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Fauci Says, Transitions Are Important to Fighting COVID; CNN Reports, Trump Expected to Order Troop Cuts in Iraq, Afghanistan; Pfizer to Test Coronavirus Vaccine Distribution in Four States. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 17, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A very good Tuesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow.

It is a crisis that is worsening, a president still in denial about his election loss, a president-elect still being denied critical information and the nation's top infectious disease doctor just speaking out to us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If you don't have a smooth transition, you would not optimize whatever ethics you're doing right now.

It's easy to hear about it in the news and to read about it, but when you sit down with somebody and talk about what went wrong, what went right, that's important.

SCIUTTO (voice over): That's the loss right now of this outgoing president not admitting the facts of the election. Those words as U.S. hospitalizations hit their highest total ever. Right now, more than 73,000 Americans with this virus are battling it out in hospitals. That number, a direct response to rising number of infections. Of course, you're going to have more hospitalizations as you have more infections. And more states are now putting tighter restrictions, even in Republican-led states back in place.

HARLOW (voice over): But here's the hope, two very promising vaccines, and experts will soon discuss exactly how they will be distributed.

We begin this hour with Adrienne Broaddus who joins us. You are tracking the latest restrictions to go into effect. And that Jim said it has gone beyond politics, you have some red states and red state leadership implementing them as well.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Poppy, absolutely right, and hospitals not only here in Illinois are filling up but hospitals across the country are filling up. Here in Chicago, it's day two of the stay-at-home advisory. And Chicago's mayor is encouraging residents to only leave their homes for essential services. We're talking about picking up medication if you need it, purchasing groceries and going to work.

Some of the latest data from Johns Hopkins University shows about 40 states on average are reporting more than 1,000 new COVID cases every day. Illinois is among the 40. The average here, more than 12,000 cases. But if we narrow that number down and take a look at Chicago, you'll see the positivity rate here is about 16 percent. And the state reports more than 2,000 new cases -- or the city, that is, reports more than 2,000 new cases every day.

But it's not just the Midwest. They're seeing the same problem in California. That state's governor, Gavin Newsom, said in the last ten days, cases in California have doubled. He says, it is the biggest increase the state has seen since the start of the pandemic. And it's impacting everyone. Listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): Every age group, every demographic, racial, ethnic, in every part of the state, we are seeing case rates increase and positivity rates increase as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: So, Newsom is engaging what he calls the emergency brake. For example, we're going to see more restrictions roll out in California. If you look at the map, some of the areas shaded in purple will have the most severe or restrictive restrictions, for example, indoor dining, gyms, houses of worship and movie theatres will close.

This is all happening right before the Thanksgiving holiday. In Connecticut, the mayor -- or the governor of Connecticut is asking college students to make a big sacrifice, quarantine 14 days before they go home or after.

And just to tell you real quickly, we're outside of Rush Hospital, we were here shooting a story and the code blue alarm sounded, a medical personnel told me we were able to save that person but they're still fighting for their life and that was a COVID patient. Jim and Poppy?

SCIUTTO: That scene being repeated across the country now. Adrienne Broaddus, thanks so much.

Joining us now, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, always good to have you on.

I was pressing Dr. Fauci in the last hour on what loss there is, right, from not having the outgoing administration speaking to the incoming administration in the midst of a worsening pandemic. I know you've been deep into this. I just want to play his response and get your reaction. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FAUCI: What is the level of supply that's available? What is the utilization of PPE? What about the hospital beds that the various members of the current coronavirus task force are in communication with the health groups in different states, getting interaction at a formal level with the governors? Understanding every detail of the vaccine program.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:05:00]

SCIUTTO: That's all important stuff. Does the fact that it's not happening between administrations cost lives?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, I think that, you know, the thing about the pandemic and especially this time of year when we know the numbers have just been skyrocketing is that there's really no time to lose, no time to waste here. And I think, you know, what Dr. Fauci has talked about and also members of the new task force, the new Biden/Harris task force, are saying is that we can't lose that time.

This particular two-month period may be the most critical, three-month period may be the most critical in this entire pandemic, and the idea that hospitals need to be better prepared but also things like Defense Production Act may need to be invoked to increase personal protective equipment, increase the amount testing, which we're still woefully behind on, and then, really, having a vaccine distribution plan, which probably fall into the next administration's sort of dominion.

