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First Move with Julia Chatterley
Pelosi Unveils $3 Trillion Stimulus Plan For Friday Vote; The European Union's Plan To Save The Summer; The Robotic Dog Barking About Social Distancing. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired May 13, 2020 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:00:00]
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: ... more Republicans say not right now.
Beyond Borders. . That's a great bark.
It's Wednesday. Let's make a move.
A warm welcome to you to FIRST MOVE as always, and a positive note to begin the show this morning about global recoveries from COVID-19.
More than one and a half million people around the world have now recovered from the virus. That's more than 230,000 people here in the United States
alone. The battle clearly isn't over. There are many challenges to come as the recovery reality dawns that people are fighting through this and I do
think we need reminding of that fact, too.
All right, let's kick off. The recovery reality unfortunately driving Wall Street lower on Tuesday following a sobering assessment of the health
challenges by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Though as you can see, we are bouncing this morning premarket. Fed Chair Jay Powell will be in focus this hour. He is speaking at the Peterson
Institute. He is persistent, Powell, at least in my mind, expect further assurances that more help will come if needed.
If you remember on the show yesterday, Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan said that Congress will need to act again, too and the highest reward on
investment right now is on testing and on tracing.
Well, that's a global story as the economic fallout from the shutdowns continues.
Earlier today, Eurozone industrial output saw the largest drop on record. That taking European stock markets lower. Asia stocks also had a mixed
session as you can see.
The economic argument for reopening, I think is pretty clear wherever you look around the world, health crisis aside. The question is, are people
confident to find some kind of new normal.
Well, a brand new CNN poll shows that 58 percent of Americans at least remain uncomfortable returning to their regular routines though key for me,
the majority do still believe that this is a temporary obstacle. Maintaining that confidence as we embark on the opening is key.
Let's get to the drivers because Christine. Romans joins us now. Christine, the Democrats making the case well and truly here for the need for more
stimulus and in whopping size. The Republicans all the way along have said we want to gauge the gaps. We want to fill them but as I called it, the
reality here of the recovery is stark and the challenges are going to be persistent.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right. And you know, Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker said to
think big and certainly what they've put on the table here is big.
It's an aspirational plan, though it's what they would really like to get, since the disappointment, by the way of some progressives who wanted even
more direct assistance for American families in the terms of money in the bank.
But you know, Republicans want to wait here. They say that they've used the word pause or a lack of urgency. I don't know how many more economic
reports though, can keep going by with the Republicans saying they want a pause.
I think both will need to start horse trading here because this bridge they're trying to build toward recovery, it hasn't been all the way built
yet.
CHATTERLEY: And the decisions have to be made pretty quickly, too, on whether you're going to expand benefits, whether you're going to rejig them
in some way rather than perhaps paying people to stay at home, is there a better way and we've talked about it many times of trying to get workers
back into the workforce, even if they're doing nothing at this stage.
The alarm bells are ringing. Food prices rising. Other prices dropping. The last thing you want to see is persistence in those kind of cycles, too.
ROMANS: Absolutely and small businesses failing. You know, we saw a study, a really interesting study showing that maybe 100,000 of these are gone
altogether, two percent of small businesses already have folded.
You know what I'm hearing a lot of, Julia? And I bet you are, too. From small business owners who like more flexibility with the Paycheck
Protection Plan, you know, the PPP, and if there's any further small business relief, which they hope there will be that there's a little more
flexibility in how they use that money and how long they have to pay it back.
Because some of them feel a little bit boxed in at the moment because there is still so much uncertainty of what the recovery is going to look like and
what the transition to that phase is going to look like.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, there's such a stark contrast between the approach taken by some European nations and by the United States. You give these small
businesses money, they have to pay their workers for eight weeks, but then what? Particularly if you're in the restaurant industry, for example, the
hospitality industry.
Eight weeks doesn't buy you enough time to get back to anywhere near what normal was just a few months ago and that's one of the big challenges here.
ROMANS: Yes, that was a calendar fluke here as one small business owner told me that you know, the eight weeks -- who decided eight weeks? Because
the virus doesn't work on eight-week cycles, and certainly what we're seeing in terms of the opening is much more gradual and nuanced than just
certainly turning the lights back on and going back to normal.
And it has to be that way, because otherwise you risk increase in cases very quickly and then we go back to the beginning again. Plenty of
challenges. Christine, Romans, thank you so much for that.
