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CDC Tells States to Prepare to Distribute Vaccine by November, Who Should Get the Vaccines First?; Iowa Has Highest Rate of COVID-19 Cases in U.S.; Fewer Than 1 Million Americans File for New Unemployment Benefits; Farmers Union Warns of "Elevated Risk of Exposure" at Iowa Meat Plants; Futures Down As Jobless Claims Dropped Below 1 Million Last Week. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 03, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A good Thursday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto. This morning experts are warning don't rush to a COVID-19 vaccine. The President has hinted at the possibility of a vaccine before election day.

Now the CDC is telling states and major cities to come up with game plan for how to distribute a vaccine as soon as late October. But this key. What does the science telling us? The nation's top infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci, he will join me in the next hour. We'll discuss the vaccine. And as we approach Labor Day, he's urging Americans not to let their guard down this holiday weekend.

That message comes as the Midwest in particular is grappling with surges, especially in college towns as students return. CNN is in Iowa, the latest U.S. hotspot for the virus.

We are also live this morning in Wisconsin where Joe and Jill Biden will head to Kenosha today after the shooting of Jacob Blake and the shooting deaths of two protesters by an apparent vigilante that followed. This 17-year-old Trump supporter. The Bidens will meet with Blake's family, something President Trump on his visit did not do.

One thing the president is looking to do is to cut funding now for several Democratic-led cities. His claim that their leaders are allowing anarchy, violence and destruction.

We'll have more on that in a minute. I've been to New York. I don't see any anarchy, violence and destruction.

First to CNN senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, on the CDC telling public health officials to prepare to distribute a vaccine by November.

Elizabeth, what's happening here? Are there concerns that the political timeline is influencing the vaccine timeline?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, certainly some people are very concerned about this. That there's sort of this push to get this vaccine out by Election Day or at least to make it look like that it's highly possible. The experts that I have been talking to say that they find it very, very difficult to believe -- add a couple of very's to that -- that we could safely and effectively have a vaccine out by Election Day. But by the end of the year, January, that's a different story. But remember Election Day is just two months away.

Let's take a look at what the CDC now has on its Web site or what they have put out there. They say limited COVID-19 vaccines doses may be available by early November 2020, but the COVID-19 vaccine supply will increase substantially in 2021.

Now, Jim, you and I have talked many times about how the CDC is in effect no longer acting on its own all the time. There has been pressure from above to say certain things to make certain statements -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes, which is not how the CDC was designed to operate.

OK, let's look at treatments now because doctors have been innovating throughout and learning about things that helped save lives and one is common steroid use for COVID-19 victims. What have we been learning?

COHEN: So, Jim, as you just said, steroids are very common, every hospital has them. Doctors are accustomed to using them for patients including those who are recovering from terrible viral infections. So doctors actually started using these many months ago, and now there's data to show that they work.

So let's take a look at the numbers from this very large U.K. study. They looked at more than 1700 patients. Among the 678 who were treated with steroids, almost 33 percent died, but among the about 1,000 who did not get steroids, 41 percent, almost 42 percent died. So you can see that there's a substantial difference there -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Understood. I hope, we're always happy to report signs of hope here.

Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much.

COHEN: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Well, advisers from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine have drafted a four-phase plan for distributing an eventual coronavirus vaccine. The plan suggests that health care workers be among the first to get it.

Our next guest says the decisions on who gets a vaccine right away should be about individual risk, not just their job titles. Dr. Syra Madad, senior director with New York City Health Hospitals, joins me now.

Dr. Madad, thanks very much. Tell us your concern here, right, because at the end of the day we want this going to people who are facing the most risk here. So how do you best ensure that when a vaccine is available?

DR. SYRA MADAD, SENIOR DIRECTOR WITH NEW YORK CITY HEALTH HOSPITALS: So when we talk about the allocation of a COVID-19 vaccine, we know that there's not going to be enough in the beginning and this is where we need to make sure we have a good, equitable approach that looks at, you know, science, it looks at the societal gains. And so what the National Academy of Science has put together, a four-tiered framework, is based on those core principles which is great. That's how we want to shape it.

It's also based on risk based. What that means it's not based on your job title or your race or ethnicity, it's based on your likelihood of getting COVID-19 and having a severe outcome. And that's why you have frontline health care workers and then others in that first tier. But what we also know is that just because risk is not uniform, we also know that, for example, with health care workers there's almost 20 million health care workers in the United States.

We're not going to have 20 million doses right away. So there needs to be some tough decisions that are going to be made even within that group.

