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New Day

Hospitalizations are Surging in the Dakotas; Navajo Nation Begins Lockdown; Austan Goolsbee is Interviewed about the Biden Transition and the Pandemic. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired November 17, 2020 - 08:30   ET

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


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[08:30:23]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, hospitalizations in North Dakota have more than doubled in the past month. In South Dakota, the test positivity rate is averaging nearly 60 percent. One nurse in South Dakota told Alisyn that some dying patients still refuse to face the reality of the virus.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JODI DOERING, REGISTERED EMERGENCY ROOM NURSE: I think the hardest thing to watch is that people are still looking for something else and they want a magic answer. And they don't want to believe that COVID is real. And the reason I tweeted what I did is it wasn't one particular patient, it's just a culmination of so many people. And their last dying words are, this can't be happening, it's not real.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It is happening and it is real.

Joining me now, Dr. Michael LeBeau, he's the president of the Bismarck region of Sanford Health in North Dakota, and Dr. Nancy Babbitt, family medicine physician for Creekside Medical in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Dr. LeBeau, I want to start with you.

This morning, how many ICU beds do you have available?

DR. MICHAEL LEBEAU, PRESIDENT OF THE BISMARCK REGION OF SANFORD HEALTH: This morning ICU beds are pretty tight. We don't have any in our facility here. We only have a few left in Fargo.

BERMAN: So none? Zero in your facility?

LEBEAU: Correct.

BERMAN: And only a few left in Fargo. How many beds do you have in general?

LEBEAU: From a COVID perspective, we have about 55 total beds. Overall we're about 250.

BERMAN: That sounds like you are running out of space.

Dr. Babbitt, to you.

The governor of your state suggests you still have capacity where you are. What's your reaction to that?

DR. NANCY BABBITT, FAMILY MEDICINE PHYSICIAN, CREEKSIDE MEDICAL: I think the difficult aspect of that is the staffing. When we look at the South Dakota Department of Health website, it does indicates that there are beds available and hospital capacity and ventilator capacity. But when I speak to physicians that work at the hospital and I speak to nurses that work at the hospital, they are struggling because of staffing issues.

I spoke to a nurse last week and she was devastated because the nurses are finding COVID patients are so weak that they can't get out of bed and the nurses are not able to get them -- get to them in time to help them get to the bathroom. And so they're having stool and urinary incontinence in their bed because the staffing is so stressed and short staffed right now.

BERMAN: That's an important point. Capacity only matters insofar as you can staff the need.

And, Dr. Babbitt, I read this and it has to be a typo. The positivity rate in your county is 85 percent? What are you seeing?

BABBITT: There was a day last week where we hit actually 88 percent positivity, 344 tests out of 384 I think were positive. And that is devastating for our community because it tells us that we are grossly under testing, we know we have community spread. We are -- we are seeing significant infection rates in younger populations, the majority of people infected in South Dakota in general (INAUDIBLE) 30, and then it goes up from there. Some schools have started closing. And this testing issue has been an issue from the beginning. It's just still shocking to me how far into this (INAUDIBLE) are still complaining of not enough tests.

BERMAN: I have to say, 88 percent, even for just one day, it's everywhere. That is almost literally everywhere you test you are finding the virus at this point. It means you don't have enough testing, you weren't doing enough tests.

Dr. LeBeau, want I want to know is, you say you have no beds today, no ICU beds available in your facility today. So where are you going to be in two weeks if this continues? I know you've begun having discussions about what you call the worst case scenario and what you call hard decisions. What does that mean?

LEBEAU: Yes, so I think as a state we're working very closely with all of our partners. We're working very closely with the Department of Health. All of us are working on active surge plans. Obviously if things -- or as things have changed over the last month, surge planning looks different than it did in the spring. We still have a large need for non-COVID care and the emergencies coming in. So we need to make sure that we can continue to serve that population as well.

But all of us are looking at bringing on more beds across the state.

[08:35:02]

Roughly about 150 more COVID beds that we're trying to figure out as we go forward.

Staffing is an issue. We continue to work on staffing. We're fortunate yet that our staffing ratios have not changed. We still try to keep the number of patients per nurse per physician down, but that begins to be a problem.

As we talk about making tough decisions, it really becomes, as you start to run out of space, who gets the next bed? Where does the next patient go? And, more importantly, where do you keep patients if there's no more capacity left in the state? And that's all of the stuff that we're working closely on to make sure that we can do the best we can. But the message is simple, the rate of spread is not sustainable. And we've been very active with our community continuing to educate and explain that if we're going to make any changes, today's got to be that day.

BERMAN: I've got to say, if you're deciding on who gets the next bed, that ultimately becomes the decision sometimes of who gets to live. And that's a terrifying decision to have to get to make.

