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COVID Cases Surging In U.S.; Lt. Gov. Josh Green (D-HI) Discusses Governor Keeping Popular Tourist Spots Open As Cases Surge & Anti-Vaccination Protests; Secretary Of State Blinken Holds Press Conference On Afghanistan. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired August 25, 2021 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Take Los Angeles, masks all around and more. First week of school, fewer than 2,000 confirmed cases among more than half-a-million students and staff.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D-NY): Here's the thing I care about the most and the thing we need the most. We need an accelerated, focused effort at the federal level to get the vaccination ready for 5 to 11-year- olds.

WATT: Now Delta Airlines won't mandate vaccines for employees, but just announced --

ED BASTAN, CEO, DELTA AIRLINES: Starting November the 1st, we're going to implement a surcharge on insurance, such that if you're not vaccinated at that point, we're going to add a $200 monthly premium surcharge onto your health insurance costs.

WATT: Just in, early trial data from Johnson & Johnson shows a booster shot of its vaccine significantly upped those protective antibodies.

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: What I would expect that to mean is far fewer breakthrough infections if you've gotten that second shot.

WATT: Meantime, the number of people getting their first vaccine shot every day is rising.

JEFF ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: And we're seeing the greatest increases in states that had been lagging in vaccinations.

WATT: Fresh shots across the country up 70 percent in a month.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: Now, remember, President Biden ordered that intel report into the origins of COVID? Well, it's in. He's seen it. It's inconclusive. We still do not know if this was a lab leak or animal-to-human transmission.

And investigators say the window for us to find the truth is closing -- Guys?

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Nick Watt there for us there in Los Angeles. Nick, thank you.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Well, the governor of Hawaii wants tourists to stay away from his state as cases there sure. But he's being called a hypocrite by some locals for not closing down popular tourist attractions that keep all those people coming to the islands.

Hawaii is closing in on 60,000 cases. And the seven-day average of new daily cases is now three times higher than what it was a month ago. So there's the red on the map.

The entire state, all of those islands, are battling a high level of community transmission.

Josh Green is the lieutenant governor of Hawaii and an E.R. physician. He's also been the target of anti-vaccine protests outside of his home.

Lieutenant Governor Green, thank you very much for being here.

I look forward to talking to you because you bring so many different dimensions as lieutenant governor and as an E.R. doctor.

But let's start with the policy. What are you telling tourists today? Do you want them to come to Hawaii or not?

LT. GOV. JOSH GREEN (D-HI) & E.R. PHYSICIAN: What I'm tell them is, if you're going to travel at all, anywhere in America and, of course including to Hawaii, you must be vaccinated.

Do not travel if you're not vaccinated. If you're not vaccinated and you're traveling, you're going to catch the Delta variant and you're going to spread it. So please do that.

Our governor did make the recommendation that people not do anything but essential travel for a short time into October. The reason for that is our hospitals have filled up.

We have the lowest COVID rate in the state as compared to any other state in the country, but we have had a huge Delta surge. That Delta surge means our hospitals are at up with 20120 percent capacity right now.

So to be clear, are you telling tourists to stay away until October?

GREEN: We're telling to just come if you have essential travel that is necessary.

I know what is real -- and I know people make plans. If you travel under any circumstance to Hawaii, you must be vaccinated. Our policy, the Safe Travels Program, has been that you must either be

vaccinated or tested within 72 hours, otherwise, you will go into quarantine for 10 days for the whole trip that you're here.

I hate to tell people not to come to Hawaii. But at this point, across the country, nobody should be traveling unless they're vaccinated.

CAMEROTA: What about what locals said that if you really wanted to close down, you should close tourist attractions.

GREEN: No one is allowed to gather indoors, unless it's 10 people or fewer, or outdoors unless it's 25 people or fewer. So it's a de facto ban on going to most of these places.

They are thinning out. If you come to Hawaii, you're going to have a very quiet vacation right now because you can't go to a lot of restaurants.

It's harder to get a place at a restaurant at the moment because we have these restrictions on total numbers of people in facilities.

And honestly, we can keep things safe. We've done a great job. The death rate is the lowest in the country for Hawaii because once again we've done everything we can to keep cases at bay.

But we have a small health care community here. We have limited resources. So we're trying to be thoughtful as we welcome people to the Aloha State.

I know it's difficult to grasp, but everywhere in the country Delta has surged and we have had an enormous surge. We're at a positivity rate of 8.3 percent. National average is 11 percent.

