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Moderna to Apply Today for Emergency Use Authorization for Its Vaccine; President-Elect Joe Biden to Unveil Economic Team Today; Trump Says He's Ashamed He Endorsed Georgia's GOP Governor. Aired 7- 7:30a ET

Aired November 30, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: For its coronavirus vaccine.

[07:00:01]

That's today, happening now.

Moderna also is releasing new data on the effectiveness of its vaccine. It now says it is 94.1 percent effective against the virus. And listen to this, 100 percent effective at preventing the most severe cases of COVID.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Meanwhile, a coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force says if you travel this Thanksgiving, assume you're infected and stay home. Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Anthony Fauci and others are warning of a surge upon a surge in cases after holiday celebrations.

This morning, more Americans are hospitalized with coronavirus than ever before. More than 4 million new cases were reported in November. That's double the month before.

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen joins us now with the breaking news on the vaccine, Moderna applying for emergency use authorization and releasing new data about its trials, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. And what's exciting about this new data is it's a much larger dataset, so it's much more reliable than what they announced a few weeks ago. So let's take a look at what these percentages are. What they're showing is that their vaccine is 94.1 percent effective. That's very much along the lines of what they said earlier, also very close to the Pfizer's effectiveness. And this vaccine, they say, is 100 percent effective against severe disease.

Now, let's take a look at the numbers that they gave that led to this percentage. So, Moderna says that 11 out of the 15,000 people in their study who received the vaccine got COVID-19. So 11 out of 15,000 who received the vaccine got COVID-19. But 185 people out of the 15,000 who received the placebo got COVID-19. So you can see, that's a huge difference. You can really see how the vaccine made a difference.

And note, in this study, it went on for several months, and Moderna didn't give anyone COVID-19, people just went out into their communities, and as we've seen, the rates of COVID have been so high in the past several months that people just naturally ran into and got infected with COVID-19.

Now, the next steps since the FDA and the CDC have to review both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine, Dr. Anthony Fauci telling us that he thinks the first Americans will get vaccinated in the second half of December. John, Alisyn?

BERMAN: And, Elizabeth, we're also getting some news about distribution. Who will get these vaccines first and in what order when they become available? What have we learned?

COHEN: Right. So that's up to an advisory committee to the Center for Disease Control. And this group of independent experts seems to be steering towards two groups to get it first. One is frontline health care workers and the other is nursing home residents. And then after that, other high-risk groups such as essential workers, like police officers or people with underlying medical conditions. But right now, it looks like the first in line will be health care workers and nursing home residents. John, Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Elizabeth, thank you very much for all of that information.

Okay, joining us now is someone who is contributing to the Moderna vaccine trial, Dr. Carlos del Rio. He is the Executive Associate Dean of Emory University School of Medicine at Grady Health System. Also with us, CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner, he's a Professor of Medicine at George Washington University. Great to have both of you.

So, Dr. del Rio, this news, this breaking news that we've just gotten, that they are applying today for the emergency use authorization, so what does that mean in terms of the timeline? When could it be available?

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT GRADY HEALTH SYSTEM: Well, Alisyn, I think this is fantastic news. And as Elizabeth said, you know, the efficacy to prevent disease of 94.1 percent, but in addition, of all of the serious cases of COVID that there were in the study, 30 cases of serious COVID, all of them were in the placebo, none of them were in the vaccine arm. So not only does it prevent infection, it really prevents severe disease.

Now, we don't know if it prevents -- we don't know if it prevents infection or not, it just prevents disease at this point in time. So, once we got the vaccine rolled out, and I think, as Dr. Fauci said, probably by the second week of December, we will start seeing vaccinations with either the Moderna or the Pfizer or both vaccine, we still need to be continuing using a mask. We still need to be continuing protecting ourselves, because we can still potentially get infected, we can still potentially transmit to others. We don't have that data, that data will be coming up later about whether it prevents infection or not. But the fact that it prevents disease, especially severe disease is really good news, considering the number of people hospitalized with COVID right now. BERMAN: And, Dr. Reiner, when you look at that, that's a really striking figure that jumps off the screen, 100 percent effective against severe illness. Now, it will be some time, we understand, it will be some time and first to get the vaccine will be health care workers then maybe vulnerable populations in nursing homes. But six months, a year from now, if you have a vaccine, maybe more than one, 100 percent effective against severe illness, how can that change behavior? What will it allow us to do?

