Return to Transcripts main page

New Day

Former QAnon Believer on How She got Drawn In; Chicago Public Schools Reach Tentative Deal; South Africa Halts AstraZeneca Vaccine Rollout. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 08, 2021 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for being here.

Melissa, what -- what was happening in that video that we were seeing here you were destroying that rack of face masks? What were you trying to accomplish?

MELISSA REIN LIVELY, FORMER QANON BELIEVER: Good morning. Thank you so much for having me.

You know, I had really lost all touch with reality. I -- it was the worst day of my life. I was having a complete mental break and really what had happened was I had fallen down the QAnon rabbit hole and fell hard, you know, and just lost it. I was completely triggered.

CAMEROTA: And after that moment, you then went home, you were still irrational. So much so that your husband called the police. We have some video of that, too. You were just spouting crazy theories when the police showed up. You were clearly in distress. And they ended up having to take you in, I mean, for a mental evaluation and I believe to a mental hospital.

and so how DID this happen, Melissa, that you fell so far down the conspiracy rabbit hole?

LIVELY: You know, I really became all consumed in the QAnon conspiracy theories because of a mix of fear, anxiety, depression, you know, uncertainty, inconsistency with the information coming out about the pandemic. I felt terrified. I was losing my business. I was watching people around me lose their business. I felt hopeless. I didn't know what to do. So I went to the Internet.

You know, it started innocently enough, you know, kind of poking around on spirituality and wellness and new age pages that, you know, are just things that I'm interested anyway. And then, you know, as soon as the algorithm hooked me in, it really only took a matter of weeks until I was in this terrifying eco-chamber that really, you know, completely changed the way that I think and the way that I process information.

And what people saw happen in my garage that day, I mean, truly, was my husband, who's my absolute best friend, is an ultimate act of love and selfless service for another person because he had to make a very difficult choice that day, you know, to save my life. You know, he had given me an ultimatum. You know, it's this family, you know, or QAnon. And, you know, because I had become so obsessed with it, the save the children messaging spoke so deeply to who I am as a person and I just couldn't -- in just couldn't -- I couldn't put it aside. It ruined me. And it really had a significant impact on my mental health.

CAMEROTA: And as you say, I mean your husband tried everything to pull you out. Calling the police, as we see there in that video of you in your garage, that was one of his -- the -- that was just one of the things that he tried. I mean he really tried to pull you out. And, as you say, the algorithm hooked you in.

And so you got into this kind of pattern of doom scrolling and fear scrolling and it just feeds on itself. And so what happened, Melissa? How did you break the spell?

LIVELY: Well, you know, I had to make, you know, a very serious decision for my health and my family. And that, you know, was voluntarily, you know, seeking mental health treatment. I went and I did a PTSD and trauma program, which was really ultimately what I was dealing with and I was exacerbating the situation and some previous trauma and emotional stuff that, you know, I had failed to deal with in my life. And I had to make the conscious choice to go and get help for that. You know, and I invested myself into that program. You know, I continue to go to therapy and slowly but surely, you know, work to rebuild my life back.

And I wrote a book about it and -- and, you know, I am really committed to helping other people escape from this because I really believe that it's a cult. It operates like a cult in every single way. And people don't realize that they're being consumed by QAnon until it's too late.

CAMEROTA: And before we get to your advice for other people, if you hadn't gotten out, would you have been one of the people that we saw at the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol? Did you know that was happening? Were you planning to go there?

LIVELY: You know, I wasn't aware of it back in July, you know, when everything happened with me. And I've been on the road to recovery since last July.

But I will say, you know, it is incredibly scary how quickly people become radicalized and violent. You know, as they kind of continue down a rabbit hole and lose trust with, you know, other people and our institutions and the government and so on and so forth. And they feel compelled to take matters into their own hands.

I sort of see my target situation as my capital moment. I don't think I would have been at the Capitol, thank God, you know, because my family did intervene. You know, but, you know, the damage had already been done, you know, with the whole target situation. But it's frightening.

[08:35:00] And I think that's the reason that my husband, you know, felt so compelled to involve the police that day is because I am such a peace loving, you know, sensitive person and, you know, I even got radicalized quickly to the point that I was destructive. I was violent. I was angry. I was defensive. So it is very, very frightening when you see a large amount of people attack, you know, our government institution like our Capitol. It was very upsetting for me to see because I know exactly how it happened.

CAMEROTA: Oh my gosh. And so, Melissa, what is your advice to other people who have -- may have a family member or friend who have fallen into QAnon?

LIVELY: You know, I speak to people every day, family member who say what -- you know, what advice can you give my friend? Can you talk to my loved one, my sister, my mother? And it's heart-breaking. It gives me chills just thinking about it. Because I know that these people have to be empowered to make the conscious choice to leave the cult themself. The more that people, you know, berate them, call them names, call them stupid, you know, laugh at them, mock them, they are just going to dig their heels in harder and become more isolated, more scared and more alone.

