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Moderna Vaccine Trial Participant Numbers Too Low for Conclusive November Results; Interview With Florida State Football Player Andrew Boselli; Latest COVID-19 Research Findings Out as Testing Time Remains Long. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 10, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is going to be one of the largest events since the pandemic started, and a lot of the people here tell me they are so glad this event wasn't cancelled.

Now, when you think about South Dakota, it has less than 10,00 COVID- 19 cases. A lot of people are citing that for the reason why they feel comfortable not wearing masks, you don't see a lot here. But the same way they don't wear helmets, they don't believe they need to wear a mask. In fact, take a listen to some of the people that we talked to over the last 24 hours.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm trying to keep everybody safe. But at the same time, you know, we're here to do what we're here to do, and the world's going to go on no matter what, you know? And it seems like everyone else has the same opinion, I just hope that it doesn't end up causing, you know, a mass breakout.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not worried about it at all. We're from California, so you got to wear masks everywhere you go. So honestly, this is kind of refreshing, coming out and not have to to worry about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: No matter where you're looking, as you look down the street here, there are just thousands of bikes here. Some people are staying at hotels, some people are staying in R.V. parks. They feel comfortable. A lot of them feel like the pandemic numbers are not real, so they feel like they're not worried about this being a superspreading event.

Health officials do have some concerns. We'll have to see what happens over the next few days.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST, NEWSROOM: It is the top of the hour, I am Brianna Keilar. And I want to welcome viewers here in the United States and around the world. We begin with a sobering reality check, the U.S. now has more than

five coronavirus cases and more than 163,000 deaths. The worst of it is in just five states: California, Florida, Texas, New York and Georgia. And if you look at the global picture, the United States is still way up in the numbers here. It accounts for a quarter of the cases in the entire world, even though it only accounts for four percent of the world's population.

And one more chilling statistic? The U.S. is losing 1,000 people a day to coronavirus. Look at the assessment from a foreign policy magazine. The United States simply belongs in the bottom of the countries in terms of the slow response to the crisis.

The U.S. isn't alone, though. Health officials declared today that Europe is experiencing a true resurgence in COVID. The head of the World Health Organization says it can be beaten, though, if everyone gets on board.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL RYAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: It's brutal in its simplicity, it is brutal in its cruelty, but it doesn't have a brain. We have the brains. And I think Maria (ph) may outline how we can outsmart something that doesn't have a brain, but we're not doing such a great job right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: There is one area that appears to be under control at this moment at least, and that is New York. The governor laid down the law, schools will not reopen without a plan for in-person learning.

On the flip side, Georgia, where some schools have already reopened -- remember this picture from last week of students packed in the hallways of a high school? -- well, that school is now shut down for at least two days after several positive cases.

The race for a vaccine is on, but it won't hit the goal that the president promised last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said that a vaccine could be ready around November 3rd. Are you optimistic that that will happen, and will that give you a boost in the election?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: On the vaccine?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TRUMP: I am, I'm optimistic that it'll be probably around that date. I believe we'll have the vaccine before the end of the year certainly, but around that date, yes, I think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is joining us now. And, Elizabeth, CNN obtained part of an e-mail that Moderna sent on Friday to the principal investigators of its vaccine trials. What did this say?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, what it said was the numbers. The number of people who they have included in their clinical trials thus far, in the first two weeks. And it's not a terrible number, but it is not a number that gets you a vaccine by November 3rd.

Let's take a look at the numbers that were in that internal corporate e-mail. From July 27th until August 7th, 4,536 participants. But they need 30,000 participants. They say they expect to enroll 30,000 and give them their first shots sometime in September. They don't say at what point in September. And then -- this is important -- 28 days later, they need to give them a second shot.

So, Brianna, even if they do get those numbers up quickly -- and I think they will, it always starts off more slowly and then ramps up -- even if it does ramp up, the vaccinologists that I talked to said there is just no way that you can get one dose in and then, 28 days later, another dose in 30,000 people.

Wait two weeks for the vaccine to kick in because it doesn't take effect immediately, that can take a couple of weeks. Then you have to wait and put these people out in the world and let them, you know, live their lives and see who gets coronavirus and who doesn't? That cannot happen by November 3rd -- Brianna.

KEILAR: And tell us, Elizabeth, about this new study. It's by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and it shows that more than 97,000 kids tested positive for the virus in the last two weeks of July. What do you make of those findings?

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COHEN: Right, Brianna, these numbers I think are a lot higher than what people have been thinking. We think that children aren't really affected, but let's take a look at these numbers.

What they found, more than 97,000 U.S. children positive, just in the last two weeks of July. That's a huge number that represents about 8.8 percent of the cases, and they say that nearly 339,000 children have tested positive since mid-April.

