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White House Holds COVID-19 Briefing; U.S. Set to Pass 500,000 COVID-19 Deaths. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired February 22, 2021 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Any moment now, the White House will be holding its coronavirus task force briefing, but today's update will likely take a different tone.

And that's because of the number on the right side of your screen there. The U.S. is expected to surpass 500,000 deaths today, a reflection point for the half-a-million families who will never be the same.

Also this hour, we are keeping an eye on that confirmation hearing of Merrick Garland, President Biden's choice for attorney general. The hearing became emotional at times with the discussion in the disparity in how the law is executed in the country. Judge Garland is vowing to keep politics out of the Department of Justice, and he also promised to fully prosecute the -- quote -- "heinous crimes committed on Capitol Hill on January 6."

Also today, a huge loss for the former president. The U.S. Supreme Court has just cleared the way for a New York prosecutor to get his hands on Donald Trump's tax returns. So, we will discuss that at length as far as what this means for the investigation into those alleged hush money payment.

But, first, let's start at the White House with my colleague there Phil Mattingly.

And, Phil, just speaking of this awful, awful number here, I know that President Biden, Vice President Harris will be making a point to honor those half-million lives lost this evening. What are you hearing?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, it's a somber moment at the White House. It's a somber moment for the entire country, obviously, a staggering number that I don't think most people can get their heads around.

And I think that's a driving force for why President Biden, Vice President Harris and their team want to do what they're going to do tonight. They will have a candle lighting ceremony. There will be a moment of silence. The president will give remarks beforehand. He also during those remarks will announce that he's ordered flags to

be taken down to half-staff for the next five days in federal buildings, in a remembrance of sorts.

And, Brooke, if you just think back one month ago to the day before President Biden's inauguration, standing in front of the Reflecting Pool on the Lincoln Memorial, he had another remembrance for at that time 400,000 lives lost. And he said, to heal, we must remember.

And I think that's something that, while you're focused on the task force meetings and you're focused on the vaccines, and vaccine production and distribution, and vaccinators and all of the different elements that everyone is focused on as you try and turn the corner, as you try and turn the page on what has been a horrific kind of last year for not just this country, but for the entire world, the president trying to keep the focus to some degree on those grieving families, on those who've lost someone over the course of the last 11- and-a-half, 12 months, and a recognition that $500,000 seems -- 500,000 lives seems kind of amorphous to some degree because it's so extraordinarily large.

Tonight will be about focusing on that, focusing on their families, focus on the loved ones that lost someone to some degree, with the full acknowledgement that there's more to come. And while they believe they're in the process of turning a corner, they might not be there yet, but for at least one moment focused on what's occurred and transpired over the course of the last year, Brooke.

BALDWIN: It is so tragic to think that we have been in this now nearly for an entire year. And just about all of us knows at least one person, you know, touched by COVID and has passed.

Phil, thank you so much. We will look for that this evening. We're also honoring those lives this evening here on CNN. We will get to that in a second.

But let's discuss moving forward.

CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen, she's the former city health commissioner for the city of Baltimore.

Dr. Wen, nice to see you.

Although we are about to cross this grim milestone of 500,000 deaths, when you look at the new daily cases, deaths, hospitalizations, they are all dropping dramatically. Is this because of the vaccine, pure and simple?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I don't think that the trends that we're seeing are all due to the vaccine. Maybe a portion of it. But I actually think that a lot of it is because we have had this dramatic surge before because of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and so forth.

And we're coming down from that surge. And that's why, although I'm optimistic at least that the numbers are trending in the right direction, I'm still extremely cautious about what this could mean, because we're still at a very high level of infection.

And we have seen a pattern before, that, when restrictions are loosened, when pandemic fatigue really sets in, that there is the chance that whatever gains we have made could be reversed. And this is particularly the case with variants on the way as well that could be even more transmissible.

Now, I do think that the vaccine will make a big difference, especially when it comes to death rates, because we're vaccinating those who are older with chronic medical illnesses. I think they will make a difference. But I don't think that the gains that we have seen so far can be can be mostly attributed to the vaccine.

BALDWIN: OK, I hear your caution. And I appreciate it.

