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Interview with ICU Nurse as COVID-19 Deaths Break Records; FDA Meeting Today to Review Moderna Vaccine; French President Emmanuel Macron Tests Positive for COVID-19. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired December 17, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: It's the top of the hour, I'm Brianna Keilar and I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world.

Before we get to breaking news on a second vaccine and a stimulus deal meant to provide relief for American families, I want to start with the most important thing, and that is that we are a nation in crisis: 3,656 Americans who were reported to have lost their lives yesterday. That is in one day, it's a record, it is the deadliest day of the pandemic. And that is on top of a new record also set for new cases and hospitalizations. Here are some of their stories.

Paul and Rosemary Blackwell, grandparents, both just in their 60s, both teachers. Paul is a football coach. They died this week after two weeks in the ICU and several days on ventilators. They died in the same bed, holding each other's hands and the hands of their family. Their children had to make the difficult decision to take them off life support.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRANDON BLACKWELL, LOST BOTH PARENTS TO COVID-19: To say goodbye to a parent, you know? And it's -- you know, it still just seems unreal. Like me and my brother were talking earlier, like, my mom and dad are just going to walk through that door any second. But you know, we know that they're not. And it's just the hardest decision (INAUDIBLE) that any child has to make for their parents. And like I say, I'm just glad that my brother was there with me and I was able to lean on him as he was able to lean on me.

All the memories, it's just my mom made Christmas happen. My mom made that, they both made Christmas happen. They made every holiday happen, like it's crazy, just like I said, it doesn't seem real.

I remember this one time, I know my dad when we were younger, he used to put fake giant bunny print footprints through the house like the Easter Bunny came through when Easter came around, and that was one of the many things that I'm always going to remember.

We would wake up in the morning, me and Sean (ph), I would be like, we have a home video of that. And (INAUDIBLE), look the Easter Bunny came, look.

(LAUGHTER)

And I'm always going to remember that. And that's one of the memories I'm always going to remember. But Christmas is always going to be just about family with my mom, because my mom was family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Sarah Finefrock lost her dad, George, to coronavirus. And in an emotional essay for "The Washington Post," she described what it was like to watch this virus take his life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH FINEFROCK, LOST HER DAD TO COVID-19: My experience was on Friday, November 13th. And my person was my dad. His name is George, his name was George and he was funny and giving and frustrated me at times. And he was overly proud of my brother and I, and he wore a mask and he died of COVID-19.

George made an impression on the people he knew. to know him was to laugh with him. So why have I spent the last few days worried that he will just be a number the news shares each night? More than 1,300 Americans died of COVID-19 on November 13th. I worry George will be another anonymous statistic presented through jokes and memes about how awful 2020 was.

I need George's death to mean something to strangers, just as much as you would want the person you loved, mattered most if they died.

All I can do now, the only path left for me is to tell you to take COVID-19 seriously. Don't end up clutching your person's hands as their body no longer accepts air.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: In New Mexico, 3rd grade teacher Philamena Bellany died from COVID this past Friday. She had recently become a grandmother and she was beloved by her students. Her brother says that she continued tutoring until the end, even when she was wearing an oxygen mask.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP BELONE, LOST HIS SISTER TO COVID-19: She referred to her students as her children. When she would call, she would always mention one of her special students. And that gave her life, that gave her focus and that took away all the pain that she faced in the world. And it was her life's calling.

So when she was in the hospital, the first time, she wanted to go home because her calling was to serve others. I've seen posts from many family members expressing condolences, and thanking Philamena for teaching their kids. So she definitely impacted their lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: Now, despite his grief, Belone did not want to finish his interview with CNN without thanking all of the frontline medical workers who are risking their own lives to care for others.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BELONE: I understand that many of you provide the same care you would for family, and are very tired, frustrated, and have to bear the burden of loss now and forever. There is nothing I can give you in honor of your commitment, courage and compassion. I can simply say I appreciate you and am thankful for all that you do.

[14:05:04]

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: My next guest is one of the people who is on the frontlines of this national crisis. Caroline McNamara is a nurse in the intensive care unit at UPMC Williamsport, which is a hospital in Central Pennsylvania.

Caroline, thank you so much for coming on to talk to us. I know that you are experiencing this pandemic from the professional side and from the personal side. You have seen more than a dozen of your family members get infected, and that includes your father, who has been in the ICU that you work in.

