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Officials: More Than 14,000 Migrant Children In Custody; White House COVID Response Team Holds Briefing. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 19, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not that doesn't reflect any change in the administration's view of things.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No.

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JOHN KING, CNN HOST: CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is in Dallas for us. Wherever you want to call it a crisis, you want to challenge, it's a giant problem, Priscilla. Secretary Mayorkas is on his way to get a look at these facilities. What is he going to learn?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: So this is one of many congressional delegations that have been happening over the course of the last few weeks to see what's happening on the ground. In this case, Mayorkas is going with a bipartisan group of lawmakers including the top Democrat and the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee. They will go to El Paso where they will see what's going on in these facilities.

And John, we have been reporting on just that. We know these facilities are overcrowded. Sources tell us that children are alternating in sleeping schedules in these jail like facilities to try to get some rest. Border Patrol agents are putting up bunk beds, cots, mats to try to accommodate these children. So it is a challenge for the administration. And that is why they are trying to scramble to get the more than 4,500 children out of this border patrol custody.

KING: You mentioned the scramble. You're outside a fairly large Convention Center. That's one facility where you're able to do large numbers. Give us more steps in the scramble, if you will, as they try to accommodate these growing numbers.

ALVAREZ: So what's happening here, John, is that children will be going to Border Patrol custody first, because that is who will encounter them first. And then they have to be transferred to the shelter network run by the Health and Human Services Department. The problem, John, they just don't have enough space. So I am here at a Convention Center in Dallas. This is being used as an emergency intake site to start to get those kids out of Border Patrol custody and into these sites to kick off the process of relocating them with family in the United States. So this Convention Center, it is massive, it is being transformed. It has their costs in here. We are told that children will be provided games and books to keep them entertained.

And so, all of this here happening behind me more than 2,000 kids could be accommodated here in the coming days, as again, the administration tries to alleviate that overcrowding and Border Patrol facilities, John.

KING: Priscilla Alvarez live for us in Dallas. Appreciate your hustle on this important story, Priscilla.

Coming up for us, the IRS now warning that child tax credit was supposed to come this summer it might be delayed.

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KING: Take you straight to the White House, now to Biden COVID team briefing.

JEFF ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Achieving this goal is a direct result of deliberate aggressive actions guided by the President's whole of government national strategy in the pandemic. Now, thanks to the American rescue plan, we will have the resources to fully implement the strategy and put the pandemic behind us. I'm currently at a Community Health Center in New York City, where I joined Leader Schumer on a tour of the Ryan Health Center to see what's working, thank the folks on the frontlines, and hear what else we can do to support them.

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I also want to thank Leader Schumer for his critical leadership in passing the American Rescue Plan. Today, I'll give a brief update on our three-part strategy on vaccinations. First, more vaccine supply. Second, more vaccinators in the field. And third, more places to get vaccinated.

On vaccine supply, the President has taken aggressive action to move up the production timelines for all three vaccines, Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson. As a result, by the end of May, we will have enough vaccine for every adult in the United States.

This week, about 22 million doses went out to states, tribes, and territories, and through the federal channels, including pharmacies and community health centers. That's more than two and a half times the weekly supply that was being distributed when we took office.

On vaccinators in the field, we've deployed nearly 6,000 federal personnel to serve as vaccinators and support vaccinations, including over 2,000 active-duty military men and women. At the President's direction, that number will grow to more than 6,000 active-duty troops over the coming weeks.

On places to get vaccinated, we've increased the number of convenient and trusted places for people to get a shot. We've provided federal support for more than 600 community vaccination sites. We've administered more than 1 million shots at federally run community vaccination sites across the country. And more than 60 percent of those vaccinations have been administered to minority populations. That includes two sites right here in New York City, one in Brooklyn and one in Queens. And the American Rescue Plan will allow us to continue to increase the number of community vaccination centers.

