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Model Suggests Deaths Due to COVID-19 Could Reach 300,000 in U.S. By December; Republicans and Democrats Reportedly No Closer to Agreement on Economic Stimulus Package; Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden Draws Controversy for Comments on African-American Community; Georgia High School Student Shares Alarming Picture of Crowded Hallway: Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan is Interviewed About the Coronavirus Pandemic and Georgia Schools Reporting Cases in First Week of Classes. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired August 07, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That, I think, is the fourth consecutive day with more than 1,000 deaths if you think about that.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: As the pandemic surges, the economic pain is growing as well. Talks between the White House and Democrats over the next round of stimulus relief, they're collapsing, and at this point it's not clear if negotiations will even continue today. In just a few minutes we'll know more about the state of the economy. We're waiting on that July jobs report that comes out this hour. President Trump, for his part, said he'll use executive action if an agreement can't be reached.

BERMAN: Joining us now, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent. Sanjay, great to have you back. This model, which is the one we watch more closely, I think, than any others, out of the University of Washington, now says that by December we could reach 300,000 deaths, which is nearly double where we are today, which to me indicates, Sanjay, that if we're not careful, this just keeps getting worse.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. If you do the math and you start saying that's 120 days roughly away, and you're going to have close to 150,000 deaths during that time, it means that the problem is getting worse, not better.

We've been counting on these ebbs and flows, which we're going to have no matter what. As we start to re-emerge into society, there's going to increases in the number of people who are infected. But what this model suggests is that the number of people who are dying every day is goes to increase, not decrease.

But the important part, as you mentioned as well, is the utility of masks. This is extraordinary, 70,000 lives, as you guys have been saying all morning, could potentially be saved by this. And when I was talking to Dr. Chris Murray, who came up with this model at the University of Washington, he and his team, they're counting on the masks actually decreasing transmission by 40 percent to get to that number of 70,000 lives. I think there's good data saying that masks can decrease transmission by even more than that. So that number of lives saved could be even higher if we did this, if the majority of the country did this for the next several weeks, wore masks diligently, honestly whenever we went out.

HILL: I know we go back to it every single time, but it's such an easy thing to do that can have such massive impact. And a new study out of South Korea really underscores that, where we're learning -- we've known about asymptomatic spread, right, and how important that is as the virus spreads. But this study found that those who are asymptomatic have just as much often the virus as people who are exhibiting symptoms, Sanjay.

GUPTA: Right. And so we've been saying, you know, for some time that everyone has to behave like they have the virus. And just to reset for a second, this virus is different. We think about respiratory viruses, and what happens typically if you have a respiratory virus. You get sick, you have sneezing, coughing. That's when you are most likely to spread. And people generally stay home during that time. Not always, but people generally stay home because they don't feel well.

This virus is different. Not only do people tend to spread it when they have no symptoms at all, so they're unintentionally spreading it, but what studies have shown is they are most contagious right before they develop symptoms, if they develop symptoms at all. So this is a totally different virus in that way, which is why we have to behave like we have the virus, which is why masks became so important.

In the beginning it wasn't clear. But once it was clear that asymptomatic spread was happening, and I remember interviewing the CDC director in the middle of February when he said this, so we've know this for some time, that's when masks became critically important as well, and they still are.

BERMAN: Sanjay, I want your take on one bit of news overnight, which is that Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, he tested positive in an antigen test yesterday prior to a scheduled meet-up with the president of the United States. That's why he got that test, that rapid test. It tested positive. But then by nighttime he took another test, and it came up negative. He's going to take another test, I think, Saturday, to figure out exactly what's going on for sure, but what should the takeaway be here?

GUPTA: I'm not sure exactly what happened there. That's a little confusing. I will tell you this, as a general rule when you're testing for the presence of the virus, either using a genetic test or using the antigen test like you mentioned, the real concern is false negatives. So that's to say, look, if you do this test and you find the virus, you could be pretty confident that the virus is there. If you don't find the virus, you're not sure at that point. So it has less utility if the test comes back negative because of the false negative thing.

