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CDC Changes COVID Guidelines Without Explanation; Coronavirus Mostly Ignored During Second Night of RNC; American Airlines To Lay Off 19,000 Workers Without Federal Help. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired August 26, 2020 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Without any explanation, the CDC has made several changes to their COVID guidelines. And it's confusing and alarming many.

One major change has to do with testing. Let's show you what the change is. As you can see on the screen, the CDC's guidance used to be that anyone who comes in close contact with someone who has COVID or suspected of having COVID that they should also get tested.

Now the same Web site says that if you don't have any symptoms, even if you've been in that same close contact, you no longer need to be tested.

What is going on here?

Joining me right now is Dr. Celine Gounder, CNN medical analyst and former New York City assistant health commissioner.

Dr. Gounder, it's nice to see you again.

Does this make any sense to you?

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Kate, at best, this represents real confusion among the scientists at the CDC about what is a clinical, diagnostic approach to testing and what is a public health surveillance approach.

I confess, I think it is more likely that this is an intentional effort by the administration to conceal the true extent of transmission and the numbers.

We've known for the last couple of months now that asymptomatic transmission or transmission by people who have no symptoms is contributing significantly to this pandemic.

And without being able to have the data on who those people are and being able to isolate them and separate them from people who are not infected, we're shooting ourselves in the foot. And we're leaving one of the most important tools we have to control this on the table. BOLDUAN: I do want to ask you about what you just said. You believe,

you suspect, I would say you probably fear that this has something to do with political pressure coming from the White House.

Because no one has shown evidence that less testing is going help the crisis. And there's lots of data showing that many people spread the virus without showing any symptoms.

And I just want to get your take on what is this going to mean, going to happen right now. And do you think there's any other possibility, other than what you suspect, which is this is coming from pressure from the White House.

GOUNDER: Well, I think this week both the CDC and the FDA have suffered real blows to their credibility as scientific public health agencies that are there to advocate for what is in the best interest of the public.

Whether that is the emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma in the absence of adequate data, now this changed to CDC guidelines. This is very concerning.

We, those of us in the public health community and scientific experts, epidemiologists, infectious disease specialists, have been advocating for more testing, not less testing.

If we were doing mass testing, cheaply equivalent to the urine test strip, where you could potentially do that every day or every couple of days, that is a way to reopen the economy. That is a way to reopen our schools.

But this is -- not only is it not mass testing. This is a reversal of what we should be doing.

BOLDUAN: In general, though, is this how it should work? Changing guidance for how the public should be operating during a pandemic by putting it up on your Web site with no public announcement and no explanation?

GOUNDER: We should be getting press conference briefings by the CDC at least on a weekly basis, if not on a daily basis, just as the White House Coronavirus Task Force was at one point giving regular briefings.

That's really something we should be hearing from the CDC.

We should be hearing from the scientists who have their pulse or have their finger on the pulse of the science, who know exactly what are the latest developments, what does it mean, and to interpret that from the perspective of the science and public health interests.

Unfortunately, what we are hearing over and over again now is politicized messaging and really a lack of transparency about the real -- what the real extent of the pandemic is.

BOLDUAN: Another change coming from the CDC is it's removing its guidance that you should quarantine, stay home for 14 days after returning from international travel or from an area with a high level of COVID.

What do you think of that?

GOUNDER: Well, again, this makes no sense. One of our most important tools rid now is right now is to prevent transmission from person to person.

That includes wearing masks and that includes the social distancing from six feet apart from people, especially when you're indoors.

And in addition to that, that also means that if you're coming from a place where you may well have been exposed, whether it's in the airport or the city itself where you're traveling from, that we wouldn't want you to be spreading that infection to others in your community and creating a new hot spot in your community.

So without these tools, whether it's quarantine and whether it's testing and whether it's isolation, you're really putting ourselves in a very difficult position in terms of containing the virus.

[11:34:59]

BOLDUAN: Yes. It's just -- one thing we don't need right now is more confusion, more confusion and people -- and less people following actual public health, sound public health advice.

