Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Poppy Harlow And Jim

Reopening plans. The governor ordering indoor businesses such as restaurants, bars, wineries, movie theaters and museums to close again. Gyms, churches and hair salons also shutting down. This in the states 30 hardest hit counties. Los angeles and San Diego School districts, they have Just Announced they will start the year with online only classes. In florida, 48 hospitals across the state have not a single icu bed available. In the states largest Public Health system, that is jackson health, 200 employees have reported out sick with covid19. The state is reporting its second highest day of new cases that came just on monday, and sources tell cnn this morning that dr. Anthony fauci is staying on the Coronavirus Task force that is despite recent white house efforts to discredit him putting out a list of things they say he got wrong. Still this morning, hes offering up a dose of reality on where this country stands in the pandemic. This is a really serious problem. It is truly historic. We havent even begun to see the end of it yet. Lets get straight to Stephanie Elam who joins us again this hour in los angeles. Talk about what seemed to be at least from this vantage point, stephanie, really sweeping changes across the state. Reporter yeah, for sure, poppy. Were rolling back to looking a bit like march. This is the first state to go into a stayathome order, and all along governor gavin newsom has said we can always toggle back if we need to, and thats exactly what is happening now. Taking a look statewide, statewide hes saying all counties now are going to have to make some changes, and that would include the restaurants, family entertainment, any indoor dining, all of that has to go down to zero. Wineries, tasting rooms all of that shut down, but then for the 30 counties that have been on this county monitoring list, hes saying that there needs to be a step further on what happens there. So hes saying fitness centers, houses of worship also need to be closed down now, and that has happened. That was immediate as of yesterday. Personal care services, hair salons, barber shops, all of those closing back down here, and when you take a listen to los angeles and the mayor here Eric Garcetti talking about what the situation looks like here, it makes it very clear that this is not where we want to be. Take a listen. The city of los angeles covid19 level remains at orange, were on the border of going to red. Its where everything shuts down again, everything, to our strictest level, and i do want to warn people that were close to that. Reporter and that is concerning. Things have started to feel a little bit like normal. They are contracting here now. Its also noteworthy, i talked to a couple of hospitals here, one very large one like cedars sinai and a Smaller Community hospital, sentinella hospital in inglewood. They are seeing younger patients, and the issue is also getting all of those things that you need, jim and poppy, as far as reagents and testing utensils that they need. That is where the difficulty is. Again, its like weve gone back in time. You said it exactly right, like weve gone back in time. Stephanie, thank you so much. This just crossing from the city of philadelphia. They are cancelling all large Public Events through february 28th, 2021. This applies to public property so things like parades and festivals outside. It does not at least yet sports stadiums and concert venues. In florida 48 hospitals report they have no more icu beds, not a single one in 48 hospitals. This is as covid cases surge across the state. Four of those hospitals that are completely full in the icu are in the tampa area. This is the state where it reports its second highest day of new covid cases. With me is mary jame castor. Thank you so much for being there, and its tragic to see whats happening across florida. Looking just at your county at hillsboro county where tampa, is hospitalizations there have have doubled in the last few weeks. How much more of this can your city handle and give people the best care possible . Right. Well, they have made a great deal of advances in the medical care, and weve had a lot of individuals. Weve had a tremendous surge in the positive cases among our younger population from 25 to 34, actually 21 to about 30, weve seen a huge surge, and that corresponding with the opening of bars which have been shut back down thankfully by the governor, but they have made advances in the medical care, and so while those numbers of the icu beds are up, less people on respirators, a lot of people presenting to the Emergency Departments that are sent home rand monitored electronically, but certainly this is a pox were in right now that we have not seen in the past. Yeah. So what does this mean in terms of if you might reverse course . Of course, Governor Desantis has been adamant that florida is not shutting down, but you just heard sylvester turner, the mayor of houston yesterday, saying hes in favor of a twoweek sort of rollback and shutdown. Are you considering the same . Yes. Everything is on table for us here in the tampa bay area, and really it has been at the local level where these decisions have been made. Ow stayathome order, our mask order. This will be the third week that our mask order is in place for the city of tampa, and the actual county, hillsboro county, our emergency policy group, made the decision a week later, so its been two weeks for that, and were starting to see this flattening out. You know, everything changes daytoday and literally minute by minute. Coming from law enforcement, i spent 31 years there. We make all of our decisions on