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FDA Says, At-Home Antigen Tests May Be Less Sensitive Detecting Omicron; Longtime Nevada Senator and Former Majority Leader Harry Reid Dies at 82; Bible, Civil War Ammo Discovered in Time Capsule in Virginia. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired December 29, 2021 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:005]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN NEWSROOM: Meantime, as hospitalizations of children with COVID-19 are rising at an alarming rate, surging nearly 50 percent in just a week, Dr. Walensky says she hopes for approval for boosters for 12 to 15-year-olds in the days and weeks ahead. But vaccines for kids under age five, that's going to take longer.

And as airlines canceled thousands of flights over the holiday weekend amid COVID staffing shortages, President Biden now says vaccine requirements for domestic travel could be imposed if his medical team recommends it.

So, let's begin this hour with our Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen for more on the news that rapid at-home COVID-19 tests may be less effective when it comes to detecting omicron. What do we know?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Poppy, what we know bottom line is that these tests, even before omicron, they're not perfect. But to bottom line it, basing this on what Dr. Fauci said this morning, they are still useful, imperfect but useful.

And let's try to sort of talk a little bit about what they're good for and what they're not quite as useful for. If this test says that you have COVID, then you almost certainly have COVID. If the test says you don't have COVID, that's where you get more questions.

Now, the folks at Abbott Labs, they make the Binax test, which is the one that's very widely used in the United States. We reached out to them. This is what they had had to say. We've conducted lab analyses and tests on the omicron variant from live virus including those from the first U.S. omicron case and BinaxNOW detect the virus and tests be performed at equivalent sensitivity as other variants.

So, that led us to think, well, how good has it been in general? And this is the data on the CDC's website. Let's pretend that you have COVID. We know you have COVID because you took a PCR test. We know you have COVID and you have symptoms. The rapid test is going to be wrong 35 percent of the time. It's going to give a false negative. It's going to say you don't have COVID even when you do. If you have COVID and you're asymptomatic, the test is going to be wrong about 64 percent of the time. It's going to tell you you're negative even though you have COVID. There are lots of nuances here. You may have COVID and be asymptomatic but not be contagious, and then you would ask, well, does it really matter if you have COVID? Lots of little fine points to discuss here, but the major take home is, if it says you're negative, you're not necessarily negative. And so you need to also think about masking, you need to think about testing again.

Now, Dr. Walensky at the CDC, she talked this morning about they didn't include guidance to get a test to get out of isolation because they're not sure how well the test works in that situation. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: -- not to have the rapid test for isolation because we actually don't know how our rapid tests perform and how well they predict whether you're transmissible during the end of disease.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So, again, bottom line, if a rapid antigen test says you have COVID, you almost certainly do have COVID. If it says you don't, well, that's a little bit more -- a lot more questionable. Poppy?

HARLOW: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much for all of those updates.

Let bring in Dr. Jeffrey Gold, the chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Dr. Gold, thank you very much for joining us this morning, and I'm so glad we have you, because it was you guys who -- I still remember the images of people coming onto the tarmac off those planes to be treated at your facility, some of the first COVID cases back in 2020. What do you make of where we are now as a country with COVID and this new variant two years later?

DR. JEFFREY GOLD, CHANCELLOR, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA MEDICAL CENTER: Poppy, first, thanks for having me back. And I remember those days quite well, also. We have come a very long way since that time. We've learned a lot about this virus and about the various variants that have occurred after the original virus. We've learned a good deal about different types of vaccines, about ways of treating and preventing the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, we continue to be dealt curveball after curveball by the mutations of this virus and our ability to respond to it.

I think what Dr. Walensky said this morning is reasonable, in that we need to deal with the situation in a real-time basis. But at the end of the day, the basic things still count. It's still going to be about testing, vaccination and each individual taking their personal responsibility to protect each other and to protect themselves.

HARLOW: What do you make of the news Elizabeth just reported about the declining accuracy of these popular at-home rapid tests when it comes to detecting the omicron variant?

