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Germany Sees Worrying Jump In COVID Cases; Majority Of States Are Seeing Rising Number Of Cases; Trump Wants Rally Tomorrow, Won't Say If He's Been Tested This Week. Aired 12-12:30pET

Aired October 09, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: German cities, like for example, here in Berlin or in Frankfurt as well and is urging people to abide by the coronavirus measures. All this comes as the amount of districts in Germany that have been deemed to be coronavirus hot spots has jumped from eight to 11.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: And top of the hour, welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you so much for sharing your day with us. We begin this hour with America's sad coronavirus reality and its anxious reality TV president.

This map is the source of the sadness and grave concern. 28 states right now, reporting more new infections compared to only one week ago. Only two states at this moment trending down. Now President Trump says he understands this all better now because he is now the world's most famous coronavirus patient.

We are told we will see him on live television today for the first time in four days, the first time since he was released from the hospital back on Monday. We will not though be hearing a new White House plan to deal with that troubling rise in new infections.

No, instead the president plans to be back in the friendly embrace of Fox news so that one of its doctors can give him a televised check-up. That is all part of the president's urgent plan now to get back on the campaign trail. He says, that's imminent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (via telephone): I think I'm going to try doing a rally on Saturday night if we can - if we have enough time to put it together but we want to do a rally in Florida - probably in Florida on Saturday night.

Might come back and do one in Pennsylvania and the following night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The political imperative here's obvious. Joe Biden is winning the race 25 days out and his battleground state leads include Florida and Pennsylvania, the two states you just heard the president mention but the medical judgment here is questionable, especially since the White House refuses to provide key treatment details.

Now news, a Republican member of Congress, Congressman Mike Bost has tested positive. We know the president is itching to get back out on the campaign trail. Our White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins joins us now live. Kaitlan, prime time appearances on Fox news to say I feel great and I'll be on the campaign trail soon but still not a detailed set of records or a briefing to answer questions from the White House doctors about whether this is actually safe.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No and I keep repeating myself here John, but we have not seen the president's doctor in person since Monday and he has not taken our questions since then either. So we have relied only on these very brief updates that he's issuing through the White House press office, that are pretty scant on details and of course that was the one yesterday where he said the president would be cleared, he believed for public engagements starting tomorrow.

Now that goes in contrast to what he said just on Monday as the president was leaving Walter Reed hospital when he said that he'd actually thought they wanted to monitor the president over the weekend this Saturday and this Sunday and then finally on Monday he said is the day that he would believe the president was in the clear if his conditions stayed the same or only improved from there.

So it's not clear why that changed. We haven't heard from Dr. Conley and we haven't had the opportunity to ask him and so right now, we have not been informed by the Trump campaign of any travel for tomorrow but clearly as you heard from the president in that interview, he is itching to get back on the campaign trail and it's hard to see how, if he doesn't do it tomorrow, if it won't be after that even though medical experts are saying that doesn't fit the CDC guidelines for isolation period.

So it's raising a lot of questions about that and also who will be on the campaign trail with the president. You've seen today from - we put together this graphic of the only people who've been around the president for extended periods of time. That's the Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, and Jared Kushner, we believe so far and of course several others of his top aides and closest advisers are still quarantining themselves after testing positive.

So it's a big question of what this is going to look like. We do know the president is going to be doing his first in-person interview later on today so we'll be monitoring that to see how does the president look, how's his breathing, does he cough like he did twice during that Sean Hannity interview last night.

Things like that because we're not getting the information from the doctors so we're having to try to report it out ourselves, John.

KING: Kaitlan Collins first live at the White House and let's continue the conversation with our CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Sanjay, Kaitlan just mentioned that this is what we get every day from the White House doctor. It's a memo that really doesn't tell us a lot. It doesn't tell us a lot but among the details in this memo if you

want to call them details, it says since returning home his physical exam has remained stable and devoid of any indications to suggest progression of illness. Overall, he's responded extremely well to treatment without evidence of examination of adverse therapeutic effects.

Saturday will be 10 days since Thursday's diagnosis and based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting, I fully anticipate the president safe return to public engagements at that time. So that's a green light from the doctor who won't answer our questions and more importantly your questions from the experts about the president's health.

And then we heard the president last night, clearly, he still has some issues, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP (through telephone): But I think the first debate - excuse me - on the first debate they ocellated the mic but I will say this, absentee is OK because absentee ballots - excuse me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:05:00]

KING: Now help me out here Dr. Gupta. You know this well better than I do. It's a respiratory virus, maybe the president is doing well and that's just what happens but when you hear that and then you hear the president as early as tomorrow will back on the campaign trail, what is the medical judgement?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean he sounds sick, John. I mean you know - and you don't I don't think need to be a doctor to tell that. I mean if you were my dad, you know I would say hey, look, you need to be getting some rest.

