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Booster Shots for Eligible Americans to Begin Next Month; Mask War in Florida Ongoing Despite Thousands of Kids Testing Positive; Mayhem on Streets Near Kabul Airport as Afghans Try to Escape. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 18, 2021 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN NEWSROOM: Hello, I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

The U.S. just updated its pandemic playbook. The administration says booster shots will be offered to all Americans who are eligible starting on September 20th. The surgeon general says this is all about staying ahead of the virus.

But not all scientists agree on this. This afternoon, President Biden will address the nation as the delta variant surges, now making up 99 percent of infections. New daily cases are nearing 140,000, that's 11 times higher than just two months ago.

Let's get right to CNN Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. Elizabeth, what is the rollout plan for booster doses? And talk to us about the data behind this decision.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. I think some people may be thinking, wait a minute, I thought I was fully vaccinated, I've had my two shots. Well, you are fully vaccinated. But now they're saying, you know what, your immunity may wane over time. There's data that shows that. And you may need a third dose.

So, let's take a look at the sets of data that federal officials are looking at. If you look on the left at the 92 percent and the 64 percent, that's from a group of millions in New York and Minnesota. And they found before delta, the vaccine was 92 percent effective, but now with delta, it's only 64 percent effective. On the right, those are folks who are in nursing homes, before delta 75 percent effective, now with delta, only 53 percent effective.

So let's talk a little bit about why. There's basically two reasons why we're seeing this waning immunity. One, just waning with time, two, delta is tough. The vaccine just doesn't work as well against delta. So, you have those two things colliding and causing the numbers that we're seeing here.

So, let's take a look at what this rollout is going to look like. So, it's going to start the week of September 20th. You will be eligible if you are eight months after your second dose. In other words, if you were vaccinated a month or two ago, this is not for you right now. These will be the folks who are prioritized, health care workers, nursing home residents and other senior citizens, both, because those are the groups of people who are most at risk for getting COVID-19 and also because they had it further long ago. These are the folks who got the vaccine first in line back in January or December, so their vaccines are the most likely to be waning. Ana?

CABRERA: Okay, important information there. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you for laying it out for us.

Let me bring in Dr. Leana Wen. She is an emergency physician and former city of Baltimore health commissioner. She is also the author of Lifelines, A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health.

Dr. Wen, first, your reaction to the data and the timing of this decision on boosters given it was just over the weekend members of the administration were still saying no need for everyone to have boosters yet.

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I actually really agree with the administration laying out a booster plan and I appreciate how they did that, because they're not saying, run out and get a booster tomorrow. They're saying, we anticipate that given the data that we're seeing, that there are enough signals that we need to let the American people know that boosters are coming. They're saying, we will have a plan, this is going to start next month, there will be enough time to layout this plan in the meantime.

And I think, at this point, we need to let people have a choice. As in, there are some people who are going to say, I am well protected because these vaccines still are protecting me very well against severe illness, severe enough to cause hospitalization or death. I may not want a booster. But there are others who are saying, but it looks like there's waning immunity to symptomatic illness, I want to avoid that. And those people should be given the option.

So, in general, I actually really appreciate what the administration did today and the science, as well as the process of how they laid it out.

CABRERA: It's still a little confusing though about whether this is needed. The World Health Organization said just today that they believe the data, quote/unquote, clearly does not indicate that boosters are needed, saying this is like handing out extra live jackets to people who already have them. Where is the disconnect?

WEN: Look, I totally agree with the World Health Organization that we need to have vaccine equity for the world, that this is a humanitarian issue when there are health care workers and vulnerable older people in other countries who are going to die because they don't have the vaccine. Also, it's in our self-interest to prevent new mutations from occurring new variants arising. But you can do both. We have to get vaccines to the world. But that doesn't mean that elderly people with chronic medical conditions in the U.S. should be suffering either. You can do both.

And I think at this point in the pandemic, we have to recognize there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer, that there are going to be some individuals who don't want or need a booster here in the U.S., but there are others who are vulnerable who will need a booster. And I'm glad that we're following the footsteps of Israel, U.K., Germany, that are already doing booster shots. We're actually behind here.

