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FDA Chief Defends Authorization; Violent Protests in Wisconsin after Shooting; China's Late-Stage Vaccine Trials. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired August 25, 2020 - 06:30   ET

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

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[06:30:47]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Developing this morning, the FDA commissioner is denying that his agency was pressured to give emergency authorization for the use of convalescent plasma to treat coronavirus, but he apologized for misrepresenting the data used to back up the decision. Commissioner Stephen Hahn wrote this. He says, I've been criticized for remarks I made Sunday night about the benefits of convalescent plasma. The criticism is entirely justified. What I should have said better is that the data show a relative risk reduction, not an absolute risk reduction.

Joining us now, Dr. Peter Hotez, he's the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

And what the FDA commissioner said is it's a 35 percent reduction in mortality if you take convalescent plasma and it's not even true. It's not even close to true. Dr. Azi Shaw (ph) was on with us yesterday and said he would fail any student of his who put a statement like that in a paper.

And to me, Dr. Hotez, it does suggest, while the FDA commissioner is denying political pressure, that perhaps under whatever pressure there is there, they went out of their way to present an overly rosy picture of something that the data doesn't back up.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Yes, John, I mean, from my standpoint, the big issue is this, will they do the same around the vaccine or the vaccines? That's -- that's what really scares me because we know we've heard rumblings about the president trying to push an Emergency Use Authorization of the vaccine before we have all the data in to show that these vaccines actually work or are safe doing something before the election. And so this is the first time we've seen that Emergency Use Authorization around a biologic, meaning, in this case plasma. And the reason that's significant is because that's a different branch of the FDA from where we're usually seeing Emergency Use Authorizations.

This is the Center for Biologics -- Center for Biologics, which will be responsible for the vaccine. So is this some kind of incursion into CBER, which would ultimately approve any vaccine. And that's what gives us some cause for concern. ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I think, Dr. Hotez, what people whose

family members may be sick or if they're worried about getting sick or really worried about -- or concerned about is, does convalescent plasma work and is it worth taking the risk? Do we need wait to go through the randomized placebo trials? I know that as a doctor you would always recommend finding out if something is safe and effective before using it. But desperate times call for desperate measures and can they fast track this? Is it worth the risk?

HOTEZ: Well, remember -- if you remember back in February when we were talking about plasma therapy and I was a big proponent of it because at that time that's all we had. And -- and the idea was plasma therapy be a stop-gap measure to what we really want ultimately, a vaccine of course. But even before then, monoclonal antibody therapies, which essentially would do the same thing as plasma does but at a higher level of antibody and under more controlled circumstances done through randomized controlled trials. And, hopefully, that's what we're going to be seeing in the coming weeks roll out. There's two major monoclonal antibodies that will be coming out. So the idea behind the plasma was always kind of an interim approach until we could get better therapeutics coming along.

I do think there is benefit. If you look at the recent paper put out by Michael Joyner and his colleagues at the Mayor Clinic, clearly if you use plasma from donors that have high amounts of antibodies to give large amounts, there is benefit compared to plasma from donors that have low amounts of antibodies. So I do think there is a benefit.

It's really hard to study right now because remember how it works. When you -- when someone comes in and is potentially sick with Covid- 19, you give them the kitchen sink, right? You give them not only plasma therapy, but you're now also giving them Dexamethasone steroids, you give them anticoagulants, you give them Remdesivir. So it's really hard to sort out what the true therapeutic benefit is from plasma. We may never entirely know.

The trend looks like it's clearly doing (ph) something, but -- but that's where we stand.

BERMAN: Talking about trends, Dr. Hotez, we've seen in the sunbelt that the number of cases and hospitalizations and a lot of the data in these states is heading in the right direction. There are warnings, including from Dr. Redfield, about a rise now in the Midwest.

[06:35:00]

He's very concerned what he -- about what he says is a third possible wave of cases in the Midwest. You can see some of the states there in red. And then we have these cases at universities around the country. A positivity rate at UNC-Chapel Hill of 31 percent. you know, you have 159 active cases at the University of Missouri. You've got cases in Tuscaloosa now where they're closing bars in Alabama.

Talk to me about the good, the bad, and the ugly here.

HOTEZ: Well, there's not a lot of good to talk about, unfortunately. This is -- this is Whack-a-Mole, right, where we keep on knocking one down and another one pops up. And the problem is we never fully knocked the one down in the first place. So let's unpack this a bit.

So in the southern United States, the numbers are going down. There's no question about it. But it's not getting down to the level where you can still safely open schools, even though it's not as screaming high as it was a few weeks ago, it's still screaming high and it's really impossible to open schools safely and keep teachers safe. So that's where we're at in the southern U.S. Now we're -- we're pushing very hard to open schools in many parts of the southern U.S., even though we probably shouldn't, and the numbers are going to -- then going to go back up. So that's what we're looking at in the southern United States.

