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Cases Of COVID-19 Ramp Up As The Holiday Thanksgiving Approaches; A Healthy 28 Year-Old Michigan Doctor Infected With The Coronavirus; Republicans Need One Win In Georgia To Control The Senate, Democrats Will Need Both Wins To Control The Senate; Winn- Dixie In Mississippi Brightening The Hearts Of Families By Helping With Thanksgiving Day Dinner. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired November 19, 2020 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): Focused on the holidays beginning with Thanksgiving running right through New Years. It's cold, so folks are more indoors than outdoors. And then we've take some steps to address some sloppy behavior, bar seating led to transmissions, restaurants opened late at night, so it turned into clubs, if you will. We've cut both of those out.

We've cut interstate indoor sports. We've ramped up enforcement, but it is -- it is around us, in New Jersey as it is everywhere.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: Positivity rate is higher than 10 percent statewide as we sit here. We put the graphics so people could see them, the rise in cases, the rise in hospitalizations. I guess my question is, what metric are you waiting for or at what point will you take new measures and what measures will those be?

MURPHY: Yes, we -- we constantly assess from literally minute to minute. Number of cases is a little bit deceiving, only because when you compare it to the spring, we had virtually no testing capacity, by the way, that was New Jersey or anywhere in America.

Right now we're testing some days as much as 75,000 people a day. So, the hard numbers are hospitalizations, ICU, positivity rates, rate of transmission. You know, we've been taking steps, John, we're not waiting.

As I mentioned, we've -- we've shut the restaurants inside at 10:00, no bar seating, no interstate sports, gathering indoors we've now cut down to 10 people from 25, outdoors from 500 to 150. Next week we'll continue to take steps, if we see transmission we will get at it.

The big frustration, as I mentioned, is we get a lot of transmission behind private doors, there's a lot of fatigue, so I've got to beg people, this is not a normal year, it's not a normal Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years, folks have got to stay small, stay within the bubble of their own loved ones and if we do that, that will be a down-payment on a back-to-normal holiday season next year.

BERMAN: Well, let me give you one more opportunity to beg. What do you want people to do next Thursday on Thanksgiving?

MURPHY: Stay with their immediate family and don't go outside your bubble. And make sure that's a small number, single digits. And please, God, that's behavior we need right now, not just for next Thursday, John, but for the next couple of months. Vaccines are coming, but they're not here yet.

BERMAN: Right. As you look across the river, New York City just ended in-person public schooling as of today. It had been great that the city had tried it. They say they can no longer do it. That's at a 3 percent positivity rate in New York City. Again, you're 10 percent statewide in New Jersey. At what point would you consider backing off in-person schooling?

MURPHY: Yes, we've got many similarities with New York, but some important differences. We've got hundreds of school districts and no two districts are alike. So, we work with each one of them on a bilateral basis, we did that in the spring, we did it when we reopened and we still do it. And so that's number one.

Number two, our in-school experience so far, I'm not going to (inaudible) John, has been very good. We've had 56 cumulative in- school transmissions impacting a couple of hundred people since school opened. We take all of that very seriously, that's 56 out of over 3,000 buildings.

In certain communities there's a hardwire between what's going on in the community and -- and as that transmits into the school, in many cases it isn't. So, we're going to continue. We've got hybrid districts, we've got completely remote, we've got in-person, we've got combinations. We continue to monitor this at the district level every single day.

BERMAN: So I know that you have been briefed as a state on vaccine distribution by the Trump Administration at this point. But you, as all of us, looking at what's going on in Washington right now and the current administration not coordinating, refusing to take phone calls or place phone calls to President-elect Joe Biden and his transition team. What impact will that have on efforts to distribute the vaccine, on efforts to fight this pandemic over the coming months?

MURPHY: That's ridiculous and it will put people's lives at risk. It'll put vaccine distribution at risk. It makes zero sense. If you care about public health, if you care keeping people alive, this is -- this is completely and totally unacceptable behavior.

We're in a bizarre situation, we have a wide open pipeline into the administration, including the likes of Tony Fauci, General Gus Perna, all the folks in there doing really good work.

