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U.S. Faces National Crisis as Hospitalizations Surge to Record Levels; FDA Panel Recommends Emergency Use Authorization of Moderna Vaccine; Supreme Court Rules in Census Challenge. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired December 18, 2020 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:30]

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

It can be hard to grasp where the country is right now quite frankly. You can't overstate how bad things are getting with the virus right now. It is worse than ever, a real national crisis yet you also have the great hope of a second vaccine that it could start shipping out as soon as this weekend.

A formal decision from the FDA could come at any moment to authorize the Moderna vaccine. And the need in the country could not be greater. 1 in 216 Americans have been infected with coronavirus over just the last week. The U.S. is now averaging more cases every single day than it ever has during the pandemic. Hospitalizations hitting another record high. More than 114,000. In Los Angeles County, there are no ICU beds available. That is what they're saying. The health care system is stretched beyond capacity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Myself and a lot of doctors across the country are scared to go to work in a way we've that never been scared before.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're drowning in COVID patients right now. And we're literally kind of up to our neck.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just you know it's getting overwhelming. Just a lot more patients are coming in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: They're drowning in COVID right now they say. And the death toll continues its unrelenting climb. The virus killing another 3,200 Americans on Thursday alone. Kentucky, Utah, California, Tennessee, all setting new death records.

Let's get to two of the hardest hit areas right now.

CNN's Natasha Chen is in Manchester, Tennessee and CNN's Dan Simon is in San Francisco.

Natasha, if we can start with you. Tennessee currently leads the country in the number of coronavirus infections per capita. What are you seeing and hearing there?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate, we are in Coffee County, and this is -- the fairgrounds has turned into a testing site. But I can tell you that right now we don't see anybody in line to get a test and this opened you know about an hour ago. There were a few people trickling in at first, but it's really emptied out.

A lot of the issues that we're seeing are in the eastern part of Tennessee. "The New York Times" created a few lists of where cities where they're seeing the worst right now across the country. Unfortunately, Tennessee has made those list a number of times. That includes Tullahoma, Tennessee which is next door to where were standing right now.

Now, if you look at the overall moving average of daily cases in Tennessee. Let's show you that graph because that's a really stark visual there from early November to the current day we're seeing that skyrocketing graph. And then the hospitalizations, same thing, a very steady increase in a scary way.

The governor here, Bill Lee, says that you know people's Thanksgiving choices are catching up to them. He says the vaccine is a good thing that it's rolling out, but it will take time for that to have impact. And he says the vaccine will not solve people's selfishness or foolishness. He's asking people to please wear a mask, not to gather for the holidays. But we should point out that there's still no statewide mask mandate.

According to the Tennessee Health Department they put out on Twitter yesterday that the positivity rate for their test is more than 21 percent right now and that of the ICU beds across the state only 8 percent of them are available, Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, Dan, let's bring you in on this as well. What -- by comparison, what's going on in California?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate the state is in the midst of really this unprecedented surge. Yesterday you had 52,000 cases. In the last 48 hours you had more than 100,000 cases and that is putting a severe strain on the health care system, as you alluded to, ICU beds really getting low. Statewide it is at 3 percent in southern California it is at 0 percent.

Now the state has set up these alternative care sites, there are 11 of them, five of them have been activated right now and they do have patients. And here in San Francisco the city has taken more aggressive action. The city is saying that if you are coming into San Francisco from outside of the Bay Area that you need to quarantine for 10 days. That includes people who are traveling, people who are moving, and people who live here. It's just another example. Another sobering example that the pandemic is not slowing down. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Not even close. Dan, thank you very much. Natasha Chen, thank you.

[11:05:00] Joining me right now is CNN medical analyst Dr. Megan Ranney. She's an emergency room physician at Rhode Island Hospital. It's good to have you back on, Doctor. Thank you.

Rhode Island is also - I mean -- there's no state that's doing great right now we can say that. But Rhode Island is also a state with one of the highest rates of new cases per capita in the country. What are you seeing right now in your hospital?

Land also has one of the highest rates of new cases per capita in the country. What are you seeing right now in your hospital?

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Our hospital has been under surge for quite a while now. We opened up our field hospitals, our alternative care sites on the 1st of December. The hospitals continue to be tremendously full. Our intensive care unit capacity continues to be low. And we continue to see more patients come through the door, both who are sick from COVID-19 and to are suffering from its aftereffects. So, at this point the surge has been going on for long enough in Rhode Island that we are seeing folks who are coming in with symptoms of long COVID, who are just not getting better or who are having new complications as a result.

We're also seeing increasing numbers of healthcare providers out sick. We have holes in our schedule. We were calling in backup docs pretty much every day between now and the new year because so many of us have had to quarantine or have gotten sick ourselves.

BOLDUAN: I also read just to add to that, Doctor, that you're now seeing entire families coming to the ER at the same time. How do you handle that?

