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Trump Pushes for College Football As Power 5 Debates What to Do; Deadly Explosion Levels Baltimore Homes; 13 Cops Hurt And 100+ Arrested in Chicago After Night of Looting; Lebanese Government Resigns in Wake of Blast; Vaccine Experts Say, "No Way" Trump Will Have Vaccine by November. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 10, 2020 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: The brutal truth is that college football may not happen this year. The season is reportedly on the brink of being postponed because of the pandemic. Right now, leaders from the so-called "Power 5" sports conferences are discussing the possibility. This is star players from some of those conferences are speaking out saying they want to play but only if they could do so safely.

Today President Trump tweeted this.

President says that, quote, student athletes have been working too hard for their season to be canceled.

So, joining me now to discuss is Dr. Amesh Adaljia, he's a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. And doctor you are also on the NCAA Coronavirus Advisory Board. You know, college football is not looking good. A bunch of big-name players have opted out and now, you know, these conversations, what do you think?

DR. AMESH ADALJIA, NCAA CORONAVIRUS ADVISORY PANEL: I think it's what -- what you're seeing is that this is very challenging to do when you have an outbreak that's uncontrolled in many parts of the country. And when you think about football being a high contact sport, it's going to require a certain amount of testing to be able to clear players for play.

And if testing turnaround times are three days, you can't safely have people be tested and be able to go on to the field and it's becoming really, really challenging to think about that prospect. And I think that's what you're seeing many of these conferences decide.

BALDWIN: Now Florida's Education Commissioner says that, hey, if there is a way to safely reopen schools, then surely there must be a way to safely allow college athletes play sports. Do you think that's a fair comparison?

ADALJIA: No, I think that what you have to remember is that you cannot -- sports are sort of an elective type of thing and these students are -- they're students first before they're athletes. And I think you have to keep in mind that you cannot sequester these students, these student athletes from the rest of the population the way you can for example the NBA.

And I think that makes it much, much harder of a prospect to be able to do that. And I think if you're going to do anything, that's going to put people at risk, that's going to be disruptive, it really -- there's a high burden to do that kind of thing when you're talking about the pandemic.

BALDWIN: I think that's an important point to underscore. Because obviously people are seeing, you know, all of this success with certain sports that are operating in these protective bubbles like the NBA, like, you know, hockey. Hockey, which is also, of course, a contact sport. But you say that's impossible when it comes to something like college football because they have to go to school, to your point, right, students first.

ADALJIA: Right. You can't -- we know that for example looking at the NBA and looking at NHL, the bubble seems to work but you can't do that with students, and I think that people forget that. That these are not professional athletes, they are not being paid to sequester. So, I think that becomes very, very challenging.

Because you can't -- the outbreak is not controlled in many parts of the community and you have to remember these students are part of the community and they're going to bring this. It's not necessarily that they're getting infected on field, but they're bring what they contract in the community onto the field.

And you can just see it already with Major League Baseball when you don't have that kind of a bubble, how disruptive it is. And I really think that that's going to be the norm when you're talking about a high contact sport like this.

BALDWIN: I know we don't have the official word that, you know, college football is out, but gosh, it sure is sort of looking that way and everyone's talking. We'll have the updates. Doctor Amesh Adaljia, thank you so much just for your expertise. I know you're weighing in on all of this as well.

I want to get to Baltimore now. Today in Baltimore firefighters on are on the scene. Look at this. Of this deadly glass explosion that leveled several homes. At least one person is dead. Three others have been seriously injured and there could still be people trapped.

[15:35:03]

At least one person has been pulled from underneath the rubble. So, joining me now by phone is Rich Langford, he's the President of the Baltimore Firefighters Local 734.

And so, I just want to begin with, you know, the folks, you and your crews have been rescuing, Rich. You know, first, I'm reading one confirmed fatality, an adult female. Is everyone else accounted for? And can you just tell me about some of the rescues?

RICH LANGFORD, PRESIDENT, BALTIMORE FIREFIGHTERS LOCAL 734 (via phone): Right now, our units, our members are actually still searching the debris for anybody else that could be possibly trapped. We have unconfirmed reports that everybody's accounted for, but we're taking every precaution and searching.

