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CDC: Flu Vaccine Seems To Be A Good Match To Circulating Strains; Nike Cuts Tries With NBA Star Kyrie Irving Over Anti-Semitic Post; Sanders Criticized For Leaving HBCU Coaching Position; New Drone Strike Hits Russian Airfield Near Ukrainian Border; Dr. Gupta Explores How Scent Plays A Role In Human Attraction. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired December 06, 2022 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: The hospitalization rate is higher than it's been in more than a decade.

The good news, though, the head of the CDC says this year's flu vaccine is a quote, "very good match" to the circulating strains of the virus. But people just aren't getting the shot like they usually do.

CNN's senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is with us now.

Elizabeth, given that it is a good match, how much does it protect you if you do get the shot?

DR. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, the flu shot, when it's well-matched, works really so well, Ana. As a matter of fact, it works quite well even when it's sort of a bad year, when the match is OK but not great like it is this year.

Let's take a look at some CDC statistics. And these are looking at a whole bunch of years. So this is, you know, good year, bad year, sort of everything put together and see how effective it is.

Folks who got the shots, adults, it reduced their chance of being admitted to the ICU with flu by 82 percent, 82 percent. Imagine that, keeping yourself out of the ICU by getting a flu shot is amazing.

Also reduces the risk of your child dying from the flu by 65 percent. Healthy children do get the flu and giving your child the flu shot reduces their chance of ending up dying by 65 percent. That's pretty amazing.

But unfortunately, people haven't been getting them as they have in the past. Pregnant women, down 25 percent from 2021. For seniors, those flu vaccination rates are down 17 percent. So important to get a flu shot.

Ana, one thing I hear all the time is, wait a minute, I got a flu shot and got the flu. Yes, you got the flu but you didn't die of the flu, right? So the flu shot doesn't necessarily keep you from getting the flu. I

mean, it might, but it might not. But what it really does is keeps you out of the hospital and out of the morgue and thank goodness for that -- Ana?

CABRERA: That's what's most important obviously.

This caught my eye, really interesting new research, in what we're hear something a scientific breakthrough that we may have finally figured out why people get more viruses in the winter. Can you explain?

COHEN: Yes, it's always been a bit of a mystery, Ana. There have been all these different theories, like we're more inside so we're more with other people and that probably is true.

But this is such an interesting study by researchers at Harvard Medical School. What they did is they looked at cells in our nostrils. Those cells in our nostrils are highly specialized cells. Their job is to be the first line of defense when germs enter.

What they did was they dropped the temperature by just nine degrees and they found that the presence of those cells went down by nearly 50 percent.

So in other words, the colder it gets, the worst those cells work, why it's so important to get the flu shot I talked about.

CABRERA: All so interesting.

Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much.

Kyrie Irving is no longer a Nike athlete. The sporting goods giant has officially cut ties with the Brooklyn Nets star over that anti-Semitic Twitter post a few weeks ago. Nike did suspend its relationship with him more than a month ago.

In response, Kyrie Irving tweeted, "Anyone who spent their hard-earned money on anything I have released, I consider you family and we are forever connected. It's time to show how powerful we are as a community."

Joining us now is L.Z. Granderson, op-ed columnist for the "Los Angeles Times."

Good to see you, L.Z.

The timing of this seems odd. Irving just returned to play. It seemed like this controversy had largely been put behind him. Now this move by Nike. What do you make of the timing? Doesn't it seem maybe a little late?

L.Z. GRANDERSON, OP-ED COLUMNIST, "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES": Well, I don't know if it's late. You know, Nike has a lot of things to consider. I know a lot of people think that we look at how they handled Colin

Kaepernick and seemed to have been more instantaneous to bring him into the fold but I like to compare Irving to Tiger Woods.

Nike didn't dump Tiger Woods. Nike didn't -- stuck by him and didn't when AT&T didn't. And they could have dumped him but chose not to. But they chose to dump Kyrie in his prime.

They sent a significant message not just in terms of future athletes an how he handle social media but the business in terms of sportswear goes forward.

CABRERA: That is exactly what I was thinking, because Nike had already put out that statement condemning Irving and everything had really died down, presumably Nike didn't have to sever ties to save face as a company.

Are they trying to send a bigger message here and if so, what is their message?

GRANDERSON: You know, that's a great question for you to ask Nike. I'm not quite sure.

CABRERA: Welcome on the show any time.

CABRERA: I don't want to pull the trigger on this. Kyrie is one of those dudes in the NBA that moves product. He moves -- he puts butts in seats and moves product.

