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Early Results From Vaccine Trial Show Promise; Source Says, Ousted Inspector General Was Investigating Pompeo; Governors Balance Health Risks, Economy As They Reopen States. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired May 18, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: All right. A good Monday morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

If you've been waiting for some good news in all this this morning, there are promising signs in an early stage vaccine trial. The U.S.- based biotech company, Moderna, has announced interim Phase 1 results in a trial conducted with the National Institutes of Health. Participants in the human clinical trial have developed antibodies against the virus. That's key, because that's exactly what a vaccine is supposed to do.

HARLOW: Yes, and without many side effects so far, that's really good news, and that's why you see the stock market, the Dow here, up more than 700 points, because this could potentially be game-changing news.

And states are moving forward with reopening plans as the death toll in the U.S. from COVID nears 90,000.

Let's get right to our Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen for more on this trial. Tell us what we need to know.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, what this did was just what Jim said. When they vaccinated eight participants, they found that they developed neutralizing antibodies. So these are antibodies that bind to the virus and prevents it from infecting human cells.

Now, they saw that that worked in the lab. Does it mean it will protect people in real life? We still have to figure that out and that's going to happen in the future. But this is certainly a good sign. These were antibodies at the level that people get when they're naturally infected, which is what a vaccine does. It tries to mimic natural infection.

I spoke earlier this morning with the chief medical officer at Moderna. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. TAL ZAKS, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, MODERNA: When healthy volunteers received two doses of prominent (ph) boost of the mRNA that encodes for just one spike protein of this virus, the volunteers had antibodies in their blood that were at levels of those people who have actually had SARS-COV-19 disease or significantly higher.

And what's more, these antibodies were proven to be able to block the ability of the virus from infect cells.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Now, at a very high dose, some people did suffer side effects. They got a sort of a flu-like illness with fever and whatnot. However, moving forward, they're going to be using a much lower dose.

And speaking of moving forward, let's take a look at what the timeline looks like as we look into the future. So, so far, they have vaccinated about 60 to 100 people as of today. In July, they'll start large scale clinical trials, and that's when they vaccinate tens of thousands of people to see if it works in the real world.

That means, according to Dr. Zaks, who we just heard from, the vaccine could be on the market sometime between January and June of next year.

Now, I will say, Poppy and Jim, he didn't promise this. He didn't say, yes, I know that's going to happen. That is certainly their hope, their aspiration. Poppy, Jim?

HARLOW: Okay. Well, it's really nice to have some good news, hopefully a good news to start a Monday with. Elizabeth, thanks a lot for that update.

Let's talk more about this trial with Professor Jennifer Lee, CNN Medical Analyst and Clinical Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at George Washington University.

I mean, let's just start on this. What's your takeaway from the Moderna news?

JENNIFER LEE, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: So, Poppy, this is encouraging. So as Elizabeth said, this -- what we're hearing is that the Phase 1 of these clinical trials, which you really want to see whether the vaccine candidate is safe, is showing that it is, that it is safe and well tolerated, which is great news. And second, that the vaccine also causes people to have a good immune response, to produce antibodies.

And another thing they announced was that the level of antibodies produced was on a par with those who had received convalescent serum, you know, when you're getting plasma from people who have already had the infection, which is also being tested and used across the country.

So this is good news, and it means that this vaccine candidate, which was the first one out of the gate in the United States, gets to move forward. They're already actively preparing for Phase 2, and as you heard, Phase 3 for July was the plan.

SCIUTTO: What's happening now, and Dr. Fauci and others have talked about this, is that while they are doing trials, they're doing what my understanding is this called at-risk manufacturing. In other words, they're manufacturing the doses while the trials are underway. So if the trials prove success, and granted we're not there yet because you've got to test this on a lot more people, but if it does, then you have those doses ready in numbers perhaps even as soon as the end of the year.

I mean, when you look at that, and, again, with all the caveats you have to apply to it, are you more hopeful today about a vaccine than you were, say, a few days ago or even a couple weeks ago?

