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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Biden Promises Increase in Vaccine Supply; How Safe Are Schools?. Aired 4:30-5p ET

Aired January 26, 2021 - 16:30   ET

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

[16:30:01]

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And there was no mixing between those cohorts. Also, if a student had symptoms, they would stay home, and so would their siblings. Now, that is a way that they say kids can get back into school safely.

Meanwhile, Jake, we have all got some variants to worry about.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATT (voice-over): Starting today, everyone, citizens included, must test negative before flying into this country. But the variant first found in Brazil has already landed, a case just confirmed in Minnesota, nearly 300 cases of the more contagious, possibly more deadly strain first identified in the U.K. now confirmed in 24 states.

Masks will slow that spread.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: And the best way to do that is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as you possibly can.

WATT: So, how's that going? So far, fewer than 25 million shots are actually in American arms.

In New York City?

BILL DE BLASIO (D), MAYOR OF NEW YORK: Right now, I need hundreds of thousands more doses per week.

WATT: New Jersey, this vaccine mega-site opened a couple of weeks ago, just closed for a day, lack of supply.

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): We need probably two or three times the weekly dosage that we're getting right now.

WATT: The good news? Pfizer had promised 200 million doses for the U.S. by end of June.

DR. ALBERT BOURLA, CEO, PFIZER: Right now, we will be able to provide the 200 million doses two months early. WATT: Johnson & Johnson now expects final trial results early next week, then their single dose vaccine likely off to the FDA for authorization.

JOSEPH WOLK, CFO AND EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, JOHNSON & JOHNSON: In terms of supply, though, we're very confident and on track to meet all of our commitments, which would include 100 million doses to the U.S. by the end of June.

WATT: More good news, Regeneron says early results show its antibody therapy, as given to former President Trump, prevents COVID-19 infection in high-risk study subjects.

But there will be a darkest hour before the dawn. This month, January, just became the deadliest month of the pandemic so far, one death every 30 seconds.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: And just back to this schools issue, here in Los Angeles, the district has said that every teacher must be vaccinated before any schools go back brick and mortar, but the teachers union says that's not enough. The kids will still be in danger, and they could spread the virus to people in their homes.

Jake, this is obviously a massive issue for millions of parents, kids and staff. And there's not going to be a one-size-fits-all quick fix -- Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: All right, Nick Watt, thank you so much.

CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, joins me now live.

Sanjay, the CDC, this new report, it says that they found very little transmission of COVID in schools in places where the masking and the social distancing takes place. We're now going on a year of kids being in virtual or hybrid learning.

Biden says bringing kids back to the classroom is a top priority. But I haven't seen yet any sort of solidified plan or timeline or, frankly, any willingness to buck the teachers unions. But what's your take?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, the timeline I have seen is the same as yours; 100 days, he says he'd like to get most of the schools open.

About half the schools K-12 right now around the country are virtual. A lot of people may not realize that. But that, as you point out, is still the situation in many cities. It's been a situation throughout.

This study -- and this was published in the CDC's weekly report, so it's an important publication. I want to show you what they showed, because I think a lot of people will pay attention to this study, 17 rural schools in Wisconsin. And what they found was that the incidence was lower in the schools than in the surrounding community. That's an important note everyone should make note of. There was about 5,300 people total, but 191 cases. Only seven of those 191, which is under 4 percent, actually were linked to in-school spread.

So, you piece that all together, and one could reasonably make the argument that it's uncommon for transmission to occur in schools, for all the reason that you and Nick were just discussing, but also that it's potentially safer.

I mean, they have lower positivity rates in schools than they do in the surrounding communities. We saw that -- we see that here. We saw that in New York as well. So, this is important data, I think, that they're going to need to pay attention to.

TAPPER: And, look, I -- any time we do a story on this, I hear from a bunch of people who think that we are advocating being cruel to teachers, or that we don't care if teachers get infected. But that's not the case. Obviously, there need to be guidelines taken. People need to adhere to what people, the health officials are saying.

But there is an enormous cost being exacted on kids. Whether they are privileged kids, whose parents are able to afford being attentive, but, more importantly, all these kids falling through the cracks whose parents work, who maybe they don't have a good computer, or maybe they have psychological needs or educational needs.

