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New Model: Variants May Lead to 85,000 More Deaths by May; Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Could Be Third Cleared in U.S.; Some House Republicans Scrutinized over Social Media Posts; FBI: Suspect Planted Pipe Bombs the Night Before Capitol Riot. Aired 3-3:30a ET
Aired January 30, 2021 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, everyone, and welcome to Studio 7 here at CNN Center in Atlanta. I am Michael Holmes.
Ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM, the United States has just issued a new mask mandate, hoping to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Also, new warnings about COVID variants and how they could become the dominant form of the virus.
Also, new video revealing the brutality of the attacks on Capitol police during this month's riot.
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HOLMES: Welcome, everyone.
Here is more evidence that Donald Trump is no longer in the White House. The CDC releasing a new transportation mask mandate to help slow the virus in the U.S.
Starting early next week, people, everyone, will have to mask up on all public transportation, including planes, trains, subways, buses, taxis, even ships, ferries and rideshares.
Meanwhile, there is promising news on the vaccine front. Johnson & Johnson says the latest trial data shows its vaccine candidate is safe and effective. The company plans to apply for emergency use authorization in the U.S. next week.
But now variants of the coronavirus are keeping the health experts up a night. One model projects it could mean an additional 85,000 American deaths by May.
Meanwhile, AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine has gotten the green light from the European Union. But it is already turning out to be quite a headache for local officials, it, too, being affected by massive delays. Standing by for us in Paris, CNN's Melissa Bell.
Bring us up to date. MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As you say, the AstraZeneca vaccine
becomes a third to be approved by the European Medicines Agency. Yet there are doubts here in Europe, hearing from the German authority that regulates these things. It said it did not believe that the vaccine would be -- there was insufficient data to prove that the vaccine was efficient over 65, something repeated by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, when he met foreign journalists.
Doubts have been sown on that question and yet, the European Medicines Agency went ahead and authorized at the AstraZeneca vaccine, even for those over 65, when they made their decision yesterday.
Now comes the real headache for Europeans, the question of supply. We see the most unseemly row the last few days between the European Union and AstraZeneca with the E.U. announcing these export restrictions.
Essentially, they are looking at any exports of vaccines from the European Union to third countries and giving themselves the right to hold back, turn down the authorizations for export, if the countries are not delivering the vaccines promised the E.U.
That's because of the E.U. says, as part of its contract it took the unusual step of publishing yesterday with AstraZeneca, it is allowed to be getting not only the vaccines being produced here in the European Union but AstraZeneca vaccines that are also being produced at its plants in the United Kingdom.
So that row set to go on for some time, because the pressure is on European leaders to get vaccines to people. So far, they've been remarkably inefficient. Doing that here in France, 1,300,000 people have now been vaccinated, it's been a very slow and tedious process.
The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are also seeing shortages, already here, in the European Union and 70 percent of the population in the E.U. wants to get vaccinated, whereas, so far, it's only done about 2 percent of its population. So, a long, steep challenge ahead.
HOLMES: Yes, many hurdles remain. Melissa Bell, in Paris, thank you so much, good to see you.
If the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is cleared, it would become the third authorized in the U.S. CNN's Nick Watt reporting on the latest dose of hope in the fight against COVID-19 and how variants are cause for concern.
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NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Global trial data is in. Johnson & Johnson says its vaccine is safe and 66 percent effective at preventing moderate and severe illness, 85 percent effective against severe disease.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: There were essentially no hospitalizations or deaths in the vaccine group.
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WATT (voice-over): Some context: the flu vaccine reduces the risk of illness by between 40 percent and 60 percent.
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DR. MATHIA MAMMEN, GLOBAL HEAD OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, JANSSEN DIVISION OF JOHNSON & JOHNSON: Our topline result is that we have 85 percent protection against disease that matters --
WATT (voice-over): Johnson & Johnson will apply for FDA emergency use authorization mid- to late next week. Their commitment is 100 million doses for Americans by June.
