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New Day

Fauci Urges Trump to Urge Supports to Vaccinate; Biden Declines to Call for Cuomo's Resignation; London Police Under Fire for Breaking up Vigil; Brazil's Hospitals Pushed to the Limit. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired March 15, 2021 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put your hands behind your back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My hand is behind my back, sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This one. Turn over on your stomach. Put your hand behind your back. Relax.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am totally relaxed. You're the one who --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, you are not relaxed. Not relaxed at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police brutality right here, people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no, it's not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoa. What a bunch of sheep.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: As you can see there, the people in that bank didn't think it was police brutality. They thought it was officers enforcing the law.

And you can see right there, the problem that's been created in Texas, which is that she actually was confused. She thought this was a, quote/unquote, public place, a part protected under the lifting of the max mandate, and clearly it's not. And now you have these police officers being put in that position where they needed to take her out, Dr. Hotez.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, CO-DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR VACCINE DEVELOPMENT, TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL AND DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Yes, I mean there's two problems here. One, you've got again this element of the political right tying their political allegiance of being defiant of vaccines, to being defiant of masks and social distancing and this started again with this health freedom, medical freedom movement that accelerated in 2015. And, unfortunately, here in Texas, is where it really amplified.

And then you have a lot of confusion by the government lifting those mask mandates, which was a -- I think it was a very unfortunate decision given the fact that we still have now the B117 variant accelerating. And we're seeing what's happening in Europe right now. It was in central Europe and now it's in western Europe where cases are really going up from the B117 variant. And now we know about 50 percent of the virus isolates in places like Florida, Georgia and Texas are that B117 variants and we're -- and we're lagging behind in vaccinations compared to other parts of the country. And we have the spring breakers. This is a perfect storm. I'll really worried for our -- for those three states.

ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As we look at all of that, both John and I were really intrigued by what we heard from Dr. Fauci, that the CDC is actually looking at this data about spacing and is three feet in certain situations OK as opposed to the six feet. I'm just curious your take on that and what you think we're -- what you think we're going to hear because Dr. Fauci said it won't be very long, I promise you, that there will be some guidelines in regard to this data.

HOTEZ: Yes, it's all about mask compliance. That's going to be absolutely critical because if you don't have masks, remember, this virus aerosolizes. So even six feet is not enough. It can go 17, 18 feet, several meters, this virus. So it's all about wearing masks. And that's -- and that becomes more of a problem with the real little kids and special needs kids. So that -- that's a consideration.

Another is we've got to do better at starting to vaccinate teachers and staff. And so that has to ramp up as well in providing better access for teachers and staff and we're still lagging behind.

So those -- those two other considerations to me are as important as the three feet, six feet or 17 feet concept. And we've got to start that now.

BERMAN: But it only -- you only get any of it if everyone's wearing a mask.

HOTEZ: That's right.

BERMAN: So it just, once again, shows the doors that full masking can open up if people are willing to keep on doing it.

Dr. Hotez, thanks so much for being with us this morning.

HOTEZ: Thanks so much, John.

HILL: President Biden breaking his silence about the sexual harassment allegations against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. His response when asked whether it is time for the governor to step down. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:37:28]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Do you think Governor Andrew Cuomo should resign?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the investigation is underway and we should see what it brings us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: President Biden making his first comments in the sexual harassment allegations facing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. It comes as top Democrats, including New York's two senators, are calling for Cuomo to resign.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is live in Albany with the latest here.

Shimon.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And those calls for his -- for the governor's resignation started on Friday when several members of Congress called on the governor to resign. And then late Friday, the two top Democrats here in the state, the Senator Gillibrand and Senator Chuck Schumer also called on him to resign. Yesterday the two of them explaining their decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY): It's clear that Governor Cuomo has lost the confidence of his governing partners, as well as the people of New York. That's why I believe the governor has to resign.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): There are multiple, serious, credible allegations of abuse so that Governor Cuomo has lost the confidence of his government partners and of so many New Yorkers. So, for the good of the state, he should resign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: And our Jake Tapper is reporting, Erica, that one of the reasons why the members of Congress came to this decision on Friday and then the two top senators was that because of this new reporting by the local paper here in Albany, which -- citing a possible new accuser, they're saying that, plus the fact that there's this impeachment investigation now underway here by the state assembly, all of that put together, they have decided that it's time for the governor to resign.

Erica.

HILL: Shimon Prokupecz with the latest for us.

Shimon, thank you.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expected to chair a special crime task force today in the wake of the kidnapping and murder of Sarah Everard. The 33-year-old woman was walking home in south London when she was killed. A 48-year-old police officer is charged with her murder.

Now, Everard's death has reignited a national debate in Britain about women's safety and sexual assault and there is a lot of anger being aimed at police for their handling of a vigil this weekend. You see some of these images there from those moments.

CNN's Nina dos Santos is in London this morning with the very latest for us.

Nina, good morning.

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Erica.

