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CDC's Forecast Projects 189,000 U.S. Deaths by September 5; USPS Removing Hundreds of Mail-Sorting Machines, Sparking Concerns; COVID-19 Positivity Rate in Texas Drops to 16 Percent. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired August 14, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: Top of the hour. Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

This morning, a stark warning by the nation's leading infectious diseases doctor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, this as the CDC now projects 22,000 more deaths of Americans from coronavirus just over the next three weeks. And the U.S. sees more than 1,000 deaths every day for the past 18 days, a thousand people.

Dr. Fauci says the numbers do not lie. And even though the Trump administration is painting a very different picture, a misleading one, Dr. Fauci is not pleased with how things are going.

HRLOW: That is exactly right. As the virus surges across the country and the president is continuing to spread falsehoods about the safety and security of mail-in voting. And in plain sight, he is actively trying to suppress people from voting mail-in, now admitting that he is opposed to giving the postal service the money that he admits is necessary to do widespread mail-in voting effectively, as the president continues to falsely claim that it isn't safe for every day Americans to do.

Records show that he and the first lady though have requested mail-in ballots for Florida's upcoming primary, more on that shortly.

Let's begin though in Los Angeles this hour. Our Stephanie Elam is there. Good morning, Stephanie.

That state passing a very troubling milestone.

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Poppy, the first state to surpass 600,000 cases, actually almost near 603,000 when you look at it. The death toll here, almost 11,000, as well.

A couple of things that I want to point out here. One thing that we do know over this week, we've seen a backlog of cases that have been added to these numbers that have been coming in, because there was that data glitch in California that they have rectified. Still, we are seeing these cases added to it. The concern is these cases are lead to go deaths and an increase in deaths.

Right now, when you look at our death toll here, it is not near the highest in the country when you compare it to New York State, which had over 32,800 deaths. But, still, the cases are concerning because we have seen in just two weeks that we have gone from 500,000 to 600,000 cases. So that shows you how the virus has been spreading here in the state.

But there are signs that the mitigation effort that we have been living with here over the last few weeks have been making a difference. For one thing, to the positivity rate throughout the month of July was at about 7.5 percent. It is now below 6 percent. Also, hospitalizations and ICU admissions are also on a downward tick, as well, things looking better here.

But Governor Gavin Newsom making it very clear that if people want the economy to get back on its feet, they need to wear their masks and they need to socially distance themselves from each other because the virus is still very prevalent. And if we don't want to do the same thing we did where, in May, we saw that we had it come back into some of these lockdown maneuvers, we've got to do our part and everyone has to do that.

Also worth noting that in Los Angeles County, which is the hardest hit county, as far as the State of California is concerned, we are also seeing that there has been a downward trend but, again, they're saying that it's younger people that are driving the spread of the virus. So that is why they're really asking people to do their part, clean their hands, wear the mask.

I know we keep repeating it, Jim and Poppy, but it cannot be overstated how much it's worked and, clearly, it's been working here in California. We just don't want it to stop working.

HARLOW: Yes, it should be great news to everyone that ways to mitigate this are really easy and straightforward if everyone would just do them. Stephanie, thanks very much.

Let's got to Florida now where one school district superintendent is saying he was pressured by the Florida Department of Education to reopen schools for in-person classes. Rosa Flores has more. Good morning, Rosa.

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Poppy.

Well, let's start with the facts chronologically here, because this started last week when the school board of the Hillsborough County Public Schools decided that they were going the reopen for virtual school instruction only for the first four weeks of the school year. Well, a day after that, a week ago today, the Florida education commissioner sent the superintendent a scathing letter saying that he had grave concerns because they were not offering in-person instruction as his emergency order required. And so in the past week, according to the superintendent, he traveled to Tallahassee, trialed to iron things out, and then he tweeted this last night. He said, quote, the Department of Education made it clear that any model outside the emergency order would result in a negative financial impact. Let me be clear, he went on to say, our school board made an informed decision substantiated after hearing from local public health authorities.

Now, according to the school board meeting that's on video online, these medical experts recommended for only virtual schooling because of the positivity rate. They were looking for a positivity rate at 5 percent or under.

