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New Data Released from Israel Government Indicate Pfizer Vaccine Less Effective against Infection Delta Variant of COVID-19 but Still Very Effective at Preventing Severe Illness; Hurricane Watches Issued for Parts of Florida Coast; San Francisco's Tallest Residential Building is Sinking, Tilting; Poll: 47 Percent of Americans Think County Headed in Right Direction. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 06, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:02]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Tuesday, July 6th. And new concerns this morning about possibly the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine against the fast-spreading Delta variant. We have new analysis released by the Israeli government.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And this data shows a decline in protection against infections as well as severe disease. Israel's Ministry of Health is now recommending fully vaccinated people who came into contact with an infected person should be tested. Let's bring in senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. To be clear, Elizabeth, this actually makes the case to get the vaccination even as it's showing perhaps some dip in the response here. Tell us what this data says.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Brianna. When I read this, my first response was, thank goodness I'm vaccinated. Now, before I get into this data, Brianna, I want to put out a caveat. The Israeli Ministry of Health just put these numbers out. They did not explain the science behind it. The did not explain how they got to this. Many scientists would say that that is quite irresponsible. But these are the numbers, this is what we have. Just keep in mind that caveat.

Let's take a look at what they found. This is the effectiveness of Pfizer against this Delta variant. Of course, Pfizer is what Israel has been using. So this is what they found is that it was 64 percent effective at preventing infection, 64 percent. That's obviously way down from in the 90s when COVID first appeared. However, and this is the important number, 93 percent effective at preventing severe disease or hospitalization. As one vaccine researcher, Paul Offit, once put it to me, Elizabeth, vaccines are designed to keep you out of a hospital and out of the morgue. If a vaccine, you still get infected, but you're OK, you're asymptomatic or maybe you're just a little sick, that's a winner. The vaccine won. So we need to keep that in mind -- 93 percent is an incredible number, that is a great number, all the more reason to go out and get vaccinated if you haven't already. KEILAR: Yes, 93 percent protection against severe cases and

hospitalizations, we can't overstate that. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much. We're going to have more on this here in a moment with a former White House coronavirus adviser as well.

BERMAN: Other coronavirus news, health officials in Britain say they are still weighing the benefits and potential risks of vaccinating children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Cyril Vanier in London. U.K. health authorities say they need more information before deciding whether to vaccinate children. The country's immunization program, hailed as among the most efficient, has so far only targeted adults. More data from around the world is needed, says England's chief medical officer, for whom the risk benefit calculation of vaccinating is different for children since they tend to develop milder forms of the disease.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That's Cyril Vanier reporting from London.

KEILAR: And joining us now is the former White House senior adviser for COVID-19 response, Andy Slavitt. He's also the author of the new book "Preventable, The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response." There is still this preventable element we should mention, Andy, as we're seeing some of these cases of folks who are unvaccinated still at this point. But I want to get your reaction to something as we are looking toward children being vaccinated. What do you think about England's chief medical officer saying that that country needs more data from around the world before deciding whether to vaccinate kids?

ANDY SLAVITT, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER FOR COVID RESPONSE: Well, good morning, Brianna. Here in the U.S., as everyone knows, we have vaccines approved for Americans 12 and older, and there is I think really good evidence that the vaccine is highly tolerated among Americans 12 to 18, those tweens and teens. We just saw, in fact, an outbreak in Galveston, Texas, at a camp where teens were not vaccinated. Hundreds of people got COVID, and it's being spread beyond that to adults.

And the instances, there are instances that people should be aware of, very rare instances where there are serious side effects, but it's some like seven per million. So obviously parents need to decide this and kids need to decide this for themselves. But we in the U.S. have determined that if you're over 12, it's safe to get vaccinated, and smart.

BERMAN: Look, Andy, I think the most important number I've heard in the last month comes from Anthony Fauci over the weekend who said that 99.2 percent of COVID deaths in the United States right now are among the unvaccinated, which to me says, and I said this before, we have reached the optional phase of this pandemic right now, that it's a choice whether or not you want to be protected, at nearly 100 percent from dying of COVID or not. That's just a remarkable number.

