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U.S. Reports 2,804 Deaths Wednesday, All-Time High for Pandemic; California Governor Weighing more Restrictions as Cases, Hospitalizations Rise; CVS, Walgreens Prepare to be First in U.S. to Administer Vaccine. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired December 03, 2020 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:06]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us.

Just how bad is the coronavirus pandemic going to get in this country. We have to ask that, because it's already worse than it's ever been and there are no signs things are getting any better. The country is breaking the all-time record of deaths reported from coronavirus in a single day. More than 2,800 Americans killed by the virus. So many are becoming numb to these numbers but consider this.

That is more deaths than nations like Japan, Ireland, South Korea, even the UAE, more than they have reported during the entire pandemic. And that is the number of COVID deaths in the United States in just one day. Actually, almost 150 other countries have reported fewer deaths during the pandemic than the United States reported just yesterday. That's some horrible perspective.

Here is some more. Hospitalizations are also at a record high with more than 100,000 people currently receiving treatment and the overall case count is exploding, more than 200,000 new coronavirus infections reported yesterday. Even compared to other countries that have been hit hard by the pandemic in terms of the number of infections, the United States as you see is by far the worst in the world. These only paints one picture and points only in one direction. The United States is in an absolutely terrible place as a country heads into the winter. And here are the warnings.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, MEMBER OF BIDEN CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE: This is a very, very difficult and dangerous time and if we don't change our ways, this will not be the top of the curve.

DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they're going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And there's not just one or two hot spots now as we've continued to discuss. From coast to coast the whole country is a hot zone. One big hot zone. And one place that is seeing some of the worst of it right now is California.

Los Angeles is now issuing a new stay-at-home order and California, as you've recalled, was one of the first states to shutdown to put in those strict restrictions back in the spring during the first wave. Is it on the verge of shutting down once again?

CNN's Stephanie Elam, she is joining us live in Los Angeles. Stephanie, what are you hearing?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's definitely being considered now, Kate, is the idea of shutting back down on some level, a stay-at- home order on some level. Here in Los Angeles County we already have one, but it's modified from what we saw in the spring.

But let me give you the number. You were talking about some numbers that are scary. Let me tell what you California is dealing with right now.

The number of cases announced yesterday, 20,759. The number of new cases in one day. That is a new record. It blows out the previous record by a lot actually. And you look at the hospitalizations more than 9,300 people in the hospital here in California now.

Also, just shattering the records that we've seen there before. This is obviously of large concern as we've seen the positivity rate rising since November 1st or so, up about 2 percent in the last 14 days just under 7 percent.

When you take a look at Los Angeles County, the largest county -- I should say most populous county in the state. You can see this is where the trend is also showing up. And you can look at it and see when you talk about the fact that the hospitalization hitting a record number of more than 2,400 people in the hospital right now, up about 85 percent from two weeks ago. The average daily deaths are up over 90 percent since November 9th as well.

And yesterday's positivity of what that data that came in for that one day, more than 12 percent was the positivity rate for that one day. It was about 3.9 percent on November 1st. That gives you the idea there. And that's why normally in December we would be talking about merry everything, but the mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, saying it's very much about "cancel everything." Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI (D-CA), LOS ANGELES: My message couldn't be simpler, it's time to hunker down. It's time to cancel everything and if it isn't essential, don't do it. Don't meet up with others outside your household. Don't host that gathering. Don't attend a gathering. And following our targeted safer at home order, if you're able to stay home, stay home.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ELAM: And in the most recent briefing from Los Angeles County they said they have just 122 ICU beds available for this county. Keep in mind, Kate, there's about 10 million people that live here. If that doesn't scare you, if that doesn't make you think perhaps you need to stay home, wear a mask, do all the things you can, I don't know what will. This is going to be a dark winter. People really do need to be safe.

BOLDUAN: Stephanie, thank you so much for putting it in perspective. Thank you for the reporting. Really appreciate it.

Joining me now also from Los Angeles for some more insight is Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, an internal medicine and doctor and viral specialist. It's great to see you again, Doctor --

[11:05:07]

DR. JORGE RODRIGUEZ, INTERNAL MEDICINE AND VIRAL SPECIALIST: Thank you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Stephanie did a very great job of putting it all in context. It is a very dangerous situation. Yes, we've been in this for months and months, but what Los Angeles is seeing is a very dangerous place right now. But I want to get your perspective on why are these cases exploding in California and what does it mean?

