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Trump to Bring Back Coronavirus Briefings as Cases Surge; Florida Hospitals Ask State for Nurses; Judge to Hear Arguments in Battle Over Atlanta Mask Mandate; Arizona Sees Slight Downward Trend in Hospitalizations, Ventilator Use; Quest Diagnostics Says Test Results Could Take Up to Two Weeks; Surgeon General: U.S. Needs to Lower COVID-19 Transmission Rate Before Reopening Schools; Missouri Governor Downplays COVID Risk to School Children; Senate Republicans Split With White House Over Testing Funding. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 21, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:19]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Tuesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

A raging crisis, a looming election and the coronavirus briefing makes a comeback. We don't know exactly what the presidential briefing will look like today or what we'll hear. Sources do tell CNN it will not focus exclusively on the pandemic and at this point -- at this point at least no task force members are expected to attend.

I will note in just the last few moments Dr. Anthony Fauci says if they want him to be there, Jim, he'll happily be there.

SCIUTTO: If it's about COVID, hard to imagine you wouldn't have the experts there.

HARLOW: Right.

SCIUTTO: But we'll see. What we do know President Trump's approval numbers are going down as cases spike in 25 states. Deaths surging in 19 states. That may partially explain this apparent U-turn by the president tweeting a picture of himself finally wearing a mask. That's after months of downplaying its use, saying it looks unpresidential. Mocking Joe Biden for wearing a mask.

Let's begin with CNN's John Harwood at the White House for more on today's briefing.

I wonder, John, what we should expect here. If you don't have the experts, will this be part political, part health related? What should we expect?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly it will be substantially political if there are no experts there. And it would be dangerous for President Trump because the more he talks uninterrupted himself about this issue, the worse he hurts himself politically.

That's why even though right now we don't expect that Coronavirus Task Force's Debby Birx or Anthony Fauci are going to be there, I suspect by the time we get to 5:00, aides will persuade him that someone with authority on public health issues will be there to deliver some information because the president's not really capable of helping himself on this subject.

We see -- we saw that in the Chris Wallace interview the other day. We saw that even in his grudging embrace of masks. That tweet where he said well, many people say it is patriotic to wear a mask, but he couldn't actually come out and say it himself, though he did tweet a picture of himself. And in his tweets this morning saying, we are doing very well on the virus.

President Trump shows an inability, Jim, to acknowledge the reality of suffering, death and economic dislocation on his watch. And that is at the heart of his political problems right now and it's why those polls last week showed him down by double digits to Joe Biden and way behind on the issue of handling coronavirus which is far and away the number one issue in the country.

HARLOW: Absolutely. Internal polling numbers start showing you that it's a problem.

John Harwood, thanks a lot.

So in Florida, dozens of hospitals, dozens, are now asking for -- asking the state for nursing help to handle their spike in cases.

Rosa Flores joins us in Miami this morning.

We've been talking, Rosa, so much about the bed availability or lack thereof but now it's really a human resource availability issue.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right. Because you need human beings to tend to these patients.

Poppy, we're learning from the state that 39 hospitals across the state need nurses. They have asked the state for these resources. That's the case right here in Jackson Health where I am. Look, the state has already deployed 125 nurses here to Jackson Health. Well, Jackson Health is now asking for another 275 medical personnel. And here's why. We learned from Jackson that 146 employees have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 10 days including 49 nurses.

And then hear this, the positivity rate at Jackson Health is 38 percent. Now this includes all the tests done at the emergency room, all in-patients tests and the tests of employees as well. As for ICUs, we're learning from Jackson Health that 25 percent of the COVID-19 positive patients need ICU care.

When you look at the ICU situation in Miami-Dade County, the latest statistic available from yesterday. They're operating at 130 percent. The good news from the county is that they do have beds to convert to ICU beds. But as we look across the state, 53 ICU hospitals now showing zero ICU beds available.

Now despite all these facts and figures, the state of Florida still requiring schools to reopen for in-person instruction in just a few weeks. Well, now educators are filing a lawsuit against Governor Ron DeSantis and the Education commissioner, arguing that the reopening of schools for in-person instruction is reckless, that it is unsafe, and therefore unconstitutional.

