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The Lead with Jake Tapper
WHO Warns Against Herd Immunity Strategy; New COVID-Related Illness in Children?; White House Now Coronavirus Hot Spot?; Aired 3- 3:30p ET
Aired May 11, 2020 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:00:00]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Special coverage continuing now with Jake Tapper.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
In the next hour, President Trump will take questions from the White House. He's eager to project confidence that he is in control of this coronavirus crisis and that the country is ready to reopen.
He's attempting this at the same time that it's not clear that he can even keep the coronavirus out of his own workplace. Three top health officials on the Coronavirus Task Force, the top infectious disease expert, Dr. Fauci, as well as the -- Dr. Hahn, the head of the FDA, and Dr. Redfield, the head of the CDC, they are all in some state of self-quarantine right now after coming in contact with two White House staffers who have in recent days been infected with the virus and tested positive.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds also said that she will follow a modified quarantine after she visited the White House last week.
It's difficult to see, but this is Vice President Pence arriving at the White House today. He was not wearing a mask. A spokesman for the vice president said Pence will not be in quarantine, despite the fact that a different spokesperson for the vice president, Katie Miller, is one of the two White House officials who tested positive for the virus.
That's Miller in this photo you can see right now from Thursday. This is at a Virginia retirement home from before she tested positive. She is the only one in the picture not wearing a mask.
A source tells CNN that the president has been expressing worry that these infections inside his own White House undermine his message that the pandemic is under control and that states should reopen.
Those White House cases are just a small part, of course, of the more than 1.3 million who have tested positive in this country. And at this hour, there are 79,894 deaths due to coronavirus in the United States.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins joins me now live from the White House.
And, Kaitlan, we're already beginning to see some changes at the White House today. What are you learning about the vice president's call with governors?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so this is the only thing on the vice president's schedule today.
Of course, that comes after his office said he was not going to be quarantining and he's still here at work today. But, typically, these calls are done in a conference room. The other members of the task force usually come with him, including Dr. Birx. Several of those, you just pointed out are quarantining after coming into contact with his press secretary.
But, today, we're told that on that call that the vice president was on the call via video. He was in a separate room. Dr. Birx was on the call. But she was also in a room by herself as well.
And now, while some few staffers came in during these calls into those rooms, we're told that they were not hanging out in there, they were wearing masks, the people that you saw entering the room, though the vice president wasn't, but Dr. Birx was wearing a mask.
So it's notable. They're separating them. They're in their own rooms. One of them is wearing a mask. One of them is not. And that's notable already, because that is now what they were doing just last week or the weeks earlier before that, Jake, during these calls.
So you do get the sense that there is a heightened level of concern here at the White House now that two people who work very closely to the president and the vice president have now tested positive for coronavirus.
And one thing we should note they're doing his contact tracing throughout the weekend, trying to figure out all of the staffers that Katie Miller came in contact with, so they can figure out who could potentially have this, what they need to be looking for, because she was not only here at the White House in these coronavirus meetings.
She also went to Camp David with the president the weekend before that. So there's a lot of concern ,basically, about what that possible exposure could be.
TAPPER: And, Kaitlan, there's this new video out showing food executives removing their masks before meeting with Vice President Pence. This was last week.
Do we have any idea why they removed their masks, why they believed it was safe?
COLLINS: Yes, this was this roundtable the vice president did last Friday hours after we found out that his press secretary had tested positive. And, of course, they had to get a few staffers off his plane before he finished that trip in case they'd make contact with his press secretary. And here you can see the executives were all wearing masks before the vice president got there. Then you see that unidentified staffer come in. We can't hear what she says.
But, Jake, she signals to them that it's OK for them to remove their masks. And then the vice president comes in and they have this roundtable with none of them wearing masks.
Now, a source close to this said that was because they were seated six feet apart and, therefore, in accordance with CDC guidance that they did not need to wear a mask, though you can't really tell how far apart those people on the sides are. You don't really get a good image of that from what the camera saw there.
But it just goes to show the lengths that this staffer was going through, who was there, we should note, on behalf of the administration, basically telling these people who were already wearing masks that they didn't need to wear them.
TAPPER: All right, Kaitlan Collins at the White House, thanks so much.
