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COVID-19 Could Become a Seasonal Virus; COVID Patients at Michigan Hospital Dying at Rate Never Seen Before; Travis Scott Lays Blame on Media, Production Staff; Student Arrested for Planned Columbine-Style Attack at School; Parkland Dad Sits at White House All Week for a Biden Meeting. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired December 10, 2021 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:14]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning COVID cases on the rise in many parts of the country. Health officials warn this might be the start of a winter surge as more people head indoors. Some scientists believe COVID could eventually become seasonal after the pandemic ends.

CNN health reporter Jacqueline Howard joins us.

Jacqueline, what's going on here?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH CORRESPONDENT: John, I can tell you scientists say that COVID-19 is looking more and more seasonal. And that's what we see with other respiratory viruses as well. But when you look at test positivity rates, that's the percentage of tested people who test positive, scientists say that early on in the pandemic, the test positivity was high because we were just starting to test people and identify COVID-19.

But over time, if you remember last year we had a summer surge, followed by this big winter surge. You see here between November 16th and March 24th. And then this year we had another summer surge. And now scientists think we're entering another big winter surge. And these are just the early signs of this seasonal pattern emerging.

So, John, that's why scientists really do think that we could see COVID becoming seasonal in the future when the pandemic turns into an endemic phase. That's when the coronavirus is still circulating but at low enough levels where it will no longer overwhelm our health systems.

And I spoke with the head of the National Association of County and City Health Officials. And she says health officials plan to talk about this in the new year, quote, "We plan to begin having listening sessions in early January to talk with jurisdictions and their health officials about what we need to be thinking about to transition from pandemic to endemic." She says the idea is to envision what this looks like long term and what metrics and considerations would be utilized to make the determination.

So, John, it will be interesting to see what comes out of those talks in early January.

BERMAN: Yes. Let's just get the cases to a low enough level where they don't overwhelm the health system.

HOWARD: Exactly.

BERMAN: Jacqueline Howard, thank you so much.

HOWARD: Thank you.

BRIANNE KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: This morning yet another reminder that the COVID crisis is far from over. Michigan has seen more patients hospitalized for COVID this week than at any other time during the pandemic. CNN went inside a Michigan hospital that is overwhelmed with cases and deaths yet again.

CNN's Miguel Marquez live for us in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

What did you see, Miguel?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And talk about overwhelming a health care system, that's a lot of what we're seeing in Michigan right now.

Look, we were in the same hospital back in April during the third wave. It is now the fourth wave. It is worse now. And with Christmas and New Year coming up, it may get a lot worse.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Clive Ellis, one of thousands of patients suffering with COVID-19 here stretching Michigan hospitals to the breaking point.

(On-camera): When did you know you had to come to the hospital? What were you experiencing?

CLIVE ELLIS, COVID-19 PATIENT: My oxygen numbers were down in the upper 60s or 70s.

MARQUEZ: Oh, dear, that's very low.

ELLIS: Yes.

MARQUEZ: What does it feel like?

ELLIS: It feels like a wreck.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Unvaccinated, this is the 66-year-old's second bout of COVID-19. Whatever natural immunity he had.

ELLIS: This second round this is way worse.

MARQUEZ (on-camera): And this was worse than the first?

ELLIS: Yes. Well, the first one was bad. MARQUEZ (voice-over): Didn't help. His message now?

(On-camera): Would you encourage others to get vaccinated now, though?

ELLIS: Yes.

MARQUEZ: How important is it? I mean, how bad is COVID?

ELLIS: It's terrible. You don't want it.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Still, there are those like 62-year-old Deborah LaRoche in the COVID unit for a week now who says vaccination just isn't for her.

DEBORAH LAROCHE, UNVACCINATED COVID-19 PATIENT: I didn't want to be vaccinated.

MARQUEZ (on-camera): You did not want to be vaccinated?

LAROCHE: No.

MARQUEZ: Do you think you'll get vaccinated after this?

LAROCHE: No.

MARQUEZ: Why?

LAROCHE: I should be OK now.

MARQUEZ: You think?

LAROCHE: Yes.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): The sickness, death and seemingly endless suffering taking its toll on those who come to work every day to save lives at Lansing Sparrow Health.

LEAH RASCH, COVID UNIT, SPARROW HEALTH SYSTEM: The other day, I had my first panic attack, and I didn't know what it was, like, I'm a nurse, I should know these things. And I drove to work and was just, I couldn't get out of the car. And I'm like, what is going on? And it was a full-on, after I'd sat there, oh, my gosh, I'm having a panic attack. Like I did not want to come into work.

MARQUEZ: Stress, tension, anxiety on the face and in the lives of every healthcare worker here.

