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New Day

U.S. Races to Evacuate Americans, Afghans by the Thousands; ICU Care Units Over 90 Percent Full in Five States, Including Florida and Texas. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 18, 2021 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NED PRICE, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: Let me be very clear about this. The embassy remains open and we plan to continue our diplomatic work in Afghanistan.

This is not abandonment. This is not an evacuation. This is not the wholesale withdrawal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: It's not the wholesale withdrawal?

The head of U.S. Central Command visited the Kabul airport on Tuesday. Operations there have resumed. They took out about 1,100 people yesterday, which is an increase but not nearly enough to meet the need.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN NEW DAY: And the Taliban has apparently learned something about damage control, P.R.-wise, here in the last 20 years. They held their first public news conference on Tuesday, pledging blanket amnesty for all in Afghanistan while vowing that no death will be caused to anyone outside of Afghanistan by the Taliban and that there will be no violence against women.

Already, we're seeing some violations of that. In turn, the Taliban is calling on the international community to respect its core values. Of course, that is a tough sell considering the scenes what we have been seeing outside of the Kabul airport. We do want to warn you that these are disturbing images, but this is what is going on. A photo journalist for The Los Angeles Times capturing wounded pictures of wounded Afghans after Taliban fighters used lethal weapons for crowd control.

Photographer Marcus Yam telling CNN's Anderson Cooper that this violence was indiscriminate. And he even describes how one Taliban fighter fired his weapon into the crowd while smiling at another Taliban fighter as if it were a game.

Let's go live to Kabul and to CNN's Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward. I think what we're starting to see, Clarissa, is this disconnect between this image that the --

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sorry, Brianna, for just interrupting you. Let me try to explain to the situation where we are. It's very hectic. You can probably hear the gunshots. We're about 200 yards, even less than 200 yards away from the entrance to the Kabul airport. We just drove through it quickly. It's absolutely impossible to stop there.

And I say we drove through it quickly, you can't drive through it quickly. It's bumper to bumper, cars are barely moving. There are Taliban fighters all around. We actually did see them physically (INAUDIBLE) with truncheons trying to get them back. We have seen them and heard them a lot as well firing on the crowds to disperse the crowds.

It's a little difficult to see from this vantage point and it's a slightly edgy situation so I don't want to push our luck, but all along the roadside over there, there's just hundreds of people who are basically waiting, desperately trying to get out of the country. It's not clear if they have their paperwork in order, if they've been declined and told that they can't enter the gates or if they simply don't have the wherewithal to get inside.

The camera man, Will Bonnett, is just panning off right now. You can see it's a pretty large crowd who formed around us already because this is slightly unusual situation to be doing live shots from here, I think. But, it's definitely chaotic. It's definitely dangerous.

I will say this, the Taliban appears to be trying to disperse the crowds and there are crowds there of young men who seem to be disengaging in like criminal activity. I don't know if you heard that. They're kind of running towards the Taliban and then running away from them again, almost like it's a game. But, you know, when there's bullets firing like that, Brianna and John, it's clearly not a game.

BERMAN: We heard the gunfire there, Clarissa. Give us a sense if the Taliban is firing into the crowds, at people, or is it crowd dispersal into the air? Are they letting anyone through?

WARD: From what we can see and from what we can see we only have a very limited vantage point, they're firing to disperse the crowds. They're not targeting people. They're not trying to kill people. But, of course, the minute you're firing willy-nilly when you have a bunch of civilians all other the road and civilian vehicles, people get hurt. That's what happens. So there's not a huge amount of discipline, let's say, to use an understatement in the ways in which they are dispersing the crowd.

We did see some people behind the concertina wire implying that they had been able to get into that first perimeter. But I'm not going to lie, I mean, you're running the gauntlet to try to get in there because there are so many different things going on. You can just hear the gunfire is pretty much constant as the Taliban tries to push people back, and as a result, you're getting lots of people on the roads surrounding the airport like the one we're on less than 200 yards away. You're just getting lots and lots of people sitting by the roadside, some of them have their bags and they just obviously have no idea how they can get out.

[07:05:03]

KEILAR: And I know, Clarissa, that your camera man, Will, is there, it looks like, on a tripod. But I'm just wondering if he can pan around a little more so that we can see the scene there not too far from the Kabul airport.

