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Some States Like Georgia and South Carolina Move to Reopen as U.S. Death Toll Climbs; Interview with Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Georgia Governor's Decision to Reopen Businesses; White House, Congress Near Deal on Aid; U.S. Monitoring Intel That North Korean Leader is in Grave Danger After Surgery. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired April 21, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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


[09:00:21]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Tuesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

A high stakes public health gamble. Some governors moving to reopen parts of their states despite warnings and despite the fact that coronavirus deaths have nearly doubled in the United States over just the last week.

In Georgia, businesses like movie theaters, restaurants, even tattoo parlors are getting the green light to reopen, even though the state has not yet meet the White House's own phase one goal of 14 days of straight declines in cases, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Confusing situation. Health experts agree that without a vaccine, testing is crucial to reopening the United States safely. And likely that millions will be needed.

Vice President Pence trying to reassure governors that the federal government is racing to get the supplies needed to conduct those tests in volume. At the same time, the president said that he is suspending immigration, that's right, suspending all immigration into this country as the nation battles this crisis, claiming that he will sign an executive order soon.

We are in the states that are reopening for business. Let's begin with CNN's Martin Savidge in Atlanta.

Martin, as we noted there, Georgia has not met the White House's own guidelines here, yet it's moving forward.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. Good morning to you, Jim. A lot of people here caught off guard by the actions of the governor, not so much that he would ease restrictions, but the aggressive nature that he took at easing the restrictions. He also questioned some of the businesses that are being allowed to reopen. Let's just look at the list so far. As of Friday, Georgia residents

can go back to the gym. They can get haircuts, they can get pedicures and massages, they can even get tattoos and if they want they can go out and go bowling. And then starting on Monday, they can dine in at a restaurant and go out to see a movie.

Now, there are medical officials that have come forward and been highly critical. They say that it is just too soon for any kind of major activity like this on the business front. And then there are the other mayors in the state of Georgia, for instance, the mayor of Albany. That's a community that has been so heavily ravaged by coronavirus. Here's the reaction from there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BO DOROUGH, ALBANY, GEORGIA: Now I understand the governor had a difficult decision to make. I do, however, think he made the wrong decision. And on three levels, as a citizen, we need to understand that reopening the economy should be guided by benchmarks and not dates.

MAYOR KELLY GIRTZ, ATHENS-CLARK COUNTY, GEORGIA: I'm exhorting everybody in this community to continue to shelter in place. Do not reopen at this point. It's not the time to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAVIDGE: One of the things that the governor stated in announcing his plan was that local officials, local mayors, could not in any way intercede. In other words, that the state's authority overextends anything that they might do on the local front. So as frustrated as mayors may be, they can't do anything about it. That's the story from here -- Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes, I thought listening to that mayor this morning that you just played, Marty, was just so, so telling. His hands really tied and he's so worried about the health of his community. Thank you for that reporting.

Let's go to Columbia, South Carolina, now and our Natasha Chen joins us from there again this morning.

What is Governor McMaster doing in terms of easing restrictions?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, as of 5:00 yesterday, certain stores that sell furniture, clothing, books, music, florists, flea markets, department stores, sporting goods stores, they can all reopen as long as they keep 20 percent capacity or five customers per thousand square feet. And that's why we're in front of Loose Lucy's. They say that they're very excited to reopen while other businesses tell us they are still too nervous to reopen and feel it's too early.

Yesterday I asked the governor and the state epidemiologist whether they had followed White House guidelines in seeing that 14-day downward trend in cases before reopening. Here's what they said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. HENRY MCMASTER (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Those are guidelines. We're following -- yes, we're following guidelines, and not the -- that's not the law. That was the guidelines and they're very good, they're well thought out, we appreciate it. We also -- we have information here from our professionals here in South Carolina as well and we go by that as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHEN: It is also a very difficult decision for workers who are eager to go back and earn an income, but also concerned about their health. Here's one furniture salesman who told us he's got a tough decision to make.

[09:05:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH OUTLAW-HUGHES, FURNITURE STORE WORKER: I could be risking infecting myself, I could be risking infecting others, I would rather stay home until I know it's safe, until the health professionals have told us that it's safe, than go out and risk all that. But at the same time I'm running really low on money. So I'm between a rock and a hard place. Do I go back to work to try and make money and risk getting sick or do I stay home and go broke?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHEN: So it's a very difficult decision. A lot of mixed reactions here in Columbia, South Carolina.

Poppy and Jim, back to you.

HARLOW: Natasha Chen, certainly such an impossible choice for so many. Thank you very much. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Joining me now is the mayor of Atlanta, Keshia Lance Bottoms.

