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Coronavirus Cases Rising in States Across U.S.; New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Taking Precautions against Possible Coronavirus Spikes; President Trump Criticizes Republican Senator Ben Sasse for Recorded Comments about Possible Large Republican Losses in 2020 Election; People Wait in Long Lines in Georgia to Vote Early in 2020 Election. Aired 2-3p ET

Aired October 17, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: So, it's messy, Fred.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Right, it sure is. And there's still 17 days to go, and it just seems like it's potentially going to get even messier. All right, Marshall Cohen, thank you so much.

COHEN: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right, hello again, everyone. Thank you so much for being with me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

Just 17 days away now until the election, and the coronavirus pandemic is once again front and center. The U.S. has now surpassed 8 million COVID cases with a record number of cases Friday. More than 69,000 people infected in a single day, and experts fear it will get much worse in the weeks to come.

Still, a defiant President Trump holding his sixth day of campaign rallies since he was diagnosed with the virus himself, downplaying its dangers, threatening to lock up his political opponents, and even suggesting that he'd leave the country if he were to lose.

And his supporters taking their cues from him. Georgia State Congressman Vernon Jones, a Democrat, who endorsed the president for reelection, crowd surfs mask-less, on a sea of mostly mask-less people at a Trump rally.

The pandemic not stopping voters from turning in their early ballots. In fact, the pandemic may be largely galvanizing this record turnout. This is a look at voters lining up and waiting hours to vote in Georgia. And across the country already now nearly 22 million have cast their ballots.

And with just five days until lawmakers vote on the U.S. Supreme Court justice nominee, thousands are marching to the nation's capital in protest against the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. high court.

We have a team of correspondents covering all of these developments. Let's begin with Evan McMorris-Santoro and the latest on this alarming rise of COVID cases here in the U.S. So Evan, the surge is very frightening. What are health experts warning about?

EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred, what they're basically doing is looking at the calendar and getting nervous about how close winter is. Winter obviously is a time people go back inside. It's flu season. That can be very, very bad for the pandemic. And I want to show you a graphic that shows you where we are right now in the fall. Ten states have reported their highest case totals in a single day since the pandemic began just in the last few days. So as you see, this is a rising problem here in the fall. Dr. Anthony Fauci recently said that, look, you've got to be wary of the winter coming and be careful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You can't enter into the cool months of the fall and the cold months of the winter with a high community infection baseline. And looking at the map and seeing the heat map, how it lights up with test positivity that is in more than 30 plus states is going in the wrong direction. It's still not too late to vigorously apply good public health measures, and again, I emphasize, without necessarily shutting down the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: So look, Fred, what Dr. Fauci is saying is that the key to the pandemic in the winter is the same as it was in the spring, a rigorous and diligent following of socially distanced guidelines and mask guidelines. The same things that we did back then, we need to do again before this winter comes, he says, Fred.

WHITFIELD: And then Evan, New York Governor Cuomo just gave an update on the COVID situation there. What did he have to say?

MCMORRIS-SANTORO: That's right, Fred. It was an interesting press conference because the governor laid out his plans for combatting this coronavirus pandemic here in this once hardest hit state for the fall. And his plan is really a block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood fight, using what he calls these high -- he calls them zones of micro clusters, where he draws a red circle around a block where the numbers have gone up, the infection rate has gone up, then draws an orange circle and a yellow circle with lessening degrees of restrictions as you move out from that red center.

He says that he's learned enough about the pandemic from the spring and also has enough good data now that as we move into these tougher months, he can actually fight it on a block by block basis instead of locking whole city down like we saw back in the spring, Fred.

WHITFIELD: We shall see. Evan McMorris-Santoro, thank you so much in New York.

All right, President Trump is set to hold several rallies in key battleground states today, ignoring warnings from his officials in his own administration. Both Wisconsin and Michigan are reporting a record-breaking number of positive cases. Both states are part of the president's campaign stumps today. CNN's Joe Johns joins me now from Muskegon, Michigan, where he'll kick off events there in a matter of hours, but already I see a lot of people behind you.

