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More Than 71,000 New Cases in U.S. Thursday, Highest Since Summer; CNN Reports, More Than 50 Million Americans Have Already Voted; Americans in Turkey Warned About Credible Threat. Aired 11:30- 12p ET

Aired October 23, 2020 - 11:30   ET

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

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[11:30:00]

JOHN KING, CNN INSIDE POLITICS: If you watched the debate last night, you heard Joe Biden say there was a dark winter ahead when it comes to the coronavirus. The president said, no, he doesn't see it that way. He does not see a dark winter. You can choose your own term but if we look at the map and we look at the numbers, things are pretty bleak.

Let's start with the map. If you look right now, 32 states heading in the wrong direction. That means more new infections right now compared to a week ago. Those are the states in orange and Rhode Island is in the dark red, that's more than 50 percent new infections this week than a week before. 32 states trending in the wrong direction, 17 holding steady, only one state trending down. You see Oregon the map there.

This is what's troubling. If you look at the case count, as it starts to trickle up, number one, record getting high again yesterday, close to the record, 71,000. Only four times that we've been up 70,000 cases in this pandemic. You see that.

Here is the other troubling sign to the public health experts. This is the peak of the summer surge. If you look at where the line is going right now, and let me try this again this way, take the other one out of the way, the 60,000 plus average right now heading up from where we were at the peak of the summer surge and that line is pointing up. That troubles public health experts. Hospitalizations with cases, you see it, also trending up.

And the IHME model now, this is sad when you look at it. There are 223,000 deaths right now in the United States. The projection is, 100 days from now, 385,000 deaths. That is 162,000 more deaths in the next 100 days projected in this model as we have this fall case surge.

Let's discuss this with our CNN Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. And, Elizabeth, you can look at the numbers and be numbed and then the question is what can we do about it. And as even more research out today, masks have become a flashpoint in the political campaigns but new research says they work, right?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, absolutely. And we've known this for so long. And this just reinforces it. And, John, I think you're right. Let's talk about what we can do. So let's take a look at this study.

So what this study says is, look, let's start here, studies have shown that, currently, about 49 percent of Americans wear masks. And by wearing masks, we mean in public and always, reliably. If that 49 percent could go up to 85 percent, we could save more than 95,000 lives if we look at the time period from late September through the end of February. If we could move that up to 95,000, we could save more than 129,000 lives. It's very clear.

Are masks perfect? No. Do they help save lives, absolutely. John?

KING: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much.

Let's continue the conversation now with Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He is a CNN Medical Analyst and Professor of Medicine at George Washington University. Dr. Reiner, it's good to see you this morning.

[11:35:00]

And I just want to go back first to the map and put the map up on the screen for people to see, when you see 32 states trending in the wrong direction right now. The president says he does not see a dark winter ahead. He says we are rounding the turn. He says, we are learning to live with this.

I want you to listen to his surgeon general, surgeon general of the United States, this morning, who was actually speaking the truth. Listen.

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JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: We are, in the United States, seeing cases go up. And this week, we will probably have our highest number of cases that we've ever had on a daily basis in the United States.

We know that hospitalizations tend to lag several weeks behind cases. And we're starting to see hospitalizations go up in 75 percent of our jurisdictions across the country. And we are really concerned that in a few weeks we will see deaths start to increase in our country.

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KING: One test of leadership, Dr. Reiner, is telling the truth. The surgeon general there is telling the truth. The president in the debate last night was avoiding the truth, right?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Right. Well, the president has always had an irresolvable conflict of interest, which was he has perceived dealing with the pandemic in a straightforward way as counter to his election chances. That was always a false dichotomy. The truth of the matter is that we're turning the corner into a tsunami. Yesterday there were 73,000 cases, one of the highest days we've ever had, 41,000 people hospitalized which is an increase of about 3,000 over a week, and things are likely to get worse. We saw over 1,000 deaths yesterday.

