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Vaccine Trials for Younger Kids Could Begin Early 2020; Delay in COVID Vaccine for Kids Could Impact Next School Year; Hypocrisy Erupts as Party Leaders Fail to Head Their Own Advice; California Issues Stay-At-Home Order Linked to ICU Capacity; Funeral Homes Crushed by Demand as COVID Deaths Skyrocket. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired December 03, 2020 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

DR. ANDREW PAVIA, CHIEF, DIVISION OF PEDIATRIC INFECTIOUS DISEASES, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH: It's not fast enough. Some of us think that group should have been started quite a bit earlier so that we could have them vaccinated in time for school. For the younger kids it probably will take a couple more months.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: I want to read this quote, this is something that jumped out at me today, a vaccine researcher made this point to "The Washington Post."

If you have the children immune, meaning they are less likely to transmit, that would actually help to protect especially the older population where it is more difficult to induce strong immune responses with vaccines.

So Dr. Pavia, do you think kids should be vaccinated before healthy adults?

PAVIA: Well, no. I think we should -- ideally, we'd be doing them at the same time. But it takes longer to learn whether it's safe for kids because their immune systems are different, they are not little adults. It's easier with the adolescents because their a lot more like adults plus they get sicker and they transmit more in general.

As you move down to younger ages you have to be more careful about safety. And also adolescents are choosing to be in vaccine trials. They know what they're getting to, their volunteering. As you get into little kids, there's an ethical demand that we watch out for them because they're not choosing to contribute to science by being in vaccine trials. So I think --

BALDWIN: On that point, if I can -- on that point, since they are kids, you know, how do you get adults to consent to have their kids be part of a vaccine trial essentially as guinea pigs?

PAVIA: It's a careful thoughtful process that parents have to go through. It's a lot easier with a teenager because you want them to be part of that decision. And a lot of teenagers, my own kids when they were younger want to be part of trials and contribute to science.

The younger your child, the more you're totally responsible for them. We wouldn't do it if we didn't think that it was safe, reasonably safe to do the trials. We didn't have a lot of information from adults. And that's why, you know, you're going to have to wait unfortunately before we get down into those youngest age groups, the 2 to 6-year-old groups.

But it is sort of a little heart wrenching for parents. They may want their kids protected earlier. They may want to do something that's good for all children, but at the same time they don't know all of the risks that their kids might be taking. We think they're going to be small. We wouldn't be doing it if we thought the risks are high, but we don't know what we don't know.

BALDWIN: How about this, some health experts, Dr. Pavia, are worrying that delaying a vaccine for kids will then delay getting back to school, back to a sense of normalcy just in terms of, you know, kid's psychology developing these precious years. Do you share that concern?

PAVIA: Absolutely. The good news in all of this is that it's adolescents who are really taking the blunt of not going to school, of having their schools shut down. We're doing pretty good with elementary schools in many parts of the world, of the county are keeping elementary schools open safely.

But when you get to adolescents, we're not doing so well there's a tons of disease in high school. Kids are getting quite sick sometimes. And they really need to be vaccinated in order to get back to something like normal high school and middle school.

So kids are bearing an unfair burden here because they're missing out on school. They're getting exposed to disease and they're going to have to wait longer for vaccine.

BALDWIN: It is unfair it seems. Actually unfair for everyone but particularly for the young kids, Dr. Andrew Pavia, thank you so much for your expertise when it comes to young people here. Appreciate you.

PAVIA: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Anger erupts as more elected officials are caught flouting the coronavirus guidelines they preach to their constituents. That is next.

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[15:35:00]

BALDWIN: As COVID cases skyrocket across the country, State Department employees like most workers in America are being directed not to host holiday gatherings in the wake of the pandemic.

So why is their boss the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo inviting, oh I don't know, 900 people to the State Department for holiday receptions in the coming weeks? It is a decision that flies directly in the face of any warning issued by the CDC and included in those invites are foreign diplomats who are now forced to decide whether the benefits of getting face time with the Secretary of State actually outweigh the dangers of COVID.

And it has become painfully clear that this hypocrisy is not just within one party. The Democratic Mayor of Austin, Texas is under fire after urging his residents to stay home while at the same time vacationing with his family in Mexico. Mayor

Steve Adler has since apologized for not heeding his own advice.

With me now, S.E. Cupp, CNN political commentator. S.E., good to have you on. Welcome.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thanks.