[14:05:05]

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, in about three hours. In fact, we've seen a steady stream of people going in, and it's really picked up just over the last hour or so. A lot of people wearing masks, but not a great concern, obviously, about coronavirus, even though the governor is urging some social distancing out here at this big rally by the president.

Now, this is one of those counties they think they can flip, the Trump campaign. It was very close four years ago, but Hillary Clinton won. The question, of course, is what is the message? Originally, when this rally was scheduled, the message was supposed to be a salute to law enforcement, but they've changed that to remarks supporting the American way of life. Not clear why they made that change.

Nonetheless, this campaign has definitely been floundering around, trying to figure out a message, trying to find something that will stick to Joe Biden. Just last night we heard the president tracking back to the rhetoric of 2016, calling for his political opponent to be locked up. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm telling you, that Biden family, and others, but that Biden family is corrupt. It's a corrupt family. And with me and my kids, let me tell you, my kids -- I'll tell you something. Lock him up. You shouldn't lock them up. Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary.

CROWD: Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up!

TRUMP: Lock them up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: After the rally here this evening, the president flies off to Janesville, Wisconsin, will hold another rally there, another critical swing state in the Midwest, Fred.

WHITFIELD: OK. And then there's the president who is spending a lot of time tweeting and attacking Senator Ben Sasse, calling him stupid, obnoxious because of a recording in which Sasse said there is going to be a real bloodbath, and Republicans are going to pay for it, and that's why he didn't -- he has not been campaigning for the president.

JOHNS: Right, and this is one of those back and forth feuds that really just blew out into the open last week. Of course, the president with a string of tweets today, and these are the kinds of tweets that people we talked to even here said are worrisome for them as the president seeks reelection. Nonetheless, it was a response to Senator Ben Sasse's sharp comments regarding the president before a crowd. They were recorded and then made public. Listen to some of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): I'm now looking at the possibility of a Republican bloodbath in the Senate, and that's why I've never been on the Trump train. That's why I didn't agree to serve on his reelection committee and it's why I'm not campaigning for him.

I think we are staring down the barrel of a blue tsunami.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: So, the tweets we saw from the president. The president called Sasse stupid, obnoxious, a liability for the party. Sasse's office for his part said he's not going to engage the president on Twitter, but also indicating that what the president said that was recorded was, in fact, imparted to the president form Senator Sasse directly in the Oval Office, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Joe Johns in what appears to be a rather chilly Muskegon because people are wearing their layers. I'm seeing the folks behind you. Thank you so much, Joe Johns.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden issued a statement criticizing President Trump's planned rally in Janesville, Wisconsin. Biden notes that Wisconsin is in the grips of one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the country. Biden reiterated these concerns while campaigning in Michigan yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He said we have turned the corner. As my grandfather Finnegan might say where he here, he'd say he's gone around the bend. Turned the corner? My Lord. It's not disappearing. In fact, it's on the rise again. It's getting worse, as predicted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Biden's running mate Senator Kamala Harris is returning to the campaign trail on Monday after being temporarily grounded when two people on her team tested positive for COVID-19.

So, with now just 17 days to election day, we're already seeing huge turnout of early in-person voters. Nearly 22 million so far. Just take a look at the early turnout numbers in Georgia as compared to 2016. As of noon today, more than 1,370,000 cast early in-person ballots. Compare that to October 22nd, 2016, and just over half a million cast early ballots. CNN's Natasha Chen is in Georgia where early voters have been lining up all day. Natasha, what's happening? Barely a line behind you.

[14:10:07]

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Fred, the good news is it's a lot better than it was when I last talked to you. So maybe there are only 40 people in line at this point, and it's just this one corner. But if you go all the way down, you can see the fence line and the yellow tape where we were this morning. The line this morning, when they opened the doors at 8:00, that was doubling back over and over. People had gotten here at 4:30 a.m. just to be ready for that 8:00 a.m. start. So, I guess the trick is to come in the afternoon.

But as you mentioned, the turnout has been so drastic compared to 2016. At this point in the election in 2016, about five or six days in, we are comparing to numbers at that time. We're seeing 134 percent increase in total ballots cast at this point. That is both in-person as well as absentee. If you're looking at just the in-person early voting turnout, it's a 47 percent increase. And absentee ballots, this is the big difference, 615 percent increase compared to this time in 2016. And in fact, I spoke to two people who just dropped off their absentee ballots today. This is Laurin and Jay Gaylord. And Laurin, tell me about your decision to go with the absentee method and how long it took you to get that ballot.