GOLD: Well, we've known since the very beginning that no test is perfect.

[10:05:01]

The PCR tests are more accurate and more specific, but unfortunately take time and difficulty sometimes teeing them up. The rapid tests or the antigen tests vary tremendously. And it's dictated by a couple of things. It's dictated, first of all, by the test itself. Secondly, it's dictated by how much virus an individual may actually be carrying at a given time. And so when you're carrying a very small amount of virus, you have a lesser chance of transmitting it to others. But you also, even though you may be infected, have a lesser chance of testing positive with an antigen test.

So, I think what Elizabeth said about, if you test positive, essentially, you've got COVID. I think if you're symptomatic and you test negative, you need to either retest several times over a period of days, get a PCR test or self-isolate. I mean, those are the only three logical choices.

HARLOW: There are more children now being hospitalized across the country because of the omicron variant. And it's not that children are necessarily getting sicker, but it's more contagious, so more children are getting it. Dr. Peter Hotez told me last night that schools should consider delaying a return at least for a few weeks for these kids. Obviously, that comes with serious cost to children's learning and mental health, parents not having child care, a whole host of things. How do you weigh the two?

GOLD: Well, again, a very complex relationship because we know having kids in school not only advances their academic world but advances their socialization and so many others. However, I think a lot depends upon what's going on in the local communities. And we have a patchwork across our country, and even within individual states.

What I mean by that is in some parts of the country, like the mid- Atlantic or in the Washington, D.C. beltway, where we know that omicron is raging, we may want to make a different decision than we do in other parts of the country where we have much lower prevalence of virus.

I know a lot of universities across the country have gone to remote learning for the first month of the spring semester. We have not made that decision, but we're monitoring the situation carefully. But as of yesterday, we've got a total of 28 omicron cases in the entire state of Nebraska compared to 99 percent delta variant. So, we're in a different situation than other parts of the country.

This just underscores the fact that this type of decision-making really needs to be done on a local basis.

HARLOW: Dr. Jeffrey Gold, thank you very much for all you and your team have done over the last two years and for being with us this morning. GOLD: Great pleasure. Thank you.

HARLOW: Well, let me bring in now one reporter for The Los Angeles Times who says the pandemic has been much more than stories she has covered as a journalist. It has divided her family. Brittny Mejia just wrote a piece about the death of her unvaccinated grandmother from COVID and how opinions over COVID safety precautions and vaccines have caused such a divide between her loved ones.

Here is part of her really remarkable piece, quote, for many, COVID-19 is what forced them to stay home and to wear masks to keep others safe. The virus existed largely in the abstract. For me, it's what came to define these last two years, personally and professionally. It's what tore through my family, infecting nearly 30 relatives here and in Mexico just on my mom's side. It's what led me to drive my cousins to say goodbye to their father who was on a ventilator. It's what was now stealing the heart of our family.

And Brittny joins me now from Los Angeles. Brittany, thank you for being here. I am so sorry for your loss. You grandmother was clearly a remarkable woman, and thank you sharing this experience. It must have been very hard to write.

BRITTNY MEJIA, REPORTER, LOS ANGELES TIMES: Thank you so much for having me on, and it really was. I think this is the most personal article I've ever written, and it was very difficult, but almost cathartic, I think, to be able to write her story.

HARLOW: You describe your grandmother, and forgive me pronunciation here, I'm going to do my best, as a chingona, which is a bad ass. Tell us a little bit about her life and who she was.

MEJIA: Yes, she was definitely a chingona. I think that was a big thing in our family. She was the example for all of us, especially for the women in our family. She immigrated here with her children, with five of her children to start over from Mexico and was a nurse in Mexico, but had to start over again here and started working in a factory, sewing burlap sacks and saved enough money, bought a house in Highland Park, really reached the American dream. And I think for all of us, it was just such an example for how we wanted to live and how we wanted to kind of pass that down through the generations.