So the idea that he tested positive on an antigen test and then had a negative on the genetic test, that doesn't make complete sense. I understand he's getting another genetic test on Saturday. It is possible that the genetic test had a false negative, the second test that he had was a false negative. But we'll see on Saturday. The tests aren't perfect by any means, but the utility of them, I think, I don't want to undermine the utility of them. Though they're not perfect, the vast majority of the time they will give people actionable guidance in terms of what they should do.

[08:05:04]

HILL: Better to have some test, right, than none at all, especially at this point.

Sanjay, you've got a little bit of hope for us on a Friday, when it comes to looking down the road to a vaccine. The CEO of Pfizer is saying they're going to be able to pivot when needed pretty quickly. Talk to us a little bit more about what you learned there.

GUPTA: When this all happened, the genome of this RNA virus, this single stranded virus was made pretty quickly, and it's about 30,000 what we call nucleotides, 30,000 piece of genetic information that make up this virus. That's not very many. And what a lot of these vaccines are, they're basically taking a chunk of the genetic information and creating this vaccine. And they're giving it to people, and then the people now have this chunk of genetic information in their body and they start making antibodies. That's how the vaccine works.

What the CEO of Pfizer was saying, hey, look, if this virus mutates significantly, and there's no evidence that it's doing that, but if it does, we can quickly change the code on those nucleotides. It's almost like a computer program. You get coders in there and they can quickly change the code on the genetic sequence that's being given as part of the vaccine. It's cool stuff. I don't want to inundate you with it. But what I'm describing is the first time -- if this works, the first time that it's been done. They tried this during SARS, but then SARS sort of went away on its own so they stopped. Now they're basically creating these genetically-based vaccines that can be easily, quickly modifiable, scaled up, and could -- if it works, again, big if, still, could really change the way we look at vaccines going forward.

BERMAN: Sanjay, one of the many things I appreciate about you is how much you focused on mental health since the beginning of this pandemic, and there's a new study out which suggests that Americans are suffering from more mental health issues than people in other countries. What's going on here?

GUPTA: Well, take a look here and we can show, compared to other high income countries, how the United States is doing. And as we've been hit harder physically, as we've been hit harder overall with the virus, we've also been hit harder from a mental health standpoint. And some of it goes together. You look at the economic hardship, about a third of the country is reporting significant economic hardship, and that fits in pretty closely with the numbers overall on mental health.

John, I was talking to a couple of colleagues of mine who are psychiatrists about this recent data, and one of the things that kept coming out that jumped out at me is some of it is to be expected, right? We have this virus, it's affecting us in the United States disproportionately compared to the rest of the world, the economic uncertainty. But the overall uncertainty is a big deal as well.

In many places around the world, even though they've gone through this, they seem to have some sense of normalcy and certainty now. They're starting to open things up, things feel more normal. As a result of, frankly, our inaction for so long, we still have a lot of uncertainty. And it's that uncertainty which is probably the biggest driver of some of these mental health numbers that we're seeing.

HILL: It all makes sense. It's the uncertainty, it's the mixed messaging. How could that not make people feel a little more stressed out? But there is good news out of Pfizer, so we'll look at that, as well. Sanjay, good to see you as always. Thank you.

GUPTA: OK, you got it.

HILL: Developing this morning, a brand new report from the Labor Department on hiring and unemployment. That's due in just a matter of minutes. And that's interesting because also due is some help for millions of Americans. But talks for the stimulus to help those hard- working Americans who have lost their jobs in the pandemic, those talks are on the brink of collapse at this point. The White House and Democrats in fact so far apart, it's not clear if they're even negotiating anymore.

Let's get the latest from CNN congressional reporter Lauren Fox and CNN political correspondent, Abby Phillip. So Lauren, where do things stand this morning?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Things are not in a good place this morning, Erica. Last night they met for about three hours, but both sides walked out and had a lot of negative words to say. It was more of a blame game than it was a hopeful diatribe about getting a deal. And I will tell you that up here on Capitol Hill this has been the momentum all week long. There have been nearly a dozen of these meetings. They met for 17 hours at this point, and still they are no closer to a deal.