SCIUTTO: Understood. OK. Let's look at the timeline now here because clearly we're making progress on vaccines.

[09:05:04]

A lot of these early trials show hopeful signs. That said, there's a reason why you do phase three trials. You want to test as large a group of people as possible to make sure it's safe and effective.

When you have the president talking about a vaccine before Election Day and when you now have the CDC telling U.S. public health officials to prepare to distribute one as soon as late October, are you concerned that politics are infecting, if you want to use that word, the science here on a vaccine?

MADAD: Absolutely. So when we talk about phase three clinical trials, there are certain benchmarks that have to be met, and those benchmarks don't seem to be likely in terms of when the timeline is being proposed in October or November. It just seems pretty ludicrous, if you will. I mean, this Operation Warped Speed, you know, obviously is based on politics and not really based on science here.

And so you've mentioned having a vaccine that's safe and effective, but another third category is making sure that protective. So we can't know if a vaccine is actually protective until we have all the data and so it needs to go through the typical timeline to get that information because, you know, having an allocation and distributing the vaccine is just part of the problem. People need to actually be willing to take the vaccine and that's where rubber meets the road.

So you may have all these millions of doses but you may have not an end use that actually wants to get vaccinated because they don't see the data that's first transparent and actually it's showing that it's not only safe and effective, but it's actually protective enough, you know, for the purposes that it's being met. And so we need to be very careful of, you know, the timeline. Because we want to make sure people actually get the vaccine once it's available. And vaccine hesitancy is one of the top 10 global health threats that we have around the world.

SCIUTTO: So who can people trust, right? I mean, as we get closer to having a vaccine, because it's not the first time it happened. You know, on hydroxychloroquine, you know, political meddling it seemed there, without approval. Convalescent plasma, I mean, there are questions from the NIH as to how effective that was compared to how it was advertised from the White House.

You know, a lot of Americans are going to have decisions to make about taking this vaccine and whether they give it to their kids, right? So who do folks trust when word comes out? Who can they trust to know it's safe and effective?

MADAD: You make an excellent point. You know, the administration of this public health agency is obviously it seems like a lot of decisions are based on politics and not based on science. But for me in particular being, you know, in the public health field, I still trust these public health institutions because they have career scientists that really has focused on this particular topic.

So I'm going to still look at them but I'm also going to look at our local and state and public health departments, as well as the consensus of the scientific and medical committee because they have also been doing a great job and being champions of the voice of reason. And so this election is, you know, one of the most consequential elections, you know, of our lifetime. It certainly should not be --- you know, having a vaccine should not be politicized for that reason so we just need to be very, very careful.

SCIUTTO: Follow the science. Dr. Syra Madad, thanks very much.

MADAD: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, worries are mounting over a surge in coronavirus cases in Midwestern states, particularly Iowa. The governor there says the state has seen the highest rate of increase in COVID-19 cases in the nation.

Right now, CNN's Omar Jimenez, he joins us now from Des Moines.

Omar, the governor -- is the governor taking new steps in response to this?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim, what she is focusing on, Governor Kim Reynolds, what she she's focusing on trying to increase testing and testing availability on college campuses. Now specifically she says they've been trying to work through strategies there and make sure that these campuses have access to the data and keep that access so they can better monitor the activity of COVID on campuses.

Because as she says, and this is part of why she's been against a no mask mandate statewide at this point. She says that she knows where the issues are and that she wants to be more targeted about how they go about this mitigation process. She says that it is social activity among young adults that is to blame for what we have seen in recent weeks. And when you look at the metrics, when you look at positivity rate, when you look at the number of cases overall, even hospitalizations, they have all been trending up in recent weeks.

It's part of why when the White House Coronavirus Task Force issued their report to the governor here, they were concerned and specifically they said that here in Iowa they had the highest new coronavirus case rate in the entire country with a positivity rate in the top five. So obviously a reason for concern but then you look at what the task force recommended. They recommended a mask mandate for the state which obviously the governor has been against at this point. But they also recommended closing bars which Governor Reynolds said they have done, but in more targeted cases tied to locations with higher positivity rates.

[09:10:01]

And then when you took -- look at the impact of schools in general, the county that holds the university of Iowa, 74 percent of the cases there are in the demographic of 19 to 24-year-olds. Over 90 percent from the 18 to 40 demographic -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Revealing. Omar Jimenez, thanks very much.

Still to come this hour, we're going to speak to the mayor of the Midwestern city already hit hard already hit hard by the virus now facing this new spike in cases. What is he doing to help get things under control there?

