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U.S. Vaccine Rollout Behind Schedule With One Day Left In 2020; GOP Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) Says He Will Object Certification Of Biden's Win; U.S. Again Sets New Record For Coronavirus Hospitalizations. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 30, 2020 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Martin Savidge, thank you for the update.

We continue on. You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin here in New York. Thank you for being with me.

The president gets a Senate accomplice to the effort to subvert the election here. Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley says that he will object next week when Congress meets to certify the Electoral College. More on that in just a second.

But, First, just this a frightening discovery here in Colorado and new, awful, record-setting pandemic numbers after a holiday lull. A Colorado man tested positive for a new and more infectious variant of the coronavirus that has already prompted lockdowns all across England. A more easily transmitted version of the virus circulating in the community adds giant concern to an already ongoing public health disaster.

201,555 new infections on Tuesday confirm that cases are again starting to climb. 3,725 deaths is a new American tragedy and a new single-day record. Look at these numbers. A record number of patients, nearly 125,000 in the overwhelmed hospitals, makes 4,000 deaths in a single day, an all-too-real possibility.

Among all of these lives lost, a congressman-elect from Louisiana, Luke Letlow. Letlow, just 41, had announced his diagnosis on December 18th. 11 days later, he's gone, leaving behind a wife and two precious children.

Vaccines are the way out of this nightmare, but already a new theme emerging in the early days of the rollout, promises made, promises not kept. Operation Warp Speed promised inoculations for 20 million Americans by the end of the month. Last hour, Operation Warp Speed says that they are well short of that number. And the group's top adviser says that he knows the U.S. effort so far isn't good enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MONCEF SLAOUI, CHIEF ADVISER, OPERATION WARP SPEED: We agreed that that number is lower than what we hoped for.

We know that it should be better and we're working hard to make it better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is with me now. And, Elizabeth, first, let's start with Colorado and this word of this new variant found there. What do we know about it, and what's the biggest concern from public health officials?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, the biggest concern is that we've only caught one of these. There is general agreement among experts that this U.K. variant, given the high levels of traffic, you know, travel that go on between the two countries, even now, there's probably hundreds of these cases, but we've just caught the one.

So, let's take a look at this one, and this sort of illustrates my point. It's a Colorado man in his 20s, and he had no travel history. So, he didn't go to the U.K. He caught it from someone here in the U.S. And there's an additional suspected case that is awaiting confirmation.

Brooke, there's general agreement that the surveillance system for mutations like this one, it's not very good in the United States. Who knows what other mutations are out there but are just not being caught. The CDC says they are working on a better system. Brooke?

BALDWIN: Speaking of not very good, the vaccine rollout in the U.S. off to this really slow start, especially compared to other countries. Why, Elizabeth?

COHEN: So, let's look at this. This is really interesting. CNN did an analysis of government data. What we looked at is the daily vaccination rate per 100,000 people. Of course, since the U.S. is large, we have more vaccine out there, but we made it per 100,000 people.

In the U.S., we have done 46. If you look at the U.S., that's 46 shots per day per 100,000 people. In Israel, that number is 608, obviously much larger. In Bahrain, 263, in U.K., 60. We are doing better than Canada, where their number is only ten.

And, Brooke, there are several reasons for this, but you'll notice that these other countries, Israel, Bahrain, the U.K., they have centralized national health services. I mean, so does Canada. But those three countries have centralized national health services. That helps.

We can argue until the cows come home whether the U.S. ought to have a national health service, ought to have universal health care, but I think it's generally agreed that when you're trying to do a mass vaccination campaign, it is very helpful to have the infrastructure in place. These countries already through their governments vaccinate people. They didn't have to build an entire infrastructure to do so like we have in the U.S.

Now, let's take a listen, actually, speaking of vaccinations, to General Gustave Perna. He commented on this all recently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. GUSTAVE PERNA, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, OPERATION WARP SPEED: As vaccine becomes available, states determine distribution priorities. I visualize as early as 8 January, between 8 and 15 January, the expansion to the utilization will greatly increase access of vaccine to the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[13:05:00]

COHEN: Now, folks who work in states tell me, Brooke, listen, the point here is that we need help. We have the vaccines. We need help getting them into arms. Brooke?