You were essentially medevaced from your house a week ago today. You dropped your oxygenation to the point where you needed supplemental oxygen. You've been on three drugs, one of which is totally experimental, doesn't even have authorization. Yet you're still on steroids I think because that's typically a 10-day course and you sound pretty congested so I'm worried about you.

That's what I would say. You also are likely still contagious so you know people who are around you, I'm sure you don't want to infect them so you know it makes no sense to be out and about for his own health and for the health of people around him.

Also, John just quickly, because I read a lot of these letters from doctors, right? I mean this is how we communicate. We give these summaries of patient's records you know. That is not a normal letter. I mean there's a lot of language in there that is not the standard language that doctors use, a trajectory of tests, advanced diagnostics. Is he getting tested for COVID or not? I mean what does advanced diagnostics mean in this context. We know

what the testing should be and we still haven't gotten that. John, they didn't even mention whether or not he has a fever. I mean a fever it may seem like a small thing but it's criteria for determining if one is no longer contagious. He's still on steroids.

There's a lot that doesn't make sense. Maybe they purposely obviously are being vague here as you point out but if you put the pieces of the puzzle together, they're still concerned as the doctor said himself until next Monday or even longer, they're still going to be concerned.

KING: Well, the doctor did say that himself so let's go back in time. The last time we heard from Dr. Conley was the day the president was released from Walter Reed. It was before the president was released but he laid out a timeline, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SEAN CONLEY, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S PHYSICIAN: We're in a bit of uncharted territory when it comes to a patient that received the therapies, he has so early in the course so we're looking to this weekend. If we can get through to Monday with him remaining the same or improving better yet, then we will all take that final deep sigh of relief.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now it may turn out that it was wishful thinking on the president's part to think he's going to do a rally tomorrow night or a rally Saturday but Dr. Conley was quite clear, if we can get through to Monday, that's what he said on Monday and then he issues this memo yesterday essentially saying you know go for it Sir.

GUPTA: Yes. No, I mean he - Dr. Conley is being pressured. I mean you know there's no question about it. Everyone talks about. He does have a stellar reputation, but this is - he's being pressured because he's contradicting himself at this point.

He said before the president is not out of the woods. This is uncharted territory because the president has been on a regimen that it's quite possible he's the only person in the world to have received that regimen of the antibody therapy, the Remdesivir and the steroids at the same time in this course - at this course in the illness.

So, there's - there's - he should be in the hospital, frankly John. He should be in the hospital. He should be in isolation and he should be getting closely monitored and that's not just because he's the president. That's because it's a 74-year-old vulnerable patient with risk factors who's already shown that this disease has had an impact on his lungs. He needed the oxygen. Is he seriously ill? Is that why they gave him all these medications or are they throwing the kitchen sink at him because he's the president?

We don't know still and it could be either because you know sometimes presidents and VIP patients in general get treated very differently and that doesn't always mean better so but we don't know and they're still purposely not giving us critical data. Is the president still have the virus? Does he have a fever? Does he have pneumonia? Basic questions that if Dr. Conley wanted to answer, he could but he's not.

KING: He's not because of the boss who doesn't want him to speak and answer those questions and I'm sorry, whatever your political views we deserve transparency about the health of our president, especially 25 days from an election but anytime and Dr. Gupta, I'm going to walk through some of the national trends in just a few minutes later in the program but I know there's one that troubles you greatly and you've been watching some of the projections.

We're back above 50,000 new infections a day right now. That's the here and now but what worries the experts is if we're at 50,000 plus new infections a day now, especially as the weather gets colder and people go inside and you're already seeing in a few states, some stress on the hospitalizations.

You've been looking at the projections going forward and they're alarming. Walk us through it.

GUPTA: Yes, so these - some of these types of reports are buried deeper within these models that look at number of deaths projected, number of infections. What is going to be the toll on the hospital system, and this is critical. Then I want to show you this from the IHME model, sort of looking at the demand on hospital beds and how that's going to change over the next few months.

This is of course a model. Everything can change but that purple line is basically the number of staffed hospital beds that are going to be necessary. OK?

[12:10:00]

And you're getting into the you know over 100,000 just for COVID alone on top of what typically happens during this time of year. Let me show you this next graph here. This is of the United States and looking at hospital occupancy right now. If you are a purple or dark purple, you are pretty high occupancy right now, October - early October.

We haven't even really hit flu season yet. Some of these hospital systems are already well over 70 percent occupied so John, the reason I bring it up is we talk about this virus, we talk about the fact that it's obviously contagious and it's lethal.

One of the real issues is the idea that people who are sick who won't be able to get hospital care, people who could be saved, who could get some of these medications that we're talking about but won't because the hospital beds are going to be too full.

