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CDC Director: "I'm Scared" Americans Will Their Guards Down; Trial Begins Against Ex-Police Officer for Killing George Floyd; Biden Set to Roll Out Sweeping Infrastructure & Jobs Package; Ever Given Finally Free. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired March 30, 2021 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:25]

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Impending doom. The CDC's director's plea to Americans in the war on COVID.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Day two of the trial for the former police officer who killed George Floyd. We have the new revelations from an emotional first day.

JARRETT: And free at last. The ship blocking the Suez Canal has been dislodged. How long will it take for a global supply chain to now catch up?

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is EARLY START. I'm Laura Jarrett.

ROMANS: And I'm Christine Romans. It is Tuesday, March 30th. It is 5:00 a.m. exactly here in New York.

Buckle down. Today, the director of the CDC will give that tough warning to governors nationwide. Top health officials joined President Biden on Monday urging an impatient U.S. public to stay on guard against COVID. Daily case counts inching back up, hospitalizations have stopped falling and now, younger people are replacing seniors in some ICUs.

JARRETT: Yeah, the numbers in Michigan are really telling. Look at this. Hospitalizations are up over 600 percent for people in their 30s and 800 percent for people in their 40s. This as the U.S. has now surpassed 550,000 deaths from COVID.

The CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky fears that all these reopenings and the end of mask mandates will lead the country to a dark place.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope, but right now, I'm scared.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROMANS: The message: mask up and don't let your guard down.

President Biden implored states to cause their reopenings and is pushing state and local leaders to bring back or keep mask mandates. Biden says within three weeks, 90 percent of U.S. adults will live within five miles of a vaccination site and a normal of local pharmacies, participating in the federal vaccination program more than double to 40,000. Right now, more than 36 percent of adults in the U.S. had at least one dose of the vaccine.

JARRETT: With more shots in arms, the good news is that vaccine hesitancy is falling dramatically. According to a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 62 percent of adults are vaccinated or want a COVID vaccination as soon as possible. Now, that's up substantially from the last few months.

The biggest jump here among black adults, 55 percent of vaccinated or want to be. Still, though, 20 percent of those surveyed said they would definitely -- they definitely would not get I vaccinated or would only get vaccinated if required.

ROMANS: All right. Real world proof people who take the vaccines are reaping the benefits. New CDC data shows people fully vaccinated with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine are 90 percent less likely to get COVID. The data shows how well the vaccine performs in settings outside clinical trial settings. Vaccine effectiveness for people with only one shot was 80 percent.

JARRETT: This morning, CNN is standing by for the release of a long awaited report on the origins of coronavirus.

International security editor Nick Paton Walsh is live in London this morning.

Nick, a lot of speculation out there on the origins of this virus. We've seen a draft. What do you expect in this final report and can it be trusted?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: Yeah, I mean, two important questions there. The first thing this report does not have a conclusive answer and to be honest that's simply the way nature and science works, there are a lot of hunches here that they are following and a lot of data that's extremely useful but the key take away is that they think the virus got into humans through what's called an intermediary animal.

Now, most of the studies at this point suggest the virus most likely originated in bats but they didn't jump from bats to humans directly, it probably went through this intermediary animal, it's not clear who it is, the report said maybe cats or minks could possibly be involved in this. That's the most likely source of the virus it points towards.

You also will have heard the Chinese government talking about frozen food. That is very much played down as unlikely. Also you've heard senior U.S. officials talk about the possibility of a lab leak. That is also significantly played down. Although interestingly, in fact, the report talks about how staff at a key virus institute in Wuhan were, in fact, tested for the virus and all found not to have it.

There's a lot of other very interesting data in this report, too. It's 123 pages long. Yes, most of the data that the WHO panel got to look at was supplied to them by Chinese scientists and officials. So, those who don't trust the Chinese government will lean on that saying, well, they can pretty much provide what suits the picture they want to present.

[05:05:06]

But there's a lot of interesting detail that doesn't flatter China enormously. There are clear signs of a rise in influenza-like illnesses in December of 2019, that's when the virus first originated, we reported on that late last year and that may be completely unconnected with the emergence of the novel coronavirus or it may be a sign that it was spreading earlier in the population than previously thought.

A lot that will lead to further studies, further research certainly, according to the graft we have seen, and a lot that will cause people to point the finger at China and saying this might have been circulating amongst your population before you made those faster measures in December and January of 2020.

So, a lot there, we're expecting to go see in the hours ahead -- Laura.

JARRETT: All right. Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much for that.

Now to the other big story this morning. In just a few hours, court resumes in the trial of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. The first day of the trial the court heard from three witnesses including a 911 dispatcher who essentially called the police on the police. Jena Scurry said she felt, quote, a gut instinct that something was not right as she watched officers press Floyd to the ground for so long that she thought her video feed had frozen.

