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At This Hour

Three Houston Police Officers Injured In Shootout; Cases & Hospitalizations On Decline, Deaths Alarmingly High; Olympians Face Daunting Challenge Of Avoiding COVID; Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired January 28, 2022 - 11:30   ET

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


[11:30:00]

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Look at these pictures and listen. Silence in New York City right now. You're looking at live pictures of thousands of police officers, clergy, and the general public lining Fifth Avenue outside of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the iconic cathedral to pay their respects to NYPD officer, Jason Rivera.

The 22-year-old rookie and his partner, Wilbert Mora, were killed in an ambush attack while responding to a domestic disturbance call. During the deeply emotional funeral that just wrapped up, Rivera's widow spoke. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOMINIQUE LUZURIAGA, WIFE OF NYPD OFFICER JASON RIVERA: I couldn't believe you left me. Seeing you in a hospital bed wrapped up in sheets not hearing you when I was talking to you broke me. I asked why. I said to you wake up baby, I'm here. The little bit of hope I had that you will come back to life just to say goodbye or say I love you one more time had left. I was lost. I'm still lost.

Today I'm still in this nightmare that I wish I never had, full of rage, and anger, hurt, and sad, torn. Although I gained thousands of blue brothers and sisters, I'm the loneliest without you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Oh my God, her grief. The hearse is now beginning the procession. Let's listen in for just a second. This is down Fifth Avenue closed from 57th to 34th street, snowing, freezing, thousands of people silently paying their respects to this Fallen Officer. And this is a real moment of crisis for the city and the city showing -- trying to show that it is coming together.

Five police officers -- five NYPD officers have been shot since just the beginning of this year. And you see these two, Officer Jason Rivera, and Officer Wilbert Mora, whose funeral is still yet to come. Heroes that everyone needs to stop and honor today. And as we think of this, we want to turn to another story that is directly related to this. What we're talking about and what we're just seeing in New York City and what New York City is dealing with, is also happening in Houston. Three Houston police officers are recovering this morning after being shot in a chaotic chase and shoot out all of it caught on camera, watch.

[11:35:00]

BOLDUAN: God. CNN's Rosa Flores is live in Houston with more on this. Rosa, my God.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Kate, it's unfathomable. And all of this is a reminder of just how police officers across this country go out on the street to make sure that all of us can be at home safe so that we can sleep well at night. But this is the reality. This is the danger that they see day in and day out.

The Mayor of the City of Houston is calling this living in a very dangerous time right now in the city of Houston. I want to go straight to this video because this really shows you the reality. This suspect took police on a chase and you see in the video how his car crashes, he opens the door and immediately starts firing at police officers. Officers returned fire.

Now according to officers who were on the scene, they describe the sound of that gunfire as a fully automatic weapon. The police are checking in on that for us to see if that is indeed the case. That suspect ran after he got out of that vehicle, carjacked a vehicle, and then barricaded himself in a home. Now, we have a video of him turning himself in as well.

And you can see that he walks out. He puts his hands up. Turns himself in, to authorities. The police chief, Troy Finner, here in the city of Houston says he is tired of the violence here in this city. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TROY FINNER, CHIEF, HOUSTON POLICE: These violent individuals, I'm damn tired of it. Our city is a great city with great people and we've got to stand up for them and we're going to find out a way to deal with those very few very violent individuals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLORES: Now, Kate, the three officers, as you mentioned, are OK. And that's the good news here that these officers are OK, two of them are still in the hospital that you see behind me. One of them has been released. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Rosa, thank you so much for that. Coming up for us, there are some encouraging signs actually right now with the pandemic with cases and hospitalizations on the decline, but deaths remain alarmingly high. We're going to discuss that and where the battle against COVID is headed, next.

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[11:40:00]

BOLDUAN: Now to the latest on the pandemic, the U.S. is averaging more than half a million cases -- COVID cases a day right now, but that is down 28 percent from the peak two weeks ago. The U.S. is also now averaging more than 2200 deaths a day. Dr. Anthony Fauci says even in the face of those alarming numbers, there are positive signs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: My message would be, just hang in there because things look like at least for what's going on now with Omicron that, things are turning around. I'm cautiously optimistic that things are going in the right direction. We've seen that happen in South Africa, in the UK, and we're seeing it now in several cities in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now is Dr. Ashish Jha. He's the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Dr. Jha, thank you for being here. So Dr. Fauci says things are turning around, and he's cautiously optimistic, would you say the same right now?

