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BioNTech CEO: Variant May Require Countries To Vaccinate More People; New Jersey Hospital Giving First Doses Of Moderna Vaccine To Staff; White House Considers Requiring COVID Tests For Travelers From U.K.; Senator Wyden: Treasury Department E-mail Compromised In Suspected Russian Hack; Despite Warnings, Millions Are Flying Down The Holidays. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired December 22, 2020 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I am Kate Bolduan, top of the hour. Today countries are racing to understand the new Coronavirus variant spreading rapidly across the United Kingdom. The CDC says that it hasn't been identified yet in the U.S., but Dr. Anthony Fauci says it's best to assume that it's probably already here.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: When you have this amount of spread within a place like the UK that you really need to assume that it's here already and may not - and certainly is not the dominant strain, but I would not be surprised at all if it is already here.

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BOLDUAN: Around the world, at least 40 countries are taking immediate action, halting travel from the United Kingdom. The Trump Administration has not followed suit but we are hearing that the White House is considering its options. They're considering requiring all passengers from the UK to present proof of a negative test before arriving in the country.

The good news right now, the CEO of Pfizer's vaccine partner BioNTech, he says that he is confident the vaccine will be effective fighting this new variant, and both Moderna and Pfizer are right now testing the theory. Let me bring in CNN's Elizabeth Cohen for much more on this. Elizabeth what more are you hearing about this variant?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Kate, let's talk about some of the basics of this variant. This is a variant that was found in the UK. They can trace it back to September 20th near London. You can imagine as Dr. Fauci sort of referred to how much travel has happened from London to the U.S. since then?

UK scientists say they're highly confident that it really is more transmissible and now six out of ten cases of COVID-19 in London are this new variant which has only been around for a couple of months. Now this is important.

Most of the cases are in people under 60 and Kate, the reason why it's important is that, those are the people who often, not always, but often are asymptomatic or barely symptomatic. So they don't even know they're sick and they're running around with this.

And so, that might be part of the reason why this variant rather is so transmissible. Now we were talking about the vaccine, BioNTech as well as others say they don't think that this variant is going to be a problem for the vaccine. They think the vaccine will get it under control just fine.

But even if that's true, if this variant really is spreading so quickly, that means that we need to have lots of people getting vaccinated. The vaccine needs to keep up with this quickly spreading virus in order to achieve herd immunity, Kate?

BOLDUAN: And Elizabeth, also something just crossed, a new study just out that is taking a look at just how effective face coverings are? What does it say?

COHEN: It says that they are effective, but that they are not going to be enough to curb the spread of this virus unless we also social distance. In other words, to say masks are great, but they really need to be paired with social distancing. What these physicists did, was interesting, these are physicists, not MDs, is they made a machine that sneezes and coughs basically sort of simulating a real infected person.

And then they put various masks on that machine, cloth mask, surgical masks, N95, and they found that for all except the N95, the things were still sometimes getting through and that's why you need to pair masks with social distancing.

I know that when I have been out and about, people seem to be pretty good about masks, but I noticed that people are really getting sort of lazy about social distancing because I shouldn't say lazy, that sounds mean. It is hard to do social distancing. It's much easier to just throw on a mask but really, we need to pair the two of those together.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, Elizabeth I appreciate it. Also today, a historic moment, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious disease expert, a man the country has come to depend on for guidance throughout this pandemic. He along with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Director of the National Institute of Health all received their first doses of the Moderna, COVID vaccine, and all before cameras.

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DR. FAUCI: As a symbol to the rest of the country that I feel extreme confidence in the safety and the efficacy of this vaccine. And I want to encourage everyone who has the opportunity to get vaccinated so that we could have a veil of protection over this country that would end this pandemic. ALEX AZAR, HHS SECRETARY: I have complete confidence in the safety and

efficacy of these vaccines. And I'm just so grateful to NIH and Moderna, and all of the participants and Operation Warp Speed for bringing us to this point where now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel from this dark period.

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BOLDUAN: Shipments of Moderna are going out across the country as we speak. CNN's Alexandra Field is at Jefferson Health in New Jersey, where the first batch is being administered today. Alex, take us through what's happening there.