Now we have this new focus up in -- up in the Dakotas, North Dakota, South Dakota, going into Iowa. Some people think this is due to the Sturgis rally and that's quite possible. So that gives us a lot of concern.

And then we're trying to open up college campuses at a time when we still have a huge amount of transmission. And we'll -- the problems that we're hearing are often are national campuses where people are coming from all over the country. So even though the University of North Carolina's a state school, you know, it's a -- it's a top public research university, so people are coming in from all over the country and this is what happens.

So it all gets back to pointing the fingers at the White House and the Coronavirus Task Force for not doing what they were supposed to do over the summer, which was dramatically reduce transmission so we could do all those good things, like open up schools and colleges. They just wanted to let it rip and then hope for the best in terms of opening schools and colleges. And we've been talking all summer how that approach is going to catastrophically fail. And, guess what, it's catastrophically failed.

BERMAN: Dr. Hotez, we appreciate you being with us this morning, helping us understand all these complicated numbers.

HOTEZ: Thank you.

BERMAN: Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot seven times in the back in front of his children. What happened there? What are we learning about the investigation into these police actions? We have a new interview with a neighbor who recorded the video of the shooting, next.

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[06:41:36]

CAMEROTA: Breaking overnight, protests on the streets in Kenosha, Wisconsin. People demanding justice and answers after the police shooting of Jacob Blake. They shot him seven times in the back in front of his three young children. This morning, two police officers are on administrative leave, but

officials still have not given an explanation about what led to this shooting.

Joining us now is Sophia Nelson. She's also a senior columnist at "The Daily Beast" and a contributing writer for "USA Today." She is a former House Republican investigative council.

Ms. Nelson, it's great to have you here.

This video is just another one of these videos where you have to turn away. It's too gut-wrenching. I mean it unfolds much faster than the George Floyd video, but it's just as hideous in many ways, knowing that he was shot in the back. His three young sons were in the car. The guy who filmed the cell phone video describes himself as being traumatized. He can't sleep after what he witnessed. And we can only imagine, you know, the lasting impact on these kids.

And so where do investigators begin with this to figure out what went wrong here?

SOPHIA NELSON, SENOR COLUMNIST, "THE DAILY BEAST": Well, first of all, Alisyn, thanks for having me.

But I think that we've had a very tough 2020, right? It was Rayshard Brooks. Then it was George Floyd. Then it was Breonna Taylor. And now it's this gentleman here.

And it is something that is gut-wrenching, I think, for all of us. And it is traumatic to watch this.

As far as investigators go, it's the same old same old, right? We see the same pattern every time. They put the police on administrative leave. They say that they're investigating. Why haven't they just simply released -- if they have a reason, the police I'm talking about, for shooting a person who's fleeing, or walking, in the back, which there's never going to be a justification for that by the way, but why haven't they shown all of the footage? If there's something exonerating, then release it. There isn't anything exonerating. To shoot a man in his back in front of his children is something that should affect us all, it should upset us all. And, to be honest with you, I'm actually at a loss on this, as I think many of us are. We're becoming numb to it, which is a problem, Alisyn. That's a problem.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I mean, look, we all have police sources and one of them told me yesterday that there are protocols that you don't shoot a suspect in the back.

NELSON: Absolutely.

CAMEROTA: I mean you are taught that. You don't shoot a suspect in the back. And from his watching of the videos, it's hard for him to see what would ever justify seven shots in the back.

I know that -- that a piece of video never tells the entire story.

NELSON: Right.

CAMEROTA: So we don't really know what happened beforehand. But what witnesses say is that Jacob Blake, this gentleman who was shot, was unarmed. We can see he was in a tank top --

NELSON: Right.

CAMEROTA: So it's easy to even see that he's not concealing something from the waist up.

NELSON: Right.

CAMEROTA: I believe he was also in shorts.

NELSON: Right.

CAMEROTA: He was reportedly trying to de-escalate a fight between two women. Police were called for a domestic disturbance. Reportedly there was a fight between two women. He was trying to de-escalate the fight. And so we don't know what happened between that time and the shots. And -- and I guess I just don't know how we will ever really know.

NELSON: Well, Alisyn, here's the thing, deadly force, in this case a gun, you only use deadly force if you're being confronted with deadly force. That's one of the most fundamental rules of law enforcement and engagement.

[06:45:00]

And when someone is fleeing from you, let's say a suspect is fleeing from the scene of a robbery, you chase that suspect, you wrestle him or her to the ground, you handcuff them. You don't shoot them unless they're shooting at you as they're running, which was not the case.

But I think there's a bigger issue here, Alisyn. If you watched the Republican National Convention last night, there are two Americas right now. There's one America that sees incidents like these as somehow the fault of the victim and the protesters are anarchists and they're out of control, and then there's this other America that's victimized, it's afraid that crime is going to come to their neighborhood. And when you have those two narratives, situations like this will only escalate further because you have the people who are oppressed and being victimized and those who are completely detached from it and don't believe that it's real or that it exists. And I think this is a big reckoning that this country's going to have to have on this issue.