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: I would. I would. Kate, first of all, thanks for having me back. I would. No doubt about it. Infections are down as you said. Deaths are still rising. We know that likes about two to three weeks behind. So my hope is within a week or so we see that peak and turn out to start turning. And my expectation is in the upcoming weeks, we will see substantial declines in infections.

BOLDUAN: I'd like to just stop right there and just end on a high note hearing that. But --

JHA: Let's be done.

BOLDUAN: -- But then there's this -- of course. You caught my attention earlier this week when you were talking about it being time to get out of the prediction business when it comes to what variant could be lurking around the next corner. What does that mean for how we lead our lives day to day while still in a pandemic, and also if we don't try to predict, how do we prepare?

JHA: Yes. And the reason I said we can't predict is we can't predict the timing, we can't predict what the features of the next variant will be. The only thing I feel pretty confident about is that we'll have more variants, we'll have future variants. So let's begin to prepare. And we know the tools, right? Let's make sure there's plenty of tests available.

Right now, there's still a supply-demand mismatch, too many people can't get a test. Let's make sure there's widespread masking available. Let's make sure that we make improvements in indoor ventilation so that indoor air quality is safer. And obviously, let's keep working on improving both therapeutics and vaccines, and make sure there's plenty of them. So whenever the next variant hits, we're going to be ready, we won't have to shut down schools, we won't have to shut down our lives. We'll manage our way through it.

BOLDUAN: They're so interesting you're talking about tests there because there was a survey -- a new survey out by the Kaiser Family Foundation. One of the questions was about testing, but it also had kind of a mixed bag of offerings in terms of good news and bad news.

The survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that 70 percent of people who are eligible for a booster say they've actually gotten a booster and that seems really good. Yet, 77 percent say they still think it is inevitable that most people will get COVID. What do you make to this?

[11:45:00]

JHA: Yes. So I think first of all the booster numbers are progress. I wish it was 90, 95 percent of people need to get their boosters, still some confusion about who needs it and what it should get it. Every adult needs to get a booster if they're five months out from their second shot, period. So that's kind of point number one progress, not as much as we want.

Second is over the long run, over the next six months, a year, two years, sure, I can imagine that most Americans will end up getting infected but it will mean less and less as we get more immunity, as we'd get developed better therapeutics. What I care most about is I don't want people sick. I don't want people in the hospital. I obviously don't want people dying. Our ability to prevent those things is getting better and better every day.

BOLDUAN: Dr. Jha, thanks for being here. It's good to see you.

JHA: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you. Coming up for us, the Beijing Olympic Games are now just a week away and athletes are already under so much pressure, how do they could get knocked out of the competition before they even reach the starting line.

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[11:50:00]

BOLDUAN: The Olympic Games are now just a week away. Athletes from all over the world are descending on Beijing with the daunting challenge of avoiding COVID so they -- so that they can live out their dreams to compete. CNN's Will Ripley explains this testing dilemma.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: These are extraordinarily sensitive COVID tests that China's using that could detect COVID. Even after somebody no longer has symptoms, even if somebody is not contagious, they could test positive.

With the COVID testing the daily COVID testing that they're using in China, the threshold that will cause somebody to be yanked out of the bubble and put in isolation until they test completely negative. It is -- it is -- it can be nerve-wracking. It is -- certainly raveling athletes who are basically afraid to even look each other in the eye or stand too close in many cases because they've been training so hard, they want to get into China and they want to compete and they absolutely do not want to test positive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Absolutely not. Joining me right now is CNN Contributor Patrick McEnroe. He's a former pro tennis player and commentator for ESPN. Patrick, it's great to see you. So, Olympic athletes, we know they're already under such intense pressure as they head into any Olympic Games, then this added layer of stress from COVID though. I mean, concerns they aren't -- they aren't even infectious but because of the sensitivity of the test that they're using, a positive result could throw them out of competition. I mean, what do you think the impact of this is on athletes?