The Education commissioner took to Twitter to respond and he said this, quote, "Parents should choose," exclamation point.

[09:05:04]

"This lawsuit is frivolous and a complete disregard for everybody's, especially children's health and welfare," Jim and Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Well, science is consistent. If you have an outbreak it's not safe for anybody if the outbreak is spiking at the time.

Rosa Flores, thanks very much.

Let's go now to Dianne Gallagher. She's in Atlanta where a judge will hear arguments in the battle over the city's mask mandate. As you may remember, the Georgia governor has sued to stop the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, from enforcing the mandate and other restrictions. The mayor says in part the timing of this lawsuit that it is personal.

Dianne, what do we know?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And Jim, this is essentially a hearing which will take place over Zoom because of the pandemic where attorneys for Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will discuss this emergency injunction request from the governor's office to essentially ask the judge to grant all of the requests while the lawsuit is pending including that basically gag order on the mayor that would prevent her from talking about any of her COVID-19 restrictions if they exceed what the governor has spelled out in his executive order.

Now, the governor said even just this morning that this is about making sure that they clear up any confusion and the rule of law.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): And when we have local mayors that start going either above or beyond the executive orders that I have in place and try to pull back on our economy and start shutting our economy and shutting businesses down with really a knee-jerk reaction, you know, I just can't allow that. I don't believe we need a mandate to get Georgians to do the right thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Now, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has said that her orders are essentially recommendations so she doesn't exceed what the government has spelled out in his executive order. She's not ruled out the idea of a countersuit against the governor, and Poppy, look, she said I will see him in court. We're going to make sure we do everything to keep our citizens safe after setting a record of nearly 4700 new cases on Saturday. Georgia has seen two days of decline in cases but they're still very high here.

HARLOW: Very high. Dianne, thanks very much for that reporting. We appreciate it.

SCIUTTO: Let's go now to Arizona. CNN national correspondent Miguel Marquez is there.

So, Miguel, Arizona, another one of the states that we saw a significant spike but a small sign of relief. Hospitalizations there appear to be the falling. Do we know why and how significant that drop is?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, because on May 15th the governor reopened Arizona very rapidly unlike New York and other places. They just sort of turned on the light and said we're back open for business. There was the none of that staging that you saw in other states. Now, he's closed the bars again. He's closed the restaurants at least for indoor dining or some indoor dining, and they're doing more outdoor dining.

So that community spread, they're trying to slow that community spread. And it seems to be working. He has also not barred, as he did previously, localities, cities and counties from wearing masks basically. Cities wanting to put in the mask orders and previously he had barred that from happening. Now he allows cities and counties to do that and most of them have put in mask orders. He has still not issued a mask order statewide.

But with all of that and the level with all of that and the level of consciousness and people realizing that they have -- that this is not over, you are starting to see those hospitalizations come down. You're starting to see that rate of positivity come down. Still, extraordinarily high. There is a massive amount of virus out there in Arizona.

But the big numbers, the trends, that retransmission rate that if I get it how many people do I give it to, that's coming down as well. So all those trends are moving in the right direction. But how you keep it in the box? One thing to keep in mind, when the governor shut down Arizona in March, it was one of the last states to short of shut down and close schools, there were a thousand cases a week.

Now you're averaging about 20,000, 22,000 cases a week. So there's a lot more virus out there. How do you open schools? The governor says that he's going to have more on this this week. They were meant to open August 1st. He has said there's an aspirational date of August 17th. The concern for teachers and others, that if you open those schools you are going to create another vector and another way for that virus to spread everywhere.

Back to you, guys. HARLOW: Miguel, we appreciate you being there so, so much, watching

very closely what's happening in Arizona.

In the middle of all of this, test results are just taking way too long to get back to people. A major lab company says it could take up to two weeks for you to get your COVID test results. Why?

Also, stimulus talks are well underway as crucial aid is set to run out for millions of Americans at end of this week. AOL co-founder Steve Case says instead of trying to restore the economy, Congress should work on developing a new one. He'll be here.

[09:10:08]

SCIUTTO: And the administration is preparing to send federal agents to Chicago this week as violence in some areas surges here. What are those agents planning to do particularly since they're doing so over the wishes of local officials? We're going to be live in Chicago.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Well, Quest Diagnostics, you probably know that name. It's a huge, huge testing company. They're saying this morning it could take up to two weeks to get your COVID test results. Even priority cases for health care workers and sick patients can take up to two days.

