Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Biden Tests Positive for COVID-19 and Has Very Mild Symptoms. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired July 21, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PROFESSOR, DIVISION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: They don't require hospitalization. And in addition, people who are over age 65 are also candidates for Paxlovid, that antiviral, which will further reduce the risk of serious infection.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Can you -- Dr. Schaffner, thank you for getting on with us so quickly on this breaking news. Could you also speak to what it means for the president -- I mean, we don't know what variant he has, let's just make that clear. But there are differences with the newest variants, for example, and I just wonder if you could speak to that and the impact it could potentially have on the president, and also how effective Paxlovid has been against all of these variants.

SCHAFFNER: Well, Paxlovid, it continues, Poppy, to be really quite effective in reducing the risk of serious disease. Now, there have been people who have had Paxlovid relapse. That is, although Paxlovid suppresses symptomology for a period of time while you're taking it, five days, after that some people get a recurrence of some of their symptoms. So we'll just have to watch that.

But the vaccines, with boosting, if you're up to date, that, plus Paxlovid really do provide strong protection against serious disease. Now you can be discomforted, tired, have a cough, sore throat, runny nose, and feel rather puny for several days, that's for sure. But that can be managed. And of course, that would interfere with the president's schedule in a noteworthy fashion.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of those who had that kind of Paxlovid -- post Paxlovid recurrence here. Beyond all that, the president is vaccinated. He's boosted. The data shows that folks who are vaccinated and boosted have a much lower chance of both severe illness or death. But we do know that older people face greater risk than younger people.

As a doctor, if you are speaking to the president now, what would your level of concern be, and what advice would you give him?

SCHAFFNER: Well, of course we would all be concerned. I'm not familiar with the details of his medical history, but I think I would be considering seriously Paxlovid, getting it started absolutely as quickly as possible. We would counsel that he take some time off. Make sure his hydration is good. We would watch him carefully. He may well develop a cough, and we would want to be sure that that does not evolve into some sort of pneumonia related illness.

We think that that won't happen, because, as you were saying, Jim, the vaccines, plus Paxlovid, really provide very good protection against severe disease. And I would hope and anticipate that would be the case in this instance also.

HARLOW: Dr. William Schaffner, thank you very much. Stand by as we bring in our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, as well.

Elizabeth, as I believe, you know, Jeremy was saying, it's remarkable actually. Well, it's good to hear the president has mild symptoms, it is remarkable that, you know, throughout his presidency, with all of the travels that he has done and all of the interacts that he hasn't had it until now. And it's great that he's fully vaccinated, double boosted and that Paxlovid is available. Sort of all things working in his favor, I guess, is what I'm trying to get at here.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: And there's another thing that's working in his favor, Poppy. That is that his second booster, so his fourth shot, was really quite recent. It was at the very end of March. That means a lot, because we know these MRNA vaccines are so powerful, but they do wane when you get to sort of past the, you know, around the six-month mark. So the fact that it was really quite recent, that fourth shot, that means a lot.

And, you know, Poppy, I was thinking the same thing you were thinking, it's amazing it took this long given how much the man travels. But what we have to remember is that BA-5 is so incredibly transmissible. I mean, I really have a hard time thinking of people, just in my own family or close friends who have not had COVID. So not shocking in a way that he got COVID, maybe shocking that it took this long.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I'm sure folks watching as well have had that experience, co-workers, family, friends, we're seeing this, and by this, by the way, is that the numbers we're seeing nationwide.

Tell us, Elizabeth Cohen, what happens now, timeline wise, for the president?

[10:35:03]

He's on Paxlovid as the White House is telling us. How many days to watch, based on what we know? How many days to watch this case closely and seriously?

COHEN: Right, Paxlovid is very, very effective if taken early. It's a little bit unclear how early on in the course of his illness, but my guess is they got it to him quite quickly. And, you know, you watch for a number of days and if you're on Paxlovid, if you're recently boosted, if, you know, say -- I don't want to give a specific number of days, but if let's say, you know, five days passed, if a week passes and he's fine, I think that you can, in many ways, to some extent, breathe a sigh of relief. Not completely. You always want to be vigilant. But, you know, when

people have gotten very, very sick with COVID, it doesn't take weeks and weeks for them to be sick with COVID, you have your answer relatively quickly.

