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tv   CNN Newsroom With Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto  CNN  September 22, 2020 6:00am-7:00am PDT

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vote yes on prop 25 to end money bail. ms. williams: we've been working hard... ms. robinson: ...to make learning fun again. ms. duncan: and making sure our students can succeed. ms. zamora: we're with you every step of the way. ms. robinson: i know it's a challenging time. ms. zamora: no one wants to be back in the classroom more than teachers. ms. williams: we have missed you so much. mr. hardesty: but we all have to be safe. ms. robinson: because we're all in this together. narrator: making our school buildings safer. ms. robinson: working together, we can make it a great year. narrator: because the california teachers association knows quality public schools make a better california for all of us. very good tuesday morning to you. i'm jim sciutto. >> i'm poppy harlow. well, today, the nation is right on the verge of 200,000 coronavirus deaths and the president is still downplaying
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the virus's impact on americans. listen to this from him at a rally. >> now we know it. it affects elderly people, elderly people with heart problems and other problems. if they have other problems that's what it really affects. that's it. you know, in some states thousands of people -- nobody young. below the age of 18 like nobody. it affects virtually nobody. it's an amazing thing. >> well, the fact is, 40,000 people young and old are being infected each day right now with covid-19 in this country. and the nation's top infectious disease expert, dr. anthony fauci, says the u.s. response to this virus is not exactly quote terrific. our dr. sanjay gupta is set to interview dr. fauci live and you will see it here. >> once again, the president denied the facts and data on
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covid. we're going to hear from president trump this morning at the u.n. general assembly. his speech comes as the battle over filling justice ruth bader ginsburg's seat in full swing here. republicans falling in line, despite very firm commitments they made four years ago not to push supreme court nominees during an election year. within hours, we'll know the timing it seems of a vote. but first let's get to cnn senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen on the u.s. passing this grim milestone. we're headed in this direction for some time. the concern, right, is at the same time we're seeing an uptick in daily infections but also deaths as well. what's behind it? >> that's right. the president is just wrong about who's dying in this country. and he's wrong about the direction we were going in. it would be nice if we were right and it would be nice if this would go away, but we have to look at the facts and the fact is it's not.
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let's look at the map of the united states. and i think this puts everything into perspective. look at those orange and red states. those are 24 states. almost half the country with the rates -- where the rates are going up, going in the wrong direction. there are eight states that are deep red there. that's where it's going up by more than 50%. so the rates two weeks ago versus this -- if you compare this past week to the week before, going up more than 50%. the yellow and the green states are where the rates are steady or going down. we have talked about this map many, many times and what we see is that things go up and down and up and down. unfortunately this just isn't going away. this is a roller coaster ride that we will be on for some time. >> so talking about another roller coaster, elizabeth. you were on with us 24 hours ago and explaining this updated cdc guidance on how covid spreads and aerosols, et cetera. then i almost couldn't believe
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the headline yesterday afternoon they flipped it back again. what it is and what should people believe? >> they did. i will tell you, poppy, i have been covering the cdc for the better part of three decades, i have never seen anything like this. this is really, really unusual. so there's just a back -- to back up for a minute. there's been a debate if covid spreads just directly. in other words, two people are within six feet of each other, one of them has covid. they sneeze on the other person, they cough, they spit a little when they talk and it gets spread that way or could it be spread by aerosolized particles? that means someone with covid, coughs, spits into the air and the particles sort of hang out, they hang out in the air as the little like aerosolized particles and someone can walk into the particles. in other words, one, the first scenario you only have to worry about if you're within six feet and the second scenario it could
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spread further than six feet. the cdc thus far had focused on the first one. on friday, they mentioned aerosolized and yesterday they took it down and said that was a mistake, we didn't mean to put up that, we're still trying to figure this out. >> wow. elizabeth, thank you. >> yeah. understand why people have questions about why what they're hearing from government agencies. we're joined by dr. paul sacks from boston's brigham & women's hospital. first, i want to start with the president's outlandish statement that the coronavirus affects nobody. those who are older and those with underlying conditions are more vulnerable to this. just tell us so folks at home know what the facts are in terms of who's vulnerable and what we're learning over the last several months. >> sure. we know now that young people are vulnerable getting severe
