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New Ads Part of $250 Campaign Targeting Vaccine Hesitancy; White House COVID Response Team Holds Briefing; 4,000+ Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Border Patrol Custody. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired March 15, 2021 - 11:00   ET

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

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: "Lady" and the immemoriam (ph) to his friend Kenny Rogers.

[11:00:04]

It's a song that he actually wrote for Kenny Rogers. So, that was very touching.

And then the scene stealer of the night, Jim and Poppy, it was Silk Sonic. You got to go Bruno Mars, Anderson, Paak, the performance was amazing.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Stephanie, thank you. I have to go back and watch all of it now.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: I know.

ELAM: You need to -- you need to -- you got to watch that. At least got to watch that performance.

HARLOW: For you, yes! That's next.

Thank you, Steph.

Thanks to everyone for being with us. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

NEWSROOM with Kate Bolduan starts right now.

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

At this hour, we're standing by for President Biden's COVID-19 response team. They're about to update us on the latest in the fight against the pandemic. We'll bring that to you as soon as they begin. You can really expect today that we're going to hear more on the vaccine effort and the rollout nationwide.

More states are expanding eligibility really every day at this point. You can see in the numbers that the vaccine rollout is ready speeding up. The United States is now averaging more than 2.3 million shots per day, with Saturday marking the largest single day jump in vaccinations that we've seen so far.

Nearly 70 million Americans have now received at least one dose. More than 37 million Americans are now fully vaccinated. That is more than 11 percent of the population.

And while those numbers are great news and they really are, there is also real concern for the 89 percent of the rest of the population, if you will, as spring break travel is leading to scenes like this. Large crowds packing beaches in Florida and plane travel just hit a pandemic record despite the CDC still warning against it. We're going to wait to hear from the Biden team on that.

We're also standing by to hear from the Biden team on a major ad campaign that they're announcing today, a massive to try and tackle vaccine hesitancy that is still a really problem across the country.

Joining me right now for more on this is CNN's John Harwood.

So, John, what are you hearing about this ad campaign?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDNET: Well, Kate, it will be $250 million. It's not right at this moment because we're still in a situation where there are a lot more people trying to get vaccinated than there is vaccine available. But as the vaccine supply accelerates, increasingly the issue will not be can you get a vaccine but will you get a vaccine? And the administration is going to try to address some of the hesitancy of some people.

We've been discussing for some time the potential for hesitancy among black Americans because of the historic -- history of bias and abuse in terms of medical research that's affected them. Some of the recent polling has shown that vaccine hesitancy among blacks is not that much higher than that among whites. But we do see --

BOLDUAN: John, I'm going to jump in. We've got to head over to the White House behind you. The coronavirus response team beginning their briefing. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS BRIEFING)

ANDY SLAVITT, SENIOR ADVISOR TO WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE TEAM: Our country back to normal activities with a fully vaccinated population, provided we all work together. President Biden is directing the administration to deliver the two things that will most hasten our ability to recover, checks and shots. And as he said, help is on the way.

With the American Recovery Act signed into law last week, Americans will finally get the support they need most immediately in the form of checks to American households and relief to Americans and small businesses under so much pressure from the pandemic. Nearly 30 percent of adults and nearly two-thirds of seniors have now received their first vaccination shot. And we are accelerating vaccinations in anticipation of meeting the president's goal being ready to open up all vaccinations to all adults by May 1st at the latest. Over the last seven days, we're now averaging 2.4 million shots per

day. For those that pay extremely close attention, there was a delay in data sifting over the weekend which resulted in reporting cut off time of 11:00 a.m. instead of 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday. I'm sure you're following that.

So for the record, there were 3.2 million shots reported administered on Saturday and 2.7 million on Sunday.

This is an enormously complex effort and it's a result of the work of tens of thousands of people who are going above and beyond the call of duty. Health care providers across the country are doing everything they can to protect people from getting this infectious disease, doctors, nurses and pharmacists are working around the clock and vaccinating people with a modest reimbursement. This is exactly what our medical professionals have shown the country throughout this pandemic.

