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Biden Predicts Life Could Be Returning to Normal By Christmas; White House COVID Response Team Holds Briefing. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired February 17, 2021 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:24]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan. Thank you so much for joining us this hour.

Moments from now, President Biden's COVID response team are going to updating all of us on the fight against the virus, the fight against the pandemic. We expect to get more details on some of the promises and goals set by President Biden during the CNN town hall last night.

And during that -- we'll bring that briefing to you when it begins. During that town hall, the president predicted a return to some sort of normalcy for the country by Christmas. I feel like we're going to actually need to be discussing and debating the definition of normalcy as that marker approaches. And another marker laid out by the president, when every American who wants the vaccine will be able to get it.

Listen to what the president said about the timeline.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: By the end of July, we'll have over 600 million doses, enough to vaccinate every single American.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Well, the president seemed to want to provide some certainty regarding vaccines.

One area that, quite frankly, the administration is not providing clarity on right now is schools. And it's the one area that is begging for some clear and certain guidance at this point. Now people are left wondering, what is the definition of open and in person? What is the goal that the president is promising in terms of reopening schools in the first 100 days? And what does priority mean now when both the president and vice president say they think teachers should be prioritized to get the vaccine.

Let's start with the very latest on the vaccines. Joining me right now is CNN's Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, what does President Biden's July promise actually mean for the vaccine rollout?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, that's the big question for millions of Americans who are waiting to get that vaccine. And really, we have to take a look at the number we've been talking about since the beginning of the rollout, the distributed number versus administered.

This is where we stand right now, 71.6 million people -- excuse me, vaccines have been distributed, but only 55.2 million have been administered, actual shot in arms. We don't expect that number to completely catch up every until the very end to distribute it just because we know of all the complications that come in with this vaccine.

And President Trump was incredibly clear. He said they would have 600 million doses available to the entire country but that that didn't mean shots in arms. However, this is a very important first step. This is that supply piece.

As we are seeing right now, it is very hard for Americans to actually get appointments, even if they qualify for the vaccine. And even those who are lucky enough to get appointments, many of them are being canceled by states who said they simply don't have the supply.

So, this is definitely a key component moving towards everyone who wants it to actually get that vaccine.

BOLDUAN: It's absolutely right. And we're also learning that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine rollout, if -- assuming that it would get emergency approval, that it may be slower than they initially thought. What is going on with that?

HOLMES: Another good question, because federal officials say that because of a miscommunication over production and timeline, now, it doesn't seem like this launch is going to go as fast as they originally thought.

Now, the first numbers they gave was that there would be a batch of about 7 million doses and then that would ramp up significantly to 20 million to 30 million doses by April. Now, they're saying the April number is actually going to be less than 20 million. So, this is going to significantly delay the process.

And it is coming at a time where, again, there are a lot of issues with delaying in this process. We know that just the weather itself, the CDC saying a lot of deliveries at this point are delayed, that people aren't going to be able to get the shots in arms for the appointments that they already have.

That on top of the fact that states are complaining that they still don't have the supply that they need.

And one other thing to point out about this Johnson & Johnson rollout that's important here is I talk to a lot of state officials and health providers who told me they still feel in the dark about how this rollout is actually going to do and how it's going to work, where are the doses going to go? How many are going to be there, very different from what we saw with Pfizer and Moderna.

And experts say this could also lead to some sort of delay if they don't have those details early enough in getting those shots in arms.

BOLDUAN: Kristen, thanks so much for that.

So, let's get back, also, now to the issue -- the critical issue of schools and what the president is promising right now. Last night in the CNN town hall, the president contradicted what his press secretary had laid out recently. And by recently, I mean, Jen Psaki had said from the White House podium that open and in person in terms of getting K-8 kids back open and in person schools meant at least just one day a week.

[11:05:02]

So, here is what Biden then said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Your administration had set a goal to open the majority of schools in your first 100 days. You're now saying those schools may only be open for at least one day a week --

BIDEN: No, that's not true. That's what was reported. That's not true. It was a mistake in the communication.

What I'm talking about is I said opening the majority of schools in K- 8 grade because they're the easiest to open, the most needed to be open in terms of the impact on children and families having to stay home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: So now, now, what is the plan?

Joining me right now is CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.

Elizabeth, what is the White House's goal now for schools?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Kate, President Biden and members of his administration repeatedly said they want schools to open but they want them to open safely. So, when teachers hear that, they say, hey, if you want it to be safe, if you want to put me in a room with a bunch of young people --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: Elizabeth, I'm going to jump in. We need to go straight to the White House where the White House Coronavirus Task Force is beginning.