[09:05:13]
CHATTERLEY: To Russia now where the coronavirus crisis continues to deepen. The country now has the second highest number of cases worldwide
after the United States.
The virus has even reached President Putin's inner circle. His spokesman is in hospital with COVID-19. Matthew Chance joins us now on this story.
Matthew, I think we need context here because what we found in other nations around the world is the more you test, the more cases you find. Is
that the case with Russia as well?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think it is, to a certain extent, yes. I mean, there have been increasing amounts of people
they've been testing on a daily basis and that's led to that huge upsurge in figures that we've seen for 11 consecutive days now.
More than 10,000 people are being tested positive for coronavirus. It brings to more than 240,000 the number of actual national cases that
they've officially recorded. That, as you mentioned, is the highest in the world after the United States.
But I mean, there was a lot of skepticism about those figures, you know, partly because the testing is still escalating, partly because they just
haven't reached, you know, some people in the countries, the vast country of course, to get them tested.
The Mayor of Moscow, for instance, says that his screening studies indicate that as many as 300,000 people in his city alone are infected with
coronavirus.
So, if you extrapolate that across the entire country, obviously, there's a huge amount of upside when it comes to the final grim tally of coronavirus
victims inside Russia.
And so it's still going to be, you know, whichever way you cut it, a country that is very severely affected partly because of the testing
increasing, partly because of the measures they took early on. They seem to think it wasn't going to affect them. How wrong could they have been?
CHATTERLEY: I mean, the majority of the cases or at least half of the cases are centered in what we're calling the epicenter there, which is
Moscow, to your point.
But it comes as President Putin has allowed relaxing measures elsewhere in the country. How do we see that playing out? And how much cautiousness are
you hearing about the challenges of maintaining lockdown in Moscow and relaxing elsewhere?
CHANCE: Well, it's -- you know, Russia is a unique place in the sense that it's the world's biggest country. I mean, there's, you know multiple time
zones stretching to borders with Japan on one side of the country to borders with the European Union on the other side.
And so it's, you know, a separate case, and what Vladimir Putin has done, and what the Federal government is doing is saying, look, you know, in
general, from May 12th so from a day or so ago, we are lifting the sort of nationwide restrictions.
But with the big caveat that he was leaving up to individual governors, individual mayors, certain regions, to either tighten restrictions in their
specific area or to loosen them as they saw fit.
I mean, the other issue, of course, which all countries and Russia in particular is having to deal with is that they need to get their economy
kick started again.
They've suffered enormously because of the lockdown and the closure of all their economic outputs. So, one of the things they've done in Moscow even
though ordinary people are still being kept in their homes, essentially, they're saying to factories and other to essential businesses that now is
the time to start going back to work.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, one blanket rule does not work here. You have to be more precise, particularly when you want to try and get the economy going again.
Matthew Charles, thank you so much for that. To India now, where Prime Minister Modi has announced a massive financial aid package. The government
is set to spend over $260 billion, around 10 percent of GDP we're talking.
The nation now has 75,000 coronavirus cases according to John Hopkins University. John Defterios joins us with more.
John, it's a mix of spending and reforms and we'll get into both. Let's talk spending first. It's a monster sized package it seems. How much of
this is new -- newly announced spending?
DEFTERIOS: Well, it's interesting, Julia because $266 billion is 10 times the amount when we first had this conversation, right, saying that was not
going to be enough.
Prime Minister Modi kind of laid the foundation yesterday and he is letting his Finance Minister build the framework. Nirmala Sitharaman, who is the
former Commerce and Industry Minister and quite shrewd here.
What is new and what was clear as a priority is that they want to target the spending to the needy and to micro and small and medium-sized
enterprises, if you will.
So the only thing we heard today is $60 billion of the $266 billion. So, there's more to come over the next two days.
When it comes to the needy, direct spending on healthcare to deal with the coronavirus, and that is regional bank accounts that are set up for the
rural Indians.
This takes up $20 billion of that budget. It's not insignificant, and then the SME sector $40 billion. And if you dig into the detail here, they're
saying, look, we're going to put a grace period for example of six months to meet your obligations under government contracts.
We will provide guaranteed loans from the banks to make sure you get the liquidity going forward.
[09:10:07]
DEFTERIOS: And this is a crisis in India because the growth is only pegged at 1.9 percent this year and that was before the crisis and then we
saw industrial output drop by 16 percent, Julia.