SCIUTTO: The lab says it is increasing capacity. It hopes to process 150,000 tests daily by the end of July. Trouble is demand is just growing, expected to grow even more so in the fall.

Joining us now is Dr. Amy Compton Phillips. She's chief clinical officer at Providence Health System and CNN medical analyst.

Doctor, always good to have you on. Explain. And I'm sure folks --

DR. AMY COMPTON PHILLIPS, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Thank you for having me.

[09:15:00]

SCIUTTO: I'm betting that folks watching right now have had experiences like this and their families. Someone that they know might be exposed, they had to wait a long time for results, and you know what that wait means. From a health perspective, if people are going to have to wait a week, 10 days, 2 weeks, how does that diminish the value of those tests in terms of contact-tracing and also treatment?

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: It's a huge impediment to us being able to contact- trace and treat effectively. Right now, we use the positive tests to initiate going out and contacting everybody that, that individuals has potentially exposed. The problem with the long delay in testing is we've been -- leave a gap between the time we start the investigation and the time that the person is infectious.

And so if the person has not self-quarantined, and without a positive test, people aren't really sure that they should, especially if they have the less prominent symptoms, you know, if they just have the sniffles. So the risk is that they contaminate significantly more people while waiting for a positive test. And that's a real problem, it's a lot harder to get control of the epidemic if we can't contain the virus especially in that early --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Symptomatic phase where people spread a lot of the germ.

HARLOW: Well, what happened to that Abbott Labs rapid test? I mean, I remember, the mayor of Detroit --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

HARLOW: A few months ago, telling us that it liked saved their city's police force. It allowed him to get 700 officers back on the street right away. I know there have been some issues with results, false negatives, et cetera, but could that not be mass produced and ramped up?

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: The problem is that every single one of these tests that we're doing -- and there's a lot of different versions out there, a lot of different makers are making the tests, and every single one of the type tests that we do with the deep swab, back the PCR test is the reagents and the cassettes in there, the vices are just very hard to come by. The supply chain is completely maxed out.

And so, until we get something a little bit different -- and they call it antigen test that you might be able to do on saliva, for example, we're going to be budding up against the supply chain constraints, we just can't wrap up the manufacturing of the tests fast enough to meet demand.

SCIUTTO: Dr. Phillips, school opening on the minds of parents like Poppy and myself, a lot of Americans, a lot of people watching right now. The Surgeon General hit on a point this morning in an interview on "CBS". What seems to be the key, right, is that if you have a big outbreak in the community, opening the schools doesn't make a lot of sense. But if you have it under control, you could do it under certain circumstances with distancing, et cetera.

Can you explain to folks why that's important, and why forcing schools that have big outbreaks might be dangerous?

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Absolutely. And in fact, yesterday, results were released from a study in South Korea where they did do a lot of contact-tracing and showed that particularly older children transmit the virus very efficiently. And so, if we have a lot of virus circulating the community, and put those kids back in school, the challenge becomes you can create super spreading events that teachers, the janitors, the cafeteria workers, everybody -- all the adults in there supporting the kids have potential to then get the virus and bring it back home to their families.

So even if kids are minimally symptomatic with a high virus burden in a community, all those adults that support all those kids have real risks of creating exponential spread in the community again.

HARLOW: The governor of Missouri, Mike Parson said in a radio interview that the science is clear essentially, that we know that kids are impacted a lot less. He also said quote -- or let me just play you what he said.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

GOV. MIKE PARSON (R-MO): These kids have got to get back to school. They're at the lowest risk possible, and if they do get COVID-19, which they will, and they will when they go to school, they're not going to the hospitals. They're not going to have to sit in doctor's offices, they're going to go home and they're going to get over it.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

HARLOW: They're going to get over it from a health perspective. Do we know absolutely that's true for almost every kid?

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: That -- no, that is absolutely not true. So most people get over it, but as we saw in New York, there is this less common, but lethal -- potentially lethal condition that's like Kawasaki disease which children get inflammatory condition after having the virus, and it can be lethal. We had a few days ago, a 6- month-old die of COVID. So we know that it is not risk-free in children.

