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New Day
More than 71,000 New Cases in U.S.; Debate Reality Check; Democrats' Edge Narrows in Key States; Coronavirus Update from Around the World. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired October 23, 2020 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[06:34:01]
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, developing overnight, a staggering 71,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in the United States. That is the highest number since the summer. That's the fourth worst day of the entire pandemic. More than 41,000 people are hospitalized this morning. That is the highest number in two months. Eight states are reporting record hospitalizations.
So joining us now, Dr. Carlos Del Rio. He is the executive associate dean at Emory University Medical School and a contributor to the Moderna vaccine trial in cooperation with the National Institutes of Health.
These numbers, Dr. Del Rio, are deeply troubling. You look at the number of new cases, 71,000, that's a big number. And 41,000 hospitalizations, that is a big number. And they're both trending upwards. The president keeps on saying, even at the debate last night, we're turning a corner. I don't know that these graphs are telling that story.
DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Yes. Unfortunately, John, we're not. And, you know, if we're turning the corner, the corner is turning uphill, right, not downhill.
[06:35:02]
And I'm very concerned that the increase in cases and the outbreak, really uncontrolled outbreak in the Midwest and the Great Plains, is really troublesome. We -- we are easily going to reach, you know, 90,000 to maybe 100,000 case if we -- if we don't stop this. And it's -- it's not going to be easy. But, again, it -- it goes back -- this goes -- goes back to the basics. We have to wear masks. We have to social distance. We have to wash our hands. We have to avoid crowds. We have to avoid close conglomerate settings. If we do that, we can actually control transmission and then wait for a vaccine.
But, right now, we're really not doing what we need to do. We're letting the virus run, you know, run its course. And that's -- that's costing hospitalizations and it's going to cost a lot of deaths, too. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: But, Doctor, when you say we could reach
90 to 100,000 cases, when? What's your projection?
DEL RIO: Well, at the current projection, the way it's growing right now, Alisyn, I suspect it will be before, you know, before November 1st that we will be there, or right around the election time that we'll be at that level.
BERMAN: That's a lot. I mean that's quick. I mean that's quick, Dr. Del Rio.
DEL RIO: Well, you've got to think that, you know, this is a virus that if -- if you -- if you have one person infected and that person then doesn't isolate, doesn't wear a mask, within, you know, four days, that person has infected about 2.5 to 3 people. And within a month, as a result of that one person being infected, 400 people have gotten infected. And that's what we call exponential growth. So if you have one person infected, and there's no precautions, that one person leads to 400 infections.
CAMEROTA: That's just amazing.
Last night President Trump talked about his timeline for a vaccine.
So listen to this.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have a vaccine that's coming. It's ready. It's going to be announced within weeks. And it's going to be delivered. We have Operation Warp Speed, which is -- the military is going to distribute the vaccine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: You, Doctor, are involved in the Moderna vaccine trial. Are we weeks away?
DEL RIO: Well, I think -- for one thing I would say that we have really development of a vaccine is one of the most successful stories in this pandemic. And when we talk about all the failures, I think the way vaccines have been developed is absolutely incredible.
We went from finding a new virus in January to getting a first vaccine to humans in March, to starting phase three trials in July.
And, yesterday, the Moderna vaccine study actually completed the enrollment of 30,000 participants. Again, that was an incredibly fast speed of enrolling people. Pfizer also has completed enrollment. Now we have two vaccine studies, the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, which that are on hold because of a side effect.
So the way the vaccine race is heating up and is going, we will either have Moderna or Pfizer ready to look at the data. The DSMB (ph) probably will look at the data sometime in middle to late November, early December. There was a meeting of the advisory committee yesterday.
So I suspect the president's a little optimistic. We'll probably have a vaccine, if everything goes well, we'll probably is a vaccine ready for approval early next year and we'll probably start rolling out immunizations in March.
But I want to caution people that it is not going to be until the middle of next year to the third quarter of next year that we get it to the general population.