Dr. Gounder, thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Coming up for us, night two of the Republican convention is in the books. First lady, Melania Trump, her speech getting a lot of attention. She, for one, went where the president won't when it comes to coronavirus. But also because of her declaration that you deserve total honesty from your president.

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[11:40:26]

BOLDUAN: For a second night, the biggest health crisis to hit the United States in a hundred years was once again went largely ignored at the Republican convention. Two exceptions, though to that, the president's lead economic adviser and the first lady.

Here's the thing, when Larry Kudlow mentioned coronavirus, he talked about it really only in the past tense, as if the current crisis was already over. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY KUDLOW, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISER: It was awful. Health and economic impacts were tragic. Hardship and heartbreak were everywhere.

But presidential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the COVID virus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: I mean, no one watching right now, obviously, none of you needs reminding that the pandemic is far from over. It was awful. It still is awful.

Kudlow's choice of tense might be a good representation of how the White House, the president has treated this crisis all along, ignoring it or dismissing it or wishing it were already over.

Though that is -- that is not how it works. That is not reality.

The first lady's message was quite different, expressing deep sympathy for all of those who have suffered and died in this pandemic. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELANIA TRUMP, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Since March, our lives have changed drastically. The invisible enemy, COVID-19. swept across our beautiful country and impacted all of us.

My deepest sympathy goes out to everyone who has lost a loved one. And my prayers are with those who are ill or suffering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me now is CNN contributor, Kate Anderson Brower, and CNN White House correspondent, John Harwood.

Good to see you both.

Kate, the first lady said what people wish they'd heard from the president but also doesn't seem capable of saying. She even said, You're not alone," was part of her message.

And I was reading your review of it all. And you think she delivered as well as anyone could. What do you mean?

KATE ANDERSON BROWER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think she spoke in a way that her husband can't, if you say. And she talked about this -- this pandemic that's ravaging the country that we didn't hear much about at the RNC.

And I think she also spoke to suburban women when she talks about being a mother. She's trying to connect, I think, with undecided voters.

Which is something you didn't see from any of the other speakers, including Tiffany Trump and Eric Trump, last night, who were really going very fierce partisan speeches.

But of course, it's kind of in congress with the president's actual administration, right?

And Melania's Birther -- support for the Birther movement also.

So when she talks about healing racial divides, you can't -- you can't take it entirely seriously because you look at what she's done as first lady and it really hasn't been all that much.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

John, the first lady, she also said that the president will not rest until everyone is taken care of after this pandemic.

I mean, that is not what the president has shown so far through the pandemic, demanding all schools reopen regardless of infection rates.

He still says the virus is just going to disappear, apparently, by a miracle.

How do you square it? Kate's getting it. But how do you square it?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You square it, Kate, by recognizing that we got a politically effective speech from Melania Trump last night. But we did not get total honesty from her, any more than we did from Larry Kudlow.

The president has tried to downplay and shunt this aside from the beginning. He saw it and framed it, in fact, as a threat to his re- election, a threat to his economic record.

He's lacked the discipline and inclination to do the things needed to do to get the virus under control.

And now he's trying to pretend that it doesn't exist and hope and pray for a miracle in the form of a vaccine or some therapeutic breakthrough to the point that he's pressuring his FDA to take actions that public health authorities think are unwise and hasty.

And even in the venue of Melania Trump's speech in the Rose Garden. Where were the masks? Where was the distancing? It simply wasn't there.

They're trying to communicate a message to the American people that this is done, but it plainly is not done.

The hardship and heartbreak that Larry Kudlow talked about are very much with us today.

[11:45:04]

BOLDUAN: Yes. The definition of not leading by example, from what you saw from the cut shots of the crowd, for sure, John.

Kate, let me play what John was alluding to at the very top when he said total honesty, something else that Melania Trump said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

M. TRUMP: Total honesty is what we, as citizens, deserve from our president. Whether you like it or not, you always know what he's thinking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: I mean, total honesty. I'm sorry to put it this way after -- I've thought of different ways to try to ask this question and I can't seem to ask it a different way.

Is she trying to gaslight America or do something else?

