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U.S. Sailors on Four Aircraft Carriers Test Positive for Virus; Federal Reserve Launches $2.3 Trillion for Small Business and Local Government Loans; Remembering Charlotte Figi; At Least Two Patients Die at Detroit Hospital E.R. Hallways. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired April 09, 2020 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:52]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: So we've learned now that sailors serving on four U.S. aircraft carriers have tested positive for coronavirus. This includes USS Nimitz that now has, quote, "a small breakout of cases," Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Barbara Starr has more at the Pentagon.

And Barbara, the U.S. has 11 active aircraft carriers. There is a constant battle to schedule them, travel them around the world, all the places they need to be. If you have four now, is the military beginning to worry that they won't be able to keep those commitments?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, they definitely are looking at how they need to operate across the U.S. military if this goes on for months and months. Right now they think they're OK. But let's give everybody all the information about these four carriers.

Now of course, you have the Theodore Roosevelt that has made headlines around the world. It's in Guam. It has more than 400 positive cases right now. They definitely need to get that crew completely healthy. They say if it came to an emergency, a combat emergency, they could still go out to sea, perhaps, but that would not maybe be the first choice of what they would want to do.

What we're learning also is there are other carriers with very small numbers of cases. Let me walk everybody through it. There is the Ronald Reagan. It has something less than 15 cases. The Reagan is in port in maintenance in Japan, so it's not scheduled to go out to sea any time soon. Maybe several weeks from now they're going to have to get that situation sorted out.

There is also the USS Nimitz. That is out of Washington state. It right now is in a two-week quarantine period, if you will, isolating the crew for two weeks before they are scheduled to go out to sea. They apparently have also had a very small number of cases. They're trying to figure out what exactly is going on.

Right now they don't think it's going to change their schedule. Obviously watching it very carefully. Also the USS Carl Vincent. It's believed it has a case they're trying to get a handle on that one as well. For the U.S. Military, the question really is, how long, you know, do

some of this go on? What we're learning from the Pentagon the longer it goes on, the more they're going to have to adjust, if you will, to deployment, operations, recruitment, all of that. We'll have to see how it all sorts out in the coming weeks.

SCIUTTO: Tell us, Barbara, an update on one of the more than 400 now who tested positive on the Teddy Roosevelt in ICU.

STARR: We learned this morning that one of the sailors who was -- had been ashore in Guam, to everyone's understanding, was found overnight, in the morning, by his buddies unresponsive and he had tested positive for COVID and he's now in the ICU unit at the U.S. Naval hospital on Guam.

This has raised the question to ask the Pentagon how, you know, these 400 troops that have tested positive, how are they continuing to be checked on by medical workers to make sure that they have not become increasingly ill? We're learning that the protocol is the Navy checks on them twice a day. It's a lot of people, they're spread out over the island, but in addition there is this buddy system, very typical of the U.S. Military.

They check on each other throughout the day, and by all accounts when the group that this young sailor was with woke up, they found their buddy unresponsive, now in ICU.

SCIUTTO: Goodness. I wish him the best and recovery. They've got great medical treatment on board those ships.

Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thanks very much.

Other story we've been following this morning, of course, just a staggering number out this morning. 6.6 million Americans in just last week filing for new unemployment benefits. This has brought the total U.S. jobless claims in just over -- just in the last three weeks to more than 16 million people.

HARLOW: Yes, and this comes -- this has just happened in the last hour. The Federal Reserve has launched another program to try to help Main Street, basically injecting $2.3 trillion into small businesses and local governments.

[10:35:08]

Let's go to our Julia Chatterley who joins us now. I mean, it's an historic move by the Fed, and what I found so interesting about the Fed's recent action is that it has been very Main Street focused. We're not talking about a discount window here or something for the big banks, we're talking about Main Street. What does it mean for so many people at home who want this help?

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: It's a great question. I mean, this is unprecedented, what we're seeing from the Federal Reserve. But so is the scale of the crisis here. Remember what we're looking at, and the numbers that you gave reflect that. We could be looking at a 15 percent unemployment rate now in the United States, and it's happened dramatically over the past three weeks. It's deliberate.