I want to bring in CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger now and CNN political correspondent Abby Phillip.
Abby, let me start with you.
Sources tell CNN that the president has expressed frustration over the fact that two staffers in the White House contracted coronavirus. The president's concerned, apparently, that it undercuts his message about it being safe to reopen.
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What do you expect President Trump will say at this briefing scheduled for 4:00?
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, this briefing is supposed to be about the issue of testing.
And the president has already made it clear that he doesn't think that some of these projections about how much testing needs to happen in this country on a daily basis is really what needs to happen. He thinks potentially that they're -- that the United States is already doing pretty well when it comes to testing.
But I think one of the things that this incident in the White House really illustrates is that even in a place where testing is widespread and happening on a really regular basis, there is still transmission happening on the White House grounds.
And he's going to have to answer some questions about how he gets the country to a place where people feel comfortable going back to work, going into stores, being in indoor places with each other if testing is not more widely available.
The U.S. has gotten a lot better about this, but clearly a lot more needs to happen. I expect, as we often do, we will hear a lot of happy talk from the president. But there are a lot of serious answers that the public needs about how we can get to a better place, so that we don't see, frankly, what we're already seeing happening in the White House compound, in a place where people are getting tested on a weekly and a daily basis.
TAPPER: And, Gloria, as of right now, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, and the head of the FDA, Dr. Stephen Hahn, they're all right now in some version of self-quarantine because of possible exposure to coronavirus at the White House.
And yet still President Trump refuses to follow the guidelines he's given to the rest of us. He doesn't wear a mask, he doesn't social distance. Why not set an example?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, because that's not the example he wants to set.
The example he wants to set -- and I think we're going to hear a lot of that later this afternoon -- is: Everything's fine. We're going back to normal. Things will be OK.
He doesn't want to appear in a mask because he thinks -- he thinks that public will say, well, wait a minute, if you're in a mask, why are things OK?
And I think the problem that the president has been having is that what's going on in the White House contradicts that very message. I mean, he's been tweeting over the weekend, for example, about how Democrats want to drag out the reopening because of politics.
Well, lots of governors want to drag out the reopening because they want to do it in an orderly way, so that they don't endanger people's lives. But that is not the message. The message is, get back to normal, we have to reopen the country, and everything needs to look normal at the White House, so you can know that it's normal in your community as well.
TAPPER: OK, but, I mean, what about all the dead people? I mean, isn't that a clear indication that things--
BORGER: Well, that's right. Of course.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: You don't hear the president -- yes, you don't hear the president talking about that a lot, Jake, do you?
You don't -- at the beginning of this, we heard the president talk about the terrible toll this has taken in the country for people who have gotten the virus and people who have died from the virus. But you're not hearing that a lot now.
TAPPER: Yes.
Abby, White House economic adviser -- senior adviser Kevin Hassett told me yesterday that he knows he is putting himself at risk by continuing to go into the White House to work. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN HASSETT, CHAIRMAN, COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: I knew, when I was going back in, that I would be taking risks, that I would be safer sitting at home at my house than going into a West Wing that, even with all the testing in the world and the best medical team on Earth, is a relatively cramped place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: And, Abby, this is something that I think many people at home might not understand. You know it because you cover the White House.
Explain to our viewers just how tight the working conditions are inside the West Wing and, theoretically, how quickly a case would be able to spread.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, relatively cramped space is really an understatement for what the West Wing is.
I mean, the White House is a large compound. But the West Wing is very small. You have a lot of people working in a small -- a very small place. The hallways are tight. People are sharing offices. And then on top of that you had a White House where things were basically business as usual.
It's been really surprising for me to see the White House continuing to insist on having in-person meetings, where people are coming from all over the country to sit in the Oval Office and in other places with the president, even while the rest of the country has moved largely to a teleworking situation, where people are conducting meetings virtually.
There's been a sense that almost nothing has changed in terms of the day-to-day in the White House. And when you have so many people working in those tight quarters, hallways where two people can't walk past in the same hallway without brushing shoulders, that is really a recipe for the kind of transmission that is really problematic.
[15:10:02]
And if you were a staffer working in that White House, and if you, for example, like some staffers do, are sitting basically shoulder to shoulder with your colleagues in these kind of open floor plan office spaces, it is impossible to socially distance in those kinds of environments, especially if people are not wearing masks.
