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Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) is Interviewed about Congress Negotiating a Stimulus Deal; Coronavirus Cases Rising in States Across U.S.; Coronavirus Daily Death Toll Reaches over 3,000; FDA Panel to Meet to Decide on Emergency Use Authorization for Pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 10, 2020 - 08:00   ET

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


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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The federal government is saying that 2.9 million doses will be in that initial shipment, but we're learning from states that that will not be enough. President Trump is sounding more detached from the reality of the pandemic, tweeting cries for help in the election.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't believe what I am seeing in our country. These leaders are morally and ethically bankrupt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY. And we begin with breaking news. Wednesday was the deadliest day of the coronavirus pandemic in America -- 3,124 deaths reported in the U.S. yesterday. That single-day total is more than the number of people killed on 9/11. It's more than hurricane Maria and Katrina and the Pearl Harbor attack. The CDC's new forecast just out adds another 72,000 people who will be killed by January 1st. That's around the corner.

The U.S. also set a new record for people hospitalized with coronavirus, another 2,000-person increase in one day. That means that almost 107,000 people are waking up in the hospital this morning.

An FDA panel meets in the next hour to decide on emergency use authorization of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine. If it gets the go ahead, the first doses could be administered within days.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That new CDC average you just talked about, they are projecting 362,000 deaths by January 2nd. That means we will average, they say, more than 3,000 deaths a day, average more than 3,000 deaths a day for the next several weeks. And what is the president doing? He's trying to overturn the election in public. He just joined a lawsuit, we just spoke about this, a lawsuit that Ben Ginsberg gave a solid F from the attorney general of the state of Texas asking the Supreme Court to invalidate millions of votes in battleground states. Seventeen Republican-led states have joined this lawsuit, a lawsuit that Mitt Romney called simply madness. So the Texas A.G., who we should note is reportedly under federal investigation himself, will be the president's guest at the White House today.

CAMEROTA: More on that in a minute, but we begin with the deadly pandemic. Joining us now is Michael Osterholm. He's the director for the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. He's also a member of President-elect Biden's coronavirus advisory board. Director Osterholm, thank you very much for being here.

Every morning John and I and our producers struggle for ways to describe the death toll, try to bring home the horror, the trauma of what we're experiencing in this country. It's more than 9/11, it's more than Pearl Harbor, it's 12 jumbo jets full of passengers falling out of the sky every day. When you see us hit another death toll, more than 3,000 people, what do you say to yourself in your head?

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: The first question I ask every morning is how bad will this really get? When you look back at Labor Day, we were talking about 26,000 cases of disease a day, and we were talking about hundreds of deaths, a few hundred. Look at where we're at today, and we may look back in the next six to 12 weeks and say, boy, wouldn't it be great if we could just be back at 3,000 deaths a day or 250,000 new cases. That's what I fear right now, and I don't think that America is understanding that message.

CAMEROTA: Well, I agree with you. When you think how bad can it get, what's the answer when you look at all these numbers?

OSTERHOLM: I think we just have to really tell the American public in hard language what's happening here. And far too often I think we have tried to you might say split the middle. For example, I very much support the CDC's new estimates today, I think they're right on the mark, but I have a real problem with the CDC's recommendations for what to do over the holiday period. It's nuanced. It's basically saying don't get together, but if you are going to get together, do these things. That's like telling people don't drive drunk, but if you do drive drunk these are the best ways to do it.

We have to be really hard. I don't care if I'm accused of being the grinch that stole Christmas, but you know what, I want you to be around for next Christmas and the Christmas after that. We should be having a very, very hard discussion of why we can't have Christmas 2020 like we had in 19 or that we hope to have in 2021. And we are not doing that right now. We are not having that kind of discussion in this country.

CAMEROTA: So can you just give us that tough medicine? Your recommendation if you were the head of the CDC would be what for Christmas? OSTERHOLM: At this point no gatherings outside your immediate family

that are in a sense podded together. And what I mean by that is the people who you have been with who haven't had outside exposures. So if your son and daughter coming home from college, they are not part of your pot. Either they quarantine for 10 to 14 days or they are not part of what happens at the holidays.

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Don't get together with neighbors. No Christmas parties. There is not a safe Christmas party in this country right now unless everybody for the previous 10 to 14 days were podded. I think many of my colleagues are saying limit it to 10 people, whatever. That's happy talk. We have to tell people what's happening.

