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Biden's COVID Response Team Holds First Briefing. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired January 27, 2021 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:35]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us this hour.

Moments from now, the Biden White House will be holding its very first coronavirus briefing. As part of its promise, to let science lead the way and be more transparent in their efforts to fight the pandemic, the top members of President Biden's COVID response team will be very soon providing updates and also taking questions. That includes Dr. Anthony Fauci, the new CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky and also, the top White House COVID official Jeff Zients.

There are some very big questions before them this morning. We'll look for those updates. But the most pressing really remains, of course, the rollout of the vaccines. When and how more Americans will be able to get the shots.

On that, President Biden made some big promises yesterday, announcing that the U.S. has purchased an additional 200 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines which the administration says will be enough to vaccinate most Americans by the end of the summer. And more immediately, the White House says, that shipments that are going to be going out to states will be increasing by 16 percent starting next week. That is the good news in the face of the very bad.

January is already the deadliest month of the pandemic so far. The virus has killed nearly 80,000 Americans since the new year began. It's truly remarkable when you think of the scope of this pandemic and its impact.

So, as we wait for this very first briefing to kick off, let's start at the White House. That's where CNN's John Harwood is standing by for us. John, what are we going to be hearing from the Biden COVID response team today?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, I think the main message is the fact that they're having the briefing at all. As you indicated, they made the argument that the Trump team elevated politics and other considerations over science. That was pretty obvious at the time during 2020, and we've had it affirmed publicly recently in interviews for people like Debbie Birx and Tony Fauci who will be at the briefing today.

The argument by the Biden team is it is data and science that's going to light the way out of this pandemic. And that, of course, is going to be the acid test for this group. How quickly can they get us out of this pandemic? How quickly can they get us back to normal? This briefing is the beginning of what they hope will be that process.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. John, stick with me because I also want to bring in Dr. Sanjay Gupta and CNN's Jeff Zeleny for a little bit more on this.

Sanjay, the first briefing for the Biden COVID team, what are your biggest questions this morning? I remember very well seeing you at some of the very early briefings of the last administration on COVID.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I know. I think you know John is right. I mean just the symbolism of this alone is important. It's all scientists and people on the task force that are there really running this briefing. It reminds me of, frankly, going back to Ebola days or even H1N1 days. That's how the country typically learned about what was happening with those sorts of outbreaks.

I think the questions you know are -- are the ones that we've been talking about to some extent. The vaccines, it still strikes me - you know we're going to hear about the rollout. But it still strikes me that there's seems to be a certain amount of the vaccine that's unaccounted for. We don't really know where some of these doses are. Rochelle Walensky -- Dr. Walensky said this the other day as head of the CDC.

These are the most precious commodities on earth right now. How do you not know - like, how are they not so specifically tracked. Issues like that. But also, you know Kate, things that have gotten less attention like testing.

President Biden has talked about $50 billion in testing for rapid antigen tests. What is that going to look like? Are these going to be in schools? Are these going to be at big office buildings? How is that going to help get our life back to normal even before a full vaccine rollout?

And then also masks. Again, these are the less sort of technologically gee-whiz things. But I was talking some people last week who have been looking at viral dynamics. If the country wore N95 or equivalent masks in high-risk situations for four weeks, they said that we could essentially bring an end to this pandemic.

My point is there's a lot to talk about and some things may be far easier and simpler and quicker than others.

[11:05:00]

BOLDUAN: Yes. And we should say, also different because of the COVID era, we're going to be all watching this kind of on a live stream. So, we're essentially waiting for this live stream to kick off in this very moment. We'll bring it to you as soon as it does begin.

Jeff, Joe Biden ran on his ability to get control of the virus briefing and also ran on briefings like we're about to see. They're a big part of the promise that he made from the campaign trail. What are you expecting from this first briefing?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, we are you know just a week into the Biden administration. One thing that he's doing that he can do is shining a light on the coronavirus, shining a light on the pandemic, not shying away from it, really putting science front and center. So, that is you know not to be underestimated. But the reality now is it's the Biden administration's challenge and problem.

We've heard a lot over the last seven days about you know the varying degrees to which the Trump administration had a plan for vaccination rollouts. I think that timeline has expired in terms of looking backward.