KATIE SEFTON, ASST. MANAGER, COVID UNIT, SPARROW HEALTH SYSTEM: I've gone home a few days and had days where I just cry. And as a mom, it's really hard because my kids then are challenged to see that. So I have to put on a brave front for them, too, but it's awful.

MARQUEZ: Though most staff here are vaccinated, Sparrow has no vaccine mandate for its workers and is still suffering a shortage of staff, worn thin by stress, endless shifts in treating preventable sickness and death. [07:35:11]

JIM DOVER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, SPARROW HEALTH SYSTEM: On the frontline staff, it is so hard. We have seven people die yesterday. They're seeing all this death and they're seeing the families left behind who are crying over the loss of their loved one who was unvaccinated that could have been prevented.

MARQUEZ: Hospitalizations here higher than ever. In just the last month admissions to hospitals statewide have exploded, rising at 88 percent.

ELIZABETH HERTEL, DIRECTOR, MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: Many of our hospitals who are no longer able to accept emergencies in their emergency departments. We have almost every hospital who has people waiting in their emergency departments to get admitted.

MARQUEZ: Sparrow Hospital now at triage level code red, the highest, no room for patients from other hospitals, elective procedures on hold. The wait for a bed once admitted as long as two days. Its emergency department swamped for weeks.

(On-camera): And how often is your emergency department overwhelmed to that level?

DR. KAREN KENT-VANGORDER, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, SPARROW HEALTH SYSTEM: We've been that way over a month.

MARQUEZ: Over a month?

KENT-VANGORDER: Yes.

MARQUEZ: Right at the edge?

KENT-VANGORDER: Perpetually. Perpetually, we have had that many emergency department patients in our emergency department that need to be on the floors and we just can't -- it's that we're stepping on the hose up here. There's nowhere for them to go.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Meanwhile, health care workers from the nurses to the doctors to those who sanitize and ready rooms for the next victim of coronavirus, get up every day and go at it again.

(On-camera): How does the stress manifest itself in your life?

DANIELLE WILLIAMS, COVID UNIT, SPARROW HEALTH SYSTEM: I used to just be on the days when I come to work, I'd be stressed out but now it kind of carries over to like knowing I have to come into work and do this. I love my job. I love what I do. And I can't see myself doing anything else. But it's just the heaviness that it is here and working in these situations with these people who, before they walked in the door they had a normal life. They're healthy people, they're out celebrating Thanksgiving and then now they're here with a mask on their face, teary eyed staring at me, asking me if they're going to live or not. Desperation and it's heartbreaking. (END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUEZ: Now another stressor on the health system here in Michigan is that the flu season, the regular old flu, is also bad this year. They're starting to see outbreaks there. That's putting stress on hospitals. The chief medical officer of Sparrow Health says that even if you get that first vaccine dose today, you may not be fully protected by Christmas but at least you'll have some protection -- Brianna.

KEILAR: I mean, Miguel, it's an absolute war zone there for these nurses and for these doctors. And I was just really struck by that woman you were speaking to on supplemental oxygen saying that even after this ordeal she won't get vaccinated.

MARQUEZ: You know, look, one thing that nurses also told us is that not only are they treating these people, but these people come in, they act like it's Starbucks. No, I don't want that treatment. I want Ivermectin. I want this. I want that. I want all these others things I've heard about. And the hospital has to actually fight their own patients to give them the treatment that actually works. It's madness. Get vaccinated.

BERMAN: Miguel, I'm just struck by the fact -- I think you've done Michigan before. I can't remember how -- no, is this the first time you've done Michigan in your national roving COVID hot spot tour?

MARQUEZ: Yes. We've done -- we were at this same hospital back in April during the third wave. And we went to Beaumont Health System as well. There are three federal strike teams at different hospitals in Michigan. This, Sparrow wants a federal strike team. There just aren't enough to go around. They don't think they're going to get one because there's just too many in Michigan already.

Hospitals across the entire state, they are just filling up to the point where literally they're not going to be able to take patients anymore, and it's going to get even worse.

BERMAN: It's just -- it really is stunning that you've been here and you're here again and there are still people who are unvaccinated. I have to believe that just weighs on these health care workers. Exhaustion.

MARQUEZ: It's seeing their faces, you can literally see it in their faces. They are exhausted and over it. And that's why most of them are leaving the business. Not because of vaccination mandates and everything but because they are stressed out or they're taking higher paying traveling nurses jobs. It's just too much stress.

KEILAR: Yes, look. They're burnt out. There's going to be a lot of -- already are -- nurses and doctors who need mental health help because this is, I mean, this is like PTSD waiting to happen what they have been through at this sustained level.

Miguel, thank you so much for such an essential report. Really appreciate it. MARQUEZ: You got it.

KEILAR: Travis Scott sitting down with his first interview since the Astroworld tragedy. Who he blames for the concert crush.