So one way to think about the death rate is to take the case rate, the new case rate per day and multiply that by about 2.5 percent and you'll see that kind of death rate on a daily basis a couple of weeks from now. So we are likely to see a gigantic rise in the number of daily deaths. As worrisome, our hospitals would start to fill and we run the risk of overwhelming our hospital capacity in large parts of the country.

The only way to reverse this is to do something very simple, which is to mask up. Mask up. It's a very small thing to do. It's really low tech. Mask up and we can turn this around.

KING: I want to go back a little bit to the debate last night too. You mentioned the president's (INAUDIBLE), the president's political interest, if you will. The president was right when he said last night, we can show you the graphic, that this is global and that this is spiking everywhere, including in Europe right now. And we can show you this. And to one degree, the president is right.

But here is what concerns public health experts, and I want to see if you agree. If you look at the beginning, let's start at the right of your screen, Europe right now ahead of the United States, back ahead of the United States in confirmed cases per 1 million residents. You see the United States in orange there.

What concerns the public health experts I talk to, as we go back to the beginning, in March, is that you watched Europe went up the hill first, a couple weeks ahead of the United States. Then it came down and it kept the curve flattened for a long time.

Now, you have the fall surge. If you look at the United States, there was several weeks lag time before we first went up the hill, we never came down and now we're going back up again. My question is, and I think you were just touching on this in the context of hospitalizations and deaths, two weeks from now, three weeks from now, if the previous trend holds, we're in a boat load of trouble here.

REINER: We're in a boat load of trouble. If you think about the northeast during the darkest days of the pandemic in the spring when we just about ran out of ventilators and we did run out of ICU capacity or hospitals all over the northeast were making O.R.s into ICUs, were making cafeterias into ICUs, hallways, that's the risk we run.

The lowest we dropped after the first surge was about 20,000 cases per day. We didn't come down into the single digit thousands or less than that, which is what Europe did. They dropped to very, very low levels, almost negligible levels for month. So they rebuilt capacity, so they have capacity. We never rebuilt that. And when we surged during the summer, we never dropped below 30,000 to 40,000 cases per day and now we're on the way back up.

The way to reverse this is, again, through wearing masks. Wearing masks is easier on the public than closing down. But you could get to the point where we would have to do targeted closures. I mean, lives are at stake.

KING: Lives are at stake. And we'll watch this play out again. The numbers, they way you lay it out, this is quite factual (ph), if you look at the graphs and that's the way it is headed. Dr. Reiner, grateful for your insights. We will pick up the conversation another day.

Coming up for us, back to the campaign, early voting data from key swing states finds Democrats do have a turnout advantage, but, in recent days, it's narrowing.

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[11:40:00]

KING: Early voting records are shattering. More than 50 million people, take a look, more than 50 million people have already cast their ballots more than a week before Election Day. And while Democrats are still seeing a lead in the number of early votes cast, you see some data here that shows 49 percent cast by Democrats, 28 percent early votes cast by Republicans, that lead is narrowing in some key states.

[11:45:00]

That's according to the latest numbers from Catalyst, a company that provides data analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and non-profit issue (ph) advocacy organizations. It is giving us new insights into who's voting before November.

Joining us now, CNN National Correspondent Kristen Holmes, who is keeping track of all this. And it can get pretty dizzying, Kristen, Democrats think they do have an early advantage but it is perhaps narrowing some as we get closer.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Now, it's really dependent on what kind of voting you're talking about. We're talking about mail-in ballots that is still Democrats far outpacing Republicans but we've really seen that trend across all of early voting. And as you mentioned, it's no longer quite looking like that, particularly in the key states of North Carolina and Florida, where we're really seeing that ramped up in-person early voting.

In North Carolina, for example, the margin there from last Monday to where we are now, it decreased 50 percent. So you can see that catching up there. It's likely to continue to rise because of that in- person voting element.

Now, I do want to point out another headline for you, John. We've been talking about these court cases that are shaping the election also out of North Carolina, and this is about counting ballots. An appeals court said that they would allow ballots to be counted in North Carolina up to nine days after the election. Republicans are now challenging that. They brought it to the Supreme Court.

