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Mayor Lori Lightfoot is Interviewed about Chicago Students Returning to School; Winter Storm Blankets Northeast; Powerful Storm Slams Northeast; Pandemic Update from Around the World; New Study on Coronavirus Vaccine. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 02, 2021 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LORI TORRES, CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER: That in a time like this that I -- I take a step back and consider me at this point. I have some health concerns that I worry about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: What about that logic, that if teachers go back in the classroom they could expose their families to risk?

MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT (D-IL), CHICAGO: Well, that's what -- exactly why we gave thousands of accommodations to teachers. Teachers who were themselves suffering some underlying medical conditions or the primary caretakers for people in their household who had underlying medical conditions. And we're working to see realistically if we can expand the number of accommodations.

As I said, these are really difficult times. In a pandemic, exacerbated by the incompetence of the previous administration that didn't leave us with enough vaccine to really quickly get to the entire population of our city that needs it. But we're going to keep working hard, recognizing the concern that really all of our residents have regarding COVID-19. But we have done a lot of work over 70-plus negotiating sessions with teachers every day for the last two and a half weeks. We're going to stay at the table so we can get a deal done that recognizes and balances the variety of issues, not the least of which is that remote learning is just not working for too many of our kids, particularly our black and brown students.

I have to fear for -- and I do fear for their future as well and make sure that I'm an advocate for those children and an advocate for those parents who simply want the option to either bring their children back or stay remote. That's what this is about. We have to fight for the future of our children.

CAMEROTA: And so, Mayor, as you sit here this morning, will Chicago Public Schools be open for in-person tomorrow?

LIGHTFOOT: Well, as I said, we did a cooling off period for today and tomorrow so we can get a deal done. So we're going to keep pushing hard so that we can open up as soon as possible.

CAMEROTA: Will they be open on Thursday?

LIGHTFOOT: Well, let's see what happens at the bargaining table. I'm going to work hard to make sure that we can get that done.

CAMEROTA: Are you optimistic that schools will be open in Chicago this week?

LIGHTFOOT: Now, that's -- you're -- you must be a lawyer by training. That's the third way to ask the same question. I'm going to give you the same answer. We're going to keep working hard at the bargaining table so that we can get a deal done and that those parents, 70,000- plus, over three quarters of whom are black and Latin-x (ph), get the ability to bring their kids back to in-person learning. That's what we're focused on.

If we put children first, and we bring them and their voices and their concerns to the table, as well as all the other interests, we will get a deal done.

CAMEROTA: We'll be watching very closely.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, thank you very much for the time this morning. We really appreciate it.

LIGHTFOOT: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: The northeast is covered in snow this morning. Some parts are measuring snow in feet. Two feet. We have details in a live report, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:37:07]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It might never stop snowing.

CNN's Polo Sandoval live in Central Park.

And, Polo, this is one of the biggest storms we've seen in a long while.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, I'll tell you this, the guy with the skis is out on the sidewalks. The dogs are out. It's safe to say that we've entered that post-blizzard phase, but still the event not necessarily over.

Why? Because there's still plenty of snow, obviously, throughout the city and in many of the sidewalks. Workers have been doing a really good job of keeping this pretty clear, but other sidewalks throughout the city are still covered, especially with that slushy mess. So the big recommendation right now that's going out to people is simply walk with care if you're going to be out and about in this.

Obviously, they're still hopeful that if you don't have to leave your house then you go ahead and stay home because it's certainly still quite cold here. But, at the same time, you have other regions here, including in northwest New Jersey, that got basically double what we saw here in Central Park. Here we saw close to 17 inches. Up there, almost 30 inches. So that gives you an idea of the cleanup efforts that folks there may -- may be looking forward to.

Still, though, far from normal right now, even though mass transit is mostly back online. You have remote teaching that's going to continue here. The COVID vaccinations that were postponed yesterday, the ones from today will also be postponed until later this week, early next week, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Hey, Polo, but my weather app says that it's going to keep snowing in New York through 8:00 p.m. So I think you might just be in a lull, OK? So, prepare yourself. But I have something even better --

SANDOVAL: It was a -- it was a small break.

CAMEROTA: Yes, a small break, but I have something better than a weather app.

Let's get the latest on the snow totals with CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. He has our forecast.

I'm sorry I'm cheating on you. Chad, with this weather app, but are you seeing the same thing that it's going to continue in New York for a while?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. They're not always as accurate as you would hope. Computer generated apps. But, yes, there will be snow flurries on and off throughout the day.

So Easton, Springtown, Nazareth, you're all battling it out to be the best or the worst. Thirty-one inches now in Nazareth, beating out our New Jersey stat there at 30 inches. A lot of these areas are exactly where the bull's-eyes in the weather models put them yesterday. A very, very good forecast yesterday. Can't really go wrong with this. This was days in advance that we knew this was coming.