RODRIGUEZ: I think that California just like everybody else let their guard down and we did. We became complacent because we were under sort of the radar for so long. Also remember that California is a place where our residents here visit a lot of other neighboring states that have higher positivity rates.

And now well, you know, it's happened to us again. And I'm a hardliner. I think we do need to have much stricter restrictions in place.

BOLDUAN: That's what I was going to ask you. Do you think that you -- would you like to see, do you think the state needs a statewide, stay- at-home order? And if so, honestly, Doctor, at this point, with so much talk and it is real, about COVID fatigue, do you think people will listen?

RODRIGUEZ: Honestly, I don't know. And I don't believe that people are going to listen as well. But they're not likely to listen if you make soft recommendations. In other words, we recommend that, we hope that, people will always find a loophole if you give it to them.

This is very serious. So, as a hardliner and as someone that knows the virus doesn't care on soft recommendations, yes, I believe that it's time to get serious. We have increased by almost 400 percent, the number of people that are hospitalized in the last month in California.

BOLDUAN: And Doctor, I mean, look at the positivity rate that Stephanie was laying out and the jump in the number of deaths in just a matter of weeks. I'm scared of what it's going to look like just knowing how the virus and hospitalization - how the infection rate and then the hospitalizations and deaths lag. I'm really scared with the next couple weeks could look like.

RODRIGUEZ: And you should be. No, I agree with you. And so am I. I'm seeing it in my own private practice.

Yesterday, we had three new cases. And it is worse actually than is predicted by the Department of Health Metrics at the University of Washington. So, we are at high tide and the hurricane is hitting. So, it is going to be worse than we expected, which is why I don't believe in soft recommendations anymore. We have a few months to hunker down, the time is now.

BOLDUAN: I got a couple of quick questions I want to get to you on the virus front. You've got - now you have former presidents, Obama, Bush and Clinton, who have all - who are all saying that they're ready to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated publicly, maybe on television, in order to lead by example and show that the vaccine is not only important but also safe and effective for Americans. What kind of impact does that have?

RODRIGUEZ: I think that's going to have a great impact. You have people -- persons that people look up to. But I would also like to see leaders in popular culture, singers, movie stars, people that younger people look up to, also do the same thing. I think it would be a great public service for them to do that.

BOLDUAN: And look, we've also talked a lot about practicing what you preach. You can see this with obviously the former president. We've talked a lot about practicing what you preach or not when it comes to President Trump.

Now, we also have more than one official in your state, in California, caught defying the very health guidelines and recommendations as we've been discussing that they've been asking for. The mayor of San Francisco, who attended a party at the French Laundry Restaurant days before banning indoor dining. The governor being there just a couple days before.

You've got the mayor of Austin, Texas and the mayor of Denver, Colorado who both had told residents to stay home and cancel travel and then did exactly the opposite, didn't stay home and then got on airplanes.

This is hypocritical, just like the White House. What does that do to public health efforts that you're talking about so much?

RODRIGUEZ: I think it undermines it. I think it undermines it completely because people say, hey, why should I follow those recommendations when the same people that are preaching do not follow them? I think it's very detrimental. I think the impact is immediate how it affects the community. And unfortunately, I think it is going to affect some very good leaders in the future when it comes to the polling booth a few years from now.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Right now, in this critical moment, practicing what you preach and leading by example is everything and vital.

RODRIGUEZ: Vital.

BOLDUAN: Doctor, thank you.

Coming up for us, the massive efforts to roll out the vaccine could begin in just days. A key link in the distribution chain, national pharmacy chains. The chief medical officer of CVS is our guest.

And later, leading civil rights groups left baffled by the Biden transition. Why they want a meeting with the president-elect? The president of the NAACP will join us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:14:12]

BOLDUAN: As soon as this month a COVID vaccine may be available in your state. But once the federal government approves it, it's largely up to each state to figure out who should receive the limited supply of the vaccine and how.

One group at the front of the line we now know is residents and workers at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

CVS and Walgreens, those massive chains, they will be in charge of the bulk of the vaccine doses that are headed to those facilities. And then, eventually, also will be offering vaccines at their pharmacy locations nationwide. So, how is this going to work?

