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Hospitals Overwhelmed with COVID; Two FDA Vaccine Officials Quit; Biden Calls Evacuation a Success; Lake Tahoe Faces Wildfire. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 01, 2021 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:56]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Right now the U.S. is averaging about 160,000 new COVID infections per day. That surge is pushing health care systems in many states to their limits once again as COVID-19 patients put a strain on space, staffing, oxygen supplies.

There are some bright spots. The U.S. is now administering just under 900,000 vaccine doses a day. You could see it ticking up a bit there. The White House says about 14 million first doses were administered in August. That's 4 million more first shots compared to July, a sign that some vaccine hesitancy may be fading.

CNN's Martin Savidge has more on the overall state of the pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Running out of room.

CAROL BURRELL, CEO, NORTHEAST GORGIA HEALTH SYSTEM: We're looking to add space in hallways and conference rooms and waiting areas. Our emergency rooms and our urgent care centers are seeing higher volumes than they've seen throughout this pandemic.

SAVIDGE: With COVID-19 numbers still soaring, states with low vaccination rates are struggling the most. Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Florida, and Arkansas have less than 10 percent of their ICU capacity left according to HHS data.

Idaho's governor, after touring a health facility in Boise, announcing there were only four available ICU beds for the entire state.

In Kentucky, overwhelmed hospitals are short on staff and beds.

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): We are living in a reality where some COVID patients that are sick are being treated in their cars when there isn't room for them inside the ER or in the hospital.

SAVIDGE: In Hawaii and four other states, there are fears of oxygen shortages. In Louisiana where health resources were already at the breaking point, health officials fear Hurricane Ida could be a super spreader event as people shelter in large numbers.

Oregon's called up 500 National Guard troops to bolster its struggling health care systems with a thousand more on standby.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning, scholars.

SAVIDGE: And then there's back to school.

In the past week, more than 200,000 kids have tested positive for COVID. Five times the number from a month before, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

In Florida's 15 largest school districts, a CNN analysis found close to 22,000 students and 5,000 employees have tested positive for COVID- 19 since the start of the school year.

In Pennsylvania, where school is just starting, the secretary of health says coronavirus cases in children over the past six weeks are up 300 percent, prompting the governor to announce a mask mandate for schools. But opposition to mask and vaccine mandates are only growing in Republican-led states as the fight against them turns physical.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, right -- right here. Look, right here.

SAVIDGE: In Lee County, Florida, deputies had to break up fist fights outside the school district headquarters when a mask mandate was announced for teachers and students.

But there is some good news. Vaccination numbers have been on the rise. A new vaccination poll found the number of Americans who said they are not very likely or at all likely to get a COVID-19 vaccine has dropped from 34 percent in March to 20 percent currently. Some states also report their COVID numbers are beginning to plateau, still high, but not rising.

For health officials, September may not offer a light at the end of the tunnel, but right now they'd settle for just a little less dark.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAVIDGE: The CDC is recommending that those who aren't vaccinated should not travel this holiday weekend.

Meanwhile, there's this. The state that has the highest vaccination rate is Vermont. The state that has the lowest hospitalization rate for COVID-19, yes, is Vermont.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: That relation has been consistent throughout. It is good to see the good news you included in there, though, Martin, and that is that vaccine hesitancy dropping and vaccine first doses going up.

Martin Savidge, thanks very much.

SAVIDGE: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Well, two senior leaders in the FDA's vaccine office will be stepping down in the coming months. The retirements coming as the agency works towards major decisions about booster shots as well as vaccines for children under 12.

[09:35:01]

CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins me now.

Do we know why they're leaving now?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know what, Jim, we don't know why but we do know that this is quite a loss. Together, Dr. Phil Krause and Dr. Marion Gruber have more than 35 years' experience at the FDA. Dr. Gruber, she headed up the Office of Vaccine Research, or still does actually until she retires. And Dr. Krause was her deputy director. And so this certainly is a loss.

Now, CNN has spoken to a source who talked about frustrations at the agency that the White House has pre-judged, has been ahead in some ways of the FDA with booster shots. Sort of the golden rule has always been, let the FDA make a decision and then talk about something. But here, several weeks ago, the White House coming out and saying September 20th, that's when we're going to start boosters. And the FDA hasn't yet said what they think about boosters or said when people should get boosters. So, of course, these people also working very hard. We're told there are some serious morale issues at an agency that we've all relied on so much for more than a year and a half.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: All right, so all these decisions, of course, influenced by the data. And we're waiting, for instance, on data for vaccines for children under 12. But CDC has new plans going forward for how it shares this data? What's your reporting?