(BEGIN WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE BRIEFING)

JEFF ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: -- 27 days later while we made a lot of progress, there is a long road ahead. We're executing our strategy across multiple fronts, and that execution is yielding results. Today, I will give you the latest update on our execution in those three key areas: vaccine supply, number of vaccinators and places to get vaccinated.

We'll also hear from Dr. Walensky on the state of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci on the latest science, Dr. Nunez Smith on our equity work and Carol Johnson, White House testing coordinator, will discuss important progress on testing.

First, I'll start with vaccine supply. We've acted aggressively to increase the vaccine supply. Yesterday, we announced another increase in the weekly allocations of vaccine doses to states, tribes and territories, from 11 million doses last week to 13.5 million doses this week. That's an increase in vaccine allocations of 57 percent during the first four weeks of the Biden-Harris administration.

In addition, we're doubling the weekly vaccine supply to local pharmacies from 1 million to 2 million doses. And thanks to the president's leadership, we're on track to have enough vaccine supply for 300 million Americans by the end of July.

Second, we're mobilizing teams to get shots in arms. We signed an order to allow retired doctors and nurses to give shots. Today, we've deployed over 700 federal personnel as vaccinators.

The federal government is funding 1,200 National Guard members who are serving as vaccinators. For the first time, we have activated over 1,000 members of the military to help community vaccination sites in operational roles. We continue to take action to increase the number of vaccinators and federal support teams.

Third, we're creating more places where Americans can get vaccinated. We've expanded financial support to bolster community vaccination centers nationwide with over $3 billion in federal funding across 40 states, tribes and territories. We're bringing vaccinations to places communities know and trust -- community centers, high school gyms, churches and stadiums nationwide.

And we're standing up innovative high-volume federally-run sites that can give over 30,000 shots a week. We've also launched efforts to get vaccines to pharmacies and community health centers.

And the data shows we're making progress. As you can see on our weekly vaccination progress report, our seven-day daily doses administered is now 1.7 million average daily shots per day, up from 1.1 million only four weeks ago. Our seven-day daily average of 1.7 million compares to an average of 892,000 the week before President Biden took office. That is almost double in just four weeks.

Throughout this work, we're putting equity front and center, partnering with states to increase vaccinations in the hardest hit and hardest to reach communities, increasing supply to convenient and trusted locations like community health centers, deploying mobile units and improving data collection so we have a better understanding of the inequities currently experienced.

[11:10:10]

Let me be very clear. We have much more work to do on all fronts. But we are taking the actions we need to beat this virus. There is a path out of this pandemic. But how quickly we exit this crisis depends on all of us.

That's why I encourage everyone to take the advice of Dr. Walensky, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Nunez-Smith. Follow the public health guidance, wear masks, social distance and get vaccinated when it's your turn. We will do everything we can as a federal government to defeat this virus, but it will take all of us stepping up to do our part.

With that, let me turn it over to Dr. Walensky -- Dr. Walensky.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Thank you. I'm so glad to be back with you today to share the latest information on the status of the pandemic.

Let's first begin with an overview of the data, and then I want to briefly discuss with you what CDC knows about recently detected COVID- 19 variants and what we're doing in response.

COVID-19 cases have now been declining for five weeks. The seven-day average in the past week, cases have decreased nearly 22 percent to an average of slightly more than 86,000 cases per day.

Similarly, new hospital admissions have been consistently declining since early January with a 21 percent decline in the seven-day average over the past week averaging approximately 7,700 cases -- admissions per day.

We continue to see the daily number of reported deaths fluctuate. The latest data indicate deaths declined by 0.6 percent to an average of 3,076 deaths per day from February 9 to February 15. These numbers are a painful reminder of all those we have lost and continue to lose, our family members, our friends, our neighbors and our co-workers to this pandemic.

While cases and hospitalizations continue to move in the right direction, we remain in the midst of a very serious pandemic, and we continue to have more cases than we did even during last summer's peak. The continued spread of variants that are more transmissible could jeopardize the progress we have made in the last month if our -- if we let our guard down.

As of yesterday, we have confirmed 1,277 cases of the B117 variant across 42 states, including the first case of the B117 with E484K substitution that had previously been found in the U.K.

Nineteen cases of B1351 variant have been found across ten states and three cases of the P1 variant has been found in two states.

Reflective of our commitment to communicate openly and often about the latest science on variants today, CDC is releasing two studies in the morbidity and mortality weekly report, as well as a commentary in "The Journal of the American Medical Association" on variants specifically. In the MMWR reports, one study describes the different ways eight people in Minnesota were infected with the B117 variant that emerged last year in the U.K. None of the eight individuals had traveled to the U.K., but three appeared to have been infected during international travel to other destinations, and three during travel to California. One person was exposed to virus in their home and another in their community.