So far, our members have pulled out three people and transported them to the area hospitals by our EMS units. Our members are doing an extraordinary job of working through some very, very tough conditions today with the extreme heat in Baltimore, the COVID conditions and trying to mitigate the situation as quickly as possible.

BALDWIN: It is like a triple whammy for you guys. I was reading that there were reports that, you know, there are even children calling out for help after the blast. Are the kids OK?

LANGFORD: I cannot confirm any on the children. I haven't been told about the children yet. I do know there was adult patients that were removed and transported.

BALDWIN: Got it. Looking at "The Baltimore Sun," they were reporting this explosion destroyed one of the homes -- the home of Major Watkins Jr., a 88-year-old. And Watkins was this U.S. Army artillery veteran, and he's quoted saying, the blast sounded like Korea. Is the gas leak still active and how could this have happened -- Rich?

LANGFORD: I have no really idea how this has happened, but I know BG&E, Baltimore Gas and Electric, is on scene and currently digging the street up to shut the gas lines down. This blast destroyed three city row homes and debris, it went probably two city blocks.

BALDWIN: No kidding. No kidding. I mean you can see these pictures. It's just completely gone. Rich Langford, I'm going to let you do, good luck to your teams and your crew and try to stay cool through all of this heat. I know you're experiencing that in Baltimore through COVID and everything else. Thank you so much.

Hundreds of people stormed downtown Chicago looting stores, clashing with police, damaging businesses all along the city's Magnificent Mile. A live report on that ahead.

And the government of Lebanon resigning today in the wake of that massive explosion that killed at least 160 people last week. Demonstrators are blaming the government for the whole thing. So, what happens now?

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BALDWIN: Chicago's police chief says misinformation led to a night of violence and mayhem that ended with more than a hundred arrests and several police officers getting injured. Investigators say massive crowds began vandalizing and stealing from several stores in downtown Chicago. At one point public safety officials decided to suspend all bus and train service to stop people from getting into that area.

CNN's Polo Sandoval is live in downtown Chicago. And, Polo, how did all of this start?

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN U.S. CORRESPONDENT: It's the question that we're left with now, especially now that the clean-up has come and gone. You can see the store behind me, they cleaned it up, patched it up, closed for now.

But yes, that's the key question. And now Mayor Lori Lightfoot offering some insight there and trying to set the record straight, saying, as you mentioned, this was all misinformation that spread over the weekend, mainly yesterday, on social media.

According to Lori Lightfoot, she posted on Twitter just a short while ago, that there were these were false rumors that were spreading like wildfire on social media that police officers had shot and killed a 15-year-old boy. And that essentially started some of those tensions.

Well, the Mayor is saying, yes, there was, in fact, a police involved shooting on Sunday, however it was a 20-year-old man that police shot and wounded after police say he opened fire on them. We should mention that that man is expected to make a full recovery here.

But nonetheless, of course, the damage had been done and what we saw this morning when I looked out of the window in the middle of the night, was basically this wave of looting that was taking over downtown Chicago.

So now, of course, authorities are very interested in trying to find out exactly how that happened and then most importantly exactly who was behind this. As you're about to hear from the police superintendent here in Chicago, we have seen peaceful protests in the past that have -- we've seen some certain organizations that have off- shot out of those movements and we have seen some violence. But that was certainly not the case as you're about to hear from authorities right now.

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SUPERINTENDENT DAVID BROWN, CHICAGO POLICE: This was not an organized protest. Rather this was an incident of pure criminality. This was an act of violence against our police officers and against our city. In the last seven days a total of nine officers have been shot at in Chicago. What we are seeing is violence against police.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Police saying they're now looking over the video trying to identify well over 100 arrests that were made. And I have to tell you, Brooke, there certainly are some frustrations here on behalf of not just residents but business owners. Keep in mind, that they've gone through this before when we saw some of the looting also that took place here just a couple of months ago. Many of these businesses had already been looted, cleaned up and reopened and now some of them are boarded up again. [15:45:00]

And it's not just big businesses, the Apple Store behind me but also some of the more smaller mom and pop businesses.

BALDWIN: Right, which makes it more difficult for folks like those to bounce back. Polo, thank you very much out of Chicago for us.