MAMMEN: -- which we're very much on track to deliver. Our plan is to have supplies immediately upon launch.
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WATT (voice-over): Yes, this vaccine was less effective than Pfizer and Moderna in trials but...
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DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH & POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: For many clinics out there, this is going to be the ideal vaccine to have. One dose, stable vaccine; use it.
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WATT (voice-over): Meanwhile Dr. Fauci says those more contagious coronavirus variants might be dominant in the U.S. by late March.
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FAUCI: This is a wake-up call to all of us. We will continue to see the evolution of mutants.
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WATT (voice-over): The strain first found in South Africa now found in South Carolina, assumed to be spreading in the country.
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DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: By the time someone has symptoms, gets a test, has a positive result and we get the sequence, our opportunity for doing real case control and contact tracing is largely gone.
And so, I think -- I believe that we should be treating every case as if it's a variant during this pandemic right now.
WATT (voice-over): They're working on getting that data in real time.
Meanwhile, those University of Washington modelers project, these variants might add up to an additional 85,000 deaths in America by May.
WATT: And, of course, something else on many people's minds, when can more kids get back into school safely?
This was interesting from Dr. Fauci today: he said that tests are underway on the safety and efficacy of these vaccines for younger people.
And he said, hopefully, late spring or early summer, some children will at least be authorized to get a vaccine. Of course, whether there's enough supply is a whole different story -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
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HOLMES: Canada is in the grip of a deadly coronavirus wave, just ahead of spring break. Now because of that, the Canadian prime minister just announced strict new quarantine rules for people traveling to the country. It could cost travelers hundreds of dollars more than they bargained for. CNN's Paula Newton with that.
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PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): With these new restrictions, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is doing all he can to try and keep Canadians home, especially during the spring break.
So, what has changed?
They always had a 14-day quarantine here in Canada, but you could do it at home. Now when you arrive at the airport, you will be tested. Once you are tested, you must go to a government approved hotel at your own expense for at least three days or until you get a negative COVID test back.
It will set you back about $1,500 and it will be quite cumbersome to do. The issue here, however, the prime minister says, is those variants. There have already been dozens of cases in Canada, but public health officials warn that these variants could be dominant in community transmission by March. Take a listen.
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JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: We know that these variants represent a real challenge. We've seen public health modeling that shows what happens if these variants do take hold in Canada.
We know that just one case of the variant that comes in could cause significant challenges. And that's why we need to take extra measures.
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NEWTON (voice-over): Canada will not get the help that it needs from that vaccine rollout. The problem here is with doses. Both Pfizer and Moderna have warned Canada that the vaccines that it promised to deliver will not be here on time. There will be significant cuts to those deliveries over the next few weeks.
NEWTON: The fact remains that public health officials here warn that this second wave is likely to be more deadly than the first, even though COVID cases, fortunately, have been going down, week over week, especially in Canada's largest cities -- Paula Newton, CNN, Ottawa.
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HOLMES: Earlier, I talked with CNN medical analyst, Dr. Leana Wen, about these concerns over the variants. One that was first seen in the U.K. could actually become the dominant strain in the U.S. by spring. Here is Dr. Wen's take on what that could mean.
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DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I am very worried about variants, because we have seen what happened in countries like the U.K., South Africa, the Netherlands and Denmark, where these variants have become dominant and something that is up to 70 percent more contagious.
That doesn't mean we're going to get 70 percent more infections; it's not linear, it's exponential. When you have that many more infections, it runs the risk of overwhelmed the health systems and causing many more deaths.
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WEN: And so, we are in a race against time.
Ideally, we're able to really expedite the vaccine rollout and we can keep people masking, physical distancing to try and suppress the level of infection. But the CDC in the U.S. is predicting we could have the U.K. variant, B117, becoming the dominant variant here in the U.S. by March.
HOLMES: The next thing I wanted to ask you about, when it comes to the issues of variants, the fact, is the U.S. is way behind the world when it comes to genomic sequencing that identifies the presence of variants in the community. I think the U.S. is 32nd in the world in genomic sequencing rates.