We talked to the private sector, developers of these vaccines, so we've got that angle wide open. Likewise, we're wide open in our channels with the Biden team, whether it's Vivek Murthy, Ron Klain, others. But the bizarre piece of this, which will put people at risk, lives at risk, is there's no connection between those two camps and that will matter. That will matter in New Jersey, it will matter in America, it's completely unacceptable.

[08:35:10]

BERMAN: Alisyn just had a really interesting conversation with Jason Furman who worked in the Obama Administration about the idea of stimulus and the fact that there hasn't been any agreement on a new economic relief plan. Maybe it will happen during this lame duck session in the next 60 days, maybe it will have to wait until after January 20. Can New Jersey wait 60 more day for more money?

MURPHY: Well it's sooner is better than later, John. I was on with Speaker Pelosi last night and -- and I know she's doing everything she can. This can't wait. And -- and forget about what we need as a state for our budgets or local, you've got folks unemployed who are just desperate, small businesses, restaurants, they've literally run through all their lifelines. And can we wait? I think we can, but at a huge cost, including on a human level. So, I hope we get something sooner than later.

BERMAN: Governor Phil Murphy from New Jersey, best of luck in the coming days and weeks. We appreciate you being with us.

MURPHY: Thanks for having me John.

BERMAN: Alisyn.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: OK, listen to this story. A healthy, 28- year-old E.R. doctor says he thought he would be fine if he got coronavirus, but he was wrong. Now after his life and death struggle, he has advice to the rest of us so we don't have to say goodbye to our loved ones.

CNN's Sara Sidner is live in Grand Rapids, Michigan with his story. Wow, Sara. Tell us what he told you.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, he's 28-years-old, he's a runner, he plays volleyball, Dr. David Burkard has, you know, no comorbidities and to him he thought well if I did get it I would be fine. But, something else completely different happened, suddenly he was in the same hospital where he had been treating patients who had coronavirus.

The simple act of walking is a struggle for Grand Rapids Emergency Room Doctor David Burkard.

When do you starting feeling yourself, going like oh boy?

DR. DAVID BURKARD, GRAND RAPIDS EMERGENCY ROOM DOCTOR: Oh, right away.

SIDNER: Really?

BURKARD: Yes.

SIDNER: Dr. Burkard is just 28-years-old with no underlying medical conditions, he's run a marathon and normally runs five days a week, but coronavirus stopped him in his tracks.

BURKARD: Day six I got out of bed, I went to make a sandwich, move around my apartment a little bit and I just couldn't catch my breath. It was like no matter what I did, like tried different positions, tried sitting and it was just like this heaviness of like, man, I cannot breath.

SIDNER: Suddenly he was the patient.

BUCKARD: I think the hard thing is having seen it and having been the person that talks to the patient with COVID and says, you know what, it's time to call your wife, we -- we're going to have to put a breathing tube down and it's time for you to say good-bye.

SIDNER: There he was lying in the same unit wondering if he'd be able to catch his breath.

BUCKARD: The loneliness of going up to the COVID floor and knowing that you can't have visitors, I'm literally at my place of work where I have a lots of friends and colleagues and incredible people and not a single one of them can come and say hi. Like that's -- it's isolating.

SIDNER: He's no longer shedding the virus and anxiously waiting to return to the E.R., as Michigan's positivity rate hits nearly 12 percent.

How bad are things now compared to March when all this first kicked off here?

BURKARD: We have over 300 patients admitted to the hospital right now across Spectrum Health, which is markedly higher than we were ever before.

SIDNER: He also wants to send a message to people who still doubt the novel coronavirus is real.

BUCKARD: I've had a lot of people say that this is -- that I am a hoax. I had someone report me to Facebook for being a fake profile. It's like --

SIDNER: Someone called you -- you a hoax?

BUCKARD: Yes.

SIDNER: A doctor --

BUCKARD: Yes.

SIDNER: -- who's had coronavirus?

BUCKARD: Yes.

SIDNER: That's simply telling you a story.

BUCKARD: That's simply just trying to breath. Instead of just like saying means things from behind a keyboard, just like imagine what it's like to have that conversation with someone, that you're putting a breathing tube down their throat and they might be able to say I love you to their loved one again.

And that's what we're doing everyday, constantly. Like you can prevent that conversation possibly by putting on a mask or you could prevent that conversation by skipping Thanksgiving dinner, like we've got to do our part.

