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Key Model Projects 410,000 Americans Will Die by January; Experts Warn Americans to Keep Guard Up Over Holiday Weekend; Russia's COVID-19 Vaccine Generated an Immune Response; U.S. Marshals: Suspect in Fatal Portland Shooting Killed During Attempted Arrest; A little Over a Million Jobs Added to the U.S. Economy in August, Bringing Unemployment Rate Down to 8.4 Percent. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 04, 2020 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:09]

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello on this Friday. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm Ana Cabrera. And I have a devastating prediction to bring to you from a key model cited by top experts. 224,000 more Americans will die from the coronavirus over the next four months. That is more than double the current U.S. death toll and this is a model that has been fairly accurate or even conservative over the past several months.

This same model says over 122,000 lives could be spared if people would just wear a mask. Just one of the pleas from top experts as we head into the holiday weekend. The president reiterating that message at a rally last night. But in the same breath, mocking Joe Biden for wearing a mask.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But did you ever see a man that likes a mask as much as him? And then he makes a speech and he always -- not always but a lot of times he has it hanging down, because you know what, it gives him a feeling of security. If I were a psychiatrist -- right? No, I'd say -- I'd say this guy's got some big issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Now this as it's becoming increasingly clear the president is hoping for a silver bullet of sorts before election day. Multiple sources tell CNN he has been ramping up the pressure on health officials to speed up their work on both vaccines and treatments before November.

Let's begin with CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

And Elizabeth, why this huge uptick in projected deaths according to this new model?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, isn't it ironic that the reason for the uptick is because people are not wearing masks the way they are supposed to. So when we hear our president make fun of someone for wearing a mask, our president has blood on his hands. Wearing masks saves lives. Not wearing them costs lives. So I know he thinks it's funny and sort of a third grade schoolboy kind of way but it is not funny at all. Masks save lives.

Let's take a look at the numbers that show what will happen if Americans don't take the steps that they need to. Current deaths from the pandemic to date in the U.S., nearly 187,000. Projected by January, if we keep doing what we're doing is 410,000. So more than a doubling in just a matter of months. Even if we do what we have been doing. Projected by January with no interventions, meaning if we take the approach that some advocate, let's just sort of let it all go and let the virus rip through the population, 620,000 deaths.

I think those numbers say it all -- Ana.

CABRERA: What more do we know, Elizabeth, about this pressure apparently coming from the White House on a vaccine and treatments?

COHEN: Well, there has been talk that there's been pressure to get the vaccine done by election day and let me be clear. Pressure to get a vaccine out there in many ways is a good thing. We want a vaccine out there. We can't take years and years to make that happen. It needs to be faster than business as usual. However, what our reporting shows, what CNN reporting shows is that there is pressure to get it done by November 3rd.

That could be -- that could be deadly. If there is pressure to get a vaccine out, that actually ends up harming people by November 3rd, that would be terrible. It would be terrible for this vaccine and it would leave an indelible mark for generations to come that we are rushing vaccines and people will then be hesitant to get other vaccines. So having any kind of a false deadline, meaning election day, having any kind of a false deadline is really detrimental to public health.

CABRERA: We know you will be following all of those developments closely and bringing us the latest guidance and reporting. This new number, 400,000 plus Americans dead by January is just hard to really fathom at this point.

Elizabeth Cohen, thank you for your reporting.

COHEN: Thank you.

CABRERA: I want to go to CNN's Nick Valencia in Atlanta. Because, Nick, health experts are very concerned that people are going to let their guards down, especially heading into the holiday weekend.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And it's a full court press here in states like Georgia to get that message out, Ana, to make sure that residents know that they need to avoid large gatherings ahead of the Labor Day holiday weekend. Governor Kemp here in Georgia wants to avoid exactly what happened last time after the Fourth of July holiday weekend when we saw a surge in cases. And there was a recent White House Coronavirus Task Force report which

said that Georgia was in a fragile state and could suffer more if it didn't take more aggressive approaches. So I asked Governor Kemp this morning if he has any plans on changing his mind about a statewide mask mandate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: -- to stop short of a mandate?

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R), GEORGIA: Well, the report now doesn't call for that. I think -- if you let me finish answering the question I will.

[09:05:02]

I have been pretty clear. I personally don't believe a statewide mask mandate works. We're having great success with the way that we have had a measured approach on the mask the whole time. And look, that's just not me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: The governor is hoping that residents lean into he says their personal responsibility and, Ana, just looking at the numbers 180,000 dead Americans in the last six months because of the coronavirus, leaning into personal responsibility and expecting residents to do that has shown to be a huge gamble -- Ana.