However deliberate it is due to the shutdown, it's still devastating for the people involved. So more support is required. There are a whole array of different options that the Federal Reserve offered today, specifically targeting small businesses. Why? Because these small or medium sized businesses represent 80 percent of jobs in the America, trying to stop more people going to unemployment benefits and having that uncertainty is part of the key here.

But they also announced more lending support, guys, for state and local areas, for municipalities here. They recognize the scale of the problem. But the key line in his speech for me was this -- this is lending, not spending. This is the Federal Reserve doing what it can. It does not lessen the need for Congress to come together to scale up the spending -- the money that they're giving to small and medium- sized businesses, because that's going to be forgiven if they spend it on workers, if they spend it on payrolls.

That's the critical difference between what we're seeing from the Central Bank and what we still need to see from Congress in many areas -- guys.

HARLOW: But good to see a coordinated response. Now it's about getting through the glitches --

CHATTERLEY: Absolutely.

HARLOW: -- and getting the money to the folks that need it so much.

Julia, thank you for that important update.

CHATTERLEY: Yes.

HARLOW: A sad story ahead. A young girl has passed away after inspiring the medical marijuana movement and touching the hearts of so many, including of our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He will share his very personal story with us, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:41:59]

HARLOW: Well, tonight Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta host a new CNN town hall. They will have a special guest with them tonight, basketball great Magic Johnson. It is "CORONAVIRUS FACTS AND FEARS," starts tonight 8:00 p.m. only right here on CNN.

But today right now we are remembering and honoring 13-year-old Charlotte Figi. She passed away Tuesday after a long battle with a rare form of epilepsy. She became a symbol of the possibilities of medical marijuana after our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta shared her story in his documentary, "WEED", and he has more her life.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the past 20 years, I have straddled the world of medicine and journalism. And in both professions I am always reminded, stay objective, do your best work but don't get too close.

But with little Charlotte Figi, that was impossible. She just had this way about her, that smile, that giggle, that just got you and captured your heart.

(On camera): Do you remember me?

(Voice-over): That was June 2019, the last time I saw Charlotte, and she was doing great.

(On camera): You're walking pretty good, sweetheart.

PAIGE FIGI, CHARLOTTE'S MOTHER: I can't imagine back then, imagine she'd be 12 years old, and seeing her at 12 years old and what that would look like. She was dying.

GUPTA (voice-over): When I first met Charlotte, it was 2013 for our first film on medical marijuana called "WEED."

(On camera): Pitter patter, tiptoe, creep-crawls in the cave,

(Voice-over): We had heard about this amazing 6-year-old from Colorado who had a rare form of epilepsy. She had a seizure every 30 minutes. Everyone potentially fatal. No treatment had worked. And then one day, desperate, her parents gave her a non-psychoactive ingredient from the cannabis plant called cannabidiol or CBD.

FIGI: This is Charlotte's web. She didn't have seizure that day, and then she didn't have a seizure that night. Yes, right. I thought, this is crazy.

GUPTA: And it was at that moment that people started to see that marijuana, which had been considered dangerous, could also be a therapy. She changed my mind and opened my eyes to the possibility that this was a legitimate medicine. And in the process, she changed the world.

FIGI: Probably the most important thing I'll ever do was to help my own child and then share that information and help others.

GUPTA: Charlotte Figi was the entire CBD movement wrapped up into a sweet little girl with a big smile and an even bigger heart. Her story changed policy about cannabis. States were inspired by the story of Charlotte Figi and made CBD more accessible around the United States to treat epilepsy. And in turn, scientists around the world wanted to study Charlotte's special CBD oil, research that before Charlotte no one really seemed that interested in doing.

[10:45:04]

JOEL STANLEY, CHAIRMAN AND CO-FOUNDER, CHARLOTTE'S WEB HOLDINGS, INC.: I was begging researchers and physicians to work with us and help us understand the phenomenon we were seeing, and they absolutely wouldn't even talk to us. We were laughed out of rooms. Now they beg to research our product.

FIGI: This is her jam.