And that is just the latest in a spade of ugly, ugly, vile either murders or shootings of unarmed African-Americans in this country where I hope he survives. I don't know how he's doing, but I hope that he survives those gunshot wounds.

CAMEROTA: We all do and we hope that we get more answers.

Sophia Nelson, thank you very much for your expertise on this.

NELSON: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Coming up, CNN goes inside a lab in China where scientists are working on a coronavirus vaccine. How soon could that one be ready? What do we need to know about it? That's next.

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[06:50:25]

BERMAN: This morning, the global race for a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine is heating up.

CNN's David Culver got access inside a Chinese lab where they are in late stage trials as of this moment. He joins us now live from Beijing.

David, what did you see?

DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, I think it might surprise folks when they hear that China's actually been rolling out the vaccines for Covid-19 over the past two months. They did it first in June with their military, members of their military getting vaccinated. And then in July we've recently found out that they've done it with frontline workers, folks who are border patrol agents, medical staff, those deemed to be working in high-risk areas.

Well, earlier today, where were actually able to go through one of the labs that's part of the phase three trials. They've got 13 altogether. And this is a place that hopes not only to provide for the population here in China, but ultimately the rest of the world.

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CULVER (voice over): You feel hopeful just looking at the packaging and small vials. Might this vaccine bring us back to our lives before coronavirus? The Chinese company behind it believes it might.

HELEN YANG, INVESTOR RELATIONS, SINOVAC BIOTECH: Sinovac's goal is to provide a vaccine with good quality, good safely, good imunogenicity (ph) to -- to the people in the -- in the world.

CULVER: Sinovac is among 13 companies in China working on a Covid-19 vaccine. It is one of just nine that are well into clinical trials. The biotech company began developing its vaccine in late January. Construction on this, their newest facility in Beijing, started about two months later.

CULVER (on camera): One of the things we noticed walking in here is that this space is brand new. It's not even been used. They started building this in March, and they did that for two reasons. One, for regulatory reasons here in China, they need a separate space to produce this vaccine. And the other is because of the demand. They need the production space to meet it.

CULVER (voice over): While its borders remain largely sealed off, life within China has returned to near normal in most places. So much so that Wuhan has hosted crowded pool parties. And in Beijing, no longer are you required to wear a face mask when outside, assuming you're a safe distance from others. China credits mass testing and strict contact tracking.

But health experts warn those stringent measures impact immunity levels.

DR. IVAN HUNG, CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF HKU MEDICAL FACULTY CHIEF OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES DIVISION: In these places then definitely the way forward is to -- is vaccination.

CULVER: In the past two months, the Chinese government has granted two vaccine companies special emergency approval to launch their vaccines. Typically a vaccine takes years to go through trials and reach production.

CULVER (on camera): Do you feel confident enough to take the vaccine?

YANG: Yes, I do because the vaccine roadmap we are using is demonstrated and proved the technology.

CULVER (voice over): They estimate they will be able to produce about 300 million vaccines a year. That's why they believe the more vaccines in the marketplace, the better.

YANG: Yes, I think the competition's more like we compete with the virus, right? Our speed should be faster than the transmitting of the virus instead of competing with others. We, like everyone, could be successful.

CULVER: China has faced sharp criticism from many countries, most notably the U.S., for its initial handling of the outbreak, but some nations might be willing to look past all of that if China can deliver the solution with a dose of hope.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CULVER: John, I will say, it's a bit unsettling because you're walking into what's supposed to be a lab setting, but it's also a construction site. The two are going on simultaneously. So what does that suggest? Well, you really are looking at rapid infrastructure construction that's underway while they're still trying to perfect this vaccine. But it just shows you how things are happening really quickly. It makes you a little bit uneasy at times. But the folks at Sinovac, they tell me, look, we don't have the luxury of time.

BERMAN: No. Yes, what you need is transparency on top of all of this, obviously, and that's something we need globally as well in terms of watching how these vaccines develop so we can trust them when they finally -- finally come online.

CULVER: Right.

BERMAN: David Culver, thanks. Terrific reporting and a really interesting look. So what did night one of the Republican National Convention accomplish? Who were the targets and what were the hits? Also, what was with the shouting? That's next.

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[06:59:18]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is the most important election in the history of our country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want a cultural revolution, a fundamentally different America.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was about the base. He believes that there is this silent majority out there that is just waiting to come to his defense in this election.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Much of the south is reporting a decline in new cases over the past week, while areas of the Midwest are seeing numbers creep up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am increasingly concerned that we're seeing right now some of what we saw at the beginning of June.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is New Day with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

[06:59:59]

CAMEROTA: We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY.

And despite the message the Republicans said they wanted to convey, the first night of their national convention delivered.

END