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The Lead with Jake Tapper
IHME Model Projects 317,000+ U.S. Deaths By December. Aired 4:30-5p ET
Aired August 28, 2020 - 16:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[16:32:04]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: In our health lead today, a dire prediction from a leading coronavirus model, 317,000 dead in the U.S. by December 1st. That's the projection. And today, we saw once again more than 1,000 people in this country alone die from the virus.
This as we saw three mass gatherings in the last day, from the last night of the Republican National Convention, where few people distanced or wore masks, to other mass events such as the protests outside the White House, and today's march on Washington, where there have been masks, but social distancing has not been on display, as CNN's Nick Watt reports.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Like those brave Americans before us, we are meeting the challenge.
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): But now, our president is leading by bad example. No distance, few masks, and many places prohibit gatherings like these.
All brushed off by a senior White House official with this: Everybody is going to catch this thing eventually.
One prominent model now projects around 135,000 more Americans could be killed by COVID-19 by December 1st. Remember last week we were told --
DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR, CDC: You're going to start seeing the death rate really start to drop.
WATT: But if that new projection is true, our average daily death toll, still hovering around a thousand, will actually rise. Right now, we're also seeing record rates of infection in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Iowa, where the governor just closed all bars in the hardest-hit counties, including some college towns. Because --
GOV. KIM REYNOLDS (R-IO): It is increasing, the virus activity, in the community, and it's spilling over to other segments of the population.
WATT: Eight thousand cases and counting on college campuses across the country, as students return.
But here's the good news. Nationally, new case counts are falling. New York's infection rate, the lowest since all this began. And the White House has announced the purchase and production of 150 million new 15- minute tests.
DR. LEANA WEN, FORMER BALTIMORE HEALTH COMMISSIONER: That really could be game changing. Before you go to school, before you go to work, it could catch a lot more of these asymptomatic cases that we're currently not catching at all.
WATT: Plus, there's vaccine optimism.
DR. SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER: If they demonstrate they're safe and effective, you could have a vaccine available, I believe, under an emergency use authorization for select populations before the end of the year.
WATT: The CDC telling governors, it is rapidly making preparations to implement large-scale distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the fall of 2020, asking states to be quick with their permitting process. But --
DR. ALI KHAN, DEAN, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: We can't afford a thousand deaths a day until the vaccine. We need to adopt a control and containment strategy in the United States.
WATT: Instead, the president's tacit message, up close, unmasked, totally cool.
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WATT: Now, in Los Angeles, the city has just filed misdemeanor charges against two TikTok stars who hosted house parties with a couple of hundred people.
[16:35:08]
The city attorney said that with 19 million followers between them, they should be setting a good example. Meanwhile, the president has more than 85 million Twitter followers and just hosted more than a thousand people on the nation's front lawn -- Jake.
TAPPER: You seem to be suggesting that we should have higher standards for the president than for TikTok stars. I take your point. Thank you so much.
WATT: Not suggesting anything.
WATT: Joining me now is the president and chair of ACCESS Health International, William Haseltine, whose new book, "A Family Guide to COVID", is out now.
Thanks so much for joining us.
What was your reaction when you saw the scene at the White House last night and the march on Washington today? WILLIAM HASELTINE, CHAIR AND PRESIDENT, ACCESS HEALTH INTERNATIONAL:
The White House scene was a very dangerous scene. It is a super spreader kind of a case. You know that some of those people were unknowingly infected. They'll be infecting others, and two weeks from now, we're going to see the results of a number of those people in hospitals and a number of their contacts and the people closest to them ill and in hospitals, too. It made me very sad.
TAPPER: I want to start with these new predictions from the CDC and the H -- I'm sorry, the IHME model. More than 200,000 deaths in the U.S. by September 19th. That's their projection. They also project nearly 317,000 by December 1st.
Pretty alarming.