I was reading something today about how, even after you're vaccinated, experts aren't entirely sure whether you can actually still carry the virus in your nose and then transfer it to those who have not been vaccinated.

So, how long, Dr. Wen, do you think people should who've been vaccinated, how long do we still need to be wearing masks?

WEN: So, this is a really good question. And I think it points to the need for practical guidance about what happens when people are fully vaccinated, because I don't think it's enough to tell people you should still follow exactly the same precautions that you did pre- vaccine.

[15:05:08]

BALDWIN: Right.

WEN: That's not really true.

I think that people who are fully vaccinated, at least two weeks after they're fully vaccinated, I think they should be able to do some things. For example, if they put off essential activities, like mammograms and colonoscopies and surgeries, they should definitely do that, because they're well-protected themselves.

But I don't think that people should be going bar-hopping. And they should still definitely keep on wearing masks and physical distance where they're outdoors with strangers.

But I do think that grandparents who are really eager to see their grandkids and the rest of the family, they should be able to do that, including to spend time indoors with them. Still be careful if they're traveling and reduce other social interactions. But I do think that we need to give people hope for what comes after they get vaccinated.

BALDWIN: And just quickly follow up on that, because everyone's thinking, oh, I can see my grandparents or share -- introduce the grandbaby.

How many weeks after the second vaccination do you still have to hold before you can then see the grandparents?

WEN: You get optimal immunity 10 to 14 days after that second dose.

And so wait at least until then, but--

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Forgive me, Leana Wen. I'm going to back to this point in just a second.

Hang tight. Let's go to the White House COVID briefing. Just starting.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

ANDY SLAVITT, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE ADVISER FOR COVID RESPONSE: -- along with the vice president, second gentlemen, will hold a moment of silence in a ceremony at sundown to honor those who've lost their lives to this pandemic.

Everyone lost is someone whose life and gifts were cut short. Our hearts go out to all of those who are grieving loved ones who are so deeply missed.

For those of us in the administration, the occasion makes us more determined to turn the tide on COVID-19, so the losses can subside and the healing can begin.

The president has asked us to use every possible resource to make that happen.

On Friday, I provided an overview of how the extreme weather had impacted our vaccination efforts. And, today, I want to give an update on our progress to recover. That progress began as soon as the weather began to improve, thanks to an all-out round-the-clock effort from our teams and partners.

McKesson ran extended shifts Saturday and Sunday to pack vaccines, and members of the military joined them in their efforts. Seventy McKesson employees volunteered to work 1:00 a.m. shifts Saturday night/Sunday morning to prepare shipments to meet an 11:00 a.m. transit deadline.

On Sunday, UPS extended its on-site trailer time at the McKesson facility in Kentucky to allow them to pack hundreds of thousands more doses. Thanks to that and many more, those efforts, today alone, we plan to deliver seven million doses.

This is a combination of catchup from last week doses that were delayed from the weather and doses going out as a normal part of today's normal distribution.

I reported on Friday that we would catch up on deliveries by the end of this week. We now anticipate that all backlogged doses will be delivered by midweek.

But delivering doses to administration sites is, as we know, only the first step. Sites around the country have a significant job ahead of them to quickly vaccinate the public. It will take some time for those sites to catch up.

We encourage vaccination sites to follow that same lead of those who are working extended hours to catch up on deliveries by scheduling more appointments to vaccinate the anxious public as quickly as possible.

There are still vaccination sites closed from today's -- from the storm's impact. Texas' seven-day average of administered COVID-19 doses decreased by 31 percent in the past week, due to winter weather impacts. Some Houston area vaccination clinics and testing sites have now reopened.

Austin Public Health does not believe reopening is safe at this time, but announced that, when operations resume, they will include extended hours and additional locations.

Next, I want to begin to turn to our efforts to educate and communicate with the public about the importance of vaccinations. After all, today's challenge of vaccinating those who are waiting must be accompanied by an equally aggressive effort to reach people who are considering getting vaccinated, but haven't yet decided to.

[15:10:07]

We are so fortunate to have highly effective vaccines and safe vaccines, which makes the conversation with the public a much more straightforward one.