So I do want to ask you about the vaccine first, I want to ask you about your dad. How is he doing?

CAROLINE MCNAMARA, ICU NURSE, UPMC WILLIAMSPORT: He's doing great, he's hopefully coming home today or tomorrow, so he's made an amazing recovery.

KEILAR: What has it been like? What has his treatment been like, what has it been like watching him go through this?

MCNAMARA: I mean, this has kind of been my worst nightmare since March, when all of this started. And now I'm seeing him get the same treatment that we've been doing for all the patients I've been taking care of the past couple months, so it's been really scary the entire time. But I have amazing coworkers that are taking care of him, and I'm so thankful for them.

KEILAR: He -- was he on a ventilator at one point?

MCNAMARA: Yes, he was on a ventilator for four days, I believe.

KEILAR: I mean, that must be incredibly scary. So I know you're watching this as a nurse to many patients, and then you're seeing your friends, your coworkers taking care of your dad, which I'm certainly -- I hope gave you comfort, but I'm just so glad that he's coming home. I'm sure it's been incredibly tough.

And so this is your situation as you are going to be getting the vaccine. Tell us about that. MCNAMARA: Yes, so we just got news that the vaccine has arrived, so

we're hopefully getting it tomorrow morning. I just think it gives so much hope for the future, that patients aren't going to be getting us sick and our staff won't be as sick, we'll have better ratios of nurses to patients. And I think it just brings a lot of hope for us as nurses, as well as the community and these patients' family members.

KEILAR: Can you feel that among your colleagues, like a shift, knowing that the vaccine is being distributed?

MCNAMARA: Yes, definitely. There's -- it's almost like there's a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel now.

KEILAR: Yes, there certainly is. And, look, Caroline, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. We wish you luck tomorrow --

MCNAMARA: Thank you.

KEILAR: -- and we're certainly keeping your dad and your family in our thoughts, in our hearts. We appreciate it. So best of luck as you get your first vaccine dose tomorrow.

MCNAMARA: Thanks.

KEILAR: There is a major meeting of an FDA advisory board under way right now to review a second coronavirus vaccine. This is one for Moderna, after Pfizer got the green light last week for emergency use authorization. A vaccine division official in the FDA is saying that Moderna's candidate is expected to get the go-ahead as well. Before these shots go into arms, though, a final signoff has to come from the FDA and the CDC.

And joining me now is E.R. doctor Esther Choo who is also a professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University.

OK, before we talk vaccines, which is clearly -- I mean, it's so important, you can hear that just in the voice of the nurse we just spoke to -- I just want to get your take on the moment that we're at in this pandemic. Because before most people get vaccines, they have to wait months. And we just suffered the deadliest day yet that we have seen.

Now there's a new CDC forecast, which aggregates models and estimates that there could be 391,000 total dead by January 9th, which is another 80,000 people, I mean, in less than a month here. Is it possible that we can stop this from happening?

ESTHER CHOO, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It seems impossible, Brianna, particularly because every holiday creates a new surge, almost despite ourselves. Because people of course are so eager to gather and at this point of the pandemic, a year in, of course, it's hard to tell people that you still need to withdraw from your loved ones, and that time is precious.

And so we totally understand that. And yet every time we gather, we see a surge in cases. And --

KEILAR: Sorry, can you hear me, Doctor Choo?

CHOO: Yes, I can hear you. I'm sorry, I can hear you clearly, can you hear me?

KEILAR: OK, you said every time -- great, yes, I certainly can. You said every time that we gather, we see a surge in cases.

CHOO: That's right. And you know, it's -- I know it's hard for people who are in the hospital like we are, who see this day to day. But those kind of record-breaking days, I mean, they're not subtle records. It's not like going from, you know, 15 more deaths a day. We are doubling and tripling over a very short period of time. And we feel those surges in the hospital.

And those incredibly moving stories that you just showed us, that's our day-to-day reality every hour of every day across the country in hospitals everywhere. And so we don't know what to do in this moment except really urge people to say, yes, take hope from the vaccine, but remember we have to buckle down and also still try to control this pandemic with our individual behaviors like face mask wearing and staying home whenever we can. That is the only way we're going to get through without just astronomical losses of loved ones.

[14:10:17]

KEILAR: Yes, no, it's so important to remember that.

