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New Day

New Projection Shows U.S. Death Toll Could Reach Nearly 300,000 by December; Birx Warns of Rising Positivity Rate in Nine Cities, Including Baltimore; NOAA Warns of Rare Extremely Active Hurricane Season. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 07, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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


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[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill with me here on this Friday. Happy Friday to you.

ERICA HILL, CNN NEW DAY: And to you.

BERMAN: Nearly 300,000 Americans could be dead from coronavirus by December. Think of that. An influential model from the University of Washington predicts that the death toll could nearly double from where we are today.

Now, the model does project the number could be lowered by 70,000 if everybody wore a mask. The nationwide death toll topped 160,000 overnight with 1,200 new deaths reported. That's, what, the fourth straight day we've had more than a thousand deaths reported in this country.

HILL: And as we watch those numbers tick up, the economic pain is growing in this country. And now talks between the White House and Democrats for the next round of stimulus relief appear to be collapsing. It's not even clear whether negotiations will continue today. We'll get an indication of what the recovery itself looks like coming up in our 8:00 hour when the July jobs report is released.

President Trump has said he'll use executive action if an agreement on his stimulus bill can't be reached. He's already taking action on TikTok, the president is signing an executive order overnight that will ban the popular app in the United States in 45 days if it's not sold by its Chinese parent company.

BERMAN: Joining us now, Beth Cameron, former Senior Director for Global Security and Biodefense in the Obama administration, and Dr. William Schaffner, Professor of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt

Dr. Schaffner, to you. 300,000 deaths by December, that is the projection of this model out of the University of Washington. That is a sobering number. DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PROFESSOR, DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: John, it's a powerful number, it's a profoundly sad number, and we can think that 70,000 of those people could be saved if we would all just wear a mask every day, every time we leave our front doors. It's so important.

It's important to think back how many more people could have been saved if we had all been doing that for the last three months. But let's look forward. These are lives we can all save if we all wear masks. And we need national direction to do that.

This virus is not just going to disappear or vanish, we're -- the virus is with us and we're going to have to combat it. And the simple thing that we can all do is wear a mask. Please, everyone, wear your mask every day.

HILL: Dr. Schaffner, you make it sound so easy. And we know, in reality, it is easy to do. But there is pushback that still continues in this country that when we look at where that pushback is coming from, there may not be the national leadership that some people have asked for when it comes to something as simple as wearing a mask. However, you're saying, this is a real opportunity for governors and for states to come together, as we've seen in some instances, to create, I guess, their own plan moving forward.

SCHAFFNER: I think that very strongly and have for some time. If the leadership is not going to come from the nation, let's start from the bottom up. The governors could join together and create a regional, multistate consortium, as it were, so that they all agree that all of their citizens will wear masks.

And if they would put out that strong message, then we could start getting people together. We need to de-politicize this. The reds and the blues need to stand together and actually promote this on a medical public health basis.

I think if they did that, we could start convincing everybody to work together, to protect not only themselves but everyone around them. We can make safer communities.

BERMAN: Beth Cameron, do you want to weigh in on that?

BETH CAMERON, VICE PRESIDENT FOR BIOLOGICAL POLICY AND PROGRAMS, NUCLEAR THREAT INITIATIVE: Absolutely. I completely agree with Dr. Schaffner. And I would only add that I think we also need to see national leadership on our testing issues.

[07:05:03]

So we have such a massive problem right now with testing in America. The turnaround times are too long, the positivity rates are too high in most states. And what that means is that we're not finding all of the disease, so people are spreading the disease without knowing that they're spreading the disease.

And so governors coming together, there's been some good news recently, the Rockefeller Foundation is working with six governors to surge purchasing for point of care rapid tests that could turn around test results more quickly. But we really need all governors to come together around a couple of things. Sharing the capacity that exists and making sure that the platforms are interoperable and that billing requirements are interoperable.

This is hard work. It's usually the federal government that helps us do this, but states can do it if they work together. We also need to see them surge the use of more rapid tests, like point of care diagnostics, and then finally, we would love to see them agree on some common metrics, on reporting how we're actually doing on a regular basis to the American people through all states, including looking at when we need to actually go back into stay-at-home, if we're not able to get that burden of disease down in some localities.

