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New Day
Flint Schools Go Remote Indefinitely; Covid Crackdown on Hamsters. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired January 25, 2022 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:30:00]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Struggling with this decision. CNN's Adrienne Broaddus is joining us now.
Adrienne, what went into this decision?
ADRIENNE BROADDUS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was a tough decision, and parents I spoke with are conflicted. One mom says she appreciates the district's desire to keep students and staff safe. When it comes to remote learning, she says her kids are already behind. And like this, they can't survive.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KALIA CANNON, THIRD GRADER: When I put down 10 plus five, it equals 15.
Once I'm done with seven, I just count to four.
BROADDUS (voice over): On a cold night in Flint, Michigan.
LAKIA CANNON, PARENT: And how many in the one's place.
BROADDUS: Lakia Cannon helps her children, eight-year-old Kalia.
KALIA CANNON: Ten plus one equals 11.
L. CANNON: Yeah! Go baby.
BROADDUS: And nine-year-old son Katarious (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I do this in a Google slides presentation.
BROADDUS: With homework.
KALIA CANNON: Then we count up to see what makes it to 14. L. CANNON: Boo-ya (ph).
BROADDUS: The kids have only been in the classroom a few months over the last two years.
KALIA CANNON: I miss like talking to my friends and like -- and like eating with them and like having fun with them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to go to other (ph) school.
BROADDUS: Citing the recent surge in Covid cases, Flint Community Schools announced they would continue remote learning until further notice. No return date on the calendar. This decision, a contrast to cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York, pushing to keep schools open. Something President Biden wants.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're not going back to closing schools. Schools should stay open.
BROADDUS: The CDC says multiple studies show transmission of Covid-19 in school settings is usually lower than or similar to community transmission when districts put the right prevention strategies in place. In Flint, parents are struggling with the decision to continue remote learning.
L. CANNON: I have to be able to make a living so that I can pay for a roof over our heads, so I can pay for food. And if I can't have someone who can sit with the kids during their school hours, then I have to.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, what are you doing? Are you in?
BROADDUS: Lakia's mother Beverly helps out by bringing the children to a local senior's center where she's director.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I put them across the hall in my little conference room and one at one table, one at another table on opposite end with their headphones.
BROADDUS: An option many families don't have.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you see H2O anywhere?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kevelin Jones, superintendent of Flint Community Schools, stands by the decision he made to continue remote learning indefinitely.
KEVELIN JONES, SUPERINTENDENT, FLYNT COMMUNITY SCHOOLS: When the surge happened as of January 13th, the positivity rate is 38 percent, and -- and it was climbing. And so we made the decision to have them out until this surge begins to decline.
BROADDUS: Jones said the district was allocated nearly $150 million in federal funds to make improvements to slow the spread of the virus. Renovations have been made, but there's still more work. JONES: Our ventilation is not where it needs to be to ensure total
safety. And so we are working at that. And we've been working at that for the last year or so.
BROADDUS: Jones says he isn't willing to risk losing anyone again.
BROADDUS (on camera): How has Covid robbed you?
JONES: I lost my father, you know. I lost my hero. I hear him in the back of my head, make sure you're doing what's best for children.
BROADDUS (voice over): And while some say distance learning is the worst option, Jones says it's best for now.
JONES: You're going to see your friends. Right now, let's just stay safe. Hang in there.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROADDUS: His message to the children is, think of this as a gift. Returning to the classroom a gift. For example, during Christmas, you wait a whole month to open your gifts. And going back into the classroom will be a gift.
He also noted the district has air purifiers in each classroom. But not only did Covid kill his father. A week after his father died, Covid ended the life of his uncle and nephew. So, he has some real- life experiences as he's making these tough decisions.
Brianna and John.
KEILAR: Yes, his personal toll is certainly significant.
Adrienne, thank you so much for that report.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Look, no one's saying these decisions are easy.
KEILAR: No.
BERMAN: And they're not. And people have gone through so much personal loss there. But education, the idea of framing it as a gift, it's a right for kids. And these kids are, for whatever -- you know, whatever the justification of it is, they are losing. They are losing time they are not going to get back in the classroom.
[06:35:03]
And I think the default needs to be to figure out a way to get them back in. Indefinitely? No end point? That's tough.
KEILAR: Yes, I mean, look, the hope is that omicron kind of, you know, quickly blows out and then they can head back to school.
But theses reminds -- this sort of reminds me, I think especially in the face of omicron, some of these decisions that they're making, they're very -- they're almost very difficult physics problems, right? You've got all the effects on the kids. What is -- what happens in the out years, as they would say in Congress, right? What happens ten years down the line there? What happens now for how many students, you know? And these are the things to be -- to be weighed. We know that community spread is higher than school spread. Is that the case with omicron? You know, so many questions still that I think they're struggling with.
Ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS: Do you think inflation is a political liability heading into the midterms?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That's a great asset.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
BIDEN: More inflation. What a stupid son of a bitch.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Well, President Biden there caught on a hot mic, calling out a Fox reporter. What he did to try to make amends.
Plus, a Democratic congressman says his office is getting calls from Tucker Carlson viewers angry that the U.S. is not siding with Russia over Ukraine.
BERMAN: And, heroic Capitol Officer Eugene Goodman breaking his silence on his experiences since the January 6th attack. Why he says what happened could have easily been a blood bath.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:40:53]
KEILAR: A hero police officer who protected the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, someone that you have seen no doubt many times on video, is breaking his silence. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, seen her directing Senator Mitt Romney away from rioters to safety. He also held off a mob of rioters by luring them up a flight of stairs away from lawmakers.
Just listen to him describe this harrowing ordeal on the "3 Brothers No Sense" podcast.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OFFICER EUGENE GOODMAN, CAPITOL POLICE: So when I got down there, down the stairs, I -- and got confronted by all of them, I was back pedaling back to where I had last seen help. And they looked to be coming my way, but I wasn't sure. So -- and by the time I got up the stairs, they -- they were there. I was like oh, hell, they're actually in the building. I didn't -- I
honestly didn't know that they were that far in the building. So -- and then they lock eyes on me right away. And then, just like that, I was in it. In any situation like that, that's the first -- you want to deescalate, but, at the same time, you want to survive first, you know what I mean?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
GOODMAN: It could have been -- easily been a blood bath. So, kudos to everybody there that showed a measure of restraint with regards to deadly force because it could have been bad. Really, really bad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Now Goodman also touched on some positive experiences since January 6th, including escorting then Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris on the day of the inauguration.
I'll tell you, I forgot that we hadn't heard from him, Berman, because I've seen him so in times, you know?
BERMAN: He played such an important role. You know, Mitt Romney certainly knows Officer Goodman there. And, look, it's a year later. These memories don't fade for people. And I imagine what he wants as much as anything is justice.
KEILAR: Yes. No, and, look, he's walking up that flight of stairs that he was on. I used to cover Congress and I remember thinking, that's not just a flight of stairs, it's right outside the Senate chamber, you know? So, this is something that he's walking up and down those stairs, as are other police officers every single day, like you said.
BERMAN: All right, a journalist so fearful for her life she told her country's leader, then she was shot dead. The swirling controversy ahead.
KEILAR: Plus, singer Eric Clapton once again continuing his anti-vax nonsense. This time he's pushing a hypnosis lie.
And, baby, now we got "Bad Blood" with Taylor Swift. Say it ain't so? What one musician said about her song writing that was untrue, and got ugly.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:47:49]
BERMAN: The world's most powerful telescope reaching its final destination nearly one million miles from earth. NASA's James Webb Telescope has taken more than a month to reach its designated orbit point. Scientists hope it will enable them to look as back in time as 13 billion years ago when the first stars and galaxies were forming and provide clues as to the origins of the universe.
KEILAR: Singer Eric Clapton continuing his parade of anti-vax nonsense. And this time he says he believes people vaccinated against coronavirus are under mass hypnosis. And he is very serious about this. In an interview, Clapton, who is vaccinated, argued that subliminal messaging hidden in advertising is what's leading people to get vaccinated. Obviously, this is totally B.S. and it's discredited by scientists to boot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAYLOR SWIFT, MUSICIAN (singing): I stay out too late.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Taylor Swift firing back at the front man of Blur, who said that Swift doesn't write her own songs. Swift said, quote, I was such a big fan of yours until I saw this. I write all of my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and so damning. You don't have to like my songs, but it's really f-ed up to try and discredit my writing.
Wow.
She also later said that she actually wrote that tweet, which was the funniest part.
KEILAR: That was, yes.
BERMAN: Right?
KEILAR: That was hilarious.
BERMAN: The front man -- the Blur guy did apologize later and somehow claimed that his conversation was reduced to click bait.
KEILAR: Yes, I don't buy -- I don't buy his response, by the way, Berman. Seemed like --
BERMAN: Me neither.
KEILAR: No. No.
Rapper Dr. Dre launching a debate over who could possibly challenge Eminem in the live battle series Verzuz -- am I saying that right, I hope so -- after posting this video on his Instagram.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[06:50:02]
KEILAR: Wow. Versus. I totally messed that up.
