Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

First Americans will Get Vaccinated Today; Soon, Electors Meet to Formally Choose Joe Biden as Next President; Russian Hackers Break into U.S. Federal Agencies. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired December 14, 2020 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN NEW DAY: Nice to see you.

New Day continues right now.

Welcome our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is New Day, and what a day, what a moment, a moment of true achievement in the midst of almost unspeakable tragedy. Some time in the next few hours, we don't know exactly when, but soon, the first Americans will receive the first vaccinations against coronavirus. Trucks and cargo planes packed with the first shipment of nearly 3 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, fanning out across the country to all 50 states at this moment. We're going to speak to the CEO of Pfizer shortly to add even more meaning to the moment.

The vaccine comes on the very day the death toll in the United States will pass 300,000 today, 300,000. We're going to cross that mark on the day when the first people start getting the vaccines. This morning, more than 109,000 Americans are hospitalized with coronavirus.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN NEW DAY: We have also reached a critical day in the 2020 presidential election. 538 electors spanning 50 states and Washington, D.C. will come together to formally choose Joe Biden as the nation's next president. It's typically a formality, but nothing is typical this year. President Trump is still refusing to concede, even though Joe Biden got a record-breaking number of votes, even though President Trump has lost dozens of court cases. And the Supreme Court found his argument so frivolous they refused to even hear the case.

The Michigan House and Senate offices, however, today, are closed because of credible threats of violence. This weekend saw protests and violence because President Trump wouldn't concede. In the face of all of this, President-elect Joe Biden plans to address the nation tonight.

BERMAN: So, joining us now, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, so great to have you here, and what a moment this is. We are hours, maybe minutes away from the first Americans getting the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, which is a triumph of science, a near-medical miracle. And for it to come on the very day when we will pass that 300,000 mark of Americans killed in this pandemic, it's just -- it's overwhelming.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, you know, it's -- it's like that Dickens quote we were talking about last week, best of times and worst of times, age of wisdom, age of foolishness. I mean, it is really quite remarkable that there's just this juxtaposition, this remarkable feat of science. I actually did not think it would happen this year that we would have an authorized vaccine. Here we are. People will get the first shots sounds like today, which is, it is just extraordinary.

And at the same time, the basic public health behaviors that could have averted or greatly averted the numbers that you see on the right side of your screen, we're still not doing. We are that quick fix, shortcut society. We will wait for the big home run in the form of a vaccine and pay a hefty price in the interim. So it's sad.

I spent a lot of the weekend talking to physicians and people who are running big hospital systems around the country, still talking to them about their vaccine rollouts and how they're planning on doing that. And one of the things they really reinforced to me is that some of these hospital systems that are also going to be responsible for administering vaccines are really feeling very overwhelmed just in terms of taking care of patients right now. Maybe that's an obvious thing.

But you've got a lot of staff that is, you know, extremely fatigued over these past several months, this past year, in terms of taking care of patients. And now the vaccine is a wonderful sort of thing that's coming, but, you know, they've got to do the vaccine rollout on top of taking care of so many patients. It's going to feel very, very jumbled for a while here, I think.

CAMEROTA: And, Sanjay, we know you have the CEO of Pfizer coming up momentarily, so that you can ask him questions, but do we know how it's going to work? How many people do thing they can vaccinate per day? And when after these first 40 million doses will we see more?

GUPTA: Yes. So, I think the most honest answer is we don't know. I mean, the way that it's supposed to roll out is you've got around 6.5 million doses roughly. I know Pfizer has continued to manufacture and that's one of the things I would really like to ask the CEO, Albert Bourla, about is what is the real manufacturing capacity here? Because we keep hearing maybe 40 million doses available by the end of the year between Pfizer and Moderna, are they scaling that up?

But to answer your question, of the 6.5 million, roughly 500,000 are going to be put aside, sort of stockpiled to help smooth out the edges of surge demand. Half of the rest of the doses, roughly 3 million, are going to go out and 3 million are going to be kept in the freezers for that second dose.

[07:05:07]

That's what we're hearing. So the 3 million that are going out have gone out largely now are being distributed will go to various states in differing amounts, depending on what the plans were in those states.