Here is why it's important to watch. We are so close to the election, Generally, the Supreme Court does not like to weigh in on these kinds of matters this close to the election. Thousands of people, voters could be disenfranchised so we want to watch what they do.

They did weigh in earlier this week on that case on Alabama, as we've talked about, on curbside voting. And here is an interesting fact for you, the latest case out of Texas, the Texas Supreme Court actually is allowing curb side voting. They have said that this is legal in Harris County, the largest, most populous county in Texas. So, really interesting to see here how all these cases from all different courts are shaping the way we vote when 50 million people have already cast a ballot.

KING: To count votes and track the legal cases all at the same time, grateful you're here to help us through that. Kristen Holmes, thank you so much.

Up next for us, a global terror threat. The U.S. embassy in Turkey warns of terror attacks potentially targeting Americans.

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[11:50:00]

KING: There's a heightened alert for American citizens in Turkey today. They are being warned about credible threat of possible terror attacks or kidnappings.

CNN Senior International Correspondent Arwa Damon joins us now live from Istanbul. Arwa, what's this about?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We don't exactly know what sparked this but we do know as it would seem from the warning put out that the U.S. is taking it very seriously. They have suspended all of their visa services as well as all services to American nationals in their embassy and in all of their consulates in Turkey.

Additionally, this warning, when it was put out, contained a bit more detail than other warnings in the past have in the sense that it specifically mentions Istanbul and it also mentions that the threat was against the U.S. consul general.

Now, what the U.S. is telling people to do, again, not just Americans but foreign nationals as well, is to be extra vigilant, to avoid crowded areas, especially those that contain foreigners, such as malls or office areas. But the other thing, John, that's significant is that it has been quite some time since we have seen this kind of an alert, a warning being put out.

Now, we did ask U.S. officials in Turkey as to whether or not this may be linked in some way to an increase in targeting that we have been seeing by the U.S. of terrorist organizations, such as Al Qaeda in Syria and its affiliates that have been taking place over the last week or so in the province Idlib Province. They would not respond to that.

But it's worth noting as well that this is not necessarily the first time that the U.S. has taken these types of measures in Turkey. You'll remember back to the days of 2016, '17, when there was prevalence of attacks by ISIS and by the PKK in turkey, the U.S. did suspend operations and it did also end up evacuating the family members of its staff. But America is taking this very, very seriously right now, erring perhaps on the side of caution, John.

KING: Arwa Damon, grateful for the important live reporting. I know you'll stay on top of that. And we will circle back.

Up next for us, debates are over and 11 day sprint now to Election Day. We'll go inside last night's big night.

But, first, California is struggling with its worst wildfire season on record. For the thousands who have lost their homes, 2019 CNN Hero Woody Faircloth now working to provide them with R.Vs. until they can get back on their feet. With the help of his daughter, Luna, he is helping communities recover.

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WOODY FAIRCLOTH, CNN HERO: Unfortunately, this fire has really affected a lot of first responders. Six of the seven volunteer firefighters in Berry Creek, California lost their homes, including the chief. And so Luna and I did what we do. We sourced a couple of donated R.V.s and we headed out to California.

[11:55:00]

We delivered one to Chief Reed Rankin.

CHIEF REED RANKIN, BERRY CREEK VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER: I just can't say thank you enough, but thank you. I deeply appreciate this. We won't be coming on here another month-and-a-half, and at least we've got somewhere to be.

FAIRCLOTH: He loves his community.

RINKIN: It is huge. I mean, I just don't have enough words, but it's huge.

FAIRCLOTH: A couple thousand of his neighbors are left homeless. 15 people were killed in the fire. And they have been through a lot. But the chief is still out there every day on the line, fighting the fire.

RANKIN: I could start over somehow. I just have got to get everything done up here and get the fire to put out if people (INAUDIBLE). Then I can start trying to figure out what I'm going to do. But I'm definitely staying in Berry Creek. I'm definitely going to somehow rebuild. Hopefully FEMA will help us out.

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KING: For this full story, go to cnnheroes.com. We'll be right back.

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