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Giroir: "Very Difficult With Widespread Disease For Testing To Make A Dent"; Trump's Priorities Elsewhere As U.S. Battles COVID Crisis; 14M U.S. Households Face Evictions As COVID-19 Surges. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 18, 2020 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:31:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Testing remains a critical piece in the pandemic puzzle but it is the U.S. giving it the attention that it's due right now? The U.S. is averaging more than 1.8 million COVID-19 tests every day. The White House testing czar Admiral Brett Giroir touted this week's news on new rapid at home tests and said this about the impact overall testing is having.

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ADM. BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, HHS: Right now, it is very difficult with widespread disease for testing to make a dent. That's why we have to do mitigation, slow the spread with the asymptomatic, et cetera. But as the cases sort of go down, you can expect more at home and screening testing, like before you go to work before you travel. So I think the testing needs are going to be more what I would call elective. They're not to put out the big fire that we're trying to do right now.

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BASH: Joining me now is Dr. Michael Mina an assistant professor of epidemiology at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Thank you so much for joining me. Dr. Mina, you have been an advocate for rapid at home testing as a way out of the pandemic. And you just heard Admiral Giroir talk about the role that he sees in testing right now, how does that square with what you believe is the right thing to do?

DR. MICHAEL MINA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, HARVARD: Well, I think that the Admiral is absolutely right. We will see an increased number of at home tests. I know that the admiral has pushed for these at home tests. Things are moving a lot slower than I would like to see. But he has been a great supporter of them. I think that we will see them become more available.

And the reason we need them today is because they can actually serve to stop community transmission. We could help to stop spread of this virus if everyone or half of the people in each community are testing with just a simple test like this, every, every two or three or four days, we could actually find that we are infectious before we go to work, before we go to school, before we go out of the house to go grocery shopping, and be able to then isolate ourselves for until we become negative again and therefore stop the spread to other people.

BASH: You tweeted at the following, Dear, U.S. Congress, if you knew an investment of $5 billion right now would save 500 billion over six months and hundreds of thousands of lives, would you make the investment? Please invest today in frequent rapid test for the U.S.

So, you know, what you're describing now is, I think kind of like a home pregnancy test or maybe even taking your temperature at home. Why is this so hard do you think for these companies to get off the ground? Is it just a matter of basic financing?

MINA: So that's part of it. And that's why I've been calling for Congress to put aside $1 billion out of 900 billion they're about to pass. You know, this is almost 1-1,000th it's barely anything specifically to manufacture these tests to get money to the company so that they can scale up manufacturing quickly. If we can do that, then for another 5 billion for the whole year, Americans could have tests for free, you know, on their taxpayer dollars, of course, in their home.

The problem so far has been regulatory. It's been very slow for these companies to get authorization because the FDA continues to consider these tests only as medical devices, not as public health devices. So we need HHS, we need CDC, and we need the federal government overall to recognize the immense importance of these types of testing, and that this is a public health problem, not a lot of medical problems.

And if we solve it with public health tools, and evaluate these tests as public health tools, we can accelerate them and get them out to the entire community. It will take cost, it will take funding from government, but it will also take right (INAUDIBLE) toward changes.

[12:35:06]

BASH: Dr. Michael Mina, thank you so much for that very important discussion. It is an important thing that is still going on even as we have hope for the vaccine many fronts that this battle is being waged on. Thank you.

MINA: Absolutely.

BASH: And up next, up next, the Vice President takes the vaccine live on television while the president stays out of sight, except on Twitter of course.

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BASH: This just in, an aid to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she received the question coronavirus vaccine. Today, the Capitol attending physician Dr. Brian Monahan administered the dose.

[12:40:07]

And President Trump is the commander-in-chief until Joe Biden takes over on January 20th. He raises his right hand, but lately he's, he meaning President Trump, has been silent on some of the big issues affecting the country and they are huge. Instead, of course, he's focusing on what we've heard since Election Day claims of unfounded fraud in the election.

The President has mentioned vaccines here and there, but no comment from him on the pandemics rising death toll, or what I talked about with Senator Angus King, the massive cyber security breach of government agencies and private companies that security officials say is the work of Russian hackers.