We've had over 500 cases a day on average. That doesn't sound like if you're in New York or California but that is a lot here.

Give us four to six weeks to get things tamped down a little bit. Let me try to get 100,000 more people vaccinated which will decrease our hospital numbers and then we'll be OK.

[14:35:02]

CAMEROTA: Speaking of your vaccination efforts, let's talk about these anti-vaccination protests that have cropped up outside of your home.

People are banging pots and pans. I mean, to your home. You have two little kids. You have neighbors in your condo and they're shouting and they're making noise.

I mean, what's your message to those folks that have shown up night after night at your place?

GREEN: Well, my message is, though I'm a strong believer in freedom of speech and the right to gather, it's not appropriate, of course, to gather at someone's home. Look, I can take it. If you want to point criticism at me, I welcome

it. Do it at my place of work where I'm lieutenant governor, not where I'm being a physician in the E.R. but don't do that to innocent people. There's elderly people in my building. There are children.

I think really what's happening, though, is there are a lot of scared people in America. And if this protest and the somewhat terrible things people have said about me, if they need to say that to get it out of their system.

And I can absorb some of that, that's OK, because if that brings more attention to the need to get vaccinated, it's a good thing.

Also, it's a really ironic situation here because the very people that are protesting mask wearing and vaccinations are the same individuals I worry about.

I will be taking care of those very protesters personally in the hospital when they get sick with COVID. So it does break my heart a bit to see them scaring others from becoming vaccinated.

The reason we're having a big surge -- we're like second or third best of vaccinations in the country. But even with that number, we've had the surge of the Delta variant. It's quite extraordinary.

And they scared people on the west side of Oahu from becoming vaccinated so only 35 percent of those citizens got vaccinated. And that's where all the cases are coming from and overwhelming our hospitals.

Unfortunately, fear is reigning some parts of the day but I'm not afraid of it.

I really do believe that if some of us, as leaders, absorb that kind of mayhem, then we can get the message out that science will overcome this problem.

There's no question in my mind that vaccination is the pathway forward for America and we should unite.

CAMEROTA: That is awfully magnanimous of you, Lieutenant Governor, because I know they have even said anti-Semitic garbage to you and just disgusting stuff. You're going to have to be taking care of them soon in the E.R.

Very quickly, before I let you go, tell us what the situation in the E.R. is.

I know that you have had situations where people are coming in, fully vaccinated, heart attack patients, who can't get a bed because of the unvaccinated people who are clogging the hospital beds.

GREEN: That's right. Because we're at 120 percent capacity for all of our ICUs in the state.

I was on call two weekends ago on the rural part of the big island. I had a gentleman fully vaccinated. He did not have COVID, 74 years old, but he had a big heart attack. It took me many hours to transfer him to a facility where he could get cardiology care.

Another woman who is younger, in her early 40s, he has a diagnosis now of breast cancer. Because we're so full in our hospitals, we've had to suspend all of our elective procedures. That woman can't get the mammogram and the subsequent mastectomy she needs for several weeks.

So for people who are protesting, who are refusing to be vaccinated, it's not just affecting them, who will catch COVID and be in the hospital a certain percentage of the time, 3 percent to 4 percent of the time, but it's also affecting everyone.

We will not be able to get care for our elders, our loved ones, our parents, our uncles, our aunts, even our children if there are car accidents, because our hospitals are full.

I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat or Independent, we're talking about people getting health care. At the end of the day, that's why we have to all come together just to take care of all of our families.

CAMEROTA: Lieutenant Governor Josh Green, we really appreciate your message and all that you're trying to do in the hospitals and elsewhere for the people of your state. Thanks so much for the time.

GREEN: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: OK. A major step forward in a divided House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi struck a deal with a group of moderates to advance the president's infrastructure bill. But will it be enough to pass in the Senate? We're live on Capitol Hill with an update.

BLACKWELL: Also, any minute now, we're expecting to hear from Secretary of State Tony Blinken. He'll update us on the effort to repatriate Americans in Afghanistan.

We've learned from the State Department that one of its briefers apparently misspoke in their call to members of Congress on the number of Americans actively trying to get back to the U.S. He will offer clarity on the numbers. And we'll bring it to you live.

[14:39:45]

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: House Democrats approved that $3.5 trillion budget framework paving the way for President Biden's economic agenda to go forward, but also presenting new hurdles as moderate and progressive Democrats remain split.