So my advice is to love these people. Understand these people. Try to come to even ground and reason with them as best you can. Find things, common ground, things that you can agree on and start there and really try to isolate what their fears are and what's motivating the irrational behavior and obsession with QAnon because what you'll probably find out it is motivated by fear, distrust, you know, uncertainly, not necessarily hatred. Not necessarily destruction. But these people can be helped, but they have to be empowered to do so.

CAMEROTA: Wow, that is such good advice of being compassionate and focus on their fears.

Melissa Rein Lively, thank you very much for sharing your story with us.

LIVELY: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Really incredible to talk to you.

LIVELY: Thank you for having me.

CAMEROTA: The showdown between the city of Chicago and its teachers may be ending soon. There's a tentative deal to reopen schools and avert a strike. We'll give you the details, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:41:03]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Tens of thousands of protesters protesting a military coup on the streets of Myanmar's largest city. The demonstrators are demanding the release of its deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and an end to military rule. The country is also experiencing social media outages and Internet disruptions. The protesters were dispersed by police using a water cannon. President Biden is leading the call for Myanmar's general to relinquish power.

CAMEROTA: At least 20 people are dead and nearly 180 are missing in northern India after a Himalayan glacier broke free sweeping away a small dam and triggering deadly flash floods. Rescue teams are struggling to reach survivors and recover bodies. Fifteen people trapped in a tunnel were saved Monday. Rescuers now focusing on a second tunnel blocked with debris.

BERMAN: Oh, those are incredible pictures.

The mayor of Chicago says a tentative agreement has been reached with the Chicago Teachers Union, which would bring students back to the classroom and avert a teachers strike.

Let's get the latest from CNN's Adrienne Broaddus, live in Chicago.

A lot of people, a lot of parents waiting for this outcome.

ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a lot of people waiting and wanting to see what will happen in the coming days. But as of right now, no final deal on the table. The Chicago Teachers Union house of delegates still has to review and vote on this plan. And before the mayor made her announcement on Sunday, the teachers union posted on its Twitter page saying they hadn't reached an agreement. By contrast, Chicago's mayor, Lori Lightfoot, says they've reached a tentative agreement.

Let's take a look at the framework of that agreement and what it means for students and staff.

First of all, if it is approved, students could return to the classroom as early as Thursday. Under this tentative agreement, it would expand vaccination opportunities for school staff. And, of course, new, specific metrics would be put in place to pause in-person learning. For example, if the positivity rate spikes here and in Chicago, that's when in-person learning would pause once again.

Now, staff who are higher risk and primary care givers may request telework and unvaccinated staff may take unpaid leave with full benefits.

Let's listen in to see what the mayor had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT (D), CHICAGO: I am confident, confident that the measures that we have and will put in place will make our schools even safer than they already are and will be a model for other systems in Illinois and throughout the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROADDUS: Again, the union house of delegates, the Chicago Teacher's union, that is, they still must vote on this proposed plan. and this all comes, john, the same week we are expected to hear guidelines from the CDC on reopening schools.

Back to you.

BERMAN: That's right, the White House releasing these plans this week the president told us. We are waiting on those. I know a lot of schools waiting for that guidance.

Adrianne Broaddus, thank you very much for that reporting.

So one expert warning that we may be in the eye of the hurricane when it comes to coronavirus and the potential growth of virus mutations. Evidence that the coronavirus is becoming what they call endemic. What does that mean? Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:48:32]

BERMAN: South Africa has paused its rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine after a study showed it offers minimal protection against the fast- spreading coronavirus variant that is in South Africa. So what does that mean for variants here in the U.S.? We're joined now by infectious disease specialist and epidemiologists, Dr. Celine Gounder. She's a former member of the Biden transition coronavirus advisory team.

Dr. Gounder, this vaccine in this trial in South Africa, really no effect at all against mild-to-moderate cases of coronavirus. What does that mean or why should that or should it concern us here?

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST AND EPIDEMIOLOGIST: John, the virus is clearly mutating. It's mutating to spread more quickly. It's mutating to cause more severe disease. And that's in the case of the U.K. variants. And in the case of the Brazil and South African variants, the virus is mutating to escape our immune defenses, whether that's our natural immunity when we have been infected or even now the vaccines.

While the vaccines remain effective against hospitalization, severe disease and death, if we allow the virus to continue spreading and mutating, we may well find ourselves in a place where the vaccines no longer work at all.

CAMEROTA: But isn't some vaccine better than no vaccine? I mean I don't understand why they're pausing AstraZeneca. If it prevents hospitalizations and death, isn't that a victory?

