you know, the mayor, anybody to express concerns?

ALBERTO CARVALHO, SUPERINTENDENT, MIAMI-DADE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: I think the level of testing actually in South Florida is better than the rest of the state, so kudos to those who are leading that effort.

But, look, that headline was bruising to me personally. Because I do represent 355,000 kids, 73 percent of which -- of whom live at or below the poverty level. So it was so disconnected from the reality I live every single day, considering that over the past 3.5 weeks since we shut down schools, we have distributed in excess of a million meals to kids.

And I recognize, a lot of these kids come to me barefoot, without a mask, hungry and certainly their parents are not having the level of access to health care and testing that was so blatantly displayed in that headline.

COOPER: You've -- a million meals, that's pretty extraordinary. How are you doing -- are you using the kitchens in the schools?

CARVALHO: We are using 50 schools as kitchens and distribution sites between 4:00 and 7:00 p.m., every single week. In addition to that, to stimulate the local economy using the school district's foundation, we've actually been collecting funds to support local restaurants, and they are cooking hot meals to provide to the neediest kids in the neediest zip codes in our community.

So a million meals prepared in our kitchens, in addition to about 10,000 meals prepared by local restaurants, funded through the philanthropic arm of our community and generous donors, recognizing the level of food instability in the greater Miami-Dade.

COOPER: What do you see, moving forward, just in terms of -- of the needs and as -- you know, what are your concerns about, you know, parts of the state or the whole state, you know, changing their social distancing criteria?

CARVALHO: You know, one of my biggest concerns, quite frankly, is associated with the possibility that a statewide order is given regarding the lifting of school closures. There are regional differences, there are different levels of infections specific to different counties and cities within counties.

I certainly hope that, moving forward, any order regarding easing of the restrictions associated with sheltering at home takes into consideration medical data, scientific data currently available, specific to individual counties. This is not a one-size-fits-all for Florida or for the nation.

Medical information, medical opinion, scientific data ought to drive political decisions regarding the reopening of America and particularly the reopening of schools including schools in the state of Florida.

COOPER: Alberto Carvalho, I appreciate all your efforts. Thank you very much.

CARVALHO: Thank you very much.

COOPER: Coming up, yet another study, finding risks of using hydroxychloroquine in coronavirus patients.

[14:29:45]

Plus, President Trump's extraordinary step of cutting off funding to the World Health Organization is being met with global outcry. We'll get the former secretary of Health and Human Services' take, next.

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