[16:35:17]

I mean, there is a huge cost. There was a story over the weekend in "The New York Times" about the suicide rate that was really concerning officials in Las Vegas among kids.

GUPTA: Yes. Yes.

I mean, Jake, I will fully admit, when I first started looking at this data sort of last year some time, I was concerned. I mean, kids tend to be big spreaders of respiratory viruses. We see that all the time. And there wasn't a lot of data at that time to suggest that they wouldn't be.

I mean, I have been following the data. And the data now suggests something else, that if these kids are doing these basic -- and these were rural school districts. I don't know what kind of funding they have. But with masks, with the basic precautions, it's working.

I understand the concern about staff and spreading to staff as well, but 5,300 people out of 17 schools followed for that fall term, and there were only seven spread within the school, much, much lower than in the community. So, again, one could reasonably make the argument that it's actually a safer place to be, because the mandates are actually adhered to.

TAPPER: Turning to the vaccine, Health and Human Services say that they're going to -- the Department of Health and Human Services said they're going to increase vaccine supply by about 20 percent over the next three weeks.

The U.S. is ordering more than 200 million more doses of vaccine, 100 million from Moderna, 100 million from Pfizer. How big of a difference will this make in the number of shots going into arms? And when will we start to see that difference?

GUPTA: Yes, those are the critical questions.

It will make a difference, because you're obviously going to have a lot more if you. If you do the math, you get 300 million doses now Pfizer, 300 of Moderna. That was -- there are two shots each, so that's 300 million people.

So that's above even the herd immunity numbers that we're talking about. But 200 million of those doses aren't coming until the summer. And we are we are talking about not just the number of vaccines that are important, but the pace at which we can get people vaccinated.

The race right now is that the virus continues to mutate as it spreads more and more. The more it spreads, the more it mutates. Most of the mutations are harmless, inconsequential. But as it accumulates more and more mutations, you will get more variants. That's the concern.

So, some of these new doses that are being purchased probably aren't going to come in -- you would like them to come faster. I shouldn't say they won't come in time, but you would like them to come now, obviously, or as soon as possible.

I will say that these other vaccine candidates, like Johnson & Johnson, we don't have the data on that yet, but, if it's promising, that will probably fill the gap even sooner than what we're talking about with the newly purchased Pfizer and that Moderna doses.

TAPPER: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much.

And congratulations on the haircut.

GUPTA: Yes.

TAPPER: I saw that on Twitter.

GUPTA: Thank you. Yes.

TAPPER: Your daughter gave you--

GUPTA: Yes, wanted to look--

TAPPER: You don't have COVID hair anymore.

GUPTA: Wanted to look professional for your show.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

(LAUGHTER) GUPTA: Least I could do.

TAPPER: Any moment, President Joe Biden will give an update on the COVID vaccine supply and the changes his administration is making.

Stick around for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:42:07]

TAPPER: We're back with breaking news.

We have just learned some of what President Biden will say when he speaks about coronavirus vaccines in just a few minutes. Senior administration officials tell CNN that the Biden team plans to increase the supply from 8.6 million doses a week to 10 million doses a week. Biden will also, we're told, announced plans to order 200 million more doses of coronavirus vaccine, 100 million each from Pfizer and Moderna.

And to help with distribution, states will now get at least three weeks' notice about how many doses they will be able to order.

As CNN's Phil Mattingly reports for us now, the vaccine rollout is a major test for new President Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Biden administer administration six days into office.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We have been connecting all the dots to ensure we have our best understanding of where the holdups are.

MATTINGLY: Still grappling with pressing issues like the availability of the coronavirus vaccine.

PSAKI: We, of course, have that assessment, but we're continuing to dig in every day on where the -- what the issues are.

MATTINGLY: But even as Biden himself offered a ramped-up vaccine distribution timeline--

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it'll be this spring. I think we will be able to do that this spring.

MATTINGLY: Key questions remain.

PSAKI: Why isn't the vaccine getting out to states? What is the holdup with vaccinators? Why aren't there more vaccine sites that are getting the supply they need?

MATTINGLY: Biden with plans to announce additional vaccine supply for states this hour, all as he moved to thrust the issue of racial inequality front and center.