And as you report these numbers every day, and I know that you don't grow insensitive to them, you understand these are all humans who have lost their lives, who won't be at the Christmas table this year. But at the same time we keep telling people who are really upset, we are coming down too hard. Look at how governors and mayors are taking the heat right now for trying to limit transmission. But look what's also happening.

So we have to say the next three to six weeks at minimum, longer, are our COVID weeks. We just have to get through this. Please, save a life, particularly the ones you love, and don't get together for these holiday parties, holiday events. That's the very best thing that you could do to love someone today.

CAMEROTA: And in three to six weeks what happens to turn off this horrible death toll? By then the vaccinations will be kicking in, or something else?

OSTERHOLM: I go three to six weeks I'm just saying to get through the holiday season. Listen, it won't end after that, but that's the period right now where we could have a surge upon a surge upon a surge. Like I said, imagine one day when I'm sitting here talking to you saying wouldn't it be great if we were back to just 3,000 deaths a day, just like it was 12 weeks ago when we were in the hundreds of deaths a day. And so I think what we have to do is just get through this initial holiday period.

But I also think we have to warn the American public that we can't protect them in the immediate months ahead with vaccine. We're going to be far short of the number of doses of vaccine we're going to need well into February and March. We're in this for a while. But this is our COVID year. It won't be like next year. Please hold out until the vaccines do arrive, which I don't think we're going to see really a sizable amount of vaccine for the American public well into March and April.

CAMEROTA: Michael Osterholm, we really appreciate you giving us the straight scoop, and we will carry your words with us --

OSTERHOLM: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: -- through the holidays. Thank you very much.

BERMAN: Joining us now, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, Professor Osterholm, he is a really nice guy who I don't think takes any joy in delivering very blunt news and information there, but he's saying things clearly, I think, so people can understand it. And we see it in the CDC numbers that were released just a few minutes ago, that they are now protecting 362,000 deaths by January 2nd. That is three weeks from now, basically, and they are saying there will be 72,000 more deaths than today. So just do the math, that's an average of 3,000 plus deaths a day for the next three weeks. It's staggering, Sanjay.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is staggering. And we would all do well to listen to Professor Osterholm. It's interesting he's been at this for a long time, he has this nickname "bad news Mike," I've known him for 20 years and followed him for a long time. But he's right. And somebody has got to say it. That's the issue. He even came out a couple weeks ago and said, maybe we need to start thinking about lockdowns again, and he got criticized for that. But as is often the case, we know that he is right, that those types of mandates would certainly have an impact.

And after a while, we act like we have decision over this virus. The virus is really dictating all these decisions. If hospital beds are becoming full, if there are no ICU beds anymore, you have got to take clast drastic actions, because there's no way that we could tolerate running into a situation where people simply cannot get medical care, but that's likely to happen. These death tolls are really -- they're horrifying, and I hope people pay attention to it because it is addressable, there are things that people can do, as Professor Osterholm was talking about.

The other thing is, we're going to get to these numbers that you're mentioning. I think the big question now is how long, then, do we stay at those numbers? Do we sort of peak? If you look at the models, they suggest mid, end of January peaking. Do we peak and then come down quickly, or does it sort of plateau for a period of time? What dictates that is what we're doing now. We are two weeks exactly since Thanksgiving, two weeks exactly until Christmas Eve. This is the critical period in terms of how the next several weeks, few months, will likely play out.

CAMEROTA: But if we are going to see a peak and then it come down, what's going to make it come down?

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GUPTA: I think it's all about reducing viral transmission. If we start to reduce the number of exposures now, then a couple of weeks from now we start to see -- maybe three or four weeks from now start to see the impact of that. It doesn't happen right away because we've been talking about these lag times for some time. The lag times are between exposure and hospitalization, exposure and death.

But also, if you think about this big fast-moving ship through the ocean, which is the inertia of this coronavirus pandemic in this country, because it is such a big ship and because it is moving so quickly now, even if we slam on the brakes, it's going to take a while for it to slow down. But those measures, the wearing of masks, the masks are almost surgical in how they work. We talk about the vaccine. The vaccine is very important, but longer lasting, longer to implement medication. Masks are surgical in that they can just immediately stop viral transmission. If you are wearing masks, you're not going to transmit the virus person to person. So that makes a huge difference, and that's what will probably bring down the numbers more quickly.