BALDWIN: Perspective. Yesterday more people died in a single day from COVID than any other day this year. And then on that same day, we find out that Mike Pompeo is doing what every single health official is telling every American not to do over the holidays. What?

CUPP: It's so unnecessary. It's so infuriating. We are crawling, digging our way through and out of this pandemic and as you mentioned we are spiking right now, we're nowhere near the finish line. You and I and everyone I know, you know, has been responsible, we've sacrificed a lot. I know you were real careful and you got it yourself.

[15:40:00]

We've got school, we've got people who couldn't go to hospital --

BALDWIN: Hang on S.E., forgive me, one quick second, let's go to Gavin Newsom in California.

GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA) -- their recognition of this current moment that the state of California is in. We're also establishing a framework where all nonessential travel is as well temporarily restricted statewide.

Here's what we want to emphasize, none of us are naive. I certainly am not of the mental stress that all of us are under, not just the financial distress that many are under and more still with this stay- at-home order, but we want to encourage activity again that's focused not indoors, not in congregate facilities, not where there's tremendous amount of fixing, but outdoors.

We encourage you, we encourage you to take your dog for a walk. We want you to exercise and go on a run with a partner within your household, go sledding. These outdoor activities in the winter. Extend a walk on the beach or out in our state parks or your local parks is appropriate. We encourage that. Take a bike ride. Go fishing. Those that are learning to meditate more and more, I imagine in yoga, we encourage those activities. So this is really important to take care of your physical health, to

take care of your mental health, to get the kind of exercise that is required to get us through this temporary moment. This is not a permanent state, this is what many had projected, we had predicted the final surge in this pandemic.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. We are a few months away from truly seeing real progress with the vaccine, real distribution, real accessibility, real availability. We do not anticipate having to do this once again, but we really all need to step up, we need to meet this moment head-on and we need to do everything we can to stem the tide, to bend the curve and to give us the time necessary by bending that curve to get those vaccines in the hands of all Californians all across the state.

We're doing everything in our power as well not only to message and recognition and importance of minding your mental and physical health, but also to prepare and to prepare, we mean prepare our hospitals, to prepare our capacity not only within our hospital delivery system, but outside of it, which I'll talk about in a moment.

To do what we can to support these small businesses that will not receive the news very favorably and I can deeply understand and appreciate that. And to make sure that workers that are also impacted not just businesses are also getting support.

And I just want to remind everybody of what that preparations have been. We have not been sitting by idly, we've not been sitting by passively. I want to remind everybody of that preparation. You can see here on this slide, we talked a lot about the 11 facilities outside our health care delivery system that this state has --

BALDWIN: All right. So you've been listening to the Governor of California there, Gavin Newsom. If you are watching from California, right this merry moment, you are now facing a stay-at-home order effective today and this is all because of the ICUs reaching capacity in the state of California, this applies to five specific regions.

Let me read this out for you. If you are in northern California, the Bay Area, Greater Sacramento, San Joaquin Valley or Southern California, you are facing a stay-at-home order starting today but he said that schools will stay open.

And so I was just talking to S.E. Cupp. And this is yet another example of like reality. Right, real America, in real America and in California, you know, you abide by those rules and now you're facing a stay-at-home order. But if you are the administration ala Mike Pompeo and you're inviting 900 people to, you know, have some drink and some food and apparently be required to wear a mask at the State Department for a holiday party, it's not the same.

CUPP: No. And I'll point at the obvious that Gavin Newsom himself got in some trouble for going to a birthday party, you know, without masks, without social distancing, with more people than he should have. So when leaders like Gavin Newsom or Mike Pompeo or the Mayor in Austin do this, it's not just the immediate people they're putting in danger, the people at these parties, the staffers at the State Department, it's everyone else. Because if you're just an American and you're listening to this, and maybe you don't think the virus is as bad as the science has been telling us, you say, well, they're not staying home, they're not, not having parties, they must know something.

[15:45:00]

Or if you have been doing the right thing, you watch these people flout the rules, well, why do I have to be locked up for eight months and following the rules. When these people, the rule makers aren't. So it's really infuriating this kind of behavior.

BALDWIN: If you are the Biden administration, how do you right the ship?

CUPP: Yes, well, Biden has promised to put scientists out front and out first. And I'm hope he does that because the politicization of this virus from mask wearing to distancing to following basic, you know, health and safety guidelines has been so corrupting and corrosive and I think has made this pandemic even worse than it had to be.

