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New Day

Health Experts Sound Alarm on Possible Fourth Wave; Deadly Attack at U.S. Capitol Raises Security Questions; Soon, Prosecution to Call more Witnesses in Chauvin Trial. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired April 05, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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


ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: A lot of people fail, right?

[07:00:01]

I went to the University of Houston, I wanted to pick my team. Alisyn, you're just -- next season, I'll tell you what, I'm coming to you. I'm going to come to you for advice on the bracket, helping me fill it out.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: And the (INAUDIBLE), because I don't go with my heart. I go with cheating and I outsourced it to Abdiel Rivera (ph), who is a savant, basically a bracket savant, and here I am, number two, okay? So that's the lesson. I feel for all the kids watching. Outsource and cheat.

SCHOLES: Outsource it, okay. I'll remember that one.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: All right. New Day continues right now.

CAMEROTA: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day.

And health experts are sounding the alarm about a fourth wave of coronavirus in the U.S. Professor Michael Osterholm says the world is in the eye of a Category 5 hurricane right now, but other experts believe that things are getting better.

While there is still a clear rise in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations around the country -- well, at least in some states that you see on your screen -- vaccinations also continue at this breakneck pace. More than 4 million vaccine doses were administered on Saturday. That's a new record. Almost 19 percent of Americans are now fully vaccinated. 32 percent have received at least one dose.

BERMAN: All right. In just a few hour, testimony resumes in the Derek Chauvin murder trial with the prosecution calling more witnesses. We do expect to hear from the Minneapolis Police chief. This will be perhaps critical. He's already called George Floyd's death a murder. He fired Derek Chauvin and the other officers who were involved in the deadly encounter. Much more on the trial coming up.

First though, let's talk about where we are in the pandemic. Joining us now, CNN Medical Dr. Jonathan Reiner, he's a Professor of Medicine and Surgery at George Washington University.

Dr. Reiner, let me play for you what Professor Michael Osterholm said about where we are in this pandemic. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, DIRECTOR FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: At this time, we really are in a Category 5 hurricane status with regard to the rest of the world. At this point, we will see in the next two weeks the highest number of cases reported globally since the beginning of the pandemic.

In terms of the United States, we're just at the beginning of this surge. We haven't really begun to see it yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What he's looking at in the Midwest are states like Michigan, Dr. Reiner, where you see the cases are clearly rising, hospitalizations clearly rising. So where are we, in your mind?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Good morning, John. Look, I think he was really talking about two things. He was talking about the situation in the world where cases are still, you know, rising dramatically, and now the case in the United States where we're starting to see these hot spots, particularly in the great lakes states, places like Michigan, Northeast Massachusetts, and a little bit into the mid-Atlantic.

The big difference now compared with our last massive surge around Thanksgiving and Christmas is that a third of this country has had at least one vaccination. If you look at where the deaths have come in the United States, 80 percent of the deaths during this pandemic have come in people over the age of 65, and in that age group now, that highest risk age group, 75 percent of people have had at least one vaccine. So while we may see spikes in places, I don't think we're going to see a catastrophic rise in deaths.

So now, where are these cases coming from? They're coming from young people. If you look at Massachusetts in the last week, fully half of the cases in Massachusetts were in people under the age of 30. And that's where our vaccine goes now. We need to be vaccinating young people. They are the vectors now for the transmission of this virus around the country.

The president has stated that he wants all states open by May 1st. We need to surge vaccine into places where young people are, colleges now. Kids will be in college now for this final month. Every college should vaccinate students before they go home. That's where the hospitalizations are coming from. That's where the vaccine needs to go now.

CAMEROTA: Can you explain that, Doctor, because during the worst of the pandemic a year ago, the one sigh of relief that any of us had were that kids, even if they tested positive, that they could be vectors, as you say, but they weren't getting sick, they weren't getting hospitalized.

[07:05:06]

Are people under 30 now being hospitalized, meaning that the virus is hitting them in a more severe way?

REINER: We think it is. So if you look at this new B117 variant, the U.K. variant, which is now sweeping through the United States, that appears to be more virulent, and we are seeing more hospitalizations. So in those same age groups, hospitalizations are up about 10 percent to 15 percent. So the infection is more meaningful for people in that age group, even more reason for us to be vaccinating that group.