[07:05:00]

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It will allow us to go back to basically a normal life. And that's really what you want this vaccine to do. We want to prevent people from dying. You know, fortunately, you know, well over, you know, 98 percent of people who acquire this virus do survive. The problem is the small number of people, the relatively small proportion of people who die from this or the proportion of people who get very sick and suffer hospitalizations.

And, you know, the Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine seem to be remarkably effective at preventing this from happening. And now particularly, this morning, with the Moderna data, suggesting 100 percent effective against severe disease, like hospitalization, is very welcome news. And this is the promise that will return our society and society around the world to normal life.

CAMEROTA: Oh, my gosh, what a fantastic development. But, of course, the devil is in the details, Dr. del Rio. And so we've been hearing for weeks now that the first people who will get this vaccine, you're saying, mid-December, will be frontline health care workers, but let me just show you the numbers, because there are more people who need it than will be able to get it.

So in terms of the numbers, 40 million vaccine doses, okay, are estimated to be available by the end of December. But there are 21 million health care personnel, 87 million people considered essential workers, like frontline workers in terms of, you know, police, et cetera, 100 million adults with high-risk medical conditions, and then 53 million Americans 65 and older, obviously, some of them in nursing homes. So there's just not enough to go around.

And I know that there's this advisory committee, the CDC advisory committee, that's meeting tomorrow to try to figure out who exactly will get those 40 doses. So what's the answer?

DEL RIO: Well, the answer is that this is one of the most complicated public health efforts we've ever done. Vaccinating over 250 million Americans in a matter of six months or so is not going to be easy, especially with a vaccine that requires two doses, so one dose today and one dose in a month. But it's doable. We put a man on the moon, we can do this.

I think it's going to require a lot of coordination, a lot of collaboration of, you know, federal and state governors and medical personnel and, of course, the community. Because, remember, vaccines don't work, vaccination works. You've got to get vaccines into people.

So it's going to be a tiered approach. The National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine put out a report that is very comprehensive on this topic. The CDC advisory committee has essentially accepted the report. And this tiered approach would mean that you're going to start vaccinating people that are highest risk and move until you get to the general population.

I'm pretty confident that by some time between April and June, we will be getting to the general population and we'll be immunizing everybody. And as was previously said, I think by the fall, I hope that we will be back to essentially normal.

BERMAN: That's great news. That's great news. And it increases the urgency to get there. It increases the urgency on all of us to behave in the right way until then. And, Dr. reiner, Dr. Deborah Birx was out over the weekend saying things that I think alarmed a lot of people. She was very blunt with what you should do if you traveled for Thanksgiving, which frankly the CDC had warned against. And this is what Deborah Birx says. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DEBORAH BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE COORDINATOR: So if you're young and you gathered, you need to be tested about five to ten days later, but you need to assume that you're infected and not go near your grandparents and aunts and others without a mask.

And if you're over 65 or if you have co-morbidities and you gathered at Thanksgiving, if you develop any symptoms, you need to be tested immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: If you traveled for Thanksgiving, Dr. Reiner, assume you're infected. And both Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci are warning of this surge upon a surge because of family gatherings. What do you see?

REINER: Oh, it is going to happen. I think just as we were trying to educate the public prior to Thanksgiving, to assume that they might have been exposed or infected before they went home, now since the virus is so ubiquitous around this country, if you've traveled on Thanksgiving, on the Thanksgiving holiday, you should assume you've been infected or exposed to the virus. Even if you have no symptoms, especially if you have no symptoms, you should consider quarantining for a week and then getting tested. That's the sensible thing to do, stay home for a week and then get tested.

