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J&J Vaccine Shipment Arrives at Louisville Airport; White House COVID Briefing as J&J Vaccine Rollout Begins; CDC: "Deeply Concerned" at COVID Case Trajectory. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired March 01, 2021 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:55]

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

At this hour, we are tracking several developments on the fight against the pandemic. We're standing by to hear from President Biden's COVID response team set to hold its later briefing any moment now and we'll bring that to you live when it begins. This is the first briefing since the J&J vaccine received emergency authorization from the FDA over the weekend.

And on that major news, we're going to see this hour the first doses of Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine getting ready to ship out across the country from an airport in Louisville, Kentucky. CNN is on the ground there.

The first doses of the new vaccine could be in the arms of Americans as early as tomorrow. This is very good news and it comes as there is also growing concern that the United States is hitting a plateau when it comes to the number of new infections from coast to coast.

There is real concern about that today and add to that the real worry over the continued spread of COVID variants here. The CDC director has already warned that it's possible that the U.S. is seeing the beginning effects as she put it of the spread of the variants, particularly the one first identified in the United Kingdom which could be the dominant strain of the virus in the United States by the end of this month.

Let's start with a role out of the J&J vaccine. CNN's Pete Muntean is in Louisville, Kentucky.

But first, let's go to CNN's Elizabeth Cohen on the timeline for all of this.

Elizabeth, they are not wasting any time getting this vaccine out there. What more are you learning about when the shots will be available and what people need to know about it?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Kate, we know that 4 million shots will be shipped immediately. Those are expected to arrive at their destinations as early as tomorrow. By the end of the month, we should see 20 million or more Johnson & Johnson shots and as you said it is a one-shot vaccine. When we talked about Moderna and Pfizer, we have to cut everything in half because two doses were needed by 20 million doses will cover 20 million people.

BOLDUAN: Elizabeth, I'm just going to jump in because we need to go straight over to the White House. The COVID response team beginning their update.

JEFF ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: On so many fronts this is certainly a very encouraging development.

Today, we'll get a state of the pandemic update from Dr. Walensky. Dr. Fauci and Dr. Nunez-Smith will discuss the recently authorized J&J vaccine and I'm close on on update and planning and distribution of the J&J vaccine and then open it up to questions.

With that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Walensky.

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

Let's get started with the pandemic. I'm concerned about a potential shift in the trajectory of the pandemic. The latest data continues to suggest that recent declines in cases have leveled off at a very high number. The most recent seven day average of cases approximately 67,200 represents an increase of a little over 2 percent compared to the prior seven days.

Similarly, the most recent seven-day average of deaths has also increased more than 2 percent from the previous seven days to nearly 2,000 deaths per day. These data are evidence that our recent declines to appear to be stalling. Stalling at over 70,000 cases a day.

With these new statistics, I'm really worried about reports that more states are rolling back the exact public health measures we have recommended to protect people from COVID-19. I understand the temptation to do this. 70,000 cases a day seems good compared to a few months ago, but we can not be resigned to 70,000 cases a day, 2,000 daily deaths.

Please hear me clearly. At this level of cases with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard earned ground we have gained. These variants are a very real threat to our people and our progress.

[11:05:03]

Now is not the time to relax the critical safeguards that we know could stop the spread of COVID-19 in our communities, not when we are so close. We have the ability to stop a potential fourth surge of cases in this country. Please stay strong in your conviction, continue wearing your well fitted mask and taking the other public health prevention actions that we know work. Ultimately, vaccination is what will bring us out of this pandemic. To

get there, we need to vaccinate many more people. Yesterday, CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices or ACIP endorsed the safety and efficacy of Janssen's COVID-19 vaccine.

After the ACIP met, I was heartened to sign recommendations for use of the vaccine in people 18 or older. This means we now have three safe and highly effective vaccines that prevent serious illness and death from COVID-19. Importantly, ACIP does not state a preference for a particular COVID vaccine, rather, they recommend that individuals can get any of the ACIP recommended COVID-19 vaccines and they encourage individuals to receive their earliest vaccine available to them.

The Janssen vaccine is a much needed addition to our tool box and increases the number of vaccine doses available and makes it possible for people to get -- for more people to get vaccinated and protected from COVID-19. It also offers several unique benefits. It is a single dose vaccine that provides COVID-19 protection with just one shot. That could help fully vaccinate people who may have difficulty or who are not interested in returning for a second dose.

