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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Worldwide Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories; Unrest in Wisconsin; Trump Administration Now Pushing Widespread Infection as COVID-19 Strategy?. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired August 31, 2020 - 16:30   ET

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

[16:32:09]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Turning to our health lead now: another possibly dangerous idea.

President Trump's new medical adviser, Scott Atlas, is pushing herd immunity to fight coronavirus. This is according to "The Washington Post."

Well Sweden's using the model now. Here's what happens. You essentially let the entire country go back to normal and keep the most vulnerable, like the elderly, locked down. The virus spreads through the younger, healthier community, in hopes people catch the virus, recover and then become immune.

But top doctors like Anthony Fauci and former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb warn that that's a terrible idea. And international researchers and American medical professionals point out that this strategy didn't even work in Sweden, the example conservatives are pointing to as a success story.

More than 5,800 people died from coronavirus in Sweden, which has about the same population as North Carolina, just to put that in perspective, not to mention Stockholm officials say, by May, only about 7 percent of residents had been exposed to the virus.

Now, in the United States, the CDC says nearly 7,000 people under the age of 50 or 28,000 people under the age of 65 have died from coronavirus, and the long-lasting impact of COVID on the heart and other organs isn't known.

Well, this afternoon, Dr. Atlas denied the report by "The Washington Post" to CNN, saying that he has never advocated for herd immunity.

But joining me now to discuss this is Dr. Paul Offit the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Thanks for coming on, Dr. Offit.

Is it even feasible for the United States to achieve herd immunity to fight coronavirus?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: No, for a few reasons.

First of all, ever since the 1960s, when they were first defined, we have had four human coronaviruses that circulate in the population every year. And every year, 15-to-20 percent of the respiratory diseases that we see come into our hospital are caused by one of those four viruses.

So, they, despite their constant circulation, have never started to wane in terms of their spread. Secondly, the immunity that's induced by these viruses is short-lived, meaning it lasts for a few years, but not decades.

And it's incomplete, meaning that you're protected against moderate to severe disease, but not mild disease or not asymptomatic disease, in both of which cases you can still shed. Even if you take viruses like measles, which induce lifelong immunity and is 10 times more contagious than this virus, even then, every year, there would be one to two million cases of measles, there would be about 50,000 hospitalizations and 500 deaths.

I mean, the only way we stopped measles, these was the only way we stopped smallpox is with a vaccine, and the only way we're going to be able to stop this virus is with a vaccine and hygienic measures.

BROWN: So, if the United States tried to reach herd immunity, if this was something the White House wanted to do, what do you think would happen? How do you see that playing out?

OFFIT: We would just see more suffering, more hospitalization and more death, as people died.

[16:35:03]

And even those who got through the disease and recovered from the disease or had a mild and asymptomatic infection and recovered, their immunity would be short-lived then incomplete, meaning they could still, even when re-exposed to the virus, shed the virus.

We would just see basically what we're seeing now with the four human coronaviruses, which is the virus would just continue to circulate. There's two ways to stop this virus, hygienic measures and vaccines.

The notion that you could do that by letting it burn out with population immunity is fanciful. It's never happened before with any virus, and it's not going to happen with this virus.

BROWN: All right, so let's talk about Sweden, then, because that's where conservatives point to as a success story, a model for the United States to follow.

You say it has been wildly unsuccessful. Why do you think that?

OFFIT: I think only about 7 percent of the population of Sweden just has been immunized with this virus.

And, again, it's going to be a short-lived and incomplete protection. I don't -- I mean, I just can only imagine that those who are trying to point to Sweden as a success story are just making it up, because it's certainly not a success story. They have had far more hospitalizations and deaths than similar countries in the region, like Denmark and Finland.

So it's the opposite of success story. Actually, Sweden is the cautionary tale for why you shouldn't do it this way.

BROWN: But there are those who argue that the U.S. is paying too high a price right now with the shutdown, with going so many months into this pandemic, that businesses and restaurants can't stay open, students are forced to learn from home.

Do you see why an approach like this could be appealing? And what would you say to people who think, hey, we should try it?

OFFIT: Well, we don't have a vaccine yet, but what we do have is we have hygienic measures.