HASELTINE: It is alarming. And it's also very sad, because we don't have to have that. Let's hope that some of these new changes, for example, the rapid tests -- the tests that have just been approved, the Abbott test, is a good test. It could be simpler. It could be a saliva test. It could be an at-home test.
But a 15-minute test that's $5 is a lot better than a three to seven- day test that could be as much as $1,000. So that is good progress. And we can make more progress in that direction.
I think there's a chance with tests like that, if we do contact tracing and we help people isolate, of making a really big difference to this epidemic, in a rather short period of time. But we have to be serious about what one of your reporters just suggested -- testing each other before we go to work, before we go to school, every other day. That means a lot more than 150 million tests. That means billions, tens of billions of tests.
But fortunately, if you ever take a look at them, they're easy to manufacture. We know how to manufacture those in bulk at low cost. So, this is some good news.
TAPPER: I hope so. Nothing would make me happier than to be able to send my kids to school and test them every day and know that every teacher and student is being tested every day as well.
IHME found that if wearing a mask in public increased to 95 percent, which it is not right now, more than 67,000 American lives could be saved. Right now, the estimate mask wearing has declined to less than 50 percent. Do you think it's a realistic possibility that we could have 95 percent mask wearing in public?
HASELTINE: You know, I wish I could say "yes" to that, but the experience tells me, it's not realistic. I think what we have to do is look at the American experience, what we can do.
And I think if we put things into people's hands, like a very inexpensive home test, and we really what we're trying to control is contagion, somebody spreading it to somebody else. We don't just test the worried or the ill, which the CDC just recommended against all good sense, we test the people who don't think that they've been infected, but actually are, and we identify those who are contagious. And then help them self-isolate. We can make a big difference. And I think that, Americans can do.
I think by now the idea of mask wearing is so entrenched in the political right/left kind of nonsensical debate, that there's something else that people will do, like you would do that. You would have your child and hope the whole school would have your children tested before they went to school every day or every other day if it were simple. And I think that's something we can do and we should do.
And we can work -- as I said, very happy that these tests are now finally coming along.
TAPPER: You just alluded to the fact that the CDC changed its guidance and is no longer suggesting that asymptomatic individuals who have come in contact with people who have the virus be tested and there is really no health expert other than people who report directly to President Trump, and even some of them, who think that that's a good idea or makes any sense that we should be testing more, not less.
Why do you think they made this rule? Do you think it's because -- because they haven't really given a solid explanation that makes any sense.
[16:40:03]
Do you think it's because president Trump thinks that more testing equals higher numbers of people who are infected, which is bad news for him politically? I mean, is that what you suspect is the reason?
HASELTINE: You know, I'm not a mind reader, Jake, and it's hard to know other people's motives, sometimes even my own.
But I can tell you what the net effect of this is. It's extremely negative and is going in exactly the opposite direction.
You know, we need many, many, more tests, not fewer tests. And surely, many more tests are going to pick up a lot more infected people. If it looks like infection rates are dropping in this country, that's because we're testing less. It doesn't mean that the hospital rates dropping. It doesn't mean that fewer people are getting infected.
And what we have just been talking about, a test that's cheap and available for us to do with our families every other day, is the exact opposite. We want to find people who are contagious, who are spreading the disease unknowingly and help them isolate themselves, so they don't spread it.
Nobody wants to make other people sick. You don't want to do that deliberately, unless you're a very ill person. You want to protect the people you love and the people you care about. And we ought to make that easy for them. And that's the opposite.
You're asking the question, do I know, for sure, what's in the administration's mind and in the president's mind? I don't know. But I can tell you what the effect is. It's terrible. TAPPER: Sounds like a lot of opposites going on at the White House
right now in terms of the -- of what should be going on.
William Haseltine, always good to have you on. Thank you so much.
With the close of convention, we are now a month and a day away from the first presidential debate. We're going to discuss the two very different messages as we head into the final sprint of 2020.
