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Coronavirus Cases Rising In States Across U.S.; Dr. Deborah Birx Urges Those Who Traveled Or Who Gathered With Travelers During Thanksgiving To Quarantine; Moderna To Apply For Emergency Use Authorization For Coronavirus Vaccine; Interview With Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA). Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 30, 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: More than four million new coronavirus cases reported in November alone. The month is not even over yet. I guess we have one more day. That is double October's total.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And fears are growing this morning of hospitals becoming overwhelmed with patients and a surge upon a surge after Thanksgiving. The coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force says if you traveled this Thanksgiving, assume you are infected and stay home. We'll tell you what else she says you should be doing.

TSA data just released shows that yesterday was the busiest day of travel at airports since this pandemic began.

But we begin with CNN's Elizabeth Cohen on the breaking vaccine news. Give us the latest, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, as you mentioned, Moderna is going to apply today for emergency use authorization to put their COVID-19 vaccine on the market. And when they apply to the FDA, they're going to be applying with a much larger data set than what they announced a few weeks ago when we talked about it on your show.

Let's take a look at what this new data shows. It shows that this vaccine is 94.1 percent effective against COVID-19, and it's 100 percent effective against severe disease. In other words, nobody who got the vaccine became severely ill with COVID-19.

Let's talk for a minute how they got that data, because it's really important. So what Moderna did was that they took a large group of people, tens of thousands of people, and some of them were given the vaccine, and some of them were given a shot of saline, a placebo that does absolutely nothing. All of those people went back to their homes, they lived their lives, and some of them became infected and sick with COVID-19.

So let's take a look at what those numbers show. So 11 out of the 15,000 people who received the vaccine got COVID-19, just 11 out of 15,000. But 185 people out of the 15,000 who received the placebo got COVID-19. So you can see right there why this vaccine is considered to be 94.1 percent effective.

Now, both Moderna and Pfizer, another pharmaceutical company with a vaccine that looks as effective as this one, both of them have to go to the FDA and then to the CDC for review. Dr. Anthony Fauci telling CNN that he thinks the first Americans will get shots in arms in the second half of December. John, Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: That's incredible, Elizabeth. The timeline has just been jaw-dropping. And so who will get the very first vaccines?

COHEN: Yes. In talking to folks who are connected with the CDC advisory group, it appears that the first two groups will be health care workers, because they're of course taking care of COVID patients, as well as nursing home residents, because COVID has just been rampant in nursing homes.

Other groups will soon follow, essential workers, people with underlying medical conditions. But the thinking at this point is that the first two groups will be those health care workers, as well as nursing home residents. John, Alisyn?

BERMAN: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much for that news.

Joining us now, CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen. She's the former Baltimore City Health Commissioner. Dr. Wen, I have to say, the data reported by Moderna is just astounding and represents such a triumph of science if this continues to bear out the way the initial data does show, 100 percent effective against severe cases of coronavirus. What are the implications of that?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I agree with your adjective, John, that this is really stounding. I think these are better results than any of us could have really dreamed of, 94 to 95 percent effective, and 100 percent at preventing severe disease if that continues to pan out. And also very safe and the data for Moderna so far look like this vaccine is just as effective for older individuals and for minorities, who are the populations that are most severely affected.

And so if the data continue to pan out, we could essentially have coronavirus be rendered just like a common cold, or just like a very mild version of the flu, where people don't get severely sick, even if they do get it. I hope that people keep in mind, though, that we're still not going to get the vaccine.

Most Americans are not going to be able to get the vaccine until early spring at the earliest, and that means that we really still have to hunker down this winter and get through the next several very difficult months.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about who is going to get the vaccine, because we keep hearing health care workers, but of course, what does that mean exactly? And tomorrow the CDC advisory council is meeting to try to figure out exactly who should be first in line. Here are the numbers according to the CDC -- there are 21 million health care personnel. There are going to be 40 million vaccine doses. I don't know if that

means the two dose, if that's so in other words maybe it can only cover 20 million people, you can clarify that for us. But there's also 87 million essential workers that we needed, 100 million adults with high-risk medical conditions, and 53 million people 65 and older, obviously some of them in nursing homes. So how are they going to divvy these up?

