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Nevada Man gets COVID Twice; Second Round of Questions for Barrett; Beto O'Rourke is Interviewed about Voting in Texas. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired October 14, 2020 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[09:32:58]
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: So an elderly woman in the Netherlands is now the first known person in the world to die after catching coronavirus twice. This as researchers here in the United States have just published new data about the first confirmed case of a symptomatic reinfection in the U.S. in a 25-year-old man in Nevada. Still, the president claimed last night that he and anyone who's had COVID is immune.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But it does give you a good -- a good feeling when you can beat something and now they say you're immune. I don't know for how long. Some people say for life. Some people say for four months.
Who has had it here? Who's had it? Yes, a lot of people. A lot of people. Well, you're the people I want to say hello to because you're right now immune.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Not so sure about that.
Heather Kerwin is a senior epidemiologist with the Washoe County Health District in Nevada. She joins me now. And she co-authored the study on the first known reinfection.
So, good morning to you. Thank you for being here.
HEATHER KERWIN, SENIOR EPIDEMIOLOGIST, WASHOE COUNTY HEALTH DISTRICT IN NEVADA: Thank you for having me.
HARLOW: Let's talk about the subject you studied. A 25-year-old, so very young, young man, with no other known health complications. He got COVID in April and in June and his symptoms were more severe the second time around. How can that happen?
KERWIN: There's a couple different ways that might happen. We know that after initial infection with COVID-19, the immune system does take a hit overall. So someone is susceptible to any virus respiratory pathogens.
The second infection was a different clade of SARS-CoV-2 and it was more closely related to the Wuhan origin. And so it may have had something to do with that. But it was a unique case because his symptoms were more severe. He did get diagnosed with pneumonia the second time around.
HARLOW: Did you say a different clade? What is that? Is that a different strain? And then what does that mean for a vaccine?
[09:35:01]
KERWIN: So it -- it's in the same -- it -- really the genetics of the virus are still very much being explored and it doesn't necessarily mean a fully different strain of it. We don't know what it means yet for a vaccine. I think that we're pretty early in terms of the science behind what this virus has the ability to do. I mean we haven't quite studied it for an entire calendar year yet. And what the implications for a vaccine might be. It is in the cold virus family, so there are other coronaviruses that do impact human populations and, as you know, you can catch the common cold over and over again. So in terms of virology, you know, we look to some of the standard kind of --
HARLOW: How --
KERWIN: Go ahead.
HARLOW: How rare -- how rare is it? Like I have a -- you know, I know a bunch of folks who have gotten COVID. Are most of them or few of them likely to get it again?
KERWIN: Right now it's hard to capture that. I don't think we have a full picture of how many people have actually had COVID-19. Right now it seems to be fairly rare, but we know there are other cases of reinfection, both locally, nationally and internationally as well. So I think that, again, only time will be able to tell us really how rare or common it is.
HARLOW: Does this study shed any more light on how long immunity, if you have immunity, might last because, as I understand it, he had antibodies in his blood when he tested positive again?
KERWIN: Correct. There's different kind of immune responses to viral infections and there's different proteins and immune cells that you study when you look at how long immunity might last. And I think that that is very much still being explored. You know, you can take an antibody test, which is a -- typically a blood test that's going to tell you whether or not you have immune globulins in -- which are proteins that are created by your body naturally in an immune-typical person and -- and those are still indicating, you know, someone has possibly been infected or exposed with SARS-CoV-2. But we don't know enough about how that, you know -- that really plays out in terms of if you can get infected, you know, with the same clade or generically very distinct clades. So I think that -- that there's a lot more research to be done related to the genetic differences in those different clades. HARLOW: And it highlights so many outstanding questions that remain.
Heather Kerwin, thanks to you and your team, of course, also for doing this study.
KERWIN: Absolutely.
HARLOW: Jim.
SCIUTTO: Yes, it's incredible after all these months how much more we have to learn about COVID.
HARLOW: Yes.
SCIUTTO: Well, this is a live look at round two of questioning in the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett. What can we expect today? More answers coming up.