SLAVITT: These are truly amazing vaccines, and we in the U.S. are fortunate compared to many parts of the world in that each one of us has access to a vaccine if we want it.

[08:05:05]

So if you haven't been vaccinated yet, the new things we're seeing around the world should add to the weight of evidence to convince you to go talk to your doctor, go talk to your pharmacist, get whatever questions you might have answered, and get vaccinated, because I think the protection it gives you will be unmatched.

KEILAR: What are you making of these numbers out of Israel? And we should mention the caveat that our Elizabeth Cohen made, which is that Israel put out the numbers, but there are certainly questions about how the data was collected. But it says the Pfizer vaccine, if you look at it, that there was a decrease in preventing all infections, including asymptomatic illness, and it linked it to -- it linked the drop to the spread of the Delta variant, still, of course, as we see here on the chart, very effective at preventing serious illness, keeping folks out of the hospital, or from dying.

SLAVITT: I think Elizabeth said it very wisely. We ought to be careful of any one study saying any one thing, particularly when the methodology and even the underlying numbers aren't presented.

Here's what we know. Most of the studies around the world, both in the real world and in labs, somewhere around close to 90 percent of people who have two doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine are protected even from mild illness. This suggests, if this data is indeed accurate, and I agree with Elizabeth's characterization, that there may be more people that have asymptomatic disease than we know about.

One thing the Israelis are doing differently is they have begun testing people who have come into contact with known positive cases. So that is an important fact that could be responsible here. There could be other things responsible here. At some point in time, the immunity from the vaccines could begin to wane a little bit. And when it does, we'll probably see it in Israel first. Is this a sign of that? Possibly. The Israeli Health Ministry is meeting today and over the next few days to talk about that as a possibility.

But Elizabeth landed on the most important point. Today in Israel since the vaccination program began, we've had all of 35 serious cases of COVID-19, 35 in a country of around 9 million. It makes the point that getting vaccinated will protect you. That's very, very significant fact, and as far as we know nothing has changed. And the Israeli authorities aren't suggesting that that's changed.

BERMAN: Harry Enten showed us some of the vaccination numbers. The Biden administration didn't hit the 70 percent of adults receiving one dose by July 4th. Very close. We'll likely get there over the next month. But the data shows, Andy, and I know you know this well, that more than this, people are just resistant at this point. You've sort of reached the limit of people who are vaccine curious or vaccine willing, and the remaining population really isn't that interested in it right now.

So I sort of have two questions. What's going to happen to them? What will the effect be as we head through the summer and the fall? And what does it mean for the rest of us about the presence of this virus here?

SLAVITT: Well, people can be not vaccinated for two reasons. One could be that they're complacent, which I think generally may describe -- I say this with all love for my 19 and 23-year-old younger people, because people over 25 are over 70 percent vaccinated with the first shot. People under 25 are around 50 percent. So there's a lot of people who are not antivaccine. They're just, as you say, a little bit complacent. It's not that high a priority. And for those people, hopefully seeing some of the news from around the world will push them forward.

Then there's another set of people who still have questions. They're worried about long-term side effects and things of that nature. I think a lot of those people, hopefully, as they see the FDA give final approval to Pfizer and Moderna will, in fact, jump on the bandwagon and get vaccinated.

What this does mean is if you live in a community with lower amounts of vaccination rates, generally speaking the southeast, it is much more likely that you're going to see outbreaks. In fact, it is guaranteed you're going to see outbreaks over the course of this late summer and in the fall. So getting vaccinated, talking to your neighbors about why they should get vaccinated, makes a very big difference in the spread of this over the course of the next few months.

BERMAN: There was a that church camp outbreak, 125 out of some 400 people at this church camp in Texas. Is that something you think -- we don't know their vaccination status for sure, but is this the type of thing that you expect that we'll see?