During this FDA panel today, Doctor, Moderna announced it's creating a pregnancy registry which would track pregnancies during clinical trials for its COVID-19 vaccine. What would you recommend to a pregnant patient? Should she get the coronavirus vaccine if it becomes available to her?

CHOO: Well, the major medical associations that specialize in women's health and in pregnant women's health are recommending that women don't specifically avoid the vaccine because they're pregnant or trying to get pregnant. This is not a live vaccine, so there's no specific concerns for risk to fetus or to the mother.

Of course, this should be an individualized conversation between a woman and her ObGyn to make sure that she's able to ask all the questions that she has.

But pregnant women are at higher risk for more serious complications, so it really overall, I think we would like to see pregnant women get vaccinated and keep their entire pregnancy as safe as possible. Hopefully people will feel more confident as that kind of data comes out.

KEILAR: Pfizer's vaccine is now going out to frontline workers, it's going out to nursing home residents. We're actually learning a curious thing about the vials that maybe isn't as curious to you, but I think it is to laypeople, that the vials contain extra doses of the vaccine. There's each vial that should contain five doses, and in some they've been able to extract six or seven doses from that.

The FDA says that's normal. Can you explain that to us?

CHOO: Totally. So for these multiuse vials, they put in a little extra often. And it's because you can imagine, as you're going in and out of a vial with a needle, there's a little bit of slop (ph) just depending on how big your needle is, you know, maybe you just accidentally aspirate a little bit too much. They want to have a tiny bit of extra to correct for human error and just the variability with which people use those vials.

Now, this happens all the time and we don't pay a lot of attention to it because, you know, the little left at the end of the vial, it's like medication we don't -- you know, we have plenty of and you just kind of throw away that vial and don't think about it.

But our really brilliant clinical pharmacists, in this age of -- you know, in this wave of vaccine where we don't have enough for what we need, the pharmacists broached this question to the manufacturer and to the FDA, why don't we actually try to squeeze every extra dose we can out of these vials rather than simply tossing them aside? So this offers the opportunity for us to really take advantage of that little extra dose when we can.

KEILAR: Yes, it is truly the elixir of life and so we see why they're doing that. Dr. Esther Choo, thank you so much for being with us and for explaining that to us.

CHOO: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: Next, another 885,000 people filing for unemployment last week as Congress continues to bicker over its COVID relief bill. The size of stimulus checks for struggling Americans seems to be the main sticking point right now. I'll be speaking live with Senator Tammy Duckworth.

Plus, a stay-at-home order is about to take effect for the entire San Francisco Bay Area as ICU beds near capacity.

[14:13:30]

And one of the Republican senators locked in a heated runoff in Georgia refuses to admit Joe Biden is president-elect nine times in the same news conference.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The U.S. today hit another grim milestone, more than 17 million coronavirus cases as deaths, infections and hospitalizations in this country have set new records. Just five days ago, we reached 16 million cases. That is 1 million new cases in less than a week.

Our reporters here in the U.S. and around the world have more on the pandemic's impact.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dan Simon in San Francisco. California, recording more than 53,000 cases on Wednesday, that includes several days of backlog. Nonetheless, it is a remarkable figure. Hospitalizations and ICU beds also at record levels, and that is why the San Francisco Bay Area, the entire region, is under a stay- at-home order because ICU availability has now gotten below 15 percent.

In the meantime, we are at UCSF Medical Center where they are now administering the Pfizer vaccine. They've administered about a thousand doses to frontline health workers including doctors, nurses and custodial workers.

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Lucy Kafanov in Phoenix, where it is an exciting day as hundreds of Arizona first responders get their first injections of the Pfizer vaccine.

I spoke to one firefighter who said he's getting the vaccination to help protect himself, his family and the community he serves. He says he wants to lead by example in getting folks to trust the science and do their part in helping to curb the spread of this devastating virus.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Melissa Bell in Paris. The French president has tested positive for COVID-19 after beginning to display symptoms. As per French regulations, he will now be isolating for the next seven days. His wife too, Brigitte Macron, isolating as well although she does not have any symptoms we're told.

As for the people he's come into contact with this week, the list, as you'd imagine, is pretty long. The Spanish and Portuguese prime ministers have both announced that as a result of their meetings with the French president this week, they will be cancelling a number of events that they had planned.

Others, however -- for instance the entire French cabinet, all of France's ministers who met with the president on Wednesday, will not have to be isolating. They are not contact cases because social distancing was observed.