The key sticking points, of course, remain. Liability protections for businesses. There's also disagreement about unemployment insurance. And I'll tell you, state and local funding is one of the key sticking points. You heard that underscored last night by Nancy Pelosi. But I'll tell you that at this point things seem like they are closer to falling apart than actually coming together.

The president, of course, threatening executive action as soon as today if there is not an agreement. This was supposed to be the tentative deadline. We know, of course, this isn't going to come through in a matter of hours.

[08:10:04]

BERMAN: Just to be clear, my understanding is they're going to have a phone call today to see if it's even worth talking anymore, is that where we are this morning?

FOX: Essentially that is exactly where we are this morning. They left last night, and I'll tell you, Mnuchin and Meadows said that they were going to go brief the president on where things stood. The president called them three different times during the meeting, continuing to get them to negotiate. He wanted them to keep talking. But this was supposed to be the deadline, again, and they are no closer to a deal.

Next week senators are technically not on recess, but very few of them are going to be in town. They've been told by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that he will give them 24 hours notice if they needs them in Washington. But things are not looking good right now, John.

HILL: Abby, that sends quite a message to the American people who are looking for help right now, that, listen, you can go home, we'll call you back when we need you. Bottom line is I would think majority of the people out there are tired of the politics and they would just like a little recognition of where they're at right now.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's pretty unacceptable for members of Congress, frankly, to even be at this point. We've known these deadlines were coming up for many months. It has been clear for weeks that the country would need some form of continued economic support, and the fact this this is sort of down to the wire, they are really past the deadline. Last week was the day that unemployment insurance ran out. It was also when the eviction protections ran out.

And so people are already in dire straits, and I think both parties are going to be punished for inaction if there is inaction. People are still unemployed. The country is still largely shut down in many places, not back to normal. People are still not making the money that they need to to pay their bills. And meanwhile, it seems that there is not a sense of urgency on Capitol Hill to get this done.

Frankly, one of the things this state and local aid issue, as a sticking point, seems to be sort of political malpractice. It is hard for me to see the American public being willing to have their own checks that are needed for their livelihoods held up because of unwillingness to give aid to state and local governments, which also, by the way, employ many Americans, teachers and first responders and all of those other people that rely on state and local governments for their own paychecks.

BERMAN: Abby, we've got a minute left, so it's going to have to be a speed round, but two things happened in the campaign yesterday that I think they are noting. Number one, Donald Trump said Joe Biden would hurt God. I'm not sure exactly the physics of that. But number two, Joe Biden had to backtrack after comments he made that were over the line in terms of, or offensive, I think, to people in the African- American community, suggesting the community is not diverse.

PHILLIP: Yes, for starters, the Trump campaign and President Trump are trying to figure out what they can do to bring Joe Biden's negatives up as much as they can. They want to figure out some way of getting at this really kind of difficult to get at support that he's had from Democrats and from independents, from women. And two of them are, one, trying to sort of undermine his character with the religion thing, and the other is trying to chip away at his support among black voters.

But like a lot of things that the president has been doing, this is such a blunt force attack on Biden that it's hard to see how this really works. It's not subtle at all. He's basically saying to white evangelical Christians Joe Biden is a godless politician, and it kind of defies what people have come to know about Joe Biden, which is that he's a devout Catholic. He talks about his faith all the time, about how he's used his faith to get through some really difficult tragedies in his personal life.

So these attacks are just examples of how hard it's been for the Trump campaign to really get to Joe Biden, and particularly on the issue of his comments about black voters. Biden was clearly wrong about that, but I think many black voters would say that the Trump campaign and the president in particular have very little standing to attack Biden on that particular issue.

BERMAN: Abby Phillip, Lauren Fox, thank you very much. Please keep us posted, Lauren, on the discussions up there. Erica?