Now, the Biden administration clearly is aware they must look forward. So, they are getting more vaccines out. But this briefing here today is one of the ways that they are going to try and at least -- how should we say -- turn the page on truth, actually you know show what is happening. And that's something we didn't hear over the last three months or so, and certainly even more than that.

So, I think you know first and foremost, just by talking about it, it is a big development. But you know they're going to have to do more than that. So, in terms of vaccination rollout and things, part of this is, also, to urge lawmakers in Congress to pass his COVID relief bill. They are trying to show that these problems are very real. And they need more money for this vaccination rollout, for testing at schools and other matters.

BOLDUAN: And, John, on one of the things that Biden said yesterday, when he said that by the end of the summer there's going to be enough vaccines. He expects for every adult American to get a shot who wants a shot. Is he taking a risk? Do they think at the White House that he's taking a risk by kind of laying a marker on that?

HARWOOD: It doesn't seem that risky. Look, we knew that they were going to -- the administration was in line to acquire these additional vaccines. That had been set up by Operation Warp Speed before. They're executing on that. It's kind of like the goal that Joe Biden articulated of a million shots a day for 100 days. We had gotten close to a million shots and actually achieved it on one day.

So, it's not all that great of a departure. The real key is the execution. That time pressure to get America back to normal, to get schools open again, to get normal life open again, to get restaurants, and bars and businesses open again. That pressure is going to be there whether the president articulates a timeline or not, and that's weighing on them.

BOLDUAN: That's a good point. And Sanjay, kind of piggybacking off of this in your reporting, the administration's announcement about these increased shipments to states starting next week, I was really interested when CNN's Kristen Holmes has done some reporting. She's been talking to some state health officials.

And one of them told her, and I thought it was interesting because they kind of crystallizes a question, which is they told her - so, Sunday, they said they don't know what the vaccine supply is. Now, two days later, they say they not only now have a handle on it, but they say they can increase supply.

Is this all what we're looking at in terms of these announcements? And it's all good news. I'm not at all trying to take away from that. Is it a result, do you know yet, of the Biden team doing something differently or a natural ramp-up that was already going to be happening?

GUPTA: Yes. I don't think it's really reflective of them doing anything differently, where you see a lot of these doses coming from are the increased supply from Moderna which is the second authorized vaccine. So, I think if anything has been done differently, it's been going through and basically, seeing OK, what's the degree of confidence we have now that we can say for the next three weeks we can deliver 10 million doses a week. So, people don't have to be sort of left guessing or left in the lurch if the doses don't show up.

So, I think it was applying that degree of rigor to asking those questions, making sure it was actually going to come through, frankly. But some of this is good timing as well. We knew manufacturing capacity was going to increase. We also found out that Pfizer had you know we learned this a while ago, Pfizer has probably six doses in a vial instead of five doses in a vial. So, that's going to speed up the process even if it's not more vaccine overall. It will speed up the process which is important.

So, I think this is timing, manufacturing increases and being confident now in what you're saying.

BOLDUAN: And Jeff, noteworthy just if we are comparing it with what we have come to know of COVID task force briefings, the president will not be part of this briefing. The vice president not part of this briefing.

[11:10:01]

ZELENY: Right. I mean, they're leaving it to the experts for now. I mean if he has -- the president has a whole team of coronavirus experts and leaders in the West Wing, you know, sitting only a few steps from his office handling this. So, we are told from time to time the president is going to weigh in directly on these briefings. So, he'll be monitoring them. But look, he has a variety of things to do. So, he is delegating this, if you will, to the experts.

Now, we rarely saw the president in the previous administration at these briefings. I mean, the vice president, of course, was in charge of them. Occasionally early on, and we saw the president leading the way as the spokesman for this. But we saw what happened with that. He's not a scientist, didn't follow the science.

So, I think the reality here is the new president, President Biden is leaving this to the experts. So, that doesn't mean that he's not shining a light on it. In fact, he is shining a light on it. He's just doing other things today as this task force is getting underway.