So, we're not getting all of what's in the package today. But there's no lack of detail, and they're targeted, really at the bottom rungs of society
in India.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I can't help but make the contrast as we were just talking about $3 trillion there for the United States and what -- a 330
million population versus 1.3 billion and the size of this package. But there's a message in there somewhere, John.
I do want to talk about reforms because I think there's other ways that the Indians are being shrewd here about perhaps looking at their supply chains,
looking at what the world is doing, and if we do see a shift away from China, investment companies in China in particular, can India benefit?
Critical.
DEFTERIOS: Well, it could backfire at the same time, Julia, and I'm glad you started there because one of the central themes for Prime Minister Modi
yesterday, and we laid out the architecture I'm talking about.
He kept on talking about self-reliance and that could be defined as protectionism. You talked about the supply chains. Perhaps they feel like
they're overly dependent on imports at this stage.
So, all new government contracts here will be protected for national industries, at least in this timeframe over the 2020-2021 fiscal year, so
it's April to March.
The other thing that stood out for me here, 60 percent of household income is still dependent on the farming sector. We did not see farm reforms. No
labor reforms here that big industrial groups are calling out.
But as I noted before, we're about a quarter of the way there and more details will follow. But we have to remember, this is an economy that was
growing at eight percent a year. The pride and joy of Made in India Prime Minister Modi who started exporting to the world.
But the first hint of it is though, as you were suggesting is self- reliance. We want to make it here, keep it here and kind of block imports and it backfired last year and that's why we saw that horrendous growth of
4.2 percent. That's a steep drop cut in half to what India is used to.
CHATTERLEY: Yes. And it's a tough decision when the whole world is suffering and growth everywhere is falling. John Defterios, thank you so
much for that.
Europe is promising to reopen for the summer holidays as it looks for ways to rescue the travel and tourism industry.
The European Commission has unveiled a series of proposals for a safe restart. Richard Quest joins me now.
Richard, this is one of the huge questions not only for Europe, but other big nations. I think the United States also looking at this. How do you
reopen borders within the E.U., but what about international travelers coming in, too? Talk us through the proposals here.
RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: Okay, so it's a long document with many subsections and clauses and being typical of the
year European Union, it is extremely complicated.
The gist of it though, is this -- how do you reopen the Schengen borders so that European and E.U. nationals can travel between the various countries.
And I see this morning that Angela Merkel is suggesting that the middle of June might be a good time when all Schengen borders could be reopened.
Now, a lot of what the EC is suggesting is pretty much commonsense ensuring that hotels have proper sanitary conditions, putting in place proper
infectious control procedures and the like.
But what I think will be most welcome by the travel industry is this aim of creating a level playing field so that you know, for instance, Julia, when
this country or this region, or this city is able to open.
Has it met the criteria? Does it have epidemiological basis rival? Is it the same in the States? Is it the same as all the other countries?
CHATTERLEY: I'm so glad you used that word because that means I don't have, too now. Epidemiological -- similar epidemiological situations. You
see, you were better than me, actually.
But this is key for me. If we hone in on a country like Greece that seems to have handled this so incredibly well, they also want to attract more
tourists, but their situation is perhaps far stronger than other nations. How does that work?
They make a choice between the revenue generation of tourists coming from countries that actually have a worse profile, I am not going to use the
word than themselves?
QUEST: Right. So, they've made that choice already. The Greek Tourism Minister, forgive the plug on "Quest Means Business" basically said. They
were going to open up provided they could do it safely, and they believe that they can.
The issue, of course, is how do you get people there? Now, what I do foresee as a result of what the EC's document says, I think you're going to
get a lot of old fashioned motoring in the holidays.
You're going to get people going across the border Germany to Austria within the Benelux countries and things like that, the same in Scandinavia,
because you can get home. You're not at the mercy of an airline.
However, airlines are now also saying they're going to start flying again. Ryanair says it will reopen 40 percent of its routes not frequencies 40
percent of its routes by the middle of June, too.
So, I foresee a summer as one of the European Commissioners has said today, Europe is ready for a break. And I think what you're going to see is people
being hesitant to get on planes in case it doesn't work out A, because of their safety and B, because they're not sure there will be a flight back
and C, I think you're going to see a lot of people taking motoring or train holidays throughout Europe.
It won't be anything like 2019, but there will be holidays to be had.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I think we're going to see a rise in staycations. I look at what some of the data from Airbnb have already suggested and people are
planning holidays, but they're going to stay actually within their nation's borders and just not take the risk of traveling across them.