RANNEY: I mean the first thing is how sad it is. It is really difficult we know to separate from your family members when you're sick. And that's why we see such spread within families. We have multi-generational households here in Rhode Island where kids live with grandparents, with aunts and uncles.

And when a lot of people come in with the same last name, one of the things as a healthcare provider is that makes me nervous about mixing up medications or writing the wrong thing in the wrong charts so actually we have protocols to separate folks into different parts of the emergency department so we don't make unintentional mistakes in taking care of them.

BOLDUAN: I never thought of that. You're absolutely right.

I mean, so you now have the startling new data point. You have one in about 200 -- every 200 Americans now infected in just the past seven days. What should that rate of infection mean to people everywhere?

RANNEY: What that rate of infection means is, my goodness, if you have been lucky enough to escape this virus so far, now is the time to double down on all of those measures to protect yourself and your family. It is everywhere. Anything that you do, you are putting yourself at risk of exposure to COVID. This is the time to stay home, to avoid indoor restaurants, to avoid indoor gatherings, to not see people who you don't live with without a mask. And if there's any way to not go physically to work right now, now is the time to do that. We need to make it through this next month so that the vaccine can start getting distributed. Now is the time to double down to protect yourself.

BOLDUAN: You just received your Pfizer vaccine this morning I understand. You've gotten many shots in your life, of course, there's a picture of it happening. What was the moment like for you?

RANNEY: I got a little teary as I got into the room. This is the light at the end of the tunnel for me and for so many healthcare workers and honestly for our entire nation. Receiving the vaccine itself was nothing. It hurt less than a flu vaccine. I expected it to be this big momentous deal and it was just done. It's been a couple of hours now and I still feel completely fine. I, like everyone else who gets the vaccine right now, got monitored for around 20 minutes afterwards. None of us had any adverse effects and got to go home just fine.

But I'll say the thing that is most meaningful to me is seeing my social media feeds filled with the pictures of fellow physicians, nurses, PA's, Tech's, housekeeping staff who are getting the vaccine as well. That just -- we've been through so much as healthcare workers over the last 10 months and to see that literal shot of hope going into the arms of so many colleagues, I just can't begin to express what it means.

BOLDUAN: You know, there's also this real tension that is emerging between the Trump administration and Pfizer, the maker of this first vaccine. It's starting -- it seems to have kind of really started off yesterday with the HHS secretary suggesting that Pfizer is going to be needing government help to ramp up their manufacturing of vaccines. Pfizer then put out a statement saying that they have no problems.

And also, I have got to tell you, Doctor, a source close to Pfizer then followed up with me and told me this, "Pfizer has vaccines that are just sitting in warehouses waiting to be told where to go, and Pfizer has made specific requests of Operation Warp Speed for direction. Pfizer has not received it."

This source even went on -- went as far to question Alex Azar's honesty. Millions of doses sitting in a warehouse with no direction from Operation Warp Speed. What do you say to that?

[11:10:06]

RANNEY: That confirms what I have been hearing as well from folks within both government and pharmaceuticals and hospitals.

What I have heard is that Pfizer has been manufacturing as predicted, we know there were some small delays earlier last week, but states have been asking for vaccine and not receiving them and it's not because of lack of manufacturing.

I'm also hearing that the timeline that is being put forward right now is a little overambitious. To be realistic, most Americans are not going to be getting vaccinated until early summer. And communication from the government right now that says that we should be expecting vaccines in arms of low-risk Americans by March or April is simply unrealistic and is creating false hope and false expectations.

I think this is yet another example -

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Do you think that's reckless to put that out?

RANNEY: I do. I do think it's reckless. I also think it's yet another reflection of the logistical failures of the current administration. You know, it's amazing and wonderful that they put the money into creating the vaccine, Kate. But they also should have invested in the back end, right, of getting the vaccine into people's arms, having the data infrastructure there, having the shipments set up. And that really wasn't done. And I think we're seeing the reflection of that right now.

BOLDUAN: Doctor, thank you.

Coming up for us, the Supreme Court just weighed in on the president's push to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census. We have that.

Plus, hesitancy and skepticism from some of the communities hardest hit by the pandemic. What's being done to rebuild that trust. Here's what they're up against.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't know any kind of side effects from them. So, I just really feel like at this point it is people that's going to take that vaccine is guinea pigs. I just feel like we don't know enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:16:28]

BOLDUAN: We are following some breaking news coming in this morning, the Supreme Court delayed ruling on whether or not the Trump administration can exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted on the census -- in the census. This morning the justices threw out a challenge to the president's plan.

CNN's Jessica Schneider, she has all the details. She is joining us right now.

Jessica, why are they throwing out this challenge?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Kate, the justices here really saying the challenge isn't ready to be reviewed yet since the census numbers haven't been presented to the president. And it's not clear just yet if undocumented immigrants will definitely be excluded from this count.

So, in a sense this is a win for the Trump administration because it wipes away what was a lower court ruling that declared the president's policy to exclude these undocumented immigrants from the census count. They had determined it a violation of federal law but now the Supreme Court just saying it's not time to rule on this yet.

