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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Beirut Explosion Aftermath; Mississippi Outbreak; Schools Begin Reopening. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired August 05, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

[16:30:00]

MELISSA DAVIS, SINGLE MOTHER: They were making more on unemployment with the extra $600.

So, I can see how people have lost the motivation to go back to work. You're at risk going back to work to catching the COVID. But I also think that people need to go back to work for their sanity.

In my perfect world, everything would go back to normal, everyone could go back to work. And I might -- personally, I went crazy at home with two children for three months.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Right.

DAVIS: I was going crazy. They were going crazy. So, I like to go to work and it's great, but, at this point, with homeschooling, and my dad on hospice, it's just a risk for me to go to work.

BROWN: Oh, gosh.

DAVIS: I don't want to expose that to my (AUDIO GAP)

BROWN: Yes. No, understandably. And I'm so sorry to hear your dad's on hospice.

So, I mean, just you are going through what so many Americans across the country are going through. And you point out something really important, that homeschooling -- you have got a daughter going into second grade. Her school is doing online learning, we understand.

How are you going to balance all of this, balance your job and your father and stepping up to do homeschooling? How are you going to do all this?

DAVIS: I'm not quite sure.

Luckily, my mom helps me with baby-sitting, but she's not technology- savvy. So it's not like she can exactly homeschool my daughter. I work in the mornings. So I don't know how the school is going to do it yet. They haven't announced it until Monday.

I don't know if she has to be on the computer from a set time and I have to be sitting there watching her. So I'm kind of concerned for that. I'm kind of concerned to find a new job. I might have to switch to a night job. But no one's hiring with the

COVID going on.

BROWN: Right.

DAVIS: So, yes, there's a lot of unanswered questions that I have. And, hopefully, they're answered Monday, when they released what the plan is.

BROWN: Yes. We're all waiting to find out what that might look like.

All right, Melissa Davis, thank you for coming on and sharing your story with us.

DAVIS: Of course. Thank you.

BROWN: Well, a first day of school nightmare, a young student testing positive for coronavirus, as several major school districts scramble to change their plans.

Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins me with a reality check up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:36:39]

BROWN: Breaking news: More than 100 students are now quarantined after several tested positive for coronavirus in Mississippi. The school district started in-person classes just last Monday.

And in Georgia, one second grader tested positive after the first day of school on Monday.

I want to bring in CNN's Dianne Gallagher. She is live for us in Atlanta.

So, Dianne, was the elementary school dealing with this positive test case?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Pamela, essentially what has happened so far at this elementary school in Cherokee County, Georgia, is, all of the students who were in that second grader's class and the teacher have to quarantine at home for 14 days. And that's it right now.

They're doing a deep cleaning of the classroom, but it's just those 20 second graders and the teacher, who, at this time, according to the district, isn't showing any signs of sickness, so they're going to continue teaching virtually from home.

The student, we're told by the district, wasn't experiencing or showing any sort of symptoms on that first day of school on Monday, and then began feeling sick when they got home. Their parents took them to the doctor, they got tested, and that's when they tested positive. I want to point out though, that -- and you might be seeing some

pictures from Sixes Elementary School that first day. Most of the kids were wearing masks. But here's the thing. It's not required. The district will encourage students to wear masks, but won't mandate it because it's not mandated here in the state of Georgia by the governor.

They also say they will encourage social distancing. You can see in those pictures that seems to be a little bit harder for the students to do. But that's kind of what they're operating at right now.

Now, parents are choosing to send their students back to school. So the kids who were in school, that was their parents' choice. They can also go virtually. But this is what they're working with right now, Pamela. Just those students who were in the same class as that child are the ones who are quarantined. The rest are still in school.

BROWN: Wow.

And then there's this -- another school district in Georgia where more than 250 employees have tested positive or been exposed to COVID. They have a tiered plan to get students back to in-person learning. How is that going to work?

GALLAGHER: Yes, so that's Gwinnett County Public Schools. That's the biggest school district in the state of Georgia.

And they actually start back virtually next week. But then, two weeks later, on August 26, they want to bring back the youngest of each level of school. So we're talking kindergartners and first graders, sixth graders and ninth graders. And then, a week later, the idea is to bring back some of the older students. And then one week later, they hope to have all the students who choose to return to class of all grades back in school.

