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FDA Approves Coronavirus Test Using At-Home Samples; President Donald Trump Claims He Will Call Temporarily Suspend Migration Into U.S.; United Kingdom Government Scrambles To Deliver Promised PPE To Hospitals; Hong Kong Extends Social Distancing Measures Until May 7th; Georgia Governor Brian Kemp: Gyms, Restaurants And Other Businesses To Reopen. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired April 21, 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]

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Hello to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John King in Washington. This is CNN's continuing coverage of the Coronavirus pandemic.

A big White House meeting today between the President and the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo also big global tension as some countries now rush to reopen while others still grappling with their new restricted reality.

In Austria for example businesses, schools and restaurants will open next month. In England new data show the virus is killing more people than the government is reporting each day. And across the world 1.8 billion Muslims reckoned with Ramadan without masks and bans on public prayer gatherings.

Here in the United States confirmed Coronavirus cases climbing now to nearly 800,000 more than 42,000 dead that are more American lives lost to Coronavirus than in the Korean War. The President says this is a war his battlefield priority this morning using his big Twitter platform to brag about the ratings for his daily televised briefings that after a late night tweet promising to shut down all immigration.

Aids are now rushing to turn that tweet into policy even though most entry into the United States is already sharply restricted. Ratings and immigrants are the President's worry experts say the biggest battlefield need is more testing especially as some states now begin to ease restrictions.

New research suggesting 5 million tests a day will be needed to safely reopen the American economy. Again no state currently meets the President's criteria to reopen but several are planning to reopen parts of the economy this week.

Georgia's Governor Brian Kemp is the first to announce a major back to work plan. If you look the number of daily new cases there in Georgia not a downward trend but agree or disagree with the Governor Georgia is now exhibit A in the 50 state experiments. Some Governor say this is too soon, others say their colleagues are just being too timid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you say from where you're sitting at this moment that the worst is over in California?

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM, (D-CA): No because if we all pull back we could see a second wave that makes us pale in comparison.

GOV. RON DESANTIS, (R-FL): You can do both. You can continue to fight COVID-19 but also get people back to work and have society function again. And Brian I never did draconian orders here like you see in some of these other states where dad would get arrested for or get cited for taking his daughter to the park that doesn't work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: One new development today in the testing front the FDA green lighting and at home test for the Coronavirus. The testing chasm of course issue number one when Governors talked to the White House daily but listen to the President says testing is perfect. He believes the complaints a personal partisan.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: The bipartisan it's mostly partisan but more importantly than mostly partisan it's incorrect. Governor Hogan he didn't really know. He really didn't know about the federal laboratories would you say that's correct my opinion no, he didn't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Let's get straight to the White House CNN's Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan perhaps today it'll be interesting to see the Democratic Governor of New York coming to the Oval Office to try to convince the President face to face. Let's sort this out on testing. Let's stop the finger pointing what are the prospects?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's going to be a fascinating meeting between the two of them in the oval this afternoon. You know we've been seeing both of them holding these dueling daily briefings. The President has been watching Governor Cuomo's briefings incredibly closely and responding to them in real time.

And now of course they're going to discuss testing something we know they disagree on about the Federal Government's level of involvement and what it should be in that. And you see the White House overall not just push back on Governor Cuomo but all of these Governors who are saying that the Federal Government needs to take a bigger role in this.

And you saw the President they are saying Larry Hogan a Republican of Maryland didn't know about these labs that the White House presented them with on this list of the President was touting yesterday at this briefing.

And John we should note that Larry Hogan disputed that directly saying no he was well aware of the labs that the White House was alerting him to but some of them were either inaccessible some of them weren't working with him which is what Larry Hogan said.

And it really comes over all whether or not there is going to be a sufficient level of testing. As you are saying these Governors in these southern states start to reopen their economies. And some of that we should know are going against the White House guidelines including South Carolina where they have admitted that they are not kidding that 14 day recommended trajectory in the White House criteria for starting to reopen your autonomy.

And the White House was dismissing that saying that they're going to like Governors make their own decisions. These are solely guidelines which of course we know but these are what the recommendations of the White House believe they should follow.

And really John is we're seeing the start to reopen we're going to see this come to a head on whether or not the President's claims about there being enough testing that many Governors across the border disputing a bear out basically.