And, yes, there are still some snow showers around. This is what your graphic looks like, Alisyn. Light snow here in New York, still in Philadelphia as well. It's been snowing quite a good clip in D.C. Here's 7:00 tomorrow morning. Still some snow flurries around. It's cold now. And so snow can just fall out of the sky without even any reason. There will be more of the snow, though, upstate New York, all the way down even toward the Delaware water gap.

So it's cold today. It warms up a little bit by Thursday and then here comes this arctic blast. And wouldn't you know it, Punxsutawney Phil saying six more weeks of winter. Somehow in the snow and the clouds, Phil saw his shadow.

[08:40:05]

So there aren't too many clouds when it's snowing unless you turn on a bunch of broadcast lights. So we're not really sure how this happened, but in the snow and with the arctic blast coming, I'm pretty sure he's right.

John.

BERMAN: I hope Phil has been vaccinated is all I can say because -- because those people who were manhandling -- manhandling Phil were not -- were not wearing masks. So hopefully he's had his second dose, Punxsutawney Phil.

MYERS: You would think like a plush toy could fill in, you know, in weather like this.

CAMEROTA: Phil looks awfully placid. Are we sure he's not a toy? He's not biting anyone or moving.

MYERS: No, I'm not sure.

BERMAN: He didn't see anything. I mean he saw, what? Punxsutawney Phil didn't see anything because that's a stuffed animal.

CAMEROTA: Oh, he blinked.

BERMAN: He blinked.

CAMEROTA: He blinked. I think he's just drugged or sleeping off a hangover.

BERMAN: He feels bad after the second dose of the vaccine. It can hit you for about 24 hours.

CAMEROTA: Chad, thank you very much for engaging in our silliness. How could he see his shadow today, OK? That --

BERMAN: I agree.

All right, Olympics officials say the Tokyo games are taking place this summer no matter what.

CNN has reporters covering the latest on coronavirus all around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLAKE ESSIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Blake Essig in Tokyo.

The summer Olympic games are pressing forward with no plan b. Japan's prime minister has extended the state of emergency for Tokyo and nine other prefectures through March 7th, that's 18 days before the torch relay is set to begin, all in the effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Now, Olympic officials have said that vaccinations will not be a prerequisite for athletes hoping to compete in these games, but there will be rules that they have to follow. Now, those rules will be laid out in a series of playbooks expected to be released as early as tomorrow, explaining how Japan plans to protect the health of athletes, coaches and others. STEVEN JIANG, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: I'm Steven Jiang in Beijing. A team of World Health Organization experts are continuing their closely watched investigation into the origins of the COVID virus in the city of Wuhan. Visiting an animal disease control center on Tuesday, indicating they're looking into the possibility the virus made the jump from animals to humans. Although they say the Chinese authorities have been transparent and helpful so far, critics remain unconvinced with the U.S. secretary of state, Tony Blinken, saying over the weekend that the Chinese government had been falling far short of the mark in terms of allowing access to the sites the experts needed to visit.

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: I'm Rafael Romo.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is on his second week of isolation after testing positive for coronavirus. The president has only been seen once since the January 24 diagnosis, and only in a video posted Friday on YouTube, something extremely unusual for a president who normally gives daily morning press conferences. A top official said the president is doing very well and only has mild symptoms which allows him to keep an eye on government affairs from the national palace where he's observing a 14-day quarantine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Our thanks to all of our correspondents around the globe.

We want to remember now some of the more than 443,000 Americans lost to coronavirus.

In 2017, Clay Coleman (ph) started selling barbecue out of his bait and tackle shop in Tupelo, Mississippi, to supplement his income. It was an overnight sensation garnering rave reviews in national outlets, including a Food Network award for best ribs in the state. The 49- year-old restaurateur leaves behind a wife, three children and two grandkids.

For the past 13 years, Beto Cruz (ph) was a groundskeeper at Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth. His son tells "The Star Telegram" he had a tireless work ethic and could connect with almost anyone through friendly conversation. Cruz was 62.

Rafino Rodriguez (ph) worked at Utah Valley Hospital in Provo for 37 years. The medical degree he earned in Guatemala was not accepted in the U.S., so he became a respiratory therapist helping thousands of newborns on life flight helicopters over the years. He was 65 years old.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:48:38]

BERMAN: New this morning, a just released study suggests people previously infected with coronavirus may only need one dose of the two-dose vaccine regiment.

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us now.

So what about that, Sanjay. If you've had it, still get vaccinated, but you only need one dose? Make sense to you?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, you know, from -- from a -- from an immune sort of standpoint, what your immune system is doing, it does make sense if you can show for -- for convincingly that people have been infected before, that they -- excuse me, that they have antibodies and then they get that dose of the vaccine, they should get antibody levels that are similar to if you go through both doses. So basically it's -- you know, when we think about two doses, one is typically designed to prime the immune system and then the second one is designed to boost the immune system.