Audio from her call with a police sergeant supervising officers at the scene was played in court yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENA LEE SCURRY, MINNEAPOLIS 911 DISPATCHER: You can call me snitch if you want to, but we have the cameras up for 320 call. They must have already started moving him and -- 320 over at Cup Foods.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.

SUCRRY: I don't know if they had used force or not. They got something out of the back of the squad and all of them sat on this man, so I don't know if they needed to or not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: She called the police on the police essentially, her own supervisor. You had bystanders calling the police on the police.

On the streets in Minneapolis yesterday protesters took a need for 8 minutes and 46 seconds that was before we learned Chauvin's knee was actually on Floyd's neck even longer than that.

CNN's Sara Sidner is in Minneapolis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christine and Laura, the prosecution's opening statement told you pretty much everything you need to know about the kind of case they're going to be bringing to the jury. The prosecutor opening with on May 25, 2020, Derek Chauvin betrayed his badge for using excessive force on the body of George Floyd. They then as one of the first pieces of evidence showed the video that the world has seen, a bystander's video of Chauvin's knee on George Floyd's neck, that video played in front of the jury, some of whom had not seen the entire video themselves so it was a first for some of those jurors and it certainly had an impact because it is dramatic and disturbing.

We also heard some new numbers that the world had not heard before. Prosecutors say that indeed after looking at the totality of the videos, including the body camera videos from police that indeed Derek Chauvin was actually on George Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, significantly longer than the 8 minutes 46 seconds they had initially charged in this case.

We did hear from three witnesses already, the third witness will continue today. That witness was Donald Williams who was there on the scene on May 25th watching this all happen and yelling at police officers at some point because he was so disturbed by what he saw on the streets asking them to get off George Floyd's neck.

DONALD WILLIAMS, WITNESS IN DEREK CHAUVIN TRIAL: He was going into distress because of the knee and he vocalized that I can't breathe, I need to get up and I'm sorry. His eyes slowly rolled to the back of his head, you seen the blood coming out of his nose. Just like MMA, you can tell when someone gets tired or gets choked out or things like that. His breathing was getting tremendously heavy and tremendously harder for him to breathe and you actually could hear him, you could see him struggling to actually gasp for air.

SIDNER: Of course, the defense has a whole different idea saying, look, there is a totality of evidence that the jury must look at including some of their medical experts who they plan to call who they say will say that Floyd did not die from injuries or from what happened at the hands of police, but indeed died from a medical condition and potentially the drugs that were in his system as well -- Christine, Laura.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JARRETT: Sara Sidner, thank you so much for that.

And President Biden moving ahead to sell his infrastructure proposal as the White House preps for its next big swing on the economy. That's next.

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[05:13:51]

JARRETT: President Biden rolls out his sweeping jobs and infrastructure package tomorrow, and he's doing it in the same city where he launched his campaign.

CNN's Jasmine Wright is live at the White House this morning.

Jasmine, good morning.

So, what are you hearing? What's the plan?

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Laura, President Biden is looking to go big with this infrastructure bill. Listen, first thing, it's him trying to fulfill a campaign pledge to pass a sweeping infrastructure and jobs bill but also it shows a real interest on the part of the White House trying to overhaul the social safety net strategy that we have in this country -- child care, care giving, education, looking to pass potentially transformative policies that would alter American life and the economy itself.

So, now, we know that this vote is expected to come in around $3 trillion to $4 trillion and first up, is going to be that infrastructure portion, railroads, bridges, things like that, but also some climate-related measures.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki previewed that for us yesterday. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He will talk this week about investments we need to make in domestic manufacturing, R&D, the care giving economy and infrastructure.

[05:15:07]

In the coming weeks, the president will lay out his vision for a second package that focuses squarely on creating economic security for the middle class through investments in child care, health care, education and other areas. Our focus is also on having that engagement and discussion with members of Congress. If they share a goal of building our infrastructure for the future but don't like the way he's going to propose to pay for it, we're happy to look at their proposals. If they don't want to pay for it, I guess they can propose that, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WRIGHT: Again, Laura, we know that in this Congress getting something done is never easy because of those slim Democratic majorities so we expect this to be really a months' long effort with both sides of the aisle trying to see what they can get passed. This is going to test Biden and the White House on two different fronts. It's going to test his real pledge to do things in a bipartisan way, we know that he passed the American Rescue Plan with no Republican support. Is he going to pass his second legislation again with no support?

And also it's going to test America's appetite to raise taxes on the wealthy and on corporation to pay for a part of this bill. Now, this is all going to start rolling out, as you said, at the place where it happened, the place where it started, Pittsburgh, on Wednesday with President Biden.