And we know now that is starting to change. But this has been going on for weeks now, where the White House has been operating basically with business as usual. And I think that's one of the reasons why you're seeing them suddenly scrambling to control an outbreak in that compound.
TAPPER: And we're just getting word now that there's a new memo that went out to White House staffers instructing them to wear masks when they go into the White House.
PHILLIP: Right.
TAPPER: And, Gloria, this is the rub. They do at the White House surveillance testing. They do contact tracing. They do what the health experts say needs to be done all over the country.
And even they at the White House can't keep this from spreading inside.
BORGER: Right.
TAPPER: What luck -- what kind of luck are the rest of us going to have when we all go back to work?
BORGER: Right. And that's the lesson.
I mean, you look at this and you say, wait a minute, they have testing available to them that we don't have available to us, that most people in the country don't. And yet they are not immune from this virus spreading.
And what -- as we look at the White House -- look at the White House, we have to say, wait a minute, this can spread no matter what, no matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter how many times you have been tested.
If you're tested the day after, one may be a negative, another one might be a positive. And yet, on the other hand, you have the president coming out and saying, let's reopen the country, we have enough tests.
The question is, do we have enough tests? Do the governors believe they have enough tests? And in most cases, the answer is absolutely not.
TAPPER: All right, Gloria and Abby, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Stay with us.
BORGER: Sure.
TAPPER: We're going to check back with you after President Trump speaks.
Coming up: There's a new mystery illness hitting children. It could be linked to the coronavirus. We're going to talk to a health expert about that.
Plus, an outbreak of coronavirus all tying back to a nightclub in one city, after the nightclubs attempted to reopen.
That story is ahead. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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TAPPER: Tragically, even more children are getting sick from a mystery illness that could be connected to coronavirus.
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York says that his state alone is up to at least 93 cases. And at least three children in New York have died, with possible other cases across the country.
I want to bring in Dr. Steven Kernie. He's chief of pediatric critical care medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He oversaw the treatment of two dozen of these patients.
Dr. Kernie, thanks so much for joining us for this awful subject.
Certainly, when you look at the number of cases, it appeared children were getting sick from coronavirus in much lower numbers, but could it be that it's just presenting as just a different kind of illness?
DR. STEVE KERNIE, NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL: Well, what we think is happening is that you're exactly right.
Certainly, the acute coronavirus infection did -- does affect children much less, meaning, unless they have really serious underlying medical conditions, they don't seem to get really sick from it.
What we're seeing now is something not in kids with serious underlying medical conditions, but really kids without a lot of issues, but have been exposed to the coronavirus sometime in the past, we think sometime -- somewhere between three and six weeks previous to when they're presenting now.
TAPPER: And your hospital has seen about two dozen of these children with this mysterious illness. You call it pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome.
How did you make the connection to the coronavirus?
KERNIE: Yes.
And I apologize for the name. We don't call it that. But that seems to be what people have adopted.
What we first started seeing about two weeks ago were children who came in what we call the generalized inflammatory state that was manifest by high fever and kind of a diffuse body rash, and they appeared ill and, oftentimes, they would have cracked lips and injection of the eyes, really high heart rates and low blood pressure.
And we'd have to bring them into the ICU, give them I.V. fluids, give them medications to help their heart rate or their heart work better, and then see how they recovered.
How we made the association with coronavirus was that, initially, and even now, less than half the kids we see with this are testing positive for the coronavirus itself, meaning, the PCR test that detects RNA from the virus is oftentimes negative.
But now that we can do rapid antibody testing, we know that all of the children that we have seen have been exposed to the coronavirus. It's just sometime after they have been acutely infected.
TAPPER: A new study out today found that 48 children with COVID-19 who had been admitted to pediatric intensive care units, 23 percent of them had a failure of two or more organ systems, the most common one being the lung system.
Have you seen similar findings in children with this illness?
KERNIE: So, what we're not seeing is a lot of lung disease.
So, with the acute COVID infection, particularly in adults, pneumonia, and something we call ARDS, bad respiratory failure, is what seems to be the cause of them going into the hospital and what they typically die from.