We launched the Federal Pharmacy Program, which has allowed millions of Americans to get a shot in their local pharmacy the same way they get their flu shot. Last week, the President committed to doubling the number of pharmacies participating in the program. Already, people can get vaccinated at one of 14,000 pharmacies around the nation. For Americans who aren't near a pharmacy or a community vaccination center, we've supported more than 500 mobile clinics to meet people where they are.

And today, I'm at the Ryan Health Center. Community health centers like Ryan Health serve 30 million people, 60 percent are people of color, and two-thirds of patients are below the poverty line. The administration is already sending vaccines directly to 250 of these community health centers. By the end of April, we will deliver vaccines to an additional 700 community health centers. This work is a result of the Biden administration's partnership with state and local officials, federal workers, and the nonprofit and private sectors, and it is leading to significant progress.

As you can see in our weekly vaccination progress report, the current seven-day average is 2.5 million shots per day, 2.5 million shots per day. That's a new record pace that we will continue to build on. Importantly, now two out of three adults age 65 and older have gotten at least their first shot. This is critical because 80 percent of COVID deaths have been individuals 65 and over.

Given our progress on increasing supply, coupled with increasing the number of vaccinators in the field and creating more places to get vaccinated, the President announced last week that all adults in the country will be eligible for vaccinations no later than May 1, all adults eligible no later than May 1.

Finally, I want to provide an update on how we are working with our North American partners on efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 across the continent. As part of the national strategy to end the pandemic, the United States is committed to engaging with the international community and supporting global efforts to address public health and humanitarian concerns. Under the President's direction, the U.S. reengaged with the WHO on day one of his presidency. We committed to providing the most funding to COVAX than any country in the world, $4 billion.

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We also announced with our Quad partners last week that we are working to achieve expanded manufacturing of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines at facilities in India. And now, given our visibility into vaccine supply in the U.S., we're able to announce that we're lending a portion of our releasable AstraZeneca vaccines to Mexico and to Canada.

Our approach to this wartime effort is to have as many tools in our toolkit as possible. Right now, we have three effective vaccines that went through a rigorous review process to be authorized by the FDA. We have other vaccines going through that process now, including one from AstraZeneca.

As we await the results of these trials here in the U.S., many countries have already approved AstraZeneca but need more supply. That includes Canada and Mexico. So balancing the need to let the approval process of the AstraZeneca vaccine take place here in the U.S., with the importance of helping to stop the spread in other countries, we will loan a portion of our releasable AstraZeneca vaccine to Mexico and Canada.

This action will allow our neighbors to meet a critical vaccination need in their countries, providing more protection immediately across the North American continent. In total, we will loan Mexico and Canada around 4 million doses.

To be clear, this loan will not reduce the available supply of vaccines to Americans. The doses we are loaning are not approved for use in the United States. No American will be without a vaccine because of this action.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Dr. Walensky. Dr. Walensky?

DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: Thank you, Jeff. I'm glad to be back with you all today. Let's begin with the data.

COVID-19 cases continue to remain between 50 and 60,000 cases per day, with the most recent seven-day average at 53,200 cases per day. The most recent seven-day average of hospital admissions is slightly below 4,700 admissions per day, similar to the seven-day average we had on Monday. Deaths continue to decline with the current seven-day average of 1,025 deaths per day.

Today, I want to talk about a top priority for us at CDC and for me as a parent, CDC's efforts to support the safe reopening of schools for in-person instruction. We have frequently said CDC believes schools should be the last place to close and the first place to open.

The benefits of in-person instruction are well recognized. As a mother of three myself, I know all too well the difficulties that arise for our children and parents and caregivers, when children are not able to attend in person for school. These challenges are especially difficult for children and families from low-resourced communities, as well as those from racial and ethnic minority communities and those with disabilities.

Safe in-person instruction gives our children access to the critical, social, and mental health services that prepare them for the future, in addition to the vital educational needs that they need to succeed.