QUEST: One quick point to make, the difference between the United States and the E.U., don't forget the U.S. you can travel anywhere and a state can
only bar people from all states going, you can't pick and choose and say we're not going to have from New York, Rhode Island and anything like that.
In the E.U., at the moment, Schengen is de facto suspended. So, the goal first and foremost, if you're going to get intra-European travel, is to get
Schengen back on track.
And as I say, Merkel this morning, is suggesting June, middle of June, will be the date by which that will be in place.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, yes. That's quite a fascinating comparison. Actually, the Airbnb data that I was pointing to, I think was the Netherlands to be
honest. In the United States, I was looking at the consumer confidence data and the intentions of going on holidays was low as they were in the 1970s.
You have to go back decades.
So, the differences, I think is going to be really quite fascinating to watch. Do we have the confidence to go on a holiday? We definitely need it.
Richard Quest, thank you so much for that.
QUEST: I remember the 1970s.
CHATTERLEY: I don't, there wasn't even a twinkle in an eye. Thank you, Richard.
All right. Some breaking news this morning as well. The former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been released from prison citing
potential risks from the coronavirus.
He'll be confined at home with his wife in Northern Virginia.
As of yesterday, the prison in Pennsylvania where Manafort was being held had no reported cases of coronavirus.
Manafort was jailed in June of 2018 for bank and tax fraud and foreign lobbying related crimes.
All right, let's take a break here on FIRST MOVE. Coming up, mechanical menace or a medical miracle. The robots out on social distancing patrols
and helping in hospitals. We've got all the details. Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:21:02]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE where we're looking at a mixed open now for U.S. stocks as Fed Chair Jay Powell repeats his promise to do more
if necessary to support the U.S. economy.
Powell speaking this hour before the Peterson Institute via teleconference. You're looking at live pictures there.
He once again noted though, the limits of the Federal Reserve's powers reminding investors that the Fed has lending powers and not spending
powers. He urged Congress to do more.
These are Powell's first comments of course on the U.S. economy since the release of the April Jobs Report last Friday, which showed a historic drop
in U.S. employment.
His comments also coming after two days of historically low reads on both consumer and wholesale price inflation.
In the meantime, shares of Grubhub are pulling back a little premarket after an almost 30 percent rise on Tuesday.
The shares rallied on reports that Uber could make a takeover offer for the food delivery service. One of the pandemic winners once again in focus.
Now, certainly not winning here, U.K. growth shrank by 5.8 percent in March as the shutdown took hold.
That's the worst decline since monthly record keeping began back in 1997. The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the country cannot reopen the
economy too fast.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We are watching intently what is happening in other countries and it is very notable that in some other
countries where relaxations have been introduced, there are signs of the R going up again. And that's a very clear warning to us not to proceed too
fast or too --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: Anna Stewart live from London. Anna, it's good to hear that some leaders are looking around the world and recognizing some of the
challenges of restarting steady but surely here, but the damage from just what? A handful of days in March of shutdown, very clear in these March
numbers.
ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: I think that's the real concern. So, a contraction of 5.8 percent in March. That's the same as the year and a half
after the financial crisis, that kind of economic contraction. And there are actually only seven working days in which the U.K. was under lockdown,
which is why actually, it didn't contract as much as much of Europe, which started lock downs earlier.
Now speaking to economists today, Julia, the numbers come as no surprise. What the question is, though, what will the recovery look like? When will
it be?
We do expect the second quarter must be much, much worse than the first. We were speaking last week about the Bank of England's forecasts. They were
pointing to a 25 percent contraction for the second quarter, but a V-shaped recovery with the economy rebounding by the end of next year.
Economists today crunching this data see that recovery much, much later, perhaps at the end of 2022. More of a U-shape perhaps.
Now any kind of economic recovery will be, as you say contingent on businesses getting back to normal and slowly easing the economy back into
gear.
Today in England, those that cannot work from home have been encouraged to go back to work, it looks very different in workplaces, social distancing,
lots of new measures.
U.K. car plants with some of the first factories to reopen. They've taken the lead from Europe. It's a very slow start back to manufacturing. Take a
look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEWART (voice over): Back to work, but it's not back to normal. Masks, hand washing and social distancing have become a part of production lines
across Europe.
Ferrari and Fiat in Italy, Volkswagen in Germany, and now plants are opening in the U.K. -- Aston Martin and Bentley.
