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President Biden Comforts Second-Grader Afraid Of Coronavirus; Biden: Vaccines Will Be Available For All Americans By End Of July; Hate Crimes Against Asians Spike Across U.S. During Pandemic. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired February 17, 2021 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:31:04]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Joe Biden offered words of comfort to an 8-year-old girl worried about getting coronavirus -- watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, first of all, honey -- what was your first name?

LAYLA SALAS, SECOND-GRADER COMFORTED BY PRESIDENT BIDEN ABOUT CORONAVIRUS: Layla.

BIDEN: Layla, a beautiful name.

First of all, kids don't get the vaccine -- get COVID very often. It's unusual for that to happen. They don't -- and the evidence so far is children aren't the people most likely to get COVID, number one.

Number two, we haven't even done tests yet on children as to whether or not these certain vaccines would work or not work, or what is needed.

So that's -- so you're the safest group of people in the whole world, number one. Number two, you're not likely to be able to be exposed to something and spread it to mommy or daddy, and it's not likely mommy and daddy are able to spread it to you either.

Don't be scared, honey. Don't be scared. You're going to be fine and we're going to make sure mommy's fine, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Joining us now, Layla Salas and her mother, Jessica. Thank you both so much for joining us.

Layla, what I want to know is before last night, how many U.S. presidents had you spoken to?

L. SALAS (via Cisco Webex): That was my first one. BERMAN: It was your first one? I get nervous. It's my job to talk to people like presidents and I get nervous. So what was it like for you?

L. SALAS: It was -- I was really -- like you said, I was really nervous and I didn't know what to do.

BERMAN: Right. So he talked to you about coronavirus and being scared about coronavirus. How did what he said make you feel?

L. SALAS: It made me feel better that I would be safe in this pandemic.

BERMAN: And, Jessica, you were the one who actually asked the question. And actually, I should note, by the way, that your question was rather specific. It had to do with when children are going to be vaccinated. How do you feel that he answered your question?

JESSICA SALAS, ASKED PRESIDENT BIDEN A QUESTION AT CNN TOWN HALL (via Cisco Webex): I -- so-so. It was great that he comforted my child, which was huge.

I would have loved to have heard an answer that said OK, we're going to approach the kids' vaccines right after we finish the priority, which are the adults right now. He didn't say that. But he did also acknowledge that they haven't started testing yet, so it's understandable that he didn't want to give information he was not sure about.

BERMAN: Yes. But, no, it is interesting because he absolutely did show empathy and there was a connection there. But I do think it is worth noting that you did ask a question and there wasn't exactly a direct answer to it.

What have things been like for you, Jessica, in terms of the kids? You have a 7-year-old son, Mateo, along with Layla.

J. SALAS: Yes.

BERMAN: What has the school situation been?

J. SALAS: My kids have both been virtual since last March. And right now, the projection is that they're not going to go back into brick and mortar until, at the soonest, April 22nd. So it's been a tough, long haul.

And the school has been amazing and done the best they can, but I don't know, it's just been tough on everybody. For me, working from home while they're schooling and them really missing that social interaction with their friends, their teachers, it's been tough.

BERMAN: Layla, what have you missed most about being in school?

L. SALAS: I've missed like actually being in contact with people around me. I also miss just learning there in person because to me, it's better to learn there in person than virtual.

[07:35:11]

BERMAN: I think that goes for everybody -- I really do.

Now, you are home with your younger brother Mateo, who is a year younger than you. Does he count? I mean, you do get to be with someone else. Does he count or do you need to be around other people as well?

L. SALAS: Other people as well.

BERMAN: I hope there's not another T.V. in the house right now.

Jessica, in terms of opening schools, you also heard the president talk some about that. He says he would like to see, specifically, K through eight schools opened up. He'd like to see teachers moved to the front of the line in terms of vaccinations.

But what more would you like to see in terms of a push to get schools open?

J. SALAS: Oh, man, that's a -- that's a tough question. I know our school district has sent out surveys of if we go back would you be OK sending your kids back. What would you like to see for us to go back?

And I know it's a really tough situation financially for the schools. They're going to need a lot of help to make sure that they have all the cleaning supplies they need, that they have the staff to do the cleaning. That they have the additional hands-on-deck for the large class sizes and just the physical space.