BERMAN: I'm sorry. You talked about rapid tests. There's an instance yesterday where maybe the reliability of some of the testing is called into question. Governor Mark DeWine tested positive on the tarmac before he was to meet with President Trump from an antigen test and then later in the day was tested negative. I think he's going to be tested on Saturday to make sure here.

But what questions does that raise for you, Beth, in terms of the reliability of the test?

CAMERON: I think what it means in that specific instance, I don't know. Often, what we're concerned about is some of the antigen tests, these false negative rates that we're not going to catch everybody, as opposed to catching somebody as a positive who then turns out to later be negative. So I'm not sure in this specific instance.

But what it definitely means is we need to have more testing. And, honestly, when people who do come back with a positive diagnosis, they need to do the right thing, which Governor DeWine is doing, which is staying home and being isolated until such time as there's a reason to believe that they don't actually have the disease.

So we need support for that. We need funding for that. And we need, testing as well as contact tracing to be able to find the people that you've contacted, who might be spreading the disease.

So I do think that we need to spend a lot more time in America focusing on our testing strategy, and that needs to come from the top.

HILL: When we look at how the disease is spreading, there's this new study out of South Korea that found asymptomatic people have just as much of the virus in them, Dr. Schaffner, as those who are showing symptoms. So what does that tell you about the spread and what can we take away from that?

SCHAFFNER: Well, Erica, we have known that people who are without symptoms still can be infected. This study shows that the amount of virus that they shed, that they produce is as much as people who are sick.

So that reinforces the whole notion, which is a very difficult one for the average person to grasp, that although I'm feeling perfectly healthy, I could have the virus and I could be a dreaded spreader. It reinforces the notion that that's why we all have to wear masks, because we can't tell if we're not the source of the next series of infections.

So we all have to wear these masks, because people without symptoms clearly can spread this disease.

BERMAN: We all have to wear masks. Well, that brings up this picture that we all saw yesterday. I don't know if you guys can both see it in your set-ups right now, but this is from North Paulding High School in Georgia, about an hour outside of Atlanta, and this was taken by a 15- year-old girl, Hanna Waters, in the hallway there. We've blurred the faces and there's some video circulating as well.

It's clear that many, if not, most of the students in this hallway, as they're changing classes, are not wearing masks and they're certainly not social distancing. They're not required, by the way, Beth, to wear masks in these high schools and they only say or admit that social distancing might not be possible in all circumstances. So what's the takeaway here?

CAMERON: So I think my number one takeaway from all of that and from what's been discussed on this segment about masking this morning is that we need to get the burden of disease in America down, because the disease is spreading. It's spreading among young people. There's been a lot of news about how it's spreading among young people.

That means it's critically important that everyone now does everything possible to reduce (INAUDIBLE) because in the winter season, not only are we going to be facing the flu, common colds, hurricanes, but we're also potentially going to face the next epidemic or pandemic while we're still dealing with this one.

[07:10:03]

So we need to focus on all of the things we know how to do, masking, testing, tracing, isolation and also really getting the message out to young people.

I can't agree more with Dr. Schaffner that everyone has a part to play and masking is really important for young people. It's important in school settings, absolutely, and I think that that's definitely something that needs to be more focus that needs to be placed on that as we head into schools being open in many parts of the country in the fall.

BERMAN: Dr. Schaffner, Beth Cameron, thank you both very much for being with us this morning.

SCHAFFNER: My pleasure.

CAMERON: Thanks for having us.

HILL: Breaking overnight, negotiations on an economic rescue plan hitting a brick wall. The White House and Democrats are so far apart at this point. It's not clear whether they'll even bother to talk to each other today.

Joe Johns is live at the White House. You're at the White House. The president is not there, Joe. Not clear how that would figure into any sort of discussion if there were to be one.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's true. I did ask the presidential counselor, Kellyanne Conway, yesterday what they're going to do with the president out of town. She said, there's always the phone. The fact of the matter is, as she said, the headline is, still no progress. The talks apparently near collapse.

There was a three-hour meeting just last night, and the parties emerged from that meeting, both the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as well as the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, each blaming the other side for the lack and progress.

The president has said he will sign, if necessary, a some type of executive action to deal with some of the stickiest issues, a couple of the benefits that have already expired. And we are told he could do that as soon as this afternoon, if not tomorrow.

