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The FDA has Authorized Pfizer's Coronavirus Vaccine for Children Ages 12-15; Ongoing Feud Between Republican Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Dr. Anthony Fauci; Breaking News of Escalating Violence in Israel. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 11, 2021 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us on "Newsroom," I'm Alisyn Camerota.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good to be with you. Some 12 to 15 year olds are now rolling up their sleeves and getting their shots now that the FDA has authorized Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine for the age group.

Pfizer says its results of its trials show that it's 100 percent efficacy effective in trial participants. All hopeful signs that some kids can get back to the summer fun that so many missed out on one year ago.

CAMEROTA: The Director of the CDC this morning testified in front of the Senate where she said that that guidance about summer camps will likely change, depending on how many kids get their shots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: I recognize that there - some parents want to sort of see how it goes first, but I am encouraging all parents to get their children vaccinated. Some parents won't want to be first, but I'm also encouraging children to ask for the vaccine. I have a 16 year old myself, and I can tell you he wanted to get the vaccine - he wants his life back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: So recent kinds of family surveys shows that only 30 percent of parents said that they would get their adolescent child vaccinated immediately. So let's start there with Dr. Ali Khan. He's a Dean of the University of Nebraska's Medical Center, College of Public Health and the Former Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness at the CDC.

And Dr. Chris Pernell, she is a Fellow at the American College of Preventive Medicine. Let's start with you, Dr. Pernell. When we hear that the 12 to 15 year olds are now approved, should the students - the children have to wait for the vaccine to change those guidelines, considering what we know about transmission outdoors? DR. CHRIS PERNELL, AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE FELLOW:

Look, this is very encouraging and hopeful news. I'm very excited that the FDA has given the emergency use authorization for the 12 to 15 year olds. People waiting on full confirmation of the science is never a bad thing.

So next we're going to hear from the CDC to seal the deal and give a firm recommendation, and I believe once the CDC has done that you'll see states, you'll see local municipalities, you'll see different organizations looking to move forward with exactly how they maintain their guidelines around participation.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Khan, yesterday my husband scrambled to get my son, whose 14 years old, an appointment and he secured one for Friday. And so when I look at that Kaiser Family polling of people who want to go immediately there's 30 percent of parents, and then wait a while 26 percent, and then only if required 18 percent, and then people who are really resistant who would rather not do this 23 percent.

But you know, I mean, I don't blame parents for not being - wanting to be the first in the swimming pool. I mean, I think - do you think, from your experience, that the hesitancy about getting your kids vaccinated will ebb as more kids get the shots?

DR. ALI KHAN, DEAL, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER'S COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH: So, thank you, Alisyn. And congratulations to your son for getting his vaccine and being up front. So we saw the same lack of vaccine confidence when we started vaccinating adults, and it took a while as you saw your loved ones and friends get vaccinated you then said, oh, this was safe and you went on to get vaccinated.

So the hope is that the exact same thing will happen now. As people get - as kids get vaccinated other parents will feel comfortable getting additional kids vaccinated. And we need to recognize that while kids may represent 14 percent of all COVID cases over the last couple of weeks, they now represent about 24 percent of all COVID cases.

So yes, disease tends to be milder in kids, but kids are not immune and the more kids we get vaccinated the less disease there is in our community and the sooner we get moved forward to the better normal.

BLACKWELL: Dr. Pernell, how far are we - or how close, potentially, from younger children as those trials continue to saying that they will be eligible for vaccines too?

PERNELL: I think we'll probably see younger children available for the vaccine probably around the fall. And then the youngest category probably at the close of the year, and that actually is a very good pace of the science. That's very, very encouraging.

So you're going to finally have full households, if you have people across the gamut of the age spectrum who can fully vaccinated, and we can arrive at what I'm going to call community immunity - not this fixed range of the population.

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But knowing that most persons in your household, most persons in your community, and most persons who are doing the types of activities that you participate in now have an opportunity to get safe and stay safe.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Khan, I want to ask you about this exchange between Senator Suzan Collins and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the CDC. You of course worked for the CDC and basically Susan Collins was saying that because of their guidance about outdoor transmission she has lost faith in the CDC. So, listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): I always considered the CDC to be the golden standard. I don't anymore. And I want to give you three examples where I think the conflicting, confusing guidance from your agency has undermined public confidence.

