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New Day

U.S Death Toll Surpasses 170,000 Ahead of Flu Season; Vaccine Trials Have Been Slow to Recruit Black and Latino People. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired August 17, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Named Major Rob Lodewick.

[07:00:01]

He said, in part, that the administration has repeatedly demanded both publicly and privately that Iran cease its scourge of malign and destabilizing behavior throughout the Middle East and the world, and that Iran seeks to undermine the Afghan peace process and foster a continuation of violence and instability. Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: Alex Marquardt, thank you very much for that breaking news.

And New Day continues right now.

We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day. Don't adjust your set. Yes, John and I are back together in the flesh, six feet apart, it's great to see you.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Don't come any closer.

CAMEROTA: I wouldn't dream of it. Don't worry.

BERMAN: I'm actually saying that not just for coronavirus concerns. Don't come any closer. This is close enough.

CAMEROTA: Yes, no risk of that. But it is. I'm very grateful for these small glimmers of normalcy. It just feels great.

BERMAN: Look, it's what can happen when you put the case rate low, like they have in New York. The positivity rate goes low, you can do things like this if -- if you drive down the virus, which is not happening in a large part of the country.

CAMEROTA: So let's get to that right now, because the number of Americans killed by coronavirus now tops 170,000 people. It took only 18 days to add those 20,000 deaths. The U.S. is averaging more than 1,000 deaths a day. It has been for three weeks. That's much more than any other advanced country.

With the increase in deaths, there has been a decrease in testing. 15 states are conducting fewer tests than they were a week ago. The seven-day average of new testing peaked in mid-July, and then it dropped. Why? One thing that may help, the FDA has approved a saliva- based coronavirus test for emergency use that could give Americans a fast and quite inexpensive option to get tested.

BERMAN: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling for lawmakers to return to Washington this week to block the Trump administration from measures that might slow down U.S. postal delivery. The Trump-appointed postmaster general, a Republican donor, has enacted a series of changes that have already led to slower mail delivery. And he's warning states that mail-in ballots will not be delivered on time for Election Day.

President Trump admitted out loud that he was blocking Postal Service funding in order to stop mail-in voting. Several states are now considering legal action.

Meanwhile, it's day one of the Democratic National Convention in everywhere. It's all virtual. We've never seen anything like this before. So we'll tell you what you can expect tonight. And we have a new CNN national poll that shows the race between President Trump and Joe Biden is tightening.

First, though, major developments in the pandemic. Joining us is CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Rochelle Walensky, she is the Chief of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Dr. Thomas Frieden, he's the former Director of the CDC.

And, Dr. Frieden, I want to start with you, because here we are averaging 1,000 deaths a day, more, for three weeks, which is a very high number. And to see the testing peaked in mid-July and actually dropped after that, how do you have a drop in testing six months into a pandemic like this? How do you explain that, and what's the impact?

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: Well, first, let's start with the horrific death rate. COVID is now the number three cause of death in the U.S. ahead of accidents, injuries, lung disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's and many, many other causes. And last week, Americans were eight times more likely to get killed by COVID than were Europeans. So this is really a situation that is horrific and continuing.

The test numbers, I think, are actually less important than whether we're testing the right people in the right way and getting the right results. So many of those tests weeks ago were basically useless. They were taking 10, 14 days to come back and still many tests are taking too long to come back. We have to focus on the most important things. Are we controlling COVID? And right now, in most of the country, the answer is not yet.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Walensky, is part of the drop in testing possibly because of the hurricanes, the storms where clinics had to close? I mean, are we seeing the result of that now or is something else going on?

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Good morning, Alisyn. I think it's multi-factorial, quite honestly. I certainly think weather, hurricanes could impede access to testing. I think people recognize based on what's happened in the past that getting a test may or may not actually give you information in a timely fashion. I think people are confused as to which test to get, whether they are eligible for testing. I think people may or may not be exhibiting symptoms so they may or may not be presenting for testing. And then there's trust. Do they trust the results? Do they trust the people who are giving them the results?

And so I think it really is multi-factorial and it's a huge problem because it is a major, major tool in our toolbox to stop the spread.

[07:05:05]

BERMAN: Dr. Frieden, you said something which struck me, that you're eight times more likely to die in the United States last week from coronavirus than you are in Europe. It's worse here. It's much worse here, which is something we all know but figures like that put it into perspective.