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covid-19, including those with underlying problems and there's an obesity epidemic in the united states and that's a leading factor for young people getting the covid-19. it's not a benin infection in young people overall and something we should all be afraid of. >> i want your reaction to something i was really struck by from bill gates. he said a few days ago that the president's travel ban on china which is what the administration points to as a success story in trying to mitigate the spread of covid, he believes that may have made it worse and he explains why. listen to this. >> you know what happened, 40,000 people came out of china because we didn't ban the residents and citizens from coming in. we created the rush and we didn't have the ability to test and quarantine the people so they seated the disease here. >> do you think that's correct? and if it is, what's the lesson learned for maybe this second
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wave if we see it? >> well, travel bans could potentially prevent the infection in a country. but not if they're instituted solely for the people who are traveling as citizens of the foreign countries and the same thing happened in europe. when the travel ban was set up for europe, what happened was that there was a rush of american citizens who came home around that time and many from countries that had very high incidents of covid-19. and unfortunately many of the individuals came home from europe brought covid-19 with them, so we know that the bad outbreaks that happen in the northeast in particular in new york city and boston and philadelphia, et cetera, was a result of actually -- that were instituted not across the board, but for everybody -- just for foreigners coming into the united states during that time. it's really a risky -- and the other thing to mission we were not equipped to screen the people.
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they were not screened by symptoms or by testing. >> yeah. we talked about the cdc's flip-flop on this guidance and not the first time. i mean, there was a testing guidance flip-flop a couple of weeks ago. i just wonder about the crisis of confidence here given that these issues are not confined to the cdc. you know, questions about the fda exaggerating the benefits of convalescent plasma on the eve of the rnc. you have someone working for the nih messaging who is a twitter troll attacking dr. fauci at the same time, right? what as a doctor is the level of confidence now in these key institutions and what effect does that have as we go towards a vaccine, right, which is what everyone is looking forward to here as an ultimate solution. >> those of us in the field know exactly hard working and intelligent people at cdc, fda
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and the nih and there might be individuals there who are succumbing to pressure from the white house. we understand that the virus is spread by the respiratory tract and by aerosols and in addition to poor ventilation. i think the cdc was moving in the right direction and why they changed it nobody knows. historically the cdc rarely puts out everything before it's considerably considered so there's something going on after their scientific effort is being altered. >> we appreciate you this morning. now the stunning headline, a headline that comes 42 days from the election. this is according to "the washington post," broke the story. a recent cia assessment reveals russian president vladimir putin is right now likely interfering
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and quote probably directing an influence campaign to undermine joe biden. >> cnn's alex mark hard is following this. this ukrainian politician, the intelligence believes is a russian agent, is the same person who's been meeting with rudy giuliani, the president's personal attorney on this. tell us the many layers we're learning about russian interference in this election and cooperation on this? >> yeah, echoes of 2016. there's a lot in this report and this goes a step farther than what the intelligence community has said publicly in terms of what russia is doing in the 2020 campaigns, specifically to denigrate joe biden. this report in "the washington post" cites the cia report saying that putin is probably behind these russian efforts to denigrate joe biden. this comes from what's known as
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the cia's worldwide intelligence review, a classified document that goes out to national security officials and oversight committees around the u.s. government. this is the top line of that report according to "the washington post." we assess that president vladimir putin and the senior most russian officials are aware of and probably directing russia's influence operations aimed at denigrating the former u.s. vice president so joe biden. supporting the u.s. president donald trump and fuelling public discord ahead of the u.s. election in november. now, this is very much in line with what we have heard from the intelligence community that russia is working against joe biden in favor of donald trump. jim, as you mentioned 2016 after that election the intelligence community assessed that president putin had personally ordered that operation to then denigrate hillary clinton. now, this cia report goes on to detail its analysis about the ukrainian lawmaker who has been
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singled out by the intelligence communityhim as a russian agent close connections to the russian intelligence services. perhaps what's most interesting in the new report is that the cia talks about his relations with a prominent member of the trump campaign. the report doesn't say who that is, but we do know that he has very close ties to rudy giuliani though no one was named in this report. >> and we have pictures of rudy giuliani meeting with derkach that he posted. remarkable to see repetition of 2016. much appreciated. still to come this hour, dr. sanjay gupta will sit down with the nation's top infectious disease specialist, dr. anthony fauci, for a live conversation. that's just moments away. we'll bring it to you live. and next, republicans say they have the votes for a quick
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confirmation of the president's supreme court nominee. that does not mean the fight is over.
