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California Grapples with ICU Bed Shortage; Vaccine Doses Shipped Across U.S.; Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) is Interviewed about Government Hack; British Granddad Becomes Internet Hit. Aired 9:30- 10a

Aired December 22, 2020 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:09]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Well, this morning, California's governor says stay-at-home orders that already cover 98 percent of that state will likely be extended because of how much COVID cases are soaring all across California. Nearly 38,000 new cases there yesterday alone. There are no ICU beds available in southern California. Hospitals and their staff are stretched nearly to the breaking point.

Our Sara Sidner joins us from Los Angeles this morning at UCLA's Harbor Medical Center.

Sara, hospitals -- I mean, it's hard to actually believe the words that in southern California they're out of ICU beds.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it really is. I mean we're talking about zero percent capacity. Zero. What does that mean? It means that hospitals, like here at Harbor UCLA Medical Center, it means they have to find other space because, guess what, they cannot send people to hospitals in Los Angeles County because those hospitals are also completely filled up.

So what they've done here is they allowed me to go into the ER, where they have put very, very sick COVID-19 patients who may usually be in the ICU, but there's just no room there. They are now down and holding in the ER and being cared for there.

It really is stark. It really is disturbing to see just the amount of care that each and every patient needs. We were able to look in and see, you know, eight different medications through IV being given to just one patient. And you see that over and over again.

And as we're walking around, you see that every single bed, every single room has someone in it who is struggling to breathe. It is such a heavy, heavy, heavy lift for all of the nurses and doctors who, by the way, have been battling this of course now for more than nine months. We should mention, you know, in talking to some of these doctors and

nurses, they say that this has been worse now, this wave, this surge has been worse now than they have ever seen it. And they've been through two other surges. But they now have not only a lot of coronavirus patients, but also the regular patients that come in, those numbers are coming up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Are you OK?

NANCY BLAKE, CHIEF NURSING OFFICER, HARBOR UCLA MEDICAL CENTER: No. I -- it's the worst I've ever seen. I've been a nurse for 40 years. And it's the worst I've ever seen. And some of the things these nurses are seeing, where their patients are dying, there's no family members, so they're holding that patient's hand, or they're on the other side of an iPad where the family's crying.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And we talked to one of the nurses who had that scenario happen. He worked all day on a patient and the next morning, right before his shift, that patient passed away. They are dealing with loss after loss after loss. And, by the way, hospitalizations are up 63 percent over the last 14 days here.

Poppy.

HARLOW: You really asked her the most important question, Sara, are you OK? And they're not. They're going to need a lot of support from all of us on the other side of this.

Sara Sidner, we'll see you with more of that reporting next hour.

Thank you.

In a little over a week, more than 4.6 million doses of COVID vaccine have been shipped out and delivered to hospitals across the country. According to the CDC, more than 614,000 people have already been vaccinated. The first round has been prioritized for those health care workers and those in assisted living facilities. Most Americans have to wait. It's going to be months before you get the vaccine most likely.

Sara Murray joins us with more.

Is there clarity on that, Sara? I guess down the line?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, right now we're just getting estimates that say, you know, maybe near the end of February, maybe into March we'll be able to start talking about the broader population. But I think it really depends not only on how fast they can get these doses out to the states, but then how quickly, you know, when they get to the states they're able to get these doses into people's arms. So you saw a little bit of -- there's a lag in the data. You know that

number is probably more than 600,000 in terms of people who have already gotten their first doses. But it's still far short of, you know, the more than 4 million doses that have come out. So one thing states are going to have to reconcile is, what's the quickest way to do this when you move beyond health care workers, when you move beyond long term care facilities and you start to look at, you know, people who are over age 75, people who are essential workers. How do you begin to vaccinate those folks in a way that is efficient?

Now, we're already seeing these vaccines go out to more sites, which is a good thing. They'll have access to more people. Warp Speed officials said between yesterday and today vaccines should be going out to 4,000 sites. And that means that we're not just talking about hospitals and we're not just talking about long term care facilities, but they're starting to move into places like pharmacies and grocery stores. They're starting to move into maybe smaller health care providers in rural areas.

[09:35:03]

But, again, Poppy, like you said, we still have these -- these health care workers, these long term care facility residents that are going to be getting this first and it's still going to be a little while before the rest of us can get a vaccine.

HARLOW: For sure.

OK, Sara, thank you for the reporting this morning.

Ahead for us, we've learned new details overnight about that huge hack of U.S. government agencies and private companies. We're going to speak to the top senator on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner will join us.

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HARLOW: A key Senate Democrat says the Treasury Department, we now know, is among the federal agencies that was targeted and hacked in this suspected Russian hack. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, ranking member on the Finance Committee, now says dozens of Treasury email accounts were compromised.