BIDEN: It's time to act because that's what the faith and morality call us to do.

MATTINGLY: With a series of executive actions targeting what his administration has called systemic issues in prisons, housing and discrimination.

SUSAN RICE, WHITE HOUSE DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISER: Today, President Biden is continuing his commitment to embedding equity at the center of his agenda.

MATTINGLY: An effort to make good on a campaign pledge.

BIDEN: You say we have no need to face racial injustice in the country. You haven't opened your eyes to the truth in America.

MATTINGLY: Driven in part by the visceral national response to this, and the mass protests that followed nationwide, at a moment of racial reckoning in America.

BIDEN: Those eight minutes and 46 seconds that took George Floyd's life opened the eyes of millions of Americans and millions of people around all over the world.

MATTINGLY: But the president making a sharp turn away from his predecessor.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That wasn't friendly protesters. They were thugs. They were thugs.

MATTINGLY: All as Biden's legislative agenda faces continued roadblocks, not just from Republicans, but from the looming impeachment trial of Donald Trump, Biden telling CNN's Kaitlan Collins the trial -- quote -- "has to happen," even if that stalls progress on his cornerstone legislative effort, a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: And, Jake, we have seen over the course of the last six days a series of reversals from President Biden's predecessor on domestic policy issues.

You can add foreign policy to that as well, in a phone call this afternoon with Russian President Vladimir Putin, President Biden raising a series of issues of concerns for the United States, whether it's the sovereignty of Ukraine, the SolarWinds hack that's rippled through government agencies, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, all raised in that call between the two leaders.

[16:45:15]

Biden making clear, according to a White House readout, that the Biden administration will firmly defend the U.S. national interest when it comes to Russia -- Jake. TAPPER: All right. Phil Mattingly, thank you so much.

Let's bring in Cedric Richmond, the former congressman. He's at the White House. He's a senior adviser to President Biden. He's director of the Office of Public Engagement.

And, Mr. Richmond, I want to apologize ahead of time if I have to cut you off because your boss is coming out. We're going to bring that to our viewers live. Apologies ahead of time but I think you would agree that's the right move.

One of Biden's executive orders today creates a commission on policing. This would fulfill a campaign promise that calls on police departments to review their hiring, their training practices. But after that review, then what? What will this actually achieve?

CEDRIC RICHMOND, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER: Well, Jake, you're actually a little bit ahead of us. We did not do that executive order today. Our executive order today, we banned, stopped the use of private prisons --

TAPPER: Right.

RICHMOND: -- with the Department of Justice and we ordered Department of Housing and Urban Development to do an agency-wide audit of all the barriers to home ownership, affordable housing, and also nation-to- nation cooperation with our Native Americans.

So those are the ones we issued today.

TAPPER: All right. You're going to be doing that one. But if you want to talk about the ones you did today, let's talk about the ones where Biden said the federal government should stop renewing contracts for private prisons. He's also talking about ending the practice of giving military-grade equipment to police departments and disavowing discrimination against Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders.

Is there going to be any attempt to work with Congress, including with Republicans, to make some of this law as opposed to executive orders? We're now -- the country is getting used to now every four to eight years somebody from the other party comes in, does a whole bunch of executive orders to overturn what the last guy did.

But having laws are -- would be more long lasting.

RICHMOND: Jake, you're absolutely right. And this -- President Biden said on the campaign trail that he wanted to work in a bipartisan manner and he also said he wanted to be transformational. The only way to be transformational, in which you just pointed out, is to pass legislation.

So, it is in law that is there for the long haul.

And so, when you start talking about all of those aspects of whether it's anything involving racial equity, yes, we want to put it in law, we want to work with the other side, both Republicans and Democrats to make sure that we have that lasting, empowering, transformational impact on black, and brown and other marginalized communities.

TAPPER: I want to ask you about the stimulus checks that Biden is talking about, because $600 went out, and a lot of voters heard that they would -- you know, $2,000 checks would be what President Biden was going to bring in and were disappointed when they heard, oh, no, the $600 was down payment on the $2,000. It's only going to be $1,400 checks.

There are a lot of people out there, a lot of progressives, a lot of working people who think that Biden is selling them out really early in the process.