There are also pictures that put it into perspective about why it may be different here in the United States. It's because of what we're doing or not doing in some cases. We have this picture from Georgia, North Georgia University here. This is a party. It's unbelievable to see this. It's shocking to see this. These are kids near North Georgia University and they're at this party.

From what we can tell, really, no masks, virtually no masks, obviously, no social distancing, yelling, screaming, dancing, partying. What does this tell you about how we've listened to the medical experts about reopening parts of the country?

FRIEDEN: Well, we need consistent messaging, the three Ws, wear a mask correctly, wash your hands and watch your distance. If we do those things and close bars and indoor dining, we can see the kind of progress we're seeing in New York and much of the northeast.

But one thing about that picture I'd like to point out, if we look at the actual data, what's really happening in the U.S., yes, you'll see anecdotes like that, but most of the spread in younger adults isn't from that kind of activity. It's from essential workers, particularly lower-income, black and Latin X people who have to go to work and they are being exposed at work. They're then bringing it back to their homes and their families without any fault of their own.

And what we have to do is recognize that we're all in it together. And any one group or any one part of the country that gets infected or has a high rate of disease is a risk potentially to every other age group and every other part of the country.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Dr. Walensky, John is shocked by that video. I'm not shocked. I mean, these are college students. They're back together. They're going back to school. One of our doctors said there's a biological imperative for 20-year-olds to get together and be like this together. And so, you know, I don't know how you're supposed to stop that momentum that they're feeling. And what's going to happen, I think we've seen this play out writ large, is what just happened at the school in, I guess, South Carolina. There was something like 29 or 20 sorority sisters who suddenly were all positive and then they had to shut down.

And so I think that what we're going to see in September are schools opening with -- that was in Oklahoma State. Oklahoma State is where the sorority had to shut down. Schools are going to open with a burst and all that celebration and then they're going to shut down and have to go home. I mean, that's my prediction. Do you see it differently?

WALENSKY: Well, first of all, I want to mention I have a 20-year-old, so I think you're spot on. But I will also that the CDC guidance currently, I think, is actually not helpful in this situation because that guidance for higher education for residential colleges said that there's no need for bringing students in and testing them when they come in and no need for routine screening.

We have modeled that we can keep residential colleges which are congregate settings. We know this virus thrives in congregate settings. But we can keep those residential colleges safe by doing routine testing every two or three days in those settings for those students.

And what happens then is, if you were to find a case, you could detect that case quickly, you could isolate that case and prevent these outbreaks. And most colleges that are having those outbreaks are not doing that routine screening. Many colleges in the northeast where we have less spread, in fact, and, in fact, many in the Boston area, are implementing routine screening every two or three days as they bring these college students back.

BERMAN: I guess my point is that's why we can't have nice things, which I said before. We know that if you do that as you're trying to open schools, the school is not going to stay open. There are four clusters at the University of North Carolina also. So if you want the schools to be open, you've got to prevent that type of situation.

We talk about the need for more available testing, maybe easier testing, Tom, and this saliva test, which the FDA has granted emergency use approval for, it comes back in three hours. Obviously, it doesn't take the swab, which I think a lot of people find pretty invasive, literally invasive into your nose. How much hope do you put in this? What will it change?

FRIEDEN: Well, every additional way we have of getting tests to people and getting results back quickly helps. But it's really important we recognize that testing is just one piece of the puzzle. We need a comprehensive response. And over and over, we've seen that the focus on one thing, whether it's staying home or masks or contact tracing or testing or even a vaccine is misleading because we need a comprehensive response. And only with a comprehensive response are we going to be able to get the virus to low levels and keep it at low levels so we can get our kids back to school, get ourselves back to work and prevent the tens of thousands of deaths that we will otherwise have. [07:10:08]

BERMAN: Dr. Frieden, Dr. Walensky, thank you both for being with us. I appreciate your time.

FRIEDEN: Thank you.

WALENSKY: Thanks so much, John.

BERMAN: All right. It is an unusual day, to say the least. It is convention day in America, but a convention the likes of which we have never, ever seen before. The Democratic National Convention officially kicks off tonight in -- like everywhere, it's not Milwaukee. It's everywhere. The speeches will be delivered by people at home, maybe alone and online.

Let's go to CNN's Jessica Dean live in Wilmington with a preview.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, here is what we know about the first night of speakers. We know that it will feature a lot of familiar faces, Michelle Obama, also Bernie Sanders. It's called, We the People. That's the theme for the first night. And they are really trying to show unity across the spectrum of the party. They're even going to have Republican former Governor John Kasich speaking again, trying to appeal to a wide spectrum of people.