[10:10:05]

HARLOW: You tweeted that even the responses, Brittny, that you've gotten to this article illustrate the division that tore apart your own family. I wonder if you could speak to that experience, and, I don't know, advice or lessons for others watching who are also dealing with divides in their family over this.

MEJIA: Yes, it's been really challenging. I mean, even the funeral was this week, the service, the wake, everything was this week. And even then, it was difficult to see family members unmasked in the church, unvaccinated family members who were unmasked. And I don't know what it's going to take, and I think there is this division that exists. And it's the truth for a lot of families. I got so many emails from families telling me that they were dealing with the same type of situation. And I think, for me, a huge thing like even my -- like I got -- my sisters and I went to the cemetery together. I went with two of them. And on the way there, one of my sisters and I kept talking to the other and kind of trying to wear her down a little bit because she didn't want to get vaccinated.

And then when she told me to make the appointment like on the drive to the cemetery, which we did for this Friday, I just felt relieved. Like I think that there were tense moments between us, and we don't see eye to eye on some things. But, for me, it was worth it to keep having those conversations and to push through that. And I think that's the best advice I could give is that it's important to continue having those conversations and to make those appointments. It makes it kind of easier and takes away that extra step from somebody else.

HARLOW: That's a great point. I mean, you even had to bring masks to the funeral, N95 masks, sort of begging people to wear them.

You write in the piece, I am so tired. What has been most exhausting for you about this fight, because you've been covering it day in and out as a journalist and then fighting this fight personally?

MEJIA: It's been really hard for me. I think even this past week, I was in an ICU, and everyone who was in the ICU was unvaccinated, and a lot of them on ventilators. And I think it was difficult for me because sometimes I feel like I'm just painted as like the unreasonable one in my family by some family members, even though really what I'm trying to do is just make sure everyone is protected because I don't want us to lose anybody else. And I think that's what's been especially challenging, is being able to see it firsthand and have like family members who aren't seeing it for themselves and having to explain it, is just exhausting.

HARLOW: They're really lucky to have you Brittny, and I'm really sorry for your loss.

MEJIA: Thank you.

HARLOW: Thank you very much, Brittny Mejia. What a story. I encourage you all to read it.

Still to come, unearthing history nearly 135 years later. I will speak to the researcher who got the first look inside a time capsule found underneath where the Robert E. Lee statue was in Richmond, Virginia.

And, next, from his humble beginnings to Senate majority leader, we remember the legacy of Harry Reid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): One of the things that I hope that people look back at me and say, if Harry Reid can make it, I can.

(END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

HARLOW: Tributes continue to pour in honoring the life and legacy of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He passed away after a four- year battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 82. President Biden shared his condolences, saying, a son of Searchlight, Nevada, Harry never forgot his humble roots. A boxer, he never gave up a fight. A great American, he looked at challenges and believed it was within our capacity to do good, to do right.

Former President Barack Obama shared a letter that he recently wrote to Harry Reid at the request of his wife when his health had taken a turn for the worse and he talked about how many of the accomplishments he had that wouldn't have been possible without Reid. He went to say, quote, as different as we are, I think we saw something of ourselves in each other, a couple of outsiders who had defied the odds and knew how to take a punch and cared about the little guy. And you know what, we made a pretty good team. They certainly did.

Joining me now is our Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash. I'm so glad you could join us especially on a day like this. You interviewed Reid. Let me play a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Here is why I did it. We had a D.C. Circuit, the most important court in the land except for United States Supreme Court. We had four or five vacancies. They refused to fill, they, the Republicans.

And then we had many cabinet officers and subcabinet officers simply we couldn't get a vote on. And the judges, more than 100 vacancies there waiting to be filled and we already have the names. So, I have no doubt that I did the right thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Talking about his controversial decision, I think it was 2013, on the filibuster for presidential nominees. What lessons can we learn from Harry Reid, do you think?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: So many, Poppy. It's hard to even know where to start. I mean, first and foremost is that you don't -- and he said this to me, that -- one of the many times I talked to him, he said, what I want people to know about me is that if I can get to the pinnacle of American politics, anybody can.