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welcome back this morning republican leadership says they have the votes to fill the late ruth bader ginsburg's seat. they are set to meet in a few hours from now to talk about time on a confirmation vote. let's go to lauren fox on capitol hill. good morning. some key republican senators overnight grassley, gardner, making clear they're behind this thing. >> reporter: exactly. you know, yesterday when we talked we had a list of republicans we were watching very closely to see where they fell on this conversation about whether or not they'll be comfortable moving forward with president trump's nominee for the supreme court ahead of the election. now we know, the answer is yes. and i think that how quickly this has all materialized on capitol hill, how quickly republicans have fallen in line
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behind their leadership is very important. i wanted to take you to senator lindsey graham. he's the chairman of the judiciary committee. this is what he said about thinking right now on when to move this nomination. >> the nominee is going to be supported by every republican in the judiciary committee and we've got the votes to confirm the judge -- the justice on the floor of the senate before the election and that's what's coming. >> reporter: and of course, it's worth noting that senator susan collins and senator lisa murkowski of alaska said they're not comfortable moving ahead before the election, but democrats needed four republicans to block this nomination and while we are still waiting to hear what senator mitt romney, a republican, a moderate member who in the past has voted with democrats on things like impeachment, that would only make three, poppy. that falls short of the four the democrats would need. so full steam ahead up here on capitol hill when it comes to this nomination. >> perhaps the reason for bret
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stephens open letter to mitt romney, pleading with him to vote against i guess the president on this one as he did on impeachment. thanks a lot. jim? well, you heard it from lauren fox, grassley and gardner, just the latest to say they support a supreme court vote before the election. and to be clear, contradicting positions they took four years ago when a democratic president nominated a supreme court justice months before election day. responding to president obama's nomination then of merrick garland, gardner said that the american people deserve a role in the process as the next supreme court justice will influence the country for years to come. senator grassley said then, quote, the american people shouldn't be denied a voice. and as recently as this past july, the former senate judiciary chair told cnn, quote, if i were chairman of the committee, i couldn't move forward with it, but you'd have to ask graham what he's going to do.
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so what will senator graham do? he says the republicans have the votes to confirm someone before election day, again contradicting the very firm position he took in 2016. >> i want you to use my words against me. if there's a republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the term, lindsey graham will say -- you can use my words against me and you'd be absolutely right. >> listen to that. you'd be absolutely right to use his words against him. he said himself. of course the architect of all of this is the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell who himself in 2016 said quote, this nomination ought to be made by the president in the process of electing this year. note the inconsistencies, there in 2016 and the contradictions
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now. what they're saying then and now is the exact opposite. they broke their public word. we are joined now by senior legal analyst laura coats and cnn legal analyst carrie cordero. looks like they have the votes, carrie, although we have to see where senator romney stands. how quickly could there be a new supreme court justice confirmed for life before the election and when would they sit? >> well, it depends on how quickly they actually move to the hearing. it certainly sounds like they're going to move very, very quickly. and so if they have the votes, then they'll be able to do it. look, the issue is, first of all, there is an incredible amount of hypocrisy. so -- >> carrie, sincere apologies. dr. anthony fauci has just begun his conversation with our sanjay gupta.