SIDNER: He says he doesn't want to scare people, but he wants them to understand just how dyer this situation is. And he also says that he has no doubt there is much more we need to learn about coronavirus, because here he is as a young healthy guy who got hospitalized and two weeks later after getting tested and going through all of this he still finds it hard to catch his breath.

Alisyn, John.

CAMEROTA: Oh yes, that's a cautionary tale. I mean, we -- this is not the first time that we have spoken to somebody who was a marathon runner, a daily runner and got terribly sick. This virus is so unpredictable, you can't just look at somebody and decide, well they'll just be fine if they get sick.

[08:40:00]

And I mean, I know that it's -- we're tempted to do that. But also, John, just the isolation, I try actually not to think about the isolation of how scary it is to fight for your life and to be alone. I actually try to turn my brain off to that, but then so many of our guests remind us.

BERMAN: Well, I actually had the same exact reaction, because we hear just a lot of heartbreaking stories, but for some reason they way, Sara, you and he were describing these moments, it really just broke through. I don't know if it's because he's not the image of what you think the typical patient is and when someone like that talks about the isolation it really -- it really hits home.

SIDNER: Yes, you know, we also talked to his mom. He -- he might be upset that I said this, but we talked to his mom and we said, you know, he's a very eloquent speaker, so that -- so that really -- and he gets the point across and she's also -- she said to us, you know what, he's also a really good doctor.

And as we were talking to him, he said to me, he said you know what, at some point in all this I was like look, let me just get coronavirus, like I hope I just get it and get it over with. I mean he was doing everything, he was masking up all the time, he wasn't gathering in large groups, you know, he was doing all of the rules, the self-distancing, everything that you're supposed to do.

And to him, he thought, look I'm 28, I'm a runner, I'm healthy, I have no, you know, sort of comorbitites, so if I get it at least I'll just get, get it over with and maybe I'll have a little bit of immunity for some time and I can just go on my merry way. And then he got it. And what's interesting in his story, and I think a lot of people have

had this, the first couple of days were really bad. He had a really high fever, he was -- you know -- coughing, he felt bad. He knew he needed to go get tested, he got tested, but on day four and five he started to feel better.

He said, he got up, he started playing the piano, you know, he started to -- to feel a little bit more like himself. And then day six came and it knocked him on his behind. He got up and tried to just walk a few steps and he just couldn't catch his breath.

And that -- you know -- that is a terrifying feeling, not being able to catch your breath no matter what you do, and he knew right then, OK, now here he is -- you know -- a doctor, he looked at his oxygen levels, he has a device that anybody can buy and he saw how they were dropping and he saw that he was probably going to have to go the hospital and eventually his friends and colleagues at the hospital told him, yes, you've got to come in. We're sorry, but you've got to come in.

CAMEROTA: Sara, thank you very much for bringing us his story. Of course, it's a cautionary tale for any of who've ever had that cavalier thought of well, maybe it would just be easier to get it.

BERMAN: Oh.

CAMEROTA: Yes, it's an important reminder. Thank you very much.

SIDNER: Yes, true.

BERMAN: I thought you were going to say, for those of us who have the notion of sometimes going for a run.

CAMEROTA: Oh yes, don't do that.

BERMAN: I know that's not --

CAMEROTA: Just stop doing that. Stop that right now.

BERMAN: OK.

CAMEROTA: All right, there are two runoff races in Georgia, and of course they will decide the balance of power or could in the Senate. So, how will these high stake battles play out? Harry Enten is going to be here to break it all down with us next.

[08:52:50]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:46:50]

CAMEROTA: On January 5, all eyes will once again be on Georgia, as control of the U.S. Senate depends on the outcome of these two runoff elections. Let's bring in Harry Enten, CNN's Senior Political Analyst and Writer. Harry, great to see you as always.

So, just remind us of why this is so important and how we got here with these runoffs.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure. So, you know, we have these two runoffs, right. You have the regular and you have the special. In the regular you have David Perdue versus Jon Ossoff. In the special you have Kelly Loeffler versus Raphael Warnock.

And the Democrats get to 50 seats and a majority if they win both. If the Republicans win either of those seats then Republicans will control the Senate, if Democrats win both the control the Senate.