OK, Dre captioned the video asking the question, Eminem versus who? Now, keep in mind, the two are performing together next month at the Super Bowl. All right, Bob Dylan, not seen there, there he is, becoming the latest
artist. He sold his recorded song catalog. The recordings of all his songs for a reported $200 million to Sony. It also includes the rights to multiple future releases from Dylan. Previously he had sold the written songs, which for Dylan is such a big deal because so many of his songs have been covered by other people because they're so good, so iconic and worth the money. Unlike, I'm just saying, some of the other deals we've learned about.
KEILAR: You're not going to say which.
So, Berman, I actually -- when I was little and we would road trip in the Keilar family, if my sister and I misbehaved, my parents would play Bob Dylan. We were little. We didn't understand the songwriting genius of Bob Dylan. We just knew that he had this voice that kind of like grated our ear. If we were well behaved, they would play Simon and Garfunkel.
BERMAN: Well, first of all, there's some absolutely bizarre like social games being played in the Keilar family there that I won't get into. I -- whether --
KEILAR: We laughed. It was jokey. But, yes, no, they made us.
BERMAN: Were there electric shocks involved also? I don't know. This is --
KEILAR: I mean that's about how we related to Bob Dylan, which I look back on sort of shamefully. But we were like, who is this guy? And, to prove my point, randomly last night, I played "Tambourine Man" for my five-year-old, and he felt the exact same way about it as I did when I was little.
BERMAN: Hmm, we're going to have to talk about this much more going forward.
KEILAR: We will. More offline.
All right, so, up next, hamsters in Hong Kong, they're getting slaughtered. Look how cute. Why? And what pet owners there are doing. The lengths they're going to, to save their furry friends.
BERMAN: Plus, two big, breaking stories on Covid. Israel now recommending a fourth vaccine dose for all adults.
And getting news from Pfizer about a vaccine specific to omicron. Stand by.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:56:28]
KEILAR: In Hong Kong, pet owners are being forced to surrender their infected hamsters amid the city's drastic zero Covid cull order, euthanizing thousands of small pets. Now, many fur parents are racing to move away. They are actually turning to private luxury jets to evacuate their pets.
CNN's Ivan Watson live in Hong Kong with more.
You know, this is like a twist out of a movie, Ivan.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's really, really strange. But, Brianna, two years into this pandemic, Hong Kong's largely cut itself off from international travel. It has some of the harshest Covid quarantine restrictions in the world. And people are trying to leave. But their finding, as one aviation industry insider put it, easier to get a seat for your child on a commercial flight than for your pet. And that's creating this bizarre phenomenon in the city's struggling aviation sector.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WATSON (voice over): Pets on private jets. This may sound like a ridiculous luxury, but charter flights for pets are a booming Covid pandemic business in Hong Kong, an international financial hub that's increasingly cut itself off from the outside world while trying to keep Covid cases here at zero.
OLGA RADIYNSKA, DIRECTOR: We have been overwhelmed with the amount of requests to fly pets out -- out of Hong Kong.
WATSON (on camera): Well, why do you think the demand is going up now?
RADIYNSKA: Because a lot of people are leaving and a lot of people need to move their pets.
WATSON (voice over): Charter jet operators say due to government travel restrictions and temporary bans on dozens of airlines, there are almost no commercial flights available to transport pets. The most reliable alternative, private planes, costing around $22,000 for a person and their dog to fly direct from Hong Kong to New York.
RADIYNSKA: People love their fur babies. So, we are here to help them.
WATSON: The pressure on some pet owners mounted this month when Hong Kong authorities made a startling announcement. The city's top official blamed an outbreak of the Covid delta variant on hamsters.
WATSON (on camera): This isn't a joke. The Hong Kong government claims that hamsters imported from the Netherlands gave Covid to a pet shop worker at this store. And they've since ordered the closure of every pet shop in the city that sold small animals. They've also culled -- killed more than 2,500 hamsters, white rats, rabbits, chinchillas and guinea pigs.
WATSON (voice over): The authorities also told residents who bought hamsters on or after December 22nd to hand them over to be euthanized, prompting scenes like this, where animal rights activists tried to intercept pet hamsters before their handover to officials.
VANESSA BARRS, DIRECTOR OF VETERINARY AFFAIRS: Pet owners should not be worried about catching Covid from their animals. WATSON: Researcher and veterinarian Vanessa Barrs says the Hong Kong
government overreacted.
BARRS: We know that so far in the pandemic there have been over 350 million cases of Covid reported in humans. And of those 350 million cases that have been reported, there have been no confirmed cases of transmission of Covid from people's pets back to humans.
WATSON: After months with almost no infections, the walls of Hong Kong's Covid fortress seem to be crumbling. In just 48 hours, more than 200 people tested positive for Covid at this Hong Kong housing estate.
[07:00:01]
And this outbreak isn't being linked to hamsters.
But animal rights activists and some pet owners are still spooked.