HARLOW: That's very helpful. Stand by, Elizabeth Cohen. Let me also bring in our chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins.

Kaitlan, this obviously is a major change for the president's schedule, what he had planned today and beyond.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Not just his schedule. It's also a big change for the first lady, Jill Biden, who we are told is considered a close contact. Obviously not surprisingly given it's her husband. President Biden, who has tested positive. We are told that she's following CDC guidance on masking and distancing. She is keeping her schedule.

She's in Detroit, and I am told that she did test negative morning. So she has tested negative since obviously her husband tested positive for COVID-19. They say she is going to keep her schedule that she has planned, but she's going to follow those CDC guidelines, that you have when you are a close contact, which includes obviously wearing a mask.

And so you've seen -- you know, we were talking about how remarkable it is that it kind of took this long for President Bidne to test positive because, I mean, how many of those people watching know someone who has tested positive, of course even in recent months. He has kept a very busy schedule lately. And just yesterday, he was in Somerset, Massachusetts, giving that speech where he was around a lot of people at a very crowded event.

It was outdoors, I should note, and then he had a full schedule today. He's supposed to go to Philadelphia, to give -- to Pennsylvania to give a speech on gun crime and what they are working on in the administration to try to prevent that. He was also scheduled to go to a fundraiser tonight in Pennsylvania. Obviously neither of those things are happening now that the president is isolating.

But this does come as his staff has worked very hard to try to avoid this. They actually go above and beyond what the CDC guidelines are. They regularly test, they social distance, you still see a lot of mask wearing inside the West Wing. And this was obviously a big point of discussion last week when the president was overseas, because his staff was talking about the rise in variants and making sure that they are wearing masks.

And so we have learned Jill Biden did test -- take a test today, she is negative but she is considered a close contact of President Biden's.

SCIUTTO: Kaitlan, just quickly, I wonder, because, yes, he's boosted twice in fact, and recently boosted. They followed protections. But is there -- from White House officials, sources you talked to, any level of concern among staff in the White House now, given this positive test? COLLINS: I think there's always a level of concern just given his age.

He is 79 years old. There is a reason they worked so hard to make sure that those around him were not testing positive. Obviously it did happen in recent weeks and we've seen people, top aides test positive and then questions are raised about whether or not they are considered close contacts of his. And so yes, when you talk to them they'll say he is vaccinated, he is double boosted. We follow all these guidelines.

But I think when anyone someone who is in their late 70s gets COVID- 19, it does raise concerns. And that is why they worked so hard to try to avoid it and to try to make sure that he did not contract COVID-19. And so it is a moment where we should note he did test negative last on Tuesday. It is now Thursday. He is tested. The White House says they follow a pretty regular testing cadence when it comes to President Biden.

Obviously they regularly get asked about it whenever he travels anywhere, whenever he's around people, because if you're at the White House, events have returned to pretty much normal. When you're in the East Room and they have these events. We had the Medal of Honor recently and the Medal of Freedom, and it's a crowded event. And some people wear masks, a lot of people don't. And so it has kind of come back to these normal events where for so long at the White House they did not look like that.

And so I think that's why it raised questions about making sure that people around Biden were testing negative. And so now a big question is, how long does it take until he tests negative again and how long will he be in isolation? Obviously it affects his schedule. He was supposed to go out of town and go to Wilmington, Delaware, later tonight. And so that obviously has changed now that he is isolating at the White House.

HARLOW: Kaitlan, stand by. Let's also bring in Dr. Jonathan Reiner who joins us as well. And I'm just going to read some new reporting we just got from our MJ Lee who confirmed the White House is currently working on contract tracing for those who may have been close contacts of the president since his positive test, and obviously they'll be doing the same with everyone who you just saw around the president. This is video from yesterday.