[13:05:00]

So this step by the administration, it helps us to get in line with other countries.

CABRERA: And this is all about the mRNA vaccines, the two-shot vaccine, Pfizer or Moderna. You're one of the millions who got the J&J shot. Do you feel like you're just in the dark right now? Why aren't we getting guidance on that vaccine as well?

WEN: Yes, we are being left in the dark. The 13 million of us who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, many of us got the vaccine, because we were told that you should get the first vaccine that was available to you. And so we actually followed public health guidance at that time. And know I think a lot of people are feeling like, well, what about us?

I understand why our federal health officials are not giving guidance at this point, because the data just aren't fully there for them to make a recommendation. However, I think that they should follow what San Francisco's health department is doing, basically saying people who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, if they want a booster dose, should be able to get them.

There are some individuals, again, elderly people with chronic medical conditions who may want additional protection with an additional mRNA dose, with the Pfizer or Moderna dose following the Johnson & Johnson. Even if the FDA and CDC aren't recommending this, I think they should say they are allowing it in order to give patients and physicians the ability to make that choice for each individual patient's medical circumstance.

CABRERA: Dr. Leana Wen, always great to have you with us. Thanks you.

Let's be clear, the science tells us vaccines are your best defense against COVID. And for those who aren't vaccinated, masks are critical. Yet, Florida officials are still fighting over masks in schools despite thousands of kids testing positive.

CNN's Amara Walker is in Broward County, where one of the state's largest school districts reopened today with some precautions that directly defy the state governor. Amara?

AMARA WALKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it sure does. So, Ana, here at Bayview Elementary School behind me, classes are currently underway. A total of about 260,000 students across Broward County public schools were expected to return to the classroom today. And as you said, masks are required in this school district. That means parents are not allowed to opt their children out of wearing masks.

We were here when children were arriving to school early this morning in the carpool line. We saw a lot getting out of cars wearing their masks, as they are required. Although we did see a few kids with their masks kind of hanging below their nose and we did hear some of the staff members basically telling them they better put that on all the way above their nose once they get inside the classrooms. Because if they refuse to put on their masks when they get to school, they will not be admitted per the Broward County School's policy.

As you know, a lot drama been playing out leading up to the start of the school year between Governor Ron DeSantis and two school districts here in Florida, that includes Broward County and Alachua Public Schools. And a lot of this came to a head, this fight over mask mandates, at an emergency meeting by the State Board of Education, where they voted unanimously last night to take steps to punish these two school districts over them mandating masks, which defies the governor's executive order signed earlier this summer. And penalties, it's not clear what exactly will be imposed. It could include removing some school district officials. It could also include withholding funding.

During that meeting, we heard from the interim superintendent of Broward County. She was saying that she was concerned about the surge because there's only five ICU pediatric beds available in the county. And some alarming numbers to leave you with as well, just this first week of school, nearly 5,000 students, faculty and staff testing positive for COVID-19 and more than 14,000 now quarantining or in isolation due to COVID-19, Ana.

CABRERA: Wow, thousands testing positive, more than 14,000 in quarantine. Parents, let that be a warning. Mask your children as they go to school. That's the safest thing you can do for them and keep them in class. Amara Walker, thank you.

Let's head to Texas, where Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who is fully vaccinated, has tested positive for COVID. Here he was Monday attending a Republican event indoors, and noticeably absent, masks.

CNN's Rosa Flores is live in Dallas. Rosa, the governor has been a vocal critic of mitigation measures, like masks, even banning school districts there from requiring them. What more are you learning about the governor's condition?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he tweeted last night a video where he says that he's doing well. As you know, he's fully vaccinated. And we have learned from his press office that everyone who came in contact with the governor has been notified.

Now, this includes the people in that room that you just mentioned. The governor tweeting these images Monday night of a mostly maskless event in Colin County.