This is a planning issue right now, has to happen. There are people who are going around big cities that are going to be cold in the winter. They can't do outside tents and they're saying that convent hall, that now has to be a potential hospital site.

We went through this in April, you remember John. Javits Center, things like that. Those conversations are happening now, and they need to because we're going to run out of basic hospital beds potentially according to these models.

KING: And when we went through it in April, the hope was that everybody would get the message and do the steps that were necessary to make sure we didn't have to go through it again but here we go. Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, thank you so much.

We'll stay on top of that as well and again, I'll break down the numbers in more detail a bit later but back to politics for a second. The presidential debates, very much up in the air right now. President Trump pulled the plug yesterday saying, he won't take part in next week's planned debate because the commission wanted to make it virtual.

That leaves just one other match up on the schedule as of now but as we know things can change, our senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny joins us now. Jeff, the president pulled the plug. Biden campaign says fine, we're ahead. We'll just do an event of our own next week, but will they get back to talking is the question.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John, that is an open question. As of now at this moment and there has been debate whiplash no question that the next and likely only debate will be October 22. That will be what was intended to be the third debate. Both sides have agreed to that but there was this unusual back and forth yesterday as you mentioned.

The president not agreeing, then agreeing, then not agreeing and the Biden campaign says look, the president does not get to make the rules on this. They both agreed to three debates over the summer but John, the bottom line is exactly what you were talking about with Dr. Gupta, the president and the White House have still not been transparent about his last negative test and his current condition.

So the debate commissioners, we speak to you know this independent bipartisan commission that plans these debates say, they simply do not know the status of the president's health so that is why under the recommendation of the Cleveland Clinic, they recommended a virtual debate next week and it wouldn't be on Zoom, it would not be you know the type of conversations we've all been having for several months.

It would just be held in remote locations like you know live broadcasts held remotely but the president said he didn't want that. Then he said he did want that so John, the bottom line now is there is likely to be probably only one more debate on October 22. The Trump campaign now has said they want one at the end of the month.

The Biden campaign says we're not going to do that but John, the reality here is I'm in Iowa where early voting is under way. Millions of votes already been cast across this country. Every passing day is a diminishing set of returns for both of these candidates in terms of debating. That's why Biden is not that interested in having more debates and why the Trump campaign still eager to reset this campaign. Suddenly now wants to have more. John

KING: And the fact that it is worth your trip to Iowa. The fact that Iowa is in play and competitive 25 days out, tells you everything you need to know about the steep hill that the president of United States is staring at right now when it comes to this race. Jeff Zeleny, grateful for the live report there.

Up next for us, the new numbers and the new warnings. Case count, the coronavirus case count is on the rise and many experts worry about an explosion as we head to the winter.

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[12:15:00]

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KING: The coronavirus case count trending in the absolutely wrong direction right now and that's leading a lot of public health experts to worry about what comes ahead as we move into the cold weather, closer to the winter.

Let's look at the 50-state trend line and it's just simply disturbing. I don't know a better word for 28 states. That's the orange and the red. 28 states reporting more new infections now compared to a week ago. 28 states heading in the wrong direction as we head in to the cold weather and you see, it's just about everywhere but particularly in the northern half of the country, you see a lot of orange, a lot of red but it's elsewhere as well.

28 states going up and 20 holding steady which means only two states, only Hawaii and Alabama reporting fewer new infections now compared to a week ago. Only two states heading in the right direction. A lot of trouble when you look elsewhere.

Let's go back to June 1. Back then 23 states were green. Look at this, the northern part of the country, see all the green up here now back on June 1. That's where they were then. A lot more red up there now and states holding steady and if you look now, when you had more cases, sadly we've been through this for months, when you have more cases, wait a week or two, you have more deaths.

Again, it's largely in the northern part of the country. 17 states orange and red that means reporting more deaths now compared to a week ago. 14 states trending down. 19 states holding steady when it comes to the sad coronavirus death count. This is the source of the problem. Double digit positivity and again, it's in the northern part of the country mostly not exclusively but mostly where things are getting colder.

24 percent in Idaho. 13 percent Wyoming. 20 percent South Dakota. 19 percent Wisconsin. 17 percent Iowa. 15 percent Kansas. Double digit positivity means more cases today and the more likelihood those cases will then infect other people and you'll have more cases tomorrow. So that is a problem here. This is the sad history of the last eight months.

[12:20:00] And you go back to June 1, 17364 new infections. This was the moment to keep the baseline down. Instead the summer surge, up to 77,000 new infections on a daily basis at the peak, coming down some but now we're back up again. 56,000 reported yesterday. The highest number since the middle of the summer surge or near the end of the summer surge at 57,000.

Going back up now so here's what public health officials worry about. If from 17000 and you went up, you got close to 80,000. What happens if you're at 40,000 or now 50,000 and you start to go up? That is the worry.