Joining me right now is the chief medical officer for CVS, Dr. Troy Brennan. Doctor, thank you for coming back on.

So, we learned this week that approval for the Pfizer vaccine could come next week and then for shipments could be delivered the week after that. I'm curious. What then does December 15th and 16th look like for CVS if those are the dates? What will you be doing?

[11:15:07]

DR. TROY BRENNAN, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, CVS HEALTH: Well, there's a good deal of work that has to go on between the CDC and the states in terms of deciding exactly who should be getting the vaccine, details about that. We know that we'll be doing the skilled nursing facilities and long-term care facilities. And we actually have the lists of those organizations.

And next week, early next week, we're having webinars with all those organizations. We begin to get organized about consenting procedures and how the clinics will actually work in those skilled nursing facilities. But we have to wait until the approval occurs and the CDC and state decides on this very, very specific detail. That may take a few days. But our plan is to be ready to go as early as December 15th waiting for the state approvals.

BOLDUAN: And that's a key part of it, right? I mean, you're a couple weeks out from what will be a massive undertaking. And if every state has its own distribution plan, if you will, do you have all the information you need?

BRENNAN: We're working with each of the states now, and it will be challenging because each state will be different. Some states will say just vaccinate the people in the skilled nursing facility. Some states would want us to vaccinate not only the people in the skilled nursing facilities but the healthcare workers in those facilities.

So, those kinds of details are going to vary from state-to-state. But we're working directly with the states now to understand what the parameters are. And we expect this to continue as we get to the other stages as well, making sort of key decisions within the states about who essential workers are and decisions about how we're going to check for morbidity for those individuals who are under the age of 65 but should be getting the vaccine early.

So, there's a lot of details to work out with the states but that's the way our system works. The states make these decisions on a public health basis and close consultation with the CDC.

BOLDUAN: And then that is going to be - that's going to be something that you have to have. Where is the line? Where do you draw the line on these priority groups early on especially? How do you also deal with the challenge of cold storage for the Pfizer vaccine as it requires these extremely cold temperatures that really are not seen before with other vaccines?

BRENNAN: Right. It does. But we've worked that out with Pfizer I think fairly well. We've been doing tests with Pfizer and planning through it. They have special containers that we can maintain at the appropriate temperature using dry ice.

And so, we'll be using their containers. They'll come to our thousand hubs that we're setting up where we'll be keeping the vaccine and then the vaccine will be traveling out from there to the individual facilities. And we'll know how many people we're going to be vaccinating and how many vaccinations we need to take out to those facilities and be keeping a close eye on the time that we have the vaccine and what those temperatures are.

But we're pretty comfortable we're going to be able to store for up to 20 days the Pfizer vaccine. Simply by reloading these special containers with dry ice. So, it sounds very difficult but turns out from a logistic point of view be really quite tractable.

BOLDUAN: CVS has vast network of locations. They're almost in every state. But is there still an area of the country that - I guess what's the area in the country that you're most worried about when it comes to distribution and the challenges of the logistics involved?

BRENNAN: Well, for the skilled nursing facilities, the two organizations are ourselves and Walgreens. And the skilled nursing facilities have already made a decision about sort of which organization that they want to work with. We basically got 31,000 locations where we're going to have to be doing the vaccination. And that's about 2 million patients. So, we know who it is, where they are, and how many patients there are. And then the others will be using Walgreens.

So, that's going to be a decision about what is the most prevalent pharmacy chain in that particular part of the country. In some places, we have a lot more pharmacies than Walgreens and other places they have more than we do.

So, that's all been decided, at least for the skilled nursing facilities once we get into sort of general distribution, I suspect that not only ourselves and Walgreens but there's going to be a number of other pharmacy chains and groceries will be involved. And I think that using all those various outlets we're going to have very good penetration across the United States.

BOLDUAN: Have you thought about, I'm sure you have, how you take on the challenge of making sure when it's approved for the general population, how to make sure people come back to get that second shot. So, this vaccine, these limited supplies you have, so that first critical vaccine isn't essentially wasted if people don't come back.

BRENNAN: Yes. Well, our customers in our pharmacy will know that we do a very good job of getting after you if you haven't refilled your medication. In many cases, it's a critical part of pharmacy. So, we're kind of on top of that. A lot of it will be done by telephone even more will be done digitally.