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You can see him mingling with the crowd. To be clear, the CDC guidelines say that even if you're fully vaccinated, to be fully protected, you should be wearing a mask indoors. As you can tell from those images, very few people are wearing masks, the governor not wearing one himself. This at a time when experts here in the state of Texas are sounding the alarm about the number hospitalizations in this state. More than 12,000 people are hospitalized and about 314 ICU beds remain. Now, the number of deaths are also increasing with the state department of health here asking FEMA for five mortuary trailers.

Now, Ana, the state health department says that this is a proactive measure, but this just tells you the urgency. They're asking FEMA for five mortuary trailers just so they can have on standby. Ana?

CABRERA: That's alarming. Thank you, Rosa Flores.

And in Alabama, there are zero ICU beds left. In fact, the number of people receiving intensive care is greater than the number of designated ICU beds statewide.

And joining us now is Dr. Scott Harris, he's a state health officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health. Doctor, zero ICU beds for the state? Has it ever been this bad?

DR. SCOTT HARRIS, STATE HEALTH OFFICER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH: No. This is the most ICU beds we've ever had occupied. Because hospitals can expand within their own four walls and add some alternative spaces, we actually got to a negative number, which is remarkable. We have more critically ill patients than we actually have beds that we would ordinarily have to put them in.

CABRERA: Wow. So, what does that mean then for people who are part of that overflow, who need an ICU bed and have nowhere to go? What happens to them?

HARRIS: Yes. So, it is somewhat regionalized right now, that we have some parts of the state that have a little bit of capacity. It's just that the overall total for the state as a whole is that negative 11 beds, which is what we saw yesterday.

Our biggest hospitals have some beds set aside for things that can't wait, like organ transplants when there is a donor, for example. So there is a little bit of emergency capacity left. But for the average person, if you have a heart attack today or you're involved in an automobile accident, it's really causing our hospitals to be very creative in trying to figure out how to get you the care that you need.

CABRERA: If I'm you, I'm having a panic attack right now thinking like, what are we going to do? This has got to be shocking to you. What's going through your mind realizing the reality here?

HARRIS: Well, this is the scenario that we've all been dreading. We actually had a slightly higher number of total up inpatients in Alabama back in January, which was the worst time that we had seen so far in the pandemic. But, really, the degree to which these people are critically ill, this is the highest we've seen. This is the whole reason for doing all the things we've done. We've tried to preserve the capacity of our health care system. And right now, it's just straining. We really aren't going to be able to take much more here. CABRERA: So you did see this coming?

HARRIS: Yes. I think all along it was our worst fear. And even if you go back to 16 or 17 months ago, we understood that we could be swamped like this and, unfortunately, that day is now.

CABRERA: What are you hearing from doctors and nurses, those on the frontlines right now? Are they overwhelmed? Are there staffing issues?

HARRIS: Yes, staffing issues are a huge problem. And, listen, the doctors and nurses and ICU staff, frontline health care workers are the real heroes here, and they've been overwhelmed now for over a year. I mean, this is just adding insult to injury almost. They're having to pick up what they've been doing all along.

Around 88 or 89 percent of the people who are in our hospitals right now are not vaccinated people, and that makes us feel like so much of this is preventable. It's really unfortunate to see so many people hospitalized when the odds of the vaccine reducing your chance of hospitalization are terrific. And if we could only increase the number of people being vaccinated, I don't think we would be seeing this issue.

CABRERA: And we're still seeing the number of cases and hospitalizations surging there, and we know that Alabama is one of the states with the least vaccinations right now. When do you think this will let up?

HARRIS: You know, I don't know. We have seen an uptick over the past couple of weeks of people getting vaccinated. I think when they have a personal experience and know someone, that motivates them. On the other hand, with the mRNA vaccines, it's going to take them three to four weeks to get both shots. There's a couple of weeks after that until they have full immunity. So the people getting vaccinated today aren't really going to benefit the state as a whole for another five or six weeks, and so that's problematic.

I hope this will pass in the next two or three weeks, but I certainly am not confident in that.

CABRERA: What do you need from your governor and from other leaders right now?

HARRIS: Our governor has been extraordinarily supportive of trying to get people vaccinated.