Let's talk about all this with CNN's chief political analyst Gloria Borger. Hey, Gloria, so --

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Thank you.

BASH: -- you know, let's talk about what happened earlier today. It was a made for T.V. moment. It was the Vice President and the Second Lady getting a vaccine on camera on purpose. The President wasn't there. What do you make of that?

BORGER: It's kind of remarkable to me, Dana, because, of course, the President wants to take credit, some of it deserved for getting this vaccine done as quickly as he did, pushing private industry to do it, funding it. And so, it's strange to me, given the fact that this President loves to take credit for things that he wasn't out there. And I think now maybe that Mike Pence is out there, maybe Donald Trump's kind of think that he ought to do it, too.

It's kind of hard to understand, other than the fact that he is so focused right now on the so called rigged election, and how he really should be president for the next four years, et cetera, et cetera, that maybe he doesn't want to be at an event where he might be called upon to answer questions about the rising death toll in this country. That's the only way I can explain it.

BASH: Yes. And the White House is saying that, you know, he had COVID. So he likely still has antibodies, but that's different from --

BORGER: Right.

BASH: -- you know, trying to set an example, which is why we saw those officials do it and our own Sanjay Gupta do it on camera to serve as a role model. So I want to ask about Joe Biden and about the administration that is taking shape, at least the people he is picking to be nominated Congresswoman Deb Haaland is his pick for Interior. Previously, it was announced that Marcia Fudge would be HUD Secretary, of course, Cedric Richmond, is a senior advisor doesn't need confirmation.

But do you think broadly that how we're seeing the administration, the Cabinet, the people closest to him, see it play out? Is that answering the calls and some of the criticism from progressives and other groups saying it has to represent America?

BORGER: Yes. I think it is broadly. I think you're always going to get complaints here and there. And what he's trying to do is balance his own comfort level, which very often comes from a different generation or from the Obama administration with the need, as he stated over and over again, four new faces and diversity. I think the problem that he has, Dana, quite frankly, is that the margins in the House and the Senate, no matter who gets control of the Senate are so narrow, that the more people he picks from the House, the more dangerous it becomes for Nancy Pelosi.

I think she's going to have a majority of what Bree (ph) now in the House. And that's difficult for her and perhaps one of the reasons that he didn't pick someone to be in the administration like Chris Coons or Elizabeth Warren, is that he needs them to stay in the Senate for votes. And so that's something else he's got a balance here.

BASH: Before I let you go, Gloria, you've spent a lot of time with the Biden's. You talk to the President-elect about the tragedy that he had. Now it was 48 years ago today. Today is the 48th anniversary of the car accident that killed his first wife and his daughter, Naomi. Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, walked into church this morning to say a prayer to commemorate this very sad day. As I said, you've talked him so many times about issues of grief. What does this moment mean? I mean, 48 years ago.

BORGER: You know, Joe Biden is somebody who wears his grief on his sleeve. He talks about it all the time. And I think it's what makes him so empathetic as a politician when he talks to people about who have lost loved ones during COVID. He talks about the black hole in your heart that never goes away. And I think he's talking about that about the pictures you're showing right there, his first wife and his young child, also losing his son, Beau.

[12:45:06]

And the way he deals with it is by talking about it. And it's something, you know, one of his staffers said to me that just think of this, the worst thing that you can ever imagine happening to you, has happened to Joe Biden twice in his life, first losing his wife and child, then losing another child. And so when you think about Joe Biden, and how he reacts to tragedy and how he overcame it, it tells you a lot about who he is, and how will govern.

BASH: Yes, it sure does. And at that time, he was in Washington, he was at Senator-elect.

BORGER: Yes.

BASH: And right now he is President-elect, so I'm sure the symmetry is not lost on him. At all, Gloria Borger --

BORGER: Exactly.

BASH: Thank you so much.

BORGER: Thanks Dana. Thanks Dana.

BASH: And tomorrow night, join Anderson Cooper to learn how the country defeated the 1918 pandemic. This new CNN Special Report Pandemic, How a Virus Changed the World in 1918 begins at 9:00. We'll be right back.