But here's the thing, Pamela. They continue to say that this is a best-case-scenario plan. And things definitely aren't best case here in Georgia right now. Deaths remain high. Cases remain high. And hospitalization rates remain high as well, with ICU capacity upwards of 85 percent.

So we're not in a best-case scenario right now in the state of Georgia. But that school district isn't the only one looking at this tiered, phase-in plan, trying to find a way to get kids in school, so their parent can either work or deal with child care issues.

[16:40:03]

But, as we saw in Cherokee County, there are significant risks associated with that option.

BROWN: It's a tough situation all around.

GALLAGHER: Yes.

BROWN: Dianne Gallagher, thank you so much for bringing that to us. And we're going to dig deeper onto this situation that parents are

facing, school districts, with one and only Dr. Sanjay Gupta to discuss this.

And this is something. We're parents, so we're biased. Obviously, we're really interested in this. But you look at this case in Georgia, Sanjay. That second grader who tested positive is now home quarantined for 14 days. The classmates and the teacher had to quarantine at that particular school, that class, but the whole school didn't close.

What do you think about that? What do you think the procedures should be here if someone tests positive in a school? Should everyone be sent home or just the classroom?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there is no national or even state policy on this sort of thing.

So these are handled on a case-by-case basis, which, Pamela, as you might imagine, may start to become very -- there may start to be a lot of these types of cases. Local health officials get called in.

BROWN: Right, because it's just beginning. I mean, schools are just starting to open.

GUPTA: It's just beginning.

BROWN: And now we're already seeing this play out.

GUPTA: And you add into that that people are often most contagious before they develop any symptoms, if they do.

So, what the local health officials have to do then is they have to essentially figure out who was in close contact with somebody, were they within a certain distance, how long were they within that distance, what sort of contact did they have?

It's laborious work. And you're going to have to do this in each school district each time this occurs. So the answer in this particular situation, maybe based on the fact that there was lots of contact, the second grader, other students and the teacher, they decided to put the people in quarantine and the infected child into isolation.

It may be a different situation in a different school. Some schools are doing what is called cohorting, Pamela, where basically, you had the same few people that you were essentially with in a bubble or a sort of bubble throughout the day in a school district.

So if one of those people subsequently tests positive, then it'll be the smaller cohort, as opposed to larger class or the larger school. But, again, it strikes me, because I have been having so many conversations with school administrators, that everyone is sort of coming up with their own plan. Even in my own kids' school, the plans are changing, even today, in anticipation for a couple weeks from now.

BROWN: Yes. So do you think then there should be a national policy, a one-size-

fits-all template for schools to reopen safely? Or do you think this, as you as you just pointed out, schools kind of doing it their own way, is a good way to go about this?

GUPTA: No, I think it's confusing for people. It's confusing for the administrators. I mean, as we talked about yesterday, everyone is sort of becoming forced to become these amateur epidemiologists, right, to try and piece this together.

And school districts and school superintendents have a tough job right now. And parents are obviously concerned. I think when it comes to the basics, those things can be uniformly applied.

You know what the basics are at this point, but maintaining some sort of physical distance, face masks within schools, having proper ventilation, even opening windows, things like that, limiting communal spaces. We have -- there's a whole list of things, which are the basic things that should be applied across all school districts.

But a big thing that is not on here, and the CDC is not universally recommending, but some school districts are starting to, is testing, testing students before they come on campus, and having some plan for regular testing every several days or a couple of weeks, whatever it might be.

Most school districts don't have it, don't have the capacity for it, don't have the money for it, and that's a problem.

BROWN: Yes.

Yes, I was actually going to ask you that, because you were talking to Dr. Fauci today, and he said, look, testing across the country, I believe his words were unacceptable, right? He said the current situation is unacceptable. You look at that school in Georgia. They were -- it seems as though the results came back quickly for this student, but that's not what we're seeing across the board.

I mean, some people are having to wait several days, even weeks to get results back. So how does that play into all of this, with schools reopening?

GUPTA: Unless you get the test results back quickly, it really, from a public health standpoint, loses its value.

The reason you're testing, from a public health standpoint, is to quickly identify people who are carrying the virus and being able to isolate them to slow down the spread.

If it's taking too long, people can go out there and still be spreading. As you know, I mean, many people might not have any symptoms, so they wouldn't even know that they were spreading.

So it's almost useless if it's taking too long, over a few days. There's also, on top of that, Pam, I mean, almost a larger problem, which is we still don't have enough tests. We're trying to test in a surge capacity sort of way in hot spots.

