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U.S. Surgeon General Says Herd Immunity Could Lead to Many Deaths; Early Voting Underway in Wisconsin as COVID Cases Surge in the Midwest; Trump Leans on Rallies, Attacks in Final Days Before Election; Obama Hits Campaign Trail for First Time for Biden; Nevada Governor Pleads with Citizenry not to Get Tired with Observing Health and Safety Measures; Hospitalizations of COVID Cases Surge Again Across the U.S.; Investors Hold Out Hope for a Stimulus Deal. Aired 9- 9:30a ET
Aired October 21, 2020 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:11]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Very good Wednesday to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.
This morning the nation's top doctor is warning against herd immunity as any form of strategy to try to combat COVID. This is even as other senior White House officials have embraced the idea.
U.S. surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams says doing so would lead to overwhelmed health care systems and far too many American deaths. Well, currently not a single state in the country is trending in the right direction and the former head of the FDA is warning we're just about a week away from seeing a, quote, "rapid acceleration in cases."
Hospitalizations across the nation are at the highest level we've seen in two months and now some states are going back to tougher restrictions.
SCIUTTO: And so in the middle of this worsening health crisis there is a nation divided politically. Sharply. A critical election just 13 days away and tomorrow the final presidential debate, President Trump is digging into his rally strategy in the final stretch while Joe Biden prepares for the final face-off. Former president Obama is set to make the case for his former vice president on the trail for the first time today.
More on the 2020 race in just a moment. First, though, let's begin with CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen on this warning about herd immunity from the surgeon general. This is important because the member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force that the president appears to be listening to, Scott Atlas, has been pushing this publicly. You have the surgeon general pushing back hard.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Dr. Atlas is not a seasoned public health professional and it shows when he starts advocating for herd immunity. Herd immunity in a nutshell is the theory of just let it rip, just let the virus rip, protect the people who might be vulnerable, tell them to put limits on their lives, and let the rest of us just live.
It's a pretty, you know, enticing theory. The problem is it doesn't work, which is what Dr. Adams, the surgeon general, is trying to point out. There are many problems with it, just to name a few, first of all, when people espouse this theory like Dr. Atlas does there's sort of this assumption that there's only a very, very small number of people who are vulnerable to COVID-19 and that's not true.
People over age 65 are vulnerable for serious complications, so are people with heart disease, so are people with diabetes, the list goes on and on, thinking your own life, you know many people who fall into these categories. It is a big huge chunk of the American public.
The other problem is that even if you are in the group that isn't at high risk, you can still get COVID-19 and have very long lasting consequences. Well, first of all, you could die, but second of all even if you don't, even if you survive it, you could have long-lasting consequences.
I mean, I personally, and I'm sure we all do at this point, know people who got COVID, were perfectly healthy to begin with and under 65, but months later are still suffering -- Jim, Poppy.
HARLOW: Yes. For sure. Elizabeth, before you go, what more do we know about the troubling trends in terms of the new cases and the -- in some states, record hospitalizations, the highest of this entire pandemic?
COHEN: Right. These hospitalization rates are headed back up. Again, unfortunately back up towards where they were over the summer. And so when you look at these hospitalizations in some states they are at record highs. And this is really unfortunate, again, heading in the wrong direction as we head into the winter when people will spend more time indoors and therefore in smaller enclosed spaces where they could be giving each other COVID-19.
SCIUTTO: Advice to heed. Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much.
This morning new cases skyrocketing in particular across the Midwest. Despite that long lines are forming for early in-person voting in places such as the battleground state of Wisconsin. The turnout just incredible.
HARLOW: Our Omar Jimenez joins us again this morning in Wisconsin with more.
Good morning, Omar.
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Jim and Poppy. Well, today is day two of early voting in person here in Wisconsin. You see the line that is ready to, again, come in and make their voices heard in person on this second day. Doors just opened not too long ago. But you'll notice everyone here is wearing masks and that's because we are dealing with two phenomenons here in Wisconsin.
One, voting of course, but also the pandemic that has been ongoing for this year and particularly devastating for Wisconsin. Just this past Monday they had around 2,000 confirmed cases with a positivity rate over 21 percent. And just yesterday they were just one shy of their single-day death record here in Wisconsin, a record that was set just a week ago. And these are trends that we have seen across the Midwest in places like Indiana, for example, setting record numbers that we have seen in this pandemic.