And this is a vaccine that both of those vaccines need two doses, both of those vaccines need refrigeration in a minus 70. So this is not a vaccine you're going to be able to go to Walgreens or CVS to get. This is a vaccine they're going to be getting at a very specific sites that the states are going to set up for vaccination.
BERMAN: Dr. Del Rio, thank you for that. Really appreciate you being with us this morning.
DEL RIO: Glad to be with you.
BERMAN: So from white lies to outright whoppers, so much to fact check in this debate. That's next.
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[06:43:28]
CAMEROTA: Last night's debate left us with a lot to fact check. Luckily, John Avlon has been up all night, as far as I can tell, and he has it in our "Reality Check."
Hi, John.
But looking fresh as a daisy.
JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you very much. Good to see you, as always.
All right, look, grading debates on a curve doesn't actually tell you what's happened. And that's why we're going to focus on the facts because right out of the gate Donald Trump lied about the COVID crisis that has claimed more than 220,000 American lives.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As you know, 2.2 million people, modeled out, were expected to die.
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AVLON: All right, this is what I mean about grading on a curve. Trump is trying to make the worst death total in the world look good because that 2.2 million number was estimated by a British report, if the USA did literally nothing about the pandemic. And a new Columbia University study found that at least 130,000 U.S. COVID-19 deaths could have been avoided if the Trump administration responded properly earlier.
And so there's also no evidence, as Trump claimed, that world leaders have congratulated him on his response.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're rounding the turn. We're rounding the corner. It's going away.
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AVLON: OK, unfortunately, coronavirus is not going away in the USA. In fact, newly confirmed cases, hospitalizations, and the test positivity rate are all getting worse, not better.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have a vaccine that's coming. It's ready. It's going to be announced within weeks.
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AVLON: Just like Trump's health care plan that's always going to be released in a few weeks, this is false.
[06:45:02]
Now, several companies are working intensely on a vaccine, but it is not ready. No vaccines have been applied to the FDA.
Now, on to election security, given new reports that Russia and Iran are interfering in this election.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He said, the one thing that's common to both of them, they both want you to lose, because there has been nobody tougher to Russia with -- between the sanctions, nobody tougher than me on Russia.
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AVLON: OK, that claim is just absurd on its face. CNN has found at least 37 times Trump has been strangely soft on Russia, ignoring intel reports of bounties being placed on U.S. troops, for example, and refusing to condemn the poisoning of an opposition leader.
Now, while Trump criticized the Obama administration's response during the seizure of Crimea last night, he's repeatedly refused to condemn Russia's aggression there. And as for the idea that Russia wants Trump to lose, well, the Russians have targeted Biden throughout this election, to apparently benefit Trump, as they did in 2016. And for all Trump's unhinged accusations about Biden and his son in Ukraine, don't forget, a Republican Senate report last month found no wrongdoing.
We'll be back with more next hour. But, for now, that's your "Reality Check."
CAMEROTA: Thank you very much, John. And we will look forward to next hour.
All right, meanwhile, the Texas Supreme Court making a ruling on drive-through voting in the state's most populous counties. So we will tell you what they've done, next.
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[06:50:27]
BERMAN: So 11 days left to vote and by some counts the number of votes cast early already is around all the early votes cast four years ago, at least in the places where they kept track. More importantly, the amount of votes that's in already is about 35 percent of all the votes cast four years ago. And, again, 11 days left to go.
CNN's Kristen Holmes joins us with the latest here.
And, Kristen, what's important is there are two ways to vote early, by mail and in person. And what's happening is, each of those methods are telling a little bit of a different story and things seem (ph) to be tight.
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John.
And so the pattern we really had been seeing when it came to early voting, and this, of course, included mail-in ballots, was that Democrats were far outpacing Republicans in terms of actually casting these early ballots. That is no longer the case, particularly in the swing states of Florida and North Carolina, where we have really seen that ramped up early, in-person voting.