Now, we did receive a statement from the Florida Department of Education saying, quote, we're glad Superintendent Davis worked hard to ensure the Hillsborough County School District could provide a choice and flexibility to families and students.

Jim and Poppy, here is the bottom line. So instead of starting school for virtual schooling only, they've reversed their decision in Hillsborough County and schools will reopen virtually on August 24th and then a transition to brick and mortar will happen on August 31st. Jim and Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Rosa Flores, thanks very much.

Joining us now to discuss all the big questions, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, where are we as a country with this right now, big picture? Folks at home lately, a deluge of information every day, where do we stand in this crisis and the response?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a good question. I mean, I think it depends what metaphor you sort of want to apply here. A lot of people talk about if this were a sports game, like a baseball game. We're still in the early innings of this where, obviously, the numbers in many places around the country have sort of been a roller coaster ride, where they've gone up and down.

We had hoped, I think, that we'd be in a sort of more of a containment sort of phase of things right now, which means somewhere between one and a million and one in a 100,000 new cases per day. That would be fewer than 3,500 cases per day, and instead we're at tens of thousands of newly diagnosed infections every day.

So, you know, that is a really important question, Jim, because I think we're still in the early days of this. People oftentimes think of this as a storm, like a hurricane. We've seen this hurricane coming, it's here, it's going to pass and then we'll rebuild. This is a storm of sorts as well. It's viral storm and the time, of course, is just much more extended. So we're in the midst of it now.

We're still sort of in hunkered-down phase and we're probably going to be in that phase for some time to come still, John. HARLOW: Sanjay, what more can you tell us about Dr. Fauci's confirmation that U.S. scientists are creating a coronavirus strain that could be -- not definitely, but could be used as far as into human trials? What does that actually mean?

GUPTA: Yes. So this is a -- it's a very interesting development. And what we have now confirms, and I spoke to Dr. Fauci about this this morning, is that the United States government is going to work on developing a new viral strain that is basically the SARS-COV-2 strain.

They're going to create the strain that is a consistent strain made in a lab. It's consistent so you know exactly what the strain is. It's not go to change and have minor mutations in it. You can figure out the exact dose of this. They want to create this for a reason and possibility of something known as a challenge trial.

Now, preface by saying this is a plan D, as in dog, sort of possibility, a fail-safe. But here is the issue. You've got a vaccine, okay? Now, you have got to figure out does this vaccine work. Ideally, you go to a place in the world here in the United States or South Africa or Brazil, somewhere where the virus is rampantly.

And you give the vaccine to tens of thousands of people and then you compare how they do to tens of thousands similar people who don't receive the vaccine. Did it work? Did it lower the infection rates in the vaccinated population? That is basically what you're trying to do.

But let's say you can't find an adequate population to do that sort of controlled -- large controlled study at the time you need to do it. What do you do then? Well, that is where this idea of a challenge trial comes in. You take people who have been vaccinated as part of the trial. And now, you knowingly expose them to the virus, to this consistent virus that, you know, is developed in the lab and see what happens, see is it actually working, do people -- are they protected against this infection as a result?

It's an ethically very challenged sort of thing to do because in this case, you're knowingly potentially infecting people and you're infecting healthy people and there is no known rescue drug if they suddenly become very, very ill. What would you do? How do you potentially rescue them? That is not clear.

So this is a development that just is happening over the last, you know, few weeks. But that is the new news today.

SCIUTTO: Okay. I want to talk about testing here. This is something that Poppy highlighted in the last hour, the comments from the White House testing czar, as he's known, Admiral Giroir. I want to play his comments and get your sense of what he means here. Have a listen.

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ADM. BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, HHS: You beat the virus by smart policies supplemented by strategic testing. You do not beat the virus by shotgun testing everyone all the time.

I am really tired of hearing it by people who are not involved in the system, that we need millions of tests every day.

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SCIUTTO: Harvard is calling for 3.5 to 5 million tests per day.

[10:10:01]

And I thought that the understanding of how other countries successfully got this under control was broad-based testing, contact tracing and isolation. What distinction is the admiral trying to draw there?

GUPTA: You know, I don't know. I've had a lot of conversations with Admiral Giroir. I'm not exactly sure what he's doing in terms of the distinction he's drawing here. Frankly, you know -- and I have a lot of respect for him, but I think this is trying to make excuses for what has been an abysmal testing system in this country, sadly. I mean, we've never gotten it right or adequately on testing.