So how is this going to work? We're getting some details. I'm told by a source that, first, there will be several locations, set locations across the country. One here in Wilmington, Delaware, one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the convention was supposed to be anchored from the beginning, and then also New York and Los Angeles.

In addition to that, they are also going to have a large amount of speakers spread out across the country speaking at landmarks, places that are going to be very recognizable, places that are going to tie in thematically to what these speakers are talking about.

And then in addition to that, we're told production kits have been sent to delegates, to people within the party, all across the country. And those are going to be used in people's living rooms. They can set those up for a couple of reasons. They'll do the roll call this time, featuring 57 different live shots. So they can go all across the country for that.

And then also I'm told they're going to want to get reaction shots from people who are watching the convention, like they typically would within a convention hall.

So that will be interesting to see how they do that. They'll have a truck here in Wilmington that will be punching up and have access to those hundreds of live feeds all across the country.

And we got a sneak peek of what that might look like, might being the key word, when Harris and Biden held an all-staff meeting last week. But you can see, they were in a studio and you can see a number of people were able to be beamed in there remotely. So that could be a preview of what we might see.

Additionally, we know that we're going to hear from the names you would absolutely expect to hear during the Democratic Convention. Former President Barack Obama will be speaking, former President Bill Clinton, the 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as Kamala Harris, of course, and Joe Biden. We're told they will be giving their acceptance speeches right here in Wilmington, Delaware. John?

BERMAN: Jessica Dean, a hundred live feeds coming in from all over the country. What could possibly go wrong? Never any struggles in television like that.

DEAN: No, no.

BERMAN: All right, Jessica, thanks so much. Keep us posted.

New word this morning that coronavirus cases are surging in South Texas. One congressman says he knew four people who died in just one day. He joins us next.

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[07:15:00]

BERMAN: So, important new information about the race for a coronavirus vaccine just in to CNN. CNN has learned that researchers have failed to recruit enough black and Hispanic participants for clinical trials, and this could cause new delays in the trials.

CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has exclusive data on how minority recruiting is going. The answer, Elizabeth, not well. What's going on here?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, it is not going well. As a matter of fact, the director of the NIH, Dr. Francis Collins, is giving this first trial a C, a grade of C for recruiting minorities. And this is super important. It's the right thing to do and it's also the legal thing to do. Law and NIH policy say you have to have minority representation in your study.

What they are looking for is representation that reflects who is affected by this virus. So let's take a look at those numbers, John, to see who is affected by this virus.

So, 350,000 people have registered online for the vaccine clinical trials, but only 10 percent of the registrants have been black or Latino, but more than half of all coronavirus cases in the U.S. have been black or Latino. So you can see that that does not reflect it.

And I am told it's possible that the monitoring board, the board of experts that looks at this might say, wait a second, guys, we need to slow this down, we need to do a better job recruiting minorities, we can't continue, we cannot license or give authorization for this vaccine based on these numbers. Now, there's two reasons you need diversity. One, you are giving this vaccine to people who are black and Latino and different ethnic groups have different efficacy rates, they have different side effects. Also, you want to give the vaccine to people at high risk for getting infected because that's the way your trial is going to work out. And, unfortunately, among those groups are blacks and Latinos. John?

BERMAN: And, look, they are being disproportionately affected by this pandemic. So to have them underrepresented in the trials, and especially been problem, why are they having such a hard time recruiting minorities?

COHEN: John, I've spoken to many black leaders who have been approached by scientists saying, hey, can you get people in your community to basically roll up their sleeves and participate in our trial? And what these leaders tell me is, we have had centuries of injustices and abuse in this country.

Think about Tuskegee. Think about other medical experiments that really harmed black people and current injustices and disparities. They say it's hard in a matter of just a couple of months to convince a community, hey, don't worry about that.

[07:20:00]

We know that was a problem but please roll up your sleeve and take an experimental vaccine. It is very hard to reverse all of that in such short order.

BERMAN: All right. Elizabeth Cohen for us, thank you very much for this important and disheartening information. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Overnight, Texas reporting nearly 9,000 new cases, the most of any state in the U.S. Four out of the five metro areas in America with the worst death rates today are in South Texas.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Filemon Vela. He represents one of those hardest hit districts. Congressman, thank you so much for being here.

As I understand it, at the end of June, you say you didn't know a single person with coronavirus, and then now, you know hundreds. And so what happened in that month-and-a-half?