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let's join in live. >> -- the fact it's expected 200,000 americans will have died of this coronavirus within the next -- a little bit of time here. maybe during our discussion which is an unbelievable number to think about. you know, dr. fauci, you and i are both doctors. no one likes to think about deaths being preventible. no family member likes to be told their family member's death is preventible and yet so many are. how do you think about this and what is the metric of success or failure in your mind when it comes for this pandemic in the united states? >> well, i mean, obviously -- thank you for having me, sanjay. the metric for me is the concern i have had and continue to have for this base line of cases that we have every day. these, you know, going back and forth between 35,000 to 40,000
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cases a day and those will lead to hospitalizations and to deaths. the idea of 200,000 deaths is sobering and in some respects stunning. we do have in our capability even before we get a vaccine which we will get reasonably soon, we have the capability by doing things that we have been speaking about for so long, that can prevent the transmission and prevent the morbidity that we see. the simple health things that are not universally being implemented in our society, in our very big country with a lot of heterogeneity and i'm talking about the universal wearing of masks, the avoiding of crowds, trying to stay outdoors more than indoors. the frequent washing of hands. we said them so many times but they're not universally
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implemented or employed and that to me is something that is serious because as we all know, we're looking straight at the fall coming upon us. we're looking at the winter coming upon us. if we don't get that baseline down sharply to a very low level and the reason we need it there is because when you have a very low baseline and you start to get the blips as i call them, you don't want them to turn into surges or rebounds. when you have a lot of cases floating around, it's much more difficult to contain that than if you have a relatively low number. so that when those cases appear, you can contain as opposed to having to jump over to mitigation. >> you know, i mean, containment just to give some context in this country would be between 100,000 and maybe a couple
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hundred thousand cases a day. we're more than ten fold that. to the extent that the 1918 flu epidemic was a model, what they found in the first six months of the year 75,000 people died. then it was the second wave, dr. fauci, during 1918, that was so disastrous. 195,000 people died in one month. and that month was october. how worried are you? i hear you on all the public health measures, i want to ask you about that in a minute. but how worried are you right now about this fall? i mean, how bad do you think this could get? >> well, sanjay, it's the balance of not trying to frighten people, but at the same time trying to jolt them into the realization of what needs to
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be done to protect themselves as individuals. if you look at the country some areas are doing quite well and it's not spiking and going in the wrong direction. there are some places that are doing quite well. we can use them as a model. namely, of getting a low level of test positivity where you're talking about 1% or less of a fraction of a less. that's not universal throughout the country so you're asking me a direct question, what worries me the most. what worries me is that in those areas of the country, which is a large country heterogenous in many ways, if you don't have the control now as we get to the end of september of getting such a low percentage that it is entirely manageable, when things change that work against you and what works against you now is the fact that we're getting into a weather season where people
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will be spending more time indoors. and depending upon your own social situation, indoors for you or another person may mean poor ventilation, poor air flow. and difficulty getting the kind of removal of anything that would lead to spread. you know, you talk about particles. you talk about air, singing, coughing, sneezing, all those types of things. those are the things that i get concerned about as we get into october and november and december. i'd like to see us go into that at such a low level that when you have the inevitable cases you can handle them. when they get out of hand then i worry. i think we can do it, sanjay. i don't want to make this kind of a dark thing that oh, my goodness, it's inevitable that we are going to get into serious trouble. the fact is we know we could get into serious trouble if we don't do certain things. and i hope that that
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understanding is not going to frighten people, but will jolt them into realizing that it is within our hands to prevent that. we can't throw our hands up and say, it's hopeless, it's going to happen anyway. that is unacceptable to take that approach. on the other hand it's not acceptable to realize that we are entering into a risk period and we have to act accordingly as we enter into that risk period. >> yeah, i hear you, dr. fauci. i think there's always this balance i think as you and i have talked about between being hopeful and being honest. i think you and i are both hopeful, optimistic people by nature. but panic is about presenting it clearly with a plan. you have talked about the plans but i worry that the plans have not been followed. i think it gets to the idea of, you know, people who are worried about this, but aren't sure who