data, but that data has to be timely and accurate, and were getting these batch reports on positive tests, seven, ten days after the fact so its difficult to make those decisions, but we really feel that this mask order is being taken seriously by our residents and that that is starting to show dividends in flattening out that curve for us. Mayor, i want to talk about schools. Listen to this from floridas Governor Ron Desantis just yesterday as the florida board of education meets in person tomorrow. The science on it i think is pretty clear about kids being extremely low risk when it comes to this virus, and not only that, but they are not considered vectors of transmission. Thats been shown in sweden, in switzerland, iceland did a study. I mean, they are all coming out the same way. Okay. While the science in fact is not clear. Its actually the opposite of it. Theres very little science and very Little Research on how children act as investigatovect. Given that, does it appear that your governor is fully aware of how much is unknown about how children can transmit this . Right. Again, you know, those decisions are going to be made hopefully on the local level. Yeah. I hear you, but, i mean, it matters i hear you and forgive me for interrupting, but doesnt it matter when you have the governor of your state saying something thats patently not based in science and you have all of these kids supposed to be back physically in school in less than a month . Yes, of course it matters, but look at all the misinformation thats going on nationally with this pandemic and how its been turned into a political hot potato. We need to get back to making had decisions that are based on the data, and when it comes to opening up our schools, those decisions will be made on the science. I cant see anyone forcing classrooms full of 30 children that as, you know, the science indicates are definitely transmitters of a number of different viruses. Okay. All right. Well see if that happens on the local level because the education commissioner of the state has ordered that brick and mortar schools be opened. We appreciate your time very much, mayor, and good luck to you. Thank you very much. Of course. Jim. Well, to texas now, another state seeing spikes in cases and now houstons mayor has just propose that had city shut down for two weeks as cases surge, and this is crucial as hospitals field up. Et lavandera joins us now with more. Can the mayor of houston do that independent of state officials . No, at this point they cant, and this has been a interabove contention for some time here in texas as the Texas Governor greg abbott has made clear that local officials dont have the authority to issue the shutdowns by themselves, and that is coming to the great consternation of the mayor of houston. The county judge there in Harris County as well who have been arguing that the state economy here opened up too soon and among other things kind of led to this dramatic rise in the number of coronavirus cases here in this state which has continued to set records. In fact, the governor of texas was saying towards the end of last week that he expects this week to be much worse than last week as the numbers continue to pour in. Heres a little bit more from the county judge in Harris County who is also pushing for an economic shutdown to get the virus under control. Look, thats on him. Thats why ive been pleading with him to either give me back the authority to do this or to do it himself because frankly this is hurting our community. Its leading to unnecessary deaths, and it hurts the economy in the long haul. The longer we keep this going, pretending like these incrementalist restrictions are going to fix the problem, the longer its going to take to recover. Reporter jim and poppy, it doesnt appear that the governor is open to this idea. Weve reached out to him directly and have not heard back, but he told a local affiliate last night that he believes the mask order should be enough to control the virus and that he believes that even if a if the shutdown were to be put in place, he didnt think it would be enforceable in that people and the residents of texas would comply with it. Ed lavandera, thank you very much. Lets going to tucson, arizona. The Health Officials there are using something frankly, evan, i just did not think of, but they say its an effective way to track the spread of covid, and the news is not good. Reporter thats right, poppy. The big question everywhere is how much you can reopen and still control the spread of the virus . Scientists here at the university of arizonas west center say that they found one way to track it by using wastewater. They take sewage samples from the tucson waitwater Treatment Plant behind me as well as other facilities across the country, and they test them for coronavirus rna, and what they are finding right now is here in tucson the rna level is the highest that its ever been. I talked to dr. Ian pepper who is a director of the west center about his research. What is the wastewater of arizona telling you about what arizona should do right now . Right now, i think we should be very careful about reopening fully, eating indoors, going to bars. That really seems to cause spikes from what weve seen nationally. Reporter so, look, the big question here in arizona like everywhere else. In arizona specifically the debate is about how to reopen, keeping the state relatively reopened and in some cases even the debate about basic social distancings rules. There are people who meet here who dont think this is a big deal, but dr. Pepper says poop doesnt lie. Jim. You deserve hazard pay for that assignment. Thanks very much. With Unemployment