The idea of what we talked about yesterday, assurance testing, Pamela, if I were to see you, visit you and your family, your two beautiful children, would I -- would you have some assurance that I didn't have the virus? Could I have assurance that your family didn't have the virus?

[16:45:03]

We don't -- we're not anywhere close to assurance testing at all at this point. So, it sounds like a fantasy almost. But to be able to get to that point, it could be very helpful with trying to open schools, lots of kids indoors, possibly close contact, tough situation otherwise.

BROWN: Do you feel like there's -- we have any sort of answer as to why we don't have that yet six months into this pandemic? There's still -- that still doesn't exist on a wide scale. Why?

GUPTA: Yes, I asked Dr. Fauci this today as well, Pamela.

And it's been a constant source of frustration. As you mentioned, he said it's unacceptable, period. That was his quote. I don't know, Pamela. I mean, this is going to be an interesting retrospective at some point.

No point throughout this entire thing since February, since late January, have we been on the ball with regard to testing. We have been behind from the very beginning. And we're still definitively not caught up right now. We needed major breakthroughs in testing back several months ago. We're not there.

I don't know. I mean, some have suggested that we have tried to minimize this problem by not testing enough. You have certainly heard that. Whatever the motivation, we're paying for it now, with things like schools and starting to try and reopen things.

BROWN: Yes.

And it's interesting. When the president talks about the virus, he often brings up treatment and how the vaccine is being developed in rapid speed. We don't hear a lot from him, though, on testing, making the testing kits more available, widely available, the quick response kits and so forth.

He doesn't talk about that, as much as the treatments and vaccines. And something else he said that was interesting to me, Sanjay. He said it this morning, was school-age children are essentially immune from coronavirus.

Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you look at children, children are almost -- and I would almost say definitely, but almost immune from this disease, so few.

They have got stronger, hard to believe -- and I don't know you feel about it, but they have much stronger immune systems than we do somehow for this. And they do it. They don't have a problem. They just don't have a problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Does the data back that up?

GUPTA: The data does not back that up.

I mean, I think that he doesn't know what the word immune means, frankly. I mean, kids can become infected with this virus, they can carry this virus in their bodies.

It is true they are less likely to get sick. But keep in mind, what we're talking about here is a pandemic, an outbreak of infectious disease. So, in addition to thinking about people getting sick and obviously taking care of them, you're trying to slow down the spread of this disease.

What we know now from a big study that came out of South Korea, kids 10 and older, they're not immune, first of all. They can carry the virus. And they spread it just like adults. Kids younger than 10, we still don't have enough data to really know. But they carry a lot of virus in their body. So they're not immune.

Also, if I can just say, with regard to testing, because you brought that up, the president has said that he wished there would be less testing. If he's weighed in on that topic at all, that's generally been his comment about it.

BROWN: Yes. Yes.

He talks about how there should be less testing and how, because there's so much testing in the United States, that the U.S. is a leader in the amount of tests, that that's why there are so many cases.

But tests don't send people to the hospitals. Tests don't kill people. And if anything, the tests are just revealing how widespread the virus is in the United States.

All right. Thanks so much. Dr. Sanjay Gupta. We appreciate that.

GUPTA: You got it, Pamela. Thank you.

BROWN: Well, the best way to see college football in the fall is for all of us to wear a mask.

That is the message from the governor of Mississippi, who just mandated masks in public places for two weeks.

As CNN's Martin Savidge reports, the governor is reversing course, now that the state is experiencing one of the worst surges in the nation. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In deep red Mississippi, times have changed.

GOV. TATE REEVES (R-MS): I am implementing a statewide mask mandate today.

SAVIDGE: Just over two weeks ago, Republican Governor Tate Reeves told Jake Tapper he was opposed to a statewide mask mandate.

REEVES: If I believe that was the best way to save lives in my state, I would have done it a long time ago.

SAVIDGE: What changed? Mississippi is on the brink of becoming the number one state for new coronavirus infections per capita, its COVID- 19 test positivity rate already the highest in the country.

In addition to ordering mask wearing for the next two weeks, the governor is also delaying the reopening of some schools in a number of counties.

REEVES: We must pump the brakes in hardest-hit areas.

SAVIDGE: The action seen as an acknowledgement Mississippi underestimated the virus. Now counties are struggling to stop infections just as schools start to reopen.