Stay with us.
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TAPPER: Our 2020 lead now: the final sprint to November 3.
With 67 days until the election, both candidates are poised to hit the trail in person, and hoping for a boost from their conventions, though Vice President Biden and President Trump presented starkly different views of themselves and the United States.
Let's discuss with senior -- CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod.
David, what most struck me about last night is the Republican Party in the White House going to such great lengths to say, you know, President Trump is actually a very different person when you get to know him behind the scenes.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
You know, what struck me about the two conventions was, I felt like the Democratic Convention was a reality-based convention. I mean, the portrait of Biden -- every party puts their best foot forward. Every party embellishes.
The portrait of Biden was largely the port portrait of Biden. The portrait of the country and where it is today was largely a portrait of the country and where it is today.
Trump took a reality show approach, partly because the reality right now is pretty grim for him. And the goal of this convention was to paint him in a different way and to paint Biden in a different way and make Biden more threatening and Trump more benign, even as they wove throughout this law and order theme that I think is going to be very central to his campaign from here to November.
TAPPER: This is how "The New Yorker"'s Susan Glasser described the Republican Convention -- quote -- "The spectacle suggested a president entering his reelection campaign not strong and confident of victory, but insecure and faltering, a president whose prospects, left unvarnished by lies and fantasy, were so poor that his strategists had to reinvent him as a different person altogether."
Do you think -- and put on your political reporter hat -- you used to be with, what, "The Sun-Times"?
AXELROD: "The Tribune," yes.
TAPPER: Oh, sorry, "The Chicago Tribune."
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AXELROD: Yes.
TAPPER: Do you think, I mean, when you look at the two men -- I mean, obviously Biden is ahead in a lot of polling. Do you think that Trump is running obviously from behind?
AXELROD: Yes, I think he is running from behind. Polling reflects that. Anecdotal reflects that.
And look at where the country is, Jake, I mean, 180,000 people dead, 10.2 percent unemployment. He's hovering near 40 in his approval rating. These are all indications that you would look at to see to -- and you would hypothesize from that that the incumbent is in trouble.
And the only way for an uncommon to come back in a situation like that is to really go hard at his opponent and demonize his opponent. And Trump does that with a certain elan anyway, so it comes naturally to him.
But you saw it in his speech last night and throughout this convention, Biden and the Democrats as, you know, godless socialist threats to your safety and our way of life. And I think you're going to hear a lot more of that between now and November.
And we're going to -- what will be interesting is to see how Biden deals with that on a debate stage on September 29, which I circle as perhaps the most important day in this whole campaign.
TAPPER: Senator Rand Paul was harassed by protesters when he left the White House last night. There have been images of -- that are not particularly pleasant to watch of protesters and have been for months.
Conservative columnist George Will, who is certainly no fan of President Trump, says that Biden needs what he calls a Sister Souljah moment. That's a reference to Bill Clinton in '92, who condemned a rapper who -- a black rapper, a woman, who had mused about killing white people, as a way to show middle-class white people, hey, I'm willing to take on people on the left.
Do you agree? And might some of these protesters be an opportunity for him?
AXELROD: Yes.
[16:50:01]
Well, first let me say I think that that image was probably the image that the Trump team liked the most out of last night's events, because I think they are capitalizing on -- you can see their message is all about anarchy and mobs.
And so when they can demonstrate it with live photos and film, that buttresses their argument.
And, yes, I think there is an imperative on the part of Biden and all Democrats to denounce that kind of violence and do it strongly, even as they focus on Jacob Blake and the other incidents. So, that's very important to ward off what you know is coming.
TAPPER: All right, David Axelrod, thanks so much. Always glad to have your insights.
A record-breaking 17-foot wall of water recorded in Louisiana as Hurricane Laura made landfall, but that record may soon be broken again. We will explain next.
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TAPPER: In our "Earth Matters" series: Hurricane Laura has killed at least six people.
