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KC Health Official: Afraid Death Projections Are "Way Under"; Coronavirus Cases Trending Down In 26 States; Governor Andrew Cuomo Announces "All School Districts Can Open"; Testing Snags Persist Across U.S.; Stimulus Talks On Brink Of Collapse As August Recess Looms. Aired 12-12:30p ET
Aired August 07, 2020 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:00:00]
WILL HUMBLE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ARIZONA PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION: They did that yesterday, and actually, they are pretty good aggressive. So no county meets the standards for the new metrics which is a good thing, which means that aggressive--
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Right.
HUMBLE: --they're driving policy.
BOLDUAN: It is nice to see some you know, I'm just going to take it as good news as is. It's great to see Will. Thanks for coming back and I really well appreciate it.
Thank you all so much for joining me today. I'm Kate Bolduan. CNN's coverage continues with John King right now.
JOHN KING, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Thank you, Kate. Hello, everybody. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing this big news day with us an announcement from the New York Governor just moment to go on schools, all schools in the Empire State can welcome kids back into the classroom, the Governor saying this.
If anyone can open schools, we can open schools that from Andrew Cuomo. Also this morning a server reminder of the COVID devastation a good number 1.8 million Americans have new jobs that's according to new data from the government but July jobs growth was way down from June, proof the summer surge right now stalling the American recovery.
Look at the Coronavirus numbers today and while the verdict is mixed, the daily case count is back up to 59,000 plus on Thursday. The average number of cases over past seven days 55,000 that is stubbornly high but it is down from 64,000 per day this time last week, but positivity is up in 34 states while testing is down in more than half the country.
That could be a giant trouble sign that the virus is sprinting ahead of this system design to map its spread. American deaths remain the most troubling metric this hour. The United States has now averaged 1,000-plus deaths for 11 consecutive days. 1,250 Americans perished yesterday, Thursday.
In total, 160,000 Americans have lost their lives to the Coronavirus. The death forecasts are just one of many statistics, just one piece of this puzzle but at the moment they're downright scary. The Centers for Disease Control on somber forecast says the death toll will climb to 181,000 by the end of this month, end of August.
The new IHME model says 300,000 Americans may die by December. Imagine scrubbing Pittsburgh, St. Louis or Cincinnati from the map, some health officials in current hotspot say the numbers may be even worse than we think.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR.REX ARCHER, DIRECTOR OF HEALTH FOR KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI: You could call it the perfect storm that the cases are going up, our hospitalizations are going up and our deaths are going up.
And I'm afraid that the death projections are way under and what I mean by that is as we get more people tested we are finding that people that died we read an obituary and we find out that, oh, they tested positive and we actually know that they had the virus but it is not claimed as part of the death and it's not being reported.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Some hotspots like that, also big decisions including the one we just mentioned. The New York Governor Andrew Cuomo saying all school districts across the state can open that includes this country's largest public school district New York City.
Let's take a look at some of the trends and how they factor in to these big decisions. Here's the state by state map and this is the most encouraging map we have been able to show you in quite some time.
Only four states heading up, 4 states reporting more cases reported this week compared to last week. 20 states that's the beige holding steady, 26 states, a majority of the United States 26 heading down, fewer cases. The challenge now is to keep it this way but this is the most encouraging map if seen in some time.
Among those heading down Florida, Arizona and California, states that were driving the big summer surge. We have learned the last six months that deaths lag case count. So while this map is improving somewhat there's still a lot of sadness on this map as well. 15 states still reporting a higher death total this week from Coronavirus, that's the orange and the red.
15 states higher this week compared to last week. 15 states holding steady, 20 states heading down and if that first map stays in better shape this map will eventually improve but it is a lagging indicator 15 states still reporting more deaths.
Where are the cases coming from the top 5 states to report cases yesterday California still the leader. Florida and Texas, the next two these are high numbers 76 and 50 in Florida almost 7,000 in Texas these are high numbers but they are down from where Florida and Texas were just go back two weeks or so at the peak of their summer surge the challenges can you keep pushing it down?
Georgia and Tennessee rounding out the top five, this is one of the challenges we're seeing the smaller more rural states starting to move up a little bit. Can you get the number down there as you watch that? We talked about New York City there's a reason the Governor says you can start opening your schools to every community across the state because New York is down here.
Let's go back a couple of months May, 3,500, just high 3,500 cases a day. Watch the average come down May, June and July. Here we are in August, below as 1000. This is why the Governor says we've managed this. We are in better shape. You can open your schools. Cases is one way to look at it, positivity is another very important metric.
