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Autopsy: Bob Saget Died After Falling, Hitting His Head; NYC Could Fire Up To 3,000 Unvaccinated Employees Today; Russian Teen To Get Urgent Hearing On Positive Drug Test. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired February 11, 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]

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: You could also have a substantial impact just from falling from standing, especially if you hit your head on something hard like the floor or the bathtub or an edge of a cabinet.

And in this case, it looks like Mr. Saget had two different types of brain bleeds, a subdural as well as a subarachnoid hemorrhage and what happens is that the blood vessels rip or rupture and then you end up getting pooling of the blood inside the brain. And because the skull doesn't have space, I mean your skull doesn't expand, and so if you have a lot of blood, the brain ends up getting compressed and that's why somebody ends up losing consciousness or unfortunately dying. And I think this should be a call to action for all of us to just be on the lookout.

If you have any concerns after a head injury, seek help immediately, especially if you're older -- if you're on blood thinners and also, if you have any symptoms like blurry vision, confusion, headache, any stroke-like symptoms, for example, loss of weakness or numbness in one side of your body, just be on the safe side and seek help and make sure to tell somebody in your family or a friend that you have this head injury so that they can check on you too.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: I was going to ask you because I heard one doctor describing at least one of the injuries he said Basilar, I might be saying that wrong, skull fracture. But when that happens, what does it do to the body? Is it -- is it immediate or as you said like you need to tell people that this has happened so they can check on you? It's not -- it's sometimes the impact and the danger in the emergency is quite delayed.

WEN: That's right, so the injury would occur immediately. But what happens is that when you have a skull fracture or just impact to the head, it causes a disruption to the blood vessels. And so there is bleeding, but the bleeding can accumulate over time.

And then that pressure inside the brain builds to the point that somebody ends up losing consciousness and then dying. And so that period takes time. Sometimes it could be very fast but it could also occur over the course of hours or days. Sometimes in the ER, we see patients who fell days ago, and now they're having really substantial symptoms. That said, that's the reason why it's so important to seek medical care because you don't know how quickly your symptoms may be developing.

BOLDUAN: To the point. You know, Casey, the sheriff spoke to CNN's John Berman today and laid out how they came to their conclusion with this. Let me play what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MINA, SHERIFF, ORANGE COUNTY, FLORIDA: We were able to you know track his movements from his previous show to the hotel, he actually took a photo with someone that night before he died right outside the hotel. He went up to his room, locked himself in there. We -- you know, the hotel actually had to remove some of the locks manually to get into the hotel room. The room was new clean, with no signs of a struggle, and so we believe the death was accidental.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Casey, walk us through what investigators would have to see, what they'd be looking at to declare the death accidental?

CASEY JORDAN, CRIMINOLOGIST AND BEHAVIORAL ANALYST: Well, sure. And understand that the cause of death was blunt head trauma, but the manner of death is what they have to determine. Was it natural, accidental, suicide, homicide, or could it just be undetermined? And in this case, they decided it was accidental because of these circumstances, no sign of a struggle, no sign of a forced entry, no drugs in a system other than prescription drugs that he was already taking, not even any alcohol in his system, so no signs of suicide.

But when we hear blunt head trauma, we automatically think it must be a homicide. Somebody must have clubbed him over the head. And we think a lot of that case from about 20 years ago of a woman named Kathleen Peterson, who allegedly fell down her stairs but later her husband was convicted of bludgeoning her head, and sort of time for that, but this turns out to be something based on all of the circumstances that looks like an absolute accidental strike to the head, possibly a fall in the bathtub or something like that.

Your viewers might also remember the actress Natasha Richardson, who about 23 years ago, was skiing, and had a very soft fall in snow but struck her head, got up, shook it off, went back to her hotel room, and then later died and nobody thought anything of it. So everything that Leona says is absolutely true. We have no sign of any foul play, no sign of suicide, drug overdose. He did have an enlarged heart that was made of complicated things. He probably hit his head, went to bed to sleep it off, and never woke up.

BOLDUAN: Casey, thank you. Doctor Wen, it was great to see you. Thank you so much.

JORDAN: Thank you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, thousands of New York City municipal workers are facing a very big decision today, get vaccinated or get fired? A live report next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:35:00]

BOLDUAN: Let's turn now to the pandemic. And it is the deadline day for thousands of unvaccinated city employees in New York. Those who haven't gotten the shot yet, have until the end of today to get one or else. CNN's Athena Jones is live in New York and she's tracking all of this for us. Athena, what's going to happen today?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, we're going to wait and see what happens. This is that mandate that was announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio late last year in the fall and so this has been in effect.

[11:40:00]

JONES: Mayor de Blasio then saying, you know, our public employees will lead us out of the COVID error. Mayor Eric Adams is enforcing this rule. He was asked about this yesterday and he said, look, I want the city workers to continue to be employed in my administration, but they have to follow the city's vaccine guidance. He said -- he said, we are not firing them, people are quitting. If you're not following the rules, you are making that decision.