[15:20:00]
In children, it seems to be different, meaning it's more of a systemic problem that is a vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels, and in turn affects how well their heart functions.
So, yes, all organ systems can be involved. And we have seen many of them, but typically not the lungs.
TAPPER: Is there evidence coronavirus spread in the same households of the children with this mysterious illness?
KERNIE: Yes, there is, meaning that, typically, when you get a history from the family, somebody either had suspected or confirmed coronavirus infection, oftentimes a parent or an older adult, in the household several weeks beforehand.
What we're not seeing is that this manifestation of coronavirus, it doesn't seem to be appearing in siblings, so that brothers and sisters aren't getting it, maybe one kid out of the family.
We still believe -- even though we have seen two or three dozen cases at our hospital, we still think, given the number of children who've been exposed to coronavirus, it really remains a rare complication.
TAPPER: So this illness seems to be affecting mostly children under the age of 5. Why do you think that is?
KERNIE: Well, that's not been our experience.
TAPPER: OK.
KERNIE: So we have really seen children of all ages from -- yes, some under 5, but up into their teens.
TAPPER: OK.
Dr. Steven Kernie, thank you so much. Best of luck battling this cruel new twist on this disease.
A new major warning from the World Health Organization, calling one coronavirus mitigation theory dangerous.
That's next.
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TAPPER: A dramatic warning from the World Health Organization today.
The concept of herd immunity, the World Health Organization says, is -- quote -- "dangerous." And the organization warns the recovery for many patients can be a very, very long and painful road.
I want to bring in CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.
Elizabeth, the idea of herd immunity is, a large portion of the population gets infected, and that creates a degree of immunity in the future.
What is concern from the WHO?
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, herd immunity, in and of itself, Jake, is a good thing if you achieve it with a vaccine. That's what we have done, for example, with measles in this country. We have herd immunity because most of us have either had measles or were vaccinated against it.
But if you don't have a vaccine, which, of course, is the case with COVID-19, the only way to get herd immunity is for the vast majority of the population to get infected, which means that you're going to have many, many deaths.
So what the WHO is trying to say is, don't think, oh, we will just get -- let everyone get infected, it'll be great, then we will have herd immunity. You will also have many, many dead people.
And they said, this is not the way to do it. This is the WHO's way of saying, keep doing all of these mitigation, all of these stay-at-home measures, so that we can hold out until we have a vaccine or at least better treatments.
TAPPER: And, Elizabeth, the World Health Organization also warned about these long-term issues for recovering patients. Tell us more about that.
COHEN: Right.
I think, sometimes, people think, when you get over an infection and you get just -- let's say you have been in the hospital, you're discharged, you sort of waltz out of there and you're fine. They are finding that this is not the case with this virus.
What they're finding is that people have these lingering heart problems, they have lingering respiratory problems. I know that I have spoken with people who have been recovering for a month or two from this virus, and they are still very weak, finding it difficult, for example, just to get up a flight of stairs.
This is a very serious infection. And even once you're out of the hospital, even once you're no longer technically infected, you can still feel quite ill.
TAPPER: And the WHO also said there's an alarming number of health care workers who have become infected, and that most of the world remains susceptible to this virus.
COHEN: Right.
Most -- and, sometimes, people think, oh, this has been going on for a while, there must be many people who've had this. Not really. When they look for people who've been infected and they can check their blood for antibodies, they're finding that really only a very, very small percentage of the population has been infected.
And that is why we are nowhere near herd immunity. Also, very striking how many health care workers all around the world have become infected. Part of the problem is that there hasn't been enough protective gear. At least in the United States, that situation is improving.
But, really, these health care workers are heroes. They are risking their life when they take care of coronavirus patients.
TAPPER: All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much.
The South Dakota governor is threatening legal action against two Native American tribes over COVID checkpoints that the tribes have set up on Sioux land.
Governor Kristi Noem ordered that the checkpoints be removed, but the leaders of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe are fighting back, saying that the checkpoints are essential to saving lives, as the Native American community across this nation gets ravaged by the pandemic.
CNN's Sara Sidner joins me now.
And, Sara, the governor's argument boils down to traffic concerns, right?
SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Traffic concerns and whether supplies, for example, can get through, medical personnel can get through.