Have you pushed the disease down at the point where as children go back to school and people go back to work you can control the spread? Back on May 1st nearly 15 percent, meaning if you took a test in New York State on May 1st, 15 percent of them just shy of that were coming back positive.
[12:05:00]
KING: You see the dip, 1 percent, 1 percent this is where you want to be 1 percent or below. This is why the Governor says you can open schools. The New York City Mayor says I'm ready and I'll be careful.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NY), NEW YORK CITY: I want to hold New York City schools to a very tough standard and that is that 3 percent standard over a seven-day period. If our average goes above 3 percent infection in New York City we would not open schools if that happened during the school year, we will close them.
We have 1.1 million school kids and three quarters of our families have said they want their kids back in school. They want that support they want their kids to do better educationally than they can do remotely. They want everything that goes with school, the social development, the mental health services, physical health services, food. Our obligation is to do our very best for parents and families.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: We are joined now by a man with one of the toughest jobs in America. Richard Carranza is the Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education sir, thank you for your time this morning especially on this important day.
You have a green light from the Governor. You heard the Mayor there talking about the standards. So let's walk through this in the largest public school district at the - in this country, what is your number one metric? You're going to open schools and you're going to be watching for what? RICHARD CARRANZA, CHANCELLOR, NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION: We're going to be watching the positivity rate that you talked about today. The Mayor of New York City announced we are at 1 percent. We've been hovering between 1 and 2 percent over the last 15 days.
And that's a much stricter standard than even the World Health Organization which has said 5 percent positivity rate. So we are in a place where we can even consider now in-person learning and that why we're happy that the Governor has given us the green light. We have been preparing for every eventuality since we pivoted to remote learning in March.
KING: And you have a giant school population. I just want to go through some of what we're looking at here. 1.12 million students 73 percent of them have some economic disadvantage. 20 percent of them are students with disabilities. You see 40 percent Hispanics, 25 to 26 percent black, 16 percent and a little bit more Asian, 15 percent white.
You have one of the most diverse school populations. You have economic challenges. You have language challenges. When you mentioned the positivity rate, how are you going to do that? Just by - is it going to be like it has been for months that if you have symptoms you get a test or do you want to implement some kind of random testing?
CARRANZA: First and foremost, I want to congratulate all of my fellow New Yorkers because in March we were the epicenter of the epicenter in America. Because we didn't politicized wearing a face mask because we stayed in, we social distanced, we paid attention to the science and didn't fall for the science fiction.
We are able to drive that drive that positivity rate down. It's not going to change as we think about the in person learning. We're going to ask parents to be our partners. If your child is sick or is exhibiting any symptoms do not send them to school.
If you're feeling sick, stay home. But we're going to have temperature checks. We're going to have randomized temperature checks. Everyone will be wearing personal protection equipment. Face masks will be required we're going to have 24/7 people walking around disinfecting doorknobs and handrails.
We're going to have one way traffic in the hallways, socially distancing. We're going to have no more than nine to 12 students in a classroom. All of those are scientifically based measures to keep our students safe but what the Mayor has said and I have also said is that we are going to be looking like hawks at the numbers.
And if the numbers of the positivity rate starts to inching upward and if it gets to 3 percent we will remote learn for the entire system. So we have a number of protocols that we've already worked through and we're very conservative about it, just a matter of life and death for our children and those that serve our children.
KING: I'm sure you have seen some school districts around the country have already reopened and there have been some photographs. And you know this is a small sample - this is not everybody but there have been photographs of very crowded hallways, students without masks that have come out of school districts that have been open already.
And I'm sure you've seen and you see some here. Those kids are just too close together and I'm guessing this is not their fault. They've been told to go from class to class. Are you staggering class time so that you can alleviate this?
You're in a much more crowded situation than many of these other cities where schools have already reopened. How do you deal with that in the hallway? And you can stagger class times. You can tell people to do things but do you have the resources? People in the halls to just keep eyes on it and say, whoa, spread out?
CARRRANZA: First and foremost, I mean, if you followed the medical guidance then you shouldn't have that many students in a school building at any one time anyway because social distancing. The six feet between individuals is just thrown out the window.
So not knowing the particulars I tell you in New York City there's - it's impossible to have 100 percent of our students in a school building at the same time on any given day and still adhere to the safety protocols and the social distancing.
So we put forward three to five models that we've asked our schools to kind of try on for size. One of them assumes that because of the distancing recommendations and guidance you can only get one third of your students into the building in one day.
[12:10:00]
CARRANZA: Some of them are based on 50 percent but it's all based on the fact that we will limit the number of individuals in a school building. Now there are some downsides to that, that means on a weekly basis, some children will be in person for two or three days and then remote learning for the other two or three days and it will be kind of a rotation that way.