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to trust or what information to believe, which seems like a genuine concern. more so than maybe even i realized as i talk to people over the last months. yeah, but the guy said this on masks one day and now they're saying this and then, you know, the vaccine. whatever it might be where should people get their trusted information do you think? i mean, it used to be the cdc, right? i mean, tom frieden was out there on ebola every day. rich besser was talking about h1 h1n1. exact for the average person, where do they get the knowledge and information? >> well, they need to get it by following the scientific data and the scientific evidence. i do that, sanjay. i have been doing that for months in the fact that i'm out there in media and one of the
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things that the public needs to understand is that this is an evolving situation. how can i trust anybody because things change and what changes is the fact that we are in an evolving outbreak. and the things that we did not know a few months ago allowed us to at the time use the scientific information to make recommendations that were appropriate at the time and were telling us at the same time. as we learned more, things changed. it's appropriate to make changes in recommendations based on the additional knowledge that you know. a classic example of that, sanjay, that you know very well is that back then, we were not aware that 40 to 45% of people were asymptomatic. nor were we aware that a substantial proportion of people who get infected get infected from people who are without symptoms. that makes it overwhelmingly
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important for everyone to wear a mask. so when people say, well, why did you change your stance and why are you emphasizing masks so much now when back then you didn't and in fact you said you shouldn't because you said there was a shortage of masks. well, the data now are very, very clear and that's why we have to act on the data. so we need to put that nonsense behind us about well, they keep changing their minds. masks work. physical distancing works, avoiding crowds work. thank you, sanjay, for giving me the opportunity to be on television now to say that. that is the fact. so people should not worry that that's wrong or worry that that's something that is going to change. that is where we are and it's based on fact. >> we are all learning together and there's a certain amount of humility that i think needs to accompany a novel virus. i mean, it's something we really didn't know about prior -- you
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know, at this time last year certainly. you know, i do want to ask about this idea of how the virus is transmitted. you know, people learn that someone coughs or sneezes that's how we typically think of the virus being transmitted. the respiratory droplets, they're heavy, they may fall on the ground, can't jump more than six feet or so, you can get it from surfaces potentially, but that was less likely, although possible. now there's a conversation i think it's a significant and important one around aerosols. the fact that the virus is so tiny, the genetic material can stay suspended in air. could linger for a long time and could travel much further than six feet. especially in indoor, poorly ventilated places. the science seems like it's pretty clear on this for a while. even going back to june, there was some pretty significant papers saying this can travel
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and infect via aerosol. the cdc seemed to agree on friday and then they took it down off of the website yesterday. what's the truth? can this virus travel and infect people via an aerosol kind of like smoke in the air? >> the evidence i have seen and the conversations i have had for people who understand aerosol particle physics more than i do say that there's no doubt that what you talk about of various size particles that they can stay in the air. now, the question is what is the extent, what is the contribution of aerosol, namely, so that people understand, a particle that isn't aerosolized is one that's in a large enough particle that it will essentially drop and go down to the ground before it travels for a while or hangs around in a room and recirculates. the definition of what people
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call aerosol means that it doesn't, because it goes right down. i can hang around for a while and recirculate. so when you look at what's gone on and the evidence we have seen so far, you can assume that a component -- we don't know and here's where you have to be humble enough and honest enough that we don't know the extent to which the aerosol component is contributing to transmission. you can make a reasonable assumption, sanjay, that some aspect of transmission can be and is by aerosol. the interesting thing about that, it doesn't change anything that we have been saying. it means wear your mask, it means avoid close contact. it means avoid crowd and it means what we have been saying the third or the fourth thing they mentioned to you a little while ago is that outdoors is better than indoors. because if you have aerosol indoor, you can have some