It's, if you wear a mask and you stand six feet away from somebody, you're not going to get infected, and you're not going to give somebody your infection.

It's not like we have nothing else available to us. We do have that. I mean, when you watched that New Hampshire rally, for example, and the person gets up to the microphone and says, it's a New Hampshire law, we're asking you to wear a mask, and everybody's booing, you're thinking, what are they thinking about? Do they think that the germ theory is just the theory, that viruses aren't contagious?

There is another way out of this, as Robert Redfield, head of the CDC, said, wear masks and social distance. Deborah Birx just said it as well. It's not that hard, and yet, somehow, we think it's something that we don't want to do. It's hard to watch.

BROWN: So, you have this push, according to "The Washington Post," and then you have the fears the administration is rushing the vaccine, the CDC changing its guidance on testing.

What does that tell you about how this administration is handling the virus?

OFFIT: I think the administration wants what we all want. They want this pandemic to end.

The problem is, it's going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of hard thinking to do it. There's nothing magical about it. Herd immunity by hoping for most of the population to be infected is not going to do it. Bleach is not going to do it. U.V. light is not going to do it. Oleandrin flower extracts are not going to do it. Hydroxychloroquine is not going to do it. And convalescent plasma is not going to do.

BROWN: Yes.

OFFIT: What (AUDIO GAP) do it is a vaccine and hygienic measures. But, at the very least, until the vaccine is available, we should be really good about hygienic measures. And we're not. It's such a simple thing to do, Pamela. It's just hard to watch this.

BROWN: Are you concerned at all that, because we just -- we have the statement from Dr. Atlas denying that he's pushing for herd immunity. But are you concerned that some of the policies the administration is pushing or where they're putting their focus could have the effect of trying to achieve herd immunity?

In other words, say, hey, we're not trying to push for this, but yet there could be a push for different policies that might try to achieve that?

OFFIT: Well, we're not going to achieve it. All we're going to do is cause more suffering and hospitalization and death. That's all that's going to do.

So there is no way to get population immunity that will extinguish this virus, other than hygienic measures and vaccines. But even -- measles is the best example. Measles provides lifelong immunity and complete immunity, meaning, I had measles as a child. Not only do I not get measles again. I wouldn't even get asymptomatic measles or mild infection with measles. I'm completely protected against measles.

And yet still every year that virus causes hospitalization. You had a vaccine. It's just wrong-headed. It's never going to happen. All it's going to do is lead to more suffering. It's ill-considered.

BROWN: OK.

Dr. Paul Offit, thank you so much.

OFFIT: Thank you.

BROWN: Well, two cities are preparing for more chaos after a weekend of unrest and shootings. We are live on the ground with breaking news on how officials are preparing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:43:50]

BROWN: Well, we are back with breaking news.

Joe Biden now says he hopes to visit Wisconsin, this as leaders in Kenosha say tomorrow is not the time for President Trump to come.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ANTARAMIAN (D), MAYOR OF KENOSHA, WISCONSIN: I felt that the timing was wrong. We always have room for presidents to come to visit, candidates to come to visit.

I think that you have a community that's in the process of trying to heal. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: They're calling for calm after more than a week of protests, mostly peaceful, over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Well, since then, police say they have arrested more than 200 people and more than half from outside Kenosha.

I want to go straight to CNN's Shimon Prokupecz on the ground there now.

And, Shimon, you have some breaking news about preparations for the president's visit tomorrow. Is that right?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

So, one of the things that the local law enforcement here and city officials have done is, they have extended the curfew. The curfew was set to expire at 7:00 a.m. this morning. They had told me yesterday they were thinking of extending it through the president's visit. And they did. They were going to keep it through Wednesday morning at 7:00.

Well, now city officials are saying they're going to keep it going. They're going to move it up to 9:00, instead of ending at 7:00. But, obviously, with the president coming here, there's a lot of concern here from the local officials that it could spark some unrest. And so what they're doing is, they have extended the curfew.

[16:45:10]

The other thing that they have done is that they have kept all of the local law enforcement here, the support that they're getting. Also, the National Guard remains here. There's about 1,500 personnel from the National Guard.