None of the states are going to actually have enough vaccine supplied to them to meet their demand, obviously. You know, we're going to need hundreds of millions of doses ultimately for the country, 3 million going out right now. In some places, they're going into a stockpile within the state. In some places, they're going straight to hospitals, in other places, straight to pharmacies. So it varies. And there may be places that expected more, even in this initial shipment that aren't going to get them at this point. So we're going to see how a lot of that plays out.

But that was one of the big questions. Do you give as many doses as you can right now? Those first doses, just give the 6 million right now and hope to get as much benefit as you can, or do you hold half the doses and just give half of them now? That's what it sounds like they're doing. But it's another thing I'll ask Albert Bourla about here in a few minutes.

CAMEROTA: Actually, in a few seconds. We're going to let you get to that right now. We know you're first you have to gate to get questions to him, so we'll let you take it away, Sanjay. Thank you.

GUPTA: All right, Mr. Bourla, are you there? Welcome.

ALBERT BOURLA, CEO, PFIZER: Hello, Dr. Gupta.

GUPTA: Hello, sir. Thank you very much and congratulations. We got a chance to talk right after the vaccine was authorized, right after it was -- the data first came out and now we have the first conversation after it's authorized. Let me wish my congratulations to you.

BOURLA: Thank you very much. And indeed, it was like yesterday we had this discussion.

GUPTA: Have you taken the vaccine, sir?

BOURLA: No, I haven't taken it yet. And we are having an ethical committee dealing with the question of who is getting it, and given that there are very strict allocation rules that the CDC has voted, we are very sensitive not to cut the queue and have people getting vaccinated before. So still, I think, this committee recommends that I would get vaccinated because polls that we have seen said that people would believe much more on this vaccine if the CEO is getting vaccinated, so, likely, I would get it.

GUPTA: Let me ask you about the amount of vaccine available. Because as you were just listening, I'm sure it's been a source of a little bit of confusion when we last spoke, and, again, this was after the first data came out a few weeks ago, you told me there was around 4.6 million doses that were going to be available at the time shots first started getting administered. Is that still the case? And how quickly can you manufacture this vaccine? Do you think about this on a per- week scale, per day scale? Give us some context here.

BOURLA: It is true. And, actually, this year, we will have around 50 million doses available. Most of them have already been manufactured. So the doses are available.

Next year, we will do 1.3 billion doses. And, of course, those numbers are global. From the 50 million doses that we are going to manufacture this year, approximately half will be allocated to the U.S. and half to the remaining of the world.

GUPTA: So, roughly 25 million doses here in the united states, 25 million around the world. And what about next year? You say over a billion doses next year. That's a phenomenal number. What percentage of that will be in the United States manufactured versus around the world? And what number will be available in the United States versus around the world?

BOURLA: Yes. It's, as I said, more than, you are right, 1.3 billion doses. And we are working very diligently to increase this number because you understand that the demand is very high. We are having one manufacturing line here in the U.S. involving three manufacturing sites. Kalamazoo is the last end of them but we have more in Wisconsin and one in Massachusetts.

And we have another manufacturing line In Europe, Belgium and, of course, in Germany, two manufacturing sites involving also our partner, BioNTech. It's approximately half/half. A little bit more are produced in Europe. The European manufacturing site has higher capacity than Kalamazoo, but we are maximizing capacity on both sides.

GUPTA: And from what my understanding, sir, is that for next year, 100 million doses will actually be administered here in the United States. So that means, according to what you're saying, that 1.2 billion roughly will be administered in other countries around the world. Am I hearing that right?

[07:10:00]

BOURLA: So far, we have an agreement with the U.S. government to provide them 100 million doses and this is a fix order. And we will provide those 100 million doses starting from now by the end of the first quarter. And we will honor this commitment.

But the U.S. government is asking more. They have asked now an additional 100 million doses from us. We are trying to -- we can provide them the additional 100 million doses, but right now, most of that we can provide in the third quarter. The U.S. government wants them in the second quarter.