What do you say to them?

RICHMOND: We just have to check the facts. President Biden always said that he thought the 2,000 number was an appropriate number and Congress sent out $600. And we need to make sure that we push for the other $1,400, which is why the American rescue plan is so important for Congress to pass it, so that we can get that number to $2,000.

And we need them to act before March 15th when unemployment insurance and all the other benefits, the eviction and foreclosure moratorium expire.

We're in a dire crisis here. And we need to help these American families. So, I would just remind those American families that, one, we're on your side. And, two, we're going to keep our word.

We want it and support $2,000 because we think that's what's needed. And we're going to make sure that at the end of the day, it adds up to $2,000.

TAPPER: So, we just got the two-minute warning 30 seconds ago. So, here is my last question for you, before your boss comes out. A new CDC study found that the risk of transmission of the virus in schools is very low, as long as there are precautions taken, such as mask wearing and social distancing.

Is this evidence enough for the Biden administration to start pushing schools to reopen, even if that means pushing against the teachers unions that have been resisting opening schools even when health advisers say, no, it's safe to reopen schools?

RICHMOND: Well, this isn't about pushing against anyone. This is all about pushing for reopening the schools in a safe and effective manner. And, remember, what we did was put in American recovery plan, money so that we could safely reopen schools, according to the CDC guidance. And I'm not sure what exactly everything in this report, but it still showed transmission.

[16:5:04]

And here's the real answer. We can do both in this country. We can reopen schools and we can do it in a manner where there's basically no transmission. And we don't have to settle. So, we're going to keep laying out our plans, and we're going to keep

pushing to pass the American Recovery Plan so that we can get schools reopened in a safe way and get people back to work, get kids back in the classrooms and help the American families that are struggling.

TAPPER: Well, the transmission rate in the Wisconsin -- oh, here comes -- here comes President Biden.

Thank you so much, Mr. Richmond. Here is your boss, President Biden.

BIDEN: Thank you for taking the time to be here. Good afternoon.

I'm accompanied by Jeff Zients who's heading up our whole COVID team.

And today, I would like to do is to upgrade -- update you on where we are.

Tomorrow, we're going to begin the briefings that will occur on a regular basis with Mr. Zients and his team. So, we're bringing back the pros to talk about COVID in an unvarnished way. Any questions you have, that's how we'll handle them, because we're letting science speak again.

And so, I -- I'd like to update you on the aggressive steps we're taking to meet our goal of administering 100 million COVID-19 vaccine shots within -- within 100 days, and to ramp up the vaccine supply as fast as we can.

This will be one of the most difficult operational challenges we've ever undertaken as a nation. I said that before, but I must say it again because we're going to do we're going to do everything we can to get it done, but a lot of things can go wrong along the way.

And so, as I've said in the past, we want to give credit to everyone involved in this vaccine effort, and the prior administration and the science community and the medical sphere for getting the program -- I didn't do it, I promise -- for getting the program off the ground.

And that credit is absolutely due. But it's also no secret that we have recently discovered in the final days of the transition -- and it wasn't until the final days we got the kind of cooperation we needed -- that once we arrived, the vaccine program is in worst shape than we anticipated or expected.

A lot of you follow this and nobody is -- I mean this sincerely, the press is the smartest group of people in town. You hone this stuff down clearly. I think you found the same thing.

Even before I took office, I announced a new vaccine -- vaccination strategy, which centers on federal leadership and execution for our whole country. And that's why I directed my COVID team to go to work immediately and how we could step up the vaccination effort and the vaccinations. I'm pleased to announce the first progress in that work today, on day seven of my presidency.

First, after review of the current vaccine supply and manufacturing plans, I can announce that we will increase overall weekly vaccination distribution to states, tribes and territories from 8.6 million doses to a minimum of 10 million doses. Starting next week, that's an increase of 1.4 million doses per week.

And y'all know if I may (ph) -- know parenthetically, you all know that the vaccines are distributed to states based on population. They're based on population. And so, the smaller the state, the less vaccine, the bigger the state, the more they get.

And so, this is going to allow millions of more Americans to get vaccinated sooner than previously anticipated. We got a long way to go, though.