When I became CDC Director, I promised that I would lead with science, to rebuild trust in our public health institutions and to keep people safe, it's critical to make decisions based on evidence and facts. On February 12th, CDC released our operational strategy for K-12 schools, based on the latest science at the time, to help schools open and remain open for safe in-person learning.

The science told us then, just as it tells us now, that K-12 schools that implement strong, layered prevention strategies can operate safely while protecting teachers, staff, and students. We've seen data demonstrating that this is safe, even in areas of high community spread.

CDC's operational strategy focuses on five key layered mitigation measures for schools conducting in-person learning. These include universal and correct use of masks, physical distancing, hand washing, and respiratory etiquette, cleaning to maintain healthy facilities, and diagnostic testing with rapid and efficient contact tracing, in combination with isolation and quarantine, and in collaboration with local health departments.

When we released the operational strategy, I said that CDC was going to follow the science and would update our guidance as new evidence emerged. This is essential since the science of COVID-19 is rapidly changing with new data emerging every week.

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Since the initial release, CDC scientists have been actively reviewing the latest science and conducting their own studies to expand the evidence base, and we now have new information to help us refine our recommendations, specifically for physical distancing.

Last week, the Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases published a study that looked at COVID-19 in 251 Massachusetts school districts over a four-month period of time. It found that physical distancing of at least three feet between students could safely be adopted in school settings when everyone, students and staff wore a mask at all times. And today, CDC is publishing three new studies in the MMWR that add to this evidence base.

One study looked at data from Utah elementary schools and found that COVID-19 spread was low with students placed less than six feet apart in classrooms, even though levels of virus spread in the community were high.

Another report examined data from kindergarten classrooms in Springfield and St. Louis, Missouri. This study found that transmission occurred at lower rates in classrooms than in the community because the schools used multiple layered prevention strategies together.

And the third study looked at COVID-19 rates among students in Florida and found that 60 percent of cases in students were not related to spread in schools. It also found that resuming in-person activity was not associated with proportionate increase in COVID-19 cases. Importantly, this study also found that COVID-19 rates were higher among students in school districts that did not have mandatory mask- use policies in place.

Layered mitigation strategies, including strict use of masks among students and a distance of at least three feet between students, were common factors among the schools in these studies that demonstrated decreased transmission from COVID-19. This additional evidence continues to underscore why it is so important for schools to use layered prevention strategies to provide the greatest level of protection.

So, in light of the expanded evidence on physical distancing, today, CDC is pleased to update our recommendations for physical distancing between students and classrooms in our K-12 operational strategy. Specifically, in elementary schools, CDC is now recommending that all students remain at least six feet apart in classrooms where everyone is wearing a mask, regardless of whether community COVID-19 risk is low, , moderate, substantial, or high.

In middle and high schools, CDC is also recommending that students be at least three feet apart in classrooms where everyone is wearing a mask and the community level of risk is low, moderate, or substantial. Because COVID-19 is spread more likely among older students, CDC recommends that middle and high school students should be at least six feet apart in communities where COVID 19 risk is high, unless cohorting is possible.

Cohorting is when groups of students are kept together with the same peers and staff, without close interaction with other groups or cohorts, to reduce the risk of spread throughout the school. We recognize that cohorting is harder in high school students, but the science indicates that these students are also at higher risk of transmitting SARS-CoV-2.

I want to emphasize that these recommendations are specific to students in classrooms with universal mask wearing. CDC continues to recommend at least six feet of distance between teachers and staff and other adults in the school buildings and between the adults and students.

In common areas in the school, when masks cannot be worn such as when eating, during activities such as singing, band practice, sports, exercise, and other activities that can increase exhalation, these activities should be moved outdoors or to large, well-ventilated spaces when possible. And six feet should also be used in community settings outside the classroom.