The highest risk group, where almost a third of the deaths in this country came, were in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, and cases are now down 96 percent in those facilities because we've largely vaccinated all of the residents.

We will get a handle on this. If you just want to see what's in store for us, look at Israel. Israel has vaccinated about 60 percent of their population, and cases are down in that country, off their highs 96 percent. Off our highs, cases are down 75 percent, but we're having these, I would say, concerning spikes in places like Michigan. I don't think this is going to turn into another surge.

BERMAN: Look, I get the sense that there is wide agreement that we're going to get where we need to be. We're going to get there, maybe in May, maybe in June. The issue is at what cost until then, right? And if things go great, hopefully, deaths won't rise again. Hopefully, because the nursing home population and older people who are most susceptible, they're going to get vaccinated, they won't be dying.

But if you do see younger people getting sick, getting infected, ending up in the hospital, that is still concern, Dr. Reiner. There are still lingering issues that tens, perhaps, tens of thousands of people could face that they won't have to if they would just get vaccinated.

REINER: Well, exactly. And we certainly know and are learning more every day about the long-haul features that accompany infection with this virus, particularly in young people. So we can't trivialize infections in young people.

My point about young people being infected now is that we know that at least half of the infections are asymptomatic, and that is how the virus is moving around the country. Think about spring break in Florida. Think about the thousands of unmasked people partying on the beach. All of those kids went back to their towns and schools, you know, where not everyone is vaccinated. That is how the virus is still circulating around this country.

The federal government has the ability to tell pharmacies, retail pharmacies, where they should vaccine directly who can and cannot be administered vaccine, and all of these retail establishments around the country should be open to young people 16 and up for vaccination. CAMEROTA: Dr. Reiner, I want to ask you about testing. We all recall that the Trump administration did not do enough testing because President Trump didn't like to see high case counts, and he felt that if he kept the testing down, you wouldn't see cases. Is the Biden administration doing enough testing because it seems as though we're not sequencing enough to figure out exactly where these variants are, and it's still hard to get a test?

REINER: Right. So there are issues with testing. One is sequencing the isolates (ph) from positive tests, and we need to continue to do more to find these variants and variants of concern. The other testing, testing in the community, we've sort of plateaued or are even off our highs. But what the Biden administration has just done, which has been months in the waiting, has now licensed three rapid, cheap home tests. So, very soon, you're going to be able to go to your pharmacy without a prescription, I mean, literally within days, and pick up a home test.

One of my daughters just got a box of these home tests sent to her from her job in New York. And as they open later this month, all employees from her firm are going to be testing at home twice a week. You're going to see this all over the country now.

These tests, you know, promoted by a Dr. Michael Mina from Harvard over the last several months, now finally will allow you to understand at home whether your child who has a little bit of a fever is infected and whether he or she should stay home from school or whether when you feel lousy, you're infected, then you should stay home from work. We should have had these months ago. And now the Biden administration, the FDA now has licensed three of these devices, so you're going to see that increase dramatically over the next few weeks.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Reiner, thank you for that preview. That will definitely an added be peace of mind for everyone.

[07:10:01]

Thank you for explaining that.

We want to take some time now to remember some of the more than 555,000 Americans lost to the coronavirus.

Deputy Brandon Gore worked in Animal Protective Services for the Brunswick County, North Carolina, Sheriff's Office. Officials describe him as a kind and gentle soul with a genuinely cheerful heart.

Sheila Smith taught at Straughn Elementary School in Covington County, Alabama, for more than 20 years working mainly with special needs students. School officials say she brought a lot of joy, a lot of energy to her work. She was 61 years old and had planned to retire in the next couple of years.

Luke Ratliff was a beloved super fan of the University of Alabama men's basketball team and The New York Times reports that he was just 23 years old and known in the Crimson Tide community as Fluffappotamus (ph). The team paid tribute on Twitter saying, we will forever remember our number one fan. We love you. He is survived by his parents and two brothers.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): I never thought when elected to Congress that coming to work would be a dangerous workplace, and in candor, it has become a dangerous workplace when you go outside, you're coming back in, you're on guard, you're looking, you're wondering what's going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That's Congressman Ro Khanna responding to Friday's attack at the U.S. Capitol that killed one Capitol Police officer just after three months after the deadly January insurrection.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan. He is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees Capitol Police funding, the chair of the relevant subcommittee.