Plus, today Joe Biden will head to Kenosha, Wisconsin. An effort to bring that community together as Attorney General Barr says the notion that there are two justice systems is quote, a "false narrative." We're going to be live from Kenosha.

And one of the largest school districts in the country not only dealing with coronavirus but now enduring days of cyberattacks on their remote learning system. Such a disruption for students in the midst of this. We'll have more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

SCIUTTO: Again, last week, nearly 1 million Americans filed first- time unemployment claims, it's the first time it's fallen below a million, but these weekly numbers just off the charts historically, not even matched during the 2008, 2009 financial crisis. CNN's chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins me now. Christine, you know, first put this into context here right --

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Sure --

SCIUTTO: Historically, when you see numbers like this. Good that it's below a million, but I mean -- ROMANS: It's a deep hole --

SCIUTTO: Historically, it's a remarkably high number.

ROMANS: It's just a deep jobs holder here in -- and you know, Jim, it's interesting because the damage is so extensive that the Labor Department is actually tweaking how it seasonably adjusts these numbers so they can get sort of a better picture. I mean, even the math they use isn't suitable for how terrible this has been this Summer, this 24 --

SCIUTTO: They were tweaking it to get a number that looks better?

ROMANS: No, they're not trying to get it to look better, but they've changed --

SCIUTTO: OK --

ROMANS: The way that they seasonably adjust these numbers because it just -- the scope of the problem was so big, they're changing how -- and they're very clear about it on their news release if anybody who really wonky wants to get there --

SCIUTTO: OK --

ROMANS: And take a look at it. It's complicated, but, you know, 881,000 is a big number. It's below a million and I'm glad it's below a million, but it's a big number. When you put it all together, Jim, and all the different programs including these new emergency programs for gig workers and for part-time workers, right?

You have 29 million Americans receiving some sort of jobless benefit, 29 million, that's a big number. There's nothing when we look at continuing claims, as people who have been on the state programs for at least two weeks in a row, that number fell.

And that's a good sign, it's still a lot of people, Jim. Every one of those numbers is a person or a family who is wondering I think why Congress has gone away on recess and is not working on the --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

ROMANS: The next package here.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I mean, these payments have made a difference, right? I mean, they've made a difference for families --

ROMANS: Yes --

SCIUTTO: And for businesses, frankly. You see it in sales and so on. OK, let's talk about the deficit.

ROMANS: Sure.

SCIUTTO: Budget deficit, a record $3.3 trillion, I always remind people, that's a thousand, billion. I mean, these numbers are just like off the charts. A lot of this clearly from the stimulus in the wake of the pandemic --

ROMANS: Sure.

SCIUTTO: But it was already coming from a very high point prior to that as well.

ROMANS: Right, and when we had corporate tax cuts, right? We had -- even in a really strong economy, we had -- we were running big deficits. We were spending a lot of money and now you had a crisis that hit, and now in an emergency, you're spending all this money. So now, by next year, the size of America's national debt will be as big as the size of the entire economy. That's something that hasn't happened since World War II. So, you think of this --

SCIUTTO: Yes --

ROMANS: Pandemic, we're spending money like we're fighting a world war. That's where we are.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's a -- listen, folks had warned when the times were good, that's not the time for deficit spending because if a crisis were to hit and here we are, crisis hit.

ROMANS: Textbook I told you so.

SCIUTTO: Yes, Christine Romans, thanks very much.

ROMANS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: An alarming warning for meat packers hit by the pandemic. The National Farmers Union says meat processing workers are still at an elevated risk of exposure in Iowa. This as cases across that state surge, making it the latest U.S. hotspot. Joining me now is the mayor of Waterloo, Iowa, Quentin Hart. Mayor Hart, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

MAYOR QUENTIN HART, WATERLOO, IOWA: Thank you for having me.

SCIUTTO: There's a particular risk at meat packing plants because of the concentration of folks there as they're working and also their living conditions at home, et cetera. What's being done to address that issue? You know, to address the outbreaks we're seeing here because it's not a new thing, we've seen this for months.

HART: Right. When you -- you know, we went through a lot of challenges several months ago within our meat packing plant locally in our community, but we have to make sure that every safety precaution is taken at our plants, on site testing needs to be done and immediate contact-tracing, dividers placed in workstations. There has to be a myriad of different changes that have to take place within our processing plants to make sure that people are safe, and that you could hold the spread to a minimal if it actually happens.