WARD: Sure. Will, can you just pan around a little bit to get more to get a bit more of the scene. I'll step out to the side. You can see we have this crowd around us, which is never great because, you know, crowds are always a little bit dangerous. And most of these people -- let me ask you, sir, are you waiting here to get out? Or what are you doing here?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. The most of (INAUDIBLE) are traveling here, working with the American, with the (INAUDIBLE), we have all have the documents for the recommendations, everything.

WARD: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They (INAUDIBLE) and they announce, they think these guys are working with the Americans or with the (INAUDIBLE). We take them to America. But they are liars. They take these guys --

WARD: Did you work with the Americans?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, of course, of course. There are like more than 50,000 people there crowded here because all of them have gone to their homes. There is so less people now here.

WARD: Fewer people here now than there were a couple days ago?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Our home is here (ph). But there are many --

WARD: Did you try to get in?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, but they will not let you go in.

WARD: Why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They will not let you.

WARD: What did they tell you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are telling us just to stay here. The American says, we'll take these guys. We have the American passport or British or they have green cards, we take them. Otherwise, you have to stop here or stay here. We tell them we cannot stay here because everybody Joe Biden says we take all the Afghan workers, they help us, we take them to America.

WARD: Have you applied? Have you tried to apply?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, of course.

WARD: And what happened?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They tell us you have to bring H.R. letter update for 2021. That's impossible. All the companies locked down in 2014. It's very hard to find --

WARD: Are lots of people in the same situation?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, all the same. They have H.R. letter but they don't have the recommendation letter. But most of them have lost their badges.

WARD: Right. So what's your message to America right now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our message to America, we help the American people, so that's their jobs to help right now here. This is a very bad situation if someone know that you work with somebody (INAUDIBLE) --

WARD: I'm just going to thank you, sir. Can I just bring you? And you have a green card?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. This is my green card.

WARD: This is your green card. He's showing me a picture right now of his green card. That's his green card. So you have a green card.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. And I have flight on 20 this Friday. I already filled out the application from the U.S. embassy and this is the emails that I got from the U.S. embassy.

WARD: So did you try to get into the airport?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I did.

WARD: What did the Taliban say?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Taliban said we don't know. Just go. We don't want to try to let you in. And like they say we don't have flights.

WARD: They don't have flights?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, they just say it, they do have flights.

WARD: You're getting the impression, John and Brianna, look, I'm surrounded here, okay? And everybody here has got a story. People worked for the Americans. One man has a green card. He already has his flights booked. Now, they're pressing in. They want desperately to tell their stories. They want the Americans to know because they're not able to get past those checkpoints. They're not able to get past the Taliban fighters. John, Brianna?

BERMAN: Clarissa, first of all, whatever you need right now, however you feel, you're in charge with this, right? If you need to go, if you need to get safe, let us know at any minute. If you're comfortable where you are, this is important to see. Because what we are seeing now is the disconnect between what the United States says is happening and needs to happen with what can happen. If there are thousands of Afghans the United States has promised to get out of the country but they can't get to the airport, that's a disconnect. It's showing that it's not a reality.

WARD: I mean, that's what's so crazy, John. You're talking about some of these people, they have their paperwork. This man has a green card. If you are a U.S. green card holder, you should be allowed to get into that airport. But the problem is it is such a chaotic situation and the Taliban understands how this looks. The Taliban knows that having thousands of people on the streets, desperately trying to press into the airport because they're so frightened, because they just want more than anything to leave, they know that that looks bad. So, it is not entirely surprising that the Taliban is not exactly embracing this sort of mass exodus.

The question becomes what recourse do these people have? How can their safe passage be facilitated? We're not getting any sense of how that could happen, John, Brianna?

[07:10:00]

I think, John and Brianna, we are going to have to wrap it up here. Is that what you're telling me? We are going to have to wrap it up here. It's getting a little hectic, but we'll be talking more to you next hour.

KEILAR: All right. Clarissa, yes, safety first, first things first. Thank you for that report.

I mean, unbelievable, Berman, we're seeing -- I see boys behind Clarissa in that shot. I saw when Will panned over there was a baby. I mean, this is the helplessness that we've been hearing about. And it's difficult to get to. Look, just to be clear, Clarissa is -- this is not -- she's leaving for safety reasons, right? But this is essential, this scene that we're seeing outside of the airport.

