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Family of 14-Year-Old Killed in LAPD Shooting Speak Out; Holiday Retail Sales Rise; CDC Cuts Recommended COVID Quarantine Time in Half. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 28, 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]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: An almanac from 1875 was among the artifacts found in the first capsule. Most of its contents were either water-damaged or otherwise underwhelming.

And a quick programming note. Ladies and gentlemen, the boys are back. Join Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen for "CNN New Year's Eve Live." The party starts at 8:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

Thank you so much for joining INSIDE POLITICS.

My good buddy Jessica Dean picks up our coverage right now.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean in Washington, D.C., in for Ana Cabrera today.

And we start with a significant shift by the CDC, slashing the recommended time to isolate and quarantine for people who test positive or are exposed to COVID-19, this new guidance cutting the length of time from 10 days to just five, but only if you're asymptomatic and if you keep wearing a mask.

It is welcome news for an industry struggling with staffing shortages amid this latest COVID surge, airlines, hospitals others all dealing with massive disruptions. Several states are now nearing peak pandemic level hospitalizations. New infections fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant are rising rapidly, the U.S. now averaging over 237,000 cases a day.

That represents a 66 percent jump over the last week.

CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here now with more.

Elizabeth, some may be confused by this new CDC guidance. Distill it down for us. What does it all actually mean?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: First of all, people are confused because it's confusing. This guidance is extremely difficult to understand.

And I think it's really going to be controversial. Some people -- experts I have talked to said, this is the right way to go. Others have said, hmm, this could be problematic, especially as schools go back into session next week.

Let's take a look at what the CDC is saying. If you have COVID-19, but you're either asymptomatic or you have had symptoms, but they're getting better, the CDC says no more 10-day isolation. Isolate yourself for five days and then, for the five days after that, wear a mask when you're around other people.

Now, if you were exposed, meaning a family member or someone close to you, someone who you have been near has COVID, you don't have COVID, but you have been exposed to it, if you have had a booster or if your second shot has been within the past six months, no quarantine. That's a big change. No quarantine and wear a mask for 10 days.

Now, for that -- for this one, you might wonder, really, no quarantine? Here's why. The CDC says a booster gives you 75 percent protection against infection with Omicron. So they're basically saying, why should you be out of work if your booster protects you 75 percent? You don't have COVID, you're testing negative, you're not sick, you're 75 percent effective -- 75 percent protected, you should go back to work.

That's what the CDC is saying -- Jessica.

DEAN: Yes, it's all very interesting. I'm glad you're breaking it down for us.

One more thing too, the CDC today lowering its estimates of the prevalence of Omicron. What does that mean? And what are we to take away from that?

COHEN: So, speaking of confusing or, to be more specific, confusion from the CDC, this one might be even worse.

So the CDC throughout the pandemic has looked at genomic sequencing. What is the variant that is most prevalent? So, for months, it's been Delta. We know that Omicron is increasing and increasing. So let's take a look at what they said last week.

They said last week, if you look at the week of December 11 through the 18th, CDC previously said 73 percent of new cases were Omicron. I remember talking about this last week, and everyone was like, oh, my gosh, 73 percent, that's incredible. CDC is now saying, hmm, we want to make an adjustment. It was actually only 23 percent.

That is obviously a huge difference. They're also saying that, for the week of December 19 through the 25, 59 percent of new cases were Omicron. So this is way less Omicron than was previously thought. You might think, how did that happen?

A couple things here. These are all estimations. This is not an exact science. Remember, the CDC doesn't do genetic typing on every single case of COVID-19. They do a sample and then project. It looks like their projections weren't quite right. It's important because policy decisions get made based on these estimates -- Jessica.

DEAN: Right, on that data. All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much for breaking that down for

us.

And regardless of this new guidance, many Americans are still out there anxiously trying to find out if they're COVID-positive. There are still some major issues with access to testing across the country.

CNN's Leyla Santiago is at a testing site in Miami.

Leyla, how long is the wait for people there?

[13:05:00]

LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It kind of varies around what time you come, but, bottom line, it is hours.