So we're working very collaboratively with them to make sure that we can find ways to produce more or allocate the doses in the second quarter as well. But we haven't signed this agreement yet.

GUPTA: I'm curious, do you have any concerns, as you -- as the amount of manufacturing that was for the clinical trials, that was obviously tens of thousands of doses, now you're manufacturing tens of millions of doses. You're going to go over 1 billion doses. These are huge jumps up in the overall scale. How big a concern is that in terms of getting enough of the raw ingredients, the manufacturing capabilities and then all the quality checks to make sure that the quality doesn't diminish as you manufacture more and more? Is that a concern for you?

BOURLA: That the quality will be diminished? Not at all, because we have so stringent rules that we will not allow anything to go out without meeting the high standards of quality. So the 1.3 billion we believe we will provide, they will definitely meet the highest standards of quality.

Look, it's not an easy thing, so it's quite complicated. And there were a lot of things that were making me worry, much fewer now. Already, we know how to do it. And although it looks like a giant step, for us, it's what we do every day.

So right now, I feel quite comfortable that we will be able to do it smoothly. I'm sure that there will be bumps all the way across the way, but also I'm certain that this is normal life for us and we will be dealing with them and we will deliver these quantities. And as I said, I hope that we will deliver more.

GUPTA: We've got a couple of minutes left. I brought up this point that I think is very important and I'm hoping you can just clarify this. If we can show the graph of what happens with a single dose of the vaccine. Now, I know all of the trials were done on two doses. But I don't know if you can see this, sir, but the audience is seeing this graph from the FDA Pfizer's kit of data that went out. The red line is coronavirus cases going up without a vaccine. The blue line is about the ten-day mark after a single dose, where you see a significant flattening of new COVID cases.

The single dose appears to have a lot of benefit, not as much as it turns out as two doses, but in the middle of a pandemic, do you think, and I realize it's an FDA and CDC sort of decision, but as CEO of Pfizer, do you think there's merit in the middle of a pandemic when there's as much demand to giving one dose to as many people as possible and then manufacture, just as you were describing, the second dose very rapidly to provide that dose after about three weeks or so?

BOURLA: Thank you, I can't see the graph, but I have it in my mind already very well. It's a very, very important graph from a public health perspective, because, indeed, it shows that already from 14-day with these two weeks after the administration of the first dose, you can see the lines getting separated. And if you can measure around the 21st day, which is the day that we are giving the second dose, there is a theoretical efficacy of approximately 50 percent.

But this is not something that we know can continue. And, definitely, it's not as high as the 95, it's almost half of it that you can get with the second dose. This was something that the both FDA and CDC considered a lot. And they arrived, I think, recommending that you should complete the second dose.

However, it is a very, very important graph, because from public health and from epidemiological point of view, we know that we will have an impact already from the first dose.

GUPTA: How are you spending the day today? Are you going to go see any of these people who are being vaccinated for the first time? BOURLA: Actually, I'm going to our vaccine research center in a few hours and I'm going to see some of the people that produce, that make this vaccine available. It is here in New York, in Pearl River, our site. And this is where I'm going to spend most of my day today.

GUPTA: All right, sir. Well, we thank you for spending some time with us.

[07:15:01]

I know it's going to be a huge distribution and logistical challenge, one of the largest logistical rollouts we've ever seen really in our history. So we hope you'll come back and talk to us about how that's going in the days and weeks come, as well. Thank you.

BOURLA: I will be at your disposal. Thank you very much.

GUPTA: All right, sir.

Alisyn, there you have it. I mean, it's -- we're going to see how this plays out. There's certain to be some hiccups today, but I think get a little bit more clarity on exactly how the thinking sort of shapes this rollout and what we're likely to expect.

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, great interview, we got so much information there. I thought it was, at the very end, very interesting, because I know we've been talking about why not just vaccinate as many people as you can and then keep your fingers crossed for the second dose. And I thought that was interesting that he said that they decided that didn't work as well, however, that we will see the effect on public health from the first -- very first vaccines today, which is great news.