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She understands exactly what's going on and has been a champion for public health. We need people to get out behind vaccinations, which are our number one way to prevent this. We're also implementing monoclonal infusion centers for those folks who aren't yet hospitalized. Hopefully, they will keep them out of the hospital. But we just need public officials to continue to support what we do. We really feel like the science supports what we're doing with regards to masking recommendations, with regards to vaccinations, with regards to all the things that we're seeing for our schools. And we just want to -- we want to have their support as well.

CABRERA: If people are thinking, oh, well, if I get COVID, I'll just have that monoclonal antibody therapy, is there a message to them? Is there enough of that kind of therapy? Is there enough resources to be able to give them that therapy? Should they need it?

HARRIS: No, there's not enough to go around just simply because of staffing issues. We don't really have a supply issue of obtaining the monoclonal antibody itself but, I mean, there's no aspect of medicine in which we wait for people to get sick and then figure out how to treat them when we have an option to actually prevent them from getting sick in the first place.

So, again, we're trying to mandate vaccinations because these vaccines, even though they're not quite as effective against the delta variant, they're still almost as effective as any other vaccine we have for any other disease. And that's really the way that we're going to ultimately get out of this.

CABRERA: Dr. Scott Harris, I appreciate your time and your message today, sending you the very best on all the people in Alabama. I hope everybody recovers quickly and that this surge doesn't last long. Thank you.

HARRIS: Thank you very much.

CABRERA: We're staying on top of the other breaking news. In Afghanistan, gunfire and chaos in the streets as thousands struggle to escape the Taliban. CNN's exclusive firsthand account of the mayhem surrounding a massive evacuation effort.

Plus, what U.S. intelligence agencies apparently told the White House about the potential for a Taliban takeover. So why did the administration seem so surprised?

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CABRERA: Panic in the streets as Afghanistan descends further into chaos.

Taliban fighters become the law in the clogged streets outside the airport in Kabul. They rule with an iron fist. Here, they fire into the air to chase off Afghan civilians desperate to flee their country. Many are in fear for their lives for helping Americans during the 20- year war.

Our Clarissa Ward provided this harrowing snapshot of a population left terrified and shell-shocked.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's definitely chaotic. It's definitely dangerous. I will say this, the Taliban appears to be trying to disperse the crowds and there are crowds there of young men who seem to be disengaging in like criminal activity. I don't know if you heard that. They're kind of running towards the Taliban and then running away from them again, almost like it's a game. But, you know, when there's bullets firing like that, Brianna and John, it's clearly not a game.

They're firing to disperse the crowds. They're not targeting people. They're not trying to kill people. But, of course, the minute you're firing willy-nilly when you have a bunch of civilians all other the road and civilian vehicles, people get hurt. That's what happens. So there's not a huge amount of discipline, let's say, to use an understatement in the ways in which they are dispersing the crowd.

We did see some people behind the concertina wire implying that they had been able to get into that first perimeter. But I'm not going to lie, I mean, you're running the gauntlet to try to get in there because there are so many different things going on. You can just hear the gunfire is pretty much constant as the Taliban tries to push people back, and as a result, you're just getting lots of people on the roads surrounding the airport like the one we're on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our message to America, we help the American people, so that's their jobs to help right now here. This is a very bad situation if someone knew that you work with somebody (INAUDIBLE) --

WARD: I'm just going to thank you, sir. Can I just bring you? And you have a green card?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. This is my green card.

WARD: This is your green card. He's showing me a picture right now of his green card. That's his green card. So you have a green card.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. And I have flight on August 20, this Friday.

WARD: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I already filled out the application from the U.S. embassy and this is the email that I got from the U.S. embassy.

WARD: And so did you try to get into the airport?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I did.

WARD: What did the Taliban say?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Taliban said we don't know. Just go. We don't want to try to let you in. And like they say, we don't have flights.

WARD: They don't have flights?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they just say it, they do have flights.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have flights, yes. WARD: You're getting the impression, John and Brianna, I mean, look, I'm surrounded here, okay? And everybody here has got a story. People worked for the Americans. One man has a green card. He already has his flights booked. Now, they're pressing in. They want desperately to tell their stories. They want the Americans to know because they're not able to get past those checkpoints. They're not able to get past the Taliban fighters.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: And that was Clarissa Ward outside the airport in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Now, I want to bring in White House Reporter Natasha Bertrand. Natasha, I last checked, there were still thousands of Americans in Afghanistan plus Afghan allies, like translators. What's the latest on evacuations?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Thousands and thousands of people, Ana, who are just desperate to get out at this point.