[09:40:05]

And, remember, this hack, which has happening since March, is still happening.

With me now, Virginia Democratic Senator, and vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, also sits on the Finance Committee, Senator Mark Warner.

Senator, it's good to have you.

What can you tell us about how deep this went into Treasury? SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Well, Poppy, not just Treasury, but a number

of government agencies, as well as a number of key companies, including FireEye, one of our country's best cybersecurity firms who thank goodness came forward and reported this hack. They didn't have to. But they were the ones who, in a sense, alerted the government and our country to how serious this was.

You know, one -- there's a couple lessons learned. Number one, when a top tier spy agency of a leading country, and the secretary of state has acknowledged it being Russia, goes against the unclassified networks -- because the good news is this was only the unclassified networks -- of government agencies or private companies, the spy agency is going to win, number one.

Number two, this was deep, it was across a number of enterprises and they have been in for months. It will take us weeks to fully figure it out and literally months to remediate.

HARLOW: Do -- do -- so --

WARNER: And, three, it will require us, I think, to reexamine the fact that there is no mandatory reporting obligation, even of government agencies, let alone private companies to the -- to the government when there is a hack. If you're a public company, you have a report at the end of the quarter, but there's no immediate requirement to report. These are all things that leave us much more vulnerable.

HARLOW: For sure. I just wonder, because, as you said, it's going to take months at least to figure out how deep this truly went, and it's still ongoing. How can you be so sure that only unclassified networks were hacked? Do you know for sure?

WARNER: That is -- that is the current, you know, analysis. We have -- you have to trace down this malware and there are harder barriers to get into classified networks, but that is the presumption we're working on.

You know, this was the -- this was a first-tier very sophisticated operation that went for months and is probably as deep a hack into, as you reported, private email accounts and potentially even into supply chains of some of our companies. And my fear is, if you look at just from the innovation side, you get into a whole series of companies, into those startup companies where the real innovation is taking place and you can steal out that intellectual property as well. And this is a serious item that needs to be addressed.

HARLOW: Do you agree with these assessments from your colleagues in the Senate, Dick Durbin and Mitt Romney? Let me play them for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): This is virtually a declaration of war by Russia on the United States, and we should take that seriously.

SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): What I find most astonishing is that a cyber hack of this nature is really the modern equivalent of almost of Russian bombers reportedly flying undetected over the entire country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Do you share their assessment from your Democratic and your Republican colleagues that this is essentially an act of war?

WARNER: I think the language they've used goes a little bit further than where I'm at and I think where the intelligence community is. This was a very, very large, sophisticated espionage effort. And it appears to be mostly successful.

This was not the kind of denial of service attack that is a real attack at bringing down systems the way the Russians attacked Ukraine a few years back in what was called the NotPetya Attack. It does raise the question, though, of what are our standards in this country and, for that matter, international standards of what goes beyond espionage into this realm of nation state attack. We don't have a common agreement on that because I do believe we need a common agreement so that if a country like Russia does this, they are forewarned ahead of time that we will strike back.

HARLOW: Yes.

WARNER: Because simply better cyber hygiene alone will not protect these agencies and these companies. We need that improved reporting but we need to also make sure that we've got a doctrine, the same way we had a doctrine around nuclear arms, a doctrine around NATO, that our adversaries know that if they -- if they violate that there will be consequences. So far there's not been for Russia or for China in many cases when they have attacked us as well.

HARLOW: I'd like to spend the remainder of our time, if I could, Senator, talking to you about stimulus.

And I was glad to wake up this morning to the headlines that you guys got it done. That there is relief for the millions of Americans who needed it.

[09:45:00]

But to be very candid, they have waited four months. Congress knew at the end of July it was going to start evaporating. And for four months millions of more Americans, millions, have fallen into poverty and researchers say a big reason is because more stimulus wasn't passed sooner.

Why did it take until the 11th hour?

WARNER: Americans got every right to be mad as hell. And the House passed a stimulus bill back in I think -- passed one in May, and I think another one in June. And part of the reason was the leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, refused to bring a bill up. And I think in many ways, you know, the Trump administration put forward a fairly major proposal. I think both sides thought, well, maybe this will get involved in the presidential election. All the time more and more people were falling off the economic cliff. And that's why a group of us, bipartisan senators, more moderate, said

to heck with the finger pointing and posturing, we've got to get our act together. We don't want to be the Grinch that stole Christmas. And we spent a month hammering out this $908 billion package. It then -- the so-called leadership took it and manipulated it a little bit, but it still ended up being $910 billion and the money is now going out.