LAURIN GAYLORD, GEORGIA EARLY VOTER: So, we did absentee ballot the last election in June, and it was so easy that we just decided to do it this time as well. So, we registered like really early for the absentee ballot, and so it probably took us about six weeks to actually get the ballots, but still, well worth it.

CHEN: And the pandemic, you said, is the reason why you chose to do that this time. You had always voted on Election Day.

L. GAYLORD: That's correct.

CHEN: And Jay, tell me about why it was so important for you to vote this time around and make sure your vote got in early.

JAY GAYLORD, GEORGIA EARLY VOTER: Yes, this election for us is really about health care, and, obviously, the pandemic, two very important subjects for us, and then racial equally as well. We just felt, this is an important election and wanted to make sure our voices were heard and came down and dropped off the ballots.

CHEN: And when either of you, when you saw the lines and how long they were earlier this week, even earlier today, was that surprising to you to see that kind of energy here?

L. GAYLORD: It was surprising, but very exciting. I'm happy to see people getting out and doing their part.

J. GAYLORD: Nice to see. I like seeing the turnout. I wish the lines weren't so long, I wish there were more opportunity for people to vote. But I'm pleased to see so many people doing it.

CHEN: Thank you so much. And we're talking about opportunities to vote. The machines inside this building, there are only 15, one-five, and that's why some of the long waits are happening earlier this morning. Poll workers were telling us that it's an issue of having enough power source for those machines inside. We're still asking officials if that's the case. But clearly, people are not daunted by the wait. In fact, there's free food being offered around by volunteers. So, everybody's here trying to make sure their vote is counted and counted early, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Such a variety of time spent in lines for so many early voting polling stations, 45 minutes, four hours, eight hours. But people understand the importance and are willing to do it, and they are. Natasha Chen, thank you so much.

All right, coming up, a major blow to President Trump's hope of a vaccine before Election Day. The challenges companies are facing and what's next in the process.

Then later, lights out on Broadway through May. Some of theatre's biggest stars worried about their friends and colleagues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:18:00]

WHITFIELD: The U.S. saw a record number of cases Friday, more than 69,000 people infected in a single day, and experts fear it could get much worse heading into the winter months. But drug giant Pfizer said this week it plans to apply for emergency use authorization for its coronavirus vaccine in the U.S. as early as next month. The CDC is also predicting a vaccine will be available by the end of this year but would have limited availability at first.

Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath is the president and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a trade and lobbying organization. She's also a medical doctor and immunologist. Good to see you, Doctor.

DR. MICHELLE MCMURRY-HEATH, BIOTECH LOBBYIST: Good to see you.

WHITFIELD: So let me ask you about what the CDC's forecast is. When you talk to your members and survey the vaccines being developed around the world, do you think it is realistic to expect the vaccine by the end of this year?

MCMURRY-HEATH: Well, we certainly do, in terms of getting a vaccine approved. We at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization have been tracking all of the research and development aimed at COVID since the start of the outbreak. And just since the beginning of the year, our companies have launched over 740 research and development programs aimed at COVID, 180 of those are just targeted at trying to develop a vaccine. While we hear a lot about the nine that are in phase three clinical trials, that is the last step of clinical trials, it's important to know that we have very many shots on goal. We have a lot of chances to get this right, and that is a real reason for hope.

WHITFIELD: So the AstraZeneca vaccine trial and, more recently, the Johnson & Johnson trial were both paused, either because of illness or complications, but not necessarily due to the vaccine itself. Is there a concern that this aggressive timeline to develop a vaccine could put any approval or even delay any kind of approval?

[14:20:00] MCMURRY-HEATH: So we know that there's a lot of public concern out there over the speed, but it's important for us to remember the speed is coming from the fact we have decades now of scientific experience really helping us in this development of the COVID vaccine, and that's been fabulous to see how all of this great experience and expertise has been trained at this particular daunting problem.