SLAVITT: It's exactly the type of thing we'll see. Church outings, weddings, other types of events, we'll see outbreaks of this nature. Hopefully they will be limited in scope. They won't look anything like they did last year. But still, they will be occurring in communities with largely unvaccinated people. There, of course, will always be breakthrough cases in the vaccine. We know this because the numbers are 90 percent, not 100 percent. But those cases are almost universally mild, as the data you talked about earlier suggests.

BERMAN: Andy Slavitt, great to see you. Thanks so much for being with us this morning.

SLAVITT: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: So parts of Florida now under hurricane watch. A live look at conditions on the ground next.

[08:10:01]

KEILAR: And new concerns after the Surfside disaster. Go inside the San Francisco tower that is sinking and tilting.

And backlash for the Republican congressman who claims U.S. troops will quit over mandatory COVID vaccines.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Parts of Florida's west coast are under hurricane watches this morning as tropical storm Elsa takes aim at the state. Forecasters are warning of potentially deadly storm surge, heavy rains, and also damaging winds today. So let's go now to CNN's Derek Van Dam who is live for us in Fort Myers. Tell us what is heading your way, Derek.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Brianna, you could call this, I guess, the calm before the storm. I am in Lee County, Fort Myers over my right shoulder, Sanibel Island over my left shoulder. This county is one of the 27 counties in Florida currently under a state of emergency. Just looking at the latest radar, some of the outer bands are about an hour away from reaching this particular location where I'm at, so we're bracing for that. But there's a whole different story in Key West. Let's take you there. We have got some live visuals. They've been lashed with heavy rain and heavy wind. In fact the Key West international airport just reported a wind gust of 48 miles per hour. So tropical storm force to say the least, not a monster hurricane, that's good news.

But what's new this morning, what's important for our viewers is that the National Hurricane Center has just hoisted hurricane watches.

[08:15:04]

That's basically for the coastal regions from St. Petersburg, Florida, right through the Big Bend region. We're talking about the West Coast of Florida. This is significant that the hurricane watch exists because they see, just like the meteorologists on the CNN weather team, the potential of Tropical Storm Elsa re-strengthening.

It is now over open water. It's no longer over western Cuba where it loses its heating source and it gets disrupted by the mountains in that area. The warm ocean waters give it that fuel for the engine to really fire back up again.

So some slight to moderate strengthening is forecast, and that's why they believe by the time this makes landfall late tonight into early Wednesday morning across that Big Bend region of Florida, it could be near or at hurricane strength. We also have storm surge warning. That encompasses about 6 million Americans along that west coast of the Florida peninsula. This is significant. We always talk about this during tropical systems because it is such a deadly factor.

It is 2 to 4 feet where I'm located now, 3 to 5 feet for Tampa Bay and into the big coastal Bend area. That is above normally dry ground. So lots of threats here including water spouts and tornadoes as well, Brianna.

KEILAR: Well, it is beautiful where you are, but we know it will be getting dangerous there. Derek, thank you so much.

VAN DAM: Yeah.

BERMAN: The storm threat obviously one of the reasons why the rest of the damaged condo building in Surfside was demolished Sunday as a safety precaution for the rescue crews. The mayor says the search effort now is going full steam.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR CHARLES BURKETT, SURFSIDE, FLORIDA: Now that the damaged building is down, the site is staffed with a tremendous amount of search and rescue workers. The looming threat of that building, the dangerous situation where debris could fall down is now eliminated. So we're operating at 100 percent capacity, and I'm very excited about that. And I believe -- I sense that the families were, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: New video shows crews working in the rain on Monday. They have now recovered four bodies since the demolition, bringing the number of confirmed deaths to 28, 117 people remain unaccounted for 13 days after the disaster.

KEILAR: Yeah, that's amazing work they're doing for the families there who are waiting.

There is a high rise building in San Francisco that is now receiving some renewed scrutiny after that Surfside condo collapse. Millennium Tower, which is the city's tallest residential building, has been sinking for years, and quite a bit.