So, let me tell you a little bit about the three stages of our approach to communication. For the last month, we have been in the first stage of this work. That first stage has entailed a significant number of activities, listening to the public's concerns, hearing from experts, testing how different audiences react to different methods of communication and different messengers, and ensuring that we can provide clear answers that the public deserves.

Today, we begin a second and more public stage, engagement with key stakeholders. The COVID team has begun meeting on an ongoing basis state and local health leaders, nonprofits, businesses and unions about the pandemic.

We have held more than 100 one-on-one discussions with these groups. And we will continue this engagement throughout the response. Now, to continue to inform our efforts around vaccine confidence, over the next two weeks, the White House, along with CDC and HHS, will host a series of listening sessions with key stakeholder groups.

These meetings will be led by Dr. Nunez-Smith, who is leading our equity work. These conversations will focus on how to strengthen vaccine confidence and how to eliminate barriers that underserved communities are facing to vaccinations, like paid leave, transportation and scheduling.

The meetings are kicking off today with a conversation with key leaders in the African-American community. And throughout the week, we will be meeting with Latino groups, faith leaders and members of the rural community.

These listening sessions will continue our effort to hear directly from communities who've been hit hardest by this pandemic and help us build strong partnerships with those will be key to our efforts to build vaccine confidence and reach everyone in our response.

As a part of this effort, beginning today through Wednesday, CDC is hosting a national forum on vaccines, where they're bringing together thousands of participants from around the country from practitioners to jurisdictions to others working on the ground to discuss practical strategies, technical resources and best practices for vaccination efforts.

In a moment, Dr. Walensky will discuss this.

All of that continues our work on not only a whole-of-government response, but to leverage the best existing resources outside of government to end this pandemic as quickly as possible.

And our third phase, the public education campaign, will be timed for maximum effectiveness and designed based on both our learnings and take full advantage of the participation of many throughout the country.

So, with that update, I will turn it over to Dr. Walensky, and then, from there, to Dr. Fauci. And then we will take your questions.

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Thank you, Andy. I'm glad to be back with you today.

We continue to see trends head in the right direction, but cases, hospital admissions and deaths remain at very high levels. COVID-19 in the United States has been declining for five weeks, with the seven- day average dropping 74 percent since the peak seven-day average on January 11.

The current seven-day average, approximately 66,000 cases per day, is similar to that seen during last summer's peak. Cases remain significantly elevated. And the seven-day average for new hospital admissions, 6,500 a day, reflects a 60 percent decline since the peak seven-day average on January 9. It's lowest seven-day average in hospital admissions since last fall.

The number of reported deaths also continues to decline, with the seven-day average slightly more than 1,900 deaths, dropping 39 percent compared to the prior seven-day average. This is the lowest since the beginning of December.

However, this seven-day average is counterbalanced by the stark reality that this week we will surpass one half-million COVID-19 deaths in the United States, a truly tragic reminder of the enormity of this pandemic and the loss it has afflicted on our personal lives and our communities.

While the pandemic is heading in the right direction, there is still much work to do. One area that is particularly important is getting students back to in person instructing -- instruction, while protecting teachers, students and staff.

[15:15:06]

A little more than a week ago, we released our operational strategy for opening K-12 schools. This strategy provides the long-needed science-based road map to help schools open safely and remain open for in person instruction.

Since the release of this strategy, we have been working closely with the Department of Education, public health partners and education partners, including teachers and other school staff, to increase awareness of the guidance and to support its use in ongoing discussions and planning efforts for school reopenings.

The goal is to achieve the reopening of schools safely.

In addition, we continue to study COVID-19 spread in schools to identify the factors that continue -- that contribute to outbreaks and steps that can help prevent spread in schools.

Today, CDC published a concerning report in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report the details an investigation of COVID-19 spread in eight public elementary schools in a single school district in Georgia during a period of high community spread.

In the report, researchers identified nine clusters of COVID-19 cases involving 13 educators and 32 students at, at least six elementary schools. In two of these clusters, COVID-19 was spread first from educator to educator and then from educator to student.