The CDC announced - said less than 10 percent of COVID-19 transmission was occurring outdoors. The article points out that this is "almost certainly misleading," and goes on to say "there is not a single documented COVID infection anywhere in the world from casual outdoor interactions."

WALENSKY: There's a MET (ph) analysis from "Journal of Infectious Diseases," that was published in November, I believe, where the top line result of all studies that were included in the systematic review said less than 10 percent of cases were transmitted outdoors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. Dr. Khan, there's a lot to unpack there, but basically, are they being too confusing? And frankly, cautious about outdoor transmission?

KHAN: So I don't - so CDC is the gold standard for public health. And these recommendations really look at the data, and the data is that there's 700 preventable deaths every day in the United States - 40,000 cases every day in the United States. And that could be zero.

Many countries have gotten to zero without even vaccines, and if you look at what we're seeing in Israel, they have 1/10 the number of deaths adding vaccine. So this is about layering public health intervention. So the conversation should be, how do we layer these interventions instead of thinking about well, how do we substitute these interventions? The goal is no deaths, or very few deaths.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I understand, Dr. Khan. I mean, obviously I understand and I know that they have their work cut out for them. But in terms of outdoor transmission, I mean, the evidence seems to suggest that other than that Rose Garden ceremony where so many people at the Amy Coney Barrett - you know, swearing in or whatever ceremony got sick, but they also went indoors during part of that time.

KHAN: Correct.

CAMEROTA: We haven't seen a lot of it, and so, can they loosen - or make it just more clear for how people should be behaving outdoors?

KHAN: And I concur that for casual outdoor encounters you're unlikely to get COVID during a casual outdoor encounter. I think this is about the bigger message about let's continue to layer on all of these measures, get cases down in our community and then we won't be splitting hairs between do you need to be seven people or nine people when you're outdoors, et cetera, or indoors. So let's just get cases down, let's continue to incentivize vaccination in America and get the rates up to at least to the rate that we see in Israel.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Chris Pernell, Dr. Ali Khan - as always, thank you both very much for the expertise.

KHAN: Oh, Alisyn, I got a new one for you.

CAMEROTA: What - a hat?

KHAN: Get vaccinated.

CAMEROTA: Vaccinated. I like that, Dr. Khan. That's what Victor and I were talking about, then we wouldn't have to explain ourselves outdoors without masks, that's great. Thank you very much, you always come with the show and tell. Well done.

Thank you very much, doctors.

KHAN: Thank you much.

CAMEROTA: OK. So, also in that heated Senate hearing today, the ongoing feud between Republican Senator Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci was on full display.

BLACKWELL: So, Senator Paul used his allotted time to question Dr. Fauci about the origins of the virus, and the role of the Wuhan, China Theology Lab.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Dr. Fauci, do you still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NIAID: Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not ever, and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Theology.

PAUL: Do they fund Dr. Barrett (ph)?

FAUCI: We do not fund gain -

PAUL: Do you fund Dr. Barrett's (ph) gain of function research?

FAUCI: Dr. Barrett (ph) does not do gain of function research, and if it is it's according to the guidelines and it is being conducted in North Carolina, not in China.

PAUL: You don't think - do you still support sending money to the Wuhan Virology Institute?

FAUCI: We do not send money now to the Wuhan Virology Institute.

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PAUL: Do you support sending money? We did, under your tutelage. We were sending it through EcoHealth, it was a sub-agency and a sub- grant. Do you support that the money from NIH that was going to the Wuhan Institute -

FAUCI: Let me explain to you why that was done. The SARS-CoV-1 originated in bats in China. It would have been irresponsible of us if we did not investigate the bat viruses and the serology to see who might have been infected.

PAUL: Or perhaps it would be responsible to send it to the Chinese government that we may not be able to trust with this knowledge and with this incredibly dangerous virus. Government scientists like yourself who favor gain of function, refer -

FAUCI: I don't favor gain of function research in China -

(CROSSTALK)

PAUL: (Inaudible) -

FAUCI: - you are saying things that are not correct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: So let's bring in CNN Political Analyst, Josh Rogin, a columnist for "The Washington Post." Josh, thanks for being with us. We're watching a conversation between members of the government, but also doctors.

So let's start here with just the basic definition. Gain of function research and why this was the center of the questioning from Senator Paul.

JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right, well, there's an increasing number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, actually, who are trying to figure out if there was any basis for the theory that the pandemic that we're all in was related to an accident at one of these Wuhan labs that were studying bat coronaviruses.

And part of that is to try to figure out what the relationships were between the Wuhan labs, and the NIH, and other American labs all over the country. And what's gain of function research? What that means is taking viruses from the wild and doing experiments that make them more dangerous.

Now, what Dr. Fauci said very clearly is that what he - he doesn't think that the work that they were sponsoring in Wuhan qualifies as gain of function research, and what Rand Paul was saying is that he thinks it does and other scientists think it does. So if you take away the semantic debate, really, over what is gain of

function or what is not gain of function, what's left is that the Senate - and again, both parties are trying to look into the relationships between NIH, and Dr. Fauci, and these Wuhan labs - which Fauci admits exists and we're getting caught up in this politics over gain of function research, and what's not gain of function research. But the bottom line is that there are relationships there, there's increasing calls for Fauci to disclose more information about them.

CAMEROTA: OK, that's interesting, Josh. And of course you're steeped in this, you have been reporting on this for a year, so that sounded to the rest of us like a - kind of a wonky detour, but is there something that Dr. Fauci or NIH is not being forthcoming about?

ROGIN: Well, yeah - well that's the question. So, you know, what's been alleged is that the oversight of this research that Dr. Fauci did sponsor through the EcoHealth alliance, as he admitted, did not go through the proper oversight checks, OK?

And that if it led to the pandemic that we're in, then Dr. Fauci and his team deserve some blame for supporting it. Now, whether or not you call that gain of function research, I think that's the question that these lawmakers are trying to get to.

And I think on the one hand it's a legitimate question, to be honest, Alisyn. On the other hand I think they're also politicizing it, and that's really a tragedy because it's not a political question. You know, we need to find out how the pandemic started in order to prevent the next one.

And that means that we need to know more about the relationships between Fauci's NIH (inaudible) and these Wuhan labs, then so be it - it shouldn't really be about Fauci, it should be about getting to the truth. And yes, Dr. Fauci and Peter Daszak of the Equal Health Alliance have been resisting these efforts - various efforts.

But now those efforts are increasing and it's getting a little ugly, which again is really bad because it shouldn't be political, it should just be about finding the outbreak of the origin. If we can that starts with China, but it also includes looking at our own relationships and our own labs.

BLACKWELL: Yeah, of course the goal is to get to the answer. Listen, this is COVID-19, we're in 2021 and still have questions about how this originated -

ROGIN: Right.

BLACKWELL: - as it - to speak to the investigation, is there any indication that the politicization will not overtake Congress - the administration's goal to finding out how this started, or is this off to the races on politics primarily?

ROGIN: You know, Victor, that's really a great question because it's been politicized from the jump. And everybody who's been following this knows that it's been politicized from the jump, and it's really hard to unpoliticize something once it's politicized.

But here's what I'll tell you from my own reporting, and this is new. The Biden administration is taking a very hard look at this, we saw Avril Haines testify that the intelligence community is looking into both theories - the lab accident theory and the natural origin theory.

So the Biden administration is open to the idea, they're trying to avoid making it more political. They haven't figured out how to do that yet, but I think you'll see more on that in the coming weeks. Also there's a bill by Senator Menendez and Senator Rich to demand that the State Department release the intelligence - in other words, the U.S. government is standing on a bunch of this information.

Forget about Fauci for a second - Anthony Blinken, and Jake Sullivan, and all these guys have this information and it seems like we should - it should be released. And so we should be able to try to get to the bottom or what actually happened, so that again, we can prevent the next pandemic which is in everyone's interest.

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BLACKWELL: Yes, certainly. Josh Rogin, thanks so much.

ROGIN: Anytime.

BLACKWELL: And still some questions about the origin of COVID-19. But we've learned a lot about the race to develop the COVID vaccine. Go inside the mission to give the world a shot - a new CNN film, "Race for the Vaccine," premiers Saturday night at 9 Eastern, only on CNN.

Also, breaking news, violence in Israel, sirens blaring. New airstrikes were live there as this escalation is escalating.

CAMEROTA: Plus, new developments in the case against Congressman Matt Gaetz. The Feds are now pushing for cooperation from two key witnesses, including a former Capitol Hill intern.