I think also just talking about primarily focusing on symptomatic people, as you just heard in the admiral's comments there, I think most of the country knows at this point that a significant amount of the spread is coming from asymptomatic people. You know, symptomatic people, if you're sick, you should stay home.

What we've been crushed by in this country is people who are carrying this virus in their nose and their mouth and they don't know it. They're asymptomatic and they continue to spread it. One can make the argument that what he said is absolutely backwards, we should focus on asymptomatic people.

HARLOW: Yes. I just keep thinking also about the economy. Like all the CEOs we had on this week, imagine if they could test people getting onto every single plane, Sanjay, the way they test people in the NBA bubble, so many more people would fly and then the industry would do so much better and you wouldn't have all these layoffs that are coming in the fall. So there's a whole lot there.

I'm sorry -- yes.

SCIUTTO: How they test everybody around the president, by the way, and --

HARLOW: Totally. Totally.

GUPTA: Exactly, the assurance testing.

HARLOW: Sanjay, thanks.

Well, several teachers in Arizona resigned after their school district voted to return fully to in-person learning for the teachers. We're going to speak to one of them, ahead.

SCIUTTO: Plus, widespread concern the president is trying to manipulate the U.S. Postal Service for political gain. It's in his public comments. This as we learned that hundreds of high volume mail processing machines are being removed ahead of an election season when many more Americans are expected to vote by mail because of the pandemic.

So why is the postal service doing that in the midst of this and what do the president's comments mean? It's important. It affects your vote. We'll discuss.

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HARLOW: So, less than three months from Election Day and the U.S. Postal Service says it is planning to remove hundreds of high volume mail sorting machines as a cost saving effort. They're taking them out of several facilities across the country in all the different states. It's obviously sparking fears about delays during the weeks that people mail-in their ballots.

Just yesterday, the president talked about and admitted why he doesn't want to see more funding for the postal service, because you can't do universal mail-in voting unless they have more funding. And without evidence, he claimed that an increase in mail ballots will lead to one of the greatest frauds in voting history. That is just not true.

SCIUTTO: This is not the first time we've seen this president use an institution of this government designed and intended to serve you to his own end, to his own political ends, questions of political pressure and influence at the Justice Department, his use of the National Guard to respond to protests stemming from the police killing of George Floyd.

For my book, The Mad Man Theory, Trump Takes on the World, I spoke to Fiona Hill. She was his top Russia adviser for years, a student of Russia, and she made what is really an alarming comparison. She says this, quote, what we have seen in the past year is the hyper- personalization of the presidency. And that's something we haven't had before in such an acute form.

Note this comparison. It's similar to what happened in Russia at the peak of Putinism. That is the president's former Russia adviser comparing the president's behavior to that of Vladimir Putin.

CNN Political Correspondent Abby Phillip joins us now. This is not an out there kind of comparison here given that it's part of a pattern, Abby, is it not, of using institutions to his own political end.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, this is particularly stark considering that we are just a few hours -- months away, I'm sorry, from the general election and President Trump seems to be very focused on the impact of mail-in voting on his own political election chances.

And so he's been criticizing mail-in voting for quite some time now. That is not new. But what we have seen over the last several days is an acceleration of changes over at the postal service. Now, we're learning today, and this week, that in addition to some restructuring changes that were announced last week, we are hearing from postal workers that the agency is removing some of these sorting machines that you just talked about. Over 600 of them all across the country that sort thousands of pieces of mail using only two postal workers to man them.

This has set off alarm bells both in the postal service among employees but also on Capitol Hill. They're concerned that as we face a potential influx of mail-in ballots in this fall, the postal service will not have the capacity to deal with them.

But I do want to read part of a statement from the USPS explaining why they're removing these machines. They say that they routinely move equipment across its network as necessary to match changing mail and package volumes. They've noted that due to the coronavirus, there has been an increase in packages, a decrease in letters and mail of that type.