So, I think that's certainly is a sign, again, he's focusing the president's attention on it which is a thing -

BOLDUAN: Jeff -

ZELENY: -- the president can --

BOLDUAN: Jeff, I'm just going to jump in because it sounds like it's getting underway. This is the new CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky. Let's listen.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: -- our case rates remain extraordinarily high and now is the time to remain vigilant. If we continue on the current trajectory, the CDC most recent national ensemble forecast predicts that 479,000 to 514,000 COVID-19 deaths will be reported by February 20, 2021. I know this is not news we all want to hear, but this is something we must say so we are all aware. But if we are united in action, we can turn things around.

Continuing to expand safe, effective vaccination is key to ending the COVID-19 pandemic and bringing our country back to health. Daily vaccine doses administered continued to rise to more than 1.6 million doses per day over the past week. Over 23.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been already administered. This includes 3.4 million people who have already received their second dose. I want to take a moment here to emphasize that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe, and they work. And this is backed up with data that I would like to share with you.

Last week, the CDC released an MMWR on severe adverse events, most notably anaphylaxis for those who received the Moderna vaccine, as well as the Pfizer vaccine. Based on our most recent data, we found that there were 2.1 cases of anaphylaxis per million administered doses of Moderna and 6.2 cases of anaphylaxis per million doses administered of Pfizer.

Let me be clear. These are rare, treatable outcomes and the COVID-19 vaccines are safe.

It's also important to put this into context. The risk of getting sick with COVID-19 are much higher than the risk of allergy or anaphylaxis from the vaccine. In the US, sadly, approximately 16,500 people for every 1,000,000 million who are diagnosed with COVID will die. While anaphylaxis can be scary, there are effective treatments and patients generally do quite well.

It's also important to note the mild side effects, like pain where you got your shot, feeling feverish or tired and muscle aches after getting your shot. These are all normal, an expected part of getting the vaccine, especially the second dose. These symptoms mean that your immune system is revving up and the vaccine is actually working. CDC is actively monitoring for safety signals associated with these vaccines, and we are committed to sharing those safety data with you as they emerge.

Also last week, CDC updated guidance to reduce barriers associated with returning for a second vaccine dose on a specific date, or when circumstances change between a first and second dose.

There are two important updates that I want to clarify. First, in our updated guidance, the CDC still recommends that people get their second dose as close to the recommended interval as possible. That would be three weeks for the Pfizer vaccine and four weeks for the Moderna vaccine.

However, we also know that life can get in the way and that some of those doses may be missed in the best time window. And in those rare circumstances, the second dose may be given up to six weeks or 42 days after the first.

Second, the CDC has reiterated that the COVID-19 vaccines are not interchangeable. However, it's also true that in extremely rare circumstances, people may not simply remember or have documentation of which first dose they received. In these extremely rare situations, we have said that any available mRNA COVID-19 vaccine may be administered as the second dose if people are unaware of which first dose they received, and that would be at least 28 days after their first.

[11:15:11]

I also know that there are concerns about variants. Viruses mutate and we have always expected that variants would emerge, and we have been looking for them. The variants have been identified recently seem to spread more easily. They're more transmissible, which can lead to increase number of cases and increased stress on our already taxed healthcare system.

In the United States, 308 cases of B117 variant that originated from the UK have been confirmed in 26 States as of January 26th. We also identified this week, our first case of the P1 variant in the United States in Minnesota. To date no cases of the B1351 variant that was first detected in South Africa has been identified in the U.S.

CDC is committed to working with international and state and local partners and increasing surveillance to monitor this situation and share as soon as we learn more.

The emergence of variants underscores the need for public health action.

First, get vaccinated when it's your turn. Also, some people may need help getting vaccinated. Please consider helping your neighbors and loved ones, schedule or travel to their appointments.

Second, wear a mask, practice social distancing, and wash your hands. And finally, now is not the time to travel, but if you must, be safe and follow the CDC guidance, this includes wearing a mask as well as testing and quarantine protocol.

Please do your part to get cases down by simply taking these actions.

Thank you. I will now turn it over to Dr. Fauci who will share some scientific updates.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: (INAUDIBLE)

BOLDUAN: Sounds to me like we are having audio issue with the feed now. I don't know if it's simply that Dr. Fauci maybe needs to unmute in the era of the Zoom world.

In this moment, were' going to see if these pops back up. But Sanjay is back with me.