[09:05:06]
And Illinois, for example, the governor has now had to impose stricter -- more restrictions I should say on certain regions of that state. The threshold had been 8 percent to take more action and two more regions hit that so now they are having capacity for gatherings go from 50 down to 25. No indoor service for bars or restaurants and then service for outdoor places stopped at 11:00 p.m.
And again, these are all restrictions that states are now having to reimpose and coming up with new ideas to try and get those numbers down, and drive those positivity rates down from what we thought was going to be a previous high in the springtime but we have now seen of course resurging, and get to levels that we had not seen previously.
And then to bring it back here to Wisconsin, if you remember, they had that primary back on April 7th where there were worries that lines like this would lead to higher rates of spread of COVID. Well, at that time the confirmed daily case rate number I should say was under 150 with a positivity rate under 10 percent, and of course I just told you where we are now, exceedingly further than where we thought we would be months ago -- Jim, Poppy.
HARLOW: Yes. Thank you for being there for that reporting. Pretty upsetting numbers obviously.
Well, the president despite all of these numbers and the increases we're seeing is sticking to his rally strategy. He'll do that today in North Carolina. His other strategy this week, attack Dr. Fauci, but it's not sitting well, particularly with one Republican ally.
SCIUTTO: A source familiar with conversations with the president tells CNN that the ally flatly told Trump that attacking Fauci is, quote, "the dumbest thing in the history of politics."
CNN's John Harwood outside the White House this morning.
Listen, the president has ignored mainstream advice, if you want to call it that, for four years now. I imagine in the final 13 days here you don't expect him to change his tack leading into the election.
JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No, you wouldn't and you've got to say, Jim, that the president is providing stiff competition for the dumbest thing ever in the history of politics, not just going after Fauci, having these maskless rallies, going around preemptively, blaming everyone from the debate commission to Fauci to Bill Barr to Democrats, to the media.
He's almost behaving like a quarterback in a football game who is pre- preparing excuses for why he lost the game and saying the refs are against me, the other team is cheating and my own receivers aren't any good.
This is a situation where the president is his own boss. He has walled himself off from the reality of the pandemic pretending it's not -- pretending it's not raging and that he doesn't have to do anything about it, stalked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl of "60 Minutes" because she was pressing him on the coronavirus and he did not want to take the heat.
SCIUTTO: "New York Times" reporting last night new details about something we didn't know about, an undisclosed bank account of Donald Trump's in China. What do we know?
HARWOOD: What we know is that from this "New York Times" reporting is that there are three countries overseas where the president had bank accounts, one is Britain, one is Ireland and one is China. And it raises the question again as to -- which we've seen raised time and time again with the president -- of whether the accusations he's lobbing against his opponents are simply projections of things that he knows he's vulnerable on.
He's tried to cast Joe Biden as somebody in meshed with China, protecting China, China wants him to win. He's got a bank account in China, he's tried to do business with China, China's largest state controlled bank rented space in Trump Towers until recently so Trump was making money from China.
This is just underscoring ways in which the president is doing things that he accuses his opponents of trying to do.
SCIUTTO: John Harwood, we know you'll stay on top of it. Thanks very much.
Joe Biden's star endorser will be on the trail today. President Obama will be in Philadelphia, campaigning in that key swing state of Pennsylvania. Commonwealth, I should say. For the former vice president in person for the first time.
HARLOW: Let's bring in our Jessica Dean. Good morning to you, Jess.
JESSICA DEAN, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
HARLOW: So what is the message we're going to hear from President Obama today?
DEAN: Yes, good morning to both of you as well. Well, we can expect to hear from President Obama a lot about early voting and a pitch for Joe Biden. Notice that they are sending Obama out on the campaign trail on this day when Joe Biden is off the trail preparing for the debate. We'll get to that in just a second. But Obama going to, as you mentioned, that critical swing state of Pennsylvania, that's very much on purpose. We're told that Obama will be deployed to states where early voting is
under way. They really believe that that's where he can make a key difference.
[09:10:02]
And one of the demographics that they're really hoping that he can help with and motivate are young voters. And we saw him tweeting out a message yesterday as he prepared to go on to the campaign trail today, really pitching Joe Biden to young voters, telling younger voters that their generation can be the one that makes the difference in this election. So we can expect to hear a lot about that from Obama.