GUPTA: That's the key. Yes, I think that that's the key. I mean, you know, everyone keeps asking this question. And it's true, the vaccine is not an immediate sort of -- it's such a powerful tool, but not an immediate tool. But where are those benchmarks where you're going to start to see benefit? It's a vaccine that can greatly reduce the symptoms and the disease of COVID-19.

So the earliest impact may be on death rates, which is so critically important, and then slowly after that, we'll see hospitalizations and case rates fall. So it's almost like looking at things in reverse order. Saw case rates go up, then hospitalizations, then death rates, that lag time. With the vaccine, death rates affected first, and then hospitalizations, and then case rates.

It's a lot to absorb, I realize, at 7:00 in the morning. But I think it is fascinating. And, obviously, as it rolls out through the day today and the weeks to come, we're going to pay very close attention to this.

BERMAN: It is fascinating, Sanjay. And don't go far because you're going to be with us all day long as people start getting these vaccines. We will see people getting the shots in their arms and that will be, like I said, a triumph of science. So don't go far. It's a historic day on another front as well. Why? Because it's the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December.

CAMEROTA: It's elector day? Is that what we call it?>

BERMAN: Let's call it that, but be careful how you say that. This is the day where members of the Electoral College actually vote. And they will pick Joe Biden to be the president of the United States. This, too, we will watch all day. This, too, is yet another reason for Republicans, many of them, to stop lying to you about the outcome of this election. Will they choose to take this off-ramp? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

CAMEROTA: Today is a critical day in the 2020 presidential election. 538 electors will come together to formally choose Joe Biden as the nation's next president. Does that mean we're finally at the finish line? Joining us now, Tim Alberta, Chief Political Correspondent for Politico and author of American Carnage. Also with us, CNN Global Affairs Analyst Susan Glasser, she's a Staff Writer at The New Yorker and also author of a new book called -- Susan?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: The Man Who Ran Washington.

CAMEROTA: I knew that, The Man Who Ran Washington, fantastic book.

Okay. On planet Earth, Tim, today is normally the normal finish line -- it's a formality, and this is when everything is sort of locked in. However, as you know, we're in bizarre-o world, and some Republicans like Senator Ron Johnson or Congressman Steve Scalise still say that they might have something up their sleeve. Do we expect any funny business from day and onward?

TIM ALBERTA, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: You know, Alisyn, I'm not sure that there's going to be much funny business today. There's just only so much wiggle room in this part of the process. And so could you potentially see a couple of faithless electors, like you saw four years ago, people who decided to go rogue and cast votes for someone other than they are bound to by their state result, you could probably see that, sure.

But, ultimately, the outcome of today is not in doubt. You know, Joe Biden is going to receive the majority of votes in the Electoral College. He will formally become the president-elect. But I do think that sort of the opportunity for funny business is going to continue for several weeks largely because this has been a moving target, guys, right?

I mean, from the day that the media networks declared Biden the winner of the race, Republicans have sort of cycled through a series of dates and reasons that we should not yet be crowning Joe Biden, that we should be holding off, letting the legal process play out, letting the courts hear the case, letting recounts occur. And, obviously, all of that has happened and it hasn't changed the result at all.

But Republicans are probably going to -- some of them, anyway, are probably still after the Electoral College meets and votes today. They're going to look to January 6th when Congress has the obligation and the Constitution to certify the Electoral College vote. And you're going to see some Republicans, even after today's vote say, well, hold on, this isn't quite over yet. Congress has an obligation to certify these votes.

So, honestly, up until noon on January 20th, when Joe Biden takes his hand off the bible, in the minds of some Republicans, this still isn't going to be over.

BERMAN: The reason the target keeps on moving is because it's been disingenuous from the beginning, honestly. And they know better. We talk about the finish line. The finish line was weeks ago. They just refuse to acknowledge it. Today is a formality, Susan. And it is an off-ramp for Republicans who want to stop lying to the American people about this, stop playing the game, the ridiculous game that they have been playing, drawing questions about an election where the questions simply do not exist.

So, by 7:00 tonight, or 5:00, when California, the way it works is, it starts at 10:00 A.M. and through 7:00 tonight, each state's electors goes and votes in their various capitals.