Mayor, so good to have you on this morning. We know you have a lot on your plate. So the governor of Georgia, barbers, gyms, massage parlors, all can open now. This despite the fact that Georgia has not met the White House's own guidelines to have 14 days of declining cases.

Is the governor putting the lives of Georgia residence at risk?

MAYOR KEISHA LANCE BOTTOM (D), ATLANTA: Thank you for having me. I've searched my head and my heart on this and I really am at a loss as to what the governor is basing this decision on, other than getting people back to work, which is extremely important, but for us to have a strong economy, we have to have a strong and healthy community. And so I am concerned that there was no local input.

I've spoken with several mayors, including the mayor of Augusta, Georgia, our second largest city in the state. He didn't have a heads up. We saw it on -- during the governor's evening press conference.

I mean, you look at where our numbers are, Jim, it makes it even more perplexing. As of yesterday evening, our 24-hour numbers show that our death rate was up 14 percent and our positive tests were up 7 percent. And that's still without us testing people with mild symptoms or asymptomatic.

SCIUTTO: It seems to us, and you heard your colleagues, mayors of other communities in Georgia, such as Albany, resisting this, differing with the governor on this. Is there anything you could do as mayors to counteract, to recommend against what the governor is recommending?

BOTTOMS: Well, the governor and I normally have a very good and open working relationship. But on this one, we are going to have to figure out if we legally have a grounds to put in different orders in place within the city of Atlanta. The governor normally defers to local controls, so, again, it's been a bit surprising that that's not the case here. But what I can say is that whether or not I have the legal authority to supersede the order from the governor I still have my voice and I will continue to use my voice to encourage people to exercise common sense, listen to the science, and stay home. We are not out of the woods.

SCIUTTO: The governor has granted that infections will rise as restrictions are loosened, but he says that the state is better prepared for that. To your knowledge, as the mayor of the biggest city in the state, is that true? Would hospitals be able to handle a spike in cases as the restrictions are relaxed?

BOTTOMS: We are not at capacity in our hospitals, Jim, because we took very aggressive action in the city and in surrounding metro county cities that have put us in the position that we are in now. Just last week our major hospital, Grady Hospital, was 31 patients over capacity because we are challenged to provide healthcare service on a good day in our city. We have some of the highest (INAUDIBLE) rates in the country, diabetes, high blood pressure.

All of these things that are found in urban communities are found right here in Atlanta. So we may have 200 additional beds at our World Congress Center. We may have an additional hospital wing opening up, but that is not the position you want to be in. We don't want to tax our healthcare system.

And my understanding, speaking with Dr. Carlos del Rio, one of the leading infectious disease experts in the country, is just because we may have reached a peak in Georgia, doesn't mean that we won't reach another peak. He gave me the example of climbing Mount Everest. Just as many people die on the way up as die on the way down, and that just seems -- I don't know why you would want to put the cities and the people in our state in that predicament.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And, listen, I know you have a tough choice to make here in these recommendations because people want and need to go back to work. But it struck us that many businesses say they will not reopen, that they don't consider it safe enough to reopen at this point. [09:10:01]

What kind of message does that send to the governor?

BOTTOMS: Well, I've gotten calls from several business owners who said they absolutely will not put their people in harm's way. My mother owned a hair salon for 25 years. This would have been devastating to her to have to close her hair salon. But she said to me last night there's no way she would go and stand over a client in the middle of something like this.

So people are not willing to put their health at risk. This -- you have to live to fight another day. And you have to be able to be amongst the living to be able to recover.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BOTTOMS: And so we're putting people like hairstylists and many of these other workers, many of whom don't have health insurance, in a position where they're having to choose between their livelihood and their health.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BOTTOMS: It's not a position and a predicament that anyone wants to find themselves in.

SCIUTTO: Understood. Well, listen, Mayor, we know you're doing your best there. We wish you, we wish the people of Atlanta the best going forward.

BOTTOMS: Thank you.

HARLOW: OK. Let's bring in Dr. Helen Ouyang, an ER doctor, an associate professor at Columbia University right here in New York City. Over the last six weeks she has been chronicling her experience through this pandemic for the "New York Times" magazine. She writes, in her most recent entry, "Conversations about dying and death are all around me now. The only kind I hear, either I am having one or the physician next to me is."

She continues, "As soon as I open the ER doors there I shrink from the sights and smells. Patients are now triple bunked into single person spaces, curtains pushed aside." It's powerful to follow over the last few weeks.

Doctor, thank you for being with me.

DR. HELEN OUYANG, ER DOCTOR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Thanks for having me on the show, Poppy.

HARLOW: Of course. One of the things that struck me most is that you actually said that you have never felt less useful as a doctor. Why?