[11:05:03]

Now today we're doing more than saying thank you to all the people we call heroes. We're announcing the Biden administration will nearly double Medicare's reimbursement rates for administering COVID-19 vaccines from about $23 per shot to $40 per shot. That's $80 total for a two-dose vaccine.

Now, this makes it harder to get out into communities and give more COVID-19 shots to people in need. We need this heroic team in particular to make sure that our highest risk and underserved populations are cared for.

Second, thanks to the American Rescue Plan, the administration will now be covering 100 percent of the cost for Medicaid and children's health insurance beneficiaries to get vaccinated. This protects states from bearing any costs associated with the increase Medicare reimbursement rates. And the Biden administration stands ready to work with states who are interested in increasing their Medicaid reimbursement rates for vaccinations so that we can make sure that we have most effectively reached vulnerable communities.

This is an important health equity staff, as working and lower income American families have received the brunt of this and must receive the resources needed to protect them. What do these changes mean for people across the country? Well, first, it means that vaccines will continue to be free to you. You do not need insurance to get vaccinated. You do need cash or credit card or worry about a co- payment or deductible. You will not get a bill.

The vaccines are free. They're safe, and they're effective. Doctors and nurses will be out in your communities administering vaccines. The federal government will now pay them more for each shot they deliver.

Now with that, I turn it over to Dr. Walensky and then to Dr. Fauci and then we'll take your questions.

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

Let's begin with the data. CDC's most recent data showcases continue to fluctuate. Somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000 per day with the most recent seven-day average about 52,500 cases per day. The most recent seven day average of hospital admissions also declined to just over 4,700 per day. We also continue to seek decline in deaths with the latest seven-day average just over 1,200 deaths per day.

We have come a long way from where we were in early January. But we still have much work to do. In some parts of the country, the weather started to warm up and with the clocks change this weekend, our days have seemed a little more seen. With the coming warming weather, it is hard to not relax and let our guard down, particularly after a hard winter that's sadly saw the highest level of cases and deaths during the pandemic so far.

This past Friday, we saw more travelers pass through our airports, over 1.3 million. This is the most travelers that we've had in a single day since last March before the WHO declared the global pandemic. We have seen footage of people enjoying spring break festivities maskless. This is all in the context of still 507,000 cases per day.

Equally concerning are the resurgence in some European countries. Countries that have had strikingly similar trends and surges during the pandemic in the United States. Each of these countries has had neighbors like us and each took an upward trend after the disregarded known mitigation strategies. They simply took their eye off the ball.

I'm pleading with you for the sake of our nation's health. These should be warning signs for all of us. Cases climbed last spring. They climbed again in the summer. They will climb now if we stop taking precautions when we continue to get more and more people vaccinated.

Please follow our recommended public health prevention precautions and be ready to get your vaccine when it is available to you. We're just starting to turn the corner. The data are moving in the right direction. But where this goes is dependent on whether we all do what must be done to protect ourselves and others. We continue to see positive information emerge from our vaccines.

A new CDC MMWR published today data from mid-December to mid-February found the vast majority of people getting both doses of the vaccines within the recommended time frames. Based on the report, only about 3 percent missed their second dose and symptoms were in place to make sure that those missed doses were not wasted, a very encouraging finding. We also found that 96 percent of people who got both doses did so within the recommended time frame. On or within four days of the 21 days for the Pfizer vaccine and 28 days for the Moderna vaccine.

These findings are incredibly reassuring as we continue to scale up our vaccination efforts. They show that our systems are working and that people are taking vaccination seriously, even when it means taking time to show up for their second appointment. It is a remarkable what we can do as a nation when we are united against the virus.

This report also shows that a small percentage of people did miss their second dose. It made be hard for some people to get back for the second dose, but it's essential for everyone who received a two-dose vaccine to get both shots and get the full protection of the vaccine offers. This vaccine offers.

