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Hospitalizations Reach Record High; California Struggles with Coronavirus Surge; Air Travel Breaks Pandemic-Era Records; Congress Passes Relief Package. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired December 22, 2020 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Has been on the front lines, really behind the front lines in southern California to get a really remarkable look at the story.

I want you to tell us what you've learned, Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John.

You know, the numbers of coronavirus cases here in Los Angeles, the numbers of people being hospitalized, frankly, the numbers of people on the freeways are all telling us one thing, we're failing each other and we are failing the people on the front lines who are battling this deadly virus.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (voice over): Nurse Cliff Resurreccion is preparing for battle against the insidious, invisible enemy he and his colleagues have been fighting for months. COVID-19 is now sending so many people to the hospital in California there are no more intensive care unit beds open here at Harbor UCLA Medical Center, so they've moved coronavirus patients into the emergency room. Some are so sick they're hooked up to no less than eight IVs pumping in vital medicines to save or soothe them.

CLIFF RESURRECCION, REGISTERED NURSE IN COVID-19 UNIT: Very exhausting, you know. There's really like a never ending struggle. It's really tough right now.

SIDNER: Before his shift started, Nurse Resurreccion learned one of his COVID-19 patients had died. The patient had no family visits and no breath left to say good-bye.

RESURRECCION: Unfortunately he has no family. You know, this oldest (ph) patient had no family to be able to come and see him and, you know, it is very sad around the holiday season for everyone involved.

SIDNER: Everyone here has been exposed to the trauma of loss over and over again, but the patients just keep coming.

SIDNER: What's it like right now for your staff? NANCY BLAKE, CHIEF NURSING OFFICER, HARBOR UCLA MEDICAL CENTER: It's a

disaster right now for our staff. The patients are extremely sick. This is a horrible disease. I hope I won't cry because it's been ten months of this and we are inundated.

SIDNER: They can't send patients out to other hospitals in Los Angeles County because in the most populated county in America, there is not a single licensed ICU bed open. All 2,500 are full. At last count, all of southern California had zero ICU capacity. Zero.

BLAKE: And there's no break. There's absolutely no break. And even during July it wasn't so bad, but this time we're seeing large numbers.

SIDNER: Nancy Blake says this is so much worse than the first two surges of the virus because now they're getting their normal amount of emergency patients plus a large number of coronavirus cases.

In the past two weeks, California has seen a 63 percent increase in hospitalizations. And in just one day, around 40,000 new infections were reported. This as 98 percent of the state is under a stay-at-home order. That is clearly not what is happening.

SIDNER: What effect does that have on your staff?

BLAKE: They're angry because at the very beginning it was people were, you know, saying nurses are heroes and great job and now they're not listening to us. They're not wearing their masks. They're saying it's a hoax. And I have to say, I'm a glass half full kind of person. My glass is empty right now.

SIDNER: You'll remember New York at the beginning of the pandemic when they had refrigerated trucks because they needed space for bodies. Well, now, at this hospital, they have the same thing. And this one has just been turned on.

SIDNER: But amidst the signs of suffering, there were signs of hope. Health care workers lining up to get their first dose of the vaccine, each sending a message as to why they're getting inoculated.

The first day it arrived, the mood soared, but soured by the afternoon as more patients crushed into the emergency room.

SIDNER: Are you OK?

BLAKE: No. It's the worst I've ever seen. I've been a nurse for 40 years and it's the worst I've ever seen. And some of the things these nurses are seeing, where their patients are dying, there's no family members, so they're holding that patient's hand, or they're on the other side of an iPad where the family is crying.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (on camera): And we heard some of what those nurses and doctors go through. We heard the guttural cries of a mother who had lost a son who was not killed by COVID, but they're dealing with these two, major things. One, the people coming in for regular things like heart attacks and car accidents. And those are very similar to how they normally are.

And then they're also dealing with a huge influx of very, very sick coronavirus patients. It's heartbreaking to watch the way that they have to deal with this and the families and the way that they are having to come home and tell their other family members that they have, again, lost someone right before the holidays.

Erica.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it is heartbreaking, as I think, as you -- as you put it so well, Sara, right, we're failing each other. And it's so important that we continue to hear from people like Nancy Blake who has given 40 years of her life to helping people, to see where she's at, where her glass is empty.

[08:35:06]

This is the reality. And, you know, if we can't all rally behind Nancy, it really makes you wonder.

Sara, thank you. Such an important piece, as always. Appreciate it, my friend.

Joining me now, Dr. Jeffrey Smith. He is the chief operating officer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Dr. Smith, good to have you with us.

You know, I hope you could just hear a little bit of Sara's piece there. I do think it's so important to hear from people on the front lines, for us to see and try to understand what you're going through. But I was struck by the fact that you said you're no longer on the front lines. At this point, you're actually the final line. What do you mean by that?