JARRETT: Yeah, as you said, the taxes piece of this really the difference here from the American Rescue Plan and what makes it a little bit more tricky.

Jasmine, thank you.

ROMANS: Yes, the idea is that building infrastructure would create jobs and revive the blue collar economy. The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce estimates the Biden infrastructure plan would save or create 15 million jobs over a decade. Three quarters of those jobs would be for workers with a high school education or less.

Phase one repairing roads, bridges, railways, investments in 5G and clean energy, it would also include domestic manufacturing and money for schools. Phase two investments are for working families including making the child tax credit permanent potentially, paid family leave, better access to health care and quality subsidized health care. All together you are talking some $3 trillion to $4 trillion in new spending.

The Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says there would be no gas tax or mileage tax hikes for consumers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: We've got a trillion dollar backlog just on things like our roads and bridges. We've got to act, and I really am encouraged by what I believe to be sincere expressions of interest that I'm hearing from the other side of the aisle on doing something real.

Let's make very clear, this is a jobs bill that's going to have climate benefits and I think that's something we should all be able to get behind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: The White House considering higher taxes on corporations and the rich to pay for it. Biden, of course, vowed to not raise taxes on families or individuals making less than $400,000 a year, Laura.

JARRETT: Speaking of climate benefits, a big boost for offshore wind energy in the U.S. The White House plans to deploy 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind mills in coastal waters by 2030. Now, that's enough to power 10 million homes. It's also a potential source of renewable emissions-free electricity that has never fully taken off in the United States. The White House says the program will create thousands of new jobs while moving the country toward clean energy.

ROMANS: All right. A surprise proposal from the basketball coach at Baylor, stop COVID testing for the Final Four. The backlash on and off the court, next.

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[05:23:01]

ROMANS: All right. Half of the final four is set and the other two spots will be decided tonight.

Andy Scholes' alma mater of Houston the first to punch their ticket. He has more in this morning's "Bleacher Report."

Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, go Cougs, Christine.

I'm pretty pumped up about them making the Final Four for the first time in my lifetime. The Cougars back in the Final Four for the first time since Hakeem Olajuwon and Phi Slama Jama were dominating college basketball.

And Houston, they built up a 17-point lead at halftime against 12 seed Oregon State, but the Beavers, they came all the way back in this game to tie it up with 3:48 to go. A quick drive would knock down a huge three to give the Cougs back the lead. Houston's tenacious defense and offensive rebounding just winning out. They beat the Beavers 67-61 to make it to the final four for the first time since 1984.

It's going to be an all Texas matchup on that side of the bracket. It's Baylor earned their first Final Four berth in more than seven decades. The Bears leading wire to wire beating Arkansas 81-72. The last time Baylor got this far in March Madness was 1950 when they were just eight teams in the field.

All right. We've got two more games tonight on our sister channel TBS. Undefeated Gonzaga takes on USC, in the early game, and then you got UCLA trying to extend their magical run as they take on one seed Michigan.

All right. The women's tournament we had an absolute thriller between defending champion Baylor and UConn. Baylor was up 12 late but UConn going an 18-0 run to grab the lead. The Lady Bears would fight back and have a chance to win the game in the final seconds, but DiJonai Carrington will take a shot, looks like she was fouled. No call made. Huskies hold on to win 69-67 to make their 13th straight Final Four.

[05:25:04]

After the game, Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey says the NCAA should stop testing players and coaches for COVID in the Final Four.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KIM MULKEY, BAYLOR HEAD COACH: Wouldn't it be a shame to keep COVID testing and then you've got kids that end up testing positive or something and they don't get to play in a Final Four. So you need to just forget the COVID test and let the four teams that are playing in each Final Four go battle it out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right. Opening day for baseball on Thursday and Major League Baseball strongly encouraging its players to get vaccinated. In a memo sent to team the league and players union said it would relax certain health and safety protocols if vaccination goals are met. If the team are 85 percent vaccinated, they don't have to wear masks in the dugout, vaccinated individuals could also gather without masks in hotel rooms, eat at restaurants and bring their families with them to road games, you know?

So, Laura, you got teams selling out most of their stadiums for opening day and for most of the season. I mean, baseball in a month or two could look as close to normal as we have seen in a long time.

JARRETT: It's such a tricky time. It's such a shame to hear Baylor's coach say that. It's not just getting tested positive in the moment, but we talk about long COVID, we don't know all of the long-term health effects for these students, it's just -- it's really a shame.

Andy, thank you. Appreciate it.

And this is why the CDC director worries about impending doom, while COVID-19 cases creep up in many states across the country, why Americans cannot let their guard down.

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