CNN's Dan Simon takes us inside.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With its soaring panoramic views, and world-class amenities, the Millennium Tower in downtown San Francisco, open to great fanfare, in April of 2009. At 58 stories, it's the city's tallest residential building, with over 400 multimillion dollar units. Among its early residence, former NFL quarterback, and 49ers icon, Joe Montana.

FRANK JERNIGAN, FORMER MILLENIUM RESIDENT: It was billed as one of the top 10 most luxurious buildings in the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It had its own gym, its own pool, its own theater.

SIMON: Frank Jernigan, and Andrew Palk (ph), paid more than 4 million for their condo on the 50th floor. 5 years later, they received the troubling news. The high-rise was not only sinking, it was also tilting, as illustrated in this now infamous video.

JERNIGAN: It was the very first time we did it. He got the marble out and said, I will roll this, and see what it does. It rolls about 10 feet out, slows to a stop, and then turns around, and starts rolling back, and picks up speed as it goes past him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So it was like, oh my God.

SIMON: "60 Minutes" called this 2017 segment, "The Leaning Tower of San Francisco," and show the alarming stress cages and cracks in the building's basement.

The Millennium's current engineer of record, Ronald Hamburger, telling CNN, that as of today, the building has no sunk, and tilted, 18 inches.

DENNIS HERRERA, CITY ATTORNEY: This morning, my office filed a lawsuit against the developer of the Millennium Tower.

SIMON: After years of lawsuits, hearings, and finger-pointing, a retrofit, announced last October, will anchor the building to bedrock which, to the duration of critics have not been done originally. Instead, the foundation was built into deep sand. Experts determined that adjacent projects and a process called dewatering had weakened the soil under the tower, causing it to sink.

The high-profile ordeal, maybe all the more relevant in the wake of the surfside catastrophe. With questions arising whether some of the nation's buildings might possibly be at risk.

JERNIGAN: These people were lying in bed, comfortably at night, with no warning whatsoever. Our hearts just go out to them.

NIALL MCCARTHY, RESIDENTS' ATTORNEY: When you have a high rise that collapses, you have a situation in San Francisco, a high-rise that was sinking, and tilting, and it affects people's peace of mind.

SIMON: Attorney Niall McCarthy represented about 100 of the tower's residents, who saw their property values plummet. He says that under an agreed settlement, residents received a significant portion of their loss.

In a statement to CNN, Millennium's engineer near said that any potential comparisons between surfside, and the Millennium tower would be, quote, reckless, and premature, adding that the building was designed with earthquake resistance, remain safe, and is in no danger of collapse.

[08:20:13]

The $100 million fix is said to be completed next year.

But, Frank and Andrew won't be there to see its completion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got out our suitcases, we put everything in, and we left.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIMON (on camera): Even with all the problems people, of course, continue to buy and sell units inside the building. And it's for that $100 million project that's underway, it is not designed to repair any damage according to the plan, but it is designed to prevent the building from sinking any further and to recover some of the tilt. How much? About 50 percent over the next couple of decades.

Dan Simon, CNN, San Francisco.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Is the U.S. headed in the right direction? How Americans are answering that critical question next.

BERMAN: Plus, why Matthew McConaughey says America is going through puberty. And it's not the wispy mustache on the upper lip.

KEILAR: Is it the voice change?

BERMAN: Yes --

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:09]

BERMAN: A new poll shows that 47 percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction. That is a notable, and in terms of recent history, pretty historically positive number.

Joining me now CNN's senior data reporter, Harry Enten.

So, put these numbers in perspective -- 47 percent say we're headed in the right track. Where does that fit?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yeah, you would think that would be low. But take a look at where we were compared to the Trump administration when the same exact question was asked by Marist College, right? Forty-seven percent say, now, we're going in the right direction. During the Trump administration, this exact same point, it was just 31 percent.