PATRICK MCENROE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Kate, as you said, being in the Olympic Games is stressful enough for an athlete and when I look at my history and the idea that I was able to be in the Olympic Games as a Captain, as a Coach in Athens and now you've got throw this into the mix for the athletes, this is extremely difficult. This is an opportunity of a lifetime for these athletes.

And then you top it off, Kate, with the idea that all information that's coming out of China, once you get there is being squashed by the government. And where the heck are you going to end up if you're an athlete? They say if you have symptoms, you'll be in the hospital. If you don't have symptoms, you're going to end up in a quarantine location. Boy that ups the ante on the stress level for athletes, no doubt, who should be celebrating this moment.

BOLDUAN: Right, exactly. I mean, into your point about information. I mean, one high-ranking Australian official even went so far to warn Olympians coming from Australia to not even take their cell phones to the games because they -- because the way he put it is China's not a free country and you will not be entitled to free speech. When I saw that I was like, but that's what the whole point of the games is about, is the world coming together.

MCENROE: No doubt, Kate. I mean, the point is, when you're an Olympic athlete, as I was a coach, it's to be with the other athletes, to meet other athletes, to meet people from all over the world. I'm hearing from journalists as well who are heading to the Olympic Games, who have no idea what is actually going to be like, can they send messages home, can they look at the internet, so you combine all of that. It seems like an Orwellian experience what it looks like watching from afar. I can only imagine what it must be like for the athletes, the support teams, and the journalists that are actually headed to Beijing. BOLDUAN: It's a great point, Patrick. Also hanging over the games, the continued questions and concerns over the well-being of Chinese tennis star, Peng Shuai, the IOC now says that it's spoken her last week is going to meet with her during the Olympics. You've been very outspoken about this. How do you see this development?

MCENROE: I don't like it at all, Kate. I mean, this is continuing the pattern that the Chinese Government has been implementing since this whole saga began with Peng Shuai. Number one, squash everything from the internet. They did that successfully within China about Peng Shuai, about the allegations, even about tennis for some time. Then deny everything. They've had Peng Shuai publicly deny it.

Then the third part of it is to attack people who question. Did you see the press conference with a foreign minister spokesperson from the China government yesterday attacking someone from Bloomberg who had the gall to ask, what's the story with Peng Shuai and what's going to happen? They're a group of activists in Australia, Kate, where I'm covering the Australian Open that has printed T-shirts for people to show up at the Women's final, which happens later tonight, where is Peng Shuai. So we'll see what happens with that tonight. I'll be watching that very closely.

[11:55:00]

BOLDUAN: And since you mentioned it, now I was going to ask anyway. I have to ask you about the Australian Open. Rafael Nadal is now heading to the men's final and was one win away from becoming, like, the winningest tennis player in the world. What does this moment mean especially after all that has happened and you and I have discussed?

MCENROE: Well, we thought it was going to be Novak Djokovic, who's won this title nine times. And then, of course, we had that saga, which ended with Djokovic being deported. So here comes Rafael Nadal who missed six months of last year with injury issues, and he's missed a few opportunities to win Majors, his 21st Major. So they're tied at 20, Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic.

And now you've got Rafael Nadal going for number 21 in Australia. But, Kate, it is not going to be easy. He takes on Daniil Medvedev who won the U.S. Open -- who denied Djokovic in New York at the U.S. Open. And unfortunately, I know you're a Nadal fan, Kate as am I, I believe that Daniil Medvedev is going to deny Nadal again. I'm looking for a classic five-setter but I think the Russian is a little bit too good on hardcourts right now.

BOLDUAN: We will watch it together. Thank you so much, Patrick. It's great to see you.

I wanted to -- I want to close the hour with this, an incredibly moving image. These images of the funeral procession for New York Police Officer Jason Rivera. Take a look at this picture. I want to show you that we've just seen tens of thousands of police officers lining Fifth Avenue to honor the slain 22-year-old officer, all of this playing out still as we speak. Rivera and his partner Wilbert Mora were killed in an ambush attack last Friday. Their families are in our thoughts and they must be and must remain there. Thanks for being here. We'll be back.

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