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The Lead with Jake Tapper

CDC Predicts Nearly 195,000 U.S. Deaths By September 12; Postmaster General: Vote By Mail is Safe and I Support It. Aired 4- 4:30p ET

Aired August 21, 2020 - 16:00   ET

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

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ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "Do you want to be the person responsible for sending everyone home?"

Mississippi's governor urging college students to be careful, since 18-to-29-year-olds make up the highest proportion of cases there.

GOV. TATE REEVES (R-MS): We know that we have got a lot of work to do there. It's something that we will have to be constantly working on over the course of the next few months.

JONES: And with U.S. deaths from COVID-19 averaging more than 1,000 a day for 25 consecutive days, the CDC is now projecting nearly 195,000 COVID deaths by September 12, about three weeks away, suggesting that staggering death rate will continue, at least in the short term.

DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: We are beginning, I think, to turn the tide.

JONES: Still, CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield, who estimates as many as 60 million people nationwide may have already contracted the virus, based on an infection rate of 10 to 20 percent, says we could soon see the number of new daily deaths begin to decline, as more people follow public health guidelines, like mask-wearing, handwashing, and social distancing.

REDFIELD: Hopefully, this week and next week, you're going to start seeing the death rate really start to drop again.

JONES: New cases are steady or falling in 40 states, but Redfield warned, that positive trend isn't taking hold everywhere.

REDFIELD: We don't need to have a third wave in the Heartland.

JONES: Coronavirus cases are on the rise in states like Wyoming, Iowa, and Illinois, with a new Emory University study suggesting so- called super spreader events are driving transmission in rural areas.

Meanwhile, on the vaccine front: TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, DIRECTOR GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: No country can just ride this out until we have the vaccine.

JONES: A new sobering reminder from the head of the World Health Organization. The 1918 pandemic lasted two years. He hopes this one won't.

GHEBREYESUS: And even if we do have a vaccine, it wouldn't end the pandemic on its own.

JONES: Pfizer says the vaccine it is developing with German firm BioNTech is on track to seek regulatory review as early as October. And Johnson & Johnson plans to include up to 60,000 people in phase three trials for its vaccine.

GHEBREYESUS: Progress does not mean victory.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: But there is one state that may be declaring victory in a way.

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu tweeted today that, effective immediately, all restaurants in the state can go to 100 percent capacity for indoor dining. Tables will still be required to be six feet apart. And all other public health guidelines remain in effect, according to the governor.

And I should mention, the COVID test positivity rate in the state of New Hampshire is 1.6 percent -- Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: All right, Athena Jones in New York for us, thank you so much for that reporting.

I want to bring in Michael Osterholm. He is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and policy at the University of Minnesota.

Good to see you again, Michael.

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH: Good to see you, Jake.

TAPPER: So, the World Health Organization said that countries can't just ride out this pandemic waiting for a vaccine.

Do you think they were talking about the United States?

OSTERHOLM: Oh, surely, they were.

We're on a torturous journey right now with this virus, where we started out in March with a few cases. We peaked out at 32,000 in early April. Case numbers came down to 22,000 a day in -- around Memorial Day. We thought we were done. And then we saw that big peak that got as high as 65,000 cases a day in July. And now, if you listen to everyone, we're on the way down again, as if

it's disappearing by going down into the low 50,000s and high 40,000s every day.

I am certain of this, that we're going to see many higher peaks than 65,000. And it's just a matter of how many weeks and months ahead as we get into the fall season, as we open high schools and colleges again, and we can't let up on our efforts here.

It's going to get worse, not better.

TAPPER: I know you don't like to get involved in politics, but Joe Biden, in his acceptance speech at the convention, said about the coronavirus pandemic, it didn't have to be this way about how bad it is in the U.S. Do you agree?

OSTERHOLM: We surely have not had a plan.

I mean, when you look at the rest of the world and how it has done, only those countries, literally, that you might call low- and middle- income countries have suffered anywhere like we have. We didn't do what many of the European countries did or the Asian countries did.

So, for that reason alone, you can say we surely didn't do it the way it could have and should have been done. And I worry that we're just continuing that same approach.

TAPPER: What exactly does the World Health Organization mean when they say a vaccine alone will not end the pandemic?

OSTERHOLM: Well, first of all, it's going to take potentially years before we will have a vaccine that will make its way around the world.

Eight billion doses in high- and middle-income countries will likely be here in the next year, but it could be several years before we see it in low-income countries. Second of all is, we don't expect this vaccine to be 100 percent effective. If we get a 50 percent effective vaccine, that's going to be a really important development.