And how did we get here? Well, there's a rule in Georgia that says that if no candidate reaches at least a majority of the vote, then you have a runoff. And what did we see in both the Senate regular and the Senate special? You saw that the Republicans, this is key, they ran ahead of the Democrats in both of those races, if we go back one slide.

What you see is that Republicans ran ahead of the Democrats in both of those races, but what's also key is that they did not reach 50 percent. And also, as this slide indicates, unlike the presidential race where Biden ran ahead of Trump, again, the Republicans actually ran ahead of the Democrats in the two Senate races.

BERMAN: So Harry, I'm old enough to have covered past runoffs in Georgia elections before, and there is this notion, at least I seem to think there is this notion out there that these runoffs are bad for Democrats and Republicans do better. Am I remembering that correctly?

ENTEN: You know, I have to say, your memory is pretty good Mr. Berman.

CAMEROTA: For somebody so old.

ENTEN: Yes. If you look back since 1992, what you see is that seven out of eight times the Republicans, in fact, gained more than the Democrats from round one to the runoff. So, traditionally speaking Republicans are, in fact, the ones who gain ground and given that they ran ahead of the Democrats in the two Senate races, at least historically, that would send good vibrations for them.

CAMEROTA: And why is that, Harry? Why don't Democrats do as well as Republicans in these?

ENTEN: Right, one of the big things, if you look back over time, is African-American -- the African-American percentage of the electorate has tended to drop from the round one to the runoff and you see that, for instance, in 2008 what you saw was that -- oh, we're one slide ahead again here -- but essentially what you see, traditionally speaking, is that the Republicans -- the black turnout tends to drop as a percentage of the electorate, but the one key think that I will point out, is that year if you look in 2020 the black percentage was actually lower than it was back in 2008, the last time there was a Senate runoff in Georgia. So, perhaps that's a decent indication for Democrats that they don't necessarily need as high of African-American turnout this go around.

BERMAN: Well, go into that a little bit more. And again, you're so good, you know your stuff so well that you know exactly what slide is supposed to be up when you're showing it.

Joe Biden, who won Georgia, it will be officially announced or certified within the next few days, he did this in a different way, with different types of votes than Democrats have been doing in Georgia. So, maybe that will play out in the specials too.

ENTEN: Yes, that's exactly right. Take a look and compare in the precinct level data from 2016 to 2020 and you see the way that Joe Biden won in the state, was he did better in some key places. He did seven points better in well -- well income areas, those that have $100,000 or more in median income, he did well with 50 percent or more of the voters in those precincts that have at least a college degree.

[08:50:00]

He did six points better in suburban areas. Where he actually didn't do better than Hillary Clinton four years ago was in urban areas, areas that more than 80 percent of the residents were African-American and a majority Hispanic, so he actually put together a different coalition really of well-educated white voters. That's where he gained the ground and those voters traditionally have, in fact, turned out for runoffs. So, perhaps history won't hold in this situation.

CAMEROTA: Harry, should we expect, whichever party wins, one of those runoffs will win both?

ENTEN: Yes. I think this is very important. If you look back since 1914, what do you see? When there are two Senate elections held at once, 86 percent of the time the same party wins both races. So, if the Democrats win one of those races they're probably going to win both and get that majority.

BERMAN: Harry Enten, a pleasure to see you. Great stuff. Now the good stuff is next.

[08:51:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:55:00]

BERMAN: All right it's time now for the good stuff. Thanksgiving plans brightening for hundreds of families battling the economic and emotional tolls of the pandemic in Mississippi, thanks to a give away of some 500 turkeys and all the trimmings. So, driver after driver pulled away from this grateful.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a real, real blessing.

BERMAN: The volunteer group feeding the Gulf Coast teamed up with the grocery chain Winn-Dixie to make it all happen. It's believed that one in five people are struggling with food insecurity and one in four children along the Gulf Coast. Organizers have similar plans to feed families in Alabama.

Good for them.

All right, it is a difficult morning in the coronavirus pandemic, 250,000 deaths in this country. What's going to be done to stop it? Our coverage continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:59:50]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN HOST: Good morning everyone, I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: And I'm Jim Sciutto. A sad milestone today.

[09:00:00]