People have been telling us anywhere from two to three hours. And this is one of the busiest sites in Miami-Dade County. It is run by Nomi Health. They tell me that this site in particular they administered nearly 9,000 tests yesterday, countywide, 60,000. And let me put that in perspective for you.

When you compare that to the last peak of the Delta wave, that's about a 50 percent increase. So what does that mean? Well, that means they have had to hire more workers. They have seen about a 50 percent increase in how many workers they have had to staff here to try to meet that demand of that increased demand in testing.

They're also planning on opening more sites. They opened two new sites today, and they plan on opening more over the coming days and extending hours. So the company that runs this tells me they expected to see an increase in demand because of the holidays, because of Omicron. They just say that this is something they have never seen before.

Listen to what two people we talked to in line told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's way more chaotic now. Everybody's freaking out. But that's like the same thing that happened right before the first shutdown. Like, everybody's, like, going everywhere about it.

SANTIAGO: How would you compare it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a spot right by my house where I would go. It would take less than five minutes. I would just walk there. And that's it. And now the line extends into like the next street. It's crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANTIAGO: And, of course, this is on-site testing.

When it comes to those take-home tests, Jessica, the county distributed 152,000 at public libraries over a two-day period. They're now all out and have more requests into the Department of Health.

DEAN: Yes, everybody wants to get access to those tests.

All right, Leyla Santiago for us in Florida, thanks so much.

And let's talk more about all of this.

Joining us now is Dr. Michael Mina. He's the chief science officer for eMed.

Dr. Mina, it's great to have you with us. Thanks for being here.

I just want to get your reaction first to this new CDC guidance that Elizabeth walked us through. Do you think this was the right move at the right time?

DR. MICHAEL MINA, CHIEF SCIENCE OFFICER, EMED: I think the CDC is obviously doing everything in its power to try to keep society running. So, on that front, I think this is a good approach.

But I do believe that this is a poor approach unless we have evidence that somebody is negative at that five-day mark when they leave isolation. We have tests. We have rapid tests. The U.S. could have these in much greater numbers. And this would be a very good use for these tests to say, if you go into isolation, get an isolation kit.

It comes with an N95 mask and two rapid tests that you can use on day five. And if you're negative on day five, and then the morning of day six, then you leave isolation. If you're still positive -- and we see many people are still highly, highly positive at day five -- then you stay in isolation.

DEAN: And it's -- that seems so practical. And it seems like a very practical idea for all of this. But people aren't even able, as we just heard from Leyla, to even get their hands on a test right now if they're symptomatic, or if they have been exposed.

Why do you think we're in this situation with testing? And then, for something like what you're talking about, it seems like that would be all but impossible in this particular moment in time.

MINA: Well, at this moment, but we can -- the tests exist. They are -- for various reasons that have happened over the last two years in the United States, they have not become commonplace, but, across the world, these tests exist in massive numbers.

The U.S. could have them. And the test can become much more powerful than just a test used at home. The test can be used for reporting reliably, using companies like I work for now, eMed. There's lots of different ways that we could use these tests to enable society to use them in a very powerful and profound way, rather than just them being plastic cassettes with paper at home.

And the U.S. just has to recognize that we can purchase them, the U.S. can build them. The government could actually build these tests. We have not done that after two years. I don't expect that we will as a government, but they do exist. And it shouldn't be a mad dash to see who gets to Walgreens first each day to buy these tests.

DEAN: Right, right, right, who can get the first shipment in.

We also are starting to see a disturbing number of children who are getting sick as Omicron, as this variant makes its way through society. We see pediatric hospitalizations in New York City have increased fivefold in the last three weeks. In Chicago, the number of patients at one children's hospital has quadrupled.

What do you think this is impact is having on children, especially as the a lot of them get ready, probably most of them get ready to go back to school after the holiday break?

[13:10:00]

MINA: Yes, I think that we're still trying to parse out, is this virus causing more disease in kids, or is it just that so many more kids are getting the virus, which both of them might have to do, but certainly the latter.