Dr. Babbitt, we played some sound from nurse Jodi Doering, who is in South Dakota, who talked about how patients, even dying patients, still refuse to believe the reality of this pandemic. How can that be? How can you change the message that people are hearing?

BABBITT: I try every day. There are interesting political messages about coronavirus and I am an outpatient family doctor. And so when I hear patients tell me about conspiracy theories, like this is germ warfare, or that this is overblown, I hear that all the time, I just try to educate, educate, educate.

I absolutely do not care what the political views of my patients are. I don't think most doctors do. I think politicians care about the political views of people and that has impacted how the public is getting educated about this pandemic.

And I know -- I know when I have a patient and I diagnose them with cancer, I don't say to them, look, I want the decision to be in your hands about what to do. Go forth and look on the Internet and good luck. No, I send them to an expert. And I think that's what our governors should be doing. I think our governors should acknowledge, I have no experience with a viral pandemic. She's not alone. Nobody did really. And go to the experts and lay out a plan associated with all of the information that we've been given and that we know. We've learned so much in the last six to seven months and there's

absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be going to the experts for this advice.

BERMAN: Dr. Babbitt, Dr. LeBeau, I thank you both for the work you're doing. Thank you both for being with me this morning. You're out of time. You need people to listen. You need help now.

Thanks for being with us. I appreciate it.

LEBEAU: Thank you.

BERMAN: So the pain of losing a loved one to coronavirus is the same really no matter where you live.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DARLENE DIXSON, NAVAJO NATION RESIDENT: I was talking to her and I was telling her, sissy, you can't go. You have to come home to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Just devastating. We have a live report as new stay-at-home orders take effect in the country's largest Native American community.

Stay with us.

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[08:42:06]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: The Navajo Nation ordering a new lockdown to combat an out of control spread of coronavirus.

CNN's Martin Savidge is in the town of Gallop, New Mexico, with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Winter-like cold has returned to Navajo Nation. So has coronavirus.

Last spring, COVID-19 devastated this sprawling 27,000 square mile Navajo Reservation that stretches across Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. In May, per capita Navajo infection rates surpassed New York and New Jersey. Dee Dixson's younger sister among those infected.

DARLENE DIXSON, NAVAJO NATION RESIDENT: She went in to get tested. And she said she tested positive.

SAVIDGE: Just two weeks later, Dixson listened helplessly over the phone as her sister's COVID battle ended in a distant hospital room.

DIXSON: I was talking to her and I was telling her, sissy, you can't go. You have to come home to us. By 5:45, you just hear that -- that tone of her heart stopping and the doctor came on the phone and she said she was gone. SAVIDGE: Now COVID's back. Navajo health officials warn of the virus'

uncontrolled spread in 34 communities and fear an outbreak as bad as spring or worse.

DR. JILL JIM, NAVAJO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: The cases just have been increasing. There is no plateau. There's no flattening.

SAVIDGE (on camera): How many ICU beds do you have here?

DR. LORETTA CHRISTENSEN, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, NAVAJO AREA HIS: We have 14 in Navajo area. Here at this site we have six.

SAVIDGE (voice over): Last time the Navajo sent many of their cases off reservation to larger hospitals in New Mexico and Arizona. Health volunteers poured in. That's not likely this time. Hospitals nationwide are struggling to find beds for their own critical cases. So the Navajo are preparing to fight alone, locking down the entire Navajo Nation for three weeks, announcing the news on Navajo Radio.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning. I hope everybody woke up feeling good, feeling that they want to stay home and take care of themselves.

SAVIDGE: Under the order, people can only leave their homes for emergencies or essentials. Government offices and businesses must close. Learning is online. Gas stations and grocery stores can open, but under limited hours and capacity, using strict sanitizing procedures.

SAVIDGE (on camera): Checkpoints like this one are designed to limit off-nation travel. Meanwhile, non-residents and tourists can pass through, they just can't stop.

SAVIDGE (voice over): Facemasks, already mandated, now are encouraged to be worn indoors with family.

PRESIDENT JONATHAN NEZ, NAVAJO NATION: And we're like an island, the Navajo Nation. So of course if you have record breaking numbers all around us, it will come in to that nation or that area. And that's what's happening today.

SAVIDGE: Aggressive screening continues. Officials say more than 50 percent of the nation's residents already have been tested and more than 250 contact tracers work to isolate transmission.

[08:45:02]

Health officials have identified sites to quarantine thousands and to place hundreds of hospital beds.

Native utility crews race to bring electricity to some of the roughly 30 percent of Navajo who live without it, saving them searching for firewood or fuel, and running water to the about 40 percent who have none to make hand washing and hygiene easier.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With this little help, it will greatly improve their lives.

SAVIDGE: So far the strict lockdown has received little pushback, perhaps because even those who have already endured agonizing loss realize there is still so much more the Navajo could lose.