Obviously it is not ideal but if we're going to keep to what medical science and the medical experts are telling us, you have to limit how many people are in a confined space at any given time. And we feel very confident that with that reduced number of students that we will be able to maintain the social distancing and all of the medically advised requirements to have people in the same space.
KING: Richard Carranza, the Chancellor of New York City Department of Education, sir, you have one of the most challenging jobs in the country at this moment. We'll keep in touch and we certainly wish you the best as you walk through this.
CARRANZA: Thank you, John.
KING: Thank you, sir, best of luck. And this just in, the mother of Georgia teenager who posted this video we just showed you of her school's crowded hallway, the one we showed you just moments ago say her daughter will no longer be suspended for sharing that picture. The student Hannah Waters told CNN she didn't regret posting the photo saying it was "Good and necessary trouble" a nod there of course to the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis. The School District Superintendent defended the crowded hallway today saying it was in compliance with state guidelines.
Up next for us, what a Governor's conflicting test results tell us about testing problems we still have all across the country.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:15:00]
KING: Real time example yesterday of some of the confusion about which Coronavirus test works, which can you most rely on? The Ohio Governor Mike DeWine was supposed to be with the President yesterday. He went for a rapid test in the morning. He was told he was Coronavirus positive and could not be with the President. Later in the day he took a different test and was told he was negative and all was fine.
There's some confusion about how many tests? Which ones you can trust? Let's just walk through a little bit of the testing scenario. Number one let's just look at the numbers of the new tests being conducted, different varieties, different versions across the United States.
The seven-day moving average had been going up. That's what you want test more people. Track the virus. A bit of a dip off late, right? A little bit of a dip off late that has some public health experts concerned they say no, we need more testing, not as the President often says, less testing.
If you look at the positivity rate, this tells you the Coronavirus is not under control. You cannot corral a virus when more than 7 percent of your tests are coming back positive. Back to the beginning of June it was a much - 5 percent at the beginning of June peaked near 10 percent in the middle of July, still above 7 percent.
This is a bad metric for you when you're trying to control the virus. We showed you New York earlier today and New York State is down to 1 percent which states are driving these numbers? Still 21 percent of the tests in Texas coming back positive, 20 percent in Mississippi, 18 percent in Florida almost 18 percent in South Carolina, 17.5 percent in Idaho.
This is one number we look at. One of the confusion though is that if you're going to get a test which test should you get? Which test should you trust? Again, the Governor of Ohio, a man leading his state's response to the Coronavirus even he's a little confused.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What type of test was it that you took that gave you the results so quickly? I'm curious how available those tests are?
GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): You know, this was a test that was arranged by the White House and frankly that's all I know. Obviously it is a rapid test. They got the results back right away but beyond that I can't tell you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: With us now to share his expertise and his insights is Dr. Michael Mina, the Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Doctor Mina, it's great to see you again.
Just to the point that the Governor was making there. He took a rapid test in the morning, an antigen test I believe it's called, and it came back positive. Was told you can't be around the President. Then he and his family and his staff take a different test later, the swab test and he is told he is negative. Do we have an issue in the country and if so how big of an issue about the reliability of some of these tests?
DR. MICHAEL MINA, HARVARD T.H. CHAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Yes, so tests have all different metrics as we have all heard about, sensitivity and specificity. This is actually an issue that's extraordinarily common especially in infectious disease diagnostics. And what happened with the Governor is exactly what we expect to happen.
If a test is found to be positive then you can always run a confirmatory test if your risk of being - of having been infected is sufficiently low that you have no reason to think that you're actually positive. Then you get a confirmation.
We have done this with HIV for decades now, having confirmatory tests. So this was - unfortunately it's been sensationalized now because there is such confusion around the issue but from a laboratory medicine perspective these issues are common place.
KING: OK, so let's not sensationalize and let's walk through it for people who maybe they're going back to work and they're going to see some testing, maybe their children about to go back to school and in some places that would require testing.
Do we know at this point, you know, let's just - the Governor's example. The PCR test which came back negative for him was a throat or nasal swab it detects viral RNA and they're viewed as more accurate.
And you can get it - he is the Governor and he got his result stat obviously from the lab other people have to wait a while. The Antigen test is a throat or nasal swab, detects viral proteins, it is viewed as less accurate. Walk through the science of that, is that a fair presentation?
MINA: Yes, I think accuracy is all about what your target is and so one of the things that viral PCR does when you look for the RNA of the virus it will do a very good job defined RNA. But in the same way that you can find DNA just on somebody's piece of hair it doesn't mean that there's actually a person there if their piece of hair is there.