Now, I know a lot of people are thinking, oh, so what if, you know, a child gets coronavirus? They're not going to get very sick; maybe they'll feel kind of, you know, bad for a day or two. That is true in most cases, but some children do become severely ill, some children do die and you just can't predict who's going to get very sick and who's not with any certainty.

Also, of course, children are disease vectors. They get their parents, their grandparents, vulnerable people sick. That's another reason why we need to care about these numbers. KEILAR: Oh, I am aware of that vector phenomenon, as are you,

Elizabeth.

COHEN: Right.

KEILAR: Thank you so much.

COHEN: Yes.

KEILAR: The 2020 college football season could be on the brink of not happening. We are learning that discussions are under way among members of the Power Five sports conferences to possibly postpone the upcoming football season due to concerns over the pandemic.

And as those conference leaders discuss shuttering down, there are several star players from schools in those conferences who are uniting to express their desire to play as long as the schools can address safety concerns.

Andrew Boselli is an offensive lineman for the Florida State Seminoles. He and his family have also had coronavirus already. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us. I think you're in a really unique situation here, having been through this with your whole family.

And you know, before we talk about the football season, just tell us about your experience, their experience with COVID, because you all got sick and your dad -- who was a former NFL player, Tony Boselli -- he actually nearly died.

ANDREW BOSELLI, FLORIDA STATE FOOTBALL PLAYER AND COVID SURVIVOR: Yes. So my family, I have a family of seven, my mom and dad and five siblings. And kind of everyone had different symptoms.

Like you said, my dad is more on the severe side, he was hospitalized and had to be put on oxygen. My mom was on the less severe side, she just lost her taste and smell. I was more in the middle, where I had extreme fever, fatigue, shortness of breath. But my symptoms were not as extended as my father's so I was able to make a pretty quick recovery. But it did hit me hard when it did hit.

KEILAR: And you have been confronted with the reality of what it might be like to possibly lose someone very close to you with this. You also, though, sent out a tweet -- kind of late-night -- with the hashtag, #WeWantToPlay. So tell us why you feel it's so important to get back on the field this fall, being someone who certainly knows what the stakes are here.

BOSELLI: So we at Florida State -- obviously, once I kind of made a normal recovery, I've been working hard to kind of get ready for the season. And then once I came back in Tallahassee, our (ph) strength (ph) test (ph), headed by Coach Storms, has really pushed -- we've worked really hard to get us in good shape, ready for the season.

And then our head coach, Mike Norvell, and our head athletic trainer, Jake Pfeil, they've put in place very strong standards to help: daily screenings, masks everywhere, consistent coronavirus testing so that I really feel and we as a team feel safe in Tallahassee. And we put in all this work, so I'm hoping we can get my senior season this fall.

KEILAR: What about testing? What are they doing with testing?

BOSELLI: We've had pretty consistent testing. We have had (INAUDIBLE) at the university, or we've done it as a team in our indoor facility, so kind of both --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: OK.

BOSELLI: -- depending on the time.

KEILAR: Do you feel like it eliminates all risk? Are you worried there could be some risk and that maybe other players' families might not be as lucky as yours if football adds to the spread of the virus?

BOSELLI: So there's always going to be risk, and I think that's something that we need to definitely be aware of. But I think we are doing here everything at Florida State to protect our players and protect our members of the staff and faculty, to make sure if we do forward in having a fall season, we'll be as safe as possible.

KEILAR: That you'll be as safe as possible. I wonder, what have you heard from coaches and other players about what they want to see happen, and also just about the chances that the season is going to happen?

BOSELLI: Everything I know about the future of the season is all speculation I could -- been reading on Twitter just like everybody else.

But talking to my teammates, I know the guys I talk to all kind of feel the same way as I do, as we have been prepared and we are putting in the work, we've started fall camp. And we really trust our head coach and our athletic trainer that they've been doing everything. And we have been, as a brotherhood, keeping each other accountable so that we are safe and our health is in good hands.

KEILAR: Well, Andrew, it is great to see you healthy. It's wonderful to hear that your dad is doing well, and we really thank you for joining us.

[14:10:03]

BOSELLI: My pleasure.

KEILAR: Let's talk more now about this with sports agent Drew Rosenhaus. Drew, it's great to see you. And look, I know a lot of people want to know what you think about this. Do you think that this season of college football could be cancelled?

DREW ROSENHAUS, SPORTS AGENT: Yes, I do. I think it's a strong possibility. I'm hearing that the Big Ten Conference and the Pac-12 Conference have decided to cancel their seasons. I've also heard that the SEC, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Big 12 Conference, they're still trying to make their decision and those haven't been finalized.

So it's really up in the air right now. I certainly think the most important thing is every university, every conference, every president should make a decision that puts the safety and welfare of their athletes -- their student athletes -- first.