The second report examines the initial spread of the B1351 variant in Zambia where the average daily number of cases increased 16-fold from December to January which coincided with the detection of the B1351 variant in specimens collected in December.

The B13551 variant was first detected in South Africa and Zambia shows commerce and tourism linkages with South Africa which may have contributed to the transmission of this variant across the two countries. In the JAMA viewpoint co-authored with Dr. Fauci, we provide a synopsis of what we know about the primary variants circulating in the United States and the interagency steps the federal government is taking to address these variants.

I know these variants are concerning especially as we're seeing signs of progress. I'm talking about them today because I am concerned, too.

Fortunately, the science to date suggests that the same prevention actions apply to these variants.

[11:15:01]

This includes wearing a well-fitting mask that completely covers your nose and mouth, social distancing around others that don't live with you, avoiding travel, crowds and poorly ventilated spaces, washing your hands often and getting vaccinated when the vaccine is available to you. It is more important than ever for us to do everything we can to decrease the spread in our communities by increasing our proven measures that prevent the spread of COVID-19. Fewer cases means fewer opportunities for the variant to spread and fewer opportunities for new variants to emerge.

Finally, a quick comment on masking. As I stated last week, the science is clear, consistently and correctly wearing a mask is one of the most effective tools we have to stop the spread of COVID-19. For reasons supported by science, comfort, cost and practicality, the CDC does not recommend routine use of N95 respirators for protection against COVID-19 by the general public.

Abundant, scientific laboratory data, epidemiologic investigations and large population level analyses demonstrate that masks now available to the general public are effective and are working. And there is little evidence that, when worn properly, well-fitting medical and cloth masks fail in disease transmission. CDC continues to recommend the use of masks that have two or more layers, that completely cover your nose and mouth and fit comfortably over your nose and side of your face.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

I will now turn it over to Dr. Fauci -- Dr. Fauci.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Thank you very much, Dr. Walensky.

I'd like to address an issue that we have been asked about continually since the successful demonstration of the high efficacy of the vaccines that are currently being implemented right now in our country, the mRNA vaccines of Pfizer and of Moderna.

And the question is, we do know now we have a 94 to 95 percent efficacy in preventing clinically recognizable disease. But the looming question is, if a person gets infected, despite the fact they've been vaccinated -- we refer to that as a break-through infection, does that person have the capability of transmitting the infection to another person. Namely, does vaccine prevent transmission?

And I had mentioned to you that we, together with the Moderna company and the Pfizer group is going to do it also, are going to be looking at the viral load in the nasal pharynx to determine if, in fact, a person who is vaccinated but has a breakthrough infection compared to a person who is unvaccinated and has an asymptomatic infection, is there a difference in the viral load? That will be very important.

What has happened over the past couple weeks is there have been some studies that are pointing into a very favorable direction that will have to be verified and corroborated by other studies.

Let me spend a minute to just describe it to you. The real question is, is there a relationship between viral load and transmissibility. We know from ample studies over many years with HIV that there's a direct correlation between the viral load that an individual has, usually measured in the blood, and the likelihood that they will or will not transmit their infection, for example, to a sexual partner.

The lower the viral load, the less likelihood of transmissibility. The higher the viral load, the higher the likelihood of transmissibility.

Well, when you're dealing with COVID-19, you're talking about viral load in the nasopharynx. So, a study has just come out about a week and a half ago from Spain that directly looked at it with a group of 282 clusters of infections. And what it showed in a Lancet article that came out on February 2nd was something we were hoping we would see, that there was a direct correlation with the viral load and the efficiency of transmission, very much the same as what we've seen in diseases like HIV, only now it's in the nasopharynx.

In other words, higher viral load, good transmissible. Lower viral load, very poor transmissibility.

Now, together with that is another study that came out on February the 8th on an online journal which I believe is worthy of being noted here. Even though, as I mentioned, you want corroboration with other studies. It was a study from Israel. It looked at the following question. If, in fact, you assume that decreased viral load will result in a

decreased transmission, when you follow break-through infections in individuals in Israel who had been vaccinated compared to infections in individuals who are not, there was a markedly diminished viral load in those individuals who were vaccinated but had a break-through infection compared to individuals who were not.

[11:20:29]

It's very interesting the Israelis were able to do that study. It is noteworthy that, when you look at the amount of vaccinations per hundred people, namely, how many vaccinations were given per hundred people, Israel is way up there with 78 doses per 100 people, compared to the United States which is 16.7 doses per 100 people.

So, we have been hearing and seeing in the press that Israel has a remarkable diminution in cases associated with the efficiency of their vaccine.