[08:05:14]

WEN: Yes, so it is very hard to produce hundreds of millions of doses of a vaccine, and so initially there will only be vaccine available for about 20 million people, as you said, the two doses, Alisyn. It's going to take time, and this is going to be a phased rollout. And so there are going to be some difficult decisions being made about who gets that initial tranche of the vaccine.

Health care workers who are on the front lines, it makes a lot of sense. One in five hospitals are already reporting that they are facing a critical shortage of health care workers, so if we don't have enough health care workers, we don't have a functional health care system, so that group needs to be first.

Nursing home residents, about 40 percent of those who have died during the pandemic are nursing homes residents and staff, so they should also be in that initial prioritized group. So it's going to take time to get to these other groups, and I hope that Americans will wait their turn and get the vaccine when it comes out.

It's not going to take that much time. We're talking about a matter of months. But in that meantime, we need to be doing a lot of public education because it's not just enough of the vaccine to be safe and effective. It also needs to be trusted.

And I hope people also remember that it is local and state health departments that are going to be doing the administering and the coordination of this very highly complex process, and those local and state health departments are so short of resources because they are currently doing the ramping up of the testing, the contact tracing, they're doing all the public education, and now we're adding vaccination to their already growing list of responsibilities. And so they really desperately need funding and additional staffing, too.

BERMAN: As they say, it's not the vaccines that save lives, it's vaccinations, people actually have to get them. But if I can ask you to go back and repeat something you said and explain it a little bit more. If we all do take this when it becomes available to everybody, and it is 100 percent effective against severe cases, or even close to 100 percent effective, you said it could turn into something like just the common cold for us? What do you mean? Where could we be in a year?

WEN: We could be in a totally different place if most Americans take this vaccine. If we take this vaccine, and let's say that it really is 100 percent or something close to it at preventing severe disease, then imagine you get this virus, you may get the sniffles, you may have a cough, you may not feel very well. But if the vast people no longer end up in a hospital who currently would, then it turns into something like the common cold.

That would just be game-changing in terms of how we perceive the severity of this illness and what we do once we get it. Of course, we don't want to get sick, we still need to be taking preventative measures. But that means we can get back to normal, kids can be back in school, we can be working, and every importantly, we can see our loved ones again. And so I just hope everybody listens and hangs in there for this winter. We can get through it, as difficult as it seems right now.

CAMEROTA: My gosh, the scenario that you're painting sounds so joyful, just a return to normal.

Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the Coronavirus White House Task Force said that if you traveled for Thanksgiving, you need to assume right now that you're infected basically, that you somehow caught coronavirus. And so for all the millions of people who did, what should they be doing? Does that mean they have to stay in their room for the next 14 days? When can they get tested?

WEN: Yes, so this is really important, and I completely agree with Dr. Birx. There is such a high level of prevalence of coronavirus around the country that if you got together with people, even if you did not travel, but if you got together with people outside your immediate family, you got together with extended family or friends over the holidays, you should consider yourself to be potentially infected, because you had exposure to people who could have been asymptomatic and could have infected you.

And so it's really important that you get tested, but not get tested immediately, because if you only had the exposure yesterday, and you get tested today, that's not going to be positive, even if you did contract coronavirus. So you should get tested seven days after your last exposure to that type of group, to a large group or to people who are not in your immediate family, and you were indoors with them.

You should quarantine in the meantime, until you can get that test, and that means not going to school, not going to work, certainly not being with other people indoors during that period if at all possible. If you cannot get a test, and in many parts of the country, testing is so limited, if you cannot get the test, you have to quarantine for 14 days.

And again, I understand this is really difficult and very challenging for a lot of people to miss work and school, but I know that none of us want to inadvertently be spreading coronavirus. We don't want to be seeding coronavirus further when we have this level of surging infection all across the country. And so let's do our best, and also let's keep that in mind when planning Christmas, Hanukkah, new year's travel, that it's best to cut nonessential travel at this point.

[08:10:05]

CAMEROTA: Dr. Leana Wen, thank you very much for all the expertise.

So the surge in coronavirus cases has hit rural communities very hard, overwhelming small hospitals that are running out of bed and supplies. Hospitalizations in Kansas are near record highs. The state has an average test positivity rate of 38 percent.