But this isn't a total win here, the court is saying that the challenge can't be brought now but if the president in his final month of office gets the census numbers, and they exclude those undocumented immigrants, then that's when the challengers can come back to the court.

So, here's how the court is putting it in this unsigned opinion. They're saying this. "...this case is riddled with contingencies and speculation that impede judicial review. The president, to be sure, has made clear his desire to exclude aliens without lawful status from the apportionment base. But the president qualified his directive by providing that the secretary should gather information 'to the extent practicable' and that aliens should be excluded 'to the extent feasible.' Any prediction how the Executive Branch might eventually implement this general statement of policy is 'no more than conjecture' at this time."

But that statement did not satisfy at least three of the liberal justices here. Justice Stephen Breyer, he wrote it to Senate. And it was joined by Justices Kagan and Sotomayor. They put it simply saying, "The harm is clear on the face of the policy."

And really that's been the sentiment of many civil liberties groups here. To leave this policy in place until the president actually implements it and cuts undocumented immigrants out of the count and that federal money and the congressional seats are apportioned without taking those people into account. The civil liberties groups say that's harmful in itself.

And of course, Kate, this has been a major push for the president. It's unclear how this could proceed in the final 30 days. The Commerce Department saying it's not probably going to have its final count until February, that's after Joe Biden becomes president.

And of course, Joe Biden has already suggested he will not implement this policy to exclude these undocumented immigrants. But, of course, there's still this month left in Trump's term. Some are fearful what he might do between now and then.

Will he get those numbers? Will he try to exclude the undocumented immigrants? And will it move forward in Congress to apportion those seats, divvy up that federal money before Joe Biden comes in and tries to undo this policy? Kate, that's the question now.

BOLDUAN: Jessica, thank you very much for bringing this up.

Coming up for us, Vice President Pence goes before cameras to get the COVID vaccine and try to help put the pandemic behind us.

President Trump is nowhere to be found.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:24:39]

BOLDUAN: You're looking here at an important moment this morning. Dr. Sanjay Gupta receiving his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine. Sanjay described the moment as a striking one both momentous and also mundane in the simple action.

[11:25:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I felt totally comfortable getting this vaccine today. I just want to say that because I think so many people have asked me that. I think it's a fair question.

Things moved really, really fast here and I think maybe that sometimes, caused trepidation, you know, that it did move too fast. But as Dr. Rice just said, the critical steps in terms of determining why something is effective, why something is safe, does it work for these different demographics. Those were the steps that were not skipped. So, hopefully, you know, we just got our shots. And you know hopefully that sends a message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: It does. Also, this morning, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, received their COVID vaccines before cameras. Part of the administration's effort now to boost public confidence in the vaccine.

But this is the duel universe that the administration is trying to live in. The Pence's and the Surgeon General Jerome Adams doing the right thing, leading by example and getting the vaccine. But the very same moment, the president is in hiding.

Let's get over to John Harwood. He's at the White House. He is joining me once again.

John, he's not even talking about the pandemic. As Pence is pushing the message of follow and trust science as he's getting the vaccine, Trump is retweeting someone questioning someone the use of masks. It would be comical if it wasn't dangerous.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's very disturbing picture. And we have got to say as you said in the intro, what Vice President Pence, what Karen Pence, what Surgeon General Jerome Adams along with our colleague Sanjay Gupta did this morning was positive. It will save lives if it builds confidence in the vaccine. And encourages more Americans to take it.

Unfortunately, President Trump, who has got a lot more influence with followers than Vice President Pence does, is consumed with his own grievances about the election, about his news coverage. He tweeted this morning complaining about "The New York Times" being unfair to him. He tweeted about the Russia hoax. He tweeted the right-wing radio host that you mentioned who is questioning the effective of masks, he was praising the incoming senator from Alabama Tommy Tuberville who has suggested he may try to challenge the election results when Congress certifies the votes on January 6th.

All things that gratify the grievances and the ego of President Trump but are not dealing with the pandemic that's killing in the last seven days more than 2,500 Americans per day.

BOLDUAN: Also, John, we're just learning that the Pentagon has cancelled all transition meetings scheduled for today, may not resume until after the holidays. What are you hearing?

HARWOOD: Well, what we're hearing, our colleagues, Ryan Browne and Jeff Zeleny, is that the briefings were paused yesterday, in part because of a focus on avoiding the government shutdown as Congress tries to come together on this COVID relief deal but they will resume shortly.

So, not clear. You know, we'll see if, in fact, they get resumed and if they do not, this pause does not have a significant effect on our national security. It is worth noting that among the other things the president has been passive on, Kate, is this massive Republican cyber intrusion into agencies across the U.S. government. That's something very concerning to a lot of people, both parties in Congress, president had virtually nothing to say about that.

BOLDUAN: Add it to the list. John, thank you.

Coming up, time is running out as Congress is scrambling to reach a deal on COVID relief. Will they get it done?

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