These two clusters accounted for half of all the school-associated cases. Across the nine clusters, educators played an important role in the spread of COVID-19 in the schools. COVID-19 spread often occurred during in person meetings or lunches and then subsequently spread in classrooms.

COVID-19 was also spread from student to educator and from student to student, but this occurred less frequently.

The two main reasons for the spread of COVID-19 in these schools were inadequate physical distancing and mask adherence. In the schools, physical distancing of at least six feet was not possible because of the high number of students in class, as well as because of classroom layouts.

In addition, COVID-19 may have spread among educators and students during small group discussions, where educators were in close proximity to students.

Although the school district mandated in-classroom mask-wearing except while eating, and mask-wearing was reportedly high, the study found that there were instances where a lack or inadequate mask-wearing by students occurred.

In these situations, lack of physical distancing likely increased the risk of spread. In addition, students ate lunch in their classrooms, which may have also contributed to spread. These findings underscore the importance of strict mask adherence, to the five key layered mitigation strategies outlined in the CDC's K-12 operational strategy.

In particular, universal mask-wearing, physical distancing of at least six feet, and using cohorting or podding of students are important to minimize spread throughout the school environment. This is especially true for schools that have high rates of COVID-19 in their community.

As we have noted, distancing requirements, which we recognize are very challenging, can be relaxed as school -- as community rates come down. It's also worth noting that approximately 60 percent of close contacts of the cases agreed to be tested for COVID-19.

And for those who were tested, testing took five to seven days, a delay that makes it incredibly difficult to rapidly contain spread. These findings highlight an additional key mitigation strategy recommended in CDC school guidance, the need for diagnostic testing and rapid and efficient contact tracing, in combination with isolation and quarantine, in collaboration with the health department.

The findings also highlight the importance of scaling up vaccination efforts across the country, including the continued need to prioritize teachers and other school staff for vaccination as part of the front- line essential workers, consistent with the recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

CDC's operational strategies specifically includes vaccination for teachers and school staff as an additional layer of protection that can be added to the five key layered mitigation strategies.

Finally, I want to emphasize that, while CDC's operational strategy does provide for in person instruction during all levels of community spread, the safest and quickest way to open schools and keep them open is to have as little COVID-19 in the community as possible. Enabling schools to open and remain open is therefore a shared responsibility.

Encouragingly consistent with the recent declines in COVID-19 cases in the United States, the percentage of counties with the highest level of COVID-19 transmission continue to drop, declining from approximately 90 percent when we released our school guidance about 10 days ago to 60 percent as of yesterday.

[15:20:18]

Now approximately 18 percent of counties have COVID-19 levels at the low or moderate levels, with -- that's consistent with full in person learn for all K-12 schools in CDC's guidance. And 22 percent are at the substantial level, consistent with hybrid learning or reduced in person attendance for all K-12 schools.

For the 60 percent of counties that remain in the red zone, the counties with high transmission, we encourage at least the K-5 students to return to school in hybrid or reduced in person attendance and for middle and high school schools virtually only unless they can strictly implement mitigation measures and have few cases. Schools that are already open should continue to provide in person

instruction as long as cases are low and they strictly use mitigation measures to keep them low.

I hope these findings serve as a catalyst for each of us to do our part to drive down the number of cased and reduce the spread of COVID- 19. I know this is not easy, and so many of us are frustrated with the disruption the pandemic has had on our lives and our children's education. But working together as a nation, we can turn the tide.

Finally, I want to share some news about our virtual national vaccine forum that kicked off this morning. I'm excited to share we have over is 1,000 participants from 6,000 organizations across all 50 states, nearly all territories and 128 tribes and tribal organizations.

Over the next three days, these participants will share information and best practices on how to build trust and confidence in COVID-19 vaccines, use data to optimize vaccine implementation, and provide practical real-world experience on how to increase vaccination capacities in our communities.

I encourage each of you to watch the livestream plenary sessions throughout the day and get engaged in your community vaccination efforts.

Before I turn to Dr. Fauci, I want to reiterate to everyone to continue to do your part to protect yourselves and each other by wearing a well-fitting mask, staying six feet apart from the people you do not live with, avoiding travel in crowds, washing your hands often and getting vaccinated when the vaccine is available to you.