Now, that means that a lot of other people who won't -- who will get vaccinated still won't be protected. So, we're going to have to learn to live with this virus. And one of the questions we're going to have to ask ourselves, do you develop protection against this virus if you have had an infection or if you get a vaccine?

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And if that doesn't happen, then we are going to be in a long, long battle with this virus long after the vaccine is here.

TAPPER: At least 19 states in the U.S. are reporting coronavirus cases at colleges. Syracuse University sent a scathing e-mail to students calling a mass gathering on the quad by first-year students -- quote -- "selfish."

But I have to say, what do universities expect college students to act like?

OSTERHOLM: Well, you may recall you and I had this very discussion your show several weeks ago, predicting that this was going to happen, that, in fact, young adults and adolescents are going to act like this, and that the best we can do is try to reduce that likelihood, but that, in the end, this is part of what's the ongoing epidemic.

This is one of those situations where this is a pandemic of will. It's not a pandemic of a virus. And what I mean by that is, these people are willing to do what they want to do. And that's what's happening.

And I wish we could get the message across loud and clear, please, it's not just about you, it's about all the people you will infect in your community after you get infected. And so this is a huge challenge. And I think higher ed is not going to just get out of this by testing a bunch of people.

TAPPER: Researchers say that super-spreading events may be to blame for spikes in rural areas. And by that, they mean events like funerals or birthday parties, conferences.

How do you even go about regulating gatherings like that, if you're a health director or a governor?

OSTERHOLM: You know, this is one of the real challenges with this virus.

And I know I have heard your previous guest on talking about being six feet away. Let's be honest. When you're in super-spreading events, which we have had a number of, being six feet away wasn't into itself enough.

Facecloth coverings can help, but they likely are not enough. And one of the challenges we have is with this. And we just have to be honest with the public. If you bring lots of people together, particularly in indoor air, even if it's just a funeral or a wedding -- and I say just, I don't mean it has to be a big public event.

Those are enough to spread the virus to a lot of people. So, the message is, avoid indoor air as much as you can with lots of people around. And that's -- it's a hard message to hear. But it's the only way of -- particularly if you're at high risk of having serious disease, of actually avoiding getting this infection.

TAPPER: If we look at cases across the country, cases are rising in 10 states. They're steady in 19. They're declining in 21.

This map seems more encouraging than the one we saw a few weeks ago. Where do you think we are as a country right now?

OSTERHOLM: Well, again, like I said earlier, it's a journey.

The roller-coaster ride, where, instead of coming down, it's going to keep going up. And so we will hit a peak, come down a little bit, we will hit a new peak, then come down a little bit, then hit another peak. And so I think if you and I were to talk about that same map five weeks from now, after colleges and universities have opened, after high schools have opened, you're going to see a very different colored map, where you're going to see not necessarily exactly the same color as you saw in July in the Southern states.

But, for much of the country, the numbers are going to go back up again. That's why we can't rest. We have to keep our vigilance all the time. It's about distancing. Don't put yourself in harm's way. If you go to a bar right now, and you spend three hours in there, you can expect that your chances of getting infected are pretty good.

TAPPER: So I said this to Sanjay Gupta kind of jokingly. We were talking about going back to school.

And I said, imagine if our kids and their teachers were able to be tested as much as professional athletes and people who are working at the White House. But why can't they?

OSTERHOLM: You know, we just don't have the capacity. Again, we have been talking about this since April.

We just did not build it.

TAPPER: But we could, right? We could have the capacity.

OSTERHOLM: We could. We absolutely could.

The challenge now is that it'd be like if you asked me to build the Empire State Building in three weeks. Can't be done. The best we can do is hope for -- if we -- if we did a Manhattan Project-like effort right now on testing, by the late fall, we could possibly see some substantial changes.

But it's going to take us that long. But every day that we put off doing that, you're right, it's another day that we're missing the opportunity to better use testing in our communities.

TAPPER: New Hampshire, as you may have heard just a few minutes ago, the governor, Sununu, there just announced that they're allowing restaurants to reopen at 100 percent capacity. Six feet of distance is still required between tables.

They got their positivity rate in New Hampshire down to 1 percent. What do you think? Good idea?

OSTERHOLM: You know, I think at this point, it's all about measurement.

And what I mean by that is look at New York state. New York state has been flat for the last 12 weeks. Why? Because once they drove the virus levels down from what was a house on fire in April, they have very closely monitored their positivity rates. They have monitored what's going on.

And when it looks like it's starting to go up, they put the brake down a little bit. When it looks like it's easing up, they let the brake up a little bit. If New Hampshire can do the same thing, that's outstanding.