[12:05:00]

KING: We'll see later today if there's any detente or agreement between Governor Cuomo and the President. Kaitlan Collins live at the White House. Thanks so much. With me now to discuss further CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta the Former Assistant to President Obama for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco.

Sanjay let me start with you. We're at this debate you live in Georgia which is now Exhibit A in this national debate. Georgia, South Carolina and some other states deciding even though their trajectory does not meet that 14 day standard the White House recommends moving forward. What are you looking at? What are you most looking at as agree or disagree like it or not some states are going to start this experiment?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'm very concerned about that John. You know I mean that the data exist for a reason those guidelines exist because that was sort of the trajectory that was thought to be needed in order to start to get down to a baseline level of infections that could be most easily managed.

There are two things I think to keep in mind. One is that obviously that trajectory is not being met here in Georgia. There's not been a 14 day downward trajectory. I think we have a graph. I mean you can look at these graphs, the data - you know we have the data you know as far as what we can see it doesn't meet that trajectory.

The other thing is you know as has been the problem all along and Georgia is no different in some ways and many other parts of the country. We're not testing enough. So we don't really have full eyes on this. We don't know the extent to which this is spread.

John, as of yesterday I did the calculations about 84,000 tests as of yesterday had been completed in Georgia but 19,000 of those tests came back positive that's a 23 percent positive rate. In order to feel like you're doing enough surveillance you need to get below 10 percent.

So one in ten people would be testing positive as opposed to you know 2.5 out of 10 as it looks like now. So we're not testing enough. We're not going down enough. I just think it's too early. There's a lot of pressure on this Governor. I think he thinks of it as a tough call in that regard but it's not a tough call from a public health standpoint.

KING: The numbers certainly suggests otherwise. Lisa help us because you have unique experience. You worked in an administration that had pandemic planning, that had to deal with crises like this. This one's different. This one is global. This one is on a scale the President is right. This President is right when he says no one's ever had to do this.

Let's try to set aside the politics for a moment. He blames you for example for not having a Coronavirus test even though this novel Coronavirus emerged 3 years into his presidency. I don't have that conversation.

I want to have this conversation the Governor of New York comes today and says Mr. President we got to end this squabbling. You need to take over the Federal Government is to take over the supply line. Get the swabs, get the reagents, get the vials and we will do the testing then in our state labs.

If you go back to your planning is that how it would have worked if we were in an Obama Administration or in a George W. Bush Administration? Is this administration doing something different?

LISA MONACO, FORMER ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT OBAMA FOR HOMELAND SECURITY AND COUNTERTERRORISM: Look John, we have a pandemic preparedness plan. The Bush Administration had one, the Obama Administration had one. The Obama Administration left the Trump Administration a pandemic playbook. A step by step set of questions to ask steps to take as you would see a new emerging infectious disease which is exactly what the Coronavirus is.

The Trump Administration's throughout that playbook they ignored it. So what the job of the Federal Government is the job of the President, the job of the White House in a crisis and we are in a public health crisis is to support the state and local response, pursuant to a national strategy.

Unfortunately we don't have a national strategy on testing. We've tested one percent of the country of 330 million people that's not nearly where we need to be. We need to ramp up testing and it's the job of the Federal Government to provide those supplies to really ramp up the supply chain.

Instead the White House has given Governors a list of phone numbers and that's not how it's supposed to work. KING: Let me ask Lisa one more question. You look at the cases on the number of these nearly 800,000 cases here in the United States. The President tweeting overnight even though immigration is virtually zero all because of steps already taken we need to stop more people from coming into the United States.

Would you go to President Obama at this point moment and say that I think that's key here that should be at the top of our priority list?

MONACO: No. Look the reality is you need to focus on the Homeland Security crisis. You need to focus on facts, on science, on speaking credibly and consistently and clearly to the American people. The fact of the matter is the disease is here. It doesn't know any borders. And the problem is we don't know enough about where it is?

And the only way to reopen the economy and get people back to work is by giving them confidence. Confidence that they can do so safely, confidence that employer can bring their employees back to work safely. That comes from an ability to treat to test to trace. And we're not where we need to be particularly on the testing and the tracing.

KING: And on the testing issue Sanjay, there's some new research out of Los Angeles on this antibody testing.

[12:10:00]

KING: I don't know how much credibility you put in it but if you believe it, it suggests there are whole lot more people walking around who had Coronavirus than the case numbers would suggest. Take us - tell us what that means?