HARLOW: I hear you. I hear you. But you just pointed to leadership in both parties. And I wonder, frankly, as a Democrat, you know, what's the lesson here for you guys, so it doesn't have to take to the 11th hour again because that's not why people elected all of you.

And, look, you were one of the leaders who got that group together and you deserve a lot of credit for that, but the reason all of you are elected is to do your job when people need it, especially in a pandemic. And people waited far too long.

WARNER: Amen. Amen. And it is incumbent upon all of us. And I will point out, you know, I do think the Democrats operated in more good faith trying to urge McConnell to bring the House package up, the so- called Heroes package up.

But the lesson I take away from this, and what gives me positive going into 2021, the number of senators, Democrats and Republicans, who came up to me and said, Mark, next time you put together one of these gangs, these groups, please include me. There is a huge amount of frustration. Men and women in the United States Senate are not oblivious to how crazy we look not taking up this package earlier. And if this means you need more kind of rising of the sensible Senate, or people who want to get there to get stuff done, I hope this will bode well for 2021.

HARLOW: I hope so, too. And I appreciate your work on this and for being here today.

Happy holidays. Senator Mark Warner, thank you.

WARNER: Thank you. Stay safe.

HARLOW: All right, we'll be right back.

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[09:52:14]

HARLOW: Well, it was a chance interview that created an Internet sensation. Ninety-one-year-old British grandfather Martin Kenyon appeared right here on this show, do you remember the live interview a few weeks ago, to talk about being one of the first people in the world to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Who could forget Kenyon and his blunt reaction to getting the shot.

Our Cyril Vanier caught up with him for a second chat about his holiday plans and how he feels about his newfound web stardom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARTIN KENYON, JUST RECEIVED COVID-19 VACCINE: Funny enough interesting history about this.

CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Ninety-one-year-old Martin Kenyon is not an obvious candidate to become an overnight viral sensation. Yet that's exactly what happened after this.

KENYON: I said, what's this thing, you're doing the vaccination. I said, yes. I hope I'm not going to have the bloody bug now. I don't intend to have it because I've got granddaughters and I want to live a long time.

Well, there's no point in dying now when I have lived this long, is there?

VANIER: Martin was one of the very first Britons to receive the coronavirus vaccine. His dry wit, humor and, let's face it, bluntness --

KENYON: I had a rather nasty lunch.

VANIER: Won the Internet. Five million views and counting on Twitter. Earned him a star turn on "Good Morning Britain."

KENYON: No. Who are you?

VANIER: And gushing headlines. "The Sun" would even like to see him in the hit Netflix series "The Crown."

So what did Martin make of all this attention?

KENYON: Ten days of notoriety, more than I've ever had in my life. And I'm very old for it suddenly to happen now, isn't it. Very ridiculous. All because I rang up guy's (ph) hospital and we talked there.

VANIER: The embodiment of the British mantra, keep calm and carry on, unruffled even in the face of a global and deadly pandemic.

KENYON: I hadn't thought about it particularly. I'm sorry to be that boring about it. I -- really, it hasn't been something that -- that I've thought about.

VANIER (on camera): Were you concerned about the danger to yourself?

KENYON: Well, I told you, I took precautions against catching it. Yes, it makes sense, doesn't it?

VANIER (voice over): And if he's generally indifferent, why did he rush to get the vaccine?

KENYON: I'm all for getting something done that's -- you're told to get done.

VANIER: As on Oxford graduate, he had hoped the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine would be available first, but settled for the Pfizer BioNTech jab, the only one so far approved in the U.K. With a second injection scheduled late December, and an extra week for his body to fully react according to British health authorities, Martin should be protected from COVID-19 by early January. If he's looking forward to it, well, it doesn't show.

KENYON: Fun isn't aware of having immunity -- (INAUDIBLE) immunity until you succumb to the thing and then you realize, oh, damn, I didn't have immunity.

[09:55:00]

You don't know that, do you?

VANIER: Martin does hope to can hug his grandchildren again before long but prefers to talk about a life well lived. His travels to South Africa during the apartheid era, the lasting friendship, including with archbishop Desmond Tutu.

KENYON: Desmond used to call Mr. Martin. I call him Mr. Tutu.

VANIER: Now godfather to his daughter. His encounters with Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and, he says, the queen's late sister, Princess Margaret.

As for that cameo on "The Crown," don't hold your breath.

KENYON: Oh, for God's sake, when I read about "The Crown," I think (INAUDIBLE). Very unkind they've been about the Prince of Wales apparently. Perfectly ludicrous about Diana.

VANIER: Cyril Vanier, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HARLOW: Told you. What a great story.

Thank you, Cyril Vanier, for that.

We are just minutes away from something pretty great happening. Dr. Anthony Fauci, also Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, and National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, they will all be vaccinated live on television. You will see it right here.

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