[07:25:04]

California will be the state just because of the math that puts Joe Biden over the top. So when California casts its votes today and puts Joe Biden over the top in the 5:00 hour, Susan, will Mitch McConnell have the integrity to come out and say, Joe Biden is the president- elect?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I guess that's what we'll be watching for. It was notable that McConnell and other key Senate Republicans did not sign on to the spurious Supreme Court lawsuit. I think it was really, you know, a sort of breathtaking, almost an attack on democracy itself to see two-thirds of the House Republican conference last week essentially join a lawsuit saying that Texas, they agreed, should have the right to actually nullify and throw out the votes of other battleground states. I think that was really breathtaking in terms of understanding where Republicans on Capitol Hill were.

But, interestingly, McConnell and many of the Senate Republicans did not. Some of them have said that once the Electoral College makes its ratification of the election, then it's over. So that's one of the things I'll be watching. But they still can't do undo a month's worth of very damaging attacks, in my view, on the legitimacy of the American electoral process.

CAMEROTA: Well, you're so right, Susan. because, by the way, that has turned into violence. I mean, it's not just rhetorical attacks. This is not just some sort of performative game. This weekend, there were protests and there was violence. There were shots fired. Somebody was shot in Olympia, Washington, because people are believing President Trump when he tries to claim that he won. And so it just -- you know, the rhetoric does translate to bad things happening.

Meanwhile, Tim, obviously, Americans are struggling through all of this. People are about to be evicted at the end of this month. And so we know a couple of things about these proposals that are being suggested, not a moment too soon, obviously. Do we think that we're going to see some sort of relief package?

ALBERTA: Look, you know, we're sort of -- on the one hand, guys, we're in the same position that we've been in for the last four or five months with some not insignificant amount of partisan impasse here. But I also think that the closer we get to inauguration day, the closer we get to a new Congress being sworn in, the more sort of pressure is taken off of congressional leaders to get this done.

So, I think it's certainly more likely than it was a month ago and, obviously, with the election behind us, and, frankly, with some hard deadlines pressing up against Congress in other respects, as far as government funding, which always tends to, you know, force Congress to act, I do think that you could see something get done in the next couple of weeks. But I also wouldn't hold your breath. I mean, Congress specializes in screwing these kinds of things up.

And this, you know, look, with a lot of Americans hurting, as you say, Alisyn, this would be the time for Congress to get its act together, but that's never stopped it before.

CAMEROTA: Tim Alberta, Susan Glasser, thank you both very much for all of the analysis.

Also developing overnight, Russian government hackers are believed to be responsible for a massive cyber attack targeting several U.S. government agencies. CNN's Alex Marquardt, live in Washington with more. What do we know this morning?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Alisyn. This is such a dangerous series of attacks on both U.S. governments and private companies, which look like they have been going on for most of this year, that, overnight, thegovernment's top cyber agency issued what they called an emergency directive.

Now, Russia, as you say, is the leading suspect. Although for now, U.S. officials aren't saying anything publicly. Attackers were able to compromise software that is widely used from a company called Solar Winds, and they have said in a statement that the attack was likely conducted by an outside nation state.

The commerce department has confirmed that they saw a data breach. The Washington Post is also reporting that the treasury department was also targeted. It's unclear right now what data was accessed, but it certainly looks like this group had more victims than just those two, than just treasury and commerce departments.

This does come after another major attack on the cyber security company FireEye. A person familiar with that attack has told CNN that it was believed to be the Russian intelligence hacking group called APT29, which is also known as Cozy Bear that was behind that attack. And another source told me last night that all of this is related.

Right now, we're getting more information from the private companies than from the U.S. government. FireEye said overnight that the actors behind this campaign gained access to numerous public and private organizations around the world. This campaign may have begun as early as spring 2020 and is currently ongoing. FireEye has pointed out how sophisticated, how stealthy, how patient these attackers are.

[07:30:01]

We're also hearing from the country's top former cyber official, Chris Krebs, who you remember was fired by President Trump, Krebs has tweeted that hacks of this type.