CDC is working across the government and with state and local partners to identify and address barriers to getting both doses. Some strategies include working with trusted messengers and communities to spread science based messages on importance of getting fully vaccinated. Partnering with jurisdictions and vaccination providers to schedule both vaccination appointments up front or schedule the second appointment when you get the first shot, and having systems in place to send appointment reminders to patients. Reschedule canceled appointments and repurpose missed second doses to avoid vaccine wastage.

And finally, making available the second dose -- single dose vaccine, Johnson & Johnson as a terrific option for individuals who may prefer a one dose vaccine.

Importantly, we have a role to play. I encourage those who can to help others get vaccinated. This can be a simple as helping family members and other loved ones with scheduling appointments, reminding them about their appointments and driving our company to their appointments. These small acts go a long way to protecting health and helping to end the pandemic.

Finally, I want to briefly discuss technical update to our vaccination data on the CDC website. I know many of you watch our data closely and when something changes, it can prompt questions.

Last Friday, CDC implemented an improvement to how we calculate the age of people who have received vaccinations. This was done to correct for differences in how states report data to CDC and to more accurately determine age of people getting vaccinated. As a result, there was a slight change in our age distribution of those vaccinated. With the percentages in all age groups under 75 increasing slightly and those 75 or older decreasing slightly.

This largest shift occurred among people aged exactly 75 when more than one million individuals previously classified 75 or reclassified as age 74. They should not be concerning as we're vaccinating exactly the right cohorts and those people will be 75 sometime in the next 12 months.

As CDC director, a key principle is leading with transparency and reflecting on this principle, I believe it is important for me to clarify this new approach to our public facing data.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions and with that, I turn things over to Dr. Fauci.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Thank you very much, Dr. Walensky. I'm just going give a brief what we'll call science update on something that is being asked much more consistently is that how do we approach the entire issue of pandemic preparedness currently and for future pandemics? I have the first slide. There are three components that have been pursued now for some years.

The first is priority pathogens. Pick out a pathogen you think might be risky in the future. That could be Nipah, that could be Ebola, that could be any of the number. The other is to develop platform technologies we've already spoken about the advances being made with messenger RNA technology.

And the third is one I want to spend a couple minutes on. And that's called prototype pathogens. What do we mean by how prototype pathogen approach helps us for future pandemics?

Next side, this slide looks complicated but it's simple because it really tells you this is all of the phylogenetic tree of the coronaviruses. And in red are the human coronaviruses but noticeably, in the yellow boxes are the four coronaviruses that each year cause about 15 to 30 percent of all the common colds that we all experience repetitively, usually during the winter months. So we have been studying these viruses now for decades and decades.

[11:15:03]

If you go to the next slide, then in 2002, with the appearance of SARS, which we all remember, and then in 2012 with the appearance of MERS which we all remember, we got more and more experience within this group of coronavirus.

And then the next slide came -- nope, go back one.

(END WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS BRIEFING)

BOLDUAN: All right. We're listening to the White House coronavirus response team. Dr. Fauci giving his briefing right there. We're going to bring you any more headlines we hear coming from it.

Joining me right now is CNN medical analyst, Dr. Jorge Rodriguez. He's an internal medicine and viral specialist.

I want to get your take, Doctor, on what you heard. It seemed good news, good job but a warning.

DR. JORGE RODRIGUEZ, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Absolutely. I'm surprised and very pleased the fact that the expectations have been surpassed as to how many people are getting vaccinations. I think 3 million to 2.7 million a day is astounding. They need to just keep -- we need to keep on track.

But big warning is that we cannot relax our defenses right now. If Europe is a harbinger of what is going to happen here in the next few months, we really need to be alarmed. Italy went into lockdown. France and Germany may be going into lockdown soon because they let their guard down. We have plateaued at a very high rate. I think those numbers of people traveling right now, 1.3 million in one day is pretty alarming, especially since what is coming on is spring break, people going out on picnics and people usually let their guard down.

So, really have to be very cautious right now.

BOLDUAN: One of the thing I'd like to get your take on is he was making it important point that I don't think people drive home enough which is that the vaccine is free. It is free of charge for everyone. You don't need insurance. You don't need your checkbook it is free for you.