You know me, John, I'm a fan of averages. I don't like just looking at one poll. But the general trend here is the exact same. Here's the question. Is the country going in the right direction or the wrong track? Right now in the average of polls, 43 percent say the right direction. A year ago during the protests, during COVID, all that, it was just 22 percent. June of 2017, 34 percent.

You have to go all the way back to the beginning of the Obama administration when 43 percent of Americans said that we were on the right direction. So, this is the highest number in a decade, over a decade, in fact.

BERMAN: It's interesting to me because in June of 2017, the economy was ostensibly doing well still adding jobs, et cetera, et cetera, only 34 percent. Now it's 43 percent. That's a big gap. Is there another partisan divide?

ENTEN: Yeah, there is. You know, look, is the country going in the right direction, wrong track? These are the right direction numbers, right? What do we see? Look at this. 73 percent of Democrats say yes, we're going in the right direction, 38 percent of independents, just 11 percent of Republicans, not a huge surprise.

Compare that to where we were last year. The big number here we take away is the independence jumped from 16 percent in June of 2020 to now 38 percent, and Democrats at 73, much higher than Republicans were at 39 percent in June.

BERMAN: That 39 percent of Republicans who said things were going well is dwarfed by the number of Democrats who say things are going well. What is the number a presidential candidate needs to hit in terms of right track in theory to get re-elected?

ENTEN: Right. So, I think this is rather important because essentially we're trying to say how good is the low 40s number for Joe Biden right now in terms of the right track and presidential reelections? What we see is when the incumbent party has won since 1980, the right track number, right direction track number was 42 percent. Very, very close on average to where Biden is right now.

BERMAN: He's a little higher.

ENTEN: He's, in fact, a little higher, 43 percent. When the incumbent party loses you have a right track direction only around 25 percent. Joe Biden is well above that. This is much closer to where Donald Trump was last year, he was in the low 30s.

Right now, if you were looking at the right track, wrong track number, you would say 43 percent that Joe Biden has, very, very close to what normally incumbent parties need in order to win reelection.

BERMAN: There are other numbers in this Marist poll also which show that people have historically positive view of things, even though those numbers look somewhat negative. Did I set that up the right way?

ENTEN: I think you did. Essentially, look, normally the right direction/wrong track number is bad. The same with congress's job approval rating. The hate Congress overall, you like your own congressman.

Take a look here. Look at this. The approval of Congress 31 percent, that's really crummy compared to a disapproval of 61 percent. It's significantly higher than any point during the Trump administration. You have to again go all the way back to June of 2009 to see a congressional approval rating in the 30s.

So, right now, we're seeing yes, these historically poor metrics are still poor, but they're not as poor as they were before which is generally an indication people are much more optimistic about the way the country is going. Certainly compared to this point last year.

BERMAN: This goes into the everything is relative category.

ENTEN: That's exactly right. It's bad, but hey, it's not as bad as it was before. BERMAN: Harry Enten, thank you very much for that.

ENTEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Brianna?

KEILAR: I'm having a chuckle, Harry. I love how you put it.

All right. Let's look at all these numbers with CNN senior analyst Kirsten Powers and Ryan Lizza.

OK, Kristen, what do you think about these poll numbers, this optimism at least trending in that direction?

KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I mean, I think it's -- if you're Joe Biden, I think you would be very happy. These are, you know, things seem to have turned a corner hopefully in terms of COVID, although he's not hitting the target in terms of what he wanted in terms of people being vaccinated, but that's a little bit out of his hands, right, because there are certain people who just aren't going to get it.

KEILAR: It's available.

POWERS: It's available and there are people being told not to take it by people on the right for the most part. I think if you're Joe Biden, I think this makes you very happy and people are starting to feel a little more optimistic with the economy and with the way things are going, and things sort of feel like they're getting back to normal for a lot of people. And so, yeah, I think it's really good news for Joe Biden.

RYAN LIZZA, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, if the numbers were not going up, it would be a little surprising, right. I mean, not that long ago, thousands of people were dying a day of a deadly disease.

[08:30:00]