But this is par for the course for biomedical research, and that's important to remember. You do a scientific experiment because you do not yet know the answer, and clinical trials are scientific experiments. And so it's not unexpected for us to see occasional adverse events, things that make us pause and make sure that we're on the right track before we go forward.

But we should have confidence. Our scientists are doing the exact right thing in making sure that they're testing the vaccine in large numbers of people, 30,000 people, usually, for each of the vaccine candidates, to make sure it's behaving as expected. And we at BIO anticipate that we'll see a vaccine in wide public use by the spring of next year.

WHITFIELD: And I wonder because of that unpredictability factor in any of these trials of development a safe and viable vaccine, if it's a mistake to even pinpoint a time in which a vaccine could be made available.

MCMURRY-HEATH: Well, we certainly want to wait on the science. The science here has to be incontrovertible. We have to wait and see if the scientific results yield what we expect. We do have cause for hope, and that cause hope comes from the vast scientific experience that we have trained at this, and the vast number of projects we have underway, 180 different research and development programs, each one trying to develop a unique COVID vaccine. That's an incredible number of opportunities to get this right.

WHITFIELD: So, when a vaccine is given emergency use only kind of approval, does that promise that that vaccine has a greater chance of being eventually made available to the masses?

MCMURRY-HEATH: Well, it will certainly be on the front lines. I was a former FDA official and I know that the scientist at the Food and Drug Administration are incredibly exacting and demanding when it comes to the scientific research that they evaluate. Emergency use authorization is used when we're not waiting for the complete clinical trial to be done because early results show that the vaccine is so incredibly promising, and the need is so incredibly great that it makes most sense to let those who need it most get it first and get it early. So that's the circumstances in which we use the EUA.

WHITFIELD: And who or what determines who will have access first to a vaccine once it's determined this vaccine is safe? Will it be to a more vulnerable population first? Is it based on -- how is the determination made? Is it based on age or exposure of that body of people? What?

MCMURRY-HEATH: Well, the very important good news here is that it's not any one single individual or company who's making that determination, not even one government. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have a national coalition of immunization practices, NCIP, and this is a multi-stakeholder group that for many national vaccines sits down and determines who should get it and when.

They've also been informed by a group coming out of the National Academy of Medicine at this time that is also helping to inform us, so we have the best minds in the country, if not the world, focused on figuring out who needs it first and who should get it when. And they're really looking at age, other comorbidities, the risk factors in terms of of how exposed one might be to the virus. Our frontline medical workers are at incredible risk, even if they are individually healthy, because they're out there every day seeing patients. So we want to make sure that we're targeting those that are most at risk first, and that's exactly as it should be.

WHITFIELD: Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath, thank you so much. Be well.

MCMURRY-HEATH: Thank you. You, too.

WHITFIELD: Coming up, women on a mission to get out the vote. They're marching on Capitol Hill today with just 17 days until the election. Find out what inspired them to act, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:52]

WHITFIELD: Welcome back. The 2020 Women's March continues in Washington, D.C., and more than 400 other locations right now. Thousands of demonstrators are drawn to the event to protest President Trump's U.S. Supreme Court nominee, the handling of the coronavirus, and of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's passing. The marches are designed to encourage people to vote. CNN national correspondent Suzanne Malveaux joins us live from the march. So, Suzanne, last hour I spoke with the executive director of this march, and she said women are fired up and fed up. What are you seeing and hearing from people there?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Fred, you're absolutely right. There's a lot of passion, there's a lot of energy out here. The Women's March organizers say that 43 percent of those who were actually eligible to vote voted in 2016, so they dramatically want to switch that up and change those numbers. They believe that they can.

And so what we've been seeing here, Fred, is the thousands of people coming originally from Freedom Plaza to the U.S. capital behind me to the Supreme Court, and then here on to the National Mall. These seats are each six feet apart. You can see hundreds and hundreds of them.

[14:30:01]

This is when they're going to conduct a text-a-thon is what they're calling it. They are asking those to participate. There's instructions that are actually taped to the chairs on how to download an app where they will reach out to several people, women voters, young female voters, to encourage them to vote, perhaps for the first time. The goal here, Fred, is to get to 5 million women to encourage them to vote today. So we'll see how they do. It's just getting started here. I had a chance, Fred, to talk to a lot of people at the rally earlier about why this is so important to them, so many personal stories. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EILEEN PAUL, WOMEN'S MARCH PARTICIPANT: I quarantined just to be able to go to this. But I only go out to go to the grocery store, that's all. I haven't seen my grandchildren. I haven't seen my children. So it's just, the whole country is just horrible.