[12:05:00]

ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Kate. Look, these are three hospitals in the southern part of New Jersey that did not receive Pfizer vaccines. So today is actually the first opportunity for their front line workers to get any COVID vaccine. They are of course getting the Moderna vaccine.

They started with 30 front line workers this morning; they'll ramp up to about 200 every day from here on out, at least that is their plan right now. Kate, no matter how many front line workers we see get this injection, we have to remember how important it is to each of them, to their families. They have sacrificed so much over so many months.

Rene Stephens, a nurse who works on the COVID floors was the first to volunteer to roll up her sleeve. She reflected on what these last months have been like for her as she has worked day in, day out with the most suffering COVID patients.

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RENE STEPHENS, CRITICAL CARE NURSE: Never in your mind's eye could anyone imagine what health care professionals have been going through for the last nine months. We were not winning the war and it's not even close to being over but I feel like the vaccine is a very essential part of this.

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FIELD: Stephens went on to say she felt blessed to have the opportunity to get this vaccine. And she said part of the reason that she wanted to do this first and do it on camera was to serve as a role model for others.

Kate, she is telling me that within her church community, she has learned about some hesitancy toward the vaccine, she wants others to see her death. She says if they follow the science, it will lead them to where she ended up today with that vaccine in her arm. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Alex thanks for bringing it to us. Joining me right now is Dr. Eric Topol; he is Director and Founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. It's good to see you again Dr. Topol. It's wonderful also to see more shots going out and more shots administered.

It's interesting though if you look at the numbers, millions and millions, close to 5 million doses have been distributed so far in like the first seven days. But just 600,000 doses have been administered according to all of the tracking numbers that are being put out. What do you think drives this disconnect? Do you understand why that is?

DR. ERIC TOPOL, DIRECTOR & FOUNDER, SCRIPPS RESEARCH TRANSLATIONAL INSTITUTE: Good to be with you, Kate. I think the disconnect is really just the logistics of getting the vaccines out to the health care workers and nursing homes. And so, it's going to move, to get 600,000 already vaccinated, at least the first dose, is a good sign and there will be a catch up.

It won't be as ambitious as the initial projections were for December, but as the practical aspects now are two vaccines out there move forward, the numbers will start moving pretty fast. We've got a couple hundred million to go so there's no source of this challenge.

BOLDUAN: That's for sure. The CDC on this new variant that everyone is tracking, the CDC says this new variant is not yet detected in the United States though we did hear Dr. Anthony Fauci saying to essentially assume that it is already here. Could it be here and still be undetected?

DR. TOPOL: It certainly could be, Kate. It's already shown up in Italy, Denmark, Australia, and the Netherlands. So it would be very likely it will show up here already as sequencing progresses, it may be found. So it is a variant that is clearly associated with more trans-miscibility.

The magnitude of that isn't entirely clear but we can see in the spike protein, the infamous spike protein that there's a change, a typo there that's accounting for that. And as data is accruing quickly now, we're starting to get a better understanding on what's driving this increase infectiousness, but not more illness and as everything suggests that the vaccine efficacy will not be affected.

BOLDUAN: Look, and understanding it better is critical, every part of this virus because of the - in order for there to be inappropriate response, not an overreaction, if you will. And I am curious as what you think of how dozens of countries now that are restricting travel from the UK in response, the United States has not?

There's actually been pretty much silence from federal health authorities other than Dr. Fauci on the concept of travel restrictions. Do you think that the CDC should have spoken up by now with definitive guidance on travel to and from the UK in light of this?

DR. TOPOL: It's really good question, Kate. As you saw, Canada has blocked travel, most other countries have. We have enough problems in the U.S. right now to have this variant with clear increased transmission issues isn't going to help us. So I think it's something is seriously worth considering, it's getting this travel banned for a stretch, yes.

[12:10:00]

BOLDUAN: Yes, for a stretch. I'm curious what you think about the study that Elizabeth Cohen was pointing out, done not necessarily by doctors, but by physicists that what they found is that masks are effective, they do help and work but they don't work completely without social distancing.

And what they were looking at in the study is that six feet that if you're less than six feet and you're wearing a mask, there are still enough droplets that are going through the mask or around the mask that you could still get sick. What do you think of this?