I think the peaks we're going to hit at this point, unfortunately. I think there was a belief for some time even going into around Halloween that maybe we could greatly mitigate just how tall these peaks are. I don't know that we can do that anymore. That's sad to say. But I think what we can still do is come off that peak quicker if we take some of these actions now.

BERMAN: I think what you're saying now is what our worst fears were, we are going to realize our worst fears there. We are on a collision course right now with those worst fears. The vaccine is coming. The FDA panel meets today. It's a key day, it really is. And I know you will be monitoring this all day long. They will be streaming this meeting, Sanjay. Walk us through, I guess, from today until next Tuesday.

GUPTA: Yes. So today is basically a really granular sort of look at all this data. And when I say granular, I mean they're getting down to looking at individual patient medical records. They're going to look at things like, did people have evidence of allergic reactions to vaccines in the past, all that sort of stuff.

But after today there may be an organization that comes, even today, later today we could be reporting on that. But the window really is between today and the 14th. In the middle of that the CDC advisory committee, which has already met and made their recommendations that health care workers and long term care facility residents should get the vaccines first, they're going to meet again tomorrow and again on Sunday to basically reaffirm that decision.

If you put it all together it is likely early next week, Monday, Tuesday, December 15th is the date that we have circled on the calendar that you could start to see these vaccines distributed. It's going to be an interesting distribution process, Operation Warp Speed is taking the vaccine from the manufacturing sites to the states. But then the states are going to triage the vaccine based on their own protocols. Some are stockpiling it, in some cases the vaccine is going straight to pharmacies and to hospitals. And it could be different state to state, even neighboring states may have different protocols on this. So we are going to track all that. But early next week I think it looks pretty likely that we'll start seeing these vaccines actually being administered for the first time.

CAMEROTA: That will be an incredible moment. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much, as always, every morning for the information.

Millions of Americans are in desperate need of help as coronavirus ravages the economy, so what is happening with those relief deals? A senator directly involved in the bipartisan talks is going to tell us next.

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BERMAN: The House passed a short-term funding bill which the Senate will vote on next, for now averting a government shutdown and buying a little more time to hammer out a stimulus deal to help millions of struggling Americans and by our reporting this morning they're going to need that time because it does not appear to be going well.

Joining me now is Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan. She is one of the lawmakers working on the bipartisan stimulus deal. Senator Hassan from New Hampshire, I might add.

Thanks so much for being with us this morning.

Look, our reporting is that these bipartisan talks have stalled. There has not been a lot of progress in hammering out this deal. Tell us where you are this morning.

SEN. MAGGIE HASSAN (D-NH): First of all, John. Thanks for having me on.

And, secondly, all of us have been hearing from our constituents. I've been hearing from folks in New Hampshire. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been hearing from individuals and small businesses from state and local governments, from our hospitals and from our schools, that they need relief and they need it right now.

So, this bipartisan group of us have come together. We've established a framework of a deal that we think can get through both the House and the Senate, and we have agreement on the large majority of issues in that framework. As is always the case, there are some details around some of the more contentious issues that take time to work out, but we're making good progress and we're continuing to meet.

BERMAN: These details that are contentious, our reporting as of this morning, there hasn't been a ton of movement there. And so, let's lay them out specifically.

Number one, what Democrats want to be sure of is that there is aid to state and local governments.

Is that an absolute drop dead, must have for you this morning?

HASSAN: Look, what is important here is that we make sure that our state and located at governments can continue to provide the assistance that our communities need on this public health and economic crisis. We know how important firefighters and police officers and teachers are, and we also know how it would undermine the economy if more of these employees were laid off, and need further assistance themselves, while also being unable to provide the necessary services that they do.

So, we have an agreement of a general amount of state and local aid in this framework. We are working across the aisle on that, and I think we're fairly close to the way we think that money should be distributed.

BERMAN: The other hold up is something that largely Republicans want, which is some kind of liability protection for businesses when it comes to being vulnerable to lawsuits for opening up and people maybe getting sick with coronavirus.

HASSAN: Right.

BERMAN: How much -- how much are you willing to budge here?

HASSAN: Again, we are focused on a couple of these issues.

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They are obviously contentious issues, but our talks continue. I haven't been as involved in the talks on the liability issues, but I know we had a good exchange last night and I know that the individuals who are trying to hammer this out continue to talk.

BERMAN: Do you think you're close? I mean, honestly, is there going to be a deal today?

HASSAN: We need to get a deal done. We need to have relief to the American people before we go home for Christmas. That's what we're focused on.