And we would much rather wait it out and make sure our kids are completely safe before jumping the gun and -- like some of our other friends are. They go back for a week, they come home, they go back, they come home. So we just want to make that it's the safest that it can be for our kids to be safe.

BERMAN: It's interesting because I think a lot of people are putting this all on the teachers. But it is interesting to hear from parents who want to see things more definite before they go back.

Layla, I want to give you the last word here. When you got picked up -- first of all, it was just the two of you. Your father and brother -- they couldn't go because it was only two tickets, I think, to this town hall last night.

J. SALAS: Yes.

BERMAN: What did you --

L. SALAS: Yes.

BERMAN: What did you tell them? What did you tell them about what happened?

L. SALAS: I mean, first of all, when we got the question, my -- I don't think my brother knew about this event happening, so my mom posted one for him. I don't remember what my question was but the question that we asked up there was actually my brother's but he didn't know of it at the time.

So I just said can I go? So I went. But then when I got back home he was like no, I wanted to go so badly.

BERMAN: Well, I'm sure he understands and you represented the family so well. We're so glad you are with us this morning. You know, I'm most glad that you feel a little better this morning about how things are in the pandemic. I think we all need to keep a positive attitude going forward.

Layla Salas, Jessica, thank you so much for being with us. Have a great day.

J. SALAS: You, too.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Well-played by her. She stole her brother's question --

BERMAN: I know, I know. That's the headline.

CAMEROTA: -- much like I do with yours every morning.

BERMAN: Layla, I feel you. I know what it's like.

CAMEROTA: She was like actually, that was my brother's question.

BERMAN: Oh, they were great.

CAMEROTA: They were great.

BERMAN: All right.

President Biden says we will have enough doses to vaccinate every American by the end of July. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us next.

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[07:42:41]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: By the end of July, we'll have over 600 million doses -- enough to vaccinate every single American.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: President Biden setting a new timeline for when vaccines will be available, at CNN's town hall last night.

Joining us now is CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, I think we all just want a date certain.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.

CAMEROTA: I don't know if it's possible. But do you think, having heard -- I mean, I hadn't heard July. I hadn't heard the end of July before. At times, we hear OK, vaccines will -- we might be able to be vaccinated in April, maybe May or June, maybe August.

GUPTA: Yes.

CAMEROTA: Now he said end of July.

Do you -- is that one that you think we can take to the bank?

GUPTA: Yes -- you know, I think, Alisyn. We've been sort of tracking these numbers for some time and I -- and I realize there's been a lot of back and forth. But when we've done the math looking at just not -- just at how many doses are both going to be available and when they're going to be available, that end of July sort of timeframe, that was pretty clear.

And I think even still when we do the math, I think the timeline is a little bit earlier than that. Because if the pace continues the way it is now -- everyone expects that the pace will go up, but even if it continues the way that it is now, you sort of get to middle of June when you start to get the majority of adults that are vaccinated.

Keep in mind, we're talking 240-250 million adults, like President Biden was talking about, was all Americans. We're not even sure kids will qualify for the vaccine at that time.

So yes, I think -- Alisyn, as you and I have been talking now for a few months -- this back and forth -- and I'm with you. I'd like to have some sort of countdown as opposed to a count-up with things. I still think it's going to be sort of middle of summer and I think we're going to have a significant impact -- feel that maybe even a little earlier than that.

BERMAN: Look, there's a political aspect to this, which is to under- promise and over-deliver.

GUPTA: Yes.

BERMAN: And the president admitted as much. He said he doesn't want to over-promise. He'd rather under-promise and over-deliver.

I think what's interesting Sanjay is the difference between vaccines being available to everyone in July and the date with which he said we'd all feel normal, which is Christmas. There's a five-month gap there and I am curious about --

GUPTA: Yes.

BERMAN: -- why that gap.

GUPTA: I think it's more of what you just said, John, this idea of under-promising and over-delivering. I listened to that comment and I think he said by Christmas. But, you know, I think before that there's going to be a sort of pretty, I think, rapid return to normalcy.

[07:45:10] And I say that based on talking to lots of people who follow the viral dynamics and understand that it's not just the more widespread immunity that's going to exist because of vaccines and frankly, because of how many people have already been infected in this country, but also the warmer weather of the summer and that time of year is all going to sort of cause a significant decline in overall cases.

What is a -- what is a significant enough decline? That's sort of the question I've been sort of trying to drive at.