Now, what are we talking about here? Well, the speaker wants to go big. She wants $3.4 trillion in this stimulus package. The White House says, not so fast. They would like to see that number around $1 trillion. Democrats want substantially more money for state and local governments.

That, of course, is one of the biggest sticking points right now. The president has said he doesn't want to see anything that could be construed as a bailout. And Democrats also say they want the $600 unemployment benefit extended, at least to the end of the year. The White House says they don't want to go there.

So we are told, at least right now, there are no plans for another meeting, although that can change just about any time. As you said, the president is up at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. He also has a fundraiser in the Hamptons over the weekend. John, back to you.

BERMAN: All right. Joe Johns at the White House, please keep us posted. We want to know if these discussions are even going to begin again.

All right, breaking overnight, President Trump cracked down on a pair of Chinese-own social media apps, issuing an executive order that would ban TikTok and WeChat within 45 days unless their parent companies sell them.

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan joins us now with the details. This is a big deal, Donie. If it goes through in 45 days, it's a big deal.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Absolutely, John. A tit for tat over TikTok, but this story is about so much more than one or two Chinese apps. This is really about the future of the internet and services all of us use, either indirectly or directly every day. Now, as you mentioned, President Trump wants these Chinese companies sold to American companies. Microsoft is in the running to buy TikTok. They've spoken directly to the president and he's given them until mid-September to come up with the deal.

Obviously, overnight, with these executive orders, TikTok is not happy. They put out a statement, which they provided to us where they said, we will pursue all remedies available to us in order to ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and our users are treated fairly, if not by the Trump administration, then by the U.S. courts.

Now, look, China does not have the moral high ground here. A lot of American social media platforms in China are banned under Beijing's strict censorship laws. But, certainly, these executive orders and this action by the Trump administration is unprecedented for the United States, and could really, I think, mark the beginning of an internet cold war. John?

BERMAN: Yes. Watch this space, watch to see how directly China responds. Donie O'Sullivan, we really appreciate your reporting on this. Thank you.

All right, Baltimore, one of the cities on the list from Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci as a new area of concern with rising positivity rates, but get this. Today, Baltimore will begin to open up its restaurants for inside dining. That's next.

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BERMAN: So we heard that new warning from the White House coronavirus task force about cities and states seeing an uptick in positivity rates in their populations. Listen.

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DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: We are concerned Baltimore and Atlanta remain at a very high level. Kansas City, Portland, Omaha, and, of course, what we talked about in the Central Valley.

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BERMAN: Baltimore, the first city named by Dr. Deborah Birx.

Joining us now, Baltimore City Health Commissioner, Dr. Letitia Dzirasa. Doctor, thank you very much for being with us.

You heard Dr. Birx raise concerns about the City of Baltimore. What are your concerns this morning?

DR. LETITIA DZIRASA, BALTIMORE CITY HEALTH COMMISSIONER: I share similar concerns and thank you all for having me on the show. And that certainly supports why we've put in a lot of the restrictions that we put in, because we do recognize that we're seeing a rising positivity rate and an increased case count daily.

[07:20:02]

BERMAN: Can you give me a sense of exactly what it's showing, how much of an increase in positivity rate and where your case count is?

DZIRASA: Yes. So our most recent positivity rate was about 5.8 percent. At the beginning of July, it was 5.1 percent, and it's well above the state's average, which was around 4 percent. Additionally, our seven-day average case count was 144. That was our peak. In early July, on July 5th, it was 67. So we're absolutely seeing that rise in case count.

BERMAN: Why? Why do you think it's happening?

DZIRASA: So, certainly, I think that we're seeing large gatherings. We're seeing people get together and congregate in small spaces. There's been some linkages certainly to indoor dining at bars and restaurants. But, again, I think that particularly in young people, which is where we're seeing this higher rate of cases and this higher positivity rate, they could be asymptomatic and getting together and potentially spreading it.

BERMAN: So given the rise in positivity, given the increase in cases and given the fact that you think it might be linked or there is concern it might linked to indoor gatherings and indoor dining, why then open restaurants today, which is what is happening? The mayor has allowed for the opening of restaurants at 5:00 P.M. today.