[12:20:00] MINA: This is a problem with PCR actually where it can tell you that you are positive when maybe you were actually transmitting the virus maybe weeks ago and so antigen test can actually and in some ways be considered more accurate to tell somebody sort of when they're at risk of spreading the virus if they have it.
But they do have a consequence of potentially having a slightly greater number of false positives like what happened with the Governor. And so, we just have to ensure that when these tests are introduced at a population level that we have appropriate access to confirmatory tests so that we can make sure that all the results that people are getting back for themselves are accurate.
KING: So my analysis of that, I'm a layperson please correct me. It is that the variety is a good thing to have different tests and that you're going to have, yes, you're going to have false positives or false negatives sometimes as we go through it that just comes with the territory.
Let me close with this one though, are the tests now six months in better than if we rewind the clock and I was having this conversation with you two months ago or four months ago?
MINA: I think the access to testing is improving slightly. We are still - I would say that all of the efforts that have been pushed forth have improved the numbers of tests may be we're going to get 50 percent improvement over the next few months, for example.
I don't want to see 50 percent improvement to really control this virus. We need 50 fold improvements, meaning maybe we need to be doing 50 million or 100 million tests every day. So I think access is slowly getting better.
The test quality is certainly getting better but we need to massively scale up testing in this country in a way that is going to require new innovations and really federal oversight to push whole new chapters in this arena.
KING: I hope that the decision makers who have that power listen to the experts like you, Dr. Mina. Thank you so much for your expertise and insights. We'll talk again I'm sure. Thank you.
MINA: Absolutely.
KING: Up next for us, we shift to the Coronavirus impact on the economy U.S. jobs struggling to make a comeback and up on Capitol Hill stimulus talks crumbling.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:25:00]
KING: New jobs? Yes. Enough new jobs, very much no. New unemployment report from the government today reminds us how deep of a ditch the pandemic dug for the American economy. The July report tells us 1.8 million jobs were added last month, that's a good number but it is way down from the nearly 5 million jobs added in June.
The unemployment rate did drop to 10.2 percent, again though that still higher than it was at the peak of the Great Recession back in 2009. Today's jobs report comes as we're told stimulus talks appear to be on the brink of collapsing. Top Democrats and White House officials though scheduled to meet later today if the deal isn't reached the President says he just might take some executive action.
With me now to discuss CNN's Lauren Fox and Julia Chatterley along with Michelle Singletary (ph) he writes the Personal Finance Column for "The Washington Post". Lauren, I want to start with you on Capitol Hill because Speaker Pelosi and the Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer have just made an offer to try to shake up these talks and make progress, any chance of success?
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Right. It is a pretty significant offer. What they say they offered was to come down a $1 trillion. Remember, the House bill was about 3.4 trillion so that puts them at about $2.4 trillion. They said they wanted the White House to then come up $1 trillion.
The White House in their eyes rejected that deal. So that being a nonstarter. Remember at the macro level the difference in these talks are how big, what the scale should be of any stimulus bailout?
And right now John, the two sides seem very far apart not just on unemployment insurance, state and local dollars, how to get kids back to school? But even trying to come up with an agreement on that top lying number and we are now 11 days into these talks and no significant breakthrough, John.
KING: But some movement there. We'll see. They're going to meet this afternoon so we'll see. That's the first reactions aren't always the last reaction. We'll see if that gets anything going. Lauren, stay with us.
Julia Chatterley, to you, the American economy is a Coronavirus patient. The question is what shape is it in right now? When you look at this jobs report, 22.1 million jobs lost in March and April. 9.2 million of them have come May through July. But we are still missing close to 13 million jobs. Rate the patient right now?
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: The patient is still very sick, John. That's the bottom line. Yes, we've recovered just over 40 percent of the jobs we lost in the pandemic and good news today to see more jobs expected than we thought added back in July.
But look at the momentum, the pace of the recovery is slowing here. We are at an inflection point. What happens next? Yes, it depends on the recovery, how consumers behave, how confident businesses are to rehire some of those additional workers?
But it also is going to depend on financial aid. What Congress do here because if you cut benefits people cut spending and that has an impact on the recovery? It slows the recovery so, so many determinants here and all of them critical for how quickly we can have these jobs back? KING: And so, Michelle, this is why I'm grateful you're here because you write about people out there outside of the beltway and inside the beltway but real families who have to make real decisions and most things they hear from Washington is essentially blah, blah, blah.
It was just Charlie Brown's teacher making a noise they don't care about and they don't understand but they have a high stake in this one. Those bonus unemployment benefits expired.
[12:30:00]