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CAMEROTA: OK. There is escalating violence at this hour, in Israel. Loud explosions are being heard in Tel Aviv. The Israeli military now saying that it has - it trapped Hamas fighters in a tunnel, and militants were using the tunnel to infiltrate Israel from Gaza for a surprise attack.

The Israel defense forces launching more than 150 airstrikes on targets in Gaza. We are learning that that residential tower was just hit and has collapsed, as you can see. This is video from the scene.

Hamas is vowing to fire rockets on Tel Aviv in retaliation.

BLACKWELL: Now, Hamas militants have been firing rockets from Gaza into Israel. The warning sirens in Israeli towns going off nonstop, almost. The Palestinian Health Ministry says the airstrikes have killed at least 28 people in Gaza, 10 of them children. Israel says rockets killed two Israelis on the coastal city of Ashkelon.

CNN's Hadas Gold is there in Ashkelon where rockets have been falling. She's joining us. CNN's Oren Liebermann is at the Pentagon. So let's start with Hadas. You are in a shelter there, tell us what the situation is like right now.

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Victor, we are in a shelter right now so if you hear some noise around me it's because the residents of this apartment building are all in this bomb shelter on the ground floor - it's a reinforced room that protects its residents from these sort of rockets. And all day long we have been hearing air raid sirens here in Ashkelon and we've been hearing rockets, some of them intercepted by iron dome.

We also have been hearing airplanes above - jets above us flying some of them towards Gaza possibly. We've also been hearing some explosions and booms in the distance - possibly airstrikes. What we do know is that there have been at least 500 rockets in the last 24 hours, launched from Gaza.

Just now I'm actually hearing more booms above us in this building, but we are safe in this bomb shelter for right now. More than 500 rockets in less than 24 hours, and as you noted there have been casualties in Israel. Two Israelis killed, at least 17 injured (inaudible) Health Industry in Gaza saying that 28 Palestinians have been killed, including at least nine children - more than 120 injured. The Israeli military says it's investigating any of those civilian casualties.

And just in the last few minutes we have seen that Tel Aviv has come under rocket attacks as well, sirens sounding in Tel Aviv, that is very unusual - that is a new escalation. Typically when these rocket attacks happen, they rarely reach as far as Tel Aviv, and keep in mind that yesterday in the evening Jerusalem was targeted with several rockets.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying in a video earlier that Hamas will be hit in a way that they did not anticipate. The Israeli military telling us they have struck more than 300 targets in Gaza as noted, including tunnels. They say they've killed at least 20 militants, including the Commander of the Islamic Jihad Anti-Tank Missile Unit.

And in the last few hours we did see those videos of that tower block in Gaza, the (inaudible) tower. We understand it has about 13 floors with around 40 apartments and offices. From what we understand the Israeli military fired four warning rounds before hitting the building with the airstrike. We're trying to get more information on exactly what happened there, but escalating tensions here.

This is the situation that this region that Israel and Gaza have not experienced in many, many years. It's been quite a while before we've seen this amount of activity of rockets, and I can tell you that just being here in Ashkelon for the day, it's just been nonstop air raid sirens, nonstop rockets and just - explosions, they're definitely just a very, very tense time here. CAMEROTA: Hadas, we saw that - we saw your live shots earlier where

the sirens were going off, and you and your crew had to run for cover. Your reporting on the ground there is really capturing for us just how much this is escalating.

So Oren, given us the context. How did it get to this point, and what does it mean that these explosions are being heard? And as Hadas said, in Tel Aviv?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, in my six years there, which ended not long ago - and in fact, since the end of the 2014 war we haven't seen rockets fired as far as Tel Aviv, especially not a barrage of rockets.

Only once, a couple of years ago, was there a single rocket fired that went beyond Tel Aviv and struck a house in a town near Tel Aviv, but never this sort of rocket fire. Hadas is exactly right, when we've seen about a dozen of these rounds of fighting over the past few years they go in stages.

First it tends to be rockets fired in the immediate area outside of Gaza, and then, if it continues there is escalation and the rockets get more and more powerful.

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But since the end of the 2014 war, we haven't seen rockets fired on Tel Aviv, we haven't seen rockets fired on Jerusalem in fact which we saw last night - and that's an indication of where this is going, which is to say a larger scale war, an ongoing conflict is certainly not out of the question and there doesn't appear to be an off ramp at this stage as we have seen in past rounds of fighting.