ROSTAFA, WOMEN'S MARCH PARTICIPANT: Women are demeaned and worse right now especially we're in a time everything is tumultuous, the world is pretty much spinning in opposite directions, no matter whether it's Black Lives Matter, whether if it women's rights. It's all connected in some way, shape, or another.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Fred, I covered the 2017 march when it was the record number of about 5 million across the country who took to the streets, 200,000 who were here in D.C. The organizers this time around say, look, they don't need the numbers. They don't want the numbers because of COVID. And so they're playing it safe. These are the instructions that they have on the seats to participate in this text-a-thon. They're also encouraging people to participate virtually. And that is the emphasis this year. They believe, however, that they will be effective in getting those numbers up and getting women out to vote in this election in just weeks away, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Thanks, Suzanne. I love that you brought up such a great variety of voices, and it's always so fascinating to see the adaptability of the Washington Mall, how so many people kind of stages can be set there, and this too is another unique one. Suzanne Malveaux, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Coming up, the show won't go on until at least May. The Broadway shutdown extended, actors and workers struggling to make ends meet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNADETTE PETERS, BROADWAY ACTRESS: I'm concerned about people that were living on that salary, that came to the city that were living on the salary to pay their rent, to buy their groceries.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:36:42]

WHITFIELD: Broadway has extended its shutdown due to the pandemic with no productions through next May. This is having a devastating impact for actors, producers, stagehands, and theatre workers which impacts nearly 100,000 workers. Many fears the jobs they have lost could be gone for good. Here's CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BERNADETTE PETERS, BROADWAY ACTRESS: It's been very tough for Broadway.

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS REPORTER: Bernadette Peters is one of the Broadway's most revered stars with decades of Tony winning performances. But today, she's turning her spotlight on her fellow Broadway workers.

PETERS: I'm concerned about people that were living on that salary, that came to the city that were living on the salary to pay their rent, to buy their groceries.

YURKEVICH: Nearly 100,000 workers rely on Broadway for their livelihoods. This single theatre district brings $15 billion to New York City each year. But the pandemic has killed the lights on Broadway and will stay dark until 2021.

PETERS: Everyone in the show becomes a little community, a little family, from the ushers to the people that sell the tickets to people that clean. We're all part of it.

YURKEVICH: Laura Prather, a stagehand, keeps the lights on on Broadway.

LAURA PRATHER, BROADWAY STAGEHAND: We have a saying. We like every light, every night.

YURKEVICH: So she never thought she'd be the one tasked with turning off the marquee at American Airlines Theatre.

PRATHER: It was the wildest moment of asking myself, are we going to be able to return?

YURKEVICH: She moved from St. Louis four years ago, buying a home. Her savings will only last her another six months.

PRATHER: My career of 15 years into this has basically vanished overnight.

YURKEVICH: What's the alternative for you right now?

PRATHER: Possibly finding a job in a different, completely different field. The possibility of worst-case scenario, longer term, is selling my place.

YURKEVICH: A worst case scenario came true for actress Morgan Ashley Bryant. She's one of more than 50,000 people working in theatres across the U.S. now out of a job. Many local theatres are hanging on by a thread without federal aid. Bryant's role in the "Mean Girls" national tour is just one dream cut short.

MORGAN ASHLEY BRYANT, ACTRESS: It's not prudent financially for me to stay in the city for an extended period of time with no idea of when I'm going to be able to go back to work.

YURKEVICH: So, what does that mean? If you deciding you can't be here anymore, where are you going to go?

BRYANT: I'm going to go home to Alabama.

YURKEVICH: The financial pain has been great. But the emotional pain of not being able to perform has been greater. Do you miss that feeling?

BRYANT: It's the best, oh my gosh.

YURKEVICH: But a little advice from Peters, who has been through the ups and downs of a storied career.