SCIUTTO: As you know, the president has gotten involved in this in recent weeks, in effect, forcing the plants, right, to reopen. Has that been helpful or hurtful in your view? HART: Well, it's been hurtful in one way that it may take away some

of the accountability that some of the processing plants have to do to ensure overall safety. Where we did have the benefit, our local company reached out to our chamber, reached out to our Health Department, reached out to us within the city, and we were able to actually tour, take a look at the myriad of difference changes that were going to be done internally within the plant.

[09:20:00]

That was something they did on their own. So it's a dangerous situation when you reduce the accountability and liability, but you don't hold them to the -- hold their feet to the fire with regards to putting in all of the safety mechanisms that we need to have to keep people safe. And when you have -- such outrageously have last time, it puts a strain on our local businesses, it hurts our ag economy because there's no one to produce the processing of meat.

SCIUTTO: No question. Where -- who's listening to your voice, right? I mean, you're very close to this, right? These people are your constituents, I mean, these businesses are in your town. When you issue those warnings up to the state level or the national level, do folks listen?

HART: It seems like it goes on deaf ears some of the time. We've had a challenge around here being able to locally make decisions that impact our local community. There's no cookie-cutter solution for all of this, and we need the individual decision-making on the local level for us to be successful in controlling this virus.

SCIUTTO: Understood. As you know, your Senator Joni Ernst, she is facing some backlash after she appeared to call the pandemic death toll into question, which is -- which is something that starts on the dark corners of the web, and lo and behold, you have national political figures stating this.

Just for -- you've lost constituents, right? And I'm sure you have a lot of families suffering through this. What's your answer to Senator Ernst and others who have -- who have questioned data like we have on the screen here which is, you know, comes directly from the CDC and Johns Hopkins?

HART: I find it as being away from what reality really is. If you want to see it, come talk to some of my friends. Some of the relatives and people that I know in this local community that have lost their lives or dealing with long-term health issues. But that is the challenge we're having.

Even talking about direct funding to local cities, we haven't seen that yet. We were a that is -- that is the challenge -- what happened. Even talking about direct funding to local cities, we haven't seen that yet. As we're a city over 500,000 people, maybe there will be some direct funding.

But in her very own state, we are needing help, cities need help, and people need real officials that know what's really happening on the ground here.

SCIUTTO: Well, Mayor Quentin Hart, we wish you the best of luck. We know you got a lot on your plate going forward and the people who live in your town as well.

HART: All right, thank you.

SCIUTTO: Well, the former Vice President Joe Biden is heading today to Kenosha, Wisconsin. He's going to meet with the family of Jacob Blake and others there, what can we expect from the trip? We're going to take you to Kenosha live. And we're just moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street, futures down slightly on the heels of that weekly jobless claims report. Tomorrow, we get the jobs report for the month of July, investors will be keeping a close eye on that figure as well. Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

SCIUTTO: Today, presidential candidate Joe Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden will head to Kenosha, Wisconsin. He is expected to meet with the family of Jacob Blake, the black man shot by police, then the Bidens will host a community meeting, part of an effort his campaign says to bring Americans, bring residents of that community together. CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is in Kenosha with the latest. Shimon, we heard many local leaders uncomfortable with President Trump's visit earlier this week. What are they saying about the former Vice President's visit today?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think a lot of people would love for all the politics to stay out of what's going on here right now. Things have been calm for several days now, starting to get back to normal. Businesses are reopening, the coffee shops, people are sitting outside, a lot of the stores are still boarded up, but some of that is coming down.

And I would think that a lot of people based on what I'm hearing on the streets would want to just keep all of the politics out of this for now. And as you said, Biden does get here today, he'll be here in just several hours, and what he's calling is a community meeting, to meet with people here in the community, he's also expected to meet with the Blake family.

We don't have specifics on that, but that is all supposed to happen later today -- much different than when the president came. Remember, the president came here supporting law enforcement and to support some of the businesses that were damaged during some of the violence here.

SCIUTTO: OK, other update yesterday on CNN, the Attorney General, William Barr, to our colleague Wolf Blitzer, regarding the Jacob Blake case, he made a claim that Blake was "armed", quote-unquote, "armed" with a knife, not with a weapon. What more do we know about this? Initially, the family lawyer said there was no knife on his person, questions about whether it was in the car. What have we learned in the days and weeks -- PROKUPECZ: Right --

SCIUTTO: Since the shooting?

PROKUPECZ: So a couple of things on what the attorney general did yesterday. This is still a very active investigation. State investigators from the attorney general's office are looking into it. The fact that you have the attorney general of the United States already out there, making predictions sort of -- by saying words, Jim, he used two words in what he told Wolf Blitzer yesterday. He used the words "armed", referring to Jacob Blake and felon.

[09:30:00]