BALDWIN: As you've said, you know, it's all about the vaccinations, right? That's what saves lives and not just the vaccine itself. Elizabeth, thank you.

To politics and a guarantee of chaos next Wednesday when Congress notes certify the election outcome. Joe Biden won. He will be the next president. But Senator Josh Hawley now says he will join a handful of Republican House members and object to the results.

CNN's Congressional Reporter Lauren Fox is live on Capitol Hill, and CNN's White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins is there in West Palm Beach.

But, Lauren, I want to start with you. What does this all mean, Hawley objecting to the results, other than just a messy circus-like floor debate?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, again, Brooke, like you said, Joe Biden is going to be the president. That is not going to change, no matter how messy things get next Wednesday on Capitol Hill, but it is important to remind viewers at home that, essentially, the rules of this entire Electoral College certification process are as follows. Essentially, any Republican joined with a House Republican and a Senate Republican can object to the certification of an Electoral College result in any state.

Now, they had to have that senator. And for a long time, even though there were House Republicans meeting with the president, strategizing with the president, there was not a Senate Republican willing to take up this torch. Therefore, they weren't going to have to really go through this entire rigmarole on Capitol Hill.

Now they have a Republican senator who's willing to at least challenge the state of Pennsylvania's electoral results. And, essentially, what that means is that they will have to break up their joint session of Congress, where they certify these results, then each chamber, the House and the Senate, will have to have a two-hour debate. Then they will come back together. They will have a vote on whether or not to accept that objection. We don't expect that that's going to happen. But it puts Republicans who are up for re-election in 2022 in a tough position. Do they stand with the president or do they stand up for democracy and the results of this election?

We also know that the top Democrat in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is essentially saying that, look, at the end of the day, this is a distraction. Here is what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I have no doubt that on next Wednesday, a week from today, that Joe Biden will be confirmed by the acceptance of the vote of the Electoral College as the 46th president of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: Look, even though Joe Biden is ultimately going to be the president, it's going to be a mess on Capitol Hill next week. And you can expect that there could be other senators who join in this effort. So, what could be a two-hour debate in each chamber could quickly take several more hours, Brooke, depending on how many senators join in.

BALDWIN: All right. So, that happens next Wednesday.

Kaitlan, to you there in Florida. We know the president spent his morning tweeting about election interference. I am sure Senator Hawley's move will trigger some similar reaction from the west wing?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's going to be happiness from the president, who has privately been lobbying Republican senators to do this after Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, urged them not to do so, saying it was bound to fail, and, basically, what they were going to do by doing something like what we're seeing Josh Hawley now do is force their colleagues to either defy the president by voting to certify the results or vote against the certification of the results of a free and fair election.

And so, the questions of what the repercussions for that could be are still unknown. And even though, given the fact that we do know Joe Biden is obviously going to be the president, the president still wants this, though. He wants that circus on January the 6th. He's been tweeting about it, talking about the fact that he'll be in Washington as that is happening, and he's trying to build up this excitement leading to that day.

The president knows that the outcome is not going to be different, that Joe Biden is not going to magically not be the president, the next president of the United States, but he wants that fight. And we've seen it with his attorneys and his allies going out and disputing the legitimacy of Joe Biden's win, even though it is legitimate and the president's own administration officials have said as much.

But this is exactly what the president wants. He wants to see that chaos next week. And now it looks like with Josh Hawley setting this up for other people to also now say that they'll object as well, the president is going to get what he wants here.

BALDWIN: And I imagine Senator Hawley is hoping, you know, he has other ambitions, if Trump actually follows through with the 2024 run, being a Trump fan boy, seeing what position he may be able to have in some time, all to be determined.

Kaitlan and Lauren, thank you both, ladies.

Coming up next, tracking that coronavirus variant. Why officials in Colorado now suspect a second case.

And a doctor at an Alabama hospital overwhelmed with COVID patients, he says the situation there is like a bathtub with rapidly rising hot water.

And I'll be joined live this hour by an E.R. nurse who was watching his father fight for his life against COVID, his message for Americans, ahead here on CNN.

[13:10:04]

I'm Brooke Baldwin. We'll be right back.

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BALDWIN: Welcome back to watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me.