So, those administering the vaccine, this vaccine is also easier to store and transport since it does not need to be kept in a freezer. This will make it easier to provide vaccine in more community settings and mobile sites as supplies scale up. Having multiple types of vaccine available, especially with different dosing regimen and different storing and handling offers more flexibility.

For example, clinics and mass vaccination sites that do not have freezer capacity may be able to use the Janssen vaccine, increasing access to more communities. I know that many Americans look forward to rolling up their sleeves with confidence as soon as a COVID-19 vaccine is available to them. We are working hard to get and distribute these vaccines to your communities.

I also know that some people may not be there today and may still have questions about these vaccines, including wanting more information about the process for developing and authorizing them. That is natural. And I know that some people have had experiences ma they've diminished confidence in the health system. That's also understandable.

I want to emphasize several important facts about these vaccines. We have conducted the largest scale clinical trials of any vaccine and what made that possible so quickly was the high amount of disease in the community, and the fact that so many people were interested in participating.

All of the available data show that these vaccines are safe and are highly effective. Over 100,000 people participated in clinical trials to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines and they have all met rigorous FDA scientific standards.

Equally importantly, as of today, nearly 50 million people in the United States have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. We have put in place the most intensive vaccine safety monitoring systems in U.S. history and we are actively monitoring for any new safety signals.

CDC's new V-safe smartphone based health checker has now enrolled approximately 4.5 million people to capture patient reported side effects in real-time. These results are all reassuring. Some people have no side effects after vaccination, many people have reported mild side effects like pain, swelling at the injection site and headache and chills or fever. These are common with all vaccines and should go away after a day or so.

Serious, generally reversible actions remain exceptionally rare. For those who have still questions about the vaccines, I encourage you to visit the CDC COVID-19 website for more information. Our decisions today as a unified nation and as individuals including whether and when to get vaccinated will determine how quickly we can stop the pandemic and what life will look like in the coming months ahead.

The most important thing you can do is to be ready to get the vaccine available to you. It will help protect us all from COVID-19.

Thank you, I look forward to your questions.

[11:10:00]

And with that, I'll turn things over to Dr. Fauci -- Dr. Fauci.

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

I'm going to just talk a little bit more now about the Janssen COVID- 19 vaccine. If I could have that first slide, let's move on to the second slide.

We get questions -- just move on to the second slide. We get questions regarding the various percentage numbers that people see. And I know most of you aware of them. But let me just clarify a few things.

The 66 percent vaccine efficacy that we have is really against all of the countries involved. You must recall that this vaccine trial was done on three continents, the United States, South America and South Africa, with varying degrees of infection dynamics as well as varying strains of variants or lineages. That is the 66 percent. The 72 percent is the vaccine efficacy against moderate to severe critical infection in the United States.

I want to point out again a question we often get asked. In order to try, we always say what vaccine is better than the other vaccine. In order to be able to determine that, you would have to compare them head-to-head, this was not done. We have three highly efficacious vaccines that are also as Dr. Walensky has said, has a very good safety profile.

A very important number that I want to re-emphasize is that there is 85 percent efficacy against severe COVID-19 globally, including the United States. This is very important because if you look at other countries, such as South Africa, if you go to the next slide, where you have the B.1.351. You could see that the efficacy against severe critical disease was 82 percent there.

That's really very important because even though the vaccine itself, the spiked protein that was used and expressed in that vaccine was the spiked protein against wild type virus, namely the virus that is the D614G, not against the B.1.351. So even though the vaccine itself was not specifically directed against those variants, it did extremely well when it came to preventing severe critical disease and as we've heard many times now, there were no hospitalizations or deaths in any of those studies.

Next slide. I want to just spend a minute now telling you the difference between the mRNA and the Ad26 because we often get asked that question. As we've said on previous briefings, the mRNA that's injected into the muscle, codes for the spike protein in the proper configuration the body sees that and then makes an immune response against that, giving you the protection that has been shown with both of the mRNA vaccines.

Next slide. In contrast, the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine approach is to take a common cold, harmless, non-replication, competent virus called adeno 26 in which the DNA of the SARS spike insert was given into the genome. That virus is then injected into an individual, the DNA then transcribes the RNA, the RNA then gives you the spike protein.

The ultimate end game is that both of the viruses -- excuse me, both of the vaccines ultimately result in a spike protein in the right confirmation that gives the body of the opportunity to feel that this is the actual virus that it is seeing when it's not. It's the protein.

Next slide. And so, just to put everything into perspective, we've shown this slide before. We now have, again, the third vaccine that is highly efficacious as shown here which has been granted an EUA as been described by Dr. Walensky.