CAMEROTA: Dr. del Rio, I believe you traveled for the Thanksgiving holiday and the reason that I think that is because we have this lovely picture of you in a contraption of safety, where you have a mask and eye protection and a plastic over it and a hat. So what was your take on the safety at the airports and what's your plan now that you're back home?

[07:10:03] DEL RIO: Well, you know, indeed, I traveled, I went to New York to visit my daughter, who had just had a baby last week, and that's our first granddaughter.

CAMEROTA: Congratulations.

DEL RIO: So we had to go see her. And we took many precautions. We got tested three days before we got on the plane, we got tested four days after we arrived. We essentially stayed within our bubble. And then we traveled using an K95 mask and using, as you saw, a face shield or goggles and with Purell, with hand sanitizer.

And I would tell you, there wasn't a lot of people at the airport in La Guardia. There was a lot of people -- more at the airport in Atlanta. But, overall, I saw everybody masked. And I tell you, in the planes, you know, I flew Delta. They're doing a very good job of really enforcing the masking, of blocking the middle seat, of increasing the air ventilation, of cleaning the planes. I felt pretty safe on the plane.

I tell you, I'm more concerned when I go to the grocery store. I'm more concerned when I go to other places. I think traveling was okay, but you have to follow the recommendations. And you need to be careful. You need to keep your social distance, you need to do all of those different things. And I think it is a matter of really keeping that at the front of your head all the time, about the masking, the face shield, keeping your distance, all of those things to try to minimize your risk of getting infected.

But I'm back in Atlanta, and as Dr. Birx said, in five to seven days, I'm going to get tested.

BERMAN: Are you going to quarantine until then?

DEL RIO: I'm going to stay, pretty much, yes, I'm pretty much going to stay home.

BERMAN: So you're following the advice from Dr. Birx and others. You traveled, you're going to stay home, you're going to get tested in five to seven days. That's what you need to do at this point. That's what you need to do as this goes forward.

Dr. Reiner, what do you think of Dr. del Rio hitting the road for Thanksgiving?

REINER: Oh, if I had a new grandchild, I would be hitting the road, also and geared up like Dr. del Rio. Look, you know, we have lives that we have to live and all of these decisions are very personal. I think Dr. del Rio and his wife took sensible precautions on the front end and now on the back end they'll do the same, they'll do what's important now that they're back in Atlanta. So, congratulations. Mazel tov.

BERMAN: Congratulations, indeed. All right, Dr. del Rio, Dr. Reiner, thank you so much for being with us this morning, I appreciate it.

DEL RIO: Take care.

BERMAN: All right, President-elect Biden set to announce his economic team today. We'll tell you who he is expected to choose and who is already generating some controversy, next.

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[07:15:00]

CAMEROTA: President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will receive their first national security briefing today. Biden will also formally announce his economic team today after naming an all-female senior communications team last night.

Joining us now to talk about this, we have CNN Political Analyst Seung Min Kim, she is a White House Reporter for The Washington Post, also with us, Brittany Shepherd, National Politics Reporter for Yahoo News. Great to see both of you.

So let me just put up the list of the women who will be leading the communications team in the Biden White House. And, you know, Brittany, I don't want -- yes, it's a historic headline and it's a very important historic headline, but I think that sometimes eclipses their qualifications for the job. I mean, these women will be familiar to lots of our viewers. They have been around Washington. They have been in and out of the White House. They know what they're doing. But as you point out, it's very notable, because Washington is the ultimately old boy's club.

BRITTANY SHEPHERD, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, YAHOO NEWS: Exactly, Alisyn. I mean, D.C. is the city of boy's clubs. I think the White House is probably the most notorious of them all, both in the press representation and in the staffing. So, it's critical for the Biden transition team that they are putting adults in the room. That's why you're seeing a lot of Obama-world veterans, both formally and informally in Jen Psaki and others, Symone Sanders, as well, from the Bernie campaign and the Biden campaign.

It's critical to them that the voice coming out of the White House representing Joe Biden is not only fierce in loyal defense of him, but also fresh. The campaign and now the transition has made pains to ensure that their transition team is diverse in thought, in experience, in age, and that's continuing over here to the communications team.