GUPTA: Yes. Yes, I mean there's always been this knowledge that there's a lot of people who are either asymptomatic meaning that they never develop symptoms or their pre-symptomatic meaning they're about to develop symptoms but they don't know it yet.

With this particular testing and this has been replicated in at least one other place. They did antibody testing over a couple of days and what they found was that the prevalence was closer to somewhere between 2.5 and 5.5 percent.

And so if you look at the overall numbers that meant somewhere between 220,000 to 440,000 and that's out of 8000 confirmed cases. So you know the multiple there is 2 to 5 times really as many people may have been exposed to this Coronavirus then we actually have confirmed.

There are lot of people John who are out there saying I had symptoms a few weeks ago could that have been the Coronavirus? I don't know. When you see sort of results like this come back this gives you this idea that you know there's a lot more people who've been exposed than we realize.

KING: Sanjay Gupta and Lisa Monaco really appreciate your insights. Look forward through this thank you both. As we noted some State Governors now taking a more aggressive approach to reopening in their states others being more cautious say they want to rely on science to tell them just when the time is right?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. MIKE DEWINE, (R-OH): The worst thing would be for us to start back and then stop and we have to close again. So we want to do this in a way that is frankly consistent with what the President's guidelines are.

GOV. LARRY HOGAN, (R-MD): If the President's own plan, as I just said tell states that they should not even consider opening until they have 14 days of downward numbers which most states don't have it.

GOV. J. B. PRITZKER, (D-IL): You have to get past the peak. You know you have to 14 days of numbers going down right all those conditions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The Colorado Governor Jared Polis joins me now. His stay-at-home order expires on Sunday. The Governor Polis unveiled a safer-at-home plan as a replacement it includes some of these basics here.

It allows dentists and tattoo artist back to work on Monday, Child Care also on the list along with curbside pickup for some retailers. Governor let's just walk through there are 50 Governors that's the magic of our Republic.

Sometimes it also becomes messy when each Governor has to make their own decisions when people are watching trying to figure out why is Colorado doing this? South Carolina did this? Georgia did that? Where are you and what do you think it is safe to do? And what do you think you still need to wait on?

GOV. JARED POLIS, (D-CO): You know nothing is more challenging I don't think for any Governor in our lives. And I don't think for any resident of the world frankly not just of Colorado not just of Americans in this time period.

We're going to go to curbside delivery for retail as you indicated on Monday. We already have of course people that are in grocery stores and pharmacies like most states do. But it's about having what we've learned in this period is how we can do better social distancing in retail?

So when the store is finally open for the public in that part of being in the first week in May they have the social distancing in place and they wear masks everybody working in the stores wears masks.

So this is a really tough period but we have to think about. This is what's really important is what is sustainable behavior in June, in July in August because this doesn't. And so how can people support themselves? You know earn their livelihood people to have some fulfillment in their lives but have significant social distancing. That really reduces the spread of the virus sustainably.

KING: Your state is one of the many states that have had to deal with these food processing issues. And that has been my question as Governors understandably you need to get some juice back in your economy.

You want to get people out of the house but you just cited grocery stores, meat packing, food processing plants another place where people have no choice but to work close together. Are you learning lessons from that to say as we allow more people back out first we have to weather is it spread them out is a test them it's a temperature checks is that all the above?

POLIS: We have a - we learn a lot from that. So we had a major outbreak at JBS. We lost three lives probably 100 of cases. This is a meat processing plant they are closed for two weeks. They opened in a few days from now.

But look this is - we're going to see this type of thing as more businesses come back whether it's May or June in your state whenever it is. Early May late May and what it calls for is a site specific response meaning you don't really have to go in if there's an outbreak in a facility.

You want to do testing. You want to make sure it's locked down for a period of time and then it can get back to normal soon as it can with additional precautions which might mean they should already be wearing masks but it might mean fiberglass workplace divisions or other things that can help keep workers safe as well as their ability to earn a living.

KING: Your Democratic colleague Andrew Cuomo whose state has been hardest hit is on his way to the White House today. He's going to sit down across the President that his hope he said at his press conference today which is they could stop talking past each other and that he could persuade the President please you take charge of the supply line.

[12:15:00]

KING: Let the Federal Government take charge of the swabs, the reagents, the vials the pieces you need. And then he says I as Governor of New York I will take complete responsibility for testing. Would you accept that deal?