[10:40:01]

Dr. Reiner, you tweeted this week saying essentially masks are appropriate everywhere now. I just think this gets to the broader point of sort of where we were, you know, a year ago with COVID, where we are now that the president, with all those precautions around him and all that testing that goes on around him has still contracted it. And to your point, behavior is now, for many people, may change and revert to what they were with masks.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, Poppy, I think this was entirely predictable. The president and his team have been trying to protect him in the United States by ringing him essentially with a strategy that tests everybody that comes into close proximity. But when you go abroad, and when he was at the NATO summit, and then later on, most recently in Saudi Arabia and Israel, when there are enormous number of people that the White House cannot test, I think it was inevitable that the president would get infected.

HARLOW: And Dr. Reiner --

REINER: In -- on his most recent trip.

HARLOW: Let me just jump in. We're seeing the first lady, Dr. Jill Biden, here live on her trip that Kaitlan told us she was continuing. Masked, of course. And she did test negative today. Her trip in Detroit. I think we're going to try to listen in to some comments. Let's just give it one moment.

OK, so, Dr. Reiner, continue, and we'll jump in when she starts.

SCIUTTO: OK. Yes.

REINER: So I think it was inevitable that the president would interact with dozens or hundreds of people on his most recent trip and then come away with that infected with the virus. And there was a latency of a few days, symptoms typically started negative with at least rapid tests for a few days. But compared to last year, we're both in a better place and a worse place. Better in that the protections we have, the president is doubly vaccinated and doubly boosted.

That should almost eliminate his risk of severe illness or death. But he does fit into the highest risk group. He's almost 80 years old. So we're certainly in a better place in terms of our vaccine coverage for the president. And also we now have a very effective therapeutics, including one of the monoclonals and Paxlovid, and we've heard already this morning that the president has been treated with Paxlovid, which is a combination of two antiviral drugs which has been shown to decrease the risk that somebody with either mild or moderate disease will develop severe disease or require hospitalization or die by about 90 percent. So it's a super effective strategy.

So the president is receiving that. But we're in a worse place in that almost certainly we've never seen as much virus circulating as is currently circulating in the United States. We probably are currently seeing somewhere between 600,000 and 800,000 new cases per day, most of them being tested at home. So there's a tremendous amount of virus around. And also what's worse is that there's no sense of urgency in this country.

No municipality has reinstituted or very few municipalities have reinstituted mandatory masking in public places. We see very few of our public figures coming out into public wearing a mask. And it has put in place this sort of sense of complacency that, you know, we're done with this, we're moving on. I hear people talking about, you know, sort of -- using the pandemic in past sense. But it's still very much present.

HARLOW: Very here. Yes.

REINER: And the fact -- and the fact that the president of the United States tested positive is a stark reminder of that.

HARLOW: And let's remind our viewers also, for example, Congressman Bennie Thompson, who chairs the January 6th Committee, their hearing tonight, also this week, testing positive for COVID more than two years into the pandemic.

Dr. Reiner, I want to be clear, right. We don't know what strain of this, if you will, what variant the president has, but it is BA-5 that is the most pervasive right now, is that correct? And could you speak to if it's more dangerous, and is the -- are the vaccines we have, when you're fully vaccinated, double boosted, just as effective against it in terms of preventing serious illness?

REINER: So the predominant strain both here and in the United States and in places where the president has recently traveled is BA-5, and that's most likely what he has. Our vaccines are not very good at preventing infection now with this variant. But the vaccines remain surprisingly effective at preventing severe illness and death. And that is certainly the key point here. So I expect the White House team will treat the president for at least five days with Paxlovid.

And I say at least five days, because what we've seen with BA-5, is we've seen a lot of rebound infections after Paxlovid has been completed.

[10:45:12]

In other words, the typical course of Paxlovid is five days. And what we've seen in increasing -- in an increasingly frequent event is three to four to five days after stopping a course of Paxlovid, people are redeveloping some symptoms and testing positive again. Most notably Dr. Anthony Fauci announced that that is what he experienced.