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[09:42:34]
SCIUTTO: Welcome back.
These are live pictures there. Day three of Judge Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Today there will be two rounds of questioning from senators.
HARLOW: Our Sunlen Serfaty joins us on Capitol Hill.
So talk to us about the timeline here, more questions today. It will last all day, right? And then some sort of vote tomorrow?
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy, the timeline has been pretty aggressive when you're talking to Republicans driving, of course, to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed before Election Day.
Now, today is that second round of questioning. Senators will have 20 minutes each to go back at her at a second round of questioning, follows -- following yesterday's more than 11 hours of questions that she took. And today is expected to be just as lengthy. After she faces questions and answer sessions with senators today, they'll go in a closed session. They'll talk about her background check. All of that is customary for a Supreme Court nominee.
Then tomorrow, on Thursday, that's when the committee will hear from outside witnesses talking about her character, talking about her resume. So in essence today is the last time we will hear from Judge Barrett herself.
After that, the committee will move towards a vote. Most likely that will actually happen next week. We await firm word from the committee on that.
And that sets up a full Senate vote on the floor of the Senate later this month. And, again, really jives with the Republicans marching towards getting her on the court before Election Day.
Now, Democrats, in a morning conference call, preview a lot of the arguments that they're going to be bringing today and the questions that they're going to be bringing to Judge Barrett, of course focused on the ACA, laying out that they -- she -- they say they want to argue the incredibly broad consequences when and if she gets a seat on the Supreme Court. And we saw that from the ranking member, Dianne Feinstein, the first Democrat to question her today, focusing on the ACA.
Poppy. Jim.
SCIUTTO: Sunlen, thanks very much. We'll, of course, bring you developments as they happen there.
Well, after years of going red, is Texas possibly a toss-up state? Democrats say there is a chance that they could take the state this cycle. Up next, we're going to speak to former Texas congressman and former presidential candidate, Beto O'Rourke, about Democrats' chances there and other issues. Stay with us.
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[09:49:10]
SCIUTTO: Welcome back.
As we see record-breaking early voter turnout in Texas, there is an intensifying battle over one way people vote via drop boxes. A battle in that state there. A federal appeals court ruled Texas can limit absentee ballot drop-off spots to just one per county. To put it in perspective, in Harris County, 4.7 million people live there. Now, they only have one place to go to drop off their ballots. For many of them, it's a long drive.
Joining me now is former presidential candidate and U.S. congressman, Beto O'Rourke, who has been leading a push to get out the vote in the state.
Mr. O'Rourke, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.
BETO O'ROURKE (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks for having me on.
SCIUTTO: So tell us your reaction to the federal appeals court decision here allowing the governor, Governor Abbott, to enforce this just one drop box per county. You know, people think of counties as small things, but Harris County, it's bigger than many cities in this country, 4.7 million people.
[09:50:08]
How will that affect people's ability to vote there?
O'ROURKE: Jim, it's really unfortunate because it enables the voter suppression that has kept so many of our fellow Texans historically from being able to cast their ballot and have their vote counted. It's compounded by voter ID laws, racial gerrymandering, a number of other really bad practices made much worse since the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.
However, Jim, the good news is, thanks to someone like Chris Hollins in Harris County, which is the largest county in Texas, more than 5 million people, you have 24-hour voting, drive through voting, ballot tracking applications for when you mail in that ballot and voting super centers and voter turnout in Harris County yesterday, the first day of early voting, shattered every previous record by a mile, but folks are overcoming this voter suppression and these obstacles to make sure that their voices are heard.
SCIUTTO: You and other Democrats in Texas have talked hopefully of the possibility of turning Texas blue this cycle. Now, to be fair, Democrats have been talking about that going back to the early '90s, Ann Richards, you'll remember. How realistic is it, in your view, that Texas, in this cycle, is truly a toss-up, could go blue?
O'ROURKE: Yes. It's happening. I mean you reported on the polls Biden and Trump neck in neck, just three weeks out from the most historic election in our lives and certainly the most important one perhaps in the history of the country in the biggest battleground state where we have 38 Electoral College votes.