KEILAR: I wonder what you think about something that we've heard from Trevor Lawrence, who is the star quarterback at Clemson, and likely top NFL pick in the upcoming draft. He's been speaking out about his desire to play this season, and he's urging college football players to form a union so that they can have their voices heard.

Do college football players need a union and how would that work if they had one?

ROSENHAUS: Absolutely. Brianna, it's a joke that college players don't make any money, it's a billion-dollar industry and they don't see any of that, it's absurd. It's the biggest hypocrisy that I can think of in sports, that's got to change. That's obvious.

If -- I respect players who want to form a union, I think it's about time. They deserve to get their voice heard, they deserve to get compensated for this in the revenue-producing sports like football and basketball. Certainly, Trevor Lawrence and players who want to play, I think they should be given a choice. And players who don't want to play shouldn't feel the pressure that they need to.

We've already had two clients that have opted out of this season, Gregory Rousseau from the University of Miami, and Caleb Farley from Virginia Tech. Both guys felt very strongly that it was in their best interest not to play this season and to get ready for the NFL draft. And I think every college athlete and football player should have the ability to make the decision in terms of what they think is best for them.

KEILAR: The president just retweeted Lawrence, he just retweeted Trevor Lawrence. And Florida's governor also said that college sports should continue. What do you think about the president and other elected officials weighing in on this? Do you think it's going to sway any of these conferences for what they do, and do you think they should be weighing in?

ROSENHAUS: Well, I'm pretty sure the president wants college football to go on because if there's no college football, there's going to be a lot of upset people. And ultimately, that's not great for the president and his popularity and his job in terms of keeping this country safe and dealing with the pandemic. So I think he certainly has a reason for that opinion. But I hope that's not the case, and I hope he feels it's legitimately safe.

That's the key here. Each university, if they do -- I just saw a statement from Jim Harbaugh at Michigan, where they've had, you know, testing on a regular basis and they're keeping guys safe and they've got the numbers. But there are other programs that aren't like that. It's not uniform. That's one of the big problems.

The NCAA, college football in the future, they have to come together. They have to have a plan, moving forward, that's all universities, and not have one program like Connecticut cancel, another program like Old Dominion say they can't play. Their MAC conference can't play, but other programs in the SEC and schools in Florida want to play.

It needs to be (ph) together, there's got to be a plan, there needs to be more clarity to keep these young people safe, as well as the coaches and administrators and the staff that's involved.

KEILAR: Just quick before I let you go, Drew, I think some people say, well, if college football can't move forward, then how does the NFL season move forward? What do you think?

ROSENHAUS: Great question, I was anticipating that, Brianna. The biggest difference is that the NFL is on the same page, 32 teams that have a cohesive plan and it's working. Testing, they gave people the opportunity to opt out, they're testing everybody on a regular basis, they've got testing on-site, 15-minute results, they've got social distancing, they've got people that are czars in every organization that are overseeing players' safety, coaches safety.

It's very different in the NFL. These guys are getting paid money to do this, they are being protected. Clubs are investing millions of dollars. I think there's been 75,000 tests already in the NFL.

[14:15:02]

College football's disorganized, it's nothing like that. And I'm not saying that every program -- the University of Miami, University of Michigan, I've seen firsthand how hard they're working. But I can't say that about every organization at this time. But I can tell you that about every NFL team.

KEILAR: All right. Hey, Drew, thank you so much. It's great to get your insight.

ROSENHAUS: Thank you for having me on, have a great day.

KEILAR: You too.

Bill Gates says the testing situation in the U.S. is "mind-blowing... insanity." What he says can be done to fix it.

Plus, why the coronavirus may lead to long-term chronic fatigue syndrome, and a new study that raises the possibility that depression and anxiety may be symptoms of the virus.

And the Native American leader who protested the president's Mount Rushmore trip will join me live to react to the president hoping that he's added to that mountain.

This is CNN's special live coverage.

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KEILAR: The U.S. leads the world in the number of coronavirus tests conducted, so why are we struggling so much to stop the spread of this disease? To date, more than 60 million tests have been completed in the U.S., but delays and backlogs mean that it can still take days for results to come back.

Bill Gates addressed those issues in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL GATES, CO-CHAIR, BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION: And I've said, don't reimburse any test where the result goes back after three days. You're paying billions of dollars in this very inequitable way to get the most worthless test results of any country in the world. And you've created this incentive for the commercial guys to have long lines because you do not -- you just want to waste government money, you pay as much for the late result as the timely result. No other country has the testing insanity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: All right, let's talk about this now with professor and dean of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Peter Hotez. Dr. Hotez, it's always great to see you. And you know, Bill Gates really puts it into perspective when he says you pay just as much for those, like, 17-day-old results as you do for the two-day-old results.

And it's been eight months now, or it's been several months now since the first coronavirus case was found in the U.S. Why are we still having these issues with testing?