Is it fair to say that, when it comes to any of these variants, we have no real idea just how widespread they are in the U.S.?
WEN: That's right. It's actually very similar to where we were a year ago, when we thought we only had a handful of cases in the U.S. But actually, there were many that were spreading; we just were not doing the testing.
Without testing, without data, we were essentially flying blind, just as we are now. So, I think we have to assume the community transmission of these variants is already quite rampant in the U.S.
HOLMES: I also wanted to ask -- and it's something we covered before on the program -- about vaccine nationalism. Rich countries, adopting a me-first attitude, even in some cases, hoarding way more doses than they need.
As an example, Nigeria's 200 million people haven't received a single dose of vaccine. The thing is, if wealthy nations are largely vaccinated but outbreaks are surging elsewhere, which spreads the variants, there could be the possibility that it then escapes back into countries, rich countries, and makes everyone vulnerable again. Just points that this is a global fight.
WEN: If it's anything that the coronavirus has taught us, it's that no one is an island. We are all in this together, for better or for worse. That said, I do, of course, understand the plight that rich countries are in as well. It would be very difficult for a prime minister to say, I will not vaccinate England. I'm first, I'm going first divert a lot of the doses to other countries.
So, I understand the need to vaccinate your own citizens but I think the attention must turn to how we can procure enough vaccines for the world. Unless we can vaccinate the world, we will not put an end to the pandemic.
HOLMES: Yes, it will just keep coming back again. I know you pointed out, too, in order for viruses to mutate and, again, create these variants, obviously they have to be transmitted to other people. The virus lives that way.
Transmission, especially now, vaccine or not, what's your take on the whole idea of double masking?
This suggestion the public use N95s, if not that, because the medical community needs them, the KN95s?
Obviously, if we slow transmission, we slow the variant spread.
WEN: Right. The best way for us to fight the variants is to stop the spread and stop replication. That is what leads to mutations and leads to the variants taking over and becoming dominant.
The other issue with having more contagious variants around, is the activities we thought were pretty safe, will now be higher risk. It will be higher risk with these variants that are more transmissible, just doing something like going to the grocery store, just having your kids go to school.
So, I think the idea of having double masking is not a bad one. If you have a surgical mask, it's pretty good at filtering but may not cover your nose or mouth the whole way. Putting your cloth mask on top of that could give you better protection.
I do think that N95s, as someone who wears an N95 for my work, it's very uncomfortable. Some people can tolerate it but some people cannot. The consistent wearing of whatever mask you have is better than inconsistent wearing, even if it's of a better-quality mask.
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HOLMES: Dr. Leana Wen, speaking with me earlier.
It is now the second day of field work for the World Health Organization's investigation into the origins of the pandemic. A team of scientists in Wuhan, China, spent Saturday visiting another hospital that treated some of the most severe cases of the virus last year.
One of the investigators tweeting that it was an important opportunity to talk directly with medics. They will also be visiting labs and markets during the following days. Wuhan is where the coronavirus was first identified in late 2019.
U.S. President Joe Biden is pushing to get COVID relief to millions of American families. He says he is willing to do it with or without Republican support. Where the bill stands, when we come back.
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HOLMES: Welcome back.
U.S. President Joe Biden is pledging to get his ambitious COVID relief package passed with no ifs, ands or buts. But while he's hoping to get bipartisan support, he says time is of the essence and he won't rule out Democrats working alone to get it done. CNN's Phil Mattingly with the details from the White House.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The risk is not doing too much; the risk is not doing enough.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Joe Biden ramping up the push for his cornerstone legislative priorities.
BIDEN: People will be badly, badly hurt if we don't pass this package.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): A sweeping $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, one Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, amid a week of poor economic data, says is urgently needed.