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[12:50:52]

BASH: The U.S. is facing a pandemic induced eviction crisis as the CDC's moratorium on evictions expires in less than two weeks on December 31st. That is if Congress doesn't extend it and consider this right now at least 14 million U.S. households are facing eviction by January and nearly 5 million of those households could receive eviction notices. And as CNN's Nick Valencia reports, minorities could be especially hard hit.

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MONICA DELANCY, FOUNDER, THRIVE RESOURCE CENTER: I gave him the case number.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Like so many others behind on their rent, Jasmine Cruz says she's living on borrowed time. A federal halt on evictions is set to expire December 31st. Cruz, a single mother, who owes her landlord two months of rent was recently issued a warrant to pay it. Every day she wakes up expecting to be evicted.

JASMINE CRUZ, RESIDENT WITH EVICTION NOTICE: I'm 25 years old. I'm a single mother and I try on my own. Off of like one income is not easy. I've been struggling.

VALENCIA (voice-over): Now with the two-month-old son no job and unable to pay for childcare during the pandemic, she looks after her son full time. With nowhere else to go and no one to count on, Cruz came here to the Thrive Resource Center. Operated out of a makeshift office in an apartment complex, Monica DeLancy helps those in Atlanta who are at risk of being evicted. All are either Black or Latino. And DeLancy knows their story well.

DELANCY: They put you out. They put me out last year to the day with the Christmas tree on a cold day like this with the Christmas tree. We don't want you to get to that point. If you have to move, we want you to move with dignity. We want you to move and pack your things up and we'll find you a place but we don't want to be forced out because kids do not know how to get over there. Adults can. Kids don't know how to.

VALENCIA (voice-over): Kids like nine-year-old Fantasia who lives with her grandma, Garnell Hodge. Hodge lost her job in a service industry because of COVID.

VALENCIA (on camera): You got on your door.

VALENCIA (voice-over): Last week Hodge says Fantasia started to realize how bad things were when the family got an eviction notice.

GARNELL HODGE, RESIDENT WITH EVICTION NOTICE: Don't have anywhere to go. They've got (INAUDIBLE) and not only that, much info.

VALENCIA (voice-over): Black and Latino families consistently report low confidence in the ability to pay rent during the pandemic. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, communities of color are the hardest hit by the eviction crisis and represent 80 percent of people facing eviction. In Atlanta, the United Way says 95 percent of the families they help who are facing eviction are black.

PROTIP BISWAS, V.P. FOR HOMELESSNESS, UNITED WAY OF GREATER ATLANTA: There's like I said 2,500 applications in process and there's thousands more.

VALENCIA (voice-over): I mean did you get into the point where you can't accept, you can't help everybody that needs help.

BISWAS: Not only can we not help, this, the funding expires end of December, that is the biggest plea we have. There's some way we can extend it so that we can keep helping families.

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VALENCIA: The sad reality is that not everyone is able to get help. Here at the United Way. They're only able to help out people that live within the city limits, thousands have shown up here that have had to be turned away. That's thousands who are either unaware or unable to get resources really puts into perspective who the hardest hit are in this pandemic, Dana.

BASH: It sure does. Nick Valencia, thank you so much for that important report.

[12:54:10]

And up next, the French president is in isolation with coronavirus.

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BASH: French President Emmanuel Macron who tested positive for COVID- 19 on Thursday is now suffering with several symptoms. CNN's Melissa Bell is in Paris. Melissa, what are you hearing about his state right now?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we had the opportunity to see him, Dana. We know that he left the Elysee palace last night to head to a residence that is the residence of French presidents just outside the city in Versailles where he's to recover where he'll be isolating of course for the next seven days as per French regulations.

And he posted earlier on, Dana, this quite extraordinary video message he was looking fairly pale, looking fairly pasty, speaking of those symptoms that you mentioned, and yet upright not bedridden, saying that he would keep the French informed essentially posting everyday news of his health because although for the time being he says he's feeling relatively OK, that could change.

He also talked about the fact that, look, if I can get this virus, it really means that anyone can get it. I'm extremely protected, he said. I take great proportions, respect the barrier gestures, and yet I've caught the virus. So, a really clear message of compassion for those who've had it before and a warning for those who might not have yet, have caught it over the need to continue being careful, Dana.

[13:00:02]

BASH: Melissa Bell, thank you so much for that important report. And thank you for joining us.