BERMAN: And the troubling Snapchat messages that may have exposed a mass shooting plot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:44:07]

BERMAN: So new this morning, in this new interview, Travis Scott tells top show host Charlamagne tha God that he has been on an emotional rollercoaster since the tragedy at the Astroworld Festival where 10 people died and many more were injured. In the interview Scott denied initially knowing concertgoers had been hurt or that people in the crowd were begging him to stop the show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD, HOST: People say they collectively heard folks screaming help every time you stopped the song to get your attention. Did you hear any of those screams?

TRAVIS SCOTT, RAPPER/MUSICIAN: No, man. And you know, it's so crazy because I'm an artist, too. Like, you know, anytime you can hear something like that you want to stop the show. You know, I stopped it like a couple of times to just make sure everybody was OK, and I just really just go up off to, you know, the fans' energy as a collective. You know, call to response. And I just didn't hear that.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

[07:45:01]

BERMAN: Joining me now is the attorney for the family of Axel Acosta, one of the victims who died at the Astroworld event, Tony Buzbee.

Tony, thanks for being with us. Axel Acosta's family, if they had a chance to see that interview, I'm curious what their reaction is.

TONY BUZBEE, ATTORNEY FOR FAMILY OF ASTROWORLD VICTIM AXEL ACOSTA: Disgust. I mean, this is clearly public relations driven. Somebody decided it would be a good idea for Travis Scott to speak. He continues, each time he does speak, to try to deflect blame. And, you know, we learned as children if you screw up, just admit it. Every time you try to blame someone else or pretend like you didn't know this or that, it just makes it worse.

BERMAN: When you say pretend, you did know this or that. He says he couldn't tell what was happening in the crowd. Why don't you believe him?

BUZBEE: Yes. Because I've stood on that stage, and I can see the vantage point that he had. Because I've seen hundreds of individual cell phone videos of what was happening in the crowd, because I have talked to more than 100 people who were there, including security personnel, paramedics, et cetera. So he's going to have a hard time making that case.

I thought it was interesting that, you know, this interview, of course he picked who was going to ask the questions. He picked and approved the questions. He won't be able to do that in this court proceeding and I think we'll learn a lot more.

BERMAN: What question would you ask him?

BUZBEE: Why? You know, he said, you know, I had an earpiece in and, you know, no one told me there were these problems. My question would be, did you have an earpiece in your eye? Could you not see? You could see. I mean, we see in the concert that you can see somebody in a tree well outside the concert area. But yet you couldn't see the people, the masses of people piled up in bodies and the CPR going on.

I don't buy it. Nobody is going to buy that. So those are the questions that will be asked. You know, like I said, when you mess up, you just say, you know what, I really screwed up. No one is suggesting that Travis Scott is 100 percent responsible or at fault but certainly he has responsibility. Let's not forget the people went there to see Travis Scott. It was his name up in lights.

He was the individual who was the one that brought people there. We know what his past conduct was. We know he's been arrested for inciting riots. We know that he's encouraged people to get into concerts that were not ticketed. We know he's even encouraged people in the crowd in the past to beat people up or to jump off the balcony. We look at the lyrics of his songs where they talk about getting injured in the mosh pit or jumping from a balcony.

So now to suggest, well, I'm an artist, I have no responsibility. No one is going to buy that. This is an individual for more than 10 years has been surrounded by people who enabled him. And I think he's going to have a reality check. The Acosta family is looking for him to take accountability and responsibility. And so far he has not done that. And we're going to help him do that.

BERMAN: Tony Buzbee, I appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.

BUZBEE: Thank you.

BERMAN: A Delta flight forced to make an emergency landing overnight after violence breaks out on board. We have the breaking details on this story just ahead.

KEILAR: And what happened between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. Bad blood this morning between the one-time close allies.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:52:47]

BERMAN: Developing this morning, police say two college students helped avert a possible mass shooting in Florida. Police say a 19- year-old John Hagins is in custody after posting a message to a group Snapchat that two students -- that two alert students noticed was troubling and they in turn told the authorities about it.

CNN's Nick Valencia joins us live now.

How close was this, Nick? Lay out exactly what happened here.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, John. This 19- year-old suspect had laid out these plans to carry out this attack on his university, saying that he was going to bring a collapsible gun tucked inside a backpack filled with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, according to police to, quote, "shoot up the school."

And now the 19-year-old that you're looking at there on your screen, John Hagins, had posted these threatening messages on Snapchat in a group message that was then anonymously reported to police by two alert students. This plan, according to police, was set to happen on the last day of classes before winter break, when police say Hagins knew that the campus would be full of students taking their final exams.