HILL: This picture from the hallway of a Georgia high school illustrates what parents and students fear about reopening for in- person classes. We're going to talk more about that with Georgia's lieutenant governor next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:18:08]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, a Georgia high school student calling for action. Her picture of a crowded hallway at North Paulding High School, about an hour outside of Atlanta, raising questions about safety in schools.

I want to bring in lieutenant governor of Georgia, Geoff Duncan.

Lieutenant Governor, thanks always for being with us. You're a friend of the show. We appreciate your time this morning.

That picture, which I assume you've had a chance to see, shows these high school kids in the hallway, many if not most unmasked. Obviously, no social distancing. There's also a video of this which has circulated.

You're the father of three school age boys. I'm the father of two. Would you be comfortable with your kids in this hallway?

LT. GOV. GEOFF DUNCAN (R-GA): Yeah, no. I'm coming at this from a front row seat as a parent of three boys headed back to school next week. And, you know, here in Georgia, we've decided to let every community make their own decisions based on how they want to send kids back and how virtually or in-person and what rules and regs. I saw the picture like everybody else did, and did some follow-up and

certainly, like any organization would do, there was adjustments made almost immediately after that picture was taken. I think that that picture was snapped early on in the school day, of the first day, and made some adjustments to the bell schedules.

But I think we have to take this into consideration. All sides of this issue realize that in-person education is the best way to deliver it at this point, but how we do it and the adjustments we make along the way I think are going to be very, very important. We've got to be willing to make those adjustments.

BERMAN: Agree. I just want to make crystal clear so there's no ambiguity here, is that acceptable? That's --

(CROSSTALK)

DUNCAN: No, certainly -- yeah, I think the school even saw that that made the adjustments and certainly we've got to continue to work.

Look, I don't pretend to have all the solutions. I don't think anybody should pretend to have all the solutions. This is a work in progress.

I've never written a term paper and gotten an "A" the first time. They have to make adjustments. And certainly as we write protocols, as we move forward, Democrats, Republicans, everybody, we've got to work together to figure this out, because until we get a vaccine, this virus is with all of us.

[08:20:05]

BERMAN: Agree. And, look, Dr. Fauci agrees with you. He always talks about the need for humility in approaching this virus.

What's curious to me, though, and we're talking about North Paulding High School, though, it's not actually clear as alarming as the picture might be, that anyone was breaking any of the written rules or guidance that they had, because the school district there says, quote, wearing a face mask is a personal choice. Therefore, we're not going to mandate that masks be worn.

They also say: While the district will encourage students, teachers and drivers to wear a mask, in most cases, it will not be possible to enforce social distancing.

So, do the rules themselves need to be stricter?

DUNCAN: Well, we're going to continue to work. We've empowered communities to make those decisions here in Georgia. And just like a business, right? I mean, a business has got to earn the trust and the confidence of their customers. I think schools are going to have to continue to earn the trust and confidence of the parents and the students.

And it's a work in progress and we're going to do the best we possibly can. But to just stay at home and not be able to deliver education is not an option. It's not an option here in Georgia. It's not an option here in Georgia. It's not an option anywhere in the country.

BERMAN: What's the line --

DUNCAN: And we've got to continue to figure this out.

BERMAN: And, again, we absolutely, we do need to figure it out. I think some people want clarity, though, on when certain decisions will be made or how much risk you're willing to take. What are the numbers now in Georgia, that since you opened -- in Gwinnett, for instance, there are 200 staff members either who have tested positive or are in quarantine right now. I think there are three or four students who have tested positive since you reopened.

And I'm not being critical here. I just want to know, is there a number in your mind that if you get to that point, then maybe you do need to dial back and go to more online education?

DUNCAN: Well, I think the word clarity that you started the question out with is very, very important, right? We've got to be clear, but we also have to admit when we don't -- when we don't have the perfect answer and we work towards it. Education is one of those.

Georgia, our infection rate has begun to climb. Fortunate for us, the last five days, we've seen positive trends and it looks like it's pulling back.