Well, it's a solemn scene here, 11 days since Sarah Everard went missing in this particular area. This is the Clapham bandstand that's become sort of the fulcrum of all of those floral tributes and people are still continuing to come and lay flowers and just pause for a minute to think about her memory.

[06:40:10]

It is solemn. It is sad. It's also socially distanced somewhat. But there's also seething anger behind a lot of these faces. Many people saying they just can't understand the senseless tragedy of somebody just disappearing from these streets at 9:30 p.m. when her only misfortune appears to have been walking home alone on her own. Many young women across the capital are saying now that they feel too unsafe to go about their day to day routine once the sun sets.

Well here, on Saturday, people started gathering in the thousands to express this concern about women's safety. Earlier on in the day, Katherine, the duchess of Cambridge, had also arrived here to pay her respects. Remember, she lived in London for a number of years as a single woman before marrying Prince William.

But at a moment's silence, on the bandstand, in the sunset, when it started to get dark, the very time when women get so anxious, the police then started to move in. And that's when you saw those really ugly scenes of them manhandling young women on that bandstand stage behind me, handcuffing them, pinning them down, and then dragged them away.

That heavy-handed response is something that has the head of the Metropolitan Police, the first ever female commissioner to run the most important policing service in the country, on the back foot and some have called for her resignation. She's going to be coming face- to-face with the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, in that special crime and justice task force that he's going to be hosting later on today to try and talk about how better to protect women.

This has come at an extremely important time as well. We're expecting more protests to take place in parliament later on today where, in fact, parliamentarians will be debating a crime and justice bill that the government has put forward that could give the police even more powers to police events like this in the future.

Remember, this was always going to be a difficult event for the metropolitan police of London to oversee on Sunday, largely because the main suspect in Sarah Everard's murder is, in fact, one of their own officers. Erica.

HILL: Nina, thank you.

Hospitals in Brazil are at a breaking point. The country experiencing the deadliest wave of a pandemic so far. We have a live report from Sao Paulo, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:46:27]

BERMAN: This morning, one reason scientists in the United States are concerned about the coronavirus despite the promising numbers here, what's happening in other parts of the world. In Brazil, new cases, deaths soaring. More than half the country states are reporting their ICUs at 90 percent capacity or higher.

CNN's Matt Rivers is live in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Matt, what's the latest there?

MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, well over a year after the first coronavirus patient was treated right here in Sao Paulo, right now we are in unquestionably the worst days of Brazil's pandemic so far. We've been here for the last few days reporting on this, seeing what's happening on the ground, and it has been brutal.

I can tell you, vaccine clinics like the one behind me are one of the few place where anything good is happening right now in Brazil in regards to the coronavirus.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RIVERS (voice over): Pamela Rivippi can only look at the photos of her grandmother. She says watching the videos is to painful.

The world didn't deserve my grandma, she says. She was too good.

Admitted March 3rd with COVID at this small hospital outside Sao Paulo, she died just two days later. The facility quickly overrun by a new wave of COVID-19.

This doctor, who works there says, we think about the families that are suffering, and we can't sleep. It is unbelievable.

RIVERS (on camera): This hospital just doesn't have the facilities to care for those who are really sick. Those patients would usually get transferred somewhere else. But right now there's nowhere else to go. So instead of getting transferred, they're dying.

RIVERS (voice over): In just five days last week, 12 patients died waiting for an open bed somewhere else according to hospital officials.

Pamela's grandmother was one of them. She thinks that she would have survived if treated in an ICU.

But, right now, access to those facilities is nearly impossible. Albert Einstein Hospital is one of Brazil's best, but, here, too, the rooms are full. They are scrambling to build more ICU beds because the patients just keep come.

DR. FARAH CHRISTINA DE LA CRUZ SCARIN: It's the most busy time we have ever been in this last year.

RIVERS: We first saw hints of this about six weeks ago when we reported from Manaus (ph), a city in Brail's Amazon Rain Forest. Hospitals there were overwhelmed amidst a new outbreak and the city was forced to build so-called vertical graves. And from then to now, that chaos has spread nationwide. In 22 of 26 Brazilian states, ICU capacity is at or above 80 percent, government data shows. In Sao Paulo, it's 90 percent and climbing. And when you run out of beds, doctors tell us, people die.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The coffin is closed, so the family doesn't have the opportunity to say good-bye.

RIVERS: The number of such coffins is surging at the Sao Paulo Public Cemetery. From above you can see the thousands of newly dug graves.

RIVERS (on camera): The number of burials, like the one going on behind me, have been staggering recently. Since the pandemic began, the three single days where Sao Paulo has recorded the most coronavirus deaths have come in just the last week.

RIVERS (voice over): Experts say the causes of the new surge are a myriad, a more transmissible variant, few vaccines, relaxed lockdowns and government mismanagement all playing varying roles. But, no matter the case, these are the effects.

Outside this public hospital, every day between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m., family members of COVID patients inside wait to hear their names.