BERMAN: There are a few things there that jumped out at me. Number one, the fact that you can't get past that gate if you don't have a certain piece of paper now is - I don't know how to describe it. It's tough to ask (ph), right? I mean, you have these people who risked their lives who can't get across a line because of a piece of paper, a piece of paper. The country just fell. That paper can't be the barrier to living out the rest of their lives.

The second thing there was you heard two people speaking very good English to Clarissa who risked a lot to talk to her out loud on camera. They must -- the stakes must be so high for them that they're willing to risk that. The blunt admission on television, yes, I worked with the Americans, and now I want to get out.

KEILAR: Yes. And that one gentleman that she was speaking to who is saying that certain form that you pointed out that he needed and part of the issue is so many translators might have been working through contractors. And he was saying that they left in 2014. So I think a lot of Americans are familiar with if you need to go back seven years and some bureaucratic issue to get some sort of form, you know how difficult that is. But they're doing this the middle of a completely failed state where they don't have any Wi-Fi. It's impossible and it's really a matter of life or death.

We are going to be going back to Clarissa there on the streets of Kabul tracking this story here coming up in the show.

Also, you know, it's coming to this here in the U.S., states that are running out of hospital beds for the sickest COVID patients, governors in neighboring states are now sounding the alarm.

BERMAN: Plus, President Biden set to announce vaccine booster shots for most Americans. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta has learned more about the science behind the decision. He will join us next.

And for We Love New York City, the homecoming concert, a once-in-a- lifetime concert event Saturday starting at 5:00 P.M. Eastern exclusively on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

BERMAN: The U.S. is at a critical point in the coronavirus pandemic. Cases are surging as the delta variant sweeps across the country, pushing hospitals to their limit or frankly past their limit. In Alabama, there are negative ICU beds available in the entire state. There are more than 2,600 patients hospitalized with COVID at this point. More than 1,500 of them are in need of ICU care. The state only has 1557 ICU beds, meaning they're short by 11.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DON WILLIAMSON, PRESIDENT, ALABAMA HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION: We've never been here before. We are in truly now in uncharted territory in terms of our ICU bed capacity. Fortunately, we still do not have an issue with ventilators.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: In addition to Alabama, Texas, Florida, Mississippi and Georgia are at more than 90 percent ICU capacity. Throughout the south, we've seen the highest percentage of ICU beds with COVID-19 patients. Florida has 54 percent of its ICU beds filled with COVID-19 patients, and Tennessee, the Department of Health told CNN it expects to start receiving requests from hospitals for National Guard deployments. Kentucky is starting to receive requests to transfer patients to its hospitals. Kentucky is now having hospitals cancel and postpone non-COVID surgical procedures that require post-op admission to a hospital. Governor Andy Beshear made this prediction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): By the end of this week, expect to have more Kentuckians in the hospital battling COVID than at any point in this pandemic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Hospitalizations nationwide have doubled over the last few weeks. On Tuesday, they topped 88,000. This is a figure we have not seen as high as this since early February.

KEILAR: Texas Governor Greg Abbott has tested positive for COVID-19 as this latest surge worsens in his state. Now, Abbott is fully vaccinated. He is taking monoclonal antibody treatment and says that he is symptom-free.

I want to bring in CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta talk to us about this. The good news is it seems like he's feeling okay but the bad news is that he is leading the charge in cracking down on states and school districts trying to take away their authority to make local decisions to institute mask mandates. And just the night before, Sanjay, that he tested positive, he was at a big event without masks. You know, what's the possibility of there being some virus spread there?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, I'm glad he's doing okay because, obviously, we know this can be a serious disease. I'm not sure what his pre-existing medical history is exactly. We know he's in a wheelchair. But as you point out that at that event even if people were vaccinated I'm not sure what the requirements were there, people can still shed virus. I mean, that's what sort of dictated some of the recent changes from the CDC where they found that even fully vaccinated people, while they're far less likely to get sick, which is great, they may still carry enough virus in their nose and mouth to potentially shed it.

[07:20:11]

I think one of the concerns here when you look at that whole scene and sort of put it together is you have somebody who is railing against masks, preventing mask mandates while at the same time we learn now getting tested daily, cloaking himself in these daily tests and when he got a first test that came back positive, went and got these monoclonal antibodies. So, it's a glimpse of what is happening here sometimes behind the scenes at the same time that people are saying, don't even bother wearing a mask, they themselves may have the safeguards of daily testing and then, $1,500 antibody treatment on standby should they need it. Most people don't have access to that. And that's why a dollar mask can be so beneficial.