They remain here. And the concern is outside agitators. And, as you said, Pam, more than 200 and people that they have arrested, they have found have come from outside Kenosha to start trouble. So, there's concern.

And one of the -- in the press conference today, the sheriff talked about that concern. And here's that sound.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID BETH, KENOSHA COUNTY, WISCONSIN, SHERIFF: There are a lot of outside agitators that tried to scare people. They will make phone calls to businesses, to churches, to residents, trying to scare and intimidate.

A lot of it, it gets out to the public. It gets spread thousands of times over. And by the time we can actually research it, 1,000 people know about it and they're afraid.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PROKUPECZ: And, Pam, we don't have plans, what the president's definitive plans are for tomorrow.

We know he's going to meet with business leaders. He says he's going to survey some of the damage, as well as meet with local law enforcement. But that's about all that we know at this point -- Pam.

BROWN: And it appears, as of now, the White House said earlier that the president does not have plans to meet with Jacob Blake's family. Do we know if that's because the family does not want to meet with him? What do we know?

PROKUPECZ: Yes, so our colleague Sara Sidner, who's been in touch with the family, she just told me in a text that she's been talking to the family.

And they say that the father of Jacob Blake, Jacob Blake Sr., that he has no desire to talk to the president, he has no desire to meet with the president. And so, as a result, that's perhaps why they are not meeting.

The president clearly has not really -- we have not seen any kind of a great effort from him to try and get to the family. So, all of this obviously happening on the heels of the president coming here at some point tomorrow.

BROWN: All right, Shimon Prokupecz, thank you so much for that.

And I want to turn now to Portland, Oregon. Police are getting ready for another tense night and the city's 95th straight night of protests. Officers arrested nearly 30 people last night, saying many dressed in heavy protective gear took aim at them.

And it comes after Saturday's deadly shooting after a caravan of Trump supporters clashed with demonstrators.

CNN's Lucy Kafanov joins me now from Portland.

So, Lucy, what do we know about the groups coming out every night to protest there?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pam, Portland is very much a powder keg at the moment. And here's why.

We're entering the 95th night of protest almost every evening. The crowd size might have varied, but it's largely been protesters demanding racial justice, supporting the Black Lives Matter message, some elements of rioters, but only on occasional evenings.

What we saw on Saturday was a very large group of pro-Trump supporters, President Trump supporters, and members of the far right group known as Patriot Prayer -- pardon me.

We don't know very much about this group. They don't have much of a national footprint, but they're well known in the Pacific Northwest. Some of their leaders are facing riot charges for inciting violence in the past. They say that they promote Christianity and smaller government, but the Southern Poverty Legal Center says white supremacists often attend their events.

And so what law enforcement officials are worried now, in the aftermath of the shooting, is that we might see some of those members returning to the streets of Portland, seeking retribution. That did not take place last night, but the week is still young -- Pam.

BROWN: Absolutely.

And there was that deadly shooting Saturday. What are we learning about the circumstances behind that?

KAFANOV: Well, surprisingly, not much yet, even though it's been quite a few hours, more than 24 hours since the shooting took place.

We know that members of these Trump supporters and the Patriot Prayer group took out -- took to the streets in a convoy of cars on Saturday. The police tried to keep them away from downtown Portland, but a smaller group of cars managed to get here anyway.

We saw confrontations with the Black Lives Matter protesters. Some of the members of the pro-Trump groups were shooting air guns into the crowd. All we know officially from official sources is that one man was shot in the chest and he died.

According to "The New York Times," he was wearing the insignia of this far right group. But, again, authorities have not released the identity of the victim or the shooter. The shooter, as far as we know, remains at large.

We did see a war of words erupt yesterday between the president and the mayor, with the mayor blaming president President Trump for stoking tensions and stoking violence and hatred. The president is attacking the mayor, calling him names, also tweeting "Rest in peace" in regards to the victim, even though, again, authorities have not officially named him.

[16:50:00]

So, a lot of concern. With tensions and emotions so high, folks simply don't know what's going to happen in the next few days, so are bracing for another night of protests. It remains to be seen which groups will actually turn up, Pam.