Many more kids are getting infected. That's causing surges of pediatric -- of children going into pediatric hospitals. I think that, as we look towards opening schools, it's going to be pretty difficult. There's going to be a lot -- many, many children are going to go back to school on day one highly infectious.

What we can do is work as quickly as possible before kids go back to school, and try to get everyone testing that is available for them to use on the first day, two or three of schools, so that we can limit the number of new cases that will spawn from the reentry into schools of children.

DEAN: Right.

And before you go, I do want to get your reaction to something Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson said last night. We will listen to it first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): We all hoped and prayed the vaccines would be 100 percent effective, 100 percent safe, but they're not. We now know that fully vaccinated individuals can catch COVID and they can transmit COVID.

So what's the point?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: So he's saying that vaccines mean that they're not working.

But, Doctor, isn't the whole point of the vaccine is to reduce your risk of severe disease or death?

MINA: That's right. We have to -- we, unfortunately, made some blunders in our public health messaging early in the pandemic, where, once it started to look like maybe vaccines were stopping transmission, public health agencies came out and said that vaccines should stop transmission.

But that was all -- that was never what the vaccines were really targeted to do. They are doing an amazing job at stopping people from going to the hospital, period. They are not doing as well at all, obviously, at keeping people from being infectious. So we have to separate the two.

We have to say, vaccines are very good at stopping people from going to the hospital. Get a vaccine. It's the best thing you can possibly do for yourself, and then take other mitigating steps, as well as getting vaccinated, to ensure that transmission can be most limited.

But these need to be parsed into two different outcomes.

DEAN: Yes, the vaccine, as you said, very, very effective at keeping you out of the hospital.

Dr. Michael Mina, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

MINA: Thanks.

DEAN: So, what does Omicron mean for the economy? Retail sales and Wall Street ending the year on a very strong note, but will this new surge throw a wrench in that recovery? We're going to discuss that.

Plus, in just a few minutes, we're going to hear from the parents of the 14-year-old girl who was killed when a police officer's bullet went through a dressing room wall and struck her in the chest.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:17:29]

DEAN: We all saw the predictions that supply chain problems, a new wave of COVID and inflation would cause a slump for holiday shopping.

But shoppers ultimately opened up their wallets, driving holiday sales up 8.5 percent. That's according to MasterCard. And stock markets appear to be taking it all in stride so far. You see all three major U.S. indices spent much of the year surging ahead.

So let's talk through some of this.

Justin Wolfers is a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan.

Great to see you right now. Thanks for being with us.

How do you view the economy today? And do you think Omicron is going to change that in the coming weeks and months ahead? JUSTIN WOLFERS, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: I love to hear your optimism.

And there's always room for optimism among economists.

I think the good news is, through late November and early December, it really looked like the recovery was motoring along. And then along came Omicron. And, frankly, Omicron remains an enormous economic threat, as well as being a public health threat.

And so, as much as we have seen a lot of optimism over recent weeks, the really big question is, how much is this going to shape the economy over the next few months? There's some good public health news, of course, that hospitalizations aren't up yet.

But there are really big unknowns here. The part of the economy that's been struggling through the pandemic has been the service sector. And Omicron is going to make life even harder once again for the service sector. And the other thing that's difficult is, the rest of the world is in something of an economic turmoil. And Omicron makes life even more difficult in many other countries where vaccination rates remain much lower.

DEAN: Sure. Sure.

And do you think now -- as we're kind of zooming out and getting this information from these last several weeks, do you think that we overestimated the impact of the supply chain issues on the holiday shopping season? Do you think we went too far in estimating that, or do you think that that was right?

WOLFERS: Well, one good thing, when economists tell you to worry, and then people go and worry, that actually can cause fears to resolve themselves.

And so one of the things that we're worried about is that there would be supply chain disruptions and kids wouldn't get their toys for Christmas. Because people worried, they started buying their toys in October and November. And, because of that, we had one of the longest Christmas seasons we have ever had. So that helped.

But the supply chain issues are still very much there. We see some inflation still in the system. We see various goods still quite difficult to get. So I remain worried about those problems, even if they weren't quite as bad as we were worried about a few weeks ago.