REP. FILEMON VELA (D-TX): That's right. I left South Texas to go to Washington, D.C. because we were going to be in session throughout July and I knew nobody with coronavirus. I knew one person but he didn't live in South Texas.

As of today, the number of people that I know who have died, numbers in the 30 or 30 to 40, I know hundreds of people who have contracted it. What really happened is that, back in April and May, the governor of Texas made tactical decisions that has now resulted in the killing of Texans en masse.

And our public health specialists let us know that if you opened up the beaches, for example, at Memorial Day, July 4th, that these are the kinds of things that are going to happen. And that's exactly what's happening now.

CAMEROTA: What did the governor do wrong, in your mind, exactly?

VELA: Well, back in March or April, he began to open Texas too early. And, you know, as a result of that, people started feeling comfortable and they weren't on guard. And that's the reason we're in the situation we're in now.

CAMEROTA: Is it true that you had four people that you know die in one day?

VELA: Yes. About -- during the peak of the pandemic, with respect to South Texas, which was about three to four weeks ago, people were dying left and right. And in one given day, there was a former state representative from our region that passed away, a childhood friend of mine and two other acquaintances that all passed away on just one day.

Things are a little bit better now, but they're not that much better because when we say things are a little bit better now, that means that ambulances aren't lined up outside emergency rooms waiting for hours to get in. Patients aren't in the emergency room waiting for days to get into ICU.

But all that has subsided to some extent but our hospitals are still full. We have hundreds of people in South Texas that are still on ventilators and the worst is not over yet. And we're obviously fearful of what happens when Labor Day comes around.

CAMEROTA: Gosh, I'm sorry for your loss. I mean, that's just an extraordinary amount of people that are dying. And you're painting a nightmarish scenario that so many places in the country have seen. And so in your district of the Brownsville area, how are you going to turn it around? What's happening? I assume people still have to go to work. What is it like on the streets there?

VELA: Yes, I mean, it's really, really tough because I'm not alone. I mean, everybody that I know, everybody that lives in the region is in the same situation. Two months ago, the pandemic seemed to be so far away, but now it's really hit home.

The reality is that the way we get around this, the way we fix it is we need to implement a federal strategy, and we need to do it fast. Since March, that hasn't happened. Hundreds, almost 200,000 people will have died here in the next few months.

And bottom line is, we need the federal government to promote a robust national strategy so that we can get our arms around this situation.

CAMEROTA: Do you think we're going to see a robust national strategy from the federal government at this point?

VELA: I think it's going to be difficult knowing the direction that the Trump administration has taken with respect to confronting the pandemic, but -- and, unfortunately, we may have to wait a few months, but I am convinced that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will fix this.

CAMEROTA: In the meantime, I mean, you're putting a lot of eggs in that basket. Who knows what's going to happen with the election. In the meantime, are you calling on your governor, Abbott, to do something different?

VELA: Well, we've been calling on Governor Abbott to issue stay-at- home orders -- strategic stay-at-home orders in places that are being really hard hit.

[07:25:07]

About a month-and-a-half ago, he did the right thing. He closed down the bars, but that wasn't enough. As Dr. Frieden said just a few minutes earlier, and I worked with Dr. Frieden when we were confronting the Zika virus, the opening of dining areas and things like that, you know, makes it really easy for the disease to spread.

And so I think we have to be much more aggressive in the way we are controlling the way people meet with each other, gather and those sorts of things, because that's what makes the virus spread.

CAMEROTA: For sure. I mean, he seems disinclined to have that stay- at-home order, but we'll see what happens now that things are so bad in those districts in South Texas. Congressman Filemon Vela, thank you very much for talking.

VELA: Thank you, good morning.

CAMEROTA: John?

BERMAN: We want to remember some of the more than 170,000 Americans lost to coronavirus.

47-year-old Al Rengifo Jr. had served in the Broward County, Florida Sheriff's Department for more than 20 years. He rose to the rank of lieutenant just last year and was once recognized as detective of the year. He is survived by a wife and son.

Eileen Whitlock was born during the depression in segregated Richmond, Virginia. She graduated from Columbia University with a masters in psychology. She later joined the CIA, where The Washington Post reports she worked sometimes covertly as a technical adviser. Her son said she loved to travel. She visited Europe, Africa and Asia. Eileen Whitlock was 90 years old.

John Marshall was a physician in America's Georgia. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports he was an Air Force vet and former president of an NAACP chapter. At 74, Marshall kept his family practice going long past retirement age. His brother says he served up until the time he could not.

We'll be right back.

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[07:30:00]

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