Benefits set to expire and housing payments just a couple of weeks away, is more help coming for those struggling differently amid the pandemic. Well ask House Speaker nancy pelosi about the prospects of another round of stimulus release. Also, a new study shows that antibodies that protect you from covid may actually not last very long at all. What does this mean for progress towards a vaccine . And the bubble burst, the nbas rehaunch in florida now facing several setbacks. Did you know diarrhea is often caused by bad bacteria in food . Try pepto diarrhea. Pepto® diarrhea is proven effective to treat symptoms, and it also targets the cause of diarrhea. The 3 times concentrated liquid formula coats and kills bacteria to relieve diarrhea. While the leading competitor does nothing to kill the bacteria, pepto® diarrhea gets to the source, killing the bad bacteria. So, try pepto® diarrhea, and remember to have it on hand every time you travel. 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You predicted this and you became famous for became a hammer and dance situation that we would see, a lockdown and relative freedom and then all out freedom of moving around for some folks and then more covid cases so youve got to not be surprised that we are where we are . Yeah. What we did really well especially in europe and in some states in the u. S. To apply the hammer really heavily. The problem is we never really learned to dance, and so in the case of california, cases kept going up and up and the and they ever went down so the hammer was applied maybe not aggressively in office and especially Southern California where the numbers never went down but then Everything Else that we needed to, Contact Tracing and quarantines we didnt really well. Masking is a good example and isolations and kwarn teen are another one. If you dont take the people who are infected and put them at home and you dont enforce that, then the virus is going to keep spreading, so everything we are going to do is going to be worthless. Doctor, a key question now is opening of schools. In fact, other countries that have been through waves of the virus but notably have gotten it under control, they are reopening schools. On the data, are children vectors for this . How should parents and communities address this. Its disturbing to hear politicians talking in clear terms. Weve heard state governors says children are not vectors. Thats simply not true. We know children can transmit the virus to others, but theres a lot that remains to be study. Right now the nih is doing a large study called a heroes study. We still need to understand why is it that fewer children get very sick with covid19 compared to adults, but also that when some children do get infected they wind up in the icu with a very, very serious manifestations of covid19, so it is frustrating to me that you hear politicians talk in these certain terms that they know exactly what you hear with these children and you hear scientists talk more truthfully in more Uncertain Terms because we just dont fully understand the role of kids in this pandemic, and learning that will be credit call to making educated decisions about when kids should go back to school. To your point, heres the assistant secretary of health at the department of health and Human Services Admiral Brett Giroir talking about what we need to see as a country to get children back in school. We all know that kids need to be back in school physically for all the reasons we talk about, social and emotional health, nutrition, eye screening and discovery of child abuse, all the things that are very important, but we have to get the virus under control, and if we get the virus under better control, clearly kids can get back into the school safely. What i dont hear are special fix, like if you see x, y and z then kids in your district can go back to school and if they dont you cant. That seems to be a major thing lacking from any sort of National Plan here. I think thats right, but even theres a small detail there in what he mentioned around when this is under control. We had examples of countries that have opened schools, denmark, for example, and scandanavia, and they havent had too many problems except that in denmark and scandinavia outside of sweden the presence is maybe 100 times lower in the u. S. So theres virus running around, thats fine, but if theres so much as in the u. S. , thats when it becomes really, really, really concerning. We cant open up with all prevalence that we have right now. I believe we have a graphic that shows the comparison of the u. S. To europe. As europe, the eu countries have gotten it under the control and the u. S. Cases are going in the opposite direction. Just the pink line there being europe bringing it down like a ski slope and youll see the u. S. In green and the direction. As we watch that, doctor, i mean, look at that, straight up. Whats the hope now, because there is no National Strategy, right, there is no National Testing plan, no National Testing for schools, et cetera, whats the hope now to bring that down . Hope is a tricky thing to talk about right now in the context of more and more americans dying every day and are smashing these records. Its so frustrating to look back to march and april to see when we were seeing rough lit same spike that europe and other parts of the world were seeing, that those places after that spike saw that decline and were going in exactly the opposite direction, smashing records, 70,000 cases a day and bearing in mind that for every one american who is testing positive, there are probably ten more who are infected but are just not getting tested which means were really undercoun