He is a must-see player and he's in his prime, in the final year of his contract. So Nike, in doing this, is not just setting him up as a free agent in terms of athletic apparel. But will be a free agent as an NBA player.

[13:35:06]

And they're really challenging both NBA teams as well as other athletic apparel companies to whether or not they'll cross this line and sign this player who has been linked to anti-Semitism.

It's a significant move. It's one that Kyrie has to process how he wants to handle going forward because this will harm his wealth going forward.

CABRERA: Let's pivot to a different sport now, college football. Deion Sanders, legendary player. He's most recently a successful coach. He will be the next head coach at the University of Colorado.

He's facing criticism of this -- about this because he's leaving an HBCU, historically black colleges and universities, where he's had great success.

And "Deadspin" writer, among the critics, Carron Phillips, wrote this:

"Sanders didn't care about making HBCUs better. He cared about making the one that paid him better until he could parlay that into a better opportunity for him and his sons at PWI," which stands for predominantly white institutions.

Full disclosure, L.Z. My family is from Colorado. My dad, brother are alumni at C.U. But I'm a grad of the rival school in the PAC-12 conference.

How do you see this move? Are you surprised by the backlash?

GRANDERSON: I'm not surprised by the backlash. And I think some of it is jumped in this sense and this sense only. What Deion did was leverage his stardom to leapfrog over the process of getting hired as a head coach.

And we all know about discrepancy of getting hired at the collegiate level with black men in the NFL, in college and high school, whatever those stats happen to be.

So he used an HBCU to position himself to leapfrog that process. He could have gone to a PWI or to a community college and done the same thing because he's that popular of a figure or brought cameras to wherever he wanted to be and leapfrogged that way.

To do it with a HBCU stains, and that's what the criticism comes from, who he did it to.

CABRERA: L.Z. Granderson, I appreciate your perspective on all of this. Thank you very much for joining us.

GRANDERSON: Thank you for having me.

CABRERA: Now here's a talker. Arguably, one of the more polarizing stories of the day. Have you heard of this? Oxford Dictionary's 2022 Word of the Year -- well, it's actually two words, but I digress here -- "goblin mode," as in the monsters that come out at Halloween.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "goblin mode" is a slang term that refers to behavior which is, quote, un unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly or greedy typically in a way that rejects social norths or expectations.

Rejection of the squeaky clean carefully curated aesthetic often seen on social media.

The folks at Oxford say it is the first time they let the public vote on the winner and "goblin mode" was the overwhelming favorite over "metaverse" and "hashtag, I stand with."

Oxford says it resonated with folks feeling overwhelmed as they attempt to crawl out of the pandemic.

Goblin mode. Write it down. Make note. I'll use that tonight at the dinner table with my kids.

A string of attacks inside Russia and today Moscow says another airfield has been hit. What we're learning about these drone strikes when we come back.

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[13:43:13]

CABRERA: New developments in Russia's war on Ukraine. Russia is now blaming Ukraine for a drone strike on yet another one of its airfields. This one in the Kursk region near Ukraine's northeast border.

And it follows two others yesterday against air bases even deeper inside Russia and far from the front lines. Ukraine has not confirmed or denied whether it's responsible.

Meanwhile, Russia is responding with a barrage of missile strikes that have now knocked out power and water in several areas of Ukraine.

CNN's Sam Kiley joins us live from Ukraine.

Sam, do these drone strikes on bases inside Russia signal a new strategy in the fighting?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, I think first thing to say is that we don't know they're drone strikes. We don't even know who's carried them out.

The finger of suspicion is being pointed by Russia, particularly over the Kursk strikes, and the two quite close, relatively close to Moscow by the standards of this war.

And the administration -- White House administration special representative to Ukraine undersecretary of state has hinted broadly that the Ukraine now has developed the capability to carry out this kind of strike.

It's sort of immaterial whether it's a drone or a missile. What's important, though, from the American perspective, is that they would hope that it's not any kind of American ammunition.

Because they do have a commitment and they make a demand of the Ukrainians that no NATO-supplied ammunition would be used inside Russia itself.

We've seen similar attacks inside Russia before and seen a number of ammunition dumps mysteriously explode, buildings, some ministerial building even inside Moscow burned down. And, of course, we've seen missile or Special Forces attacks.

[13:45:03]

Again, it's unknown exactly what was destroyed aircraft in Crimea. But this latest one in Kursk seemed to be targeting, and further ones in country, targeting the very bombers that the Russians were using for their -- to launch cruise missiles in waves of attack, the eighth wave of attack of these cruise missiles launched yesterday.