And also here, you notice I'm inside the debate hall where the final presidential debate will be held in Nashville, finishing touches being put on the stage here as Joe Biden himself prepares for Thursday night's debate. We're told by a campaign adviser that they're preparing for President Trump to, in their words, bully and deflect on that debate stage on Thursday night.
They are also preparing for personal attacks both on Joe Biden and his family, and that we should expect Biden to really take a similar approach and goal as he did in the last debate which is to speak directly to the American people. You remember he would look right into the camera and talk to people at home. We should expect more of that. They want to talk about the coronavirus pandemic, what Biden would do to get it under control, and also what he would do to bring back the economy.
And we also heard from Biden for the first time yesterday on this new rule change which will allow the microphones to be muted for whomever is not speaking at the time. Biden telling a local news reporter in Wisconsin, guys, he thinks that is a good idea.
HARLOW: We'll see how that works out. Jess, thanks for being there.
Big, big night tomorrow night for sure and our special coverage of the final presidential debate, it begins tomorrow night 7:00 Eastern right here on CNN.
SCIUTTO: Still to come this hour, the former FDA commissioner warning we could see a surge in coronavirus infections in just the next week. What that might look like?
HARLOW: Also the deadline has come and it has gone, but are we any closer to a stimulus deal that so many Americans need? We will speak with the House majority whip, Congressman James Clyburn, ahead.
And in Utah, doctors pleading for the public to follow COVID guidelines.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Emergency, where nurses or doctors on all these COVID units in the ICU working tirelessly. It's kind of like people are just going out and living their lives, not realizing that they are exhausting our health care system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: An important warning. We'll take you live to Salt Lake City where cases are sharply on the rise.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:15:00]
SCIUTTO: All right. So here are the sad facts. Right now coronavirus infections in the U.S. are spiking. Twenty six states with an increase in new infections from last week, no states are seeing their numbers decline. Here is the governor of Nevada.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. STEVE SISOLAK (D-NV): We all feel COVID fatigue, and it results in riskier behavior and complacency. We cannot let that happen. Unfortunately, this virus doesn't get fatigue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Well, joining me now is someone who knows that well, Dr. Manisha Juthani; she's infectious disease specialist at Yale School of Medicine. Doctor, thanks so much for joining us this morning.
MANISHA JUTHANI, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST, YALE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Good morning, Jim, thanks for having me on.
SCIUTTO: So, let me ask you, you heard those statistics there, you heard a governor pleading with the people in Nevada to not get fatigued here, and at the same time you have warnings of the next week in particular, seeing a big jump in new infections. To folks at home who understandably want to get on the other side of this, what is your message to them right now about what they need to do for their health -- for their own health and the health of the people close to them?
JUTHANI: We all have COVID fatigue, but as the governor said, the virus does not. It's time to push forward, and with Autumn here and Winter coming, colder weather, less humidity, the virus loves to spread in those conditions.
We have not seen that here in the United States yet. It's darker, it's colder. The number one intervention we can do is wear a mask. I know people are tired of hearing that, but it is the truth. And it's true because even when you wear a mask, even if you're exposed to COVID, you might get a lower dose of the virus, get a lower exposure and have a milder case of the infection.
So there are so many reasons, we just have to double-down. And I know we can't say no to everything, but we have to find ways to do things safely, just like if you're a parent and you're trying to counsel your child on what --
SCIUTTO: Yes -- JUTHANI: To do, there are ways to get through this still.
SCIUTTO: A dose or load makes a big difference in terms of how severe the cases are. We have a big holiday coming up, Thanksgiving of course, and the holidays looking back, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, we saw it in the numbers. You saw an increase as people traveled more and met people more, et cetera. Understandably, folks want to see the people they love on Thanksgiving Day. Is there a safe way to do that? What do you recommend?
JUTHANI: This is going to be a choice for every individual family, and every family is going to have a different solution. Some guiding principles that I would say are that if you can drive to get to the place rather than using public transportation. If you are able to quarantine before seeing other relatives, potentially up for 14 days, now, that may be hard, but as long as you can. And then when you do get together, I still recommend wearing masks indoors. The other idea is that get together in the largest house possible that you can.
Spread out, don't necessarily sit at one long dining table when you eat. Eating is the biggest risk time. That's when the masks come down, that's when people are laughing and talking and wanting to be near each other. We all --
SCIUTTO: Yes --
JUTHANI: Have a desire for that. We're all missing that a lot.