POLIS: You know if they tell us the Federal Government tells us what we're getting and when we're going to get it? We would love that. We have been this halfway area where we've been madly acquiring or own a protective equipment tests at the same time maybe getting some from the Federal Government not knowing occasionally getting some.

We would love to be able to do this in a more efficient way. We're states are competing against one another which is exactly what's happening right now.

KING: As we go through this debate and again 50 states is the magic of our Republic but sometimes it can be kind of confusing when everybody's watching it once. So you're out in the west the culture is the historical culture is yes we came this way because we don't want the government telling us what to do? How much of that have you encountered as you're trying to manage this or have you been surprised by people saying okay we'll follow your lead just give us information?

POLIS: Many of our neighboring states have not had stay-at-home orders. We have one in Colorado but we all look forward to when it's no longer in order but it simply what we need to do to stay safe?

And that's why we're calling to safer-at-home period. It'll be through May maybe very well through June. People still need to stay-at-home whenever they can but you know what people also need to earn a livelihood they can't make their rent, they can't put food on their table. We have to balance those two in a way it's safe for sustainable period of time.

And yes westerners have that independent spirit and that's also a spirit of responsibility John and people know they're taking responsibility for their own lives as well as the lives of their loved ones and family.

KING: Appreciate your time at this very busy time. For you Governor "Best of Luck" as you try to strike this balance in the days ahead.

POLIS: Thank you John.

KING: Thank you sir. Still ahead we look around the globe the U.K. parliament resumes its session today by embracing virtual digital democracy.

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[12:20:00]

KING: The U.S. and the U.K. now promising to work together to fight the spread of the Coronavirus that from a read out of a call between President Trump and U. K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier today.

Johnson of course recovering from his own bout with Coronavirus with that in mind the British parliament not taking any chances they reconvene our international correspondents now with more on that and the other big global Coronavirus developments.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here in London parliament is back in session and the first order of business is to approve a new quote hybrid system in order to maintain social distancing amid Coronavirus. Under the new temporary measures only a maximum of 50 lawmakers will be allowed into the Chamber of the House of Commons at any one time. More than 100 others will be able to join via video link.

All of this happening as the U.K. government scrambles to show that it can provide its health workers with enough desperately needed PPE a shipment of some 400,000 long sleeve gowns that was expected to arrive from Turkey on Sunday still has not yet arrived here in the U.K. and according to a recent survey by the Doctors Association U. K. 47 percent of doctors here do not have those long sleeve gowns. Clarissa Ward, CNN, London.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here in Germany authorities have announced that the country's biggest festival the world famous "Oktoberfest" will not be taking place this year. It has been canceled by the authorities in Munich because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Now all this comes after Angela Merkel announced yesterday that Germany will be drastically ramping up its efforts at contact tracing to find out more clearly where some of the Coronavirus infections in this country have originated.

Of course Germany only on Monday loosened some of the restrictions that were put in place as far as physical distancing concerned and it is allowing smaller stores to open. A lot of people took advantage of that many people were seen in pedestrian zones and in some shops around the country.

And now Angela Merkel is warning people to remain vigilant and to adhere to the physical distancing measures that have been put in place. Germany does not want to risk another wave of Coronavirus infections. Fred Pleitgen CNN, Berlin.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here in Hong Kong this city has had some real success battling the Coronavirus pandemic. They only have a bit more than 1000 confirmed cases of the disease and only 4 deaths confirmed. But the authorities have made it clear that they're going to extend social distancing guidelines.

Loosening up a little bit leading restaurants have a 50 percent capacity for example but bars and beauty salons and gyms will remain closed for at least two more weeks. And they're likely looking at a regional neighbor Singapore and its warning signs that wealthy city had had a lot of success at first but now the disease is exploding within that country's guest worker population.

So the Prime Minister there just announced that they're going to extend restrictions until at least June 1st and strengthen punishments for violations because Singapore is seeing up to a thousand new cases a day. Ivan Watson CNN, Hong Kong.

KING: Still ahead for us gyms and restaurants among the businesses facing now an unprecedented task how to reopen but still maintain social distancing?

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[12:25:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. BRIAN KEMP, (R-GA): Theaters, private social clubs and restaurant dining services will be allowed to reopen on Monday April the 27th. Bars, night clubs, operators of amusement park rides and live performance venues will remain closed. In the days ahead we will be evaluating the data and conferring with public health officials to determine the best course of action for those establishments.

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