Today's announcement builds on our ongoing efforts to support teachers, school, staff, and students, as well as our work and educational and public health stakeholders to provide the guidance, tools, and resources to get our nation's schools open as quickly and safely as possible.

This includes our plan to invest $10 billion to support COVID-19 diagnostic and screening testing for teachers, staff, and students which we announced on Wednesday. And our ongoing work to get teachers and school staff vaccinated during the month of March through more than 9,000 pharmacies in our Federal Retail Pharmacy program that are now prioritizing vaccination appointments for teachers and staff who work in K-12 schools.

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If you are an eligible educator or school staff member and have not yet been vaccinated, I encourage you to go to CDC.gov to learn more about how you can sign up for an appointment through this program.

I'm hopeful that we are turning a corner on this pandemic. Getting our children back to school, in-person instruction, as soon as possible, is a critical first step in doing so. I'm grateful to all the scientists who have produced the evidence to address the key question, such as the distance required to remain safe, so that we can move quickly to this end.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions, and I'll now turn things over to Dr. Fauci.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Dr. Walensky. I'd like to spend the next couple of minutes in addressing an issue which is on the forefront of the minds of many people, and that relates to the threat of a variant of concern, particularly the B117 variant, which, right now, as we know, is causing a significant degree of concern in Europe where the flare and the surge that they are seeing is directly related to the variant 117.

This variant, as you know, is every day getting more and more dominant in our own country. So, very first, let me take just a few seconds to refresh your memory about the variant. It was first detected in the U.K. in December of 2020. It was reported in over 90 countries. The first U.S. cases were detected in the United States, in Colorado, at the end of December of 2020. And since then, it has been detected in 50 jurisdictions in the United States, and likely accounts now for about 20 to 30 percent of the infections in this country, and that number is growing.

Next slide.

So what I want to do, again, is take a look, first, of the concern that we have and then some encouraging news, and then I'll end with a caveat. Of concern is that there are about 50 percent increase in transmission with this particular variant that has been documented in the U.K., and there's likely an increase in severity of disease if infected with this variant.

Next slide.

This is an example of that. If you look at the daily confirmed cases in certain selected European countries over a period of time and as you can see, the last date on this slide is March 17th. This is what I referred to previously about the surges that are going on in Europe at a time when we've reached this point of plateauing that Dr. Walensky mentioned to you, where we're now at 53,200 cases per day on a seven- day average. This strongly suggests that there's an increase in transmissibility in the European countries associated with 117.

What about severity of disease? Next slide. In a couple of U.K. studies, this one, looking at over 54,000 matched pairs of participants in the U.K., in which one person was infected with the B117 and another one with the previously circulating variant, there was a 64 percent increased risk of death for those with the B117.

Next slide.

In this similar study in the U.K., there was about 5,000 deaths that were analyzed where there was the presence or absence of 117. And again, an estimated 61 percent higher risk of death with B117.

Next slide.

What about some encouraging news? There has been a minimal impact on viral neutralization by EUA monoclonal antibodies. And importantly, for what we are doing in the United States with vaccines, there's been a minimal impact on viral neutralization either by convalescent plasma or, importantly, by post-vaccination sera.

Next slide.

And so, on this last slide, as you can see with Israel as an example where the B117 predominates, as their vaccine doses into the arms of individuals increase, you're seeing a very dramatic and steady diminution of cases, which is underscoring the effect and the capability of the currently utilized vaccines against 117.

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With that encouraging note, I want to end with a big caveat. The way we can counter 117, which is a growing threat in our country, is to do two things, to get as many people vaccinated as quickly and as expeditiously as possible with the vaccine that we know works against this variant, and finally, to implement the public health measures that we talk about all the time and that was on Dr. Walensky's slide, masking, physical distancing, and avoiding congregate settings, particularly indoors.

I'll stop there, and back to Jeff.