[09:20:00]

I'd love to give the kids a free pass, but we can't. And schools are not just children, right? There's a large array of adults who support those children and those adults are at real risk. I think it's been actually -- you know, heart-wrenching to hear about teachers writing their wills before going back to school. That's not what we ask teachers to sign up for to do.

HARLOW: Dr. Compton-Phillips, thank you very much for being with us.

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Thank you so much.

HARLOW: Of course, we're moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street, the Dow, Nasdaq, S&P 500 looking to start the day higher despite the pandemic. The S&P is now in positive territory for the year, making up all those losses, investors watching very closely the stimulus talks on Capitol Hill. Senate Republicans and the White House split over key details.

Up next, the co-founder of AOL, Steve Case, on why he thinks Congress needs to quit trying to get our old economy back, and focus on creating a new one.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

SCIUTTO: It is if you can believe it, just a little over three months until election day, and the nation's former national security leaders are sounding the alarm about the impact of not one, but two crisis that could have a major impact, the coronavirus outbreak and once again, foreign interference in the election. They are demanding that Congress allocate more money to keep voters safe, and foreign actors out to make sure your vote counts.

All this, as President Trump, we should note, refuses to say simply whether he will or will not accept the results of the election. With me now is former Secretary of State and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: It's great to be with you, thank you so much.

SCIUTTO: So four years ago, Russia interfered brazenly in the U.S. election in a number of ways. Now, we're three months away from another election. Are you concerned that not just Russia, but other countries will attempt to duplicate what they did in 2016 in 2020?

ALBRIGHT: Yes, I am concerned because we have a bunch of evidence in many ways of continued interference by the Russians and others in our democratic process, and also in terms of a process of trying to separate us from our allies and undermining our institutions. So I do think it's very important to be very watchful about what is going on.

And as you described this, we have the issue of foreign interference and at the same time, we have the crisis with the virus. And so these elections are incredibly always important. That in terms of not having any disruptions and being able to go forward is the basis of this letter that --

SCIUTTO: Right --

ALBRIGHT: Has bipartisan support where we're talking about the importance of all of this.

SCIUTTO: I'm going to quote from that letter because speaking of foreign actors, you say "these actors influence Americans or attempt to influence Americans by exploiting fear and confusion around the voting process."

It is a sad fact that some of that same fear and confusion is being promoted by the sitting president of the United States. I want to quote a tweet he sent just this morning, and this is a note he has sounded before about mail-in ballots, saying that "mail-in voting unless changed by the courts will lead to the most corrupt election in our nation's history."

Now, I should state this, and we have to fact-check the president all the time. There's no evidence that soldiers have been doing mail-in voting for decades. Are you concerned that the interference in this election is coming just as much from inside the country as from outside the country?

ALBRIGHT: Well, I am concerned about this kind of steady drum beat of already saying that there's going to be rigged elections and various problems. And I think that we therefore have to speak out very strongly, saying that we have time now, an urgent issue, in terms of making sure that the elections do work, that the mail-in aspect of it is fairly carried out.

And that those who want to vote in-person are able to do that, which leads to the basic point is, in this country, states run elections and they are short of money. They need --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

ALBRIGHT: Help in terms of making sure that this does work.

SCIUTTO: So what specific help do they need? So folks at home know, what money do they need from Congress, what investments do they need to make, again, to make sure that your and my votes matter in the votes-count and the people watching right now?

ALBRIGHT: Well, first of all, in terms of -- for those that are going to vote in person, they have to make sure that they have the kind of money to have safe and clean polling places that allows distancing, and also that the machines are working, and that the whole system works properly. We have voted before, we do know how to do this. But the states are short of funds to make sure that the in-person voting works.

And then they also need money in order to make sure that the mail -- that the ballots go out. That they are properly worked out so that the mail is delivered and that the postal services are able to work. And all of that needs a certain amount of money. And so this letter is basically asking for money to be set aside for voting --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

ALBRIGHT: In the stimulus bill that is before Congress now.

SCIUTTO: We've seen worrisome signs of state leaders attempting to take advantage it appears of the COVID crisis to deliberately suppress the vote.