BLACKWELL: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the moderates in her party have set a September 27th deadline to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. But progressives say count them out unless the final much larger

reconciliation package bill -- let's interrupt this and go to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

[14:44:58]

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: I want to give you all an update on the situation in Afghanistan and our ongoing efforts there, particularly as they relate to U.S. citizens. And then I'm very happy to take your questions.

Let me begin with my profound appreciation for our diplomats and servicemembers who are working around the clock at the airport in Kabul and at a growing number of transit sites to facilitate the evacuation of Americans, their families, citizens of allied and partner nations, Afghans who have partnered with us over the last 20 years, and other Afghans at risk.

They're undertaking this mission under extremely difficult circumstances with incredible courage, skill, and humanity.

Since August 14th, more than 82,300 people have been safely flown out of Kabul. In the 24-hour period from Tuesday to Wednesday, approximately 19,000 people were evacuated on 90 U.S. military and coalition flights.

Only the United States could organize and execute a mission of this scale and this complexity.

As the president has made clear, our first priority is the evacuation of American citizens. Since August 14th, we've evacuated at least 4,500 U.S. citizens and likely more. More than 500 of those Americans were evacuated in just the last day alone.

Now, many of you have asked how many U.S. citizens remain in Afghanistan who want to leave the country. Based on our analysis, starting on August 14 when our evacuation operations began, there was then a population of as many as 6,000 American citizens in Afghanistan who wanted to leave.

Over the last 10 days, roughly 4,500 of these Americans have been safely evacuated, along with immediate family members.

Over the past 24 hours, we've been in direct contact with approximately 500 additional Americans and provided specific instructions on how to get to the airport safely.

We'll update you regularly on getting these 500 American citizens out of Afghanistan.

For the remaining roughly 1,000 contacts that we had who may be Americans seeking to leave Afghanistan, we're aggressively reaching out to them multiple times a day through multiple channels of communication, phone, email, text messaging, to determine whether they still want to leave and to get the most up-to-date information and instructions to them for how to do so. Some may no longer be in the country. Some may have claimed to be

Americans but turned out not to be. Some may choose to stay. We'll continue to try to identify the status and plans of these people in the coming days.

Thus, from this list of approximately 1,000, we believe the number of Americans actively seeking assistance to leave Afghanistan is lower, likely significantly lower.

Having said that, these are dynamic calculations that we are working hour by hour to refine for accuracy.

And let me, if I can, just take a moment to explain why the numbers are difficult to pin down with absolute precision at any given moment.

Let me start with Americans who are in Afghanistan and we believe want to leave.

First, as I think all of you know, the U.S. government does not track Americans' movements when they travel around the world.

When Americans visit a foreign country or while they reside there, we encourage them to enroll with the U.S. embassy. Whether they do or not is up to them. It's voluntary.

When Americans leave a foreign country, it's also up to them to de- enroll. Again, that's a choice, not a requirement.

Particularly given the security situation in Afghanistan, for many years we have urged Americans not to travel there. We have repeatedly asked Americans who are in Afghanistan to enroll.

And since March of this year, we've sent 19 separate messages to Americans enrolled with the embassy in Kabul, encouraging and then urging them to leave the country.

We've amplified those direct messages on the State Department Web site and on social media. We even made clear that we would help pay for their repatriation.

And we provided multiple communication channels for Americans to contact us if they're in Afghanistan and want help in leaving.

The specific estimated number of Americans in Afghanistan who want to leave can go up as people respond to our outreach for the first time. And it can go down when we reach Americans we thought were in Afghanistan who tell us they have already left.

[14:50:03]

There could be other Americans in Afghanistan who never enrolled with the embassy. We have found that many people who contact us and identify themselves as American citizens, including by filling out and submitting repatriation citizen forms are not citizens.

Some Americans may choose to stay in Afghanistan. Some who are old and some who are not. Many are dual, who consider Afghanistan their home. They have lived there are for decades or want to stay close to extended family.

They are Americans still evaluating their decision based on the information on the ground that evolves daily, that evolving hourly. Some are understandably very scared. Each has a set of priorities and consideration that they can weigh.

Finally, over the past 10 days, we have been moving hundreds of Afghan citizens out every day. We crosschecked our list against flight manifest, against arrival records and other database. There's a lag of about 24 hours for us to verify their status.

When you take into account all of these inputs that we arrive at our assessment are the number of Americans still in Afghanistan and want to leave, you start to understand it is hard number to pin down at any given moment and why we're refining it.