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That's what we need more examples of. Right now, it seems as if we're approaching this as if everything is a complete lockdown, or it's nothing at all. And we need to find that middle ground, where we get cases down far enough and then do just what New York and hopefully New Hampshire will be doing.

TAPPER: What do you think a positivity rates should be in a community before they let students go back for in-person learning?

OSTERHOLM: Well, let me split that up, because I think this has been one of the confusing messages.

I think there's a big difference between kids in grade five and younger and those older. You just talked about in the previous segment with Sanjay about the day care-related issues.

And I think that it's clear that, for some reason, younger kids are not transmitting the virus nearly as much, or, when they do become infected, aren't seeing the same problems.

We have had day cares open in Minnesota throughout the entire summer, and we have yet to have a major day care outbreak of any kind. And that's different, on the other hand, if you look at high school students and college students.

So I would say that if you had rates in one to two per 100,000 per day, you could probably open day care and the grade schools and do a pretty good job with it.

But, as you have seen right now, look at what's happening with our colleges and high schools. They're going to be a different ball game. And that's what we have to now understand it. We have got to stop calling them kids. We have got to break it out into those two groups.

TAPPER: All right, Michael Osterholm, thank you so much for your expertise and your time, as always.

OSTERHOLM: Thank you. Thanks.

TAPPER: Appreciate it.

And, as if 2020 could not get any worse, coming up, the two tropical systems headed right for the Gulf Coast.

Plus: the postmaster general's break today with President Trump, under oath, expressing his support for voting by mail. But his words alone will not quiet the president trying to trash elections.

Stay with us.

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TAPPER: Secure and on time, that was the promise from the man in charge of making sure record levels of mail-in ballots are delivered and processed this November. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy tried to assure lawmakers on Capitol Hill earlier today that politics has played no role in his proposed changes to the agency's operations and that ballots will be prioritized.

DeJoy very publicly disagreed with president Trump on one very important issue in his testimony, as CNN's Pamela Brown now explains.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a thing that will be a disaster like never before.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Despite President Trump's claims, embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy telling members of Congress today he wholeheartedly supports vote by mail.

LOUIS DEJOY, POSTMASTER GENERAL, U.S. POSTAL SERVICE: I voted by mail for a number of years.

SEN. ROB PORTMAN (R-OH): So, you do support voting by mail?

DEJOY: I do. And I think the American public should be able to vote by mail, and the postal service will support. So I guess that's yes.

BROWN: DeJoy also promising the Senate committee the U.S. postal service will prioritize election mail so that it arrives as quickly as possible. A change from an earlier plan outlined in these internal documents obtained by CNN, showing the Postal Service planning to treat election mail differently this year, no longer giving them the priority of first-class mail.

DEJOY: We will deploy processes and procedures that advance election mail in some cases ahead of first-class mail.

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): If people vote within seven days of the election, are they highly confident -- are you highly confident that those ballots would then be received?

DEJOY: Extremely highly confident.

BROWN: The postmaster general's assurances and support of vote by mail stand in stark contrast to President Trump who has repeatedly railed against universal mail-in voting, falsely claiming it's rife for fraud and saying he wants to block funding to prevent mail-in voting.

TRUMP: They want $25 billion, billion, for the post office. Now, they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots. You can't have universal mail-in voting because they're not equipped to have it. BROWN: Earlier in the week, DeJoy reversed course and said his

planned changes to the postal service, which Democrats claim would interfere with mail-in voting, would wait until after the election. But today, he said mail sorting machines taken off line as part of the overhaul will not return.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will any of those come back?

DEJOY: There's no intention to do that. They're not needed, sir.

BROWN: But it wasn't just the election that had lawmakers upset.

SEN. JACKY ROSEN (D-NV): Eighty percent of veterans' prescriptions are filled by the United States Postal Service. I have 225,000 veterans in Nevada, many of them relying on this for their timely delivery of life-saving medication.

BROWN: To which DeJoy responded --

DEJOY: The only change that I made was that the trucks leave on time. Theoretically, everyone should've gotten their mail faster.

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BROWN: And DeJoy also said today the Postal Service will be sending letters to every American in September, walking them through the process to vote by mail. Also, we learned today the postal service created a new voter information website. This is all part of this big PR push to assuage concerns.

And it's worth noting, Jake, that despite the fact DeJoy said today that election mail would automatically be advanced to first-class mail or even ahead of that, this website says that if election officials do not use first-class mail that it'll be grouped in with the slower process mail. So, there seems to be a difference there.

TAPPER: All right, Pamela, stick around.

