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Record High of COVID-19 Hospitalizations Among U.S. Children; Taliban Says, We Welcome Non-Taliban Afghans, U.S. Should Trust Us; Tropical Storm Fred Gaining Strength, Taking Aim at Florida. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired August 16, 2021 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:30:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: The delta variant is fueling a surge in COVID infections that threatens to overwhelm hospitals across the country with coronavirus patients. Even more worrying is the rise in COVID hospitalizations among children many of whom cannot yet get vaccinated

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: So, in Dallas, school leaders there say they are determined to protect their students. They are going to enforce a mask mandate. This is despite the Texas Supreme Court upholding Governor Greg Abbott's ban on mask mandates.

Our Rosa Flores is following all of this and joins us from Dallas this morning. So, I mean, they're saying even above the state supreme court, this is what we're doing to protect our kids?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, Jim and Poppy, it is a showdown here in the state of Texas between local governments and the state government over the mask mandate. And you're absolutely right, the Texas Supreme Court siding with Governor Abbott on the ban on mask mandates.

But local governments and the superintendent here at Dallas ISD not standing down, saying that they will continue and they will move forward with the mask mandates here at this school where I've been all morning. I've seen students and parents walk into the school with their masks on.

I talked to the superintendent, I asked him, what about compliance, what about those students and parents who don't want to wear a mask? Here is what he said. Take a listen.

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MICHAEL HINOJOSA, SUPERINTENDENT, DALLAS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT: We're going to be nice about it and we're going to be benevolent to a point. We're going to give them a little bit of time to comply. But we're not going to let them mix with the rest of the students. And if they don't want to comply, we won't have a virtual option until next week so we have got to do something. So we're going to ask them to leave and if they won't leave, we're going to ask them to go to a different room.

It is going to be tenuous all day long, but we have got some great people in this district and we'll find a way to handle it.

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[10:35:03]

FLORES: So why are local officials doubling down on this? Well, you've got to look at the numbers. The numbers of cases of COVID-19 are increasing in the state of Texas and so are the number of hospitalizations in the state. There are more than 11,500 people hospitalized. That is about 14 percent of the entire population that is hospitalized around the country. And when you look at the number of ICU beds available in the state, there are only 322 beds. And this is a state of about 30 million people.

Now, the state of Texas is divided into 22 different trauma service centers. Dallas is one of them. And it serves about 8 million people. Jim and Poppy, I just checked the numbers, there are 83 ICU beds available in this region. That is why local officials are doubling down and saying that they're imposing mask mandates despite what governor sand now what the Texas Supreme Court has said. Jim and Poppy?

HARLOW: Rosa Flores, thank you so much for that reporting from Dallas.

The U.S. is, sadly, now leading the world with the highest rate of new daily COVID cases. Southern states, many with lagging vaccination numbers, are driving this surge.

SCIUTTO: In Florida, where the governor has prohibited mask mandates as well, a record number of COVID infections were reported just this past week, the worst of the pandemic. There is one bit of good news, the surge in cases is driving more people to get tested or vaccinated.

Leyla Santiago is in Miami this morning. Leyla, how much? I mean, are we seeing that in the numbers in Florida, that more people are getting the shot?

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim and Poppy, we are at one of the busiest sites when it comes to testing and vaccination also available here. I should note that over the weekend, Florida did hit the 50 percent mark when it comes to vaccinations. Still not what we're seeing in terms of national numbers but something we're expecting to change at least in Miami-Dade any way when it comes to vaccinations. Miami-Dade County mayor now requiring all employees to be tested weekly unless they provide proof of vaccination.

They're also becoming a little more aggressive when it comes to testing. Anyone who wants to come in here and get a rapid test will now also have to get the PCR test to go with it, one that is known to be more accurate in finding COVID-19.

So quite a bit of a push from Miami-Dade to really move forward when it comes to testing. Also seeing numbers rise when it comes to vaccination. But another big thing that is still an issue here is the masks in school. We expect the superintendent in Miami-Dade to hear from his medical expert task force today on how Miami-Dade schools will move forward when it comes to the controversy of whether or not they will require students to wear masks in school given the executive order that Governor Ron DeSantis signed last month. Jim and Poppy?

SCIUTTO: Leyla Santiago, good to have you there.

HARLOW: Ahead, the United Nation's Security Council holding a meeting on what is happening in Afghanistan. Moments ago, the secretary general said that he fears Afghanistan may be returned to its darkest days. We'll hear from him next.

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[10:40:00]

HARLOW: Well, America's longest war is ending 20 years later and the way it began after 9/11 with the Taliban in control of Afghanistan. But the Taliban are claiming that this time will be different in terms of the way that they rule.

The U.N. Secretary general this morning with major doubts about that. Listen.

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ANTONIO GUTERRES, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL: We are receiving chilling reports of severe restrictions on human rights throughout the country. And I am particularly concerned by accounts of mounting human rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan who fear a return to the darkest days

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HARLOW: A warning of the darkest days ahead for Afghanistan. Our International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson joins me.

Nic, you just had an extraordinary interview with the Taliban spokesperson. What can you tell us about what struck you most from that conversation?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. What I wanted to find out is, is this really going to be an inclusive government going forward. There was always a talk of transition and I asked them, will there be non-Taliban members in the Afghan government going forward, in your government, and he said, yes, there would be, but he didn't specify how many and who they were and what sort of level they would operate at. So, now, I also wanted to note, look, what sort of system are you going to run? Are you going to have a president but is there going to be a supreme leader above the president, because that's the sort of system that they had in place previously 20 years ago. He didn't answer that.