So joining us now is Carrie Saia. She's the CEO of Holton Community Hospital in Kansas. Ms. Saia, thank you very much for being here. So just tell us what the situation is at your community hospital this morning.

CARRIE SAIA, CEO, HOLTON COMMUNITY HOSPITAL: Well, good morning. The situation over the last few weeks has really drastically changed. Prior to October, we maybe saw one or two admissions for COVID positive patients. We were able to transfer patients to tertiary facilities in Topeka and Kansas City area. Those facilities have become overrun, and in the last couple of weeks, over 50 percent of our patients now are COVID positive patients. We're a small rural facility. We just have 12 beds currently in our facility. So half of those being COVID positive patients takes a lot of resources from staffing to supply and the resources for testing.

CAMEROTA: How many ventilators do you have?

SAIA: We just have one ventilator.

CAMEROTA: And what if you need more than one?

SAIA: Someone has to stand and be able to manually bag the patient. We have taken the resources for our anesthesia machine, made that as a potential backup ventilator. But it's not just a ventilator, because I think there are ventilators available. It's understanding and having an understanding to how to run that machine, and the knowledge behind that ventilator.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I understand that. It makes perfect sense. And the identify having to bag somebody, meaning manually breathe for them, you can't do that for days on end.

SAIA: Right.

CAMEROTA: That is not sustainable obviously. And so what is this, the fact that I've heard it described at your hospital as a tidal wave now, and so what is the tidal wave doing to staff, to the nurses and doctors there?

SAIA: They're very stretched thin. We've asked staff to work extra shifts. Both the short term and the long-term implications of COVID are a huge concern to staff. Is this burnout something that they're going to want to leave the profession at some point in time? You can't continue to work extra shifts forever and ever without having some type of burnout.

The fear of the unknown, what the Thanksgiving holiday may bring for already this surge that we've seen in the last few weeks is very concerning. It's very concerning to not be able to give the quality care that they're used to. Taking care of a COVID patient takes much more time and resources, with the dawning and offing. Just being able to be in there with the patient because loved ones can't be, that takes more resources from staff as well.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely. All of the emotional toll that it takes on the staff.

SAIA: And when you're in a small rural community, and Holton is not unlike any other rural community across the nation, taking care of your family, your friends, your neighbors, your teachers, the person that waits on you at a local restaurant, that takes a huge toll on the staff.

CAMEROTA: And so you were saying that this surge is not because of Thanksgiving, obviously Thanksgiving just happened. You've been seeing this for weeks. So what was causing the surge before Thanksgiving?

SAIA: I'm not certain on that, if it was related to Halloween and gatherings there, but between -- before October 25th, our county saw 332 positive cases between March and October 25th. Between October 25th and just last Friday, those cases doubled. I don't have an explanation or a reason for that. We're just very concerned that with that many cases, we're going to see an increase.

We were able to work with our county commissioners, plead with our county commissioners, and they did put in a mask mandate just a couple of weeks ago, and it has shown that our case spread since that time has decreased. One of our doctors, Dr. Enlock (ph), does a marvelous job tracking the data and just recently shown that just with the mask mandate, if you connect the two dots, we have seen a decrease to under 20 percent.

CAMEROTA: That's right there.

[08:15:00]

The proof is in the pudding. That's so helpful, I am sure to tell people, just you know, how effective it is. Are you -- do you sense resistance to that in the community?

SAIA: I sense resistance not just within our community, but just the mixed messages not just within our community but just the mixed messages that our community and our nation has received on what a mask can do.

It's very hard for some people to understand the science, I guess, but it's very, very factual. If you can take those three common steps that we've been pleading from the get-go of socially distancing, wearing a mask in a proper fashion, and great hand washing, we can control this.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Well, we're thinking of you and everyone at the Holton Community Hospital. Carrie Saia, we'll check back with you and hope that Thanksgiving doesn't make it harder at your hospital.

Thanks for all you're doing.

SAIA: I hope so, too. Thank you.

CAMEROTA: President Trump continues to spread lies and conspiracy theories after his election defeat. Now, one Republican congressman is stepping up saying, enough is enough. His message to fellow lawmakers, next.