And, in California, a 1.25-million-acre wildfire, more than six times the size of New York City, is raging and has left seven people dead and at least 1,400 buildings destroyed.
Amid studies of the role climate change is playing in severe weather events, the worsening climate crisis was not even mentioned during this week's Republican Convention, as CNN's Bill Weir reports for us now.
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BILL WEIR, CNN CLIMATE CHANGE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Between a shattered Gulf Coast in the South, a million-acre gigafire out West, and 10 million acres of crops blown down in the heartland, you will be forgiven for not noticing the typhoon that just hit Asia, the fear of a dam failure in China, heat waves in the Arctic, and plagues of locusts from Africa to India.
(on camera): The words biblical proportion come to mind this month. But even the plagues of Egypt didn't come all at once. And, meanwhile, the vast majority of the world's scientists continue to remind us that this is only going to get worse, until humanity can figure out a way to power our lives without using fuels that burn.
KATHARINE HAYHOE, CLIMATE SCIENTIST: For so long, in studying climate change, we were studying the future. And now the future is here.
WEIR (voice-over): But watching the Republican National Convention, if you didn't know, you wouldn't know.
SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA): The Democratic Party of Joe Biden is pushing this so-called Green New Deal.
WEIR: Even when Iowa Senator Joni Ernst brought up the 140-mile-an- hour winds that ripped apart her state...
ERNST: About one-third of our crops here were damaged.
WEIR: ... she made no mention of climate change, but mocked Joe Biden's ambitious climate plan.
ERNST: If given power, they would essentially ban animal agriculture and eliminate gas-powered cars.
WEIR: There is no mention of cow or car bans in the Green New Deal resolution, but it does lay out the urgent need to move to clean power ASAP and to get ready for the U.S. military has long called a threat multiplier.
LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Something's happening. Bill, right after Katrina, we had Rita.
WEIR: Fifteen years ago, Lieutenant General Russel Honore took command an Operation Katrina, after a botched federal response.
HONORE: One of your colleagues asked me, he said, do you think -- we have just had two hurricanes? Do you think any of this have anything to do with global warming?
And I was stunned. And I gave him some smart answer. And I was haunted for days after that.
WEIR: He says it was the first time he realized that the warnings of science are already coming true and, if he could take command now, he would put the nation to work bracing for what is inevitable.
HONORE: Most of our dams and bridges are rated D or C. We had one break last year up in Michigan. Fix the dams. Fix the road. Raise the highways. Start with culture and the economy.
I think our future economy can be driven by finding solutions to pollution.
WEIR: And often lost in the politics is how much progress is happening between the storms.
HAYHOE: They don't know that 70 percent of new electricity being installed around the world now is clean energy. They're unaware that solar energy, plus storage, is actually cheaper than natural gas in California, or that Texas has more installed wind energy than any other state in the country, or that Texas has the first carbon-neutral airport, DFW, or the biggest Army base in the U.S., Fort Hood, that's supplied entirely by wind and solar energy.
The reality is, is that the solutions are already here.
WEIR: A reminder for future generations that this was the year America decided how much pain it is willing to swallow.
(END VIDEOTAPE) WEIR: Another example of the threat multiplier here in California, during a pandemic, folks, are forced to choose between the kind of mask that works against smoke, but not COVID, or the kind of mask that works against COVID, but not smoke.
And one more bit of grim symbolism, Jake, the biggest worry, as the grape harvest starts here in the Napa Valley, is that the 2020 vintage will be remembered as the one that tastes like smoke.
TAPPER: All right, Bill Weir, thanks so much for that report.
Be sure to tune in Sunday morning to CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION." The guests include Republican Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, California Democratic Congresswoman Karen Bass, FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor, and Los Angeles Sparks power forward Nneka Ogwumike. It's at 9:00 and noon Eastern.
Our coverage on CNN continues right now. Thanks for watching.