DR. TOPOL: Right. Well, Elizabeth did a good job in describing it. Basically in this news paper, physics fluid, it was simulating coughs and sneezes very close, very tight in and it was clear that masks don't fully protect.

The distancing is also critical. So as she said, we can't just think that the masks are going to be giving us this sense of protection, because if you're with someone who's infectious and up close as simulated, it's definitely something that's going to be a liability.

BOLDUAN: Is an important reminder right now. I think they can go from the broad to maybe the narrower, your State California is seeing just an explosion of cases, doctor. I just spoke with a top doctor from USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, and he could not have put it more bluntly.

He was pleading with people to take care and be more cautious because he says that, they're overflowing with COVID and they're trying to bail the water out as fast as they can, but he says that they may not be able to keep up. What is driving the spread in California?

DR. TOPOL: Well, this exponential spread, once it gets going, it's hard to control it. Part of the problem is, there has been a stay at home order in many parts of California, but it is not being adhered to. So we know that here in San Diego if you move around, you'll see that it's not any semblance of people staying at home.

So part of it is that, part of its already unleashed, unbridled spread. And clearly, the hospital resources and the staffing especially are really getting taxed maximally so we've got to turn this around and get as aggressive as possible.

BOLDUAN: That's for sure. Doctor, thank you.

DR. TOPOL: Sure. Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, President-Elect Joe Biden, he's pledged to reopen most schools, the majority of schools in the country for in person learning in his first 100 days where his possible Education Secretary pick stands on getting kids back into the classrooms. That's next. Plus a top Senate Democrat says that massive cyber attack breached the Treasury Department. What he says was compromised in the suspected Russian attack.

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[12:15:00]

BOLDUAN: In the next few hours, President-Elect Joe Biden will be giving a year end address. He is also filling on his cabinet still and with another big announcement expected quite soon. Sources tell CNN he is expected to pick Miguel Cardona who is Connecticut's Education Commissioner to be his Education Secretary.

CNN's Jessica Dean is in Delaware with much more on this. And when thinking Jessica, the Education Secretary is always an important pick in a cabinet, but especially in the midst of this extraordinarily challenging moment with schools shutdown all over the country there's a lot of focus on this decision.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're absolutely right, Kate and that is certainly something that factored into Joe Biden's decision here. In fact Cardona is known as being a proponent of getting as many kids back in school as possible, that's also something that Joe Biden has said is a key priority for him and his first 100 days.

He wants to get as many schools open by the end of the first 100 days as possible and certainly he is hoping that Cardona can help him do that. He also, Biden also always promised that whomever he chose would be a teacher and Cardona is a former elementary school teacher and principal so he fulfills that promise as well. He was also endorsed by the congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Kate and we know there's been a lot of pressure on Biden. He has pledged to put together a diverse cabinet; there's also been a lot of outside pressure on him as well. So if confirmed, this would add another Latino as a key member of Biden's cabinet, Kate. We're expecting a formal announcement on this very soon.

BOLDUAN: And Biden still hasn't come to a decision on another major post in the cabinet, attorney general. Is there is any indication that you're getting Jessica on when he might be making that announcement?

DEAN: Right, so originally Biden had said that he hoped to have his whole cabinet announced by Christmas and here we are, December 22nd and it is increasingly clear that's not going to happen. He still has technically six slots to fill, that five that we don't know who will be filling them.

The chief among them, of course attorney general, who is going to be running his department of justice. Our reporting indicates that it is down, that the two top contenders here are Judge Merrick Garland and Alabama Senator, Doug Jones, outgoing Alabama Senator Doug Jones, that those are the two top contenders as it plays out right now.

But Kate, all of our indications are that any announcement on attorney general is going to come after the holidays. Kate?

BOLDUAN: OK, Jessica, thank you. So now to a troubling new revelation about the reach of the suspected Russian cyber attack on the federal government the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Ron Wyden, he says that hackers gained access to treasury department email accounts and systems used by the department's highest ranking officials. CNN's Josh Campbell, he has been looking into this, he is joining right now. Josh, what are you learning about this breach?

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JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning. As investigators continue to access the fallout in this massive reach, we are learning that the U.S. Treasury Department was one of the agencies that was impacted of course as you mentioned, that coming from Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee.