LEE: Well, I'm hopeful. I think that this news is definitely very encouraging, but it would be -- we will know more in the summertime about this particular vaccine candidate.

[10:05:08]

I think it's very wise to begin to not work in sequence but to do as much as we possibly can to prepare for if this candidate or others is successful, because under normal circumstances, of course, this whole process takes years. But this is moving really at light speed, and that's what we want, that as soon as we know a vaccine candidate is effective, that we would be able to quickly move into manufacturing of that. And that's what we're hearing about.

HARLOW: Dr. Lee, what does it tell you that this small but very useful study shows that the more of the vaccine they placed in the human, the more antibodies it created in them?

LEE: So that's not surprising. That's what we call sort of a dose- dependent response. So you can also see that just in natural infection. If someone has a very mild infection versus if someone has a more significant infection, the person who has had a more severe infection but recovered from it probably will have a stronger immune -- be able to mount a stronger immune response in the future if they're exposed again to the same virus. So I think that that's not necessarily surprising.

And one of the things they're trying to do here too is to figure out what is the right and safe dose to give to people as they're continuing to test this candidate. And so that's why you give different doses as well.

SCIUTTO: Well, we'll stay on top of it. We know that these things move slowly and you have to take each thing with the appropriate grain of salt.

I do want to ask something that's becoming a growing concern, and that is what's become known as pediatric multisystem symptom inflammatory disease. It's something that's being seen in a small number of children, but more children today than just last week or the week before, a consequence of COVID-19 infection.

Tell us how concerned should parents be. Is this still just a fringe phenomenon or is it something that's become broader?

LEE: Well, I think the right stance to take right now is for parents just to be vigilant. This still seems to be rare. Now, we're collecting data, and one reason why the CDC put out that alert last week was so that pediatricians and doctors across the nation could be on the lookout for this.

But for parents, you know, one of the things to look out for, really, it's high and persistent fevers. Just like you said, Jim, this comes after infection of coronavirus, several weeks after, is what we're thinking.

Now, most kids still have a lower chance, seem to be have a lower chance of getting the infection than adults, and they seem to have milder infection. So you may not know if your child had it or not, but if they had some mild symptoms a few weeks before, maybe that was coronavirus. It's something to just keep in the back of your mind. And to watch out for those high fevers, to look for a rash, sometimes it can affect the eyes, the mouth.

But when you have a real full scale presentation of this, from everything I've read, it's not subtle. The kids do present pretty sick. And so I think, overall, we can still reassure parents but it's important to be vigilant.

HARLOW: Dr. Lee, thanks for your help on all those fronts. We appreciate it.

Just hours from now, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is expected to announce the state's next wave of business openings. This is despite Texas, over the weekend, having its highest single-day jump in cases on Saturday.

SCIUTTO: CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Dallas, joins us now to discuss the delicate balance leaders in the state are facing.

Now, that jump in cases corresponded with the jump in testing, did it not? Are official there concerned that they discovered new clusters of this disease?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that has been the strategy that state leaders here in Texas say that they will deploy here in the coming weeks, is the idea of targeting clusters of the coronavirus where it pops up. Obviously, Texas is a massive geographically different state, urban, rural, so that has been the strategy that state leaders here have been touting.

But today, we see the openings of gyms, exercise facilities can reopen at 25 percent capacity, non-essential manufacturing and businesses located inside office buildings are also getting the green light. But all of this comes, as you mentioned, 1,800 cases reported on Saturday, but that was based on more than 30,000 tests, and those are some of the highest testing numbers that we have seen since this pandemic started here in Texas.

I should also say that Texas still lags behind much of the country in terms of per capita testing.

[10:10:04] But in terms of what we've seen in the state so far, those are some of the highest testing numbers we have seen.

So there is a great deal of concern about where we are here and what's going to happen next. Jim and Poppy?

HARLOW: Yes, of course, there is, I mean, just seeing those numbers over the weekend. Ed, thanks so much.

SCIUTTO: Well, more businesses are welcoming customers in Florida today as that state enters the first full phase of its reopening plan.