COHEN: That's right. So, Jim, the CDC, as anyone who's been watching the CDC for years knows, they are very careful, they are very precise, and some people would tell you they are very slow at getting data out. They want to dot every "i" and cross every "t." And that sometimes that's not good for public health messaging. They're just too behind the times.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

COHEN: That criticism was there before the Biden administration and it has been there since Biden became president.

And so now what's happened is that in the past two months or so, the CDC has decided to talk about data that they've looked at and analyzed and vetted but have not yet published. Before the CDC would wait for something to be published in its own journal, in another medical journal, but now the decision is, let's talk about it. We need to make guidelines. There are some concerns about this because it is possible to some people -- in fact some people are saying, you know, I don't like vaccines, I don't like masking. Look at the CDC. They talk without having the data. The CDC is going to have to deal with that.

SCIUTTO: We'll be looking for that data.

Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much.

President Biden praised the military evacuation from Kabul and rejected the many critics who say he abandoned not only American citizens there, but many thousands of allies, Afghan allies, who aided the U.S. military. We're going to discuss the fallout, next.

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[09:42:22]

SCIUTTO: New this morning, this is video into CNN showing one of the last evacuation flights from Kabul. A U.S. Air Force crew delivering U.S. soldiers to Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait on Monday. It's one of the final noncombatant evacuation operation missions out of Afghanistan, though this one, of course, carrying soldiers, so not under the noncombatant category.

President Biden, in his first address to the nation since the end of the Afghanistan war praised the evacuation effort and defended against many critics in both parties who say he left Americans as well as Afghan allies behind.

Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravely and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals.

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SCIUTTO: Joining me now to discuss is Mike Rogers, he's former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Mike, you heard the president's argument there. He said yesterday that the end of the war in Afghanistan marks the end of an era for the U.S. military to, quote, remake other countries. And as you know, that is -- that has -- that broad position has bipartisan support. By the way, President Trump had a similar position, not just on Afghanistan, but talked about leaving NATO or taking forces out of South Korea.

Before we get to how the withdrawal was handled, was the withdrawal itself an acknowledgment of that, that remaking countries simply didn't work?

MIKE ROGERS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY COMMENTATOR: Yes, well, I mean, I think -- I disagree with the premise, honestly, and I think -- listen, this is about an enduring peace. If you know -- we -- again, we weren't at war with Afghanistan. The government of Afghanistan was our ally. What we were doing was fighting extremism of all sorts. I mean it was -- it's kind of a petri dish of extremism.

You know, I argued that, listen, the reason we kept troops in Germany is not because we were at war with Germany any more, but we were a counter weight to Russia. Same in the Korea with the North Koreans. Same in Japan. And now, look, we have -- we're counter weighting to China and other places. These are investments, insurance policies, so that we can control the outcome of our own national security.

So this notion that I'm ending a war that was happening for 20 years, I -- boy, Jim, I just can't agree with it because when we left, al Qaeda is still in 15 provinces in Afghanistan. ISIS is on the move in Afghanistan. And now we don't have any way to deal with that, I believe, that's in our own national security interest. I think everybody wanted out, but nobody wanted to frame out why we should stay.

[09:45:02]

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this, because the president's argument, and you've heard this elsewhere, is that, yes, al Qaeda's in Afghanistan, but al Qaeda and groups like it are in many other countries now. It's spread. It's metastasized, including in many countries that the U.S. does not have a deployment, a U.S. military presence on the ground and that the U.S. can handle this from outside of the country.

Do you buy that argument? What's your response?

ROGERS: I don't. A, we can't handle it outside of the country. Anything by remote control simply isn't going to work. I think the nearest fly over flight is something like seven hours over the horizon.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ROGERS: So even if you got good intelligence where somebody was and you wanted to do an air strike, I doubt they're going to be there in seven hours. And you lose the collection capability.

And, remember, this is where al Qaeda planned, recruited, financed, trained to attack the United States of America. They didn't do it in those other countries, they did it in Afghanistan.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ROGERS: And they did it because the Taliban gave them safe haven. And, remember, the Taliban has a lot more in common with ISIS and al Qaeda than they do any western notion of governance.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ROGERS: And so some notion that that's all suddenly going to change I think is both naive and dangerous. So if we leave, we have the same problem staring at us.