If Joe Biden is the first Democratic nominee to win Texas in 44 years, then this election is over on election night. We don't wait for Pennsylvania to count the returns for days or maybe even weeks. We don't allow Donald Trump the opportunity to try to steal or prematurely or illegally claim victory when the results are still in doubt. Texas will decide this mathematically, psychologically, in every way that matters and we can turn the page on Donald Trump and begin that next chapter for our country. That's how important Texas is. And Texas can happen.
You see Joe Biden spending more money in the state than any Democratic nominee ever has. And he's not doing it out of charity, he's doing it because he knows he can win. His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, was in El Paso and Houston and Dallas yesterday. Kamala Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, was at Rio Grande Valley.
SCIUTTO: Right.
O'ROURKE: So they're taking the state seriously. And this state is turning out in the most serious numbers I've ever seen. We're breaking every record that was on the books.
SCIUTTO: Well, we'll see. We will see on Election Day.
I want to ask you, because you're out there talking to a lot of voters. You saw the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, pressed by our colleague Wolf Blitzer yesterday on why won't Democrats, urged by members of their own caucus, Ro Khanna among them, who's going to be on this broadcast later with Poppy, to make a deal, basically. That, yes, $1.8 trillion, not the number they're looking for, but it's pretty close.
Do you think it's a mistake for Democrats not to make a deal and get money into the pockets of Americans suffering through this pandemic?
O'ROURKE: Yes, well -- well, listen, Speaker Pelosi, Representative Khanna, the Democratic caucus, the House of Representatives have been at the table now for months. And, in fact, it's been the president and the GOP-led Senate that have walked away from the table time and again. I am confident that if the president and Mitch McConnell will meet those members of the House in good faith, the American people, who are struggling through more than 217,000 deaths, more than 16,500 in Texas, the worst recession since the Great Depression --
SCIUTTO: Yes.
O'ROURKE: Can finally get the help that they deserve. This is the wealthiest, most powerful country on the face of the planet. It is not a matter of resources, it is a lack of leadership from this president.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
O'ROURKE: He has the power to do the right thing and he has literally walked away from the American people.
SCIUTTO: I mean I get that argument. Nancy Pelosi made the same one. But at the end of the day voters -- I mean some Democratic lawmakers up for re-election, they're concerned voters will blame them as well.
O'ROURKE: Well, I think we should be more concerned about the truth, right, and -- and the facts. That matters. And the House has repeatedly comes forward with solutions only to have them languish for literally months, Jim, in the worse pandemic since 1918 and the worst recession since the Great Depression. There has been no urgency whatsoever on the part of the White House or Mitch McConnell and the Republican-controlled Senate.
And the solution to that, of course, with 20 days to go is to change those in power.
SCIUTTO: Yes.
O'ROURKE: Willie Nelson says, vote him out. And we can have a new president. We can have a Democratic majority in the Senate if we see the turnout trends that have been on display in Texas over the last 24 hours continue.
SCIUTTO: OK.
[09:55:09]
O'ROURKE: This can happen this yore.
SCIUTTO: Well, very quickly, before I go, you're going to run for governor of Texas?
O'ROURKE: Not even thinking about that.
SCIUTTO: OK.
O'ROURKE: Just thinking about helping this country come through on November 3rd by making sure that Texas turns out in record numbers.
SCIUTTO: All right, Beto O'Rourke, thanks so much for coming on this morning. We wish you the best of luck.
O'ROURKE: Thanks, Jim. Appreciate it.
HARLOW: Valiant, valiant effort. Not even thinking about it right now. We'll see what happens.
Could the U.S. be on the verge of another COVID surge across the nation? Looking at the map right now, a spike in cases is happening in nearly three quarters of the country.
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SCIUTTO: A very good Wednesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.
HARLOW: And I'm Poppy Harlow.
[10:00:00]
The breaking news this hour, the president's Supreme Court pick, Amy Coney Barrett, is facing another round of questions on Capitol Hill today. It is day three of Senate confirmation hearings.