The reason I bring this out to you is that it is another example of the scientific data starting to point to the fact that vaccine is important, not only for the health of the individual, to protect them against infection and disease, including the variants that Dr. Walensky has mentioned just a moment ago. But it also has very important implications from a public health standpoint for interviewing and diminishing the dynamics of the outbreak.

So, the bottom line message is one that you just heard from Dr. Walensky that I said the last few times we had these press briefings. And that is, when your turn to get vaccinated comes up, get vaccinated. It's not only good for you and your family and your community, it will have a very important impact on the dynamics of the outbreak in our country.

And with that, I'll hand it over to Dr. Nunez-Smith.

(END WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE BRIEFING)

BOLDUAN: All right. We've been listening in to the latest update. It's ongoing. We're going to continue to monitor it for news to bring to you.

But while we were listening, I thought we'd bring in Dr. Craig Spencer. He's a director of global health and emergency medicine at Columbia University medical center, to go through some of what we learned from the COVID response team so far.

Dr. Spencer, what did you take away from the update we heard there?

DR. CRAIG SPENCER, DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL HEALTH IN ER MEDICINE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: Quite a few really reassuring things. I think the big one, of course, is that the number of cases and hospital investigations have plummeted in recent weeks which is fantastic. We know deaths are still continuing at the leveling of 9/11 every single day, which is completely unacceptable, and I think that argues that we need to continue doing the same things that Dr. Walensky and Dr. Fauci argued for, you know, masking, social distancing, the same things that helped us throughout this pandemic.

But so much encouraging news there, the fact that we've doubled the rollout of the vaccine doses, the fact we're using stadiums as well as focusing on small pharmacies and community health centers where people feel more comfortable going -- all these things are the right things that need to be done to make sure we get people vaccinated and we control the virus in our communities.

BOLDUAN: And Dr. Spencer, as Dr. Fauci was discussing, he's speaking to a question that's not yet answered. He's starting to suggest that some science is giving us some evidence on the question of -- if you have -- if someone is vaccinated, can they still transmit the virus to someone else? Can they still get someone else sick even though they, themselves, might not have any symptoms whatsoever.

What did you think of how he was laying out, it's not necessarily completely clear, decided answer. Yet, there's some more evidence starting to suggest that the vaccine -- it's showing that the vaccine is now even more important, not only to protect yourself but because it may slow transmission.

SPENCER: Exactly. I think you summarized that perfectly there.

We know that the vaccines are helpful to prevent severe disease, to prevent hospitalizations and prevent people from dying. And we've suspected that once you're vaccinated, it will make you less likely to get infected yourself and pass the virus along.

That wasn't included in the original study. So, we couldn't say that for certain. But multiple signals are pointing that way, meaning that it's probably quite likely that once you're vaccinated, the likelihood you get infected or can be infected is much lower.

And even if you are infected, the likelihood that you'll have substantial virus, that you'll be able to transmit to others is probably significantly lower as well. The question is whether it's 10 percent lower, 50 percent lower, 90 percent lower, we don't know.

But a lot, again, a lot of signal is pointing to the fact that it's probably substantially lower which would be very welcoming news.

BOLDUAN: I want to ask you more broadly kind of about life going forward. As President Biden was speaking at the CNN town hall last night, he said he believes life is going to be getting back to something that resembles normal by Christmas of this year.

[11:25:10]

And he said by that time there will be significantly fewer people having to be socially distanced, having to wear a mask. Do you see that, Dr. Spencer?

SPENCER: I do. You know, as soon as we're able to vaccinate the majority of the population in the U.S., if all else goes well, then we should be able to hopefully ease back some of these restrictions. We should be able to do some more of those normal things that we wanted to do for so long.

That being said, there are a lot of unknowns, as Dr. Walensky pointed out. Many of the emerging variants are concerning for their ability to perhaps cause reinfection in people who have already had COVID or decrease the effectiveness of vaccines. We don't know which variants will continue to emerge in the coming months. There are, again, a lot of signals that things can hopefully get back to some sense of normalcy once we get enough people vaccinated. The big concern I have, we've been so focused on the U.S., I have received more vaccine than 130 countries.

And we keep hearing this cliche that none of us are safe until we're all safe. Even if we get everyone vaccinated in the U.S., there's still a lot of virus around the world and variants will emerge that can undermine our protection which is why we need to focus on not just getting the U.S. vaccinated but doing more to make sure that the vaccine worldwide is equitably done.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, because, as you say, it's not just about yourself it's not just about the United States, because what happens elsewhere with this vaccine and virus impacts us here.

Doctor, thank you for your time. It's good to see you.

SPENCER: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, millions in Texas are waking up without power or heat for yet another day and being hit again with yet another fierce winter storm. How much longer can people hold out there? And why is this state's power grid failing so spectacularly?

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