And, yes, we do have al Qaeda in other countries. We do have methods that we're using, and I would argue some very effectively, to go after those and target those pockets of al Qaeda. And so it -- everything is different. But to say, well, we don't do it anywhere else so we're not going to do it in the one place that we know a terrorist group that ran the country, supported them and allowed them to attack the United States, we're just going to walk away from that, boy, I just don't buy it at all.

SCIUTTO: So, another argument you hear from the administration -- and I will say I find it remarkable when I -- when I hear those words coming, for instance, from a uniformed general there talking about cooperation with the Taliban after 20 years of fighting the Taliban in that country. But the Taliban has different priorities now. Running the place, right?

Should Americans place any confidence or credibility in Taliban claims that, well, we're different now, right, and that agreements made with the U.S. on, for instance, continuing evacuation should be believed?

ROGERS: I wouldn't take the word of the Taliban for love nor money. I mean are -- they've already shown this, even on their economic system, they said, oh, no, we're going to change, we're going to put professionals in. They appointed a guy named Mohammed Idris (ph), who has no financial understanding whatsoever. I mean he basically was a commander in the field, if you will, and is now a head of their central bank.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ROGERS: And so, no, I don't.

And if you look at what happens -- and I think the outer provinces outside of Kabul, they're already reverting back. And this -- the Taliban isn't some great monolithic, very trained, disciplined military effort. It is -- a, it's an extremist organization that abuses women, and that part's not changing. We already see in the eastern provinces, that part's not changing. And so some notion that all of a sudden, you know, the few people who hung out in Doha for the negotiations for the last five years may have some different ideas, but the people on the ground do not. It's the same old Taliban that we know and don't like.

SCIUTTO: Yes, we heard it. And I heard eyewitness accounts of the Taliban attacking people, women and so on, including those trying to reach the airport to get out.

Mike Rogers, always good to have you on.

ROGERS: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Well, thousands are facing evacuation orders of a different kind. This in California because of that massive Caldor Fire. Officials there say today is a critical day as the weather may contribute further. We're going to take you there next.

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[09:53:10] SCIUTTO: Well, this morning, leaders in south Lake Tahoe, California, say that firefighters there have reached a critical stage in the battle against the Caldor Fire as the out-of-control flames approach the Lake Tahoe basin. More than 53,000 people have been ordered to evacuate.

CNN's Dan Simon, he is right there on the California/Nevada border.

Dan, how much of this is contained now, and what's the danger to Lake Tahoe and the resorts there?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the containment numbers, Jim, haven't moved very much. Right now it's 18 percent contained. But I don't think there's any question that today is going to be a critical day.

Right now the fire is just a few short miles from reaching this area. Crews are doing everything they can to beat back the flames. The problem, though, has been the wind, and the area remains under a red flag warning, meaning things will remain windy, at least until tonight.

Here on the ground, Jim, as you can see, things remain quite smokey. But the good news is, it does appear that pretty much everybody in this community did heed the evacuation order.

I want you to listen to one resident we spoke with who was packing up his belongings and was ready to hit the road.

Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZOLTAN FENYVESI, SOUTH LAKE TAHOE RESIDENT: Well, I'm hoping South Lake Tahoe doesn't burn, but who knows? I mean we can only -- we can only hope to God that it don't. But if it does, it does. I mean there's not much we can do about it. We just -- hopefully the firefighters can do what they can do and put a stop to it or at least contain it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON: Now, if the fire does not significantly advance tonight, I think folks mere will be breathing a big sigh of relief because the wind is expected to be much calmer tomorrow. And we know that when things are not windy, that's when crews really begin to make some good progress.

[09:55:00]

And, Jim, we should point out the Caldor Fire has been and remains the number one firefighting priority in the nation, and it will remain that way for the time being. So this is not a resources problem, this is about the wind and all the dry fuel.

Jim. SCIUTTO: Let's hope those winds turn. It can make all the difference.

Dan Simon, there, thanks very much.

Breaking overnight, a big blow to abortion rights advocates. A serious threat to the Roe v. Wade decision. A law that would institute a near total ban on abortion goes into effect in one of the largest states in the country, in Texas.

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