But at the same time, it's coming at a time when there are questions about whether the postmaster general appointed by President Trump, a top RNC donor, is being influenced by the president himself. Louis DeJoy has been leading these changes. He, we are learning, met with President Trump last Monday ahead of a meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

[10:20:01]

The White House says that was a congratulatory meeting, but it's coming at a time when the president says he does not want to fund the postal service in order to stop these mail-in ballots.

SCIUTTO: He also removed a whole host of top officials at the postal service on a Friday night. I mean, it's (INAUDIBLE) when an administration try to hide things, they want people to know about. Abby Phillip, thanks very much.

Well, the Trump campaign now has just hours to produce any evidence whatsoever that would back up those claims, those baseless claims of massive voter fraud when it comes to mail-in voting.

HARLOW: Yes. A federal judge in Pennsylvania is now demanding that the Trump campaign provide proof after the president's team filed a lawsuit to try to change how the state collects and counts mail-in ballots. Joe Johns is at the White House with more.

I mean, they have only hours or they're not going prevail in this lawsuit.

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's right.

HARLOW: Have they shown evidence yet?

JOHNS: Yes, not clear on that, but I can tell you that this appears to be put up or shut up time for the Trump campaign as well as the Republican Party. The judge there, who happens to be a Trump appointee, has ordered these entities to provide some evidence of the vote mail fraud that the president and others have said exists. And this is a lawsuit that is important for a number of reasons.

We know that the Republicans have lawyers all over the country prepared for challenges after the fact and there are a handful of lawsuits like this one in Pennsylvania, important in Pennsylvania because, number one, it's a state that could be critical, if not, pivotal in the coming election. Also Joe Biden has very close ties in that state, and some polls have shown he's still actually ahead of the president in this state that the president would like to very much win.

And the big thing on this lawsuit is that it just goes to show the lengths the administration will go to to try to fix the mail fraud system that the president says exists. Of course, there is no evidence that we've been able to discern of actual fraud in mail-in voting.

And also important to say that while they're in Pennsylvania, in court, having to provide some evidence about mail fraud, it's also very important to say that the president doesn't see all states as equal, for example. He says Florida is just fine. And, in fact, the president and his wife, the first lady, have already asked for their ballots. And the president, you know, it's like -- go ahead, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I was just going to say, notable. I did not know the judge demanding this evidence is a Trump appointee. Joe Johns, good to have you at the White House, as always.

Teachers at one Arizona school district are leaving their jobs over concerns about coronavirus safety, this after the school board voted for in-person learning. We're going to speak to one of those teachers who left, next.

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HARLOW: Some potentially promising signs in the State of Texas this morning, the seven-day positivity rate has dropped to 16 percent. It's still high, but it's at least going down. It had been over 20 percent for the past week, hospitalizations also going down there.

SCIUTTO: Really, communities look for positivity rates below 5 percent. CNN's Ed Lavandera joins us now from Dallas.

So how does this impact the state's plans? I mean, it's improvement but it's not close to the level that the CDC recommends for broader openings, right? What's the standard for school reopenings?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's also a question of whether or not this 16 percent level will even continue to trend downward. The positive infection rate of the coronavirus testing being reported has really been on a yoyo the last few weeks. It was 12 percent a couple of weeks ago, jumped up to 25 percent and dropped to 16 percent. This comes as the number of overall tests being reported daily has dropped dramatically. So there's been questions as to what exactly is going on there with testing in Texas. Health officials say they are looking into it. The governor believes there is a decrease in demand for these tests. But the governor has laid out that he would like to see the positive infection rate drop to below 10 percent before he considers reopening bars and expanding the opening restaurants, which stands at about 50 percent right now.

So, this is all kind of a confusing time as we head into the weekend as health officials are trying to figure out exactly where this virus stands right now. But that positive infection rate, at 16 percent, still suggests that the virus is spreading throughout the state and this comes as schools, public schools here in Texas are just a few weeks away from opening. Jim and Poppy?

SCIUTTO: Good to have you on top of that. Ed Lavendera, thanks very much.

HARLOW: Well, the governing board of the Queen Creek Unified School District in Arizona has voted for all school to have full time in- person teacher-led instruction.

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SCIUTTO: Because of that now, at least two teachers have resigned. Joining us now is one of those. Matthew Chicci, good morning. Thanks so much for coming on this morning.

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