GOUNDER: I agree with you, Alisyn. I think big picture, we should be vaccinating to prevent hospitalization and death.

[08:50:02]

And whichever vaccine you can get your hands on to do that is really the right choice.

I think this is more of a scientific decision to step back and perhaps tinker with the formulation, the dosing regimen, and figure out how to really get the vaccine to be as effective as possible given some of the challenges they're facing there.

BERMAN: The problem with the AstraZeneca study, or the thing about the AstraZeneca study in South Africa is it didn't have an answer to the question of hospitalizations or deaths because it wasn't looking at a group of people where you could get that answer. I think that's why they paused -- I'm not saying it's the right decision, but they paused it to try to get an answer to that question about whether it's useful at all.

Dr. Gounder, you talked about whether vaccines will be effective at all against the virus, which gets to another question about the future of coronavirus in the United States.

And "The Wall Street Journal" over the weekend had an interesting article where people now are wondering whether or not coronavirus will become endemic, which is to say something that is always here and that we always have to deal with to an extent.

What exactly does that mean and how hard will it be to learn to live with it?

GOUNDER: Well, there are very few viruses that we can actually eradicate because so long as there is an animal host, so a non-human host for the virus, that virus will continue to go back and forth between those non-human hosts and us. So there are very few viruses that can be eradicated are smallpox, Polio, we're still working on, and there's a handful of others. So I think a more realistic scenario is this could look something like Measles, where if we can get everyone whose currently alive vaccinated, then the vaccine becomes really a childhood vaccine as people are being born, you get them vaccinated and you protect them then. So it's really -- that's the scenario we're looking at. This is not something we can get rid of completely.

CAMEROTA: Well, the measles model, I think, would be totally livable and everybody would be relieved. I think people get so demoralized when they hear COVID-19 might be around forever because the feeling is we'll be in this state forever or maybe it could even segue to being like the flu, where every year you have to go and get an updated vaccine.

Is that one more likely?

GOUNDER: We don't believe it's going to mutate so quickly after this, you know, in a coming year or so that you would need to get yearly booster shots.

I do think we should be prepared for at least one booster shot after your initial vaccination because, frankly, the virus is still mutating. We are seeing it happen right now.

One thing we could be doing together to prevent that would be the masking, the social distancing, all of the things we've been talking about for a year now. All of those things would really help prevent the virus from spreading and mutating and put us in a position where we don't have to keep tinkering with the vaccine formulation.

BERMAN: The case numbers in the United States, and particularly the hospitalizations, have been dropping at an encouraging rate. There is still about 80,000 people hospitalize, which is a high number. But the numbers have been dropping every day at this point.

Now, obviously, you'd like to see us get to zero, but where -- what are you watching for in terms of hospitalizations, in terms of a target when you feel like we will be ahead of all this?

GOUNDER: I think it's important for people to understand, hospitalizations are dropping because hospitalizations are a lagging indicator after infections. So what we're really seeing is still the aftermath of the winter holidays, of Christmas and New Year's. So it's, you know, six-to-eight weeks later, people are dying from the disease. So we're kind of over that hump from the holidays.

But, unfortunately, there may have been a energizing of transmission over this past weekend. Yesterday with a number of Super Bowl parties, where people may not have celebrated safely with masks and not socially distanced. And I think even more concerning is the rapid spread of the U.K. variant, which is more infectious than what we've had before. It's spreading rapidly throughout the U.S. The original projections was that it would be the dominant strain by March and that may actually happen even sooner than that.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Celine Gounder, thank you very much for all of the information.

So, CNN's coverage continues next.

But first, award-winning actor and best selling cookbook author Stanley Tucci is coming to CNN for an unforgettable journey through Italy.

The new CNN original series, "Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy," premiers this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. And how jealous am I.

Watch this.

BERMAN: Very.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STANLEY TUCCI, AMERICAN ACTOR: I'm Stanley Tucci. I'm fascinated by my Italian heritage. So I'm traveling across Italy to discover how the food is as unique as the people and their past.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're hungry, right?

TUCCI: Starving.

TUCCI: Come with me as I taste the flavors of the land and sea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go fishing.

TUCCI: To discover what the foot tells us about the people that craft it (INAUDIBLE) and its distinct regions.

[08:55:04]

And my extra was making a pizza for me.

TUCCI: Oh, God.

That's one of the best martinis I've ever had in my life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you don't believe in God, you believe in tortellini. It's like a religion.

TUCCI: Oh, wow.

This dish tells a story.

Tell. Tell.

It has survived the darkest of times.

That's the best sushi I've ever had.

ANNOUNCER: A new CNN original series, "Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy," Sunday at 9:00 on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:00]