PETER HOTEZ, PROFESSOR AND DEAN OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Well, we're having the issues with testing for the same reason that we've not contained the virus where so many other countries have. We've just not had a coordinated federal response, and we still have the epidemic raging across the southern states and into the Midwest.

Our number one problem is the fact that we've got massive levels of virus transmission, even places where it's reached a plateau, it's plateauing at a thousand miles an hour so it's very -- you know, it's very intense. Like in many metro areas across the southern U.S. including Florida, that's problem one.

Then when you're trying to do testing under those circumstances, contact tracing, it's almost impossible when you have that many cases. Then on top of that, we have the well reported delays in organizing federal testing.

So in an effort to move things along, we licensed things to a number of commercial labs with varying -- a lot of inconsistencies across the different commercial labs. And as Bill Gates appropriately points out, it's ridiculous if you're

getting a PCR result, which tells you whether you're actively infected at that time, when it's three, five or 10 days ago, it's like getting a weather report from three, five or 10 days ago.

So all of this has started to snowball, but the fundamental problem has been this insistence on not having a federally coordinated response, that it needs to be led by the states with backup support. And it's led to this catastrophic failure, the fact that we are now the epicenter of the global pandemic and we continue to be for the last few (INAUDIBLE).

KEILAR: I want to get your reaction to something that the governor of Florida said. This is what Ron DeSantis said this afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): The fact is in terms of the risk to schoolkids, this is lower risk than seasonal influenza. In terms of their ability to spread it, they're less likely to spread it than they are for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: What do you say to that?

HOTEZ: Well, first of all, we know kids over the age of 10 can spread this virus perfectly well -- those are studies done out of Korea. And even the little kids, now a new study in "JAMA Pediatrics" has shown that they have very high amounts of virus in their upper airways. And when they're speaking, releasing virus. So it's a very misleading point to say the least.

And then you have to remember that when you open up a school in a place where there's high transmission -- and by the way, now northern Florida probably has about one of the highest rates of transmission in the United States -- it's not just the kids who are transmitting the virus, you have vendors coming into the building, other cafeteria workers, adults. It's inevitable that teachers will get sick, just like what happened in Georgia when they tried to open up schools prematurely.

So this, again, gets to the problem, no -- so many elected leaders refuse to do the hard work needed to get this virus under control and into containment mode. And this is happening in Florida, in Georgia and many other southern states. It's now happening in the Midwest.

Until we do that, we simply cannot open schools safely. And to try to cherry-pick various facts or factoids -- and not even cherry-pick them correctly -- again, is not helpful and it's counterproductive and it's setting up our teachers to fail, and it's truly terrible how we're treating the greatest national treasure, our schoolteachers, like this. It's inexcusable.

[14:25:09]

KEILAR: Yes. I'm a sister of a teacher, and my mother was a teacher. So preaching to the choir on that one, Dr. Hotez.

I want to ask you about some new findings from a study that showed depression and anxiety could also be symptoms of COVID-19, caused by the disease's impact on the central nervous system. Tell us about that, does that mean that coronavirus can attack the brain? And I mean, I think a lot of people might be surprised to learn that a virus -- that they kind of associate with you know, it being a coronavirus, so they might associate it with other coronaviruses -- that it has this impact?

HOTEZ: Yes. I mean, this virus when first advertised -- meaning when we first heard about it coming out of Wuhan in China -- we had very much focused on this is a respiratory illness, and everybody bought into that because the other coronaviruses -- the SARS1 in 2003, MERS were also primarily respiratory viruses.

Now, we recognize that it's far more complex than that, and it may be because of their impact on the vasculature. This virus binds to receptors on cells lining the blood vessels, including blood vessels going to the brain. So there's been several large studies now out of labs (ph) neurology (ph) and elsewhere, that have some pretty diverse neurologic manifestations: encephalitis, encephalopathy, Guillain- Barre syndrome.

And even presentation as psychosis, people coming in with psychotic events and it turns out that's the first manifestation of their COVID- 19. And then afterwards, lots of cognitive effects afterwards, people's minds are feeling fuzzy or woozy or you're seeing chronic fatigue, or you're seeing now depression, lots of depression in the months following COVID-19.

So remember how this works, where look -- always talk about the 160,000 patients who tragically died from COVID-19, that's the tip of the iceberg. Long-term disabilities on thousands more patients that we're only now getting our arms around. And this virus will continue to haunt us for years as a consequence of our failures to contain it this year.

KEILAR: Yes, and we've learned about it, we're still learning so much more. Dr. Peter Hotez, thank you for being with us.

HOTEZ: Thanks so much.

KEILAR: Next, California's health director abruptly resigns in the midst of this pandemic.

And President Trump on Mount Rushmore? It's an idea the White House apparently looked into. I'll get a reaction from a member of the Lakota Nation who protested the president's trip to what they consider sacred ground.

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