JANET YELLEN, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: We need to act now and the benefits of acting now and acting big will far outweigh the cost.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): That decision to act big has created unified resistance from the congressional GOP. Biden himself has been on the phone with Senate Republicans, calling Republican senators Ron Portman and Susan Collins to pitch his plans, sources tell CNN.
All this as his team continues its own Capitol Hill lobbying blitz on the package.
BIDEN: I support passing COVID relief with support from Republicans if we can get it. But the COVID relief has to pass.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): And the White House, making clear, they will take their case outside of Washington as well in a COVID-19-safe manner.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We are having to take a number of creative steps to do that, whether that is direct television or local media or from the president and the vice president and others.
We're doing that, whether it's engaging with governors and local elected officials, to ensure that we are answering all the questions they have.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): All as to this point Biden's primary action has been solely executive, 42 actions in his first nine days, a reflection of his push to undo much of his predecessor's work, even as he presses Congress to do their own.
PSAKI: He's the first to tell you as he has said many times publicly, he will not take executive action alone. That is why he put forward a number of packages that he is actively working with members of both parties to move forward on.
MATTINGLY: White House officials made clear, if they are giving up and trying to get bipartisan support for the COVID relief package. But again, they focus on two primary things, speed and size. Both of those issues have been severe problems for Republicans on Capitol Hill.
However, the outreach will continue. White House officials say they will continue to reach out over the course of the weekend, over the course of next week and, again, they want to move quickly. They want something done by mid-March.
But based on how things are going on Capitol Hill, particularly with congressional Democrats, that movement could start as soon as the end of next week -- Phil Mattingly, CNN, the White House.
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HOLMES: Well, it's not just Congress as a whole that's divided. So, too, is the Republican Party. It is split right now between Trump loyalists and those who want to move beyond Trump. CNN's Ryan Nobles looks at the turmoil within the GOP.
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RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Amid rising tensions, House Republicans are set to meet behind closed doors next Wednesday, members and aides telling CNN they expect the regular scheduled gathering could turn into a venting session over the impeachment vote two weeks ago that's divided the conference.
In the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection, some GOP leaders signaled a break with the former president...
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack on Congress by mob rioters.
NOBLES: -- only to reverse course.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy flying to Florida for a face-to- face meeting with Trump Thursday and releasing a statement after highlighting the former president's hold on the party.
"Today, President Trump committed to helping elect Republicans in the House and Senate in 2022," McCarthy said. "A Republican majority will listen to our fellow Americans and solve the challenges facing our nation."
Despite that show of unity, there are signs of division over Trump's role in the party moving forward.
REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): President Trump is going to keep fighting for this country with every breath that he has.
NOBLES (voice-over): Trump loyalist Matt Gaetz traveling to Wyoming to call for the ouster of Liz Cheney, the third ranking House Republican, who voted to impeach Trump.
GAETZ: I'll confess to you. This is my first time in Wyoming. I have been here for about an hour. And I feel like I already know the place a lot better than your misguided Representative Liz Cheney.
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NOBLES (voice-over): That as newly elected House Republicans draft fresh scrutiny for past controversial statements.
Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene scrubbing her social media pages after CNN uncovered posts indicating support for executing prominent Democratic leaders and video surfacing of her harassing Parkland shooting victim David Hogg.
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): You guys are being used, being used by the Left, because you're young.
NOBLES (voice-over): Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert taking to Twitter to criticize Hogg after he wrote that putting a fencing around the Capitol would not address the real threats of Greene and Boebert.
"David, please, we all saw how tough you were when questioned face to face. Give your keyboard a rest, child."
Democrats are calling for Greene to be expelled from Congress or removed from a key House committee, while, at the White House today, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said this when asked about Greene. JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We don't want to elevate conspiracy theories further in the Briefing Room, so I'm going to speak -- I'm going to leave it at that.
NOBLES: But in Greene's district, voters offering their support, a sign of the pressure Republicans are facing when it comes to choosing a path forward.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She needs to continue to fight and I'm behind her all the way.
NOBLES: And there is no doubt that Greene's antics have become somewhat of a distraction here on Capitol Hill.