The production process has been overhauled. Bentley has introduced 250 new measures to keep workers safe, a process that means they are only making
half the number of cars they normally would.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADRIAN HALLMARK, CEO, BENTLEY: Going down to 50 percent of capacity allows us to slow down the process. Separate people that would normally be working
closer together, as well as we are adding in protection equipment, gangways, gauges, and markers everywhere.
Inspect screens, facemasks, cleaning equipment wherever you can imagine it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEWART (voice over): He says 50 percent capacity isn't feasible long term. A quarter of Bentleys' workers remain on the government's furlough
scheme and some have already been let go.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HALLMARK: Twenty percent of our total workforce are temporary and we've let about a quarter of those go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEWART (voice over): It was a tough environment for carmakers in Europe, even before the pandemic.
Jaguar Land Rover, Daimler and Ford had already announced job cuts. Then under lockdown, car sales took an unprecedented slump.
In April, new car sales in the U.K. fell over 97 percent. It was a similar story across the continent.
Even if these car makers can return to 100 percent production capacity, and car dealerships reopen, the future is uncertain.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEWART (on camera): Will it ever go back to normal?
FABIAN BRANDT, PARTNER, OLIVER WYMAN: It's hard to say. But our research suggests that historically, deep recessions have taken about three years
for an industry to fully recover to a pre-crisis levels, and I think that at the moment, there's no evidence that this time, it's going to be
significantly faster than that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEWART (voice over): Demand may return, but how factories operates may never go back to pre-pandemic norms.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
STEWART: Incredibly challenging times for a sector that was already under so much pressure and speaking to analysts on the auto sector, they do
expect to see an acceleration in consolidation and partnerships, because ultimately, even after this crisis in the years that follow, they have to
keep investing big time to get ahead in autonomous driving and electric cars.
None of that stops. The challenge just gets greater -- Julia.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it's so true, and to your point, we just don't know what recovery looks like because it's health crisis dependent. You'll see a
mathematical V, some kind of bounce back, but it's what then?
Anna Stewart, thank you so much for that. Great job there.
All right, counting down to the market open. We are back after this. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:30:27]
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. We're at the midway point of the trading week and U.S. stocks are seeing a bit of a mixed open this morning.
As you can see, we've been chopping around premarket, too. Fed Chair Jay Powell, pretty much stuck to the script as we expected during an online
interview with the Peterson Institute a little while ago.
Powell once again saying the Fed will do what's required to help support the economy. But he said too, that the Fed has no intention of cutting its
benchmark rate to below zero.
We've talked and we talked yesterday on the show about negative rates. Well, that was Jay Powell saying not happening.
Powell's comments come as Goldman Sachs warns that the U.S. unemployment rate could peak at 25 percent rivaling the worst of the Great Depression.
In the meantime, famed investors Stanley Druckenmiller says the risk reward for buying stocks right now is as bad as he's ever seen. He believes
government stimulus plans won't be enough.
The question is what will? Health crisis. Tackle that first.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the White House Coronavirus Taskforce says it is also not likely that a vaccine can be developed before schools
start this fall.
CNN medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen has all the details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's the Holy Grail, a vaccine against COVID-19. At a Senate hearing Tuesday, Frank
talk from Dr. Anthony Fauci about the prospects of making that happen.
Vaccine clinical trials in humans have started.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: And if we are successful, we hope to know that in the late fall
and early winter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: That means no COVID-19 vaccine in time for the start of school.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: The idea of having treatments available or a vaccine to facilitate the reentry of students into the fall term would be something that would be
a bit of a bridge too far.
Even at the top speed we're going, we don't see a vaccine playing in the ability of individuals to get back to school this term.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN (voice over): And Fauci was clear. We might not end up getting a vaccine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: First of all, there's no guarantee that the vaccine is actually going to be effective. You can have everything you think that's in place,
and you don't induce the kind of immune response that turns out to be protective and durably protective.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: Still, he does think a vaccine will happen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAUCI: Putting all of those things together, Senator Burr, I still feel cautiously optimistic that we will have a candidate that will give some
degree of efficacy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN (voice over): As far as treatments go, there's only one that's been shown to work against COVID-19, the antiviral medicine, remdesivir, which
shaves about four days off a hospital stay.