DR. JEFFREY SMITH, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER: Well, really, we're depending on the public to take action, just as you heard in the previous story. Right now our hospitals are nearing capacity and it's becoming more and more difficult to care for those very sick patients. But this disease is preventable by wearing a mask, by distancing yourself from others and not congregating, especially as tempting as it is around the holidays.

HILL: These numbers that we're seeing, and I think -- you know, we try really hard to connect those numbers with the people behind them because I think that helps send the message home. That being said, when we hear there is zero percent capacity for the ICUs in southern California, that should be a striking number in and of itself.

What's the reality for you right now? What's the reality this morning?

SMITH: So our usual capacity of ICU beds is full, but we've successfully extended that by converting additional areas to have ICU capacity and capabilities. We're redeploying nurses to participate in the care of those inpatients and for the doctors it's really all hands on deck.

HILL: All hands on deck. I know staffing is one of your most urgent needs.

How long can you sustain these levels?

SMITH: Well, we have an incredibly strong and resilient staff. They're working very hard right now. Many of them working additional shifts or being redeployed to areas where they have been trained to work, but not their typical work area. And so we're continuing to support them in just about any way that we can.

We have brought in some traveling nurses, although that is difficult, more difficult than it had been earlier in the pandemic now that the whole country is really surging at the same time. So we're determined to continue to care for patients, not just the COVID patients, but the many other patients that we care for as a major academic medical center.

HILL: And that's the other part of it, too, right? You know, we saw this in the beginning where initially people were told to stay home. That's not the message anymore. The message is if you need care you should go to get the care. But there is a real concern about what people will find when they go to the emergency room.

SMITH: Yes. You know, earlier on in the pandemic, we saw that people were afraid and avoiding the emergency room for serious things, including heart attacks or strokes or things like that, that they could have benefited from earlier treatment. So certainly if it's an urgency or emergency, please present to the emergency room.

If not, please call your physician. Many of these things can be handled by a virtual visit or you can be directed to the proper site of care. But we don't want a second pandemic of untreated chronic disease, or an urgent medical problem that goes untreated.

HILL: Really quickly, do you think the message is getting out in Los Angeles, in southern California, about just what a serious point we're at right now?

SMITH: Yes, I think there is a lot of fatigue out there, that people are -- are missing their families, especially now at the holiday time. I think that the growing economic and financial pressures on small businesses and restaurants presents another challenge that's potentially conflicting. But we are really at a critical point right now. Our hospitals are full or stretched thin. We're working hard to provide access to not only COVID patients but those stroke patients, those trauma patients, transplant patients, heart attack patients. We need to be available. And so, yes, I think that people have heard the message, but it becomes harder to comply with these competing pressures.

HILL: Dr. Jeffrey Smith, thank you for joining us this morning. Thank you for everything that you and your colleagues are doing on a daily basis.

SMITH: Thank you. Have a good day.

HILL: You, too.

So we look at this spread and we look at what's happening around the country, hospitalizations spiking, new cases, as we are looking at those numbers, well, there's a lot more travel, too. Airports busier than they've been in a long time. That story is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:44:18]

HILL: Holiday air travel really ramping up, we're learning. Just three days until Christmas, of course, and air travel is hitting levels that we haven't seen since the start of the pandemic.

CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean is live at Washington Dulles Airport.

Pete, good morning.

And those numbers are troubling to health experts.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Erica.

You know, clearly, plenty of people still traveling here, even in spite of the CDC telling them not to. And they're setting new records of the pandemic. The TSA says more than a million people flew on Friday, on Saturday and then again on Sunday. Nearly a million yesterday. It's that three-day streak that is so interesting, something we have not seen during the pandemic. That means about 3.2 million people flew between Friday and Sunday.

[08:45:04]

This is crushing travel records of Thanksgiving. Although these numbers still about 40 percent of a year ago. That means plenty of people are staying home. But we've been talking to travelers who still have their reasons for getting out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have any concerns or safety concerns?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm OK about it. I wore like two masks and everything. I'm trying to be respecting, you know, six feet apart and everything. I'm OK with it, you know, just hoping and praying that nothing happens.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you feel like you absolutely needed to be home for Christmas -- or go back for Christmas or?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, because my grandparents, they're alone over there. So like, you know, I feel bad they're going to spend like Christmas alone. So I'd rather go with them and, you know, spend Christmas and New Year's with them. (END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: Holiday travelers from the U.K. can still come here even in spite of that new coronavirus strain. The federal government has imposed no new restrictions on flights coming to the United States. The FAA says it's monitoring the situation. Delta says it will test passengers as they arrive from London, but flights from England still coming here to Dulles International Airport.