ANDERSON BROWER: I've been wondering that since she announced the Be Best campaign, right, the cyber bullying campaign, when her husband is the most notorious cyber bully in the world. I think she operates on her own lane.

We know, it has been reported by Kate Bennett that she didn't run the speech through the West Wing. She wrote it herself with one or two other advisers. It is heartfelt.

But I also think she's in this bubble. She doesn't see what Americans are going through.

I don't necessarily know if she doesn't care. I think that she's just so much kind of isolated and shielded from it. And she hasn't been able to connect in the way that other first ladies have.

Certainly, Michelle Obama and Laura Bush were able to tell stories about their husbands that really got at their humanity and empathy. And we didn't hear that from Melania Trump. It was really about her last night.

BOLDUAN: That's a good point, Kate.

John, we have also never seen a president use the trappings of the office of the presidency in such an overt way to campaign.

Handing out a pardon, holding a naturalization ceremony during the convention, having his secretary of state give a speech from Jerusalem.

It might not be allowed, but it also here seems clear that what is right and what may work may not be the same thing.

HARWOOD: Well, we don't know whether this is going to work for the president. And nothing else that he's done politically this year has worked.

He trails Joe Biden nationally by a significant margin, trails in the battleground states.

This is partly a reflection of Donald Trump's particular profile and values. And that is to say he does not really care about anything beyond himself and, therefore, he doesn't care about the respect for institutions of government.

And it is also the apotheosis of where the modern Republican Party is going. It's the anti-government party. It disdains government and disdains the use of government to address problems of Americans and has not been good at running the government.

And so the idea that you use the government, then, as a tool, peculiarly or particularly for your political interests, is not really a long step.

There's no reverence for institutions in the way there has been in the Republican Party of the recent past or the Democratic Party.

BOLDUAN: Definitely not the Trump party, the Trump Republican Party, that's for sure.

Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it.

CNN's special coverage of the Republican convention continues tonight starting at 7:00 eastern.

Coming up for us still, the world's largest airline says it will be forced to lay off thousands if it doesn't get more help from the federal government? Is help coming? And what does this say about any hope of economic recovery?

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[11:50:00]

BOLDUAN: More than six months after the pandemic brought travel to a virtual standstill, new evidence now that the industry is far away from a full recovery.

The world's largest airline, American Airlines, saying it will be forced to lay off 19,000 workers by October 1st if it doesn't get more help from the federal government.

And American is not the only airline sounding the alarm here.

Let me bring in CNN's Alison Kosik. She's following this.

Alison, what are you hearing?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's not just American. It's American and other airlines and their labor unions. They are lobbying Congress for $25 billion to help them through this tough time.

That's in addition to the $25 billion they've already taken as part of the CARES Act relief package in March.

Specifically about American, they wound up taking $5.8 billion in March. And when they did that, it stipulated that they would promise to save jobs for six months. Now that time has run out.

American has announced these layoffs and furloughs could happen as soon as October 1st unless it gets that it additional help.

Those 19,000 employees, they include some frontline workers, like pilots and flight attendants. And it's not just employees being impacted by the struggles of

American Airlines. Passengers as well. As you saw there on the screen, American is looking to suspend flight service from 15 cities in October, citing low demand.

There were stipulations that airlines that took this money couldn't sort of fuss with the service routes. But now that that money is running out, October 1st could be the deadline when we see a suspension in service in those 15 cities.

Delta also having its own struggles, saying it will furlough 1,900 pilots if it doesn't get additional funding.

In an internal memo, Delta saying, "We are six months into the pandemic, and only 25 percent of our revenues have been recovered. Unfortunately, we see few catalysts over the next six months to meaningful change with this trajectory."

Delta also saying that the company may be able to avoid or reduce the furloughs if it ends up coming up with agreements with its union or gets that additional funding from the government -- Kate?

[11:55:09]

BOLDUAN: Oh, man.

Alison, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

All right. So for the very latest on market news, you can check out "MARKETS NOW," streaming live at 12:45 p.m. Eastern, only @CNNbusiness.

Still ahead, a manhunt is under way in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after two people were killed in shootings there overnight. The very latest, on the ground.

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