You know, this virus, nature has dealt us the perfect storm, right? The perfect riddle. If this thing was 10 percent worse, the decisions would be easy. We'd all stay at home.

If it was 10 percent less, it would be easy because there'd be no intellectual argument that this was anything worse than the flu. And so, we've got to continue to look for solutions. And we've got to continue to work together and we've got to be willing to make adjustments together.

You know, this virus is not a Democrat, it's not a Republican. It's the enemy of all of us. And I think the best steps forward are innovation and tenacity before partisanship. And so, I'm going to focus my efforts on trying to find the right ideas and communicate ideas out there to the public and continue to gain confidence.

BERMAN: You'd put -- we had a chart up a moment ago. You were talking about the case rate in Georgia. And people can see there that it went from fairly low to pretty high in July with more than 3,000 cases a day. It was over 4,000 at one point. It's still over 3,000 cases a day.

Why do you think it got to that point? Why do you think it rose so much?

DUNCAN: Well, I think that's part of the humility that you mentioned that Dr. Fauci talks about, is, you know, we don't have all the answers. I mean, there's states out there that shut down before us and opened up after us and mandated masks, and their rates continue to climb. There's other states that are in different situations. And so, this virus is a moving target. It's a vicious moving target.

And so, we're fortunate in Georgia to start the last five days to see the data trending down.

But, look, this is with all of us until a vaccine is developed and distributed, we're going to have to continue to make tough decisions and make adjustments.

BERMAN: So you're talking about making adjustments. Dr. Deborah Birx has listed Atlanta as one of the cities where there is new cause for concern because of a rising positivity rate.

So, then, what do you think you should do differently in Atlanta given that information?

DUNCAN: Well, I think we continue statewide, right? This is Georgia, right, and Atlanta is a part of that story but statewide we're continuing to push wearing your mask. I've got mine right next to me. Walk in with it, walk out with it.

We continue to encourage social distancing as much as humanly possible and we continue to talk about keeping ourselves and our hands clean.

Those are big areas of opportunities for us and, look, I'm proud of millions of Georgians that are taking this to heart, taking it to task, and absolutely carrying out those three -- those three big ideas every day. And certainly we're going to continue. That's the best way forward for us.

BERMAN: Why aren't masks mandated, should I ask, in Georgia schools right now? We were talking about North Paulding High School. They're not mandated. Should they be?

DUNCAN: Well, look, we had this broader conversation in all over the state, all over the country about mandating. I think mandating, it's tough to enforce. It's tough to manage, right? We want to make sure --

BERMAN: Not on kids. We make all kinds -- we make all kinds I mean, I get it. I understand the intellectual argument for cities and towns and localities. Schools are different. I mean, we tell kids to do all kinds of things. We make rules for kids all the time.

So, why not a rule to wear masks?

DUNCAN: Yeah. So, look, I can only imagine how hard it is for a teacher in a classroom.

[08:25:00]

I've got a 10-year-old, just turned 10 years old. I can't imagine how difficult it's going to be to manage a classroom of fourth graders. But they've got to walk through this. They've got to look for opportunities to keep those kids socially distanced as much as they possibly can and we've allowed folks in communities to make those decisions. And, look, I can guarantee you, administrators and teachers and board

of education members are doing their absolute best right now. I don't hold any of them in harm's way for the -- for the decisions they're making. They're making the best possible decisions they can and I respect them for that.

BERMAN: Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, as we said, we always appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks for being here this morning.

DUNCAN: Yeah, thank you very much.

BERMAN: We are about to get new critical information on the state of the coronavirus recession. Breaking details on jobs and unemployment in the United States, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: We are just minutes away from the release of the latest government jobs report and it's expected to show a sharp slowdown from last month's numbers, another major effect on unemployment. It's the way the pandemic has forced working mothers in particular to put their careers on hold.

CNN's Bianna Golodryga has been looking into this and I'm sure, like it is for me, this is a consistent topic of conversation.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It's such an important topic that we're (INAUDIBLE) discussing right?

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