That has come to an end. And now the Ukrainians are saying they believe the Russians are running out. Not only of their homemade cruise missile systems, but also they don't believe this they're getting resupplies in anything like the amount they need of the Iranian-made drones that were causing so much problem -- such great problems about a month ago -- Ana?

CABRERA: So does that look like it could give Ukraine a bit of a reprieve from any Russian onslaught?

KILEY: Well, the onslaught is going on and it is very bitter and it's very bloody. And it's about 25 kilometers from where I am along quite a wide front now.

The Russians have thrown an enormous amount of men and material into the fight over Bakhmut.

It appears as far as Ukrainian senior officers and generals we've spoken to, to be dead set on trying to get some kind of a victory by the end of the year perhaps after a string of losses in the north and the south of the country.

But they are losing, as are the Ukrainians losing large numbers of men. But I spoke to an American fighter there a day and a half ago on the southern outskirts of Bakhmut and he was talking about killing 30 to 40 Russians a day, just on his own --

CABRERA: Wow.

KILEY: -- Ana?

CABRERA: Sam Kiley, thank you so much for being there for us to keep us apprised of what's happening.

Now we have an update on a story we first told you about last week. Government investigators have just released new info about what led to this surreal scene in Maryland, a plane dangling from power lines with the pilot and passenger trapped. 100 feet off the ground, for eight hours.

The NTSB now says the plane had been flying way too low for miles before it crashed. Air traffic controllers were recorded urgently warning the pilot about his low altitude.

The NTSB also notes the pilot claimed the plane's altimeter was malfunctioning. But investigators claim their tests show it was working. Both the pilot and passenger are recovering from serious injuries.

So maybe body odor isn't all bad. It turns out it could be great for your love life. That's next.

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[13:52:02]

CABRERA: Forget looks or personality. Is finding that perfect match all about how they smell? In a new episode of his podcast "CHASING LIFE," our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, explores the roles of scent and pheromones in human attraction.

Sanjay, good to see you.

I am so intrigued. We know pheromones are part of the animal world. Do they play a role in the human world?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they do. It's not as well documented as it is in the animal words. But this is fascinating research.

Ana, I love doing the podcast because I get to dive into unusual topics like this one.

CABRERA: Yes. Yes.

GUPTA: What they have seen is the pheromones are little chemical signals. We're constantly giving them off. We're not aware we're doing it. We're not even aware we're receiving these chemical signals. But it's constantly happening.

And in the animal world, there's all kinds of data looking at how effective those pheromones can be, bringing, for example, large swaths of moths into a particular direction or animals actually aggregating.

But they find in humans these pheromones can be responsible for alarm, fear, aggregation, bringing people together and attraction toward one another. That's what some of this new research is showing.

CABRERA: So, is it actually something we can smell or is it a little more subtle? Because I think a lot of people wear perfume and cologne --

GUPTA: Right.

CABRERA: -- and even deodorant. What roles do those put on ourselves to hide our smells or make us smell better play?

GUPTA: First off, it may not be something that you necessarily smell. There's all sorts of different receptors we have in our nose or the area going to the brain stem that may be interpreting the chemical signal in different ways.

When it comes to covering up the smells or using things like deodorants and perfumes, it's interesting. The way it was described was it can be binary. There are some people who may not smell good, period. And this can help with that.

But for the most part, you're attracted to certain senses because of the person who smells like that.

So the chicken and egg kind of question. The first thing is the person is somebody you like and then you start to associate that smell with someone, which is why some smells become favorable. And that's what marketing is based on.

CABRERA: What about the one body part we typically associate with smell, our arm pits? Why is that significant?

GUPTA: Well, that's part of the communication. First of all, we stand up right. If we're on four legs, like animals, we would sniff other body parts.

(LAUGHTER)

GUPTA: That's why they're doing that.

CABRERA: I don't want to ask.

GUPTA: But part of the reason is because we're bipedal, as they say. We stand on two feet.

But it's interesting because we think of that, again, as associated with body odor, and it is. But genetically, in different parts of the world, people smell very different.

For people who don't have other senses to rely on and to identify people, smell and particularly in that area, can give you an idea of the part of the world, foods, all sorts of different things about the individual.

[13:55:04]

CABRERA: All right, Sanjay. What a great interesting topic to explore. I want to listen to your podcast.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: Everybody check it out, "CHASING LIFE."

Thank you so much, Sanjay.

GUPTA: Thank you.

CABRERA: That's going to do it for us here today. Thank you for being here. We'll see you back here tomorrow, same time, same place. You know where for find me. Smell you later.

That's what they just said in my ear. That's a good one, Robere.

The news continues right after this.

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