DZIRASA: Yes, that's a very fair question. And I will say, when we begin to notice these trends, we did put the restrictions in around restaurants and limited them to outdoor dining. We also did a mandatory mask order as well during that time on July 24th.

And I will say, in addition to the opening of restaurants, some other restrictions that we're putting in place include increase in capacity of many larger venues, from 50 percent to 25 percent and capping gatherings at 25 people.

So going back to your original question, I think that our local executives are faced with very tough decisions right now around balancing both the health data and the economic data. I can focus on the economic (ph) data.

And what I want to tell people is even with us opening these things, it is not at all a time to stop being cautious and to lose your vigilance. I would urge people to always wear your mask, to really keep that six feet of social distance. If you're ill, stay home, call your physician. But, again, keep your mask on your person at all time. We do have the mandatory mask order.

BERMAN: I'm glad you said, it is a conflicted decision. No one should ever suggest that it's easy for executives to run cities and states right now given all these things that are happening. Nevertheless, the time is interesting. I should just ask you flat-out, Doctor, would you feel comfortable going to eat indoors at a restaurant right now tonight?

DZISARA: Good question. I wouldn't, but what I do is I support my local restaurants by doing a lot of ordering in. And, no, I wouldn't advise it.

BERMAN: I mean, that's interesting then. I mean, what are you supposed to take away if you're a resident of the City of Baltimore when you have the health commissioner telling me, you wouldn't go indoors at restaurant today, but the mayor saying they can open.

DZISARA: I think what I would take away is that I think that city leaders, again, they want to support local businesses, they understand how they're hurting. And so a safe way to potentially support them, if you do want to go out, is possibly outdoor dining with members of your household, wearing your mask on until it's time to eat or ordering in, which is what I do with my family.

BERMAN: Yes. Contactless pickup is a great thing. Pick the restaurant. My wife always says, you want to go down the list, figure out which restaurants you want to be open next year or two years from now and those are the ones we have to figure out a way to work with now.

Look, Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, as we said, there is no easy questions here. I know you're facing a lot of things. We do appreciate you being with us this morning. Thank you.

DZIRASA: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

HILL: We want to remember some of the more than 160,000 lives lost in this country to coronavirus.

Florida Corrections Officer Wayne Rogers and his wife Lori were inseparable throughout their 30 years of marriage, riding motorcycles and doting on their five grandkids. The Washington Post reports they died within an hour of each other in neighboring ICU rooms.

Helen Jones Woods played the trombone with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. The interracial all-female big band toured the Jim Crow south during World War II. Woods' daughter tells NPR music broke her heart. The band frequently wouldn't get paid, they often couldn't find housing. After it disbanded in 1949, Woods joined the Omaha Symphony but was fired after her first performance when management realized she was black. Well, she quit music and became a registered nurse. Helen Woods Jones was 96 years old.

We'll be right back.

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[07:25:00]

BERMAN: An alarming new prediction this morning from government weather forecasters, a bad hurricane season is about to get even worse. They are forecasting now a rare, extremely active season.

Meteorologist Allison Chinchar joins us now. And, Allison, people have noted, this seems like the most 2020 thing ever.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It really kind of does, which is not the news that you really want to hear. But, yes, we have two entities that have just updated their forecast for the remainder of the season, NOAA being one of them. And take a look at this, because, again, this is pretty interesting information.

Now, they originally issued their forecast back on May 21st when they predicted 13 to 19 named storms. That highest number of 19 is now the bare minimum for their new numbers. They are now saying that it's likely going to be between 19 and 25 named storms, between 7 to 11 that will get to hurricane strength, and three to six of those will be major hurricanes, which is Category 3 or higher.

Colorado State is the other entity that forecast numbers for a season. Now, their original number back on April 2nd was 16. They have now jumped to 24. I would like to point out, in the 36-year history of them predicting these seasons, that is the highest number they have ever issued. Hurricanes going from 8 to 12 for their predictions and they're now going with five for major hurricanes. Again, that would be Category 3 or higher.

One thing to note, as we're mainly focused here on sea surface temperatures, we have a lack of El Nino out there, so we really anticipate that these sea surface temperatures will be above normal.

[07:30:05]

And the yellow color you see here, that is showing where the sea surface temperatures are above.

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