This started in Jerusalem, and that gives you an idea of the sensitivity and the importance of Jerusalem that this is still ongoing. It began as an ongoing legal battle over a number of homes in a neighborhood called (Inaudible), just north of the old city Jerusalem, in east Jerusalem.

There was an Israeli organization that was trying to evict a number of Palestinian families out of their homes and there was a high court decision expected on that - that's where the anger began.

It went from a dispute over homes, that grew to a nationalistic issue between Israelis and Palestinians, and because this is Jerusalem, with its symbolic significance, its holy sites, its national significance for Israelis and Palestinians it then became a religious issue over the holy sites of the old city and that's what we saw large, wide scale protests that were not only in the city of Jerusalem, but spread across Israel.

Hamas saw the opportunity to position itself here, standing up against Israel, trying to show that it was the defender of Jerusalem, and that's when we saw the rockets fired on Jerusalem last night. That was an immediate and severe escalation, and it has continued to this point. Again, we saw earlier throughout the day, hundreds of rockets fired

that were much shorter range, in the cities, for example of Ashkelon and Ashdod, those are just north of Gaza. The fires - the firing on Tel Aviv - rockets on Tel Aviv, especially in these barrages is an indication that this round of fighting is not over yet, it is very much expected to continue with Hadas there on the ground.

We've seen rounds of fighting before, I saw some - about a dozen of them in my six years there, but nothing to this stage, and nothing this quickly escalating.

BLACKWELL: How does the Palestinian Health Ministry, says that there are children among the dead and injured from the Israeli airstrikes. What are we hearing from the Israeli government about that, if anything?

GOLD: Well, the Israeli government has not yet issued their official report on civilian causalities, they have told me that they civilian casualties very, very seriously and that they're investigating the incident. One thing that they did want to note to us was that out of the hundreds of rockets that have been fired from Gaza, they said that about a third of them have fallen short within Gaza itself.

That doesn't necessarily tell us what caused the deaths of these civilians, including these children, that was one of the first incidences of injuries - causalities that we had heard from the Palestinians was the possibility that children were included.

We're still waiting to hear from the Israeli military on their report - on their investigation into the possible civilian causalities, but this is a very intense moment as Oren said, and it - we have not seen something like this in many, many years.

CAMEROTA: Oren, we are just getting into our CNN "Newsroom," pictures of the fires in Tel Aviv. This is from - look at this on our screen. These are fires raging in the streets, it looks like, of Tel Aviv. This is from the local Channel 13 there. It's hard for us to get perspective in terms of how many streets are on fire right now, but it looks bad. And as you say, you haven't seen this for years.

LIEBERMANN: Well, look, this is an indication of how horrible these rounds of fighting can be. It's something that Israelis and Gazans (ph) - especially Israelis around Gaza have gotten used to over the past few years, even though there hasn't actually been a round of fighting, not even a fairly short one - a 24 to 48 hour one in a couple of years now, if I remember correctly.

This is how bad it can be, and of course it can get worse. You see the fires on the streets of Tel Aviv and some of the surrounding cities. We saw the images from Gaza, that residential building destroyed, the smoke pouring out of it. And make no mistake about it, there are people injured and killed on both sides here.

This is violence, this is fighting and it can lead to war which means it can get worse. Israel has already called up thousands of reservists, perhaps there is preparation for the possibility of a ground incursion. And the moment something like that happens, this will be just the beginning.

Is there an indication or a statement from the IDF that they intend to do that? No, there isn't. But when we've seen reservists being called up in the past when it comes to Gaza, it means there's at least the preparation for the possibility of something like that, and that too as we've seen with rockets on Gaza, as we've seen before - that too, would be an escalation.

BLACKWELL: So, Hadas, back to you. Hamas and Islamic Jihad they vowed to fire these rockets, we're seeing the video again from Channel 13 there, you may see a reporter at some point, but also the fire - the threats to the fire there in Tel Aviv, and part of the statement was if the enemy persisted bombing civilian towers then Tel Aviv will be on time with a more severe missile strike than what happened in Ashkelon.

You are there in Ashkelon, in a shelter. How many people are there with you? How often are people having to rush to these shelters? Just give us some color of life there over these last couple of days.

GOLD: Sure, so I'm actually in a building that was hit by a rocket earlier this morning, in the early hours, and it

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