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FDA Panel Reviews Emergency Authorization for Moderna Vaccine; Prospects Dim for Relief Deal by Friday as Shutdown Deadline Looms; East Coast Snowstorm Could Impact Vaccine Distribution. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired December 17, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:05]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: Moderna says millions of its doses are ready to go. This as the U.S., sadly, once again, yesterday recorded its deadliest day of COVID. And a new forecast projects 80,000 more deaths from it in just the next three weeks here. Cases and hospitalizations the highest they have ever been.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN NEWSROOM: Also this morning, some good news, several new developments with the vaccine that is already being distributed, that made by Pfizer, the FDA is saying that vials of Pfizer's vaccine may actually hold extra doses, and this would mean, of course, many more people could be vaccinated based on the current supply.

And after thousands are vaccinated, we do have the news, and this, we should make clear, is an infinitesimal number, statistically, but news that two health care workers did have reactions.

President-elect Biden is now expected himself to get a vaccine next week, this as Vice President Mike Pence says that he will take one on camera tomorrow morning. President Trump has said he will not get one. We're going to tell you why.

We begin though with the FDA panel meeting right now. CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us.

So, here, in effect, Sanjay, a second option, the Moderna vaccine developed along with NIH. As they're meeting to discuss this, does it have advantages, perhaps, beyond just the storage needs?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think that that's probably the biggest advantage right now. I mean, we are learning more about these vaccines overall in terms of what they can do. One of the things that came out about the Moderna vaccine, they did release some more data showing that there was some evidence that it could also decrease the likelihood that people become infected.

And this is an important point. People may not realize this, but the vaccine for Pfizer, what they can say definitively is that it dramatically reduces the likelihood that you would get sick from COVID, which is really important. But there wasn't evidence yet to say that it could actually prevent infection as well. The Moderna one says they do have some evidence of that. But that's going to be an important that we're going to keep tracking.

But I think for now they're basically the same. And you may be able to get the Moderna in more places just because it doesn't require the same level of cold storage but that's really about it.

HARLOW: Sanjay, can you set the record straight for everyone about these two adverse allergic reactions among two, I believe, health care workers in Alaska, how severe?

GUPTA: Yes. So I think it's important to talk about these. There's been two now in one location, and that's a clue, maybe something investigators are going to look at, why those two in the same location, because there have been tens of thousands of these vaccines administered and it is a very rare sort of side effect. We've known vaccines in the past can cause severe allergic reactions, maybe one in a million cases, so if this vaccine goes to hundreds of millions of people in this country, we will likely see more of these allergic reactions.

But let me show you specifically what happened. There was a health care worker who had a significant allergic reaction a couple days ago, developed flushing, started to have some shortness of breath, elevated hear rate and rash and required epinephrine drip to be administered over several hours. So it was a pretty significant allergic reaction, totally recovered, doing fine.

Another person, again, at that same place in Alaska, had eye puffiness, light headedness, developed scratchy throat, and both of these occurred pretty quickly after the injection of the vaccine, so pretty clearly associated with the vaccine itself. Both people have recovered. The second one was not necessarily been called anaphylactic reaction but a serious reaction as well.

So what investigators are trying to figure out is what's causing this. Is it an ingredient in the vaccines? Like with the flu shot, you're told if you have egg allergies, you maybe shouldn't take this. There's no egg sort of component or albumin component in these vaccines, so that's something they're focused on.

But it is a manageable, as you mentioned side effect, it is rare. And keep in mind, at the same time these vaccines are rolling out, two people roughly a minute are dying of COVID in this country. So it's a pretty clear, critically important need that's being met by these vaccines.

SCIUTTO: All right. On the good side, you can put this in the category of windfall, almost right, that there are actually more doses per vial than Pfizer or others realized. How much does this ramp up the scope of these initial vaccinations because there's a lot of talk about the limits, right? You got 21 million health care workers, you got 3 million folks in long-term care facilities, et cetera, the priority. But how much does this expand who can get shots early? GUPTA: It could make a pretty significant difference.

[10:05:01]

I mean, I spent most of the morning actually talking to pharmacists about this. It's a really fascinating thing. But, basically, when they do what's called the fill finish on these vials, they want to put five doses in, each doses, 0.3 milliliter, so 1.5 millimeters. But as part of the fill finish they almost always count down a little bit of spillage or a little bit waste as you're actually drawing the medicine up into a syringe, so there's more that typically that goes into that. And as a result, they're finding there's enough in these vials to possibly get another dose or even two more doses out of these vials.