So I think if he's leading with science and rebuild some trust inside the administration, and he can start by following all the rules and having everyone in his administration follow all the rules as well.

BALDWIN: S.E., thank you for that. Good to see you.

CUPP: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, funeral homes are getting crushed as COVID deaths surge. I'll talk to a funeral home director in El Paso who says they are working 14 hour days nearly every day just to keep up.

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[15:50:00]

BALDWIN: In a sobering sign of how deadly this pandemic is, funeral homes across the country are scrambling to keep up with the soaring death toll. In El Paso for example, the city's largest funeral home, Sunset Funeral Homes has far exceeded its average annual number of services. The owners have purchased now two new hearses and are now renting two more. They have acquired three new mortuary refrigerators and their staff is working 14-hour days, sometimes seven days a week.

Jose Amezcua is the manager of Sunset Funeral Homes. And Jose, thank you so much for, just obviously, all the tough, grim, necessary work you do. Thank you for coming on.

JOSE AMEZCUA, MANAGER OF SUNSET FUNERAL HOMES, EL PASO, TEXAS: Brooke, thank you for having me. BALDWIN: Your company usually has 1,200 funerals a year. As 2020 is

now coming to a close, how many this year?

AMEZCUA: We already surpassed that number. Last month, we did approximately 350 to 400 funerals alone. Usually the call volume is a 100. So it's doubled in the last 30 days.

BALDWIN: Doubled?

AMEZCUA: That goes for all the funeral homes in this area. Yes, that's correct.

BALDWIN: Doubled in the last 30 days. You know, I was reading about El Paso in "The Washington Post" and what you're all dealing with, this how they put it.

Funeral homes have turned storage closets into freezers to hold the dead. A crematorium broke down from overuse. The city's convention center has been transformed into a field hospital. The county judge wonders whether the community has enough grave sites.

I mean, Jose, just logistically, it's my understanding your funeral home is not turning people away. How are you handling the overflow of bodies?

AMEZCUA: Correct, so we initially purchased and built three walk-in coolers to hold your loved ones at our facilities until we have the available space in our chapels or our crematory can schedule the cremation time.

We've also been working closely with the Borderrac and the city of El Paso and the county of El Paso. The medical examiners they set up I believe 13 mobile morgues in central locations so your loved one will be transported there due to overflow at the hospitals and the county morgue and then we would retrieve your loved one from that area.

So everybody is now working together to make sure your loved one is taken to the correct facility and then once the funerals take place, your loved one is brought into the correct funeral homes at that time.

BALDWIN: And I presume a mobile morgue is sort of what we see outside of hospitals. Is just that like a refrigerator truck? So you have that 13 --

AMEZCUA: Correct. There's 13 refrigerated trucks right now at an off- site facility to try to handle the influx. And we meet weekly with the county and city officials to discuss the potential increase in numbers after the Thanksgiving holiday and Christmas and New Year's coming up. And we expect it too --

BALDWIN: So you're already anticipating that?

AMEZCUA: Oh, yes. We definitely are. Because, you know, we're already the top of the peak and it's just keeps on getting worse by the day.

BALDWIN: Doctor I talked to at the top of the show says we haven't hit the peak. Here's what I'm also thinking about. Jose, the family members of the deceased loved ones who are robbed of paying their final respects, what have you witnessed about how difficult it is for these people?

AMEZCUA: Well, once the families make arrangements here, you know, they're obviously in shock and disbelief, and most of them do not get to see their loved ones in the hospital or touch them or say good-bye to them. So fortunately enough, we're allowing them to say good-bye to them here at the funeral home so they can have one last good-bye and closure that they need in order for them to continue the grieving process.

So here at Sunset Funeral Homes we're allowing family members to say good-bye to your loved ones because they at the hospital most of the time they're not getting that chance to say good-bye besides doing something through like a FaceTime or through a Zoom.

BALDWIN: You are one of few who I've heard are not yet turning people away. So I don't know if that's a good thing, but for these family members, I imagine it is. Just so many numbers here, so many people. Jose Amezcua, thank you so much for your time.

[15:55:00]

AMEZCUA: Thank you for having us.

BALDWIN: So morbid, but so necessary to discuss.

Back to our breaking news. Sources telling CNN that the White House has had multiple meetings about issuing pardons ever since election day. We've got those new details ahead.

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Pamela Brown, Jake Tapper is on assignment interviewing President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris airing tonight at 9 P.M. Eastern.