So, I think that that's what he's talking about. If this had happened during the summer, let's say, transition time during the summer, it would still be critically important but, you know, right now is the worst time, I think, is what Dr. Fauci is referring to.

HARLOW: Sanjay, the CDC just said that Americans that live in rural parts of the country are dying at three times the rate of those in urban centers right now from COVID. And we know a group, the CDC, they're going to meet next week and basically start deciding how they're going to distribute this vaccine. What do you know about who decides? Who decides who gets it? Who decides which vaccine they get and, ultimately, who decides who is an essential worker, because that's a really broad classification?

GUPTA: Yes, these are really interesting discussions, obviously, against the backdrop of the fact that even if you do the math and say, who are all those various groups of people, right, the frontline health care workers, the elderly, the vulnerable by virtue of preexisting condition. If you start adding them all up, it's a lot of people and represents a lot more people than we have vaccines for. So some of these decisions are going to have to be made. I guess that's the point of your question.

There is a committee, the advisory committee for immunizations, ACIP, it's called, they basically look at this data, look at what's possibly available in terms of vaccines and then make those decisions. I can tell you the idea, just going back to the health care system, part of the reason, it's obvious I guess why health care workers are going to be at the front of the line is, because right now, you can't afford to have health care workers en masse start to become infected and not be able to work because that will put even a greater strain on the health care system. Again, that's obviously but that's really the priority right now.

After ACIP sort of makes their recommendations, they go to the CDC and say, here is the recommendations and the CDC essentially creates vaccination guidelines for the country.

So that's the way it should work. It can take a little while, although everything is being accelerated and some of the meetings are happening concurrent, but that's the typical practice. That's, of course, after the FDA authorizes this.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Sanjay, you shared a story with me earlier this morning about having an operation yesterday and your patient could not get tested for COVID in advance because there's still a shortage of COVID tests. That amazed me that in that situation, someone couldn't even get tested. How are we at this point, eight months in that there's still a shortage of testing and what needs to be done?

GUPTA: Yes. I mean, Jim it's incredibly frustrating. It's at Grady Hospital. I was operating, needed to take a patient to the operating room, got a CT scan, got coagulation studies, we're about to do a craniotomy, brain surgery on the patient, can't get a COVID test in time so we have to put the entire team into specific personal protective equipment, the N95 masks, all that sort of stuff, got to check these masks out.

I mean, it's unbelievable, middle of November, this is still happening. Why? Well, Jim, I think there's a larger reason and more specific reasons. The broader reason is I still think that there's been a lack of prioritization of testing in this country. And it goes back maybe to this idea that, you know, what the president has always sort of tell telegraphed, testing is the problem, you test more, you have more cases. That's not true, but I think it's translated to all these sort of strange policies where we haven't really incentivized testing the way that it should be.

I mean, we could be at the point in this country where we could have rapid, accurate, at-home testing that doesn't require a lab or a machine and people could know on an almost daily basis whether or not they're contagious with coronavirus any given day. We're nowhere close to that. But the idea that hospitals still, including big hospitals, can't always test their patients in a timely fashion is true.

And I just think there's been a lack of attention to it. It's a fixable problem, totally fixable. We could invoke the Defense Production Act yesterday to really ramp up the production of these tests but we're still not doing it.

[10:10:07] And, Jim, you want to see your parents, your wife wants to see her parents, if you could all get tested on a regular basis over the holidays, things like that would be much more likely to happen. It doesn't obviate the problem but this is an incredible source of frustration for me and I think for a lot of health care professionals.

Going back and forth to the hospital, like I do, I see two different worlds. I'm in a hospital talking to doctors and nurses who are taking care of patients who are lying on their stomachs, worried that they're going to die, iPad, communicating with their families perhaps for the last time, then I go home, I'm filling my car up with gas and people are looking at me funny because I'm wearing a mask. I mean, there's a total disconnect right now and I think testing is a little bit at the heart of this.