But the distribution of remdesivir by the Federal government has been inconsistent with one leading Democratic lawmaker calling it bungled.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. STEPHEN HAHN, F.D.A. COMMISSIONER: I think we can all agree upon the fact that we've learned a lot of lessons from the remdesivir situation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN (voice over): Dr. Steven Hahn, Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, saying they'll keep those lessons in mind as the
pandemic continues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAHN: I think valuable lessons can be learned and will be learned with respect to other therapies and to vaccines in particular, and we must
incorporate those into our operational plans moving forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN (voice over): And he says as time goes on, doctors are learning more about what drugs COVID patients need.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAHN: I'll give you an example. We do know that in some circumstances, patients who have had severe COVID disease have developed thrombotic or
clotting type episodes, and so, we prioritize review of agents that we think might be beneficial.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN (voice over): All part of the race to save lives or better yet to prevent infection, and it was clear from this hearing that the race is far
from over.
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHATTERLEY: Pennsylvania based, Inovio is one of the pharmaceutical biotech firms racing to find a potential vaccine. Dr. Joseph Kim is the
President and CEO of Inovio Pharmaceuticals, and joins us now.
Dr. Kim, fantastic to have you on the show. Just give my viewers a sense of your timeline to begin, where are you with that research?
Dr. Kim, can you hear me?
DR. JOSEPH KIM, PRESIDENT AND CEO, INOVIO PHARMACEUTICALS: Yes, I can hear you.
CHATTERLEY: Oh, fantastic. Okay, great. Welcome to the show. And I'll just repeat that quickly. Where are you in terms of your timeline in your
research?
KIM: Our team is working day and night to make our vaccine tested for its safety and efficacy.
Our Phase 1 clinical trial is going very well. We expect to have safety and the immediate response to this data preliminarily in June and we are also
raising this to a large scale thing (AUDIO GAP).
[09:35:26]
CHATTERLEY: Okay, Dr. Kim, we are just having a --
KIM: We are racing start a Phase 2 with the efficacy trial as early as July and August.
CHATTERLEY: So, are we talking about at that point then human trials? So, recruiting individuals that you can begin to test the vaccine that you have
on.
KIM: Yes, we already have a Phase 2 trial that's ongoing with human volunteer. That's should happen with (AUDIO GAP) data.
CHATTERLEY: And then how quickly -- carry on.
KIM: ... trial, we will be targeting healthcare workers in the frontline, and we will look to determine the true efficacy of the vaccine in that
setting.
CHATTERLEY: So, just to give me a sense of timing here, how quickly do you think you could be administering this vaccine to frontline workers in the
healthcare sector?
KIM: Well, as part of the large scale trial, we hope to start that in July in the summer. And once that is proven to be effective in a more widely
basis as early as late or early next year.
CHATTERLEY: Okay, so we're still talking about a timeline that comes or kicks in around 2021 to get this out to market.
Talk to me about finances here -- money, production -- what it takes to go from the stage that you're at now, where you're potentially talking about
using this on healthcare workers to actually scaling up if you find that you have a successful vaccine, what more is required?
KIM: Well, Inovio has been (AUDIO GAP) for success and so we have been scaling up our manufacturing and capacity actually, initially about a
million doses for healthcare workers, emergency use, but also up to (AUDIO GAP) millions of doses potentially starting next year.
So, that takes a huge (AUDIO GAP) scaling up of our equipment, manufacturing process, automations and everything that we're preparing for
right now.
CHATTERLEY: Dr. Kim, we are going to leave it there because we are having some technical issues and I'm worried that people can't hear what you're
saying.
We will get you back very soon to talk about progress and keeping our fingers crossed that you have a successful vaccine there in the works.
Dr. Joseph Kim speaking there. Sir, thank you so much and stay safe and thank you to your team for the hard work.
All right, we're going to take a quick break here on FIRST MOVE, but coming up, meet Spot. He is helping healthcare workers and going out on patrol.
Should we be thankful or a little bit terrified or a bit of both? I'll speak to the maker, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:41:25]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's keep Singapore healthy. For your own safety and for those around you, please stand at least one meter apart. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. You're looking at Spot, the robotic dog on patrol in a park in Singapore encouraging people very
politely there -- that definitely wasn't barking orders -- encouraging people to social distance.
It's a pilot program which started at last Friday. Spot, just to be clear, not fully autonomous. There's a remote operator behind the scenes and you
can see some of the reactions that Spot is getting, while it can't enforce measures, a parks officer which accompanies spot can.
Spot also has medical uses that we will explore in a moment. He's the brainchild of Boston Dynamics Chairman, Marc Raibert, who joins us now.
Marc, fascinating to have you with us. A very polite robot, I have to say, but unique at this moment, if you're trying to enforce social distancing
rules.