Interestingly, a couple interesting points, one is that they actually had noticed this in the U.K. as well but there was no specific guidance, so those vials, those extra milliliters were being tossed out. And the same thing was happening here in the United States until the FDA came in and said, no, no, don't throw that away, that's precious stuff. If you can get a full 0.3 milliliters out of that vial, go ahead and use it.

The other thing to keep in mind is that it's a coordinated thing, right? if you give ten doses today, you want to make sure you have ten doses three weeks from now for that second dose for folks. So if you start adding -- taking a dose here and there, you've got to still make sure you have enough to cover the second doses for people, which is something the FDA is now working on.

SCIUTTO: Good point.

HARLOW: What a great thing in the middle of all this to spare that they were able to find additional doses. We needed that in 2020.

So, the President-elect, Sanjay, Joe Biden, is going to get the vaccine, I believe it's early next week. He'll do it publically. Some folks are wondering this morning, but he's going to be president, shouldn't he have gotten it yesterday? Can you explain the timing to us and also if it impacts inauguration day at all since there's a three-week wait between both doses?

SANJAY: Yes. Well, you know, as far as the first part, in terms of when exactly to get it, you know, I know there's been all kind of conversations happening with the medical team over there, and it's one of these situation where it's not an emergency to get the vaccine but there's no reason to wait either. And I think that that's sort of how they were approaching it.

If you look at the calendar, what you find is that if you get the first dose next week, wait three weeks for the Pfizer vaccine. It's about seven days after that when you're actually determined to have that more full immunity of 90-plus percent protection. And that would still happen before inauguration day if he were to get it done now.

I also think you may want to give a little time after the second shot. People may have a sore arm, feel fatigue a little bit, all the expected side effects that we've been talking about and you probably want to make sure there's enough distance or time between that second shot and the actually inauguration, which is obviously going to be a busy time for the president-elect.

So I think taking that all into account, this is sort of the calendar they landed on.

HARLOW: Makes sense. Sanjay, thank you so much for being with us in all of that. See you very soon.

Meantime, let's go to California. Dan Simon is there, California, one of the states where this crisis is worsening. Good morning, Dan. How bad is it in California this morning?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hey, Poppy. Good morning. Cases just astronomical, more than 53,000 cases recorded yesterday shattering all previous records. Now, that did factor in a couple days of backlog. Nonetheless, it is a remarkable number. We are also seeing record amount of hospitalizations, ICU beds also record number in use.

And that is the reason why the San Francisco Bay Area region has now issued a stay-at-home order for the entire region because the ICU availability has now gone below 15 percent. So now the whole region under the stay-at-home order.

What does that mean? Well, we've talked about that before, you have things like movie theatres, museums, no indoor, outdoor dining, just to name a few of the things that are impacted.

In the meantime, Poppy, let me explain where I am. This is the UCSF Medical Center behind me. This is one of the few hospitals in California to get the early distribution of the Pfizer vaccine. It got about 1,000 doses yesterday and it has now begun to administer the doses to frontline health care workers, doctors, nurses, custodial workers. So, of course, there is some optimism with the vaccine being here.

Nonetheless, there is also some grim news, Poppy, because we learned that the state of California actually had to order 5,000 additional body bags as well as additional portable refrigeration units to cope with the rising death toll. Poppy?

SCIUTTO: This scale is just staggering, all those families. Dan Simon, thanks so much.

Well, in less than 38 hours, we're counting, the government will run out of money. Can lawmakers finish a deal that keeps the government funded, and helps millions of Americans suffering financially because of the pandemic?

[10:10:07]

Will they or won't they?

HARLOW: Yes, totally up to them. Plus we're learning much more about a man with alleged ties to a terror group now charged with plotting a new September 11th-style attack right here in the United States.

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SCIUTTO: Well, here we go again. A new stimulus deal looks unlikely now to pass by Friday night when a government shutdown looms. Right now, Congress is talking about instead of extending that shutdown deadline again. I suppose the good news is that both sides are still talking, if you can call it that.