North Carolina, for example, just between last Monday and today, the margin between Democrats and Republicans, it has been cut in half. Now, we still want to point out that the mail-in ballot system, that is still largely being utilized by Democrats.
And, John, when we talk about early voting, when we talk about what's going on across the country, it's really important to talk about all of the different cases that are shaping this election, court cases. And I want to mention one that is out of Texas, another state that's seen a huge influx of early voting.
The Supreme Court there, in the state, ruling to allow curbside voting. Now, this was something that was put in place by Harris County because of the pandemic. They said it was safer, that it was socially distant, and Republicans had sued to stop it. And just to keep in mind here, Harris County is the most populous county in the state, the third most populous county in the entire country.
So now the Supreme Court is saying that this is allowed. So different from what we just talked about yesterday when the U.S. Supreme Court said that curbside voting in Alabama was no longer going to be an option. But I do want to note, this is super important for Texans because 73,000 of them have already voted using the system.
BERMAN: Kristen, thank you very much for being with us, interrupting your nonstop counting of the early vote to give us the latest report. Appreciate it.
So, this morning, Europe struggling to contain record-breaking surges in coronavirus cases. We have reports from around the world, next.
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[06:56:34]
CAMEROTA: This morning, coronavirus cases are rising across much of Europe as stricter restrictions go into place.
We have CNN reporters across the world covering all of the new developments for you.
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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Scott McLean in Berlin, where Germany has recorded its highest single-day COVID-19 death toll since May. Europe is throwing restrictions, curfews, and even lockdowns of the coronavirus, but so far, the numbers continue to rise. France saw record-high cases this week and is now extended a 9:00 p.m. curfew to most of the country, now affecting 46 million people. Eastern Europe is seeing a spike in coronavirus deaths that it never saw in the spring. Poland is seeing four times more new COVID-19 deaths now than it did at the peak of the first wave. The Czech Republic is seeing six times more.
SELMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: I'm Selma Abdelaziz. In Manchester, where England's toughest coronavirus restrictions went into force today. Pubs and bars must shut down and households are virtually banned from mixing together. The restrictions came into place after a dramatic ten-day standoff where the mayor of greater Manchester outright refused to implement the governor's plans and demanded a larger financial package instead. He failed to reach a deal and the prime minister intervened to unilaterally force this city into these tougher measures.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Paula Hancocks in Seoul.
South Korea has reported a jump in new coronavirus cases from Thursday, the highest in more than a month. And 155 new cases, the vast majority of them locally transmitted. Health officials say that the reason for this increase is cluster infections in high-risk facilities. These are places like nursing hospitals or day care centers for the elderly. Authorities say they have been stepping up testing in those particular facilities and they're hoping to complete that program by the end of this month.
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CAMEROTA: Our thanks to all of our correspondents around the globe. And NEW DAY continues right now.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're rounding the corner. It's going away.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He says, we're learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it. You folks home will have an empty chair at the kitchen table.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump had said 38 times that it was going away. It was wrong eight months ago and it's wrong today. We're now back above 60,000 confirmed new cases per day.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Both of them were better than they were last time, but I thought that Joe Biden held his own. And that's all he had to do.
BIDEN: Kids were ripped from their arms and separated. And now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents. It's criminal!
TRUMP: They are so well taken care of. They're in facilities that were so clean.
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ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.
CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to your NEW DAY.
The final presidential debate was tense, but much more calm and more substantiate. President Trump toned down the outrage. He tried to portray Biden as the ultimate insider and himself as an outsider, though he's been in the White House for four years.
President Trump offered little in the way of concrete plans for a second term. Joe Biden challenged the president on his record, in particular his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. And 223,000 Americans have died and Joe Biden tried to channel those families.
BERMAN: So CNN's post-debate poll was pretty clear about who viewers thought won the debate. Joe Biden by 14 points. And it's interesting, right? The second debate Trump might have bested the first debate Donald Trump, but according to the poll, he didn't beat the guy he's actually running against.
[07:00:07]
Once again, the president made the false claim that we're rounding.