DIXSON: To keep us -- to keep us safe, to keep us alive, that's what the lockdown is for.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Much of the nation, of course, is seeing its third wave of COVID. For the Navajo, this is actually only the second wave. The reason they've been successful, they believe, is a strict policy to isolate and educate. They hope it will work again. The lockdown is not only the best weapon they have, it's the only weapon they have.

Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, Marty, hearing that sister's grief as she heard her sister's life slip away in the hospital is so devastating.

SAVIDGE: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Thank you very much for explaining all of this and giving us a picture, insight into what's happening there.

So is the delay in the transition to President-elect Biden leading to even more economic uncertainty? A top economist from the Obama administration tells us why Congress must take action before the inauguration.

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[08:50:48]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT-ELECT FOR THE UNITED STATES: We're going in a very dark winter. Things are going to get much tougher before they get easier. And that requiring sparing no effort to fight COVID so that we can open our business safely, resume our lives and put this pandemic behind us. It's going to be difficult but it can be done.

Once we shut down the virus and deliver economic relief to workers and businesses, then we can start to build back better than before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: That was President-elect Biden giving his first economic address yesterday since winning the election.

Joining us now is Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. He was an informal adviser to the Biden campaign.

Austen, great to see you this morning. AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, FORMER CHAIRMAN, WHITE HOUSE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC

ADVISERS AND ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO'S BOOTH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: Yes. Great to see you.

CAMEROTA: We've had many segments already this morning about how this denial of the transition is perilous for national security. You say it's also perilous for economic security.

How specifically is it?

GOOLSBEE: Well, because the economy is so closely tied to controlling the virus. As the virus is raging out of control and the vice president/president-elect's team cannot get in to start designing policies to control the virus, it's going to have a massively negative effect on the economy.

If the virus rages out of control in the form that it looks like it's doing right now, we could easily have a double-dip recession. We could -- we could stop growing and go -- grow right back into the kinds of problems that we had in the spring.

CAMEROTA: If this were a normal transition of the kind that you were involved in, in 2008, between Bush and Obama, what could President- elect Biden be doing in the next 65 days?

GOOLSBEE: Well, it would be done in coordination with the administration that's there. But they could be trying to enact the policies for public health and for controlling the virus rather than ignoring the virus and kind of pretending that it's going to go away because if you have an infectious disease that's growing at an exponential rate, if you negligent it, and you don't coordinate the policy the way to his credit President Bush instructed his team for -- during the financial crisis, you coordinate everything that we're doing with the incoming administration. If you do that, you can hopefully get some control of the virus. If you don't, and it spirals out of control, it's more than just thousands of people are going to lose their lives unnecessarily, it's that the economy is also going to take a deep downturn.

CAMEROTA: And so, I mean, it doesn't look like the Trump White House is inclined to coordinate as you're describing. And so what will this look like on day one of the Biden administration?

GOOLSBEE: Well, I mean, if they don't, it's going to look like a mess. Now, it's not too late. And I hope that they come to their senses that what's best for the country is to get people not necessarily around a table, but let's get them on zoom or something so that we can coordinate this policy.

The libertarian argument is a -- kind of a false argument for an infectious disease where it's everybody just be out on their own and try to take care of it yourself. That's a recipe for thousands of additional people dying who don't have to and that are our economy suffer a lot more than it needs to.

CAMEROTA: In terms of the economic stimulus, should Congress be doing something right now rather than waiting until January?

GOOLSBEE: I think they should as quickly as possible move on two fronts. One is, money to help fight the spread of this virus because the economy is tied to that and the virus is the boss. Two, you've got large swaths of the economy that have not recovered, that are down because people -- their customers are afraid of catching the virus so they're not going out to restaurants, to beauty salons, to cruise ships, whatever you want to say and you've got to keep people from getting evicted and having their gas shutoff.

So I think we're going to now go into a real pinch period and I think it's going to become obvious hopefully to all parties involved that where there needs to be some relief, it's not exactly stimulus of a traditional form of try to jump start the economy.

[08:55:18]

This is literally just rescue and relief to prevent permanent damage from swamping us from this temporary shock.

CAMEROTA: Let's hope that something becomes obvious to both sides.

GOOLSBEE: Right.

CAMEROTA: Austan Goolsbee, thank you very much for giving us your insight into all this.

GOOLSBEE: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: John.

BERMAN: All right, as you've heard, a record number of Americans hospitalized with coronavirus this morning raising all kinds of problems, all kinds of dangers.

Our coverage continues right after this.

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

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

This morning, two weeks since the election, there are deepening fears of just how much more deadly this pandemic could get as President Trump continues to delay the transition.

[09:00:00]

And U.S. hospitalizations hit their highest total ever of this pandemic.