PETERS: If you have to go home and then come back, come back. Don't give up on your dream. Your dream is your dream. It's the most important thing you have. You have to see it through.

YURKEVICH: Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[14:40:04]

WHITFIELD: Joining me right now, Carson Elrod. He is an actor and the co-founder and organizer of "Be an Arts Hero." So good to see you. This is so sad.

CARSON ELROD, CO-FOUNDER AND ORGANIZER, "BE AN ARTS HERO": It is very sad.

WHITFIELD: It is sad. And you're feeling the shutdown personally as well. Tell me what it's been like for you, and how do you try to remain hopeful?

ELROD: What it's been like for me is back in March, I lost three jobs at the same time, just like so many people that I know, and Morgan Ashley Bryant's story is a common one. I know people that are leaving the city all the time. And we are the human infrastructure of the creative economy. When it comes to Broadway. That's 97,000 people that are now completely and totally unemployed.

WHITFIELD: And in fact, if I could stop you right there. Help people understand, because they'll think, OK, Broadway, they're thinking the people that they see on stage. But those 90,000 people, near 100,000 people, the variation of jobs and roles, it's just significant, it's huge.

ELROD: Yes. When we think about arts worker, oftentimes we think of an artist. But in the Broadway community, we're talking about ticket takers, we're talking about box office, we're talking about people that sell merch. And across the country arts workers are stagehands and wig makers. It's part of a dynamic economy that is really enormous. WHITFIELD: It is enormous. So, just like Morgan, we just saw her, and

tearfully, how being a performer just lights up her life, and then she can go home. Alabama, it's not where she wants to be, but are you finding that that is kind of the more common situation where people are having to pack up and leave New York altogether?

ELROD: Well, that's something that's happening, but it gets even worse than that. We just recently spoke with Patsy Bouressa at the SIMS Foundation in Austin, Texas, that deals with substance abuse and mental health crisis for people in the music sphere, and just in the last 30 days, they have had four suicides and two overdoses from people who are in the music industry. And they said that every time they see that a music venue -- when a music venue in Texas closes, their emergency health line spikes 40 percent.

So, we really are in a humanitarian crisis. And one of the things that gives me hope, you were asking earlier, is the "Be an Arts Hero" campaign that I am part of. What we're trying to do is we're trying to get all 5.1 million people that work in the creative economy in the arts and culture sector in the United States to get together. And when I say arts worker, I mean Broadway producers. I mean actors. I mean ushers. I mean stagehands. I mean people that work in museums. I mean people all over this country to get together and press all 535 members of the United States Congress to pass emergency relief for our sector, because when you see that 10 airlines are able to secure $50 billion in relief, we are an $877 billion sector, we're bigger than transportation. We're bigger than agriculture. We're bigger than tourism. And yet we've largely been left out of the relief conversation. So what gives me hope is the day to day activity of "Be an Arts Hero" where we are getting up, we are building coalitions, we are reaching out across the entire country. We are on the phone with senators' offices, with representatives' offices, and we're on the line with people like you trying to educate --

WHITFIELD: Are you getting a positive reception in return? Are you getting any encouragement from those lobbying efforts that, OK, it's possibly back on the table to really consider relief to the arts community?

ELROD: Yes, definitely. And there are lots of relief packages in Washington right now that are very exciting. There's Restart, Save our Stages, the Calmer (ph) Act. And we love that there is any and every piece of legislation. And we ourselves, "Be an Arts Hero," we are crafting right now with unions, with coalitions, with for-profits and non-profits, we're creating something that we're calling the DAWN Act, which is the Defend Arts Workers Now Act. And we're building it, it's going to be interdisciplinary, intersectional. And the idea is that it would give $43.85 billion in relief to the arts and culture sector that needs it so desperately.

WHITFIELD: Wow. I'm really hoping for all of you. Your optimistic is hopeful, so I'm sure that is going to be very contagious as well.

ELROD: I hope so. I hope so. And to answer your question, yes, we are in many offices both Republican and Democrat, and the more that we talk about the economic message and just how important the arts and culture sector is in every state -- there's no state in the union where arts and culture doesn't employ tens of thousands of people and bring billions and billions dollars to the state economy.