MARC RAIBERT, CEO, BOSTON DYNAMICS: You know, Spot has been doing a great job there and Singapore, also here in Boston dealing with some of the COVID
crisis situation.
CHATTERLEY: You wanted it to be more of a platform that allows for data analysis, to your point as well, it is being used for telemedicine.
Just give me a sense of some of the other uses that we're seeing and the sort of data that's being analyzed as Spot moves around and how that's
happening.
RAIBERT: Yes, we designed Spot as a platform, which means you can add software and you can add hardware to it.
It's being used in a variety of situations where we're trying to protect people from dangerous exposure. So, one of them is electric power utility
facilities where there's some dangerous places to go and they can't do inspections without powering the whole thing down.
It's used construction sites. Construction sites aren't usually all that dangerous. But these days, where managers can't travel, it's easier to send
the robot to do inspections and collect data.
And we have been doing testing at a nuclear facility where of course the risk of radiation exposure is a potential problem and all kinds of
facilities -- refineries, LNG plants, anywhere where there's a complex environment, and there's a bunch of sensors to read or measurements to
make.
You asked what kind of data? Spot has a variety of visual sensors that lets it navigate the space it's in. But we've also made it so you can put
specialized sensors on its back, either cameras to do reading of gauges, sniffers that can measure gas leaks and things like that.
And, you know, people are cooking up new ways of attaching sensors and collecting data all the time.
CHATTERLEY: You know, there will be a lot of people watching this going, oh, my goodness, the robots are coming. How much of this data could
possibly be stored? Can it identify a person? Can these kind of metrics be attached and applied to a platform like Spot, the robot? Because, as
always, with these things, there's a concern about privacy.
RAIBERT: Right. Well, we're taking, you know, a very serious approach to those issues. You know, our agreements with all our customers are provide
limitations on being used for surveillance or arming people and things like that.
You know, but I think what it comes down to is the balance between opportunities and risks.
[09:45:10]
RAIBERT: There's so many opportunities, you know, COVID, the horrible thing it is, has shown what some of those opportunities are to protect the
healthcare workers, and even the patients from being -- from unnecessary exposure.
And I think in the end, it's going to be a balance of the opportunities for doing new and great things against some risks.
CHATTERLEY: How far away are we from seeing some kind of remote vital sign exploration, because that would be brilliant for healthcare workers on the
front lines just to be able to use a robot to assess these things?
RAIBERT: Well, you know, here in Boston at the Brigham Women's Hospital, we're doing testing where we're screening potential COVID patients, and
rather than have a doctor or nurse make direct contact with the patient, Spot goes there with some equipment that can assess their situation.
In the first days of doing that, all we did was communicate and talk to the patient through the remote robot. Now, we're doing some vital measurements.
We're doing temperature and respiration rate, but we're working on heart rate and oxygenation -- blood oxygenation, which are really important
measures for doing triage on a patient.
And all of these things will be done without any contact, no contact with a human. No, actually direct contact with the robot, except the robot will be
nearby.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, it's very clever. I've got a couple more questions. How much does the robot cost? How many can you produce a year?
And the final question, because it occurred to me when I saw it, what happens if someone tries to grab this robot and steal it? Does it have an
alert system or GPS inside it that you can track it?
RAIBERT: Let me -- let me start. So, right now, we're building a thousand of the robots.
CHATTERLEY: Wow.
RAIBERT: And I think we have something like 120 of them out in customers' hands, some number like that.
We're not publicly saying what the cost is just yet. We're in an early adopter phase of the program. So, each engagement is its own thing. But
pretty soon we'll have published prices for the robot.
You know, in terms of grabbing the robot, you know, someone coming and grabbing the robot and knowing where it is by GPS.
You know, those are complicated issues. It really gets back to your first question about privacy. We could, you know, one could implement a solution
where we know where the robot is all the time and where there's an uplink and we could disable the robot.
On the other hand that gets into the space of, you know, potentially invading the privacy of the user. So, it's always a balancing act of how
you approach these questions.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I've just realized that is a -- I was sort of half joking there, but it is a real problem actually, there is a theft risk here. I
think it has a system inside that gives an electric shock, perhaps to the person who tried to steal it. But that's the way my mind works.
RAIBERT: We don't have any plans to do that. We are trying to keep Spot from anything like that.
CHATTERLEY: Do you think this is a pivot point where we see more robotic use? I mean, we see it in manufacturing already, but just in light of what
the new normal for the future holds, whether it's manufacturing, whether it's for telemedicine, do you think this is a pivot point in time where we
see an acceleration of this kind of use of robotics?