Second thing, we're increasing the transparency with states, cities and tribes, and local partners when it comes to the vaccine supply. This is something we've heard over and over again from both Democrats and Republicans, state and local leaders, that they need a plan in order to what -- they need to know what they have to plan on, they need to know what the order is going to be.

Jeff had a meeting with the governors on Zoom, and others, and I think we're getting this coordinated in a way that there is increased cooperation and confidence. But until now, we've had to guess how much vaccine to expect for the next week, and that's what the governors had to do. How much am I getting next week?

This is unacceptable. The -- you know, lives are at stake here. From this week forward, God willing, we'll ensure that states, tribes and territories will now always have a reliable three-week forecast with the supply they're going to get. So, they'll know three weeks ahead of time what's going to be there in the third week.

This is going the make sure governors, mayors and local leaders have greater certainty around supply so they can carry out their plans to vaccinate as many people as possible.

[16:55:04]

So we will both increase the supply in the short-term by more than 15 percent and give our states and local partners more certainty about when the deliveries will arrive.

These two steps are going to help increase our prospects of hitting or exceeding, God willing, the ambitious goal of 100 million shots in 100 days. But I also want to be clear -- 100 million shots in 100 days is not the end point. It's just the start. We're not stopping there.

The end goal is to beat COVID-19. And the way we do that is to get more people vaccinated, which means we have to be ready after we hit the ground -- hit -- we have to hit the goal of 100 million shots in 100 days. Now, that means fewer than 100 million people getting totally vaccinated. It means 100 shots. And it means somewhere between 16, maybe less, maybe more, million people will have it because it requires two shots in many cases, not always.

So, today, I'm directing COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients here to work with the Department of Health and Human Services to increase our total supply of vaccine for the American people and we believe that we'll soon be able to confirm the purchase of an additional 100 million doses from each of the two FDA authorized vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna. That's 200 million more doses of Pfizer and 100 million more doses of Moderna, 200 million more doses than the federal government had previously secured. Not in hand yet, but ordered.

We expect these additional 200 million doses to be delivered this summer. And some of it will come as early -- begin to come in early summer, but by the mid -- by the midsummer, that this vaccine will be there. And the order then -- and that increases the total vaccine order in the United States by 50 percent, from 400 million ordered to 600 million.

This is enough vaccine to fully vaccinate 300 Americans by end of the summer, beginning of the fall. But we want to make -- look, that's -- I want to repeat -- it will be enough to fully vaccinate 300 Americans to beat this pandemic -- 300 million Americans.

And this is an aggregate plan that doesn't leave anything on the table or anything to chance, as we've seen happened in the past year. I said before, this is a wartime effort. When I say -- when I say that people ask, wartime? I say, yeah, more than 400,000 Americans have already died. I think it's 411,000, or 412,000 -- have died in one year of this pandemic. More than all the people who died on all of -- Americans who died in World War II.

This is a wartime undertaking. It's not hyperbole. And as such, I directed the team to be ready to exercise all the authorities I have under the Defense Production Act and expedite these vaccines. And we're using the Defense Production Act to launch full scale wartime effort to address the supply shortages we inherited from the previous administration.

We're going to be working across the government with private industry to ramp up production of vaccine, the protective equipment, the syringes, the needles, the gloves, the swabs, the masks -- everything that's needed to protect, test, vaccinate and take care of our people. Well, we already identified suppliers and we're working with them to move our plan forward.

The biggest problem -- I hope you're all asking me by the end of the summer that you have too much vaccine left over. You have too much equipment left over. That's not my worry. I hope that becomes the problem rather than we somehow find interruptions in supply or access.

These aggressive steps to increase vaccine supply come on top of the steps we took last week to get more people vaccinated for free, to create more places for them to get vaccinated, and to mobilize more medical teams to get shots in people's arms. We've directed FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to stand up the first federally supported community vaccination centers.

And that work is underway. We're working to make vaccines available to thousands of local pharmacies, beginning in early February. It's a couple weeks off. And we -- and that will enormously expand our reach.

Last week, I also signed a declaration to immediately begin reimbursing states 100 percent for the uses of their National Guard to help with COVID relief effort, both getting people -- getting the sites set up and even using some of their personnel to administer some of the vaccines.

[17:00:00]