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recirculation. there have been some case reports in the literature of situations, for example, in restaurants where it looks like it almost had to be an aerosol spread. whether or not that's 3%, 5%, 10% of the spread, we don't know. but in some respects, sanjay, it doesn't matter because the things that you want to do to avoid that make sure there's good ventilation. when you're indoors, keeping the windows open. wearing a mask indoor. when you're outdoor, do all of things i have said. so rather than bending ourselves out of shape trying to figure out what percentage it is or is not, or how well it's proven, make an assumption that some component of it is aerosol, and act accordingly. which means do what we have been telling you to do all along. it doesn't change what you're doing. >> yeah. it's a good point. i mean, i think the cdc, you know, having put that on the website and then taking it down not mentioning aerosols at all
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as things stand right now is part of the issue. because i think again, it's -- i'm glad we're clarifying this because bottom line is that people should wear masks because you have to assume there could be virus potentially in the air and you have to assume that you could potentially be carrying the virus. so all of that i think is an important point. but, you know, i think again going back to 1918 what sort of created that huge spike in the fall, people starting to cluster indoors. so schools, dr. fauci. kids, my kids, you know as you know we have talked about this. started the year learning virtually. but restaurants, bars, places that are indoors where you have to take off your mask presumably to eat or drink. if the aerosol sort of mode of transmission is possible and even likely, is it reasonable at all that those type of places should be open right through? how could you possibly keep people safe if this could be
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transmitted through the air as you described? >> you know, sanjay, it gets back to what i've said multiple times before and that is it depends on the level of the virus in the community that you live. there's pushback that the recommendations that are too stringent and interfering with people's freedom or getting in the way of opening up the economy. that's not the case at all. you have to adjust your public health measures in the context of the situation you're in. there are areas that, you know, we call them green zones, yellow zones. red zones, and then there's a dark green zone which means it's really, really good when you look at the level of test positivity that's very, very low. under those circumstances, you can have a degree of indoor restaurants, sitting down, somewhat normality. wearing masks if you can. taking them off when you eat,
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doing things like that. when you're in the yellow zone you have to be more careful. you might want to have good, better ventilation. distancing of chairs and what have you. when you're in a red zone, you've got to really be careful. and in fact, just go back to something that hasn't changed. when we were talking about how to open the economy we all want to do, you can do that through the implementation of good public health measures. public health measures don't need to be the obstacle to opening the economy. they should be the gateway and the roadway to get to opening the economy. so if you go through what we did from the white house press conferences, we had the gateway, we had the phase one, phase two, phase three all of that was dependent upon what the level of infection was in the community you're in. so if you're in a situation
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where the level of infection is going down, you could make the progression from one to the other to the other. if we do that carefully, and abide by it in a universal way where everybody does that, not only would you prevent the surges, but the place where you have levels you can bring them down by doing that. if we had done that universally and you see what happened when we went to the surges that went up to 70,000. our baseline was 20,000, sanjay. we went to up about 70,000 and certain states understandably tried to open up. some did it well, some did not. the doing not led to the surge. now we're up there and we're down to around 30,000 or 40,000 new cases. we have to keep that slope coming down and you do that by looking at where you are, in what region of the country and
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acting accordingly according to the guidelines. sanjay, that's not rocket science, it's pretty clear. but we've got to do it together. we've got to be in this together. when you have weak links in the chain and some components of society are not doing it, it just makes it very difficult for the rest. so if we want to enter the fall and the winter at a really low level, we have to start acting now to do the things we have all been saying. >> we're almost at the end of september already so these things -- as you point out they have to happen now. a lot of people are banking on the vaccine it seems, dr. fauci. we don't need to do and these public health measures, the vaccine is coming. you know, i have done a lot of reporting on this and you have been kind enough to give your time to talk about this. but the what strikes me, we don't know that at all in terms of what the data is showing and
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we shouldn't know because it's blinded. i mean, how are people making the projections about the calendar, it will come out by april or by -- you know? we don't know what the data shows yet. am i wrong? >> no, you are perfectly correct, sanjay, and i think people can have projections of what they think might happen. no one knows. the system is a double blind placebo controlled system, which means there's an independent data and safety monitoring board that has nothing to do with politics or politicians, that has nothing to do essentially with the company or the fda or the people who are doing the trial. it's an independent group that at predetermined times looks at the data. you have one unblinded or two unblinded stat us titions.