HARLOW: Rosa Flores joins us from Doral in Miami-Dade County. So, what is opening today as this follows some other moves of opening of other parts of the state over the last week or so?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, things have started a little slow here in Doral, Florida. Poppy, you can see the strip mall behind me. It's been slow and steady. We've seen patrons all morning, but the weather is probably not going to cooperate. We're expecting storms later today.

But as for the rest of the state, Miami-Dade and Broward County joining the rest of the state today in Phase 1 of the reopening plan. That means that in the most populated counties in the state, they will start reopening restaurants and retail stores at 50 percent capacity.

Now, there will be restrictions, face masks and social distancing, also adding trash cans to the entrances and exits of some of these establishments to make sure people can dispose of PPE properly. Other establishments will not open, like bars and pubs and hotels will stay closed. Jim and Poppy?

SCIUTTO: Rosa Flores, thanks very much there.

Ahead, we're going to speak to mayors from across the country on this balancing act, a difficult one, of the desire to reopen with the fears of a potential second wave of the virus.

Plus, President Trump has fired his fourth inspector general in just weeks, this time at the State Department. New details of exactly what that I.G., what he was looking into before he was fired.

HARLOW: That's right. Also ahead for us, a CNN exclusive, the top medical adviser that the Chinese government gets candid about the worries of a second wave of coronavirus in China.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

HARLOW: Well, a major development on Friday night. CNN learned that Steve Linick, the State Department inspector general that was fired by the president Friday night, what we've learned over the weekend is that he was actually investigating something tied to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his actions. Sources say that he was looking into whether Pompeo had a government employee do personal errands, like pick up dry cleaning, walk his dog, things like that.

SCIUTTO: Let's be clear, this is not isolated. Linick is just the latest in a string of government watchdogs who have recently been dismissed by the president and his removal is being criticized even by some Republicans.

Joining us now to discuss is CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen. He served Republican and Democratic Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Clinton.

David, I wonder, I mean, you look at this list here and notably taking place on Friday afternoons and evenings to kind of sneak it through. You've got the State Department I.G. gone. You got the intelligence community's inspector general, Michael Atkinson, he's the one who alerted lawmakers to the existence of a Ukraine whistleblower complaint.

He was gone. Glen Fein, Department of Defense, he was going to oversee $2 trillion in pandemic stimulus funding. Trump apparently angry about having that sort of oversight, he's gone. And the HHS I.G., she was pushed out soon after raising an alarm about a shortage of health equipment for first responders in the pandemic, which is a fact. Are there going to be any consequences for this?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's hard to tell whether there will be consequences. A continued erosion of trust in the government and in the administration, I'm afraid. And I'm certainly glad, Jim, that you went back over this of how many have been fired, because it's worth remembering this law, this program of the inspector generals, has been in place since 1978. It's 42 years old.

Six presidents in a row have lived happily with inspector generals in their midst because they realize it holds everybody in the team accountable and increases public trust.

And it goes back to that old saying from Louis Brandeis, Justice Brandeis, a long time ago, sunshine is the best disinfectant. It's the best way to keep things clean.

And so to have all these people fired really is much more important. It may seem trivial what the I.G. was allegedly doing, checking out whether the dog was walked, the secretary's dog was walked. And it is trivial. But it's not trivial to fire so many I.G.s. It is an attempt to -- one more time to suppress any information coming from any source that might reflect badly on the administration.

We see they do this with whistleblowers, they suppress them. They are now keeping the scientists, like Dr. Fauci, who basically seems to be sidelined in the pandemic flight in terms of his public statements. They do it with congressional subpoenas and we saw that all in Ukraine.

Down that road of continued suppression lies authoritarianism, the danger of authoritarianism, and that danger is growing.

HARLOW: And you heard a few Republicans voice their concern about the lack of justification here, David, a few voices. After Nancy Pelosi said that it may be illegal if this was done as retribution, you had Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, Senator Susan Collins, who co- authored the law pertaining to this back in 2008, say, quote, the president has not provided the kind of justification for the removal of I.G. Linick as required by law.

[10:20:16]

But to Jim's question, and then what? And then what did they do, right?