So the question is whether the White House team will decide to treat the president with a longer course of Paxlovid. I'd be interested in hearing from Dr. O'Connor about that. And also, you know, what other precautions are they taking? The president will need to isolate until he's negative.

HARLOW: And he is.

REINER: And that can take -- right. And that can take on average seven to eight days.

HARLOW: OK. So, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you very much. Stay with us, as we bring back in our --

REINER: My pleasure.

HARLOW: - chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen, also our Jeremy Diamond at the White House.

Jeremy, if you can hear me, I understand you have a little bit of new reporting on this? What can you share? JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I just went into

the West Wing, and I ran into Dr. Ashish Jha, who is the White House's coronavirus coordinator. He told me that President Biden did not have a fever this morning when I asked him what kind of symptoms the president is experiencing. He told me that President Biden is experiencing a runny nose and he is experiencing a bit of fatigue, as well.

So obviously these are the, quote, "very mild symptoms" that the White House described in their statement this morning. The White House press shop has not provided any additional details but Dr. Jha telling me that the president did not have a fever this morning. He is experiencing a runny nose and he is also experiencing some fatigue. So those are the symptoms. I was trying to ask Dr. Jha additional questions and the White House press secretary Carine Jean-Pierre.

HARLOW: Right.

DIAMOND: Quickly ushered him away and into her office as I was speaking with him so we're looking to get additional details but as of now those are the symptoms that we understand the president is experiencing.

HARLOW: OK.

DIAMOND: Very notable of course that he doesn't have a fever.

HARLOW: Yes.

DIAMOND: We'll see of course if that holds. Sometimes you don't at the beginning and then you of course can develop one.

HARLOW: That's really important reporting, Jeremy, and we're good to hear those symptoms are mild, no fever.

Elizabeth Cohen, to you and if our viewers are just joining us, you see the breaking new, the president has tested positive for COVID. Very mild symptoms. His wife, the first lady, Dr. Jill Biden tested negative this morning. Obviously this changes completely the president's schedule.

Elizabeth Cohen, when you look at the fact that he's fully vaccinated, double boosted, Paxlovid is available and he's now going to be taking the cycle of Paxlovid. There's another thing working in the president's favor as well. Can you tell our viewers what that is?

COHEN: Yes, what's working in his favor is the timing of that second booster. What we know about MRNA vaccines, Poppy, is that they work really, really well, but they also fade kind of somewhere around that, say, six-month mark. His second booster was at the end of May so less than four months ago. That really works in his favor. That means that that power of that second booster is really helping him.

We just heard Dr. Reiner say these vaccines are not good at keeping you uninfected from Omicron, from BA-5. You might still get it but they do a really great job at keeping people out of the hospital. And that's really what's important. So if the president like many people suffers from, you know, a week or so or whatever of sort of mild illness, doesn't feel great, is fatigue, needs to be isolated, that's obviously not such a big deal.

What we really want is to keep people out of the hospital and the fact that he had a vaccine, a second vaccine -- I'm sorry a second booster so a fourth shot less than four months ago truly bodes well for him.

HARLOW: It does, Kaitlan Collins, you've got some reporting on what the White House is doing now on the contact racing front for, you know, we saw the president just yesterday with a lot of people.

COLLINS: Yes. If this had happened 24 hours ago it would be a different story because the president had a pretty light schedule on Monday and Tuesday given the fact that he had just returned from that trip to the Middle East but yesterday you saw him, he was shaking hands. I'm told my colleague Jeff Zeleny who was there that he actually did linger very long there because it was pretty hot.

And so luckily there wasn't an extended amount of contact between the president and those that he was greeting but he did fly on Air Force One with quite a number of people. If you look at the manifest which is the list that the White House sends out of who is traveling with the president. It's a lot of his aides obviously, a lot of lawmakers as well including people like Senator Elizabeth Warren.

One of his top climate advisers John Kerry also there with the president as he made this trip and so that's where the contact tracing is going to tarnish. To all the people that have been traveling with the president obviously they are tested when they get on the airplane with President Biden of course.