BROWN: So, then what are leaders planning to do? Have they added plans to respond to these new protests and all the tension?

KAFANOV: Well, we saw a press conference from authorities, including the mayor and police authorities, yesterday.

They say that they are preparing for more protests. But we haven't seen any kind of concerted plan to deal with this. There's not an influx of more police officers, as far as we know. There's no plans to do a curfew. It's not even clear that they would have the personnel to enforce a curfew.

The only development on plans to deal with this is, Governor Kate Brown released a plan yesterday to effectively create a community forum for protest organizers, Mayor Wheeler and community leaders to try to work towards racial equality and police reform.

But that's going to take a lot of time. And whether that's going to be able to clear things up in the next few days remains to be seen, Pam.

BROWN: OK, thanks so much, Lucy, live for us in Portland, Oregon. We appreciate it.

And coming up right here on THE LEAD: tens of thousands protesting abroad over coronavirus restrictions, and, among them, extreme conspiracy theorists.

What they told us -- up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:55:53]

BROWN: Turning to our world lead now.

If you think the United States has problems with anger, division, protests and conspiracy theories, well, it's not just the U.S. Check this out about, 40,000 people protesting in Berlin against Germany's coronavirus lockdown measures.

And look at their signs and shirts closely. Take a look. You will notice some very fringe groups joined in. Sound familiar?

The protests included QAnon supporters. QAnon is that right-wing conspiracy movement started in the U.S. that falsely claims Satanic members of the so-called deep state are plotting to destroy President Trump.

And now it's gaining traction overseas, as CNN Frederik Pleitgen reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An attack on Germany's democracy. Protesters from a demo against the country's coronavirus restrictions tried to storm the German Parliament on Saturday, among them, people carrying flags of the German Reich, a symbol that is now associated with Germany's far right, along with Russian flags, but also U.S. flags.

We also found many supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, this man waving a Reich flag with the QAnon symbol and the likeness of President Trump.

(on camera): Do you like Donald Trump?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

PLEITGEN: Why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The deep state have a long time manipulate the people, the human, and that end.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): QAnon is a sprawling conspiracy theory that claims, without evidence, that a group of Satan-worshipping members of the deep state are plotting to destroy President Trump and establish world domination.

They claim measures against the pandemic are part of that conspiracy and, at least according to some we spoke to, that President Trump is an angel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's angel.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

PLEITGEN (on camera): Why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. He has the connection. He has the connection.

PLEITGEN: To who?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To (INAUDIBLE). You will see. Wait until 3rd November, and then the 4th November, the pandemic is finished worldwide.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): President Trump has retweeted claims from accounts linked to QAnon hundreds of times and has repeatedly refused to denounce the QAnon conspiracy.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I don't know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.

PLEITGEN: But the president's words are undermining Germany's own response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Angela Merkel's government is generally viewed as being successful in combat in COVID-19. But at Saturday's demonstration, she and members of her government are pictured in what seemed to be concentration camp inmate suits calling for her to be locked up.

Another man in a Trump shirt and a MAGA hat saying this:

PLEITGEN (on camera): What do you think about Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel? Because, internationally, she's been praised for the way she's dealt with the coronavirus crisis.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think she is Hitler's daughter.

PLEITGEN: You think she's Hitler's daughter? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Yes, I think.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: Angela Merkel is obviously not Hitler's daughter. She was actually born well after Adolf Hitler died.

But one of the interesting things that we do see at demos like this one, where these people follow some of these very extreme conspiracy theories, is that, in the past, you would see a lot of Russian flags at a demo like that.

But now and now, you do see more and more American flags and more and more people who say that they're followers of President Trump, Pamela.

BROWN: What a fascinating look there in Germany. Thanks so much, Fred.

And turning now to our money lead, the three largest airlines in the United States are getting rid of change fees as a way of encouraging travelers to return to the skies during the coronavirus pandemic. American Airlines and Delta joined United today in allowing passengers to change their flight plans without paying any extra cost.

Previously, that change could cost up to $200 per person per flight. Industry experts expect most smaller airlines will now follow suit. TSA says airline passenger traffic was down 75 percent from last July to this summer.

Our coverage on CNN continues right now.

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