[14:45:11]

WHITFIELD: So vital. Carson Elrod, thank you so much. Best to you, to all of your colleagues, on stage, behind stage, all of it. Just an incredible tapestry of people involved. All the best to you and be well.

ELROD: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: More news in a moment. But first, it has been 15 years since hurricane Katrina made landfall, and New Orleans still not fully recovered. In today's Impact your World, we look at how one non-profit continues to help residents rebuild.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You drive through the Ninth Ward. You still see Katrina 15 years later. If you have the same house in a white neighborhood or a black neighborhood, the African American family got less to rebuild because it was worth less before the storm because of red lining. People are still struggling. Rebuilding Together New Orleans provides critical home repairs to low income families. We've worked on 1,750 houses.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I found it strange to be a refugee from the United States. But when I see us on TV, that was us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Felix's (ph) home, it was completely devastated by the storm. He was essentially living in a gutted, partially rebuilt home. There are hundreds out Mr. Felixs (ph) out there still to this day. We know that our work is now more important today than it was six months ago. People are out of work. They have literally no way to make a home repair. Whether you're displaced by a natural disaster, or you're stuck in a home because of the pandemic, everyone should be able to be safe in their home.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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[14:51:43]

WHITFIELD: University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban will be on the sidelines for the Crimson Tide today just three days after he first announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19. Saban tested negative for three straight days. Under SEC protocols, his positive test is now considered a false positive because he remained symptom- free and had a total of five negative tests.

Joining me now is Dr. Myron Rolle, a former NFL player and college football star who is now a neurosurgery resident at Harvard. Dr. Rolle, good to see you.

DR. MYRON ROLLE, NEUROSURGERY RESIDENT AT HARVARD: Thank you for having me.

WHITFIELD: So, you probably understand the situation better than anyone. Are you comfortable with Saban returning to the sideline?

ROLLE: I'm not very comfortable with it. Frankly, I wasn't comfortable with college sports taking place or the NFL, for that matter, happening amidst a pandemic like this. I think when you have college campuses opening up, pandemics still not fully controlled, and you have a lot of interaction between fans and coaches, coaches and players, it sort of breeds and cultures this idea of a spread of a very transmissible and very infectious virus.

And so I think Nick Saban is a by-product of a system right now that's just not truly under control, and also representative of the idea that college sports wants to have its biggest profile, its most prolific people back in the sideline involved in the games.

WHITFIELD: So what's the message now being sent that after Saban would test positive and then negative and then return to the sidelines, does it simply send the message of, like, make no adjustments, just proceed as normal, and you find that worrisome?

ROLLE: No question. I think it sends a message that we have a priority on business and producing a product for fans, for TV deals, for conferences, money. I think sports, college sports has drifted away from amateurism to now almost a professionalism where we just want to get this product out there because people are yearning for it, and revenue generating is really dependent upon it.

And so having Nick Saban off of the field, having the University of Alabama, probably the best program in college football for the last couple of years, be sidelined or put to the side because of COVID-19, it can be devastating for the revenue. And certainly, I think the priority is leaning towards the business rather than the players and coaches and staff safety and health.

WHITFIELD: Where are you on indoor sports overall? The CDC has released a study showing that indoor sports are potential super spreader events after one hockey player infected as many as 14 others at a single indoor hockey game in Florida. And what and how should parents proceed who want their kids to play sports, but of course, the winter months are coming, how should they proceed?

ROLLE: I think they should proceed with caution for sure. I think the NBA did the best that anyone's ever seen as far as an indoor sport. They had access to testing. They had a very controlled microenvironment where variables were being managed and players weren't allowed to leave and come back and potentially spread this infectious virus to other people. They really, really, controlled this area.

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I'm not sure if that can be done in a Pop Warner or a very recreational league, hockey league, around suburban USA. And so I say parents should be very, very cautious when proceeding with allowing their student athletes to participate, make sure that they're protecting themselves and the kids are protecting themselves as well. And if they want to participate, it's very, very much to look out for any symptoms that could leading to a COVID-19 infection.

WHITFIELD: Dr. Myron Rolle, good to see you. Thank you so much.

ROLLE: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: And thank you everybody at home for joining us today. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. CNN Newsroom continues with Ana Cabrera after this.

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