HARLOW: That's such a striking image. The picture you just painted, Sanjay. Before you go, the American Academy of Pediatrics just came out and said this week we've crossed a million number threshold for children, anyone under 18 getting COVID. And I know most children don't die from it or gets severely ill, but it's still a big number. And they call it stunning and staggering and tragic.

How far are we from an actual administrable vaccine for children, especially young kids?

GUPTA: Well, I think it's going to be further along because of the reasons that you mentioned. I mean, they're less likely to get sick, you know, from this and certainly less likely to die. But there are trials that have started already looking at this vaccine in children as well. Pfizer, I believe, started in the middle of October on that. But if you look at this sort of prioritization of who's likely to get it, people who are lowest risk are going to be further back in line.

I also think it's important to point out another thing, is if you look at the data on these trials, what are they really telling us? They're telling us these vaccines are good at preventing disease. We also need to know that they're good at preventing infection and that they're good at preventing transmission, because that's going to be the most important for kids. If you have vaccines that prevent infection and transmission well, those are going to be some of the best vaccines for young people.

HARLOW: Will we know that soon, Sanjay? I mean, the number out of Moderna, 94.5, does that just mean in terms of disease and not in terms of blocking transmission?

GUPTA: Yes. Look, this is a really important point, so just give me one minute to explain.

HARLOW: Yes.

GUPTA: You had 30,000 people in the trial, 95, whatever the number was, had symptoms. They raised their hand, they came forward, they then got tested and then they unblinded the study and found that 90 percent of the 95 people who had symptoms were in the placebo group and the 10 percent were in the vaccinated group. So what you can say is that this vaccine is good at reducing disease.

We don't know, there could be a lot of infected people still in the vaccinated group. There could be people who could still transmit. I hope that's not the case, but we haven't seen that data yet. And that's -- you know, we're just looking at early interim data. You want a vaccine that prevents disease, that prevents infection and prevents transmission. That would be an ideal vaccine.

HARLOW: That is such an important point and I had not even thought about it. It's one of the many reasons why we have you, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much.

GUPTA: You got it. Thanks. Any time.

HARLOW: To politics, the president-elect, Joe Biden, set to be sworn into office January 20th but President Trump is still refusing to cooperate on the transition.

SCIUTTO: How? He will not allow Biden to receive classified briefings on the greatest threats to this country's national security. So, the Biden team assembled its own group of intelligence and defense experts. They will brief the president-elect today.

CNN's Jessica Dean has more from Wilmington, Delaware.

And, Jessica, I mean, just to highlight once again, this has really never happened before, right, I mean, preventing the president-elect from receiving essential intelligence here. So what are they doing, the Biden team, in response?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. You're exactly right, Jim. I think it is important to underscore how abnormal this is, that by this point in the process, the president-elect would be getting these daily intelligence briefings.

Now, Kamala Harris is receiving a lot of this information because she sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee and Joe Biden talked about that a little bit yesterday when he was addressing reporters. But what his transition team is doing today is putting together a team of experts, diplomatic experts, security experts, intelligence experts to come together and brief him on what's going on.

So they're doing their own thing again, working around the system, which is what they've been doing when it comes to coronavirus, when it comes to national security, a host of issues. They're working around the system in the best ways they can. But that's no substitute for those official intelligence briefings, classified intelligence briefings that a president-elect would typically be getting.

Now, all of this is happening while they continue to keep their focus on the coronavirus as well. And we heard President-elect Biden talking about the economy and the coronavirus, how it's all intertwined yesterday. And he talked a little bit about how this halt in the transition process is affecting the coronavirus pandemic and their preparations for taking over. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: More people may die if we don't coordinate.

Getting the vaccine and a vaccination though are two different things.

The sooner we have access to the administration's distribution plan, the sooner this transition would be smoothly -- move forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Because that's just a giant logistical project. They need to be coordinating with Health and Human Services, with the coronavirus task force. We do know that the Biden team members, some of them, scientific advisers, are meeting with drug companies this week, including Pfizer, makers of the vaccine, to try to get a little bit into that.

But, Jim and Poppy, we also heard President-elect Biden call on Congress to pass a COVID relief bill in this lame duck session. He also said he would not hesitate to take that vaccine. Poppy and Jim?