[09:20:00]
SCIUTTO: OK, let's move to the good news now. There is real progress on a vaccine, in fact, a number of options moving forward, possible approval before the end of the year. But as a practical matter for folks watching at home, when are they -- and you and I, most likely to have something like this wildly available?
JUTHANI: The vaccine, I think, as we've heard from Dr. Fauci and others in terms of wide availability likely this Spring, this Summer, you know, and getting into the Fall of 2021 is when we're looking at more normalcy there.
But I think there are other signs of hope in addition to vaccine, Jim. I think what we have to remember is for any infectious disease, there is treatment and there is prevention. Prevention is what a vaccine is able to do for us. What we've seen so far is that we are getting better as doctors at treating COVID-19. We are reducing the number of people that die, and not just younger people, older people.
We know that across the board, we are doing a better job, and we have new therapeutics that are also potentially around the corner. So it's a combination of therapeutics and vaccines, and all the hard work that the American people have done so far in keeping apart has bought us time. I want people to remember that buying us this time as healthcare providers has allowed us to make progress in terms of developing protocols in hospitals, how do we oxygenate people? Do we need to put everybody on a ventilator or maybe not? And we found
that maybe not. And so there are ways that we can get around this with therapeutics not just vaccines, and people need to continue to help us buy time because healthcare --
SCIUTTO: Yes --
JUTHANI: Providers are getting tired, too. And so the more partnership we have with the American people, then healthcare providers and Americans together can beat this virus.
SCIUTTO: Yes, listen, it's good advice, it's good to know we're making progress, but don't let up, right, don't let up and not the last time --
JUTHANI: Not at all. We cannot let up at all. And I think that when I say -- when I give advice on how to potentially gather safely, you know, I think the rule of thumb is to still keep apart. I'm trying to give --
SCIUTTO: Yes --
JUTHANI: People some ways to do things with good guidance because --
SCIUTTO: Yes --
JUTHANI: Think, you know, any infectious disease, we know that there are ways to mitigate, to try to make it less likely that people are going to get infected, and this has been a long haul. You know, this --
SCIUTTO: Yes --
JUTHANI: Has been a long haul for people.
SCIUTTO: Now, we all can do our part. Dr. Manisha Juthani, thanks so much.
JUTHANI: Thank you for having me.
HARLOW: All right, well, we're just moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. investors so focused right now really is on Capitol Hill. Can house speaker and the Treasury Secretary reach a new stimulus deal? Her deadline came and went yesterday, but the two sides have not given up hope. Negotiations are set to resume this afternoon. We will speak with House Majority Whip James Clyburn about the possibility of a deal next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:25:00]
HARLOW: So we've just learned that the White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, both he and Nancy Pelosi will talk, they want a stimulus deal, they're saying -- Meadows is saying in the next 48 hours. We'll see. The bottom line though right now is there is still no stimulus deal and Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell is still casting doubt on whether there will be one before election day, and it is the American people who are still suffering. Right now, 8 million more Americans are in poverty than were in March, 41 percent of black homes with children don't have enough to eat.
And in South Carolina, 38 percent of jobs lost from this pandemic have still not returned. South Carolina Congressman and House Majority whip James Clyburn joins me now. I'm glad to have you here. I heard you yesterday on this network with my colleague say, quote, "we're not going to get anything simply because it will be something", right?
We're not going to take anything just because it is something. But are you sure at this point, congressman, that, that is what your constituents want? I mean, just a few days ago, the "Post and Courier" in your district wrote, quote, "Congress' failure to act before the election is cynical and intolerable. Those who are suffering cannot wait for a power struggle to play out in Washington."
REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, thank you very much for having me. And I think I agree with the "Post and Courier" in this instance. I don't always agree with them and its editorial page, but I do agree in this instance. This is a power play, and it's there in the Senate. It's a power play between the Senate and the White House.
And I think both of us know that Mitch McConnell is playing a very cynical game. So that word applies to McConnell. We've had a deal on the floor for a long time. We passed out of the house the Heroes Act, it's been sitting over there in the Senate forever. We did a second tranche of that, $2.2 trillion bill, it's still sitting over there in the Senate, and we've asked them to come back with some kind of a compromise.
Now, everybody keeps focusing on the top line numbers, and they're saying that you've got $2 trillion, they've come to $1.8 trillion, $1.9 trillion, what's the difference? The difference is in the details. That's where the devil lurks.