John.

BERMAN: Yes, you get a sense, Pete, this is a developing situation and the U.S. may craft a different response over the coming days. Thanks so much for being with us.

New this morning, $900 billion of government relief finally headed to struggling Americans, but is even more needed? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:04]

BERMAN: Breaking overnight, Congress finally passed the $900 billion coronavirus relief package. It includes direct payments of up to $600 per adult and child, a $300 a week increase in unemployment benefits, $284 billion for small businesses, money for vaccines and an extension of the eviction moratorium.

Joining me now, Austan Goolsbee, economics professor at the University of Chicago's Business School, he's the former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration.

Austan, thanks so much for being with us.

Let's do the glass half full first. What's the best part of this $900 billion bill?

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BUSINESS SCHOOL: Well, the best part is they did something. And you know we needed it. The virus continues to rage and that is the main thing driving the economy into this tough spot. And so we're getting a lot of money out the door and we'll probably get it out the door quickly. And some parts of this bill it's going to the people who really need it and who are at high risk of permanent damage.

BERMAN: What's missing?

GOOLSBEE: There's a lot missing, too. It's a bit of a mess. I mean the -- the well-remarked on fact that states and cities are having their expenses go through the roof because of all the medical care and welfare and taking care of people who have lost their jobs, plus their revenues are being cut and they have balanced budget amendments without any money to the states and cities you're going to see millions of people having to lose their jobs, they're going to have to cut teachers and firefighters and police. And I think the second area that's missing is they got rid of the mandatory paid sick leave. And the thing about that is, the reason that we put that in is so that people don't have an incentive to cover up their symptoms because they can't afford to lose their job. So I'm a little nervous that that not being in it is going to contribute to the virus spreading more.

BERMAN: One of the things that President-elect Biden has said is that this is a down payment. This is just the beginning.

But as you sit here today, how can you be confident that there really will be anymore? I mean Democrats are going to have a more slender majority in the House of Representatives. There's no guarantee that they'll control the Senate. Quite the opposite is probably more likely. So how do you know you'll get anything after January 20th?

GOOLSBEE: Yes, how do you know? You know, it's going to be tough.

Now, I don't think -- the president-elect is not wrong that this ought to just be the beginning. The main thing that should drive how much relief money we need is how well are we controlling the spread of the virus? The virus is the boss here on the economy as well as on the health. I think the facts on the ground have a way of opening the door to possibilities that maybe we don't see right now, and that is, if the virus continues to rage like this, out of control, there's going to be a lot of pain, there's going to be a lot of health pain, there's going to be a lot of economic pain across the country, not just specialized in blue states or just in red states. And so I do think that that opens the possibility that people look and say, wow, we're going to need this, otherwise we're going to have millions of small businesses shut down again. But it's definitely a risk and certainly this summer and this fall have demonstrated that risky scenarios without a safety net are not Congress' special.

BERMAN: So the enhanced extended unemployment benefits of $300 per week, which I imagine you're including there in the money getting to people who really need it, in a way that they can use it, that runs out in March. And I'm just wondering where you think we will be in March. Is March a reasonable date to look at as a time when you'll be able to reassess maybe things will be better.

GOOLSBEE: Look, I hope they'll be better. It all hinges on can we get control of the spread of this disease. Certainly the Thanksgiving holiday and now the Christmas holiday are making us nervous that we're going to continue to see these raging spikes. But the -- if it was up to me, there would be substantially more and more extended unemployment benefits for people that have lost their jobs and can't find new ones.

Maybe the economy will come back. You've seen in some other countries they get control of the virus and in kind of a rapid basis they get the spread to come down. If we could get a rapid decrease in the spread of that virus by the end of March, beginning of April, you could see some benefits.

Now, if not, then we're going to be back in March. And it's going to be obvious that this wasn't enough, that -- for the unemployed, that the checks extended the moratorium on evictions, all of the things that we put in there were just band-aids. [08:55:06]

We're just trying to hold the -- hold the line and keep floating until we can get the vaccine and get control of the virus. And we're going to have to see. The political environment is certainly not very friendly or conducive to what needs to be done it seems.

BERMAN: Austan Goolsbee, thanks so much for being with us this morning. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your expertise.

GOOLSBEE: Great to see you.

BERMAN: So we have new reporting this morning about the growing anxiety in the Pentagon for the final 20 days of President Trump's -- 29 days of President Trump's time in office.

Our coverage continues, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good Tuesday morning, everyone. Glad you're with us. I'm Poppy Harlow.

[09:00:00]

Jim Sciutto has a well-deserved week off.

This morning, the race to try to understand a new coronavirus variant as vaccines are rolled out around the world.