[10:15:01]

CNN's Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill. Manu, we can't keep up, I'm sure viewers cannot keep up. Yesterday, it seemed like they had a deal, they were close to it. Where does it actually stand now?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It takes quite a bit of time to get something of this magnitude, $900 billion agreed to on both sides and negotiations are still continuing. There's still optimism that the deal can be reached. There's less optimism that it can actually be done by Friday, passed out of both chambers, which had been the initial goal.

Which is why now there is talk this could spill into the weekend, potentially to next week and that would require Congress to extend the government funding deadline because if they don't pass a funding bill by the end of the -- by midnight, on Friday, the government shutdowns. So, both these issues, COVID relief and government funding, are tied together.

But the moment Nancy Pelosi this morning told reporters that they're making progress, she did not commit to releasing a bill today because they are still haggling over some key details, including how to pay for this big proposal. So those are things that the leadership has to iron out. Then they have to go through the actual legislative process and get people to agree.

Now, what we do understand, which in these proposals includes checks for indirect payments, one-time direct payments of $600 for individuals under a certain income threshold, as well as jobless benefits to be extended for about $300 for certain people. In addition, we expect to be provided for vaccine distribution and for schools, and also about $330 billion, we're hearing, for small business loans.

Now, already, there's some push back from the left and the right. One congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, called the idea of $600 payment, quote, embarrassing, Bernie Sanders yesterday criticized this as well.

And now the right, there's some criticism about the price tag as well as this idea and the proposals they're talking about providing $90 billion administered by FEMA, that would go out to states and cities. Some Republicans are pushing back on that. One Republican, Jim Jordan, told me he's unlikely to support the deal. So we'll see the left and the right push back.

Ultimately, they do expect to get it through but first, of course, Jim, they have got to get a deal and it's not there yet, Jim.

SCIUTTO: All right, we'll be watching. We know you will. Manu Raju, thanks very much.

HARLOW: Well, on top of what Manu just said, consider this. 7.8 million Americans have fallen into poverty just since June. That is the biggest and fastest increase this country has ever seen since the government started tracking poverty 60 years ago. And one of the reasons for that, the researchers say, is that that government aid for people out of work has fallen sharply since the summer. That's exactly what they're trying to fix in Washington but still no deal.

Let's talk about why. New Jersey Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer is here, Republican Congressman of New York, Tom Reed, they're the co-chairs of the Problem Solvers Caucus. Good morning to you both.

And, Congressman Gottheimer, let me begin with you. You're looking at a state in New Jersey where 30 percent of the restaurants, as you note, are already out of business. The food bank demand in your district is double what it was a year ago. Can you definitively say this morning that by the end of the night tomorrow, you guys are going to have a deal?

REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): I think we're just literally within inches. We have got agreement in principle. Everybody here on Capitol Hill knows we must get this done. As you just pointed out, Poppy, people are hurting, whether they're in food lines for the first time or a third of the small businesses have gone out, more than 23 percent of all the restaurants in New Jersey have gone out of business.

The bottom line is we have got to deliver help to people. We have got a big deadline on, say, Christmas time, where people are going to lose unemployment benefits, rental assistance, we have got to deliver it here.

We've been working a bipartisan way for months and we're going to get it done.

HARLOW: But I would say respectfully you had a big deadline for a long time. I mean, those poverty numbers, Congressman Reed, say it all. Since June, 8 million more folks are in poverty. And a big reason for that is that there was not another stimulus bill after it expired at the end of July. Why is it taking you guys until the 11th hour?

REP. TOM REED (R-NY): Well, obviously, Poppy, I agree with you. And that's why we in the Problem Solvers Caucus have been working on this in a bipartisan way. Remember, we represent 50 members of Congress, equally divided to put the American people first. We started nine months ago on this path and we brought, I believe in my humble opinion, we brought our leadership to this point where we laid the framework upon which they're now negotiating the final details. So, in my humble opinion, I agree with you, we should have done this months ago, we should have done this before the election, but that is one of the frustrating things I have as a member of Congress but I'm going to deal with the reality of what we have to do. We have to get this done by Friday and we're going to get it done, in my humble opinion.

HARLOW: I hope so. Congressman Gottheimer, a lot of Democrats, particularly in the Senate, especially Joe Manchin, have been saying this is an emergency deal, get something passed now, and then he pretty much guaranteed that in the Biden administration, more money will get through, maybe even something bigger.