So what the study sort of shows is that if you've been previously infected, that's kind of like already having primed the immune system and now the dose of the vaccine will sort of give you that boost.

There's a lot of caveats here. I mean how do you know for sure if you've been infected? Do you have the antibody levels? And this is not in any way, you know, being recommended yet. But it's interesting to see these sort of scientific developments come out, especially at a time when we're trying to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible. Should there be a distinction for people who have been infected in the past, perhaps I think that they're going to look at this study and make that decision.

[08:50:06]

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, I want to ask you about what's been happening in New York State. So there's been a development over the weekend where it has come out that eight high level health official in Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration have resigned over, it sounds like, differences of opinion with his style and maybe his philosophy. And then he said something on Friday that raised some eyebrows.

Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): When I say experts in air quotes, it sounds like I'm saying I don't really trust the experts because I don't. Because I don't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Do you know, Sanjay, what he meant by that?

GUPTA: Well, I mean, I guess there's a little bit of context here in that he was basically, before that, talking about the fact that the experts didn't know that there was asymptomatic spread, meaning that people could have no symptoms and still be spreading the virus. That the experts, you know, were three months -- there was coronavirus spreading in New York for three months before experts really knew how much spread there had been.

You know, look, I found this really surprising. I've talked to Governor Cuomo a few times over this pandemic, and I found this really surprising. I mean it is -- it is safe to say that nobody knew everything about this virus in the beginning, such as the nature of a novel virus. We didn't know that it would spread asymptomatically or that it would -- that that would be a primary driver of the spread until the evidence proved that out.

There was not enough testing. There's still not enough testing in this country, which is why the virus circulates in many areas for a long time before it's actually recognized.

But what I just found so surprising about the governor's comments is that those same experts helped, you know, lead New York out of what was a pretty disastrous situation, obviously, as you know, in the spring. And at a time when there's concerns about vaccine hesitancy, there's already a lack of trust in the scientific establishment over this pandemic. I think this -- I think, unfortunately, he just added a lot of fuel to the fire.

I'd be curious what he says, you know, going forward about that. But lack of trust in experts versus not knowing everything from the very beginning are just two different things.

BERMAN: Yes, I'd like to listen to the scientists when it comes to the pandemic. I think the science is what's going to help get us through this, which is why when one of the nation's leading scientists, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Sanjay, talks about what's happening with the South African variant, it gets my attention.

So listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If it becomes dominant, the experience of our colleagues in South Africa indicate that even if you have been infected with the original virus, that there is a very high rate of re-infection to the point where previous infection does not seem to protect you against re-infection.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So that's something.

GUPTA: Yes.

BERMAN: This variant that's in South Africa is being shown that you can get infected even if you've had it before. And as Dr. Peter Hotez, who we had on earlier in the show, Sanjay, said, really the business with the new variants changes everything. It's got to changes the entire way we look at this stage of the pandemic.

GUPTA: Yes, you know, I -- we started to get some clues about this, you know, a couple weeks ago. What they were doing at that point is they were taking the plasma from people who recovered from COVID and exposing that to the new variant and saying, hey, look, do the antibodies from people who have been infected, work or not. And there was already some clue at that point that the -- that they weren't working as well. That the convalescent plasma, as it's called, wasn't neutralizing the South African variant as well.

And now you're starting to see evidence of these reinfections in South Africa. We saw some reinfections from the different variant in Brazil. Basically it means that the variants are different enough that the antibodies that you have from previous infection don't seem to work as well. That's the bad news.

The better news is that the vaccine seems to offer a lot more benefit. When you get a vaccine, you're creating all sorts of different antibodies that are greater in number and greater in variety than just the antibodies you get when you get infection, which is why people, even if they've had an infection in the past, as we were just talking about, should still get the vaccine.

But, yes, look, this is concerning. I mean these variants are concerning. This is a curveball for sure. And I think it just doubles down the idea that we need to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible.

CAMEROTA: OK, Sanjay, thank you very much. Great to see you. Thanks for all the info.

GUPTA: You got it.

CAMEROTA: So an historic step forward for the American Civil Liberties Union. The organization elected the first black president in its 101- year history. The ACLU says Deborah Archer, a law professor at NYU, is an established civil rights attorney, quote, scholar and teacher.

[08:55:03]

Archer has been part of the organization for years serving as a member of the national board and general counsel.

Thanks so much for joining us today.

John, get your sled ready.

BERMAN: I have to get home somehow.

CAMEROTA: It's not over yet.

BERMAN: Speed skates.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

We will see you all tomorrow.

CNN's coverage continues, next.

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