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BERMAN: New overnight, the former top cyber security official in the Trump administration speaking up for the first time after being fired for defending the integrity of the 2020 election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER KREBS, FORMER DIRECTOR OF CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY: There's no foreign power that is flipping votes. There's no domestic actor flipping votes. I did it right. We did it right. This was a secure election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08: 20:16]

BERMAN: Pretty definitive there: no foreign actor flipping votes, no domestic actor flipping votes. That narrows it down to no one.

Joining us now, Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman of Virginia. He wrote the book on the politics behind conspiracy theories called "Bigfoot: It's Complicated." And I want to talk about this in just a second because believe it or not, it is incredibly connected to what's going on here.

First, you've got a background in Intelligence. Your reaction to Chris Krebs saying this was a secure election.

REP. DENVER RIGGLEMAN (R-VA): He is correct. You know, I looked at all of the data. You're even looking right now, and thanks for having me by the way -- but we are looking at data right now from individuals who are saying, you know, hey, there are these statistical anomalies.

And what Chris was trying to say and I want everybody to know this, I'm going to tell you this. It is that data actually matters, but you have to know how it works and what Chris was getting to also is that you can't do bizarre statistical analysis on aggregated data and that's the data coming directly from the states. I know that sounds crazy, but it isn't.

And what Chris is trying to say is that technically looking at what we're doing with CISA, looking at what we are doing with the F.B.I., look at what we are doing with other types of agencies that are looking at cyber, they are looking at how data is actually compiled and aggregated, what statistical anomalies actually are. This election was incredibly secure and I think we have to get out of this looking at these bizarre type of articles coming out on the net and the conspiracy theories associated with them, and it is really ludicrous.

BERMAN: Well, you say we have to do it. The problem is there's one person who is doing it more than anybody else and it is the President of the United States, who went on a television station yesterday and not only said what you said we shouldn't be talking about, which is bizarre data analysis, but he suggested that maybe the F.B.I. and Justice Department are in on a scam to defraud the American voters and create fraud in the election.

What does it tell you about the President that he would say that?

RIGGLEMAN: It sounds like desperation, but it's also mind-blowingly ridiculous to think that all of these agencies would work in tandem, somehow across 50 states. Think about that, 50 states, knowing all the individual processes, being able to pay off all the sys admins, all the IT individuals, all the poll watchers, to do that would be almost impossible and I think what I found so interesting about Chris last night is he never said it was impossible.

He is really saying it's highly improbable, and that's an Intelligence analysis thing, and the President has to stop sort of bloviating on this preposterous ridiculousness because most people in the Intelligence world are looking and they are scratching their heads going, you need to stop this because it could be radicalizing people based on data that is just faulty and ideas that are just out there. They are just out there. I don't know what else to say about that.

BERMAN: Well, why aren't there 53 Republican senators out there this morning saying it's absurd that the President suggested that the F.B.I. and D.O.J. are in on some scam. Why aren't there 190 other Republican congressmen besides you out there saying it is ridiculous this morning? Where are they?

RIGGLEMAN: I don't know. I mean, unless they believe some of this analysis and some of the things that we are reading which are preposterous, all they need to ask people that have done this, right, and I think part of it is my background, 20 years not only working with the National Security Agency, but the Office of the Secretary of Defense, United States Air Force Intelligence and Cyber and Critical Infrastructure. There are experts that haven't been in the political game that can say, hey look at it this way, and I think you can change people, but I think it comes down to this.

They want to get re-elected. A lot of these people are looking to 2022 and 2024 and I think it is a disservice to people if you can't say what facts are. If you can't do that, I don't think you should be in elected office. I think our job as servants is to serve people and not serve ourselves.

BERMAN: What does it tell you about them though, that they won't do that simple thing?

RIGGLEMAN: I don't know. I don't know what's in their heart and I wish I could tell you. I've tried to call. I've tried to talk to individuals about this and by the way, my own -- I shouldn't say this exactly, but people very close to me have called me pretty much a traitor to the cause because of my belief in data and statistical analysis and technology and people that have taken a note to the Constitution.

And I think what you saw last night with Chris Krebs and the reason he got emotional, it is because it is thousands people that are taking a note to the Constitutions that are being disparaged and I think that is absolutely just a repugnant act.