GUPTA: Charlotte lived her short life to the fullest. And while she was almost this mythical miracle, she was also just a little girl who loved to go tandem biking with her mom. And while her last month was not easy, she had symptoms of COVID-19 while never testing positive, she eventually developed pneumonia which once again unleashed her seizures. Her mother Paige says Charlotte was still smiling and happy until the very end when her seizure became more than her fragile little body could handle.

Charlotte's life ended just as it began, in her mother's arms, surrounded by family who loved her, cherished her and protected her, all forever changed by this little girl who forever changed the world. And everyone, like me, who were caught in her glorious orbit.

Please rest in peace, Charlie.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Can you just tell us a little bit more about her and the impact that she -- I'm sorry, Sanjay, and the impact that she had on the world?

GUPTA: Sure. You know, Poppy, thank you for letting us tell her story. You know, I think when I first met her, I was skeptical about cannabis as a medicine. I had written as such, you know, for "TIME" magazine years earlier, and then you meet somebody and I thought that her story was apocryphal, you know, somebody who had these crippling seizures and then seemed to have this remarkable turnaround with this medication, CBD, and then I started, you know, looking all over the world.

Scientists in different labs and finding patients all over the world who had stories just like hers, thousands and thousands of people. And I realized that she made me realize that it would not just be a moral failing but -- not just a medical failing but a moral failing if this medicine was somehow withheld from people.

And so, you know, it's tough, Poppy. I am trying to keep it together just like you. My daughters sort of grew up with her. You know, I have three daughters of my own and it's one place I never let my mind go, to think about, you know, loss like this, but she meant a lot, obviously, to an entire movement and so much in the country, so much has changed, I think, of people seeing her story and understanding her story. But it's a really tough, tough loss, Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes. You said it so beautifully, her beautiful orbit. So, Sanjay, sorry. I didn't know it would make me cry, but thank you for that and just for what you've done through this whole crisis for all of these stories that you're humanizing for us. We appreciate you very much and we'll be right back.

GUPTA: Thank you, Poppy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:53:03]

SCIUTTO: This morning emergency rooms in Detroit are so packed with coronavirus patients that workers at one hospital say at least two people died in hallways even before any help could arrive. This comes as new modeling shows Michigan could see the peak in coronavirus deaths there today.

CNN's Ryan Young is in Detroit. Tell us how the city is managing this.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's very tough. I mean, obviously we're talking to some of these hospital workers who talk about dire circumstances that are sort of spreading across the health care areas here in the city.

Just to give you an idea, right now there are 1400 ventilators in use in the state. 1200 are being used in the city of Detroit. Right behind me they're hoping the TCF Center will help alleviate some of that. We're told the first 25 beds will be open up on Friday, so that's just tomorrow. But we're taking about the disparities in this area. We talked to the former surgeon general of the state of Michigan, and she had some thoughts about what's going on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. KIMBERLYDAWN WISDOM, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNITY HEALTH AND EQUITY, HENRY FOOD HEALTH SYSTEM: People understand public health front and center in a way that they never did before. Public health is invisible until there is a problem like, you know, a water issue or an environmental issue or COVID-19.

YOUNG: Absolutely.

WISDOM: So now it has exemplified, you know, how public health really plays a significant role in our lives each and every day and how we need to protect our communities in a very aggressive way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Jim, here's the tough part. We spent our day talking to reverends and people in the community yesterday. We talked to one funeral home director who says he's starting to get multiple family members at the same time who are dying from COVID-19. He says it's a shock to the system. They're running out of space, and it's breaking everyone's heart.

SCIUTTO: Ryan Young, good to have you there. We know you're going to stay on top of it.

Thanks so much to all of you for joining us today. We're rooting for you. We're rooting for the country.

HARLOW: Yes. SCIUTTO: I'm Jim Sciutto.

HARLOW: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

[10:55:01]

We'll see you back here tomorrow morning. "NEWSROOM" continues with John King, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Hello to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John King in Washington. You're watching CNN's continuing coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

The global coronavirus case count eclipsing 1.5 million now. In Spain the death toll climbing above 15,000. In Italy, this sad number, 100 frontline --

[11:00:00]