Just I think it's notable that over the last four years, we have had a maybe acrimonious relationship, to put it politely, with what was coming out of the White House press shop, but we did hear a lot from President Trump himself. He would be out on the lawn speaking for sometimes an hour and a half if it's snowing, if it's 100 degrees.

With a group of adults like the Biden campaign has liked to create, I don't think we're going to hear from Biden as much. I think we're going to be hearing a lot from these women and we should really be getting familiar with their names, because as Biden will take a quieter role, these women, especially Jen Psaki and Kate Bedingfield will be taking a much more public one.

BERMAN: Look, it's a big job and they have a lot of work to do, not just to restore confidence in an administration or a government but in institutions themselves, because Americans have lost faith in institutions. And that's a tall order to try to restore that in just a few years.

Seung Min, we're also getting reporting on the economic team that President-elect Biden will nominate. We learned Janet Yellen as treasury secretary. And overnight, we learned Cecilia Rouse to lead the council in economic advisers. She is a labor economist at Princeton. And then Neera Tanden to run the Office of Management and Budget, which is a Senate confirmed role.

[07:20:04]

Why does that matter? Because there's already griping overnight about that nomination.

A spokesperson for Senator John Cornyn has put out a statement basically saying something to the effect of, there's a 0 percent chance that she will be confirmed. And then, also, a former spokesperson for Bernie Sanders saying, everything toxic about the corporate Democratic Party is embodied in Neera Tanden. Interesting that this is the pick all of a sudden after a few weeks that's generated the controversy. What's going on here?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Neera Tanden has been a prominent figure in Democratic politics for a very long time. Obviously, she is in her role as the leader of a very prominent liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress. She was an ardent Hillary Clinton ally in 2016, which put her up against a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters, like the one you just quoted there.

And there are a lot of comments that both the left and right may dig through of Neera Tanden that may surface at her confirmation hearing. I know Republican operatives were going through her Twitter feeds and screenshotting some of her more colorful tweets. So that could certainly arise. And also just the dynamics would be interesting. I mean, we just talked about her clash with some Bernie supporters.

Bernie Sanders is the top Democrat either chairman or the ranking Democrat on the Senate budget committee. So he will be helping to lead the confirmation hearings in a -- perhaps in a role to kind of lead her defense against Republicans.

But I do think this is why those Georgia runoffs January 5th really have so many high stakes for the execution of Joe Biden's agenda, whether it is personnel or policy. And we're seeing it play out right now. Because I think it is a pretty fair -- it is a fair analysis to say that if there is a Republican-controlled Senate, Neera Tanden is probably not going to get confirmed. But certainly, if it's one controlled by Democrats, or one where Kamala Harris has the tiebreaking vote, that she could be muscled through.

CAMEROTA: Do you have anything you want to add to that, Brittany? SHEPHERD: I just think it's important to note too that I think a lot of progressives feel a bit blinded (ph) about by what's been happening with some of these transition picks, and Neera Tanden, just someone was saying, is kind of a really bold example of that. They feel like even as the Biden campaign and the Biden transition is trying to tack left, they're still tacking left in the wrong direction for them. That's why you hear folks like Briahna Joy Gray and other Bernie rep people have frustration.

And I think you're going to hear that get louder as Republicans get more and more critical of Neera Tanden too, which I really feel like is very fascinating.

CAMEROTA: So also, Congress is back this week. And I don't know how many times we have to report on the dire straits that Americans are in. I mean, every day, we have a report on the food banks, on people being evicted, people becoming homeless, et cetera. And so, I don't know if anything has shaken loose over the holiday weekend and if there's any hope that they'll be able to act.

But now it's even more pressing, by the way, because our breaking news, 23 minutes ago, was that today, Moderna is going to apply for this emergency authorization use for their vaccine, which is great news, if it can be distributed. And Senator Chuck Schumer, for one, is saying, in order to distribute this, you need money. And he's asking for something like $30 billion so that states, when they get it, which will be soon, even in December, need to be able to get it into people's arms.