OUYANG: That's totally true. I mean, first of all, there's very little we know about this virus. We don't know what the best way to treat it is, there is some data coming out whether we're putting too many patients on ventilators. Even when they're on the ventilators, it's still very hard to get them off of it. We've had very few patients come off of them successfully. They've been on ventilators for two to four weeks.

It's an extremely long time. They have a breathing tube down their throat. I felt like the best thing I could do for my patients is to make sure they're on oxygen, to make sure their oxygen tanks haven't run out or that they haven't pulled off their oxygen mask which can be very uncomfortable. Other than that, it's been (INAUDIBLE) all of these damages to their organs and we don't know the best way to manage this.

HARLOW: I was struck by the moment when you write about being human. And basically saying that we have to feel each moment as doctors, even if it makes each moment difficult to endure. That you can't in this pandemic separate yourself and your humanity from your professional -- you know, your professional requirements.

OUYANG: That's true. I felt -- you know, at one point, I felt so disconnected from my patients. I had a whole mask on and goggles and a face shield and they also had masks on and I couldn't see their entire face and it just seemed like it would be too easy to become disconnected from them. And I realized in order to keep doing this, you know, this virus is going to be with us for a while, we have to feel each moment and continue to connect with our patients. Even if they can't speak, even if we can't see their full faces, and we don't have their families at the bedside.

HARLOW: That's so true. The numbers in New York City, what we saw as of Sunday is that this city dipped below 500 deaths in a day on Sunday for the first time in a number of weeks. And that is, I suppose, somewhat of a positive sign in terms of direction, but you say this does not mean that we are out of the danger zone by any measure.

OUYANG: That's true. We can definitely have a resurgence. That could just naturally happen. It could happen in terms of everyone just sort of relaxing, are sheltering in place. We have to remember these are just daily numbers. So it's just sort of a spot check. It does not mean it's an overall trend.

HARLOW: What about antibody testing? You have seemed very enthusiastic about it, just in terms of what it could tell you and your physicians and give you a little bit more sense of security. Do you -- any update on progress on getting that for you and your team?

OUYANG: Yes. So we're able to get antibody testing if we've had symptoms or we had tested positive. But I do feel like it's false security. We don't really know what it means to have antibodies. How long that lasts, how much immunity.

HARLOW: Yes.

OUYANG: You can still catch the virus again, if you can still infect other people, so while I think that it's good data point for us in terms of figuring out the extent this virus has spread and whether we could slowly reopen, I don't think it's a panacea.

HARLOW: No question. And there is a lot of faulty antibody tests out there, right? Only one or a handful of them that are FDA approved.

Before you go, I was finally struck when you talked about a text exchange you had with a fellow doctor who reminded you that there is an end. That at some point, this will end.

[09:15:00]

OUYANG: Yes, so I've been communicating with the Italian doctors and actually, initially, when they told me how bad it was over there, I didn't even really believe it in terms of the -- it would come here or that we would see it so quickly. And then I had a couple of days off and I went back to the emergency room and it was everywhere.

Every patient had a breathing tube, everyone was on a ventilator, people were so sick, and then I started to get texts that they were getting a little bit better over there, and I'm hopeful that will happen here. But, again, they're nervous about reopening too, and that there will just be a resurgence. So I'm really nervous about that happening in New York City too.

HARLOW: Dr. Helen Ouyang, thank you for this and for what you have been journaling and it's been important for a lot of us to follow. Good luck to you.

OUYANG: Thank you so much.

HARLOW: Still to come, they are enforcing the law and fighting their own battles with this virus. NYPD Commissioner -- the NYPD Commissioner joins us next. Also, a new deal that would provide emergency funding to small businesses could be close, but Congress is facing backlash after a bunch of publicly-traded big companies got a big chunk of that funding, the first time around. Will they protect against that this time?

SCIUTTO: And the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, U.S. Intel monitoring intelligence that he could be in grave danger after undergoing surgery. We'll have everything we know just ahead.

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[09:20:00]

SCIUTTO: Well, social distancing is not an option for the men and women of law enforcement across this country. The New York Police Department of course, at the fore front of this. We sadly know that 30 members of the NYPD have now died of the coronavirus, nearly 14 percent of the force is out sick, although, that's down from the peak. Joining me now to talk about it, all the challenges, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea. Commissioner, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

DERMOT SHEA, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT: All right, thank you, Jim, my pleasure. SCIUTTO: So, listen, the toll to the NYPD, alarming, I'm sure to a

lot of our viewers, 30 officers have lost their lives, 2,000 still out sick. And you got others who are still fighting for their lives in the hospital. Tell us how the force is managing through all this.

SHEA: Well, sadly, we had a 31st member overnight that pass. We still have -- and just on the uniform side, about 13 percent of the force out sick. I mean, that's well over what we normally are at. But the good news, if you try to find some good news in all of this, is that, we've now had 12 straight days, decreasing sick rates, so I take a lot of positive on that.