So, the vast majority of the city's municipal workforce, we're talking about more than 370,000 people, have gotten vaccinated as required. We're looking at an estimated 3000 or so workers who may lose their jobs if they can't prove they're vaccinated today, so we will have to wait and see. City officials think that that number couldn't have been lower because people are going to be rushing at the last minute to get vaccinated, but certainly, with mandates being lifted, a lot of folks are saying vaccine mandates are important to getting to the point where you can lift other mandates, Kate.

BOLDUAN: It's great to see you, Athena. Thank you for the update. Joining me now for more on this is Dr. Jay Varma. He's the Director of Weill Cornell Medicine Center for Pandemic Prevention and Response. He also advised former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on the pandemic response as well. Thanks for being here, Dr. Varma. Deadline day for 3000 New York City workers to get vaccinated or lose their jobs, they've already been on unpaid leave for months. It is less than 1 percent of the city's workforce, to be sure, what do you think about this moment?

DR. JAY VARMA, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER FOR PUBLIC HEALTH, NYC MAYOR'S OFFICE: I think you know one of the most important interventions that New York City made during the pandemic was setting a standard that if you're going to be a worker in this city, you need to be vaccinated. It's a way to protect yourself, it's a way to protect your co-workers and the clients that come seeking services from you, and it's a way to keep us all safe.

So, it's really unfortunate, obviously, that people have chosen not to get vaccinated. But we have to remember. This is really just a tiny fraction of all the people in the city who have stood up and said, you know, getting vaccinated is something I do for myself and it's something I do for everybody else.

BOLDUAN: So there are vaccines, and now their conversation has shifted to mask requirements and mask -- indoor mask requirements. Only eight states still require masks indoors, and five of those have announced an end date to it. And there's a big question -- this gets a big question and debate among public health officials over whether it is too soon, or is it the right time, which is exactly what you write about in a New York Times op-ed.

You wrote -- you wrote up -- just for context for everyone. You wrote up de Blasio's first COVID strategy document and in it -- this mask mandate -- the indoor mask mandate was part of it. But now you say this. I'm just as perplexed now, as I was almost two years ago about the best metrics to use to monitor the pandemic and how to use them to trigger actions that slow the spread. Why?

VARMA: You know, this virus keeps changing, our tools of how we diagnose it, and how we monitor it keep changing. And, you know, the main reason I wanted to write that opinion piece was, you know, there's been a lot of discussions, particularly coming from academic circles, but even from policy circles about people saying, you know, why can't we have a simple number, like the temperature or how much rain there's going to be to make us decide whether to do things?

And I really wanted to make the point that unfortunately, our answer is not going to come from just -- from statistics. The data is important, we need to know are more cases rising, is it threatening our healthcare system? But fundamentally, this is about a, you know, social and political decision. How much risk do we tolerate? And how much are we responsible for our own risk? And how much are we responsible for our neighbor's risk?

BOLDUAN: It's a bigger question because it -- but still, no matter how hard it is, people do need guidance and politicians do need to make decisions, right? So now, with the hindsight that you have, and these questions that you've been kind of contemplating, what should the guidance be on masks now?

VARMA: Yes. So at this very moment, I think all of us in public health feel pretty strongly that we understand the importance of removing these restrictions, we would like to wait a little longer and I think that's because so many of us are closely connected to people working in the hospitals, and we really worry about their energy and resilience. But let's put that aside for a moment and let's say, you know, this is really a decision for elected officials and they've made the decision to remove this, which is their right.

So what I would like to see is to make it easier for individuals to protect themselves. And so what does that mean? That means basically making high-quality masks like N95 masks as widely available as you know, toilet paper and soap and water are in every facility. That's a basic hygiene measure. Let's give people individual tools so they can protect themselves. And the same is true for testing. Because we know that diagnostic tests are cheap to make, let's make them available everywhere. So if we're going to shift to people taking individual responsibility, let's, as a society, make sure those tools are available. So we don't need a mandate but we give people the tools that they can use themselves.

[11:45:00]

BOLDUAN: I actually really appreciate kind of the shift in perspective of right. Rather than imposing, give people the tools to protect themselves rather than making it require sort certain requirements to people. I think that that at least feels like a path towards manageable.

VARMA: Well, I think it is. And I think what's concerning to many of us in public health, though is that you're not seeing that in sustained commitment. What you have often seen, and we saw this with the response to Delta and Omicron, they're like, OK, the vaccines are working so we don't need to invest in testing anymore.

Well, actually, it's the wrong time to do it. You know, the best time to be prepared for a storm is when it's sunny outside, right? You don't buy your umbrella in the middle of the storm, you buy it ahead of time. So let's do that. Let's buy those umbrellas, those masks, and test because we know this virus isn't done with us. But we need to give people those tools. We can simply say OK, we're done and hope it'll be done.