BERMAN: So, Sanjay, yesterday on our last episode of the show with you, you had some questions about why the administration was now all in behind the idea of boosters for almost everybody who had been vaccinated starting as early as next month. You have since had the opportunity to speak with a senior federal health official about the announcement we're expecting today. What did you learn?

GUPTA: Well, John, I'll tell you, it's still confusing. I mean, I've been reporting on this for a long time, had a lot of calls with people yesterday. And I can tell you this, and I'm going to lay this out for you, but I can tell you there's still confusion even at the highest levels of the federal government. What we're expecting today around 11:00 A.M. is an announcement from the task force, the COVID task force, basically saying that eight months after someone has received their vaccines, they should be eligible for a booster. It will probably go in some order of healthcare workers, elderly and so on, kind of like what we saw in December of last year. But that was surprising because we've heard very recently that the vaccines are working really well and unless you're immune-compromised, you're not somebody who should need one of these boosters.

And, in fact, after we spoke, John, there was a call from the CDC, a call that they do to clinicians that we have some recording of. I want you to listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. NEELA GOSWAMI, MEMBER, CDC VACCINE TASK FORCE (voice over): We do want to clarify right away that the need for and timing of a COVID-19 booster dose has not been established.

DR. KATHLEEN DOOLING, MEMBER, CDC VACCINE TASK FORCE (voice over): Other fully vaccinated individuals do not need an additional dose right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Okay. So, John, literally at the same time I'm talking to federal officials at the highest level of COVID response in this country who are saying today now they're going to have this briefing to recommend these boosters, the same time the CDC is telling clinicians what you just heard there, that these boosters are not likely to be recommended. So, we'll see. But I think it's very clear that there's not a lot of cohesion even among the various federal health agencies about what to do regarding these boosters.

KEILAR: Yes, and that is very confusing. So let's clear up what we can of some of this confusion by answering some viewer questions, Sanjay. Lisa from New Jersey has a good one. I'm wondering why I didn't think of this. I'm sure a lot of us haven't. She says, the new guidance is for a third dose at eight months. Does this mean eight months from the second dose or does this mean eight months from the two weeks after the second dose when you are fully vaxed.

GUPTA: It may not surprise you based on what you just heard in terms of whether this is even happening, we don't know the answer to that. The New York Times, originally, when they reported this, said it would be two months after your second dose. I think there's been some clarification if this does happen that it would be two -- sorry, eight months after you've been fully vaccinated. So, it doesn't make a huge difference. We're talking about a couple of week difference there. But, hopefully, if these boosters are being recommended widely, which we'll learn at 11:00 A.M. today, if that's happening, hopefully, we'll get some clarity on that as well.

BERMAN: So, Sarah from Ohio writes that boosters soon to be recommended for everyone eight months after the second, is there a plan in place for people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine? Obviously, that's a big question that a lot of people have, Sanjay. GUPTA: Yes, it is. And I know it's frustrating because I get a lot of emails on this. And every time we talk about this, we're talking about the mRNA vaccines and not Johnson & Johnson. Part of the issue is that these vaccines -- those vaccines that J&J were authorized later in April, so there's less data on them. And there's fewer people around 20 million, 22 million who have received these shots overall.

So, what we have heard, and we've asked about this, is that this is being considered. And we might even hear something specifically about J&J this week. They're looking specifically at the science. There was a couple of questions they still wanted to answer about this specifically. I don't think we're going to hear specifically about J&J today. But we are pushing on this.

[07:25:00]

If boosters are recommended widely, I think it's going to make a big difference to understand what's happening with J&J people.

There are some cities in San Francisco where they have already started recommending if you had J&J, go ahead and get an additional mRNA vaccine as well. That's not widely recommended across the country, but that may change.

KEILAR: Yes. I mean, we're just seeing -- it is kind of confusing, right, not your fault, Sanjay. We really do need some clarity from government officials as they're moving forward or not moving forward with this and, hopefully, we'll get some of that today. Great to see you, Sanjay, thank you so much.

GUPTA: You too. Thank you.

KEILAR: So we have to go back to our breaking news now out of Afghanistan. CNN's Clarissa Ward on the streets of Kabul as the Taliban opens fire to disperse crowds. Clarissa was speaking with Afghans desperate to escape who admit on live T.V. they worked for Americans. Stay with us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARD: It's definitely chaotic. It's definitely dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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