[11:20:00]

And so, we'll be texting people and calling them to come back and get that second dose. And they'll be alerted. We're going to basically sort of set them up with appointments. We'll be -- when we start moving out to the stores themselves, we're doing it by appointment only. You'll get an appointment for both your first vaccination, your second vaccination and then we will keep after you to make sure you come back for that second vaccination.

BOLDUAN: I giggled only because CVS is very good as I continue to get text messages that I need to come in to pick up and refill my prescription today. Thank you so much, Dr. Brennan. I really appreciate you coming in and all of the effort that you're about to take on to get the country vaccinated. Thank you.

BRENNAN: Thank you for having us, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Still ahead for us, new reporting. President Trump is frustrated with Attorney General Bill Barr for telling the truth.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:25:43]

BOLDUAN: New this morning, we are learning that Dr. Anthony Fauci will be meeting with President-elect Joe Biden's transition team. That is according to CNN's Jim Sciutto and Jim Acosta. So, the focus remains there for the Biden transition. As for President Trump, according to his Twitter feed, his focus remains entirely on the election that he lost. And sources say that Trump is growing particularly frustrated with Attorney General Bill Barr who earlier this week said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the election results. Telling the truth, looking at reality essentially.

And then there's this, the president has also planned a series of indoor holiday parties at the White House, the very thing public health experts and local officials are calling on every other American to avoid this year.

Here's how the White House defends the decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Is the White House setting a good example for the public with the White House, the in-person holiday parties at a time when the CDC and other organizations are asking Americans to forego those kinds of celebrations for their own safety?

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Yes. So, you know, if you can loot businesses, burn down buildings, engage in protests, you can also go to a Christmas Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me from the White House, CNN's John Harwood. John, where do you want to begin? What is happening with Bill Barr?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I'll tell you, Kate. It is striking that what frustrates the president is not the pandemic that's killed more than a quarter million Americans, that he's not preoccupied with trying to stop the pandemic. You noted the parties that he's having. He's not even addressing it at all as it rampages through the United States.

What he's concerned about is the fact that Bill Barr, who's been a very pliant attorney general, who's done the president's bidding on a number of fronts simply ran into the reality that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud tilting this election. Bill Barr decided to tell the truth about that and that made Donald Trump mad.

There's talk that he might fire Bill Barr. Not sure what the point of that is. There's only seven weeks left in the administration. He'd get push back from Republicans. John Cornyn, Republican from Texas, told our colleague Manu Raju a few minutes ago that he would be disappointed if the president fired Bill Barr.

But it's very clear that the president simply can't handle being labeled a loser, can't handle the humiliation in the eyes of his followers, can't handle it in terms of the damage to his own ego. And one of the ways you know that is the president who seeks out television cameras throughout the four years that he's been president has been hiding from them. And he's doing that again today. He's giving the medal of freedom, to Lou Holtz a retired football coach who endorsed him in the campaign, but it's a closed press event, Kate. No chance for reporters to ask him questions because he can't handle those questions.

BOLDUAN: That seems clear at this point. It's good to see you, John. Thank you.

Turning now to the transition, baffled. That's how the leading civil rights organizations in the country are reportedly left feeling right now. Groups like the NAACP concerned and worried about the direction of the Biden cabinet so far. And they're now applying public pressure on Joe Biden to appoint more black officials to top posts.

So far, Joe Biden has nominated three people of color to either his cabinet or cabinet level positions have confirmed, Linda Thomas- Greenfield as U.N. ambassador, Alejandro Mayorkas as Secretary of Homeland Security, and Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

So, what are their concerns?

Joining me right now NAACP president, Derrick Johnson. It's good to see you again. Thank you for being here.

Tuesday you told "The Post" -- "Washington Post" there had been no communication with the president-elect, no meetings set up and this baffled you. Have you heard anything since? Is there any meeting on the books now?

DERRICK JOHNSON, PRESIDENT, NAACP: We have heard from the president- elect's campaign. What was baffling that you cannot say that civil rights in the black community will be a priority and you appointed a czar over environmental, which is we (INAUDIBLE). That's important. And you've had meetings with labor and others but there have been no meetings with the civil rights community to talk about a civil rights agenda. That is baffling.

BOLDUAN: Do you expect a meeting to happen? Communication with the transition is still short of a meeting that you -- that you -- you and other leaders are calling for.

JOHNSON: We believe a meeting will happen.