Let me go to the last slide and just make a comment that I think people do not seem to appreciate and it has to do with what goes into making these vaccines successful. I have as a title of the slide the role of the NIH and the U.S. government in the development and testing of J&J. I think what people don't appreciate is that there have been decades of investment in basic preclinical and clinical research to actually develop the adenovirus 26 vector.

[11:15:10]

A lot of work done by Dr. Baruch and his colleagues up at Harvard. The development of the stabilized pre-fusion spiked protein was done by scientists at the NIAID Vaccine Research Center.

The utilization by J&J of the expensive domestic and clinical trial network that was established for actually for HIV and influenza, also the NIAID-funded core lab at the HVTN, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center performed all of the immunological testing. The data and safety monitoring board was established by NIAID and there was expensive support from BARDA and ASPR of HHS to conduct the trial and to pre-purchase hundreds of millions of dollars worth of vaccines by BARDA.

So it's a complicated process. Even though it looks like it was quick and it was done in very a relatively short period of time, it was a lot of effort including fundamental basic preclinical and clinical research that went into that.

I'll stop there and hand it over to Dr. Nunez-Smith.

DR. MARCELLA NUNEZ-SMITH, CHAIRWOMAN, COVID-19 HEALTH EQUITY TASK FORCE: Well, thanks so much, Dr. Fauci.

This is all very, very good news. You know, all three vaccines are safe and highly effective at preventing what we care about most and that's very serious illness and death. So, all of the authorized vaccines will be distributed across states and jurisdictions and across all of our federal vaccination channels.

That doesn't mean that every vaccination site will have every vaccine. But it means that all vaccines will reach all communities. So, all three authorized vaccines available in the suburbs, all three available in the cities, all three available on the coast and in the heartland.

So I just want to briefly talk about some of the clinical benefits of the J&J vaccine from a health care provider's perspective. Having different types of vaccines available for use, ones with different storage requirements, different handling requirements and different dosing recommendations, that will bring more options and more flexibility to health care providers. You know, it could absolutely allow for expanded availability, and some pop up mobile sites and those locations that do not have cold storage capacity.

The overall increase vaccine supply creates greater opportunity for people to get vaccinated. We also recognize some individuals may have a preference for a single dose vaccine. So those who do not want to return for a second dose or who would have difficulty returning for a second dose, we understand that.

Still, as a physician, I strongly urge everyone in America to get the first vaccine that is available to you when it is your turn. If people want to opt for one vaccine over another, you know, they may have to wait. Time is of the essence, getting vaccinated saves lives.

And no doubt communities across the country have been devastated by this pandemic. The vaccines and vaccinations are a critical tool in bringing this unprecedented pandemic to an end. And now we have three. And so for that in addition to the scientists, I want to thank all of the clinical trial participants for their contributions to scientific discovery.

You know, for this -- for these vaccination campaign to be successful, vaccines will have to reach everyone and so kudos to those state and jurisdictions who are already working closely with trusted leaders in the hardest hit communities to ensure fair and equitable access to vaccinations. This is best practice. So, again, all three vaccines have been proven safe, highly effective, at preventing severe disease and hospitalizations and death from COVID-19 after full immunity.

And if I could leave people with one message, it is this -- get vaccinated with the first vaccine available to you. Protect yourself, your family and your community from COVID-19.

And with that, I'll turn it over to you, Jeff.

ZIENTS: Well, thank you, Dr. Nunez-Smith.

I'll provide an update on our planning, logistics, and distribution of the recently authorized Johnson & Johnson vaccine before we open it up for questions.

The last several weeks we've been working with governors, state and local health officials, and pharmacies and community health centers to ensure we were ready to roll out the J&J vaccine immediately after FDA approval and CDC recommendations. Starting yesterday, we began executing on our plans by distributing 3.9 million doses of Johnson & Johnson to states, tribes and territories and also to pharmacies and community health centers.

[11:20:08]

Johnson & Johnson doses will be delivered as early as tomorrow. We're allocating the J&J vaccine the exact same way we allocate Pfizer and Moderna's vaccine. Proportional to a state tribe or territory population.

So, for example, if a state represents 2 percent of the U.S. population, it receives approximately 2 percent of the Pfizer allocation, 2 percent of the Moderna allocation and will now receive 2 percent of the J&J allocation that is made to states and tribes and territories.

We have directed states to manage distribution of all three vaccines in a fair and equitable way. And we will continue to monitor that closely. As of that work, the CDC is tracking distribution of vaccines across a range of equity metrics, including zip codes, and social vulnerability index data.