[13:20:03]

DEAN: That, potentially, they could sustain as we move on, especially, to your point, if Omicron causes people to be out sick or whatever.

It could make it -- it could make these problems worse down the road.

WOLFERS: Absolutely.

And so this is where I think you want to draw a really sharp distinction between thinking about the goods sector, stuff, and the service sector. And so the supply chain issues so far have all been about the goods sector, being able to get stuff across ports, being able to make enough chips and so on.

But the part of the economy that remains really sick is the service sector. So, that holiday shopping was pretty robust tells us something about the goods sector. But that Omicron is coming, I think, is really still -- you see it with airlines at the moment. You see it with retail stores being unwilling to open. You see with the return back to work being delayed yet again for so many office buildings, that the service sector really is going to continue to struggle through the new year.

DEAN: Yes, no question about that.

CNN got an exclusive look at GasBuddy's predictions for a sharp rise in gas next year, their predictions saying the national average per gallon could rise to $3.41. How concerned are you about rising fuel prices?

WOLFERS: Well, the thing about gas prices is, they could rise, but they could also fall

A different forecast of the Energy Information Administration says gas prices are going to fall slightly over the next year. That leaves your viewers with, well, some people say it's going to rise and some say it's going to fall.

And so let me give you a little economic secret. You should never listen to any individual forecaster, whether it's GasBuddy or the administration. You're always going to do better off by focusing on the average of lots of people. And so that's why I look to futures markets, where there's thousands of forecasters betting millions of dollars.

At the moment, they say it's more likely that gas prices going to fall over the next year then to rise, although either remains a real possibility. So I'm a little bit optimistic, but I don't want to oversell that story.

DEAN: All right, well, we will leave it there.

Justin Wolfers, thanks for your insight. We sure do appreciate it.

WOLFERS: It's a pleasure.

DEAN: Coming up, new bodycam footage showing what happened before a Los Angeles police officer shot and killed a teenage girl in a department store dressing room.

Her parents are set to hold a press conference soon. And we're going to bring you that live when it happens.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:26:54] DEAN: In just a few moments, we're going to hear from the parents of a 14-year-old girl killed by a stray police bullet as she changed clothes in a department store dressing room.

Valentina Orellana-Peralta was hit in the chest as LAPD officers open fire on a suspect who had assaulted several customers. And we want to warn you that some of the scenes we're just about to show you are difficult to watch.

Just yesterday, LAPD released footage of the incident, including the surveillance video of the suspect's attacks on customers.

CNN security correspondent Josh Campbell is live in Los Angeles.

Josh, this is a horrific tragedy. We now have video of the shooting. It's blurry, but obviously very disturbing. Walk us through this.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We're getting new insight, Jessica, into what actually transpired at that department store last week.

And this is because LAPD has released this body camera footage, also CCTV footage from inside that department store, showing the vantage point of those officers, showing the suspect going on a rampage throughout that department store, assaulting various customers.

And, again, as you mentioned, this video is hard to watch. It is graphic. I want to show you part of that. This is the moment where the officers confront that suspect. And, obviously, as they swept the building afterwards, they discovered a tragedy, that on the other side of the suspect was this 14-year-old girl. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SHOUTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now, of course, a lot of questions being raised by that shooting, primarily the idea of an officer with a high-powered assault rifle firing inside a department store, a lot of questions raised there about whether that officer had considered what might be beyond that target.

It's also worth pointing out that, you look at the totality of the circumstances, all this video that was announced -- released by LAPD, one thing is clear. These officers were arriving on the scene. They thought that there was an active shooter in progress. That's because witnesses had phone 911 saying that they heard shots fired.

So, on this video, you actually see the officers in formation looking for that threat. They were obviously trying to help people, trying to stop a potential shooter. But, as this went about, obviously, we learned about this tragedy, that 14-year-old girl killed.

I am standing right now outside of LAPD headquarters. And this is where we are about to hear for the first time since that video has been released. Family members of this 14-year-old girl, they will soon be gathered here with their attorney, speaking out.

Obviously, they are demanding answers. We heard from other families members. We're now going to hear from her close relatives, again, getting their reaction.