The Trump administration initially hoped to vaccinate 100 million individuals this year. That number was then reduced to 40 million, which was then reduced to 20 million, but just over 2 million vaccines have been administered.

[13:15:04]

The head of Operation Warp Speed just said that there are no, quote, hiccups, when it comes to vaccine manufacturing that he's aware of. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SLOUI: Our plans continue to be the same. I have each time cautioned that manufacturing of vaccine is very complex, and therefore, at some point, there could be hiccups, but there is none at this stage. And therefore, we will continue to have enough vaccine to go through the at-risk population and start to immunize, particularly as we sign the options with Moderna and to require another half million doses from each.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's get some context to all of this. With me now is CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Seema Yasmin. She's a former CDC disease detective and author of VIRAL B.S., Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them, which will be released next month. So, Dr. Yasmin, a pleasure to have you on. Is there a disconnect between Moncef Slaoui, what he's saying and what we're seeing? And do you take him at his word, that there is enough vaccine for the general population in the timeline that they have laid out?

DR. SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: That's a huge disconnect, Brooke. and I think at a time like this, you have to be completely transparent with the public, being honest about what's happening, and be honest. The perspective on this is there were major hiccups in rolling out the world's biggest vaccination campaign.

As of this Monday, we're told by the CDC that about 2.1 million Americans received their first dose of a COVID vaccine. So, let's be fair, that could be an underestimate because there is a lag in the reporting system. So, say, double that, say, 4 to 5 million Americans received their first dose. That's still way shy of the 20 million people we were told would receive their first dose, basically, by the end of this week, before we go into 2021.

People just need to know that this is logistically difficult, but that the government isn't keeping up with its promises. And at this rate, the rate that we are vaccinating Americans right now, it will take us about a decade to vaccinate the roughly 250 million Americans that need to be vaccinated in order for us to reach herd immunity.

That ain't it. We cannot be here in 2029 having this conversation.

BALDWIN: No, we cannot.

YASMIN: Things need to change quickly. We can't. So, be transparent. Tell people what's going wrong, why it's going wrong, and how you're going to fix it.

BALDWIN: I want to jump to this story in Colorado. Officials there are monitoring at least two cases. One confirmed, the other suspected of this new, highly transmissible variant of coronavirus that was first detected in the U.K. We're getting a little bit more information now, Dr. Yasmin.

We know that both instances involve men who were working at an assisted living facility. And we have now just learned that both the confirmed cases, as well as the suspected case, were members of the National Guard who were deployed to that nursing home. What does that tell you?

YASMIN: It tells us this variant has probably already been here for a while. We're just only picking it up. And I say this because the U.S. has the world's highest number of coronavirus cases, but it's doing some of the least amount of coronavirus gene sequencing. So, if the 18 million infections that we've had reported, we've tested the gene sequences of those virus samples in only 0.3 percent of cases.

And we know from studying viruses that when a virus is allowed to spread so wildly out of control in a region, when it's spreading for so long, of course, it mutates. There will be variants. We're not even doing the minimum amount of detection that you'd have to do to even detect this, right?

So, I think, yes, we're seeing these signals now in Colorado, but probably it's across many states. It's been here for a while. There are even reports of some folks who may have been exposed but not have traveled outside of the U.S., who may still be carrying this variant.

BALDWIN: No, it was our understanding -- let me jump in -- that one of the confirmed infected cases in Colorado, he had not at all been traveling, you know.

YASMIN: Exactly.

BALDWIN: It's from the smaller community there and the presumption is that it must be elsewhere in the community. But to the point that these are National Guard members, in terms of who is on the receiving end of this vaccine, does the military need to be top of list?

YASMIN: I think so. And I think especially folks who have been traveling, folks that are on the front lines, have been deployed to deal with this pandemic in some way do need to be prioritized. And already, Brooke, we're seeing states like Texas, Florida, Ohio and other states saying, okay, we've seen the CDC's prioritization guidelines, we're going to do our own thing.

So, even from that perspective about who should be prioritized, we don't have a national cohesive strategy and states are starting to do their own thing.

BALDWIN: Hopefully, that's the difference between the Trump administration approach, putting it up to the states, versus the Biden administration approach and really taking control from the federal government level.