Sanjay, we all know the trials and tribulations of unmuting when we're on a Zoom. So, let's just hope that Dr. Fauci - that's part of it. But I did -- one of that - one of the first things that Doctor - that I'm noticing in this briefing and I just want to - and it looks like the technical glitch has been fixed. Let's go back to Dr. Fauci.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- and start again, that would be great.

FAUCI: OK, so in other words, nobody heard anything from me. Is that correct?

OK. Well, I said a lot of really (INAUDIBLE)

-- implications of concern -- variants of concern that Dr. Walensky mentioned.

When you think in terms of therapeutics, you think in terms of therapeutics for advanced disease and therapeutics for early and moderate disease.

But also, buried in that is targeting the virus itself versus targeting the aberrant inflammatory responses that often are the stores and the cause of the morbidities and mortalities that we see with this particular disease.

So first, if you look at the therapeutics for moderate-advanced disease, one of the ones that has shown clearly to be very efficacious is dexamethasone in people who are hospitalized, who are on ventilators, or have high-flow oxygen requirements. It has shown to significantly diminish the 28-day mortality. There have been another group of studies such as pyrazinamide and remdesivir which have received an Emergency Use Authorization

Moving over to the left-hand part of the slide, there are a number of interventions that have been used for more early or moderate disease. For example, remdesivir, which is a direct antiviral, has received FDA approval. And a variety of monoclonal antibodies have also received Emergency Use Authorization, as have convalescent plasma. Other antivirals, hep B immune globulin, and things like anticoagulants are currently in clinical trial.

One comment about things like monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma, since they are giving antibody to someone who would need a direct antiviral effect of the antibody, it is best to use it early before individuals actually have had the opportunity to progress.

[11:20:09]

And that's what we're going to be seeing in the future, is an attempt to, as early as possible, get these interventions to the patients in their particular state, hopefully, as outpatients, if we can logistically get that done.

If we can move on to the next slide, and that is vaccines. As many of you know now, the federal government has been involved either in the development of and/or the facilitation of the testing of a number of vaccines that represent three separate platforms. Shown on this slide is what we all know is the extraordinary efficacious and safe results of the Moderna and the Pfizer BioNTech product, with 94 to 95 percent efficacy and a good safety profile, both having received an EUA.

What we're looking at closely now is others that you see on the slide, Janssen, AstraZeneca, and Novavax, which are in various states of trial. Of particular importance that you'll be hearing about, likely within the next few days to a week, are the results from the Johnson J&J trial.

And the reason they're important, it relates to some of the things that Dr. Walensky said. And that is, it's a phase three trial with a different platform, a human adenovirus vector, but it is going to be looking at efficacy, not only in the United States, but also in South Africa and in Brazil.

So, we will get a good feel from those, I hope, I believe we will. We'll let the data speak for itself. But when we will see was the relative efficacy against the wild type virus that is predominantly in the United States, as well as the South African isolate, which in fact is something that we will be able to get a feel for the efficacy there.

So, we'll have some comparative efficacy, which will inform us on where we would go if the eventuation occurs that we do have that particular lineage that would seed itself in the United States.

So, let me move on to the last slide because that relates to what I said. Dr. Walensky gave you a good feel for the distribution of the various lineages, the 117, which is in the UK, the 351, South Africa, which I just mentioned, and the P1 in Brazil. She mentioned about the increased transmissibility and the likelihood of an increase, actually, in some lethality in the B117.

The important question that people ask is, what is the impact on both monoclonal antibodies and on the vaccine-induced antibodies related to the vaccines that we are currently distributing now. When you're looking at the 117, namely, what we refer to as the UK variant, what we're seeing is a very slight, if at all, impact on vaccine-induced antibodies and very little impact on anything else. So, we are covered with that.

Things get a bit more problematic when you go to the 351, or what we're seeing as the dominant one in South Africa. Because in that regard, there is a moderate diminution, namely a multi-fold diminution in the in vitro neutralization by vaccine-induced antibodies. However, and this is an important -- however, it still is well within the cushion of protection.

So, you could diminish the vaccine-induced antibody efficacy by a few fold and still be well within the protective range of the vaccine. And that's the reason why you've seen announcements that actually the vaccines that we're using are still effective. However, given that as a fact now, we have to be concerned looking forward at what the further evolution of this might be.