CABRERA: In fact, we're even closer to 190,000 deaths at this point here in the U.S.

Nick Valencia, thank you so much.

Now this just in, this is according to data published in the "Lancet Medical Journal," Russia's coronavirus vaccine has generated an immune response in multiple test subjects. Keep in mind this was for phase one and two trials there. Researchers in that country, though, are already distributing the vaccine to high-risk groups.

Let's go to CNN's Matthew Chance live in Moscow for more on this. What do we know, Matthew?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Ana, talk about fast tracking a vaccine for political purposes. That's exactly what critics say Russia has been doing and it's led to all sorts of concerns in the population at large about whether this vaccine is safe or effective.

There's been a little bit of a step forward today -- a big step in fact with "The Lancet," which is one of the world's most prestigious medical journal, publishing the results of phase one and two human clinical trials of this Russian vaccine. And there's been some progress shown. The vaccine apparently shows significant -- no significant, serious adverse effects, no big side effects when it comes to people being injected with the vaccine. And it also generates an antibody response in 100 percent of the

participants. 76 people that took part in the trials. But nevertheless, it is positive. The Russians have absolutely seized on it saying that these trial results confirmed the high safety and efficacy of the Russian vaccine. They also say it's a powerful response to skeptics who unreasonably criticized the Russian vaccine. But, you know, there are some significant caveats put in "The Lancet," that medical journal, and saying that the studies are encouraging about this vaccine, but that's still very small.

Immune responses bode well, "The Lancet" says, but they're not demonstrated in older groups. So a lot more study has to be done. In fact what "The Lancet" says it's only those large scale phase three human trials that are not yet completed in Russia with this Russian vaccine that can demonstrate whether this vaccine actually prevents illness from COVID-19 -- Ana.

CABRERA: OK. Matthew Chance in Moscow, thank you for that update.

Joining us now is Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease specialist and executive associate dean at Emory University Medical School.

Dr. del Rio, first, your thoughts about this news out of Russia. How significant is it?

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST: I mean, I think it's important, Ana. I think we've seen this -- with a lot of the vaccines they seem to generate an immune response. Now what we need to go is the step -- does the immune response offer protective and that is what efficacies about, and that's why you do first, you know, the phase three studies. The large population studies in which you see whether the vaccine protects or not.

Because a lot of vaccines can produce that immune response, but that immune response may not be protective. So that I think is what we need. We need data from phase three study showing efficacy.

CABRERA: And we'll talk more about that because there are three phase 3 trials happening for three different possible vaccines in the U.S. But our reporting here, I want to get your take on this first. Kind of some disturbing developments about the administration applying pressure for a silver bullet, a vaccine by the election, and there has been, you know, talk about a potential emergency use authorization being used even before phase 3 trials are complete.

We've already seen walk-back on EUAs on therapeutics, for hydroxychloroquine for example. The FDA also had to apologize after misrepresenting data when it came to convalescent plasma for treating COVID-19. So are you concerned at all when it comes to political pressure for a vaccine and public trust once when is available?

DEL RIO: Absolutely. I am very concerned because we need to let the process occur the way it needs to. We are speeding up things. I mean, Operation Warped Speed is working. We're speeding up things, we're not sleeping, we're not resting. We have gone very rapidly. I mean, you've got to realize that we went from discovering a virus to putting a vaccine in humans in 65 days. That has never happened. We're now in phase 3 studies.

But we need the phase 3 studies not completed because completed is going to take two years but we need to reach the (INAUDIBLE) points. We need to be able to show that this vaccine is effective and that's going to take whatever time it needs to take because again, at the same time we're trying to slow the transmission of this virus, so the more you slow the transmission the less likely you are to see infections.

So you won't know -- let's suppose about the end of three months in the vaccinated group you'll see -- you know, the people who got the vaccine you see one infection and the people who didn't get the vaccine, you see one infection, you wouldn't know if the vaccine protects but it may be due to the fact that we are using masks and doing the things we need to do to protect ourselves.

[09:10:05]

So that's a challenge is how do you get a vaccine, how you test efficacy at the time that you're trying to slow a pandemic. So we need to let the process happen. But speeding up and approving a vaccine before we show an efficacy and safety, and you're going to give it to millions of people in my mind would be a big mistake. We did something like that back in 1979 with the swine flu vaccine and it didn't go well.

CABRERA: Again, it's amazing how quickly the vaccine trials have gone so far here in the U.S. and again three in phase 3 trials already. When we heard Pfizer this week say they may have enough data by the end of October to have some kind of a verdict essentially on whether it's safe and effective. What does the data specifically need the show?