GERGEN: Yes, then what did they do. I think it's really important for Congress to follow through and have hearings on both sides of Capitol Hill, the Senate and the House could have hearings. But they really need a warning shot across the bowel of the Trump administration that this apparent war you started against the inspector generals has to end.

You cannot simply go after people for retaliation. That's against the law. You don't like what the I.G. is finding, then you go off -- chop off his head. That is inappropriate, it's against the law.

So therefore, we don't need a whole lot more hearings. We've been through more than any of us want to live through with again, but we do need to have people held accountable in top leadership positions, whether it's the State Department, the White House, and whether it's in the hands of the Republicans or the Democrats.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Well, and as we noted earlier in the broadcast, this law was re-upped by unanimous consent. There was not a Republican or Democrat who voted against whistleblower protections and laying out the jobs, in effect, of these oversight individuals and positions.

GERGEN: One of the things you find is good administrations welcome these laws. They welcome the accountability. They know it helps keep their own houses clean and they would like to see that.

They also realize that if you start excusing the firing and suppression of evidence that the public needs to know, the next time the other party is empowered, they're going to do that too. It's a downward spiral.

So people really respect the importance of governance, whether you think the government ought to be big or small, whatever it is, it ought to work well. Then you --

SCIUTTO: If only they were thinking in those terms. Looking forward. David Gergen, thanks very much, as always.

GERGEN: Thanks. Good to talk to you guys again.

HARLOW: You too. SCIUTTO: While at least 20 states are now taking additional steps to relax restrictions today, up next, three mayors from Arizona, Ohio and South Carolina all weigh in on balancing reopening with worries about potential new cases.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:00]

SCIUTTO: Lots of mixed news out there, you might say. Coronavirus cases on the rise in multiple states across the country, even as governors push ahead with reopening. At the same time, new cases are trending downward in other states. Those are sort of the green- yellowish states there, the red ones the ones where cases are coming up.

HARLOW: So let's say you're a local leader with a very tough decision to make. Residents are itching to get out of the house, get back to work, do things with their family. How do you make sure people don't ease up on social distancing and avoid a second wave of this virus before a treatment or vaccine is fully developed?

With us to answer what seems to be impossible questions many times, Mesa, Arizona Mayor John Giles, Dayton, Ohio Mayor Nan Whaley and Columbia, South Carolina Mayor Steve Benjamin.

Good morning to all of you. And we do know that you have to make these impossible decisions.

If I could just begin with you, Mayor Whaley, what do you balance? What are the data points for you as you look at this today in your state?

MAYOR NAN WHALEY (D), DAYTON, OH: Well, we look toward testing, frankly, and it's tough because I know we all want and we work hard for our economies to grow, but we also recognize we have to protect the health and safety of our folks here, and that's job one.

So even though the governor opened up restaurants this past weekend for outdoor seating, I really encourage lots of restaurants not to open because we don't have testing in this region in place. And so therefore, we won't really know if an outbreak comes until it's too late.

I was really pleased. A lot of our local restaurants did that and did not open, and I think that shows just how much they care about their own employees and their customers.

SCIUTTO: Mayor Giles, a sad fact is that a lot of these calls to maintain social distancing, et cetera, they've been politicized. They become political issues. And I just wonder what you say to residents. And, listen, I know everybody has a balance to strike because you've got to get people back to work, but on the other hand, there are still real risks there.

What do you say to folks who say, no, this is all made up? I'm not going to listen to these guys, I don't believe any of this stuff. How do you respond to that?

MAYOR JOHN GILES (R), MESA, AZ: Well, I think people aren't looking for political debates when they come to city hall. If you want to protest, you go to the state capitol, you go to Washington, D.C. When you come to the city, that's because you've got something you need to get done.

And so we're not really partisan elected officials for the most part. We're about fixing potholes and getting swimming pools up and running and figuring out new protocols for the new normal that we're experiencing rather than engaging in a lot of rhetoric about who is right and who is wrong.

[10:30:03]

Most of the government services that people receive every day come through the city.