BERMAN: People will look at you and say easy for to you say now, you weren't re-elected. You're free to say this type of thing.

RIGGLEMAN: I think people need to look at why I wasn't re-elected. I wish I had a primary. You know, it is the same type of disenfranchisement we had here in Virginia that we are seeing people try to do to people in all of these states trying to take away people's votes.

You know, they took away a couple hundred thousand people being elected -- for me to be elected. You know, I got thrown out a church parking lot with 1,400 people and a lot of it had to do with officiating a same-sex wedding and not wanting preexisting condition protections to go away for people.

So, you know what? I'm proud of who and what I am and I've always been outspoken, but I have always dealt in facts. If we don't have servants who can deal in facts, we are going to have a tough time. That's why I wrote my book. That's why I released it because I was hit by the left in 2018, I was hit by the right in 2020 and it's very difficult to be the leader of the Zionist organizational government that the right is accusing me of and a Nazi that the left accuses me of in 2018.

They are going to pick a place, right? And I think if the fringes of the parties are dictating discourse, I think they need to pick a side, but for me I'm not going to pick a side. I pick the people.

[08:25:28]

BERMAN: That's where "Bigfoot" comes into this. Right? Really.

RIGGLEMAN: Yes. Absolutely.

BERMAN: Because what's happening now, what the President is suggesting is Bigfoot. It is honestly, it is Bigfoot.

RIGGLEMAN: Yes.

BERMAN: Actually, Bigfoot has more credibility in some cases than what the President is suggesting. And I am telling you, as you, as someone who went searching for Bigfoot, threw down five grand to a guy to show you Bigfoot, so connect the dots here.

RIGGLEMAN: Right. There's a griff there, you know, there are conspiracy theories and griffs and I did it. I worked for the National Security Agency at the time. You know, my background was Foreign Affairs Eastern Europe. So I was on the Romanian-Serbian border during "Operation Allied Force" and I saw how crazy things could get with people.

You know, I think looking at Bigfoot, looking at the people that believe -- and these belief systems encompass their life, it takes over their lives and there's all these different belief systems, right, and it's very difficult to argue crazy.

And here's what I want to tell you, is that there's some people out there who are good people that have bought into this stuff, but even just like Bigfoot conspiracy theories or Bigfoot belief systems, you know that he was beamed down from a UFO or can dimensionally long jump to talk to me and you.

But when I saw -- I pranked my wife in 2004 on a Bigfoot expedition -- never do that. But what I saw was people that had some of the same belief systems -- listen, my wife -- listen, we've been married 31 years and 15-year anniversary was almost the end of it for me.

I told her I was going to Hawaii and took her on a Bigfoot expedition. But anyway, so, I have been a prankster a bit my whole life, but anyhow, what I saw was that people that these belief systems had taken over their entire life and that it has taken over their entire life and I see that right now with people in these belief systems with QAnon and things like that.

We have got to stop public officials from pushing send on these ridiculous things that make absolutely no sense to anybody who has ever done any type of intelligence or data work. It's just absolutely ludicrous.

BERMAN: I couldn't say it any better. I don't know how you're married this morning but I couldn't say it any better.

RIGGLEMAN: Thirty one years. You know, I don't know how I am either actually because that was a ten-year journey of me writing a book about these systems that was linked to what I saw in Serbia, but it is pretty crazy what's going on out there right now.

BERMAN: Congressman Riggleman, thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing what you see, what you are seeing right now.

RIGGLEMAN: Thank you so much.

BERMAN: Not just with Bigfoot, but also inside the Republican Party in Congress. Appreciate your time, sir.

RIGGLEMAN: Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.

CAMEROTA: Obviously, he keeps it interesting.

BERMAN: I guess so.

CAMEROTA: He keeps it interesting and entertaining for his long- suffering wife.

BERMAN: I pranked my wife for my 15th anniversary searching for Bigfoot?

CAMEROTA: When she thought they were going to Hawaii.

BERMAN: I know, there's no sentence after that. That's like, you know -- I've been living alone for the last 20 years. That's the next sentence there.

New York City has closed its schools to in-person learning while keeping restaurants and other businesses open. Now the mayor is revealing his plan to get students back in the classroom. Mayor Bill de Blasio joins us next.

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