DEL RIO: As I said, what the data needs to show, these are what we call end point studies so what we need to show is that there's X number of infections in each group and that the vaccine decreases the number of infections. So let's suppose at the end of October, when the Data Safety Monitoring Board looks at the data because it's not going to be the investigators. It's not going to be the companies but an independent board that looks at the data and they see the unblinded data and they see that the people who got the vaccine there's no infections and the people that didn't get the vaccine, there are 20 infections, oh, my god, that would be great. Right?

We would all going to be very happy and they're going to say, yes, let's go ahead and open the study up and let's start using this vaccine right away, and I think we will all be saying, fantastic. Let's do that. Because you have enough data to say that. But let's suppose that by October there's, you know, 10 infections you wouldn't know if it works. We need to see what happens with the vaccine. We have to test for efficacy and we have to watch the safety. Safety and efficacy is the core values that we need to follow as we do a phase 3 study.

CABRERA: As Elizabeth reported this new model from IHME at the University of Washington which has been cited by many health experts including the White House Coronavirus Task Force over the last several months it's now predicting more than 410,000 U.S. coronavirus deaths by January 1st which would mean another 224,000 Americans lost in just the next four months. More than double where we are right now and they say the increased number have to do in part with fewer people wearing masks, and yet here's the president again yesterday in Pennsylvania.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: But did you ever see a man that likes a mask as much as him? And then he makes a speech and he always had -- not always but a lot of times he has it hanging down because you know what? It gives him a feeling of security. If I were a psychiatrist -- right? No, I'd say -- I'd say this guy has got some big issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Doctor, what's your reaction to a comment like that?

DEL RIO: Well, it's unfortunate that masks have become politicized because masks should not be politicized. They're a public health intervention. We know they work. We know as the IHME model says that 240,000 extra deaths they're talking about don't need to happen if we -- 95 percent of the population was wearing mask we would be able to see a significant decrease in infections and we would be able to see a significant decrease in deaths.

So the reality is, if we want to get to normal, if we want to get to where we can do the things we really would like to do again, like get together and have gatherings, we have to go through a period of using masks. And the CDC director said it very well a few weeks ago. He said if we all wear masks for the next eight to 10 weeks we would be in a much better place. So we have to really realize that wearing a mask is about protecting you.

Wearing a mask is about protecting others. And if we all wear masks, we would really be impacting the epidemic in our country. And that to me needs to be the message. We have to wear a mask, we have to social distance and wash our hands. Let's do those three things and let's really by doing that control this pandemic.

CABRERA: Again, 122,000 lives could be saved according to this model if everybody wears a mask.

Dr. Carlos del Rio, thank you for hammering that home. Thank you for your expertise and helping to put all of these developments in perspective for us. I appreciate it.

DEL RIO: Happy to be with you.

CABRERA: Still to come, the man wanted for murder in the shooting death of a right-wing protester in Portland is killed while marshals were trying to arrest him overnight. We'll have a live report next.

And President Trump strongly denying blistering allegations that he disrespected our nation's war -- the people who died in war by calling them, quote, "losers and suckers." Plus new jobs numbers just out this morning showing more than a

million American jobs added. What does it mean for the economy and how could that affect another round of stimulus funds?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:15:00]

CABRERA: A man wanted for murder in the shooting death of a right- wing protester in Oregon is now dead, killed while U.S. Marshals were trying to arrest him in neighboring Washington state. CNN's Lucy Kafanov is joining us now from Lacey, Washington. So, Lucy, what other information are officials releasing?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, I'm standing in front of the apartment complex where this confrontation with the authorities took place at about 7:30 p.m. local time on Thursday evening. Forty- eight-year-old Michael Reinoehl was allegedly involved in last Saturday's deadly shooting of Aaron J. Danielson, who also was a supporter of the far-right group, Patriot Prayer. We know that Portland police issued a warrant for Reinoehl's arrest on Thursday because he was across state lines here in Washington, they had to enlist the help of U.S. Marshals.

Now, according to a statement from the Marshals, their fugitive taskforce did locate Reinoehl, they attempted to peacefully arrest him. They say and I'm going to read from their statement, "initial reports indicate the suspect produced a firearm, threatening the lives of law enforcement officers, the task members responded to the threat and struck the suspect who was pronounced dead at the scene."