SCIUTTO: We're hearing that a lot from the experts. Jessica Dean, thanks very much.

Still to come, President Trump is expected to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. But is it safe? And are the White House and the pentagon on the same page? It doesn't look like it.

HARLOW: Then later, long lines at food banks, millions of Americans still unemployed. We're going to speak to a former member of President Obama's economic team, who says Democrats need to compromise on a stimulus bill now, not later.

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[10:20:00]

SCIUTTO: U.S. military commanders are bracing for an expected order from President Trump, opposed by many former leaders in the Pentagon, to withdraw even more troops more quickly from Afghanistan and Iraq.

HARLOW: So this decision goes against, as Jim just said, the advice of top national security officials but winding down America's military presence overseas has been one of the president's longstanding campaign promises. It is also notably in our reporting believed that former Defense Secretary Mark Esper's objection to a drawdown like this is one of the main reasons why the president fired him last week.

Let's get reporting from our Barbara Starr. She joins us at the Pentagon this morning. And notable also to hear Mitch McConnell speak out against it.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, indeed. Good morning to both of you. Wars these days, generally, end at the negotiating table. And nobody wants to stay in these war zones longer than necessary. So I think it's not a question of trying to bring things to a close but a question of the timing that the president is now suddenly imposing all of this. He has told the Pentagon to come down to 2,500 troops in Iraq, 25,000 troops in Afghanistan and to do it by January 15th, five days before he leaves office. That leaves it on the play to President- elect Biden.

Let's look at the numbers in the Iraq right now. There's about 3,000 troops, bring that down to 2,500. Afghanistan perhaps more critical, about 4,500 troops there right now, bringing that down to 2,500 may raise real questions about whether that will be enough to protect that vulnerable country because the Taliban did go to the negotiating table. They signed an agreement that they would bring violence down, that they would stop attacking Afghan forces. They have not done that. With U.S. troops heading out the door, what leverage is left to hold their feet to the fire? Jim, Poppy?

SCIUTTO: I mean, that's the point. The withdrawal does not meet this administration's own standards for withdrawal, but there you have it.

All right, there are reports that The Times, The Wall Street Journal, that the president went so far as to ask advisers about military options to strike Iran during the transition. What do we know about it?

STARR: Well, the question on the table, was the president looking at options to essentially strike a place called Natanz. This, of course, is where Iran is building an underground centrifuge facility for its nuclear program. Nobody thinks it's a good idea for Iran to have a nuclear weapon but striking Natanz, very problematic. It's deep inside Iran. There would be to be repeated bombing strikes, experts tell us, very tough business to get into that airspace safely and get out.

The Pentagon has had options for years on how to go after Iran but there's a good reason they haven't done it. Iran, by any measure, would be expected to retaliate and they have about 3,000 ballistic missiles they could use to strike targets in the Middle East.

HARLOW: A whole host of ripple effects, as you said, Barbara. Thanks for the reporting on both fronts, from the Pentagon for us.

Still ahead, a new chapter in the fight against COVID, Pfizer is about to test its vaccine distribution in four states. Will a low temperature requirement create problems? That's what they're trying to figure out.

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[10:25:00]

HARLOW: Drug maker Pfizer says that it will send its COVID vaccine to Texas and three other states in anticipation of a wider rollout. They're going to test it. SCIUTTO: A vaccine cannot come soon enough for places such as Harris County, Texas, where Houston, of course, is located. It has been at the highest COVID-19 threat level since mid-June already.

Joining us now, Dr. Umair Shah, he is Executive Director for Harris County, Texas Public Health. Dr. Shah, always good to have you on the show.

DR. UMAIR SHAH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS PUBLIC HEALTH: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: Texas, one of the states that Pfizer is going to have sort of a test rollout in effect of a vaccine, best guesses for when the vaccine will be widely available nationally is some time in the spring, perhaps around April. I wonder, for Harris County, does this mean that it could be available broadly there earlier?

SHAH: Well, first of all, Jim, thanks for having me. I will say that we are cautiously optimistic. We're trying to do whatever we can to work with our federal and state partners and make sure that we get vaccine to our community as quickly as possible.

[10:30:09]