And people sort of say look, we're in containment mode if you are one in 100,000 new cases per day. So that's about 3,500 people in the country every day becoming infected still, so it won't go down to zero. But when you're in that containment mode, you feel like you can find all new cases, you can isolate people, you can quarantine them.

We're not going to feel the impact as widespread as we do right now. And I still think that that's going to happen sort of late-summer.

CAMEROTA: Yes. We want -- we're pulling for Merry Labor Day, not Merry Christmas. But we're open to adjusting that if need be.

Sanjay, is there new guidance on masks this morning?

GUPTA: There's new guidance on masks. And this has been a topic we've been covering a lot and I think it's going to be a source of provocation for some time to come.

Two pieces of news.

There's a society called the ASTM. It used to be the American Society for Testing and Materials. They have finally -- and I don't mean that they've been slow, but we now finally have a sort of overall idea of how effective masks are that you might buy. Up until now, it's been us sort of saying surgical mask versus cloth mask, three-ply versus two- ply -- all this sort of stuff.

There's now going to be these sort of numbers that you can say if I buy this mask, this is how much protection it will give me -- 20 percent, 50 percent. It looks at filtration and it looks at breathability, and that's going to be something that people can count on now when they actually purchase a mask.

Second piece of news, a letter sent to the Biden administration by former task force members on the advisory task force panel. They are saying look, we still think that there's a need for higher filtration masks -- N95-type masks for high-risk workers besides just healthcare workers.

And by the way, we think there's been a real disconnect because everyone keeps saying there are shortages of these masks. But, in fact, there are warehouses that seem to have a lot of these masks. And there is a -- there is a significant ability to ramp up production quickly. So where are these masks?

Finally, the CDC just responded to that letter just now, basically saying we're still not recommending N95 masks out of healthcare settings because of comfort and availability and all sorts of things.

We're going to keep digging into this because as much as we talk about vaccines and testing and ventilation -- all very important topics -- masks, wildly important.

People have said if you wear a high-filtration mask in high-risk settings for four weeks -- if everybody did that we could essentially bring this pandemic to an end. It's a remarkable statement but no one -- you know, everyone has sort of believed that but we just haven't gotten to this point yet.

BERMAN: Yes, the science has been there -- incredibly effective. Just look at schools where 90 percent of the people are wearing masks. That may be one of the reasons why we're not seeing any transmission there. They're very useful.

I know you'll be watching this very closely, Sanjay. I'm fascinated to see what the answer to that will be.

All right. We want to remember some of the nearly 488,000 Americans lost to coronavirus.

Former Sgt. Stanley Wilson was Gwinnett County, Georgia's sheriff's deputy for 25 years. In a Facebook post, the department called him a phenomenal deputy, friend, leader, and father. He was also a talented musician who played at many sheriff's office events. He was 70 years old.

Elizabeth Placencio taught in the Las Cruces, New Mexico school system for more than 20 years. The district says she had an amazing impact on students at her film and broadcast media program at the middle school. She was 42 and leaves behind a husband and a daughter.

Deputy Pedro Romo worked as a school resource officer for the L.A. County Sheriff's Office for 25 years. The department said in a Facebook post that he will -- that he always managed to bring spirit to the station with a smile and a positive attitude. He leaves behind a wife and three children.

We'll be right back.

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[07:53:47]

CAMEROTA: Hate crimes against Asians have spiked across the U.S. during this pandemic. A series of attacks have happened in the San Francisco Bay Area. One of them left a Thai man dead.

CNN's Kyung Lah is live in Los Angeles with more. This is just horrible, Kyung. What have you learned?

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, the thing that's really striking about all of this, Alisyn, is not just the numbers, but it is who the victims are. A lot of them, recently, have tended to be older people -- grandmothers and grandfathers. And in the case of the story you're about to hear, an attacker that came out of the blue.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (Singing): Happy birthday, dear grandpa.

LAH (voice-over): Turning 84 was a milestone for Vichar Ratanapakdee and his family.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ooh, let's pray (ph) together.

LAH (voice-over): The San Francisco grandfather had just received the vaccine and stayed healthy through the pandemic, walking for an hour in his neighborhood every morning. It was on his walk when an unproved attacker ran across the street.

LAH (on camera): How did you find out what happened to your father?