He says in a statement that Microsoft notified the agency that dozens of email accounts was compromised. Additionally, the hackers broke into the systems in the departmental offices division of treasury, home to the department's highest ranking officials. Now Secretary Steve Mnuchin told CNBC that the department was impacted.

He said at this point it does not look like there was any type of mass exultation, but it's important to note that we've been talking about the what about what happened here, it's also important to note the why? Folks may think OK, the U.S. Treasury Department, so Russian hackers gained access to information about U.S. monetary policy.

The Treasury Department is much more than that. There's an entire terrorism and intelligence directorate, an investigative arm that works to sanction foreign officials and regimes. We know that just in the past several years, several Russian oligarchs have been sanctioned by the Treasury Department.

So accessing that type of information could prove beneficial to a foreign intelligence service. Now we also know that although the president and others have been trying to down play the significance of this, experts say this remains very serious, this has a wide reach, a wide scope.

President Donald Trump as he has done for a much of his administration has down played this attack, and essentially giving cover for the Russians, saying that it could also be the Chinese at play here. Of course, that flies completely in the face of what we are hearing from experts, including the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and the U.S. Attorney General, Bill Barr, saying yesterday that at this point all signs point to Russia, Kate?

BOLDUAN: And with the scope of this being so massive, Josh, what are you hearing about how U.S. intelligence officials assess the damage of such a large breach? And how do they know that the hackers aren't still inside the government's network?

CAMPBELL: It is a massive undertaking. First, that what they have to do is, determine what is the scope, how many systems are we talking about, how many networks that is the first step. And then they have to go through meticulously, and trying to ensure that the malicious code that they know about that's coming from the victimized company that kicked all of this off that those types of indicators are not still in the systems.

We know from past attacks that these attackers are very good. They burrow into some of these systems, lay and wait and so, that what they call remediation process takes a lot of work Senator Ron Wyden saying that it could take months before they have the confidence, the U.S. government that they have the confidence to ensure that the hackers are out of the system.

Until then, investigators continue to deal with the fall out and continue to conduct those assessments.

BOLDUAN: Well Josh, thank you. Still ahead for us, the warnings came early and often, do not travel for the holidays, despite the warnings from health officials really across the board. Record numbers of Americans are doing just that. So how do you stay safe this holiday season if you are traveling, if you are getting together with family?

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[12:25:00]

BOLDUAN: Despite warnings from health experts not to travel over the holidays, the TSA is reporting that they have screened over a million people a day for the past three days, a first since the start of the pandemic. Let's check in with CNN's Pete Muntean, he is at Dulles International Airport just outside Washington. Pete, what are you seeing there today?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Kate, plenty of people are still traveling, even in spite of the CDC telling them not to and they're setting new records of the pandemic. The TSA says more than a million people passed through security at America's airports on Friday, again on Saturday and then again on Sunday, nearly a million people yesterday.

But it's that three day million passenger streak that is so interesting numbers we have not seen before during the pandemic, not even around the Thanksgiving holiday. Even still, these numbers are about 40 percent of travel numbers of a year ago, and we have been talking to travelers who tell us they feel that they're still safe; they're taking every precaution to do so. Here's what they said.

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MATTHEW WILLIAMS, AIRLINE PASSENGER: We are definitely much more careful than usual and like. I brought hand sanitizer, and we are constantly hand sanitizing, and just careful not to touch everything and just be careful about walking around.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We definitely took a lot of precautions like when I got on the plane, I like wiped down everything with the wipes they gave us which is nice. Last thing I want to do is spread COVID.

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MUNTEAN: Holiday travelers from the United Kingdom can still come here, even in spite of that new Coronavirus strain, the FAA says it's monitoring the situation closely. No new restrictions from the federal government. Now it's on airlines that take this up.

And Delta says it will test passengers as they arrive in the United States from the United Kingdom but Kate, still flights from the UK, flights from London arriving here at Dulles International Airport.

BOLDUAN: Yes Pete, thanks for the update. I want to play for you what Dr. Anthony Fauci has said is basically his best advice for celebrating this Christmas.

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DR. FAUCI: We don't want to cancel Christmas, but you have to tone down plans, try to minimize travel, and try to avoid large congregations of people indoors, the dinners that have 20, 25 people. We know how difficult it is in a wonderful season like Christmas to tone down these kinds of things.

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