We have three very effective vaccines in all communities should have equitable and even access to each vaccine. As to the expected supply of Johnson & Johnson vaccine, this week, we'll distribute 3.9 million doses. That is the entirety Johnson & Johnson's current inventory. We're getting these doses out of the door right away to make sure that vaccines get into arms as quickly as possible.

J&J has communicated that the supply will be limited for the next couple of weeks following this initial distribution of nearly 4 million doses. The company then expects to deliver approximately 16 million additional doses by the end of March. However, as we have discussed with governors and their teams, and with federal partners, we know that J&J distribution and delivery will be uneven across these early weeks in March and the company expects the delivery to be predominantly in the back half of the month. Overall on the J&J vaccine, we've done the planning, we have the

distribution channels in place, and we're getting doses out of the door as quickly as possible to get shots in arms. So we're focused on execution, and that includes the important work of ensuring that we continue to increase overall vaccine supply, increase the number of vaccinators and the number of places that Americans could get vaccinated.

Next, I want to provide an update on the pace of doses being administered. As you could see, on our weekly vaccination report, the current seven-day average is 1.7 million shots per day. Given that the first couple of days in this seven-day period included the storm impacts, 1.7 million actually understates the current pace.

Over the weekend, we experienced new record levels of daily vaccinations. That said, we have much more to do on all fronts in our war on this pandemic. There is a path out of this pandemic, but how quickly we exit this crisis depends on all of us.

And that's why I encourage everyone to take the advice of Dr. Walensky, Fauci and Nunez-Smith. Follow the public health guidance, get vaccinated when it's your turn and continue to wear masks and social distance to protect yourself and fellow Americans. We will continue doing 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 that, let's open it up to questions.

BOLDUAN: All right. You've been listening to an update from the White House COVID response team.

And let me bring in CNN medical analyst, Dr. Jorge Rodriguez. He's an internal medicine and viral specialist, for more on this.

Because what -- what they offered up, Doctor, were two -- two distinct and important parts, I think of an update. One, hope is on the horizon, but two, there is real trouble that they are seeing right now.

Let's start with the hope, which is J&J, the third vaccine, one shot being approved. They say it is going to go out to the country in the same way that the other two vaccines are out in the country. But the attributes of this vaccine is different and I'm wondering, because it is one shot, because it could be kept at regular temperatures, they kept talking about regular refrigerator temperatures. They were talking how it offers up flexibility for providers.

What -- with the attributes of this vaccine, who and where do you think it could be most effectively sent?

[11:25:05]

DR. JORGE RODRIGUEZ, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, I just think every time they give this update, it's fantastic. You know, the way they just address the issues. So, kudos to them. This vaccine is going to be available in the areas, perhaps the most

rural areas that don't have these large hospitals with subzero refrigerators. It could be available in small community areas, in underserved communities that also don't have all of this new technical refrigeration.

So it is going to be more available, it's going to be more accessible to people because part of problem sometimes is getting that second shot, the availability of the second vaccine. So one and out and that's one of the great things about this Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

BOLDUAN: Then to the other news that we heard very distinctly from the CDC director. She started offering up this warning last week, Doctor. And I remember distinctly on Friday her saying that the trend lines, the trajectory is very concerning in cases and deaths.

And she said today hear me clearly, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground that we have gained if these trends continue.

How can -- she is concerned.

RODRIGUEZ: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: She's trying to get people to wake up and pay attention. Do you think folks are listening?

RODRIGUEZ: I don't think people are listening very much. Actually, she was unambiguous, she was direct and I think she is correct. Even though we have decreased tremendously, remember where this last spike started. We're at 250,000 or so new cases a day and it's come down to like 60,000.

That is not, you know, enough of a baseline. When we did our first lockdown in April, we were 30,000 cases a day more or less. Now, we're at 60,000 and it is slowly ramping up.

Yesterday I was driving around Los Angeles coming back home and, seriously, there was one street corner where there was a brewery pub and it was packed. Everybody was outside. And in my mind, I thought, oh, gosh, we have opened up too soon again.

And that is a real problem, the next few weeks will tell the story.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, it is this tug and pull. Hope really is on the horizon.

RODRIGUEZ: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: But right now --

RODRIGUEZ: No doubt.

BOLDUAN: But right now, we're in a bad spot and things are heading in the wrong direction even though this doesn't feel it in this exact moment.

Doctor, great to see you. Thanks.

RODRIGUEZ: You too.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, President Biden hitting road blocks with his own party over a key nominee and the COVID relief bill. This week is critical.

We're going to lay out what's at stake.

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