I want to bring in CNN's Abby Phillip into this conversation, the three of us talk about it, because, Abby, let me start with you.

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DeJoy insisted that the postal service can handle the volume of mail- in ballots for this election even though it's anticipated it could be up to 50 percent of the ballots cast this election season. It was 25 in 2016, 25 percent.

Did he put Democrats' questions and concerns to rest, Abby?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No. I really don't think that he did. He declined to explain why he was willing to accept the delays that he acknowledged existed that came as a result of these operational changes that he made since becoming postmaster general. And for Democrats, that's part of the problem. It's not just can the post office manage to handle this mail? It is also at what speed. And I think there are still concerns about whether these changes are

producing delays that could have an impact on the election. You saw one lawmaker pushing him to say, well, can you commit that 95 percent of the election mail will be delivered in sort of a first-class time frame, one to three days. He did say yes.

But as Pam pointed out, that's not what the postal service election website now says. So I think there are some real unanswered questions about these inconsistencies and exactly how quickly this election mail will be handled, because a 5 percent difference in an election is a huge difference. It can make the difference in a lot of races up and down the ballot.

TAPPER: Absolutely. Pamela, DeJoy was asked point-blank whether he supported voting by mail. He said that he does. He himself votes by mail we should point out of course, as always. President Trump votes by mail, even though he tries to trash the notion of others of us doing it.

Do you think this is going to put an end to the president railing against it?

BROWN: Likely not. This has been a theme for the president for quite some time to rail on mail-in voting. He did recently, make a false claim that Democrats want mail-in voting so that Joe Biden can win, even though studies show, polls show that, it's something that doesn't necessarily give one party an advantage over the other.

But what was interesting today is that DeJoy for the first time today publicly split with the president on this matter as the postmaster general, saying that he wholeheartedly supports mail-in ballots. It's something he does himself and that every American should have the opportunity to vote by mail.

So that was a big difference from what we've been hearing from the president. We'll have to wait and see how the president is going to react to that.

TAPPER: Abby, we've heard these horror stories of veterans waiting for days if not weeks for life-saving medication. DeJoy didn't answer whether he has any data exploring the impact of changes on customer service, specifically when it comes to medication delivery.

PHILLIP: This was one of the more stunning things in the testimony today. He was asked what kind of data do you have to show that these changes will actually not have a negative impact on people's ability to receive things like medication. He didn't even acknowledge that he even had that data. He said that he believed that it should make service better.

But he doesn't have any proof to show that it would make service better. That's a big problem considering that his whole rationale for his existence in this role is that he's a businessman, that he's data- driven. This is a piece of data that lawmakers made very clear they believed should exist. And the evidence that we have so far based on talking to postal

workers, based on the lawmakers themselves, both Republican and Democrat, seem to indicate that right at this moment many, many constituents of theirs are experiencing these kinds of delays, these changes are having an impact. And DeJoy didn't have any great answers about when those negative impacts would be rectified, and if they would even be rectified.

TAPPER: Yeah, really a tragedy all these veterans who can't get their medication on time even though their lives depend upon it.

Abby Phillip, Pamela Brown, thanks to both of you for your reporting.

TAPPER: From mail-in voting to in person classes, the debate is coming to a head right now in Florida. Coming up next, I'm going to talk to Florida's head of education about Florida's steady push to keep schools open, despite the fact that more children are getting infected with coronavirus.

Stay with us.

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TAPPER: In our national lead, closing arguments in the court case in Florida between the state's largest teachers union and the Florida governor and education commissioner wrapping up today. The union asking the state to let them postpone in-person learning until they can do so safely after Governor DeSantis issued an emergency order saying that all schools must reopen by the end of the month in-person. The judge is expected to rule next week.

Joining me now is the Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran.

Commissioner Corcoran, thanks for joining us.

So let me just put it this way. Florida has more than 10,000 COVID deaths. Today marks the third straight day of more than 4,000 cases reported in your state. Of the 28 Florida school districts that have opened, four districts already are reporting cases and the number of COVID cases in children has more than doubled in the last month. All the data suggests that while it's true children may suffer less than older Americans from this disease, re-opening in-person education will cause the virus to spread more.

So why are you mandating that all schools have to reopen in-person classes?

RICHARD CORCORAN, FLORIDA EDUCATION COMMISSIONER: Well, you've said a lot, Jake, but let me -- I'll try to break it down. Number one is, there's two paradigms. There's the paradigm of sending kids back in the risk of COVID, which we know for a fact is less than seasonal flu for this population.

The other risk and we just had Dr. Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford, one of the preeminent epidemiologists in the world.