[09:20:00]

It is not clear whether Reinoehl actually opened fire, this is still being investigated, we're waiting for new details. The timing of this though, Ana, is a little bit unusual because on Thursday, the same day that this warrant was issued, we also saw "Vice News" air an interview with Reinoehl in which he attempted to take responsibility or at least appear to take responsibility for the shooting of Danielson, Aaron J. Danielson. Now he alleged that he acted in self-defense, shooting Danielson because he was about to get stabbed. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had no choice. I mean, I had a choice, I could have sat there and watched him kill a friend of mine of color. But I wasn't going to do that. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Lots of lawyers suggest that I shouldn't even be saying anything, but I feel it's important that the world at least gets a little bit of what's really going on because there's been a lot of propaganda put out there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you feel that it was totally justified?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Totally justified. Had I not acted, I am confident that my friend and I'm sure I would have been killed because I wasn't going to stand there and let something happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAFANOV: In that interview, he also said that he went down to Portland on Saturday to work as security or to provide security for the protesters after seeing that caravan of hundreds of Trump supporters roll down through the streets of downtown Portland. And a lot of concerns and questions now, Ana, with tensions so high on both sides of the far left, the far right, what's going to be the response on the streets of Portland later this evening, Ana?

CABRERA: And real quickly, if you will, Lucy, what is happening in recent nights in Portland? I mean, given this all happened last week and have things calmed down there?

KAFANOV: You know, the surprising -- I mean, we've been back to Portland countless times now to cover the protests which have been going on for consecutive weeks. Saturday is actually going to be the 100th night of protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. They have been consistent, but we've actually seen things quiet down over the past few nights.

In fact, and I believe it was Tuesday where there was maybe something like 12 people who came out, but again, these developments, the weekend coming up, the Labor Day weekend, the holiday weekend, a lot more people might have free time, authorities are bracing for potential unrest, of course, everyone is hoping that things will stay quiet, Ana.

CABRERA: Yes, Lucy Kafanov, thank you. Well, Labor Department is releasing August jobs numbers and the unemployment rate falling below 10 percent. We'll talk about what this means and more with a former senior economic adviser to President Trump when we come back. Kevin Hassett is in the seat.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:25:00]

CABRERA: New this morning. The U.S. added 1.4 million jobs in August, the unemployment rate falling to 8.4 percent. CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us with more. Christine, how does this compare to where we were at the beginning of the pandemic?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: So, if you think of what we've gone through, the jobs market have gone through, we have dug a huge hole, a record hole in the jobs market, and we crawled about halfway -- just shy of halfway through that. We're down 11.5 million jobs since February when the pandemic began.

You can see there on your chart earlier in the Summer with all of that historic stimulus from Congress, you saw some really strong job gains, jobs being added back into the economy that had been lost in March and April, and now that's slowing a little bit in the absence of stimulus from Congress. We had the unemployment rate fall to 8.4 percent, the government

noting that it could be more like in the 9 percent range if people were classified a little bit differently, but still, that is below the worst of the great recession, something you want to see. So you had that big spike in unemployment and now it's coming down again. We still are seeing those big disparities in different worker groups between men and women and different races, a very desperate recovery for some of these groups here.

So, that's something that we'll be watching very closely as well. Also, when you look at where the jobs were added, government jobs, a big driver here, and of those on your screen, 238,000 of those are temporary census jobs. Those will go away again. Retail jobs, those are people who are coming back as stores are starting to open again, and sometimes in a different capacity.

Hospitality slowly coming back in a lot in health services. So that's where you're seeing these jobs added back in. The unemployment rate, also when you see how far it fell, one of the interesting things, gig workers and the self-employed and people who had temporary layoffs are starting to go back carefully into the labor market.

So, that's one of the reasons you saw that number start to decline. I will point out that in any other modern time, 8.4 percent would be just such a scary unemployment number, but it is moving in the right direction. The trick now is making sure that this fragile recovery doesn't falter without more support from Congress.

CABRERA: OK, Christine Romans, thanks for laying it all out there. I want to join our discussion now with economics commentator Kevin Hassett; he is the former senior economic adviser to President Trump. Again, thank you for being here with us. What's your read on the new --

KEVIN HASSETT, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thanks --

CABRERA: Jobs report?

HASSETT: Thank you. Well, I think it's really a fantastic jobs report, it's really great news for the American worker, and the way I would sort of try to characterize it or put it in perspective in terms of the positive news is if you go back just to June and look at the forecast for what the unemployment rate would be at the end of this year by the Congressional Budget Office or by the Federal Reserve, they both had the unemployment rate around 10 percent at the end of this year.

And so the economy is recovering way faster than any economist thought, and I was thinking back to when I was on the show with Poppy a few months ago, I said that I thought the unemployment rate would likely go above 20 percent.