And, Congressman, look, I know you along with all of us this morning are mourning the loss of Officer Billy Evans. It's a terrible, terrible loss this morning. You hear Congressman Khanna say that going to work -- he's going to work at a dangerous place. I mean, how safe is the U.S. Capitol?

REP. TIM RYAN (D-OH): Well, clearly, over the last couple of months, we've seen that it's not as safe as we thought it was, but I think we have a game plan with the recommendations from General Honore, and we are teeing up a supplemental bill to fund and we're moving in the right direction. But, clearly, these are difficult. I don't think we can sugarcoat it. What happened this weekend was very, very troubling to lose another police officer on the Capitol Police force after already losing a couple because of what happened on January 6th.

So we've got some work to do. And I think we need to be honest with the American people. It's going to take a little bit of time but we're going to get it done.

BERMAN: Some of the recommendations from General Honore, increase Capitol Police staffing, improve the force's intelligence-gathering capabilities, create mobile fencing, enhance protection of members of Congress. How much of that do you think you'll actually get it active?

RYAN: Well, I hope most of it. That's the goal. I mean, look, we're going to always have incidences like the ones we saw this weekend. There's always going to be cops on the perimeter. We see this in cities all over the country where cops get up every morning, they put their lives on the line, they are very vulnerable and susceptible to somebody who just wants to harm them because they are on the frontline for all of us. And so they will always be a little bit more than everybody else susceptible. And these lone wolf attacks or whatever the issue was around this are always going to be there. That's not going to go away, not now, not ever. But we have to take these bigger steps around really securing the Capitol, making sure that the police are as, you know, not as vulnerable as they are now maybe and have a quick rapid response force to harden the Capitol, district offices. These are things we're going to get done and we're going to get done very, very soon.

But, again, it's not going to eliminate the threat that all cops take on every single day for the rest of the communities they represent.

BERMAN: What's your opinion on fencing, which seems to be controversial among some of your colleagues? Fencing versus the idea of keeping it open to the public as open as possible, are they in conflict?

RYAN: Well, I think we've got to start moving in the direction of taking the fencing down, but I also think that until we have a real game plan in place, the manpower in place, the National Guard in place, these kinds of things, then we've got to be very careful in taking it down.

Now, does the fence stop a complete riot? We're not sure. The security experts tell us that may not even be the case. But I think there is some value to until we have the plan implemented. And that's where we're going to, John. We've got to get this plan implemented as quickly as possible.

But when you're talking about hiring 800 new police officers or a thousand new police officers, you need 18 resumes for every one person that you're going to hire. This is not something that we have a magic wand and we're going to be able to wave it overnight. Same with the fencing or kind of fencing, we want fencing that we can immediately dispatch and put out there rather quickly. Do we want fencing that goes into the ground and then be triggered with a flip of a switch where it pops up? These are things we're trying to discuss now.

And I know in 2021, we want to click that website and have it pop up. We want to send a text and have it delivered. We want to put something in the microwave and have it cook, but this is going to take some time.

BERMAN: Let me ask you about some of the other business Congress will be doing over the next several months, the infrastructure plan, the American jobs plan, $2 trillion plan coming from the White House. I want to know, for you, what are the best parts of this but also the worst parts.

RYAN: Well, I think the fact that it's -- I always wanted it to be bigger.

[07:20:02]

So, maybe that would be my critique. But $3 trillion over the course of the package is pretty significant. I would just say I really like the fact that they're taking on -- the president is taking on the big problems. He wants to fix the ten worst bridges. We have a bridge in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. We're going to work real hard to get some funding for it.

I like how money is set aside, about 40 percent of it, for communities really that have taken it on the chin for the last 20 or 30 or 40 years. Those disadvantaged communities are like some of the ones I represent. How do we inject that investment into those communities both with broad brand and traditional infrastructure so that as growth happens and as a lot of these tech companies and other companies move out of high cost centers, we want to make sure places like Akron and Youngstown are on the menu for them to grow and move their backroom operations. We can't do that if don't have the infrastructure and the broad band to be able to take that on.