KIM: I mean, there is not a lot that's being shaken loose right now in terms of a big massive COVID relief deal that would include perhaps upwards of $30 billion for vaccine distribution, for state and local aid, for all of these small businesses that are continuing to suffer. And there's just been a standstill in Congress for -- I mean, to be fair, for months now, but especially in the last couple of weeks, as Democrats, including the president-elect, Joe Biden, have coalesced behind what the House Democrats are proposing and somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 trillion. And Senate Republicans have aimed for a much smaller, more targeted package.

But I thought what was really interesting yesterday, and maybe a trend that we're going to be seeing in the coming weeks, as we continue to get these dire reports and continue to hear these -- continue to hear these stories of people struggling is how many Democrats start to push their own leadership for a smaller deal? I mean, a former Obama economic adviser talked to our colleague, Manu Raju, yesterday, and he recommended that Democrats take perhaps half a loaf, because half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. And that is a position that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not taken so far, but we'll if that changes with perhaps some pressure from our own Democratic ranks in the coming weeks.

[07:25:01]

BERMAN: Seung Min, Brittany, thank you so much. We didn't even talk about the scandal of Champ causing hairline fractures in the president-elect's foot. President-elect Joe Biden will be in a walking boot for a couple of weeks because of his dog.

CAMEROTA: Was it champ or was it Major?

BERMAN: Major, I'm sorry.

CAMEROTA: Why are you blaming Champ?

BERBAMN: You know what, they were in it together. It was a conspiracy. It was a conspiracy and the Justice Department in on it also, all three of them.

You are right. Gosh, I'm so sorry, Champ. My lawyers will be in touch with your lawyers. It was Major. It was Major.

CAMEROTA: I really have no idea the difference, but I'm glad you clarified that.

BERMAN: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Yes, anytime. Ladies, thank you very much. Great to talk to you.

So, President Trump is taking aim at Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp, over Kemp's support of the fair and free election in his state and his support of Georgia's secretary of state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT (voice over): This character in Georgia, who is a disaster, and the governor has done nothing, he's done absolutely nothing. I'm ashamed that I endorsed him. But I look at what's going on, it's so terrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: The president heads to Georgia on Saturday to campaign for the Republican incumbents in two runoff races that will determine which party controls the Senate.

CNN's Kyung Lah is live in Atlanta with more. What's the latest, Kyung?

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Alisyn. Something that was a little telling to me in that Fox interview is that the president didn't mention the names of the two Georgia incumbent Republican senators, Senator Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, instead, taking the time to rail against the governor here in the state of Georgia.

This is quite inconvenient for the senators, because they're relying on the president to boost turnout for the January 5th runoff, to try to get Republicans to the polls. Yet at the same time, they're finding themselves having to support his myth that the election system is unfair.

I want you to listen to Senator Loeffler, also on Fox, doing this delicate dance this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R-GA): Look, David Perdue and I have had the president's back, now the president has ours. He is sending a message to encourage Georgia's voters to turn out. We have to make sure our voices are heard. If we don't vote, we will not win. But if everyone turns out to vote, we will win this election. I'm confident we're going to show America and the world that Georgia is a red state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: So, a bit of a troubling break in logic that we're starting to hear from Republican voters here in this state.

Now, President Trump is scheduled to arrive on Saturday to try to juice that turnout here in the state of Georgia, with a rally. And then on Sunday is the scheduled debate between the Republican incumbent senators and their two Democratic challengers. Something we should point out though is that Senator David Perdue says that he's not going to show up. So how is he going to be represented? With an empty podium. John, Alisyn?

CAMEROTA (voice over): Okay. All of that will be very interesting to see. Thank you very much, Kyung.

So, a quick programming note, you can watch the Georgia Senate debate between Raphael Warnock and Senator Kelly Loeffler Sunday night at 7:00 P.M. Eastern right here on CNN.

All right, a single image captures a moment of compassion in this critical week of the pandemic. We will speak with that doctor about comforting a critically ill patient in his time of need.

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[07:30:00]