[14:20:11]

KEILAR: Thank you to my colleagues for those reports.

And next, every top Republican senator has finally said it's time to acknowledge Joe Biden will be the next president, but that message hasn't made it to one Georgia senator in a critical runoff election. You have to see Kelly Loeffler's masterclass in deflection.

Plus, a Republican mayor in Kansas resigns after getting death threats simply because she endorsed a mask mandate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:25:16]

KEILAR: Dodge, deny, deflect: it is what we've seen many Republicans do since the reality of Trump's election loss has somehow become a debate in this country. But in Georgia, where incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler is fighting to keep her seat in a critical runoff race, it's a strategy.

In a short press conference yesterday, Loeffler deflected or just outright ignored several direct questions about the results of the election, and she did this not once, not twice, but nine times.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator, do you plan to join with members of the House to object to Joe Biden's electors on January 6th?

SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R-GA): Well, look, January 6th is a long ways off right now. We've got a Senate race to run here in Georgia, we've got to win. The future of the country is on the ballot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: is it accurate to say you haven't decided on that one yet?

LOEFFLER: Look I haven't looked at it. January 6th is a long way off, there's a lot to play out between now and then.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator McConnell has called to congratulate President-elect Biden. Is that something you've done, do you plan to do that in the future?

LOEFFLER: Look, I'm focused on winning this race on January 5th. I talked to Leader McConnell this morning. We're focused very much on delivering relief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you acknowledged that Biden will be the president?

LOEFFLER: Look, there -- the president has a right to every legal recourse. That's what's playing out right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But have you acknowledged that Biden is going to be president?

LOEFFLER: Look, that -- my focus is on winning this race right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you ever acknowledge that Biden will become president?

LOEFFLER: Look there'll be a time for that if that becomes true, but you know, the president has a right to every legal recourse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you feel concerned at all that if you don't acknowledge that Biden is going to be the president-elect that you might lose some voters in the runoff?

LOEFFLER: Look, my focus right now is my race. It has to be, because the American dream is on the ballot --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But are you worried specifically about that stance, by not acknowledging him, might backfire as you are campaigning to be elected?

LOEFFLER: What I'm worried about is that we have free and fair elections that are trusted here in Georgia.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator McConnell has acknowledged President- elect Biden as the president-elect. Do you face a risk by not following his example? And you say you had a conversation with him this morning. Was that a topic of conversation at all?

LOEFFLER: Look what I -- I'm the voice for Georgia, and Georgians want to know that they have free and fair elections. That's what I'm fighting for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: All right, let's talk about this now with CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp. It is stunning to watch that, but I just wonder, S.E., what you think because it seems like one of the compelling reasons that Senator Loeffler would have to tell people that they should elect her is to say -- which is true -- Joe Biden's going to be the next president and I should be there to counter him. That is what she could be telling Republican voters.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure. It is -- I mean, it's hard not to do the Ed Rooney voice, "Nine times." But it is really uncanny and dumbfounding to watch her. To you and I, I think a lot of people, she sounds delusional, right? If you knew someone that refused to acknowledge reality to that extent, you might be concerned for them.

But putting her in context in her state, she's going on campaign stops, right? For her re-election, her runoff. And she is being bombarded by Trump supporters who actually don't think she's gone far enough in her support of the president's, you know, fake legal challenges to losing his election. They want her to go farther (ph) in promoting that baseless lie.

So she wants to get re-elected? She's got to act like a lunatic to do it, to please Trump and not offend his supporters. To the rest of us, it just looks bonkers.

KEILAR: I mean, she did look uncomfortable, which I imagine it would be, having to deflect those kinds of questions. It looked like maybe she knew what reality was but she just wasn't going to say. And she also left open the possibility that she may object to the Electoral College results of Biden's victory when it's brought before Congress next month. is that something that's gone too far?

CUPP: It's mind-blowing, and I think it's a huge slap in the face to Georgia voters. And I think Raphael Warnock made this point, Georgia voted and they're voting now. And if you want their votes for you, you should be encouraging that instead of saying, well, that election was fraudulent. I'm going to oppose it in Congress, but I'm going to trust that your vote for me will be fair and free and this election will be sound? It makes no sense strategically, it's nonsense. And if I were a Georgia voter I'd be pretty offended.

[14:30:03]

KEILAR: I do want to turn now to a story that you wrote about.