What President Biden put forward here, John, is transformational. This is a significant project that he's undertaking. And it's going to benefit a lot of communities that have been forgotten.

BERMAN: And what about how to pay for it? What raising corporate taxes? Are you onboard with all that? How do you feel about that?

RYAN: Well, I think when you look at these corporations who don't pay any taxes, I mean, how fair is this? If you're a secretary or you're a construction worker, you pay your fair share of taxes. And then we have a number of top Fortune 500 companies, they don't pay any taxes at all. I mean, you want to talk about a rigged system, so I think asking them to pay their fair share.

And like President Biden says, we're not mad -- we don't hate people. This is about helping us invest into the future of the country, planting a tree today so our kids and grandkids can get some shade down the road. Those are the investments that are being made and asking corporations who don't pay any taxes or have seen a significant tax cut in the past few years, to ask to help us fund it is really investing into their future too.

These are investments. This isn't just spending willy-nilly on projects.

BERMAN: Congressman Tim Ryan, we appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us this morning.

RYAN: Thanks, John, always good to be with you.

BERMAN: The prosecution expected to call the Minneapolis Police chief to testify against Derek Chauvin. We're going to speak to the lawyer for George Floyd's family, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

CAMEROTA: The Derek Chauvin murder trial resume this morning. The prosecution's biggest witness is expected to be the Minneapolis Police chief who fired Derek Chauvin after his deadly encounter with George Floyd.

CNN's Josh Campbell is live at the courthouse in Minneapolis with a preview. What are we expecting?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning to you, Alisyn. Last week was very gripping in the courtroom here in Minneapolis, as the jury heard from several key witnesses, including the girlfriend of George Floyd, who talked about him as a person, really humanizing him for the jury. But it was two other witnesses, two senior officers with the Minneapolis Police Department that really offered damning testimony for the defense, really rejecting this idea that Derek Chauvin was somehow operating within policy whenever he held George Floyd down on the pavement for over nine minutes.

Now, this week, what we're expecting to hear from are two other witnesses. As you mentioned, one of them, the police chief of the Minneapolis Police Department. He has been on record publicly criticizing Chauvin's actions. We know that he also fired Derek Chauvin. So we expect to continue to hear that same theme that Derek Chauvin was not representing the police department and its standards whenever he encountered George Floyd.

We're also expecting to hear from the supervising physician who was on duty that night here in last May who worked on George Floyd. That's going to be key because the prosecution has indicated that this particular witness had supervised taking blood samples from George Floyd. We know that the defense, their strategy has been to try to turn the tables here, to say that it wasn't Chauvin's actions that results in George Floyd's death but the idea that Floyd may have been under the influence of some kind of drug at the time of his arrest.

So we expect robust questioning from the prosecution as well as the defense, as the trial gets set to resume for week two here in just a couple of hours.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Josh, thank you very much for that preview.

Joining us now is Chris Stewart, one of the Floyd family attorneys. Chris, great to see you.

Before we get to what to expect today and this week, just -- can you recap? What do you and your team and George Floyd's family think has been the most effective moment thus far of the trial for the prosecution in terms of trying to convict Chauvin?

L. CHRIS STEWART, ATTORNEY FOR GEORGE FLOYD FAMILY: Thanks for having me, Alisyn. I mean, what a powerful week. It had to be the testimony of their highest ranking officer who just clearly destroyed the entire case for the defense and just said it was totally unnecessary and it shouldn't have happened.

CAMEROTA: Do you think that the defense has done anything particularly effective so far?

STEWART: They're desperate. They're trying everything. They're blaming the crowd, six people, two of them being children, they're blaming the fire department, saying they were delayed. They're blaming fellow officers. They're just looking for any type of excuse.

CAMEROTA: I heard you say yesterday that you are bracing for the experts coming up. So who will those be? Who worries you about what is still ahead?

STEWART: Well, you never know with experts. I mean, the defense tries to hire the best people they can get, but the real testimony is going to come from this chief and the officers. Experts are paid for. So, you know, they're going to say what the defense wants them to say. But the testimony from these officers, for once in a trial, we're hearing officers stand up or themselves and say what he did was wrong.

[07:30:09]