Now, I want to make one mention about the monoclonal antibodies because they are more seriously inhibited in the sense of impacting on their efficacy by this South African strain. That's the reason why there will be attempts to develop even other antibodies that might be able to avert this particular problem.

So looking forward, what we plan to do in collaboration with the companies is to develop what we would call alternative or boosts that would use the same platform, but that would incorporate a particular immunogen that would address these particular variants. And for that reason, we will always want to be a step or two ahead of what might be a problem in the future.

So, I'll stop there now and hand it over to Andy Slavitt.

[11:25:08]

ANDY SLAVITT, SENIOR ADVISER TO WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE TEAM: Thank you, Dr. Fauci.

(INAUDIBLE)

Thank you, Dr. Fauci. And also thank you, Dr. Walensky.

The country is truly lucky to have the two of you leading the charge on both our nation's best scientists and our nation's best public health officials.

I want to pick up where doctors Walensky and Fauci left off, public health and science. I'm going to talk about another topic, which is execution of the plan to combat the COVID crisis, namely the strategy, the progress, and the challenges openly and transparently.

Now, to begin, I'd like to start with one of the core pillars of our plan. And that is the equitable health care access and outcomes for all Americans. So let me introduce Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, who is head of the Health Equity Task Force, to make some comments on where we stand as a country in the battle to make sure we get every American equitable access to medical care and the vaccinations that they need.

DR. MARCELLA NUNEZ-SMITH, CHAIRWOMAN, COVID-19 HEALTH EQUITY TASK FORCE: Great. Thank you so much, Andy. And that's correct.

Equity is absolutely a foundational component of our national plan. There's the moral imperative, it's simply the right thing to do to ensure that those who are hardest hit or at highest risk, have the opportunity to stay safe and healthy through this pandemic. And there's also the science of it. We cannot beat this virus without making sure we're executing a plan that works for all communities.

So, we've committed to taking an equity lens to every aspect of this pandemic response. That includes minimizing the risk of getting infected. And for those who get COVID, minimizing the risk of hospitalization or death. So that includes ensuring access to PPE, testing, treatments, and vaccines. It also includes making it possible for people to safely quarantine and isolate and to monitor the impacts of long COVID.

So, from what the data show us, we still have a long way to go. Latino, indigenous, and black people in America are dying at high rates from COVID-19. And folks in rural communities have case and death rates that continue to climb, and they're dying at higher rates than people in metropolitan areas.

So, by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, geography, and based on where you live, COVID-19 is leaving a terrible imprint on far too many communities.

Next line.

So, the president took immediate action to combat COVID-19 health equities. Last Thursday, President Biden signed an executive order on ensuring an equitable pandemic response and recovery. And a key part of his approach to ensuring equity is through the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force.

So, this task force is responsible for providing specific recommendations to the president, through the COVID-19 response coordinator, for mitigating the health inequities caused or exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and also for preventing these kinds of inequities in the future. The task force will include individuals with insights into these groups that have been hardest hit.

So, their role will be advisory in nature, but the president has asked them to make some recommendations on a range of issues.

Optimally allocating COVID 19 resources by agencies and by state local tribal and territorial officials.

Disbursing COVID-19 relief funds in a way that advances equity.

Ensuring effective, culturally-aligned communication, messaging, and outreach to our hardest hit communities

And addressing ongoing health and equities faced by COVID-19 survivors that may merit a public health response.

So, it's going to be essential that we collect data for the hardest hit communities and identify data sources that would enable development of short-term targets for pandemic-related actions, and address longer-term data shortfalls and challenges to better prepare and respond to future pandemics.

So, we will be announcing the members of this task force soon, as President Biden is adamant, they hit the ground running, especially now as so many people and communities are disproportionately hurting from this pandemic.

And for the last slide. Finally, it's critical everyone has equitable access to all of the resources necessary to make it through this pandemic. And that includes equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to all communities.

So, all Americans, everyone in our country, should have the benefit of a safe, effective vaccine that can prevent them from getting sick or dying from COVID-19. It takes intention and deliberate action to advance equity in this vaccine distribution process.

So, we're going to do that through a series of important actions. We're leveraging data sources, both from government and other sectors, to find and remedy inequities.

[11:30:00]