We are still very concerned about our members that are in the hospital as you mentioned. And, you know, our thoughts and prayers are going out to them and to their families. And really to the extent of our NYPD family at this time.

SCIUTTO: No question, ours as well. So, you're in the middle of it. Though New York may have passed the peak or is plateauing here as the governor somehow describes, you still have the mayor, for instance, extending -- or canceling events through June, big public events. What do you think, as you see other communities around the country already starting to relax these social distancing rules.

I wonder, particularly as a member of law enforcement, do you think that puts law enforcement around the country at risk?

SHEA: Well, it's definitely an interesting time. I mean, like in New York City, it's like no other place. I would liken it to we're a thoroughbred at the starting gate ready to explode down the track. The problem is, we don't know the rules of the race. You know, we don't know if a gate is going to be lifted or is there staggered. And I don't know that anyone really knows the answer to that as we all -- policy people, health professionals, law enforcement as we struggle with what's the way back from this.

I think it's imperative that we find that out as quickly as possible. But we do it also responsibly because --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

SHEA: I worry about is that downward slide on the back-end and a resurgence. So, I think that that's -- you know, something that we all have to be mindful of. This disease has taken a terrible toll of some of the best people we have in New York City, not just as a police department. So, we have to be very careful of how we get out of this.

SCIUTTO: No question. You feel like every family has a story now. I wonder --

SHEA: Yes --

SCIUTTO: Part of your -- part of the force's job of course, is to enforce these social distancing measures. Are you finding that New Yorkers are -- or some starting to push back against it or you have to police this? SHEA: I wouldn't say pushing back, I definitely wouldn't say that. I

think that, you know, as you walk around New York City, by and large, I've said this from day one and I believe it, that's why I'm saying it. We have had people compliant, we have had people understanding the gravity of the issue, you walk down the sidewalks of New York City, now, you see masking tapes, six feet apart, telling people where to stand -- on those, I mean, over and over.

With that being said, Jim, do you see some isolated incidents or some people getting out and enjoying a park? You absolutely see that, too. We have hundreds and hundreds of officers out there, trying to educate, trying to warn, ultimately sometimes having to summons people for violating this. Just last night, we had a party in Manhattan where 50 people were gathered in a commercial establishment that was shuttered, broke in or trespassing, rather, and you know, smoking marijuana in there.

[09:25:00]

We can't have incidents like that. If people are going to get out and exercise, we think that's a good thing, but it's got to be responsible. We can't have organized sports. We can't have unnecessary contact. So it's a difficult thing to police. It puts a lot of pressure on the police officers, I think they're doing a very good job in very difficult --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

SHEA: Circumstances.

SCIUTTO: Well, it's on you and it's on all of us, too, right?

SHEA: Yes --

SCIUTTO: We all got to do our part. Commissioner Shea, always good to talk to you, we wish you, the men and women of the force the best of luck.

SHEA: All right, thank you, Jim, stay safe.

HARLOW: Yes, amazing that they had to break something like that up, that, that was happening right now. All right, President Trump says he is planning to sign an executive order to temporarily suspend all immigration into this country.

Let's go to our White House correspondent John Harwood. OK, so, what are the details on when he would do this, how long it would last, because this would essentially not approve any application for foreigners, you know, that had already been approved to live and work in this country. It would just completely stop legal immigration.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, we don't have any details from the White House. The president tweeted this out last night as he was watching television and being concerned about the situation of him being blamed, his poll numbers going down. It can only be understood as a political matter, not as a public health matter.

The reason is that the virus is long since here. He didn't ban travel to the United States. He just said he was going to interrupt immigration. And many of the immigration-related activities have been halted because of the coronavirus itself. And so what the president was trying to do was give his supporters something to rally around, redirecting some blame to foreigners who presumably have something to do with this.

In the same way that he's been redirecting blame to governors and Democratic states for people who are impatient with the coronavirus shutdown. It's not clear whether it's going to have any effect at all other than the president venting and giving his supporters something.

HARLOW: OK, well, we're waiting for all of these details, obviously, it's quite an announcement. John, thanks very much for that. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Well, the U.S. says that it is monitoring intelligence that North Korea's leader is in grave danger after a surgery. We're going to have all the details.

HARLOW: We're also moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street, futures are pointing down this morning and global stock markets are in the red after what can only be described as just a stunning drop in U.S. oil prices Monday. U.S. oil futures trading below zero yesterday. We haven't seen that since the early '80s. The coronavirus pandemic has caused oil demand to drop so rapidly, the world is running out of room to store all that excess oil.

No one wants it right now. We'll keep a close eye on the markets set to open in just a few minutes.

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