[06:50:08]

They go in to get news on conditions. And often it's not good. And then comes the grief and the tears brought from a pandemic that just won't end.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RIVERS: And even though there are vaccines being given out here behind me, the pace is just so slow. Less than ten million people here in Brazil have gotten their first dose of a vaccine and less than 2 percent of the population have been fully vaccinated at this point. It is urgent that more vaccines happen, but they're just not happening at the pace they need to.

BERMAN: Matt, I've got to say, the images, the stories, they are so tragic to see it.

Is there a way of knowing what the impact of the variant that is dominant in that country, how that has affected the situation?

RIVERS: Very early on in the scientific research into that variant, John. But what we do know is that there is basically uniform opinion that it is more easily transmissible at this point that it absolutely fueling what is happening here. The broader question then, is it affecting mortality rates in any way? We still don't know. It's too early to say. But this is our second trip to Brazil in the last six weeks. We've spoken to four different doctors all across different cities all across this country, and every single one of them say that they are seeing patients in their ICU younger than ever as compared to the beginning of the pandemic, they're saying they're seeing 20, 30, 40 year-olds dying. They don't know if it's because of the variant, but I can tell you, it has doctors on the front lines in this country extremely concerned.

BERMAN: Matt Rivers, thank you to you and your crew for being there reporting on this. We really appreciate it.

So, the field is set for the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Get those brackets ready. "Bleacher Report" is next.

HILL: Also, the women rule at the Grammys. We've got all the highlights just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:56:14]

BERMAN: So a year after it was canceled because of the pandemic, March Madness is back.

Coy Wire here with the "Bleacher Report."

Hey, Coy.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, John.

I can't believe it's been almost two years since we've seen the NCAA tournament. Here we are, though. The field of 68 is set. The entire tournament being held in Indiana this year starting with the first four on Thursday. Time to start filling out those brackets.

Gonzaga is your number one overall seed this year. The Bulldogs looking to become the first team in 45 years to go undefeated from start to finish. Baylor, Illinois, Michigan rounding out the other number one seeds. And the Big Ten strong this year, leading all conferences with nine teams in the tourney.

You can take part in March Madness with us. Go toe to toe with our CNN anchors. Go fill out your bracket at CNN.com/brackets. You just have to do that by Friday morning.

Now, one of the greatest careers in NFL history has come to an end. Saints' QB Drew Brees hanging up his cleats. He's the NFL's all-time leader in passing yards and completions. It was his kids who broke the news. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After 15 year in the Saints and 20 years in the NFL,

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our dad

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is finally going to retire.

KIDS: So he can spend more time with us. Yay!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: A sweet moment.

This was the 42-year-old after his last game, soaking in the moment with his family, sharing a hug with Tom Brady after the eventual Super Bowl champion Bucs eliminated the Saints from the playoffs. John and Erica, I've played against Brees twice a year, every year. Always one of the smallest player on the field. At time he'd have to lift his head up to see over the line just to throw the ball, but big heart, relentless work ethic. He set himself up to be one of the greatest of all time.

BERMAN: The video from the kids was wonderful.

HILL: That was sweet.

BERMAN: That was really sweet.

HILL: Yes, it was really sweet.

BERMAN: All right, congratulations to the Brees family.

Thanks, Coy.

HILL: A history-making night for Beyonce, Taylor Swift and their fellow female artists who reigned supreme at the Grammys.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Grammy goes to, Beyonce.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Beyonce winning four awards. That gives her a career total of 28 Grammys. That is more than any singer, male or female, in Grammy history. And her daughter, nine-year-old Blue Ivy Carter, taking home her first Grammy, winning best video for her song with her mom, "Brown Skinned Girl." She is the second youngest performer to win a Grammy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the Grammy goes to "Folklore," Taylor Swift.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HILL: Taylor Swift also making history. She becomes the first woman to win album of the year three times, winning this year for "Folklore," which she recorded during the coronavirus lockdown.

BERMAN: And for a second straight year, Billie Eilish took home record of the year, winning for the song "Everything I Wanted." She said in her acceptance speech that Megan Thee Stallion actually deserved it more.

But Megan did pretty well herself. She was named best new artist and also made history with Beyonce as the first pair of women to ever win best rap performance with the remix of Megan's "Savage."

HILL: A lot of girl power.

BERMAN: Yes.

HILL: Makes this girl very happy.

BERMAN: When's your song coming out?

HILL: It would be the song that would never win any awards --

BERMAN: I want to hear --

HILL: Except for the, please don't ever play this again award.

BERMAN: I want to hear -- I think -- I actually think there is that category. There's so many categories in there.

HILL: Oh, I would sweep it then. It would be mazing.

BERMAN: I'm pretty sure there is one.

Fantastic.

HILL: Yes.

BERMAN: All right, NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: When you see a plateau as high as 60,000 cases a day, that is a very vulnerable time to have a surge.

[07:00:01]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lot of disinformation campaigns out there. A lot of people who are vaccine-hesitant. And we're doing everything we can to overcome that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You do still have to be.