We go up steep again, we blow past that and get up here. That is the worry of public health officials and adding to the worry is you're starting to see hospitals now starting to fill up again. Down back up in the summer surge had started to come down. Now that is plateaued and it's starting to trickle back up.

So you're looking ahead to a winter, public health experts, scientists like Rick Bright, the former top government scientists who left in a big dispute with the Trump administration, he looks forward and sees a troublesome winter ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK BRIGHT, FMR DIR, HHS BIOMEDICAL ADVANCE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY: This winter we're going to have an explosion of cases of coronavirus. This winter we're going to have an explosion of influenza infections and other respiratory infections. It's going to overwhelm our health care system again. We still don't have enough personal protective equipment for our doctors and nurses.

We still don't have enough tests. We're still not doing enough testing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us to share her expertise and her insights Caitlin Rivers, an infectious disease epidemiologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Caitlin, it's good to see you again. I wish the circumstances were better. We're back - we're back about 50,000 new infections a day.

You start to see hospitalizations on the rise again. Sadly, we know from the June experience, if you start around 20000 and you have a surge then you go quickly up to 70,000 or more. Is there a risk? Have we put the mitigation in place or are we at a risk of going from a plateau of 40,000 back up 60 - 70 - 80 or more?

CAITLIN RIVERS, INFECTIOUS DISEASE EPIDEMIOLOGIST: There is a risk. This is what we saw happen in the summer when we had a relatively quiet May and June and saw a very severe resurgence in July and into August. The risk as you've described is that we start back up the hill again in the fall but starting from a much higher spot.

It would be very difficult for our health care system to experience something like what New York City experienced in the spring. That's the outcome we want to avoid and why it's so important that we continue to use the mitigation measures, staying home, social distancing, wearing a mask that have helped to keep the virus under control.

KING: And Dr. Ashish Jha who's now the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health put together a time lapse and I just want to play it on the screen for people to see as we have this conversation because we've been having these conversations Caitlin, you've been gracious with your time for months now.

This is how severe is the pandemic where you live, and you just watch this timeline play out and so here we are eight months into this and this is filling in. As the deeper the colors get, you can figure this out for yourself how bad it is.

You're just going through August now and so Caitlin, the question is back when we were in June at 17,000 new infections a day, what should have been done as since everybody knew once it got cold again, we're going to have a problem.

RIVERS: Yes, I think there are individual measures that we can all take to slow transmission again. It's the staying home, it's the mask, it's the hand washing and there are also policies that we can use to help prevent people from coming into contact with others in high risk setting and activities.

For me, I think closing bars and closing indoor dining or limiting those activities is important and I think we need to continue to follow through with those closures or limitations through the fall. I think also continuing to scale up diagnostic testing and contact tracing which breaks chains of transmission by focusing specifically on people who are sick and their close contacts instead of putting limitations on everyone.

Those are the strategies that we've used to slow transmission in the past and we should continue to focus.

KING: Well, please disagree with me if you think it to be wrong but I don't hear that. I don't hear that from the White House and the top public officials, the specifics that you're mentioning every day or sometimes when the president's team tries to do this now.

They travel the country to do it quietly to state governors because they don't have a national platform anymore. The president won't give it to them and in part because of that the CDC's ensemble forecast now says that we will have 224,000 to 233,000 deaths by the end of the month.

So we're 212,000 now. The CDC is saying another 20,000 Americans are likely to die by the end of the month and one of the questions on the table of course is when will we have a vaccine that might help us stop this. Listen to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ALEX AZAR, SECRETARY, HHS: Pending FDA authorizations, we believe we

may have up to 100 million doses by the end of the year, enough to cover especially vulnerable populations and we project having enough for every American who wants a vaccine by March to April 2021.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:25:00]

KING: Do we see evidence in the regulatory approval process, emergency use applications, do we see evidence right now before us that validate that timeline that we would have as he said, 100 million doses by the end of the year to cover people on the front lines? Do we see that happening or is that still aspirational?

RIVERS: We don't know exactly because there is not much available yet in the public information sphere. We know that vaccine manufacturers and research and development organizations have been working very hard to test the vaccine candidates. I think that's good news and I think the other good news is that the companies that have - are producing vaccine candidates that aren't yet authorized, they are not yet approved but they're in clinical trials, we are manufacturing doses of those candidates.

So that if a vaccine makes it over to finish line and becomes available to the public, there's already a lot of product available so I'm hopeful that the supply will be fairly robust when there is a vaccine that is authorized or approved.

KING: When there is and let us hope on the science there. Caitlin Rivers, as always grateful for your time and your important insights, thank you. Still ahead for us, the governor of Michigan calls the people who plotted to kidnap her, domestic terrorists.

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