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they look at the data and if it's reached a predetermined state of infection, namely all of the infections in one, or divided between the two, between placebo and vaccine group, if you don't have an answer, they say, thank you very much, continue the trial. if things are going badly, that more people are getting infected in one, they'll say, wait a minute, you have a problem, stop the trial, it's not working. or if it looks like, my goodness, the data looks good. there are many more infections in the placebo group versus the vaccine group and in fact, it has reached that point in the trial where the original design of the trial says you're good to go. you can now stop. at that point, the person who is the statistician in the data and safety monitoring board makes that known to the company who then looks at the data and says,
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should i or should i not submit it to the fda for whatever they're going to submit it with. either an emergency use authorization or directly go for a license. but today, sanjay, nobody knows what those data are because no one has looked at them. they're blinded. having said that, i have said that i'm cautiously optimistic from what i have seen of the preliminary studies that we did know, namely, the small number that were in the phase one and the phase two trial that i'm cautiously optimistic that we will have a positive effect. now, i don't know when we're going to be able to say that. my projection is that it likely would be november and december. it is conceivable that it could be october. i mean there's no doubt that that could happen. i think more likely it would be november and december and then at that point, if one or more
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vaccines reaches that critical point then the fda will make their decision and then we can start rolling out the vaccines. because right now, the thing that people need to understand is that even though we don't know what works and what doesn't work, the vaccines are being produced to be ready to administer if we get a good signal that it works. >> so many more questions about that. our time is running low, dr. fauci. but i do want to get to a viewer question. this says that president trump says he'd give the federal government an "a" or a "b" in the handling of the response. what kind of grade would you give? i know you don't like these sort of questions. >> no, i don't. take a look at the numbers and make up your own mind. you know, we don't need a sound
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bite from me. take a look at the numbers. >> here's another viewer question. when/what month should i get a flu shot? >> yeah, you should get it no later than the end of october. if it's available now, you should get it now. don't wait until beyond october. the reason the cdc says that and they have a good point is that sometimes people wait because they feel well, maybe, the immunity will wane as we get into the winter and then the flu comes and you're not protected and you wind up getting the flu. so the cdc has always said some time in september and october, but no later than october 31st. >> finally, you know, this a conversation that comes up in my family all the time. i always tell people, young or old, you don't want this disease because sometimes there's this perception i'll just get it and get through it and then i'll be good to go, especially if i'm a young person.
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you don't want this disease. you heard the president saying it's just elderly people with heart disease that get this. by the way, my father who is probably watching right now is in his late 70s and he has heart disease ant it hurts me when people say just the elderly just get this disease because it find it disrespectful and it's not just them as well. >> no, it's not. two answers to your question, it's very disrespectful to me, i'm in my 70s, i'm like your father, so it isn't just the elderly and those with underlying conditions. it can be serious in young people. quantitatively for sure, it's much, much less as serious as a group in young individuals but the thing to remember, sanjay, there are a number of people in our society of substantial proportion who have underlying conditions and if you look at the two groups that are at risk for serious conditions, it's the
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elderly and people at any age with underlying conditions. underlying any age. so if you're a younger person, you know, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and you have diabetes, obesity, hypertension, heart disease, you are in the risk category for a serious disease. if you look at the number of americans and it's stunning who have these underlying conditions. such as obesity, you know? there are somewhat 25%, 30% of the population can fall into that. those people who have other underlying conditions are a substantial proportion of the population. so don't just think the elderly are the problem. true, people with underlying conditions, but those are not just isolated to the elderly. there are plenty of younger people who have underlying conditions that put them at risk. >> dr. fauci, thank you so much
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for your guidance through all of this. we appreciate your time. >> same here, thank you for having me. all right, that was our very own dr. sanjay gupta speaking with dr. anthony fauci live. this is all part of our cnn citizen by cnn virtual conference. what struck you, jim? >> well, that final answer there, right? i mean, the president claiming that covid-19 affects virtually nobody, in clear terms dr. fauci said it's not just the elderly and those with underlying conditions, it's in the data there. i think an important issue for our audience who think they're somehow immune to this if they're not older and don't have a serious underlying condition. >> i mean, you have interviewed dr. fauci a number of times and he's made a lot of news in his interviews with you and i think one of the pieces and news he made there was the vaccine time line. sanjay said how will we know it will be widely available by