[10:20:07]

Is that really a guarantee to the American people can rely on? Are you sure?

GOTTHEIMER: Well, obviously, as you see in Washington here, there are no guarantees, but I agree that we're going to have to come back for more. We've got more to help our state and local governments, make sure that our firefighters and law enforcement and teachers are able to get paid. So we're going to have to come back.

This is an emergency short-term down payment to get us into the new administration, to help us through these toughest months of winter and get unemployment checks to people who were out of work, to help people now. And so I think that's our goal and that's why we can't leave until that happens. And then when we get a new administration, we're going to have to fight for more resources.

HARLOW: Yes, I think it will be a fight in the Biden administration, but it's been portrayed as a guarantee for folks that there will be more coming.

On the state and local aid issue you bring up, Congressman Gottheimer, which is a good one, to you, Congressman Reed, you're in a state, New York State has a hole, you know, a debt issue of $118.2 billion. Those are the most recent numbers. And you rely on the federal government to come in, right, because you can't operate the way the federal government does.

So without a state and local aid package, here is what New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says. He says, quote, the latest proposal out of Washington abandons New York City and cities across the country, ignores that we are America's economic engine. And he says, the entire point of stimulus is to spur economic growth and help working class families. And he says the proposal fails to do exactly that.

It's been Republicans, Congressman Reed, that are opposed to that. You're a Republican. I wonder if you think that might be a misstep.

REED: I have obviously supported local, state aid. But I will also say that's why liability reform has to be part of this solution. Because to get Republican bipartisan support, which is going to take to get this done, we need to address the liability reform issue. And that's a real issue.

We've heard from both sides of the aisle, we've heard from universities, we've heard from health workers, we've heard from small businesses, that if you don't take care of liability, we're going to be right back into this problem of -- we tried to do everything we could in good faith and now we're getting lawsuits filed against us for things that we had no control over. We were dealing with a virus no one knew about. And so liability reform has to be addressed.

And that's why when we go into the next battle, we've already moved the needle on that in the Problem Solvers Caucus to narrow the negotiations on that package that's going to have to be addressed to local state aid as well as liability reform.

HARLOW: Let me just switch topics finally here, Congressman Reed, because you have not only acknowledged the president-elect's win but you did so congratulating him in a press release on November 7th.

And that sets you apart from a number of your Republican colleagues in the House. In fact, just yesterday, your Republican colleague, Mo Brooks, essentially labeled you guys the, quote, surrender caucus. And he said, I know there's zero chance of succeeding if you're a member of the surrender caucus, there's some sense of succeeding if you fight. What's your message to him and particularly the minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, who has yet to acknowledge that Joe Biden is the president-elect?

REED: I respect my colleagues. I respect their opinion and I know that --

HARLOW: You respect that though? I mean, they're facts. This is not about an opinion.

REED: I understand. But they're entitled to that thing. But at the end of the day, I've issued my opinion and I've watched democracy now unfold and we're going through the process and that's what sets us apart across the world. American democracy and elections, we do the transition of power in a peaceful way. And we're at that point, in my humble opinion, that we're looking at the next administration taking office on January 20th and that is the results of this election, and that is American democracy.

Am I upset with the results? Of course, I am. I wanted President Trump to win. There's no doubt about that, in my opinion. But at the end of the day, the American people had their opportunity to express their opinion and I respect democracy and we need to move forward.

HARLOW: Again, for democracy to work, you have to accept the facts and this one is not about opinions. I'm glad to have your time and both of you working together. Thank you.

REED: You don't impeachment a president when the American people have also expressed their opinion on the election.

HARLOW: Congressman Josh Gottheimer, thank you, Congressman Reed, thank you both. GOTTHEIMER: Let's get it done and get these vaccines out. Thank you so much.

HARLOW: Yes. Thank you. Jim?

SCIUTTO: A new study finds that coronavirus has been much deadlier among young adults than expected. We're going to have more on that with CNN's Dr. Leana Wen.

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[10:25:00]

HARLOW: Right now, a dangerous winter storm is moving across the east coast with heavy snow, gusting winds and making it really difficult for new COVID vaccines to be delivered to those in need.

[10:30:00]

SCIUTTO: Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is in Boston. if you didn't believe there was a lot of snow there, he's standing in it.