But also increasing nearly doubling the reimbursement rate for providers for Medicare and even Medicaid to help providers doubling the amount that providers are going to be getting for the shots. How important is that?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, I think it's fairly important. Now a lot of people are under the assumption that any physician can give the shot. That's not true. The certain hospitals, the certain medical facilities that can give it have to be approved by the county. They're usually very large institutions.

I don't think that any institution has not been giving shots because of the reimbursement. But the fact that they are going to be reimbursed more for the time, for the nursing, for the hospital staff, is going to be important. But I think people need to realize the government has bought all the vaccine that's necessary to get to the American public. No one, no one has to pay a cent to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

BOLDUAN: And this is difficult picture you're looking at. You're already just getting out with spring breakers.

You got, I thought one of the stats is impressive is there is only 3 percent of those who received that gotten their shots, only 3 percent have missed their second dose. Federal government, I'm sure very happy to hear that because people are following the protocols and following through to get the vaccines. But at the same time, you have the images I think with he can throw some up of what we're seeing in places like Florida right now, where spring break is in full swing and the CDC director, I mean, she said, I'm pleading with you for the sake of our nation's health to not let down your guard when it comes to the pandemic protocols that they have in place.

This is a difficult moment. It's great news. People are getting protected, but you've got people who are letting down their guard. Really -- I mean, you know that people are letting down their guard too soon.

How do you get this message right from the CDC stand point? From the federal government?

RODRIGUEZ: Well, I actually think the pressure needs to come from people that know people that are going to spring break. One thing I want to reiterate is just because you're young and just because you're healthy, you think that you're going to be okay, and chances are you are. But you are doing is endangering the rest of the public, not just by potentially spreading what you have, but the virus replicates inside the human body.

So, if you're ill, you're going to cause mutations. You may cause that mutation which is going to be stronger than all the other viruses, causing resistance and making this epidemic worse. So just because you're going to be okay doesn't mean the rest of us are going to be okay because of you.

And I think that's the message that needs to be sent that everybody is responsible whether you're young, healthy, you may be making this pandemic worse just by being reckless.

BOLDUAN: We're just starting to turn the corner, the CDC director said. Where we go from here is yet again in all of our hands collectively together.

Dr. Rodriguez, thank you for coming in. It's good to see you.

RODRIGUEZ: My pleasure. You too.

Coming up for us, migrant children in jail like facilities.

[11:20:00]

The Biden administration struggling to keep up with the roar surge that they're seeing of unaccompanied minors at the border.

Also, more than 100,000 people took advantage of new voting options in the 2020 election. Just one, just for example, one Texas County leading to record turnout there. Why Republicans in the state are making moves so that doesn't happen again.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: Right now, more than 4,000 children who crossed the southern border without their parents are in the custody of U.S. Border Patrol. These are record numbers. And this threatens to become a humanitarian crisis in the hands of the Biden administration. If something doesn't change, everyone agrees current border facilities are not suitable for children.

[11:25:01]

So what is the solution?

The Biden administration is now bringing in FEMA to help.

Joining me right now is CNN's Priscilla Alvarez.

Priscilla, what is FEMA going to do?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kate, the mission FEMA has here is to help unaccompanied children in border patrol custody move to shelters run by the health and human services department, those shelters are equipped to care for the children and get them moving along the process to eventually be relocated with family in the United States.

And this is to solve for the challenge that administration continues to face which is that there are a number of children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border alone and just not enough shelter capacity because of the strain of the coronavirus pandemic. So, now, we know that there are more than 4,000 children stuck in Border Patrol custody. That is already higher than it was last week. It exceeds the levels in 2019, which is roughly 2,600 at its peak.

So these children are stuck in these facilities again not designed to care for them. Instead, the facilities are for the processing of adults. So, over the weekend, the Homeland Security secretary tapping FEMA to step in here and help get the process moving and do so quickly -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right. Priscilla, thank you very much for the update.

Coming up for us, it is already one of the hardest hit states to cast a ballot. So why Texas Republicans now want to make it harder.

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