Instead the 19-year-old was arrested outside of his campus apartment where police found that backpack filled with hundreds of rounds of ammunition as well as a collapsible rifle. Now the police chief there in Daytona Beach says that he's confessed to these messages, to writing these messages. And he says by the grace of God this plan was thwarted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JAKAN YOUNG, DAYTONA BEACH POLICE: By the grace of God, those two students came forward and thwarted that plan. He has already confessed to making these statements. He has confessed to it. He may want to claim that it was all a joke, and he wasn't serious about it, but we don't find anything funny about discussing a mass shooting on a campus. If he was looking for attention, he's got it.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: Chief Young went on to say that he believes that the suspect sold his vehicle as a way to pay for that gun and ammunition.

Now it's unclear what the motive was, but the chief said that he was a danger -- in danger of failing classes. He's being charged with attempted first-degree homicide as well as terrorism, and being held right now this morning without bond -- John.

BERMAN: You know, it just goes to show the difference that two students can make.

VALENCIA: That's right.

[07:55:03]

BERMAN: Just by paying attention. Got to tell somebody when you see something like that.

Nick Valencia, thank you very much.

VALENCIA: You got it, John.

KEILAR: Today will be the ninth day that the father of a Parkland shooting victim stands outside of the White House demanding a meeting with President Biden. Manuel Oliver and his supporters say that the Biden administration needs to take unilateral urgent action to address gun violence. Oliver says that he'll go to the White House every day until the president agrees to meet with him, and he is now with us, this father of Parkland shooting victim Joaquin "Guac" Oliver. Guac as he was called. He's also the founder of ChangetheRef.org.

Manuel, thank you for being with us again. We spoke with you in the beginning of this effort out in front of the White House last week. You have not had a meeting with the president. You did meet with his senior adviser Cedric Richmond. Tell us about that conversation.

MANUEL OLIVER, FATHE OF PARKLAND SHOOTING VICTIM JOAQUIN "GUAC" OLIVER: I had a call, a phone call with him. He was asking me what is it that I'm looking for. And now witness statement that the White House made, they're making these calls, like, that was the call. That was the conversation that I was looking for and it is not. I told Mr. Cedric that I wanted to talk to the man that made those promises to me. And that's not you, Mr. Cedric. So I was very clear that until I meet with President Biden, and by the way, it's already been more than 900 victims ago since I arrived, then I will be fine because I have very specific things that I want to discuss with him.

KEILAR: He took part in an event that you were part of, explain -- when you talk about the promises that the president has made, explain them as you see them.

OLIVER: He took part in an event that, like any politician, that is running for any office, will be glad to be part of. I was presenting him in a rally in Florida. President Biden needed more Latino community supporting his campaign. So my wife and myself were opening this event for him. Before that we had -- this was the second time that we were -- had the chance to talk for a few minutes and this is when he told me that he is willing to solve this problem, which I believe, I still believe, and the fact that he already did a lot getting together Republicans and Democrats to work for better solutions in terms of gun violence.

KEILAR: You know, we look at Congress, and Congress has essentially thrown its hands up in the air. They are just deadlocked on this issue. The White House sent you a statement trying to highlight some of the things that President Biden has done on ghost guns, on stabilizing braces, on encouraging states to drop -- adopt red flag laws like the one that Florida passed in the wake of Parkland that's been employed, you know, thousands of times at this point.

What do you say to that?

OLIVER: Well, I say that announcing and encouraging, that's something that I can do. Right? And I'm not the president of the United States. We just heard the sheriff in Florida thanking God, for the grace of God, they were able to stop a mass shooting. So that's not right. We cannot rely on the grace of God and not have our politicians moving on. If I need to be OK with everything that this administration has done, that means that some bills are on hold in Congress, and now we need to wait for Senate.

I had a meeting with Chris Murphy yesterday, and I asked him the same question, what are you going to do with those? What's going to happen? So, no, that's it. We're working on them and at some point -- and that will never happen. Those bills don't save lives. Put it that way. Laws might save lives. But as long as you have a bill that is not passing, it's not going anywhere, we're not moving forward.

In the meantime, people are dying, kids are dying, kids are sick of this, they showed yesterday, hundreds of kids in front of the White House, because someone was waiting for this to happen. And now it is happening. Now I need to hold Joe Biden accountable because I like him, because I voted for him, and because I want to be along with him, the ones that protect our kids and create a better future.

KEILAR: How long are you willing to stay outside the White House?

OLIVER: I am willing to stay there until I get my meeting. I don't have any rush. I didn't have any plans for Christmas. So now I have one. Actually I'm going to spend my birthday there on Sunday. So, yes. This is a new -- my wife is here now. So that makes everything easier. And I think this is convenient for everyone. I think that this meeting will also allow President Biden to have someone witnessing what he's planning to do and once I get out of that meeting, I will let everyone know that this president is the one that he is -- he is that person that made those promises and he will accomplish all those.

KEILAR: Manuel, you are clearly tireless. We have seen how creative you are.