RAIBERT: I really think it could be. You know, before COVID, we were working with people who had situations where it was dangerous to expose
people to the various situations like I mentioned. You know, checking for gas leaks, and unpleasant places in refineries and things like that.
CHATTERLEY: Right.
RAIBERT: But now it's on everybody's mind what the need is. You know, one of the things we're looking at is decontaminating large spaces like a metro
station or an arena, you know, because people are wanting to kind of go back to public places and be able to do it safely.
And the task of decontaminating on a regular basis, maybe every night, those kinds of places is, you know, a big thing to do. And you don't really
want people out there doing it because they'd all have to be suited up in PPE. So the robot is of great use.
I think we're going to -- we've gotten a lot of inbound requests for situations like that. And I think it could open the door to a big, big
growth in this kind of work.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, our current perception of what a dangerous situation in has altered quite dramatically in the space of a few months. Marc, stay in
touch, please. Fantastic work and we would like to see your progress.
Marc Raibert there. The Chairman of Boston Dynamics. Stay safe, sir. Thank you.
[09:50:04]
CHATTERLEY: All right, up next, playing one state off against another. Elon Musk discusses packing up his business in California and shipping it
across to Texas. I've got the details, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE. New virus outbreaks in South Korea, China and Germany point to the risks countries take as they begin to
reopen their economies.
But as we weigh the costs, former White House adviser Gary Cohn reminded "Quest Means Business" last night that it's impossible to eliminate risk
entirely.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY COHN, FORMER DIRECTOR, White House NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: We did not start with a riskless environment and I like to remind people that.
Now, if you go back pre-crisis. We had risks to our economy, risks to our healthcare risk to our culture every day. When we got up and left our
house, we had a risk.
So, we need to balance what risks are acceptable to return to. We are never going to get to a risk free riskless environment to reenter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: Finding the new normal. That was Gary Cohn, the former Director of the White House National Economic Council.
Tesla CEO, Elon Musk is one business owner ready to run the risk of reopening, but it's put him on a collision course with the State of
California.
Local authorities say his factory cannot fully restart until it puts in place more safety measures.
Clare Sebastian joins us on this story. Clare, he even had a presidential tweet, President Trump said look, get this factory reopened. Obviously, he
is having issues with local authorities. It pits it against to some degree, the leadership of California. Where does that leave Elon Musk now?
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, so the latest that has happened is the Alameda County which is where the Fremont factory, Tesla's
main car producing factory is located has said that if -- you know, Elon Musk and Tesla update their prevention and control plan for the Fremont
site with a few additional safety measures, and if the public health data remains stable or improved, they can start to and I quote, "augment their
minimum business operations this week, and look towards a possible reopening next week."
Now that raises a few questions. We don't know exactly which additional safety measures they're being asked to put in place. We don't know how this
is affected by the fact that Elon Musk has supposedly already restarted production.
He said that he was doing so on Monday in defiance of the county's rules. So, we don't know if he is now going to put that on pause or some kind of
compromise and wait until next week.
Alameda County says they are going to be working with the Fremont Police Department to make sure that Tesla is in compliance with this physical
distancing and safety measures that they want in place.
So, this is a sort of development in this situation, but it does feel like the dispute over this factory might be coming to an end, might be reaching
a point. We haven't heard yet though from Elon Musk and what he thinks about this.
[09:55:03]
CHATTERLEY: The question is what does the future hold? He can be tempestuous, but he can also make big decisions very quickly and we know
there were overtures from other states saying, hey, we're open for business, and we would welcome Tesla. What more on that Clare?
SEBASTIAN: Yes, so this has ignited a lot of interest. We know already, by the way that Tesla was looking to potentially build extra operations
outside of California.
Musk tweeted in early March that he was looking for somewhere in Central USA to build the cyber truck, that futuristic truck that he unveiled last
year.
And Texas has now come out that the governor said to a local TV station that he had spoken to Elon Musk and that he is apparently very frustrated
with California and genuinely very interested in Texas.
And we've also heard, Julia from the Governor of Colorado who is interested in this, so a lot of interest out there.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, I'm sure that interest is going nowhere, quite frankly. Clare Sebastian, definitely watch this space, but it always is where Elon
is concerned. Thank you for that.
And that's it for the show. You've been watching FIRST MOVE. Stay safe. We'll see you tomorrow.
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[10:00:00]
END