And now I will turn it over to Dr. Fauci. I look forward to your questions.

Dr. Fauci?

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

I'm going to talk for a few minutes today and updating you on where we are on some selected therapeutics for COVID-19.

So, if we can move ahead to my first slide.

In general, when one thinks of therapeutics, you think of them as therapeutics for early or moderate disease, vs. therapeutics for moderate to advanced disease.

Clearly, the strategy early on is to block the replication of virus and prevent it from going from the upper airway to the lungs and other organ systems. However, we have found through experience over the past many months that, when one gets advanced disease, the hyper or aberrant inflammatory or immunological response gives us much to the morbidity and mortality as the actual virus replication itself.

And in that regard, a variety of drugs have been tested. One, such as remdesivir, has gained FDA approval. Its effect is clear, but modest.

In regard to getting early intervention, monoclonal antibodies, both from Lilly and from Regeneron have received emergency use authorization. Here again, the earlier one uses these, the better. These are as efficient and more efficient in those individuals who don't necessarily have a good antibody response.

The same can be said of convalescent plasma, which has also earned an emergency use authorization, again. Because of the variability in the titer of antibody and various plasma concentration -- excuse me -- plasma aliquots, the issue here is getting this as early as possible.

There have been a number of trials of a variety of antivirals or other agents that are off the shelf that have not been targeted. I will get to targeted intervention in just a moment. And then hyperimmune globulin is also in clinical trial. And we await the results of all of these.

[15:25:05]

With regard to therapeutics for advanced disease, as I mentioned, that is generally aimed at blocking an aberrant inflammatory or immunological response, as well as other pathogenic mechanisms which are not necessarily that well understood.

We have dexamethasone, a drug approved for many, many, many years, is the standard of care for advanced disease, particularly people in the hospital, on respirators and/or requiring high-flow oxygen.

Baricitinib and remdesivir have earned emergency use authorization, and a number of immunomodulators, including those that block a variety of cytokines and cytokine receptors are currently in clinical trials.

Can I have the next slide?

The bottom line of what we need to do looking forward and the clear need in this is the development of potent antivirals directly acting on SARS-CoV-2, very similar to what was done with the highly successful drug development program for HIV, as well as for hepatitis c.

And what I refer to is, the future development of therapeutics will be based on the identification of vulnerable targets in the SARS-CoV-2 replication cycle and the design of drugs to inhibit these vulnerable targets.

As I mentioned, we are beginning this, and this is going to be the direction of the future.

I want to point out to the group that the NIH in April put together a treatment guidelines panel that is a living document of clinicians and people involved in the care of SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals who analyzed the literature, as well as the now very common preprint literature, and update in -- meaningfully in very frequent intervals.

It is a living document. As I mentioned, there are 47 voting members of this. And since this was put online in April of 2020, easily accessible by COVID19treatmentguidelines.NIH.gov, there have been over 11 million hits to this.

The reason we feel this is important and I want to again bring it to everyone's attention is that is an easy way to get experienced clinicians to analyze data that's already in the literature, as well as data that is in preprint form and involved in just clinical experience. it has been very advantageous to clinicians, not only in the United States, but worldwide.

And if I could have the next slide, finally, I want to just bring to your attention something that the FDA has done today, in having a press briefing, I believe, at 1:30. I want to bring it to your attention, because, although they delineated the aspects of it, I want to make sure everyone is aware of the very important work that the FDA is doing.

And that is, they are guiding the medical product developers by updating their guidelines on how they address the virus variants. And the products involved that are impacted by this updated guidance are vaccines, COVID-19 tests, and therapeutics.

Why is this important? It is very clear that we are faced right now and will be in the future with variants that are already present, and that, with all of the immunologic and other pressures that are going on, and the high degree of replication throughout the world, that there will be the selecting of a variety of variants.

We ourselves in this country are already facing variants that are having impact, such as the U.K. variant. We have this -- the South African variant in our nation, and we're even having the evolution of variants within our own country.

With regard to vaccines, the FDA outlines the scientific recommendations for the modification to authorized vaccines. In other words, we have vaccines that are out there that are highly efficacious.