That's also why we continue to be relentless in our outreach. Since August 14th, we reached out to every American enrolled with us in Afghanistan and multiple times. The phone bank, text bank, writing and responding to e-mails.

Work around the clock to communication individually with Americans on the ground. Since August 14th, we sent more than 20,000 e-mails, initiated more than 45,000 phone calls and used other means of communication cycling through and updating our list repeatedly.

We're integrating information in real time. These contacts are how we determine the whereabouts of Americans living in Afghanistan, whether they want to leave, whether they need help and then to give them specific instructions on how to leave should they need it.

Let me turn to the number of Americans who have been evacuated. We believe that number is a dynamic. That's because in this critical stretch, we're focused on getting Americans and their families onto planes, out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible and then processing the total numbers when they are safely out of the country.

We also verify our numbers to make sure we aren't under counting or double counting.

I wanted to lay that out because I know it's a fundamental question that so many of you have and it really merits going through the information, the explanations that you see how we arrive at it.

While evacuating Americans is our top priority, we're also committed to getting out as many Afghans at risks we can before the 31st. The folks that have been working side by side in our embassy with our diplomatic team. It includes special visa participants and other Afghans at risk.

It's hard to overstate the complexity and the danger of this effort. We're operating in a hostile environment in city and country now held by the Taliban with the very real possibility of an ISIS-K attack. We're taking every precaution but this is very high risk. [14:54:58]

As the president said yesterday, we're on track to complete our mission by August 31st provided the Taliban continue to cooperate and there are no disruptions to this effort.

The president has also asked for contingency plans in case he determines we must remain in the country past that date.

Let me be crystal clear about this. There's no deadline to help American citizens who decide they want to go and the many Afghans who have to go by us over the years who want to leave and been unable to do so. That effort will continue every day past August 31st.

The Taliban have made public and private commitments to provide safe passage for Americans and nationals going past August 31st.

The United States, our allies and partners and more than half of the world's countries, 114 in all, issued a statement making it clear the Taliban they have a responsibility to hold that commitment and provide safe passage for anyone who wishes to leave the country not just for the duration of our evacuation and relocation mission but for every day thereafter.

We're developing detailed plans for how we can continue to provide support and facilitate departures for those who wish to leave after August 31st.

Our expectation is that people who want to leave Afghanistan after the U.S. Military should be able to do so. Together we will do everything we can to see that expectation is met.

Let me make a note on a diplomatic front. In all, more than two dozen countries on four continents are contributing to the effort to transit, temporarily House while we are evacuating. That didn't just happen. We are deeply grateful to those countries and their general assistance.

This is one of the largest air lifts in history. A massive military diplomatic security and humanitarian efforts taking. It's a testament to U.S. Leadership and the strength of our alliances and partnerships. We will be relying and building upon that strength moving forward.

That was the point the president underscored in yesterday's G-7 leaders meeting on Afghanistan. It's one that I and other senior members of the State Department have made many our constant indication with allies and partners in recent days to assure that we're aligned and united as we move forward.

Not only when it comes to the immediate mission but also on what happens after August 31st on counter terrorism, on our expectation and the future Afghan government. That work is ongoing as we speak and will continue in the days and weeks ahead.

I talked a lot about numbers this afternoon. As we're laser focused on the mission, we know that this is about real people. Many scared, many desperate.

I've seen the images. I've read the story, heard the voices. So much of that reported by you and your colleagues so courageously. Like many of you, I read the report of the Afghan translator whose 2-

year-old daughter was trampled to death on Saturday while waiting outside the airport.

I've got two small kids of my own. Reading that story and others was like getting punched in the gut.

All of us at the State Department and across the U.S. government feel that way. We know that lives and future, starting with our fellow citizens, including the lives of children, hang in the balance during these critical days.

That's why everyone on our team is putting everything they have into this effort.

Thanks very much and happy to take questions.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thanks for coming down and doing this. I'll try to be as brief as possible.

On your numbers on the Americans citizens the, does that include Green card holders, LPRs? And if it doesn't -- it does?

BLINKEN: It does not.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: LPRs also been contacted

BLINKEN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What about SIV applicants?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can we get numbers?

(CROSSTALK)

BLINKEN: I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[15:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It's OK. I don't expect to have all of them.

Since this whole thing began, there's been a lot of criticism of the administration over how it's handled.