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april and he said you're absolutely right, sanjay. >> listen, he's said consistently, trust the scientists and they're working hard as opposed to what you hear from the politicians, et cetera. we have talk about this, dr. fauci has been very sanguine for the time line, and he said it's possible by the end of the year if the data shows it's ready. he hasn't said ready by november 3rd, but it's coming soon. i think that's something we should take some hope and confidence from. >> yeah. 100%. okay, great interview. you can see it online shortly. we are moments away from the president's address to the u.n. general assembly. we'll bring you those remarks live. ke... like it's a mirror, dad. you know? alright, okay. how's that? is that how you hold a mirror? [ding] power e*trade gives you an award-winning mobile app
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all right. welcome back. right now millions of americans are still out of work, still struggling to make ends meet, and stimulus talks on capitol hill are continuing to fail as the pandemic enters what could be a grueling fall and winter season. that also has, by the way, the markets on edge. >> cnn's chief business correspondent christine romans joins us now. obviously congress is going to be dealing a lot with the senate and going forward. if the stimulus bill keeps fail, can't reach agreement there, what does that mean for a recovery? >> reporter: it means that summer recovery stalls, and you're already seeing signs of that. you'll recall in the spring we had a huge crash in the economy and then in the summer maybe half of that decline was crawled out of, right? so there's more work to go to get back to pre-pandemic levels and all of that stimulus was a
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shock absorber for millions families and went right back out into the economy and helped in the recovery. that money is gone. you're heading into the flu season. the u.s. coronavirus numbers are not good. they are going in the wrong direction. in europe you're seeing flare-ups in the uk and in western europe. that could lead to lockdowns there, so there's just a sense of unease that after some progress in the economy overall in the summer, that in the fall that's going to peter out. >> christine, there's also the debate that rages on about, you know, unemployment. >> right. >> and how much of an increase in benefits do you need, and there's new study now from the san francisco federal reserve that seems to strike against the white house and the gop argument that extending those $600 a week unemployment assistance actually halvers employment. here's larry kudlow to us just last month. >> i think it is disincentive to go back to work. we think we can create a much better balance to provide incentives to come back to work. >> so it's not a disincentive?
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>> reporter: economists at the san francisco fed really looked at this and found some really important angles of this. they called it essentially this money went right into american households and paid the bills and went right out into the economy, so this was an important stimulus, a much-needed stimulus. again, a shock absorber for american families. they said that the $600 was temporary and that the job offers weren't there, so people really couldn't be choosey, the san francisco fed economist said, about not taking a job. if a job was offered, they needed to take a be jo. job seekers did not have the luxury of being choosey in favor of continuing to receive benefits. we've said this a million times. in the normal times you can argue about whether these benefits would keep somebody from looking for a job in a healthy labor market. this is not a healthy labor market there. weren't jobs to take, and so this was an important shock absorber for millions of families, and that shock absorber is gone. >> it's why you look for the data on a lot of claims that you
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hear about this kind of stuff, and the data shows otherwise. christine romans, thank you very much. >> thank you. any minute now president trump will speak at the united nations general assembly. his comments just ahead.
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and get your free decision guide. discover how an all-in-one humana medicare advantage plan could save you money. there is no obligation, so call or go online right now. senator romney. he's just announced he will support a vote on the nominee before the election. have a listen. >> on the other hand, when there's a nominee of a party that's in the same party as the senate, then typically they do
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confirm. so the garland decision was consistent with that and the decision to proceed now with the president trump's nominee is also consistent with history. i came down on the side of the constitution and precedent as i've studied it and made the decision on that basis. >> senator romney, you said that in your release that you would look at qualifications. what qualifications are you looking for, and what would make you not consider someone that president trump is putting forward? >> i think it's straightforward in terms of the qualifications you look for, someone who is an expert in the law, someone with a record of fairness and judgment that you think is consistent with the law. i prefer choosing those folks who are, if you will, strict constructionists, meaning that they look at the law itself and the constitution as opposed to sort of looking into the sky and pulling out ideas that they think may be more appropriate than either the law or the constitution. i recognize that we -- we

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