In the capital of Jackson, the mayor says hospitals are overwhelmed and he's ordering a five-day curfew starting tonight from midnight to 5:00 a.m.

CHOKWE LUMUMBA (D), MAYOR OF JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI: We saw that the numbers were increasing. We warned that we were opening up too soon. And so I think we're seeing the ill effects of that decision.

[16:50:02]

SAVIDGE: Governor Reeves says he's anxious to get schools open again, arguing the long-term negative learning impact can be as harmful as the risks of the virus.

He's also pushing for masks for another reason.

REEVES: I know that I want to see college football in the fall.

SAVIDGE: Unlike some other Republican governors, Reeves seems to have evolved with virus science. Back in March, he was hesitant to lock down the state, then, after he did, pulled back on reopening plans in early May after infection surged.

In July, he admitted on Facebook Live to getting tested and tweeted a photo of his own daughter's mask mandate on her bedroom door. Now Reeves has made face mask wearing the law of Mississippi.

REEVES: Throughout this pandemic, we have tried to operate with humility, understanding that we cannot be too proud to change course.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: Even though the government has delayed the reopening of some schools, most of the school districts in the state of Mississippi are moving forward; 51 districts reopened this week. An additional 49 will join them next week -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, thank you so much, Martin. We appreciate it.

And, meantime, have you seen these images of this massive blast in Beirut? Take a look, as we learn of a possible Russia connection to what caused the explosion -- the latest up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:56:02]

BROWN: In our world lead, dramatic drone video showing the unimaginable scope and scale of destruction from a massive explosion that tore through the heart of Beirut, Lebanon yesterday. More than 100 people are dead, thousands more injured or missing.

Lebanon's president says the powerful blast was caused by thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate, which can be used to make explosives, and that -- were seized from a Russian ship six years ago and stored in a warehouse.

Look at this. This incredible video captured this bride taking wedding photos, posing for them right as the explosion rocked the city. CNN is happy to report today that she and her husband are OK.

And in this remarkable act of heroism, a nurse in a hospital damaged by the blast managed to save these three newborn babies, as you see in this picture.

CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman is in Beirut. And seen as Ryan Browne joins us from the Pentagon.

So, Ben, a state of emergency has been declared in Beirut. What are you learning about the latest on the investigation?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we know for instance, Pamela, is that the head of Beirut customs had repeatedly requested that this ammonium nitrate, 2, 750 metric tons, be removed from the port.

But, apparently, the head of the port, he told local television that he didn't quite realize it was that dangerous. We understand that port officials have been put under house arrest, probably for mismanagement more than anything else, at this point.

The government did promise that the investigation would be swift and transparent. But people I have spoken with here are skeptical, skeptical about that, keeping in mind that, over the last few decades, there have been a series of high-profile assassinations, and none of the investigations, even international investigations, have really gotten to the bottom of them.

So, the expectation is that this time around, for this investigation, the results, or lack thereof, will be the same -- Pamela.

BROWN: Yes, no surprise there is some skepticism there in Beirut.

And, Ryan, I want to turn to you, because the president insisted last night that this was an attack. But, right now, is there any proof to back that up?

RYAN BROWNE, CNN PENTAGON REPORTER: No, Pam, there is not.

In fact, despite citing his generals in that assessment that it was a bombing attack, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper just a few hours ago saying that, while they're still gathering information, most believe it to be an accident. And that that's been backed up by several defenses officials we have spoken to, sources here, who say there's nothing to indicate that this was an attack of any kind, despite President Trump's comments and his pointing to the military for that assessment.

Now, Secretary Esper also said the U.S. government was positioning itself to render assistance, if requested by the Lebanese government, things like potentially humanitarian and medical supplies. So we may be hearing some announcements about that in the coming days, but, again, no signs whatsoever that, despite the president's assertion that this was an attack, there appears to be no signs, at least from the military's assessment, that that was, in fact the case -- Pam.

BROWN: And the president hasn't followed up at all, correct?

BROWNE: That's correct. We have not heard him address this since those comments at that press conference yesterday.

We have finally heard from the Department of Defense on the record, saying that, while they're still looking at it, it appears to have been an accident.

BROWN: OK, thank you so much, Ryan Browne, Ben Wedeman. We appreciate it.

And I'm Pamela Brown, in for Jake Tapper today.

Our coverage on CNN continues right now. Have a great day.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

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