MONTHANUS RATANAPAKDEE, VICTIM'S DAUGHTER: The officer answered the phone and then he told us, like, they found him -- got assaulted. He got an injury very bad about his brain, bleeding. And he never wake up again. I never seen him again.

[07:55:12]

LAH (voice-over): A 19-year-old suspect is charged with murder and elder abuse, but Ratanapakdee's family calls it something else.

ERIC LAWSON, VICTIM'S SON-IN-LAW: This wasn't driven by economics. This was driven by hate.

LAH (voice-over): Ratanapakdee's death is part of a surge in reported attacks against Asian-Americans during the pandemic. In Oakland, a man walked up behind a 91-year-old man and threw him to the ground, one of more than 20 assaults and robberies like this one in Oakland's Chinatown.

In Portland, more than a dozen Asian-owned businesses in recent weeks have been vandalized.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell him to move.

LAH (voice-over): These incidents are not new. In New York, the MTA retweeted this video of what they called racism. This man sprayed Febreze at an Asian-American on the subway at the start of the pandemic, prompting an NYPD hate crime investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: F**king Asian piece of sh*t.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God.

LAH (voice-over): A coalition has tracked more than 2,800 anti-Asian hate incidents between March and December of last year, like this one at a California restaurant. Before the election, this man invoked President Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump's gonna f**k you. You f**kers -- you f**kers need you leave. You need to leave.

LAH (voice-over): The then-president's words --

DONALD TRUMP, THEN-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: China virus, Kung flu.

LAH (voice-over): -- have lasting impacts, as Professor Russell Jeung, who tracked those 2,800 hate incidents through Stop AAPI Hate because no governmental agency would.

RUSSELL JEUNG, PROFESSOR OF ASIAN-AMERICAN STUDIES, COLLEGE OF ETHNIC STUDIES, SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY: Mainstream society doesn't believe that we face racism and we needed to document what was happening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we're just offering our support to the community.

LAH (voice-over): Identify and change them, says this group of Bay Area volunteers, offering escorts for the elderly and offering a bridge to those who may not even know how to talk to the police.

DEREK KO, VOLUNTEER, COMPASSION IN OAKLAND: We want to take that rage and like, let's do something productive. What can I do? And this is what we're doing.

LAH (voice-over): Vichar Ratanapakdee's daughter spent the last year ignoring what people said to her.

RATANAPAKDEE: You bring the COVID, screaming, spit on us, but we just walk away.

LAH (voice-over): She won't do that anymore.

RATANAPAKDEE: You got to be proud about we protect a lot of other people in this city or the whole country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Oh my gosh, Kyung. I mean, that video that you have where we see it with our own eyes. Seeing those attacks is just so hideous and it's more widespread than we knew.

LAH: Yes, and, you know, part of the reason that it -- the -- when you say more widespread than we knew, Alisyn, is that there really isn't any tracking, and so it's left to these grassroots organizations to try to track it.

So the thing that I found really interesting when you look at the data is that there's an entire category -- about 10 percent of people report being spit on. That is something that I was really taken aback by. So yes, it's a lot of hate crimes but it's also a lot of hate incidents that simply don't rise to reporting that to the police, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Thank you so much for bringing this to everyone's attention and for all of the reporting, Kyung.

And NEW DAY continues right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

BERMAN: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This is NEW DAY.

Normal by Christmas. That is when President Biden says, God willing, the country will start to feel like things did before the pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: As my mother would say, with the grace of God and the goodwill of the neighbors that by next Christmas I think we'll be in a very different circumstance, God willing, than we are today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So that was just one headline of a news-filled town hall, his first right here on CNN.

The president said the U.S. should have enough vaccine doses for everyone who wants one by the end of July. He says K through eight schools should be opened by the end of his first 100 days in office -- not just one day a week but five days. And he wants teachers prioritized for vaccinations.

But the biggest takeaway, maybe, was this literal and tonal call for a return to normalcy, not just in coronavirus but in life. The president said the last four years have been spent talking about Trump. He wants to spend the next four years talking about the American people.

CAMEROTA: And more than two dozen people have died from a massive winter storm that is crippling much of the south. Millions are still without power this morning in Texas in the middle of record-breaking cold temperatures. Much of America's fourth-largest city, Houston, is still in the dark and cold at this hour. And there are big questions this morning about why the Texas electrical grid failed so badly.

The weather is also impacting vaccine distribution. Appointments being canceled.