[13:25:00]

Now, what we're hearing from our sources is that the priority of the evacuations, of course, is first and foremost American citizens. Secondly, after they get out the American citizens, U.S. permanent residents, they are going to be focusing on Afghans with visas.

Now, those are going to be taken out of the country as soon as all the U.S. citizens are out safely. But right now, there are about 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. citizens still in Afghanistan. And that is the -- the question remains of whether or not they're going to be able to get them all out, especially because they're scattered across the country.

60,000 Afghans who could be qualified for evacuation out of the country, not just those special immigrant visas, are also still in the country, people like human rights defenders, women's rights activists, people who might be susceptible to targeting by the Taliban.

So, right now, we're getting a picture from the Pentagon as to how many people have been flown out so far. As of yesterday, it was about 1,100 U.S. citizens, permanent residents and their families that were evacuated. About 330 of those were U.S. citizens. The rest were their families who were not citizens. And in total, as of yesterday, again, about 3,200 people, including U.S. diplomatic personnel, have been removed from the country.

Now, of course, the question remains is whether the U.S. is going to stay in the country past that August 31st deadline that Biden put on the withdrawal and whether or not everyone is removed by that time is a big lingering question that the administration has not yet answered, Ana.

CABRERA: It does seem like an awful lot to happen in just a couple of weeks here, fingers crossed. Natasha Bertrand, thank you. We'll soon hear more from the Pentagon. A short time ago, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley arrived at the White House. They're scheduled to brief the press at 3:00 Eastern.

Let's bring in Mark Mazzetti. He's the Washington Investigative Correspondent at the New York Times. And, Mark, you have new reporting that the intel community had warned of an Afghan collapse even as the president was reassuring the American people. What exactly did the Biden administration know and when?

MARK MAZZETTI, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So, Ana, if you think back to the spring when President Biden was making this decision about the pullout, the intelligence community put an estimate of about a year-and-a-half to two years that the government, the military could potentially survive after the U.S. leaves. Now, of course, that's after 20 years and billions and billions of dollars spent on training the military, that's not particularly an optimistic assessment.

Then once the pullout commences, May and June, the intelligence community starts raising greater warnings about the potential for the Afghan military to collapse and even potentially for the government to collapse. The Talibans start gaining territories, especially up north. And so these warnings start becoming more dire and the timeline collapses about when the potential might be for the military to collapse.

And so by July, around the time that President Biden kind of famously gave a pretty optimistic assessment about the likelihood of government collapse in Kabul, the intelligence community was really in a different place. And so some of the things that you saw that Clarissa Ward has just been reporting on were sort of warned about by the intelligence community and raised questions about why there wasn't better preparation.

CABRERA: So, when the president came out on July 8th saying the Afghan government was unlikely to fall or to fail and that there would not be a chaotic evacuation, you're saying the intelligence was suggesting otherwise? Was the intelligence definitive at that time?

MAZZETTI: Well, some White House and administration officials say that the intelligence community never provided what they call a high confidence assessment. And what the CIA and other agencies do is they provide levels of certainty to certain assessments, high confidence obviously being the most certain, that no one ever gave the flashing red light warning that this was going to happen. But certainly they were producing reports that were going to the White House that showed the trajectory going in the wrong direction, the potential worst case scenario happening.

Now, the president and his advisers might have had other reasons for wanting to present a more optimistic scenario, for instance, to bolster the government of Afghanistan, not to create panic. But we did see in our reporting this disconnect that was happening privately in a classified setting with these reports and publicly with what some of the president -- what the president and some of his advisers were saying.

CABRERA: So, I think what I'm trying to drill down on is, was the president being told one thing, but then telling the American people another?

[13:30:04]

MAZZETTI: Well, I think it's still unclear and it bears more reporting.