And I want to get you now to Lebanon. Breaking news there. The country's Prime Minister has resigned along with the rest of the government. This is all coming days after that massive explosion in Beirut that killed more than 160 people and sparked protests demanding government officials step down.

And what you're looking at here is what, you know, CNN has gotten our hands on, this new never seen before video of last week's deadly catastrophe. It damaged or destroyed much of the Lebanese capital and was linked to a long-neglected stash of potentially explosive chemicals.

Sam Kiley is our CNN senior international correspondent. And Sam, so you have the entire government resign, what happens now?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what doesn't happen is what the protesters have been asking for as they're very least response, which is elections. So what is going to happen next is that the same political parties that have in one form or another through coalitions since the end of the civil war here 30 years ago, Brooke, are going to go into closed door sessions and try to stitch together a new government.

The outgoing government took four months to organize. And has been blamed almost inevitably as indeed have previous governments for the negligence, mismanagement and corruption that led to the storing of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in the port near to other combustible materials.

To give you an idea of how much that is, the bomb that blew up the federal building in Oklahoma in the Timothy McVeigh atrocity killing 168 people was two tons. So, a thousand times more ammonium nitrate that hit Beirut.

It's blown away the government, but it doesn't seem, Brooke, to be offering much opportunity for the protesters who've been on the streets on and off now since October last year to see any real genuine change. And the concerns here therefore are that the once benign protests are getting more and more violent and more violence may follow -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: I think just even hearing you put that in perspective, the blast there in Beirut, a thousand times more ammonium nitrate than the Oklahoma City bombing. We'll stay in close contact with you and our crews in Beirut. Sam, for now, thank you very much.

Still ahead here, experts -- vaccine experts are weighing in on the race for a vaccine, now saying that there is no way that it will be ready by election day. That's next.

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BALDWIN: President Trump is eager to have a coronavirus vaccine before the November election. In fact, he has publicly stated that he is, his word, "optimistic" there will be one by November 3rd. But CNN has obtained and reviewed a memo from Moderna -- that's a company currently in Phase II testing of a trial vaccine -- and it says it only has about 4,500 of the 30,000 recipients -- excuse me, participants needed to complete the trial. Infectious disease experts tell CNN that that means that there is no way there will be a vaccine by November.

Elizabeth Cohen is our CNN senior medical correspondent. And you have seen that memo. So, you tell us why does Moderna believe November 3rd is unrealistic?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, actually, Brooke, it's not Moderna that says that. It's outside vaccinologists who I have been talking with. I said get a calculator. Get a calendar. If this is what we've done so far, will we have a vaccine by November 3rd? And they said, no way. That's an actual quote actually. No way.

So, let's take a look at what Moderna has done so far. So, from that confidential email that CNN got a copy of, from July 27th until August 7th -- so that's two weeks' worth of work -- they got 4,536 participants enrolled and gave them their first shots.

But they need 30,000. Now they expect that they can get shots into arms for 30,000 people sometime next month. But then they still have to give them a second dose 28 days later. So even if Moderna does ramp up its enrollment, which it's expected to do. These things start slowly and then get faster.

Still if they are giving first shots in September, they are going to be giving second shots in October because there's 28 days. Then you have to wait two weeks for the vaccine to kick in because it's not immediate. And then you have to wait and send these people out into the world to see if they get coronavirus and then compare the vaccine group versus the placebo group. These things take time. And these doctors said, look, there is just no way --

BALDWIN: So, we're not even talking -- we're talking then, early next year?

COHEN: That's what these doctors think. They said that they think the first quarter of next year. Tony Fauci has said December of this year or January of next year. Both of those are after election day, that it just takes time basically for biology to work.

BALDWIN: We will try to be as patient as we possibly can. Meantime, Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much. And I'm glad you're able to get your eyes on that memo for us. Meantime, in the last two weeks nearly 100,000 children have tested

positive for COVID. Complicating the already complicated task of getting kids back in school. We have those details next.

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Pamela Brown in for Jake Tapper. In the span of ten days since the beginning of just this month, 9,108 people in the United States have died from coronavirus. That means that the U.S. lost more lives in ten days than Canada has during this entire pandemic.

And I want to go back and actually correct the number because it keeps ticking up. It's now 9,204 people that have died just since the beginning of this month.