Missouri congresswoman Cori Bush, who is also a freshman like Greene, said that she asked to have her office moved away from Greene in the Longworth office building because of a verbal altercation the two had in the tunnel between the House office buildings in the Capitol on the day of the impeachment.
Greene went and posted that video on her Twitter feed, claiming that she was the one that was the victim, not Bush.
But it is an example of how this is dominating conversations in Washington, so much so that the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, is scheduled to speak to Greene about the situation next week -- Ryan Nobles, CNN, on Capitol Hill.
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HOLMES: Going to take a quick break on the program. When we come back on CNN NEWSROOM, we are seeing new video of the vicious attack on the U.S. Capitol. Police trying to figure out how to ensure nothing like it ever happens again. We'll have more when we come back.
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(MUSIC PLAYING) HOLMES: It has been more than three weeks now since the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, police revealing more video now that shows the pure violence coming from that crowd.
And investigators searching for someone who could have caused even more deaths and damage that day. Jessica Schneider has the latest details for you -- but a warning, some of the video in the report is violent and disturbing.
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JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A major mystery mounts tonight.
Who planted the two pipe bombs blocks away from the Capitol near the Republican and Democratic National Committee offices? "The Washington Post" obtaining surveillance video from an alley
nearby, believed to show the suspect on the way to plant the devices the night of January 5th. The FBI says they were put in place between 7:30 and 8:30 the night before the Capitol insurrection.
PETER LICATA, FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: This was preplanned. This was intentional and deliberate.
SCHNEIDER: The FBI has now upped the reward for information on the suspect three times. It now stands at $100,000.
They're also revealing more details about the two pipe bombs. They were each eight inches long, filled with explosive powder and rigged to egg timers. They were fully functional but never went off.
And now law enforcement believe they could have been diversionary devices designed to take crucial support away from the Capitol just as the rioters were arriving.
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ASHAN BENEDICT, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, ATF WASHINGTON FIELD DIVISION: This person may not be from the region. They may be from across the country. And they could potentially be building more bombs right now.
SCHNEIDER (voice-over): And we're now seeing more chaos and violence captured on police body cam. The new video tonight is exposing how Capitol police came under extreme attack.
Police moved forward with body shields, trying to keep back rioters wielding a stick, also a hockey stick and even a crutch, lunging at police.
While the frenzy unfolds on the west side Capitol steps, one man can be heard yelling out, "She's dead."
But the madness doesn't subside. A rioter is seen repeatedly striking police, another kicking officers. Eventually, one rioter seems to try to rip an officer's baton away, pulling the officer.
All the while, the rioters rejoice on the violence they're inflicting. Video like this has been slowly emerging in the three weeks since the Capitol insurrection, laying the groundwork for prosecutors' cases against the more than 160 people they have charged federally so far.
Now, as new images of the January 6th attack are unearthed, officials are grappling with how to secure the Capitol long-term. The acting chief of Capitol police proposing permanent fencing around the once easily accessible Capitol building. But some lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans are pushing back.
REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): We shouldn't turn the home of our Democracy into a fortress. We don't want the Capitol to become a green zone that is unwelcoming and, indeed, hostile to constituents and journalists. This should be open -- safely open to the public. SCHNEIDER: The House Judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler just sent a letter to the acting attorney general, urging the DOJ to prosecute all rioters. This came after a report that the DOJ was considering whether or not to decline to bring charges against some rioters.
But now prosecutors are pushing back, saying they are not ignoring anyone and that they continue to charge people -- Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.
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HOLMES: The Capitol police officer killed during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol will lie in honor in the Rotunda. Officer Brian Sicknick died after being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher during the siege.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer say the heroism of Officer Sicknick and the Capitol police helped save lives and defend democracy. Sicknick will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
Thanks for spending part of your day with me, watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Michael Holmes. Do stick around though, "AFRICAN VOICES CHANGEMAKERS" up next.