BERMAN: Will you go home with no deal?

HASSAN: A lot of us, myself included, have said we should not do that.

BERMAN: You know, I'm not great at math, but you're talking about a $908 billion plan, which is a lot of money and which would be very helpful right now. The White House had actually supported a $1.8 trillion plan before the election.

Was it a mistake not to make that deal if it was available then?

HASSAN: Oh, heavens. I think what you've seen is the House led by a Democratic speaker had been at a certain place. They had come down from over $3 trillion to a little bit over $2 trillion. We had the Senate majority leader staying at about a $500 billion number.

This is an amount and a package that can get bipartisan support. It can get through the House, we believe, as well as the Senate. This coalition that we have in these bipartisan talks include House members, and that's really important, too.

And we also know that this is a targeted relief package aimed at getting us through the next few months. The Biden administration is going to take office, they have their own plans and their own vision, and I look forward to working with them on another package.

But right now, this is where we can get bipartisan support in both chambers and we think that's a really important focus.

BERMAN: President-elect Biden will nominate retired General Lloyd Austin to be the secretary of defense. He is four years out of active duty. He would need a waiver from both the House and the Senate in order to serve as defense secretary.

This morning, are you inclined to grant that waiver?

HASSAN: Well, I look forward to talking to the general about his vision forward and I will certainly consider the waiver issue closely as I did for President Trump's nominee, General Mattis.

BERMAN: CNN and others are reporting that Hunter Biden is now -- the president-elect's son -- is under investigation. Hunter Biden did confirm that yesterday.

How should the next attorney general handle that? Do you feel that the next attorney general under a Biden administration needs to separate his or herself from that investigation and maybe allow a special counsel to do it?

HASSAN: Well, I think you've heard the president-elect say how important it is that there be separation between the Department of Justice and any political influence. The U.S. attorney's office is investigating this matter. Hunter Biden has said that he is taking it seriously, as he must.

BERMAN: Is it true, as I was told by our producers, that you n fact, have a Red Sox mask that you wore to this live shot this morning?

HASSAN: Yes, I do, and here it is.

BERMAN: That is a fantastic mask.

HASSAN: It is.

BERMAN: Senator Hassan, I appreciate your fashion choices and I appreciate you being with us this morning.

HASSAN: Thank you very much. Go Sox.

BERMAN: Absolutely. Got to get a pitcher.

All right. This morning the largest state in the country may be at a breaking point. Coronavirus cases and hospitalization smashing records.

California's lieutenant governor joins us next.

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DR. BARBARA FERRER, PUBLIC HEALTH DIRECTOR, L.A. COUNTY: The more terrible truth is that over 8,000 people -- sorry. Over 8,000 people who were beloved members of their families are not coming back.

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CAMEROTA: That's the Los Angeles County public health director tearfully describing the toll that coronavirus is taking on that county's 10 million residents.

California now has the most cases of any state, more than 30,000 new cases reported just yesterday and that's a record. Hospitalizations also at a record high. Health officials in San Francisco predict they will run out of ICU beds in about two weeks.

Joining us now is California's Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis.

Lieutenant Governor, thank you for being here. It's heartbreaking there to listen to your health director try to report those numbers and I know that as of tonight, 77 percent, I believe, of California's population will be under a stay-at-home order.

So, why is that necessary?

LT. GOV. ELENI KOUNALAKIS (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, that's right, Alisyn.

And it truly was heartbreaking to just hear that county health official from Los Angeles county talk about their numbers there. Overall in this state now we have lost more than 20,000 people and our ICUs are filling up again, we have just under 12 percent capacity left, and that is why we are going back again on to a stay-at-home order.

What we know and we've been in this now for nine months, we have had this dimmer switch approach, the cases go up, the activities get drawn back. And what we know is that stay-at-home orders work, when we tell people to stay home, we flatten the curve again. That's what we're doing this time.

But, of course, there is the unfortunate outfall which is that businesses suffer.

So this is the way that we as Californians have been handling it, we increase our activity when the numbers go down, and unfortunately now with winter, more people staying inside in close quarters. The numbers have gone up and we are back going down on shutdown.

CAMEROTA: And what do you say to those business owners who say we are already hanging on by a thread, this will put us under?

KOUNALAKIS: It's devastating. It's very, very difficult. People have been hanging on, doing their best now for nine months, doing everything they possibly can to just keep a heartbeat in their business. It's very difficult.

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