[13:20:02]

Dr. Seema Yasmin, thank you so much. Great to have you on. Happy early New Year to you if I don't talk to you between now and then.

YASMIN: To you as well.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Coming up next, Alabama is among 13 states setting records for COVID hospitalizations. I'll talk to a doctor who had to create a new ICU unit after his capacity is something like 180 percent.

And an E.R. nurse in Michigan shares his story of, essentially, his whole family getting sick from COVID. His dad now in the hospital where he works, can't even visit him, fighting for his life. He joins me live, coming up.

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[13:20:00]

BALDWIN: The number of Americans fighting for their lives from their hospital beds continues to reach record levels every day, right? I keep saying this, over and over. Tuesday alone, more than 124,000 hospitalizations were reported. And with 13 states setting all-time highs, including Alabama, the state one of the least healthy, most impoverished in our whole country, has quickly turned into a hotspot for COVID.

And Dr. William Smith is the Chief Medical Officer at Cullman Regional Medical Center there in Alabama. So, Dr. smith, thank you for all that you do and now, welcome, sir.

DR. WILLIAM SMITH, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, CULLMAN REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: Thank you.

BALDWIN: I was reading all about you and I had read that you recently used the metaphor of, you know, a bathtub filling up with water. How do you mean?

SMITH: Well, you know, with COVID, patients are in the hospital for longer periods of time. Early discharges are just simply not possible, and particularly patients in the intensive care unit are typically in the hospital three or four weeks, as opposed to pre-COVID patients being in the hospital four or five days. So, it's like a drain that's plugged, and the bathtub is just not emptying. We keep admitting more and more COVID patients and we're just not able to get them out of the hospital very fast.

So, the numbers of COVID patients in our hospital continue to rise. We currently have 83 COVID patients in the hospital. We're a 145-bed hospital with a census today of 143. So, it's really stressing our system.

BALDWIN: Talk about stretching, you know, your hospital was operating at 180 percent capacity. It is the highest in all of Alabama. I understand your team is having to get pretty creative in order to handle the surge of patients. How are you all managing?

SMITH: Well, our critical care unit is at about 180 percent capacity. We have 11 beds in our critical care unit proper and then an additional 10, 11 critical care patients that we're housing on a medical surgical floor. We converted rooms to critical care rooms. We've installed video monitors so that we can keep a close watch on those patients in this room. And we've had to increase our nurse staffing for these critical care patients.

BALDWIN: Because when anyone hears 180 percent, I'm thinking, all right, well, if you're at 100 percent, you're out of beds, but that's how you all have had to -- it's this overflow of patients in various rooms and places where you wouldn't be having these critical care patients.

We looked at Tuesday. Tuesday accounted for the deadliest day yet in this country so far with the virus. 3,725 Americans died in a single day. And just, to you, Doc, as someone on the frontlines, you know, hearing the stories of these people, I'm just curious, who is coming into your hospital? You know, are they Alabamans who just haven't been wearing masks? Are they folks who, end of the year, are just suffering serious COVID fatigue? What is it? SMITH: Well, it's our friends, our neighbors, and our relatives. It's people that are being dutiful about following guidelines but susceptible to a virus that we just don't have any way of predicting who's going to get very sick from it and who will not.

You know, in our community, there are a lot of families that, you know, that get together. A lot of them live together. There are young children in the home that may be going to school and coming home. So, it's not that we're overrun with people because there's just blatant disregard, but we do not have the respect for the seriousness of this illness that we should have.

And I think it would make a huge difference if people all across the country would take this illness much more seriously.

BALDWIN: I imagine if we all spent just a day in your shoes, Dr. Smith, we would. Dr. Smith, thank you so much there, Cullman in Alabama.

My next guest is living out this nightmare on both a professional and personal level every day, serves as a reminder of how vulnerable we really all are to this virus. Hamid Alkhalili is an E.R. nurse whose father is currently in that same hospital where he works battling COVID. His dad is 63. He was perfectly healthy, had no underlying medical conditions.

[13:30:02]

And Hamid is joining me live. Hamid, thank you so much for all that you do, and welcome.

HAMID ALKHALILI, E.R. NURSE: Thank you very much, Brooke.