KING: We're listening to the White House COVID briefing from the Biden COVID team. Let's bring in our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, several big headlines there, Sanjay. Let's pick up where Dr. Fauci just ended. Pretty alarming data about that U.K. variant B117 says it's now 25 percent to 30 percent of the new infections in the United States are from that variant.

He says that it's also more transmissible than previous variants of the coronavirus. But in the end there, he was trying to say look at what Israel is doing where it is predominant the B117. But they have had a very successful vaccine rollout and their cases are coming down. He's essentially saying, correct me if I'm wrong, it's a big threat out there, but vaccines work. DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. And I think that's a good way of summarizing it, vaccines work. He also made the point that some of these therapeutics in the form of monoclonal antibodies, where you're actually giving antibodies to someone, they seem to work as well, they haven't had a reduced impact against that variant. But it is more transmissible.

So until we can bring the numbers down overall and get as, you know, get people vaccinated to the point where we're reaching this sort of level of herd immunity. That's why the public health practices need to stay in place, including masking and all those things, even if you've been vaccinated, because you could still be exposed to this variant or as you know, some of the other variants that are out there. So cautiously optimistic, I would say Dr. Fauci was there at the end.

KING: Let's go to the beginning of the briefing to parents having this conversation right now. We've had it many times over the past year, when is it safe for children to go back to school? And Dr. Walensky, changing the CDC guidelines today, the current, as we woke up this morning, it was keep students six feet apart. And now the CDC says it has science, it has data to support that, especially in elementary schools, you can put that to three feet.

Dr. Walensky said, in most middle schools in high schools, you should be able to go to three feet as well unless there's very high community transmission in that community. How significant is it in terms of the giant debate American families have been having for a year now? Is it safe for my kid to go to school?

GUPTA: You know, I think that it's big for two reasons. One is just the practical reason, you know, John, reporting on this now for a year, you know, just for the school administrators to find the square footage in their schools, six feet, you know, is challenging, you had to go to bifurcated schedules, hybrid schedules, just finding that space was challenging, this is going to help.

But I think it's also signaling that, you know, there's -- the guidance, and the guidelines here have been steadily loosening. This is another example of that, and that's good. So we're heading in the right direction. They do draw a little bit of distinction between elementary school students and older students. They say older students are more like adults in terms of how they transmit. Younger students don't seem to transmit the virus very much.

So, three feet across the board for elementary school students whether or not they're living in a community with high transmission or not and I'll tell you about that in a second. For middle school and school students, you can do three feet. But if you're in a community that has high levels of transmission, then it's six feet, unless you can cohort, basically, same group of students and teachers together throughout the day, having very little interaction with other people within the school.

John, you know, the transmission rates and communities is still worth paying attention to. Overall, the numbers are a lot lower than they were a couple months ago. But I think we have this map to just show you a time lapse between sort of middle of February to now of what that transmission has sort of looked like. And I can sort of summarize read as obviously bad there. But I can sort of summarize for you that over 40 percent of communities in the United States still would qualify as having high levels of transmission more than 100 per 100,000 cases in their communities.

KING: I think that's critical. And I'll close on this point is that it's critical as you show that that we are still at this what I call the COVID crossroad. You see 2.5 million doses a day. The President has met his goal of 100 vaccine shots in 100 days. He thinks he might be able to double it actually, over the next 40 days. And yet Dr. Walensky saying we're at 53,000 cases a day on average, which means we still have a problem. We were at about 40,000 when we went up to that winter peak, we're still at a pretty high baseline.

GUPTA: Yes. We are. And that's the thing. You know, it's always important to give that kind text.

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But also I think, you know, we're starting to get these metrics of what success looks like as well below 10 per 100,000 people would mean we'd want to see below 30,000 cases per day in the country. Obviously, every community is different but that gives you an idea, John.

KING: Sanjay Gupta, grateful, Dr. Gupta, for your insights after that important briefing. I'm grateful for your time today. Have a good weekend.

Don't go anywhere, a busy news day. Brianna Keilar picks up right now.