BOLDUAN: Dr. Varma, thank you for coming in.

VARMA: Great, thank you very much for having me.

BOLDUAN: Thank you. Coming up for us first, a positive test for a banned drug, now an emergency hearing to decide the fate of a Russian Olympic figure skater, and the huge competition next week, creating a real deadline to figure this out. A live report from Beijing, next.

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[11:50:00]

BOLDUAN: Now, let's turn to the scandal that is gripping the Olympic -- Winter Olympic Games. Russian skating sensation, Kamila Valieva, will soon learn whether she can compete next week, with a hearing in the coming days. This comes after she tested positive for a banned drug. And Valieva is slated to compete in the women's shorts program on Tuesday.

And we also still don't know if the Russian team will be awarded the Gold Medal, that's also gotten caught up in all of this. Let's get the very latest from the person who's been breaking all the news on this, CNN's Sports Analyst Christine Brennan. She's a sports columnist for USA Today, live in Beijing. So Christine, where do you -- what is happening at this moment, like where do things stand here?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: Yes, Kate, you know, I think the most significant development over the last, say 24 hours since we last spoke is that the International Olympic Committee is kind of been heard from after hemming and hawing and saying they can't talk and don't want to, it's a legal issue, and we got to see what happens. They're now actually part of this appeal that is appealing the Russian

decision to allow Valieva to continue to practice. So the Russian said, it's OK she was banned, then they said no, you're not banned. And now, the IOC is saying we want to appeal that. Which means translated, it means that the IOC does not want her to compete.

The IOC is concerned about doping and is just -- says they don't want her to be able to participate, then that would also potentially lead to the gold medal being awarded to the United States presuming everything moves forward. So, I think that's the biggest news, and it's not necessarily surprising because, of course, the IOC is all about anti-doping, is all about not wanting people to cheat.

And even though she's 15, and there's a lot of sympathy for her, and it clearly looks like her team and the adults around her, the coaches are the ones we should be looking at. You know, you've got to have her not be -- not be skating. She cannot -- she cannot be participating if you want to have a clean sport and if you want to have these games not be tainted by this story.

BOLDUAN: I have to ask you with this whole thing, it feels to me like drug testing protocols, especially when it comes to the Olympics should be pretty clear cut, like test result is X, and so that triggers this consequence. Why isn't this clear cut or at least it doesn't feel that way at all? I mean, so much confusion and lack of transparency, at least it feels that way. Why is this?

BRENNAN: Right. Because she takes the test on Christmas Day, December 25, and it's not till February 8 that the result is given. That's unheard of. What happened in those what is that six weeks -- five, six weeks? That leads to so many questions, and obviously, because Russia is already on probation, they've are -- they're already in trouble for state-sponsored doping, and this has been going on for four Olympic Games, of course, that leads anyone who's looking at this to question everything. It is confusing, but the bottom line is that the results should have been known sooner. Did the Russians know? Did they keep it a secret? Did they not want obviously to have Valieva compete?

And so we didn't know. Was the test lost? So many questions, but the issue there is it was before the Olympics. That said, because she's tested positive, you -- even if she's had negative tests now, that doesn't change the fact it was a positive drug test less than two months for the Olympic Games.

To me, that's a closed -- that's a closed case. It's -- that's doping of the highest order. And this is also, of course, a drug that is performance-enhancing, this is a drug that could make her compete better, have better endurance, and less fatigue. And that's the classic definition of performance-enhancing.

BOLDUAN: That's -- and that is a great point. I mean, we know that -- has anyone talked to her or heard from her directly on what she says about this? I mean, this gets, of course, more complicated. She's a minor. She's only 15 years old. I'm just curious.

BRENNAN: Yes. She's -- the only time we've seen her, is in the mixed zone, that's the area where we do our interviews, where the journalists can be, the athletes' walkthrough, it's kind of like a maze, and they come along and they talk to us. Nathan Chen did yesterday. You know, that's where all -- we see all the athletes. So and she has basically said, you know, not talking, obviously English to Russian is difficult anyway and so we've heard not a word. And we may not hear another word from her.

[11:55:00]

BRENNAN: And -- but race -- and, 0f course, the Russians are saying nothing's wrong here, nothing to see, we are in the medals honestly. And so, of course, they are. That's what they, of course, will say. The question is who -- what's going to be said by the Court of Arbitration for Sport? That's kind of the Supreme Court for the Olympic Games, Kate, and that's where this is now.

And they are here on-site at every Olympics. This is their job to try to adjudicate some of these issues, and that's what they're going to have to do. And it has to be done quickly because the women's short program is Tuesday night. So basically, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, to make this decision.

BOLDUAN: All right, stay close. It's good to see you, Christine. Thank you so much. And thank you all so much for being here with us AT THIS HOUR. I'm Kate Bolduan. INSIDE POLITICS with John King starts after this break.

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