[10:50:06]

And so that is going to be a big question here is also testing all the people that were around President Biden yesterday for an extended period of time on this flight for several hours. And so that will be the next focus of them -- of that. But also the president working behind the scenes which the White House says he is going to be working from isolation. He is at the White House right now. And so this does come two days after he last tested negative on Tuesday.

It's not clear that he was tested yesterday and then of course tested again today before a busy schedule going to Pennsylvania and that is when he tested positive, Poppy.

HARLOW: And Dr. Reiner, you know, this also comes at a moment when the FDA is deciding whether or not it's going to recommend a second booster for everyone under 50 years old. Obviously the president at 79 has that second booster and is in a good spot relatively speaking in terms of when he got it to be very effective, and help him here, but you know, it just goes to show with all these protections around the president that he still contracted it.

And I wonder if, you know seeing this, seeing Bennie Thompson get it, et cetera, you know, moves the FDA at all on making a decision on that for other folks?

REINER: Well, I do think the FDA should approve a booster for folks under the age of 50, although the risk for adverse events for infection is lowest in that group. Still I think they are probably likely to approve for that age group, but more importantly right now in this pandemic our vaccines are not very good currently because we've drifted away from the original Wuhan strain. They're not very good at preventing infection.

They are still very good at preventing a severe illness, hospitalization and death. But because the vaccines are not great at preventing you from getting infected we need to resort or return to, I should say, strategies that we do not work and more and more people should be wearing an effective mask in public. We always spoke about these kind of mitigation strategies as being, you know, not an on-off switch but more like a dimmer switch.

And now when there's so much virus in the community we should be ratcheting up that protection. Public venue should require masks. Any time you're meeting with people that you don't know or you don't know have been tested, people should be wearing masks. There's so much virus in this community. What we've done is we've created this sort of magical thinking that the pandemic is behind us and we're moving on.

Look, the best news today is that the president is very well protected by the vaccines and the therapeutics that he's receiving should hasten his recovery. But there is, you know, there are still many, many millions of vulnerable Americans who have not been vaccinated or have underlying medical conditions that compromise their ability to mount an immune defense to this virus. And this virus is continuing to kill now over 400 people per day.

And as I said earlier hundreds of thousands of people are getting affected. We need to have a more aggressive stance and bring masks back to the United States. I'll point out that, you know, Japan has been in the news recently because of the tragic death of former prime minister but Japan is a country of 140 million people. That's about 40 percent the size of the United States. But they've had 30,000 deaths so it's a country 40 percent the size the United States with only 3 percent of the mortality for COVID. And that's because that country has essentially universal masking.

HARLOW: Yes.

REINER: They haven't fought it. They continue to have that and we need to get back to that kind of proactive mitigation in this country.

HARLOW: And the president, Kaitlan Collins, has been such a supporter throughout, right, even before he was president, of masking and pleading with the American public to get vaccinated, to get boosted but what Dr Reiner, Kaitlan, just described in Japan will not happen in America. That is not the reality and this discussion now among municipalities and cities about, do we, you know, reinstitute mask mandates indoors this really comes to the fore again now.

COLLINS: Yes. And the White House has actually been talking about this, and we should note Dr. Jha, we will hear from him. He is the COVID response coordinator at the White House. We are told he is going to appear in front of the cameras this afternoon alongside the press secretary to talk. Obviously he'll be able to answer questions from reporters there. We'll see if maybe potentially President Biden's doctor, Dr O'Connor, also answers questions. We're waiting for that.

And so yes, this has been something the White House has been talking about. They obviously watch these numbers religiously when it comes to COVID cases around the country, not just at the White House.

[10:55:03]

And Jake Sullivan, President Biden's National Security adviser, has been wearing a mask lately when you saw him on Air Force One as he's gaggling with reporters on the way to the Middle East. He was talking about the fact that they are ramping up their protocols.

Now the White House protocols don't always match what the CDC guideline is. They sometimes are a little bit more stringent because they just want to make sure that they are protecting the president who is 79 years old and of course now has COVID. And so I think that has kind of been their calculus. It doesn't always reflect what's happening in the country and whether or not people in the country are wearing a mask.