He literally grew up in a shack with no running water.

[10:20:02]

His mother was a launderer. She did the laundry for brothels in what was effectively a truck. Searchlight, Nevada was effectively a truck stop near Henderson, Nevada. And he fought his way out. He hitchhiked to high school in Henderson so they could have a proper education. He found some fantastic mentors, and he used his street smarts in order to get to where he was, and that really served him in so many ways.

Number one, he was definitely -- and he would be the first to say -- he was not an orator. He didn't give soaring speeches, but he played the inside game. He learned the Senate rules. He understood how the process worked and that gave him a leg up on so many people, and he had a tremendous sense of loyalty and that was a two-way street. And that served him well, not only with his staff, but with his colleagues, both in the Democratic caucus and also across the aisle, from speaker Boehner to Mitch McConnell. He fought tooth and nail with them, but they always knew where they stood with him.

HARLOW: Yes, they did. Dana, you bring up the -- I mean, humble roots doesn't even begin to describe what he came from. And The New York Times reminds us about the fact that he had no indoor plumbing. His father was an alcoholic miner who eventually died from suicide. It was his mother who helped save the family, as you said, from doing laundry from local brothels. And then I was reminded of this moment in his 2009 conversation with David Axelrod. Let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Having been raised the way I was with no health care, my mother had no teeth, we didn't go to doctors. They thought she had T.B. Never even went to the doctor. It was a false positive. But I can't imagine how much she would have worried about it. I did as a little boy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: That was such a driver in him being instrumental in getting Obamacare passed. How much do you think his own experience as a child shaped what he fought so hard for in the Senate?

BASH: Well, so much, almost entirely, especially on Obamacare. There's no question that legislatively that is his number one legacy, the fact that he fought so hard with the House speaker and, of course, with President Obama. They had 60 Democratic votes, which is kind of hard to imagine now, but they needed that filibuster-proof majority. And he did what he had to do. He made some deals that were pretty controversial. But he knew that he was willing to kind of take the political hits for that in order to kind of keep his eye on the prize, and that was Obamacare.

And one other thing I just want to say in talking about his humble roots, he was a Capitol police officer. You're getting a degree in law. He paid his way through law school here in D.C. at George Washington University by being a Capitol police officer. And I remember texting him on January 6th, trying to just get a sense of how dismayed he was. And, obviously, he was not just because he was a senator and a leader, but because he was one of those Capitol police officers. And the level of disgust and despair that he had in what he was seeing was really hard to even articulate. But it's just a reminder of how people come up through the ranks here in Washington in very different ways, but there is really nobody like Harry Reid when it comes to making his way to the top of elected politics.

HARLOW: Said so well. And I love -- I know we have to go. I just will say I love what he said about his legacy, when he was asked, what's your legacy. It was not about what he accomplished. He said it was his more than 60-year love affair with his wife and that he wanted to show people what a good marriage really meant. Wow. Dana Bash, thank you.

DANA: Yes. Boy, was that a love affair?

HARLOW: Right? Dana, thank you so much.

Well, with a saw in hand, one of Virginia's leading historians cracks open a look at life in the late 1800s. We'll speak with her life here about what was inside that time capsule and the challenges ahead, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:00]

HARLOW: A magical moment for history lovers in Virginia and beyond as a time capsule discovered under the former site of a Robert E. Lee statue is opened, newspapers from over a century ago indicated the box rumored to contain a rare photo of Abraham Lincoln had been placed there. But there was no confirmation until this week.

One of the people you see in that video is Kate Ridgeway. She is the state archaeological conservator at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, and she joins me now. This is so exciting, Kate. My executive producer has been talking about this non-stop all week.

[10:30:02]

And we're really excited you're here.

KATE RIDGEWAY, STATE ARCHAELOGICAL CONSERVATOR, VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF HISTORIC RESOURCES: Well, thank you so much for having me, Poppy.