He said that the U.S. trained -- NATO trained Afghan army, many of whom have surrendered to the Taliban, he said they could come back in the future as some sort of reserve force in the country. But one of the important questions that I wanted to get from him is what is the relationship with the U.S., United States right now going forward and what are your thoughts about them evacuating the embassy? And then he said, there's no need to evacuate the embassy. They should trust us. This is what he said.

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SOHAIL, SHAHEEN, TALIBAN SPOKESMAN: They should trust. When we signed an agreement with them during from the beginning up to now, we have not attacked the American forces. Not a single American soldier has been killed because of our promise and commitment.

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[10:45:06]

ROBERTSON: So they're saying that U.S. doesn't need to evacuate the embassy, clearly, a trust deficit. One of the big questions I wanted to talk about as well was the rights for women. Can women, up to university education, get an education? I asked him it this way

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ROBERTSON: What are you going to do about girls' education? Will they be able to stay in school past 12, 18, will they be able to go to a university?

SHAHEEN: Just (INAUDIBLE) about that. Our policy is clear, and they, women, can continue their education from primary to the higher education

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: Now, if that were true, that would be different from the way the Taliban ran the country 20 years ago. I think there is trying to be a positive message here at the moment but I think the only truth and the only test of this is not the words of a spokesman today but actually their actions in the months ahead, Poppy?

HARLOW: Certainly believe people when they show you who they are, not just when they say, this is our policy.

Can you explain why you think they're speaking now, Nic, to people like you, to our Clarissa Ward on ground there? I mean, is the Taliban fundamentally different or just more savvy perhaps when it comes to international media and optics? ROBERTSON: I think the short answer for that is, yes, they're just more savvy. Go back into the day, in the late '90s when I was on the streets of Kabul with the Taliban, you have to have government permissions. You sometimes had to have people with you from -- Taliban with you before you could go out filming. Sometimes you couldn't film people at all. Sometimes they would literally ground you in the hotel and not allow you to leave at all.

So this is entirely different. That great work that you see our team, Clarissa Ward, Nick Paton Walsh, today doing in Kabul on the streets and around the airport, getting out, talking to Afghans, talking to the Taliban, you wouldn't have -- that is a completely different scenario to 20 years ago.

So, the Taliban know that they want to get this international recognition. That sort of have been a fundamental understanding of why they could be trusted but, clearly, they abrogated that trust by not negotiating in good faith with the Afghan government, the former Afghan government, and taken the country by military force. So they abrogated that trust.

But in terms of their sort of public messaging, they're more sophisticated, they want to present a more positive message to the international community. But at the same time, our reporters are doing great work on the street in Kabul.

The local journalists, like the TOLOnews agency in Kabul, for example, who have been fantastic form of independent journalism in the country, and who have had their journalists killed by the Taliban in the past, the Taliban have already been into their offices and essentially removed TOLO T.V.'s security guards and put their own in. That is a report we're getting from TOLO T.V.

So I think there is going to be a very different scenario going forward. While we may have some access today, I would expect that to be curtailed in the future as the Taliban get proper control and we could expect to see more limitations on journalists, for example, and other NGOs, human rights groups and those who would criticize the Taliban for their shortcomings

HARLOW: Nic Robertson, thank you so much for your reporting and for that really important interview

SCIUTTO: Tropical Storm Fred is just hours away from making landfall in Florida. The latest on the track, coming up.

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[10:50:00]

SCIUTTO: Tropical Storm Fred is intensifying this morning and now approaching the Florida Panhandle. It is caused schools to close today before the storm makes landfall.

HARLOW: CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers is with us this morning. Chad, good morning. What are we in store for? CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I think we can probably expect some hurricane force gusts for sure with Tropical Storm Fred, and I don't think people really were anticipating that. But, overnight, it did get its act together and the radar and the satellites look good. But I'll tell you what, this is going to be a storm that might catch up on people a little bit more than they were hoping for, hoping for a 60- mile-per-hour storm but now it is already a 60 mile-per-hour storm and still more hours to go yet in that very warm water of the Gulf of Mexico.

Tropical storm warnings have been extended a little bit farther to the east as well as Fred is almost going almost due north, just a little bit west of due north at this hour.

So, here we go, it is going to make landfall in a few hours. Already some of the outer bands making landfall. We just almost look at the center but much of the storm isn't around the center, it is to the east of the center. 65 mile per hour winds expected sustained as it does make landfall. Also storm surge from St. Marks all the way here over to (INAUDIBLE) and all the way over to Apalachicola, three to five feet up into those bays and into those estuaries.

So, here is what the radar looks like right now. This is the storm. There is no real eye to the storm. It had a little bit of an eye earlier but it is broken up just a bit. Hurricane hunters are out there looking at it just in case it does intensify. What we're worried about today would be the tornados possible right here along the eastern side, the northeastern side of that eye.

So here is the rainfall. It moves on up even into Georgia for tomorrow afternoon. Very, very heavy rainfall and you could see four to six inches of rain along that path.

[10:55:02]

Guys?

HARLOW: Okay. Chad Myers, thank you, as always, for keeping us posted. We'll keep a very close eye on it. And thanks to all of you for joining us today. We'll see you right back here tomorrow morning. I'm Poppy Harlow.

SCIUTTO: Nice to be next to you in New York again. I'm Jim Sciutto.

At This Hour with Kate Bolduan starts right after a short break.

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN AT THIS HOUR: Hello, everyone, I'm Kate Bolduan.