And so -- and whatnot. But they have been watching and tracking this rising cases and they have becoming concerned about it of course.

HARLOW: Yes.

COLLINS: And Dr. Jha himself has been warning about what the cases could look like this fall, and so this is obviously still very much a forefront concern for them. It changes the calculus compared to the last time I was covering a president who tested positive for COVID-19 because there are vaccines, there are boosters, and you're right, President Biden is someone who has been very vigilant about his messaging on that front and about wearing a mask as well.

HARLOW: Let me have some sound in from Dr. Jill Biden, the first lady, who we showed you just moments ago continuing because she tested negative for her travels today in Detroit. She was in a classroom and she just addressed this news about the president contracting COVID-19. Let's listen to her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JILL BIDEN, FIRST LADY: My husband tested positive for COVID. I talked to him just a few minutes ago, he's doing fine, he's feeling good. I tested negative this morning. I am going to keep my schedule. I am according to CDC guidelines I am keeping masked, and so I'd like to go in and see the program here learning loss has an educator means a lot to me. So thank you for being here today. Thanks.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: How are you doing? You must be deeply concerned.

(CROSSTALK)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Dr. Jill Biden there saying she spoke to the president, her husband, this morning. He is, quote, "feeling good, doing fine while he is in isolation and she tested negative."

Elizabeth Cohen. to you. It was just brought up in the past few moments and this is so true because of BA-5, look, the president despite all of these safety precautions and being vaccinated, double boosted, got COVID.

There are so many who are not vaccinated and more who are not boosted. And I just wonder your message to them watching.

COHEN: The message is get vaccinated because it will save your life. When I talk to people in hospitals they say nearly all, the vast majority of people who are in the hospital with COVID, they haven't been vaccinated. So get yourself vaccinated. Don't look at President Biden to say well, gee he had four shots and he got COVID-19 so what good is a vaccine? That is the wrong message.

HARLOW: I'm so glad you said that, Elizabeth, because I fear that is what we will hear from some and just please for everyone made very clear what a difference it makes here that the president, 79, has all of these protections?

COHEN: Right. That fourth shot that he got at the end of March that shot may have saved his life. I mean, you -- we'll never know for sure but it is so important to get vaccinated. It is so important to get boosted per the CDC's recommendations. Of that I think in America we may have gotten this feeling like vaccines are supposed to keep me from getting COVID. I get vaccinated and I won't get COVID. That is not the point of a vaccine.

The point of a vaccine, I'm going to quote Dr Paul Offit, a renowned virologist, you know, vaccine expert it is the point the vaccine is to keep you out of the hospital and out of the morgue. And that is indeed what vaccines have done for President Biden. So what if he has a mild case of COVID. He doesn't even have a fever. He had his fourth shot less than four months ago, and that is doing a lot of good for him right now.

Again when I talk to folks in hospitals, they say the folks that we're seeing who are so sick that they end up in the hospital they are unvaccinated so if you want to keep yourself out of the hospital get yourself a vaccine. It's actually even more important now because BA-5 the new Omicron variant, it is so incredibly transmissible.

Poppy, I don't know about you but I have a hard time thinking of someone I know who hasn't had COVID recently.

HARLOW: Let me -- Elizabeth, thank you for all your coverage in the breaking news. I know you'll stay us.

Let me jump to Kaitlan Collins. Kaitlan, you have some new reporting. COLLINS: We just got a letter from President Biden's Dr. O'Connor that

the White House is published and he says in it that is part of the routine screening, that it was a PCR test that President Biden took this morning and tested positive on. He said the result the result was absolutely -- antigen testing couldn't confirm at antigen testing confirmed by PCR testing after that, according to Dr. O'Connor.

He said, "On questioning President Biden is currently experiencing mild symptoms, mostly a runny nose and fatigue with the occasional dry cough which started yesterday evening," they note. He said, "Given that he meets the FDA Emergency Use Authorization criteria for Paxlovid, he is going to start taking that. So just confirming what Jeremy Diamond reported earlier.

[11:00:00]