Trump Refused To Wear Mask Publicly Before Hospital Visit
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Thank you for joining us here in the United States, you're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Michael Holmes. Coming up this hour, President Donald Trump now doing what some Americans have been doing for months now, while wearing a mask. He did it during a visit to a military medical center on Saturday. This is the first time he has been wearing one of these masks in front of the cameras. Doctors and scientists have been saying for months that wearing a mask keeps the virus from spreading, even if you don't know you have it. In fact, there is now a new estimate of how many people may be infected with the coronavirus while having no symptoms at all. The CDC says it could be as much as 40 percent. And it might be behind one of the reasons for this: 29 states now reporting a rise in coronavirus cases, South Carolina, Texas, Florida, Georgia, all reporting record or near record daily case numbers on Saturday. Now for months, President Trump has, of course, refused to wear a mask, despite the urging of his own team of public health experts. Kristen Holmes explains why he has decided to do it now and whether he might stick with it.</s>KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump wearing a mask for the first time in public Saturday, on a visit to Walter Reed Hospital. There he met with wounded warriors as well as some of those health care workers on the front lines. And we have learned that this was a result of a begging and pleading by aides and advisers who wanted him to have a photo op to in a mask, to endorse mask wearing. There are some questions to announce whether or not what it will work. It's become incredibly politically. He made a statement about why he was wearing a mask at this point. Take a listen.</s>TRUMP: Well, I will probably have a mask if you must know. I mean, I'll probably have a mask. I think when you're in a hospital especially in that particular setting, where you're talking to a lot of soldiers and people that in some cases just got off the operating tables, I think it's a great thing to wear a mask. I've never been against masks but I do believe they have a time and a place.</s>K. HOLMES: See, here President Trump is giving a very limited setting, he's talking about soldiers coming off of the operating tables and that is not the same message that these health experts are saying. They're saying wear a mask anytime you cannot socially distance. They want people wearing masks indoors. They're saying wear them in grocery stores. It's unclear that this is going to send the message that his aides and advisers were hoping it would when he has himself limited it to such a small venue of when he believes wearing a mask is appropriate. And, just to remind our viewers, it's something that President Trump has really been against. He has said he hasn't been. But he said wearing a mask wasn't for him. We know behind closed doors he's said if he's seen wearing a mask, it might send a wrong message to his supporters as he's trying to move away from the virus. Whether or not we even see President Trump in a mask again, the likelihood of him going to another hospital to visit wounded warriors, that really just remains at this point unclear -- Kristen Holmes, CNN, the White House.</s>M. HOLMES: And with me now to clarify some of this is Dr. Jacob Stephen, a cardiologist at Northwestern Medicine. Doctor, we appreciate your time. Rather than just talking about today, I wanted to ask you about the cases of those who died and what they went through. But there seems to be evidence of long term damage for those who survive this. What are you seeing?</s>DR. JACOB STEPHEN, CARDIOLOGIST: Thanks for having me, Michael. Yes, as the pandemic is in its fifth month, we're starting to see patients come back who have recovered from the initial illness and they're having lingering symptoms. These are patients who have confirmed COVID positive, tested negative, have some type of immunity in their blood and now they have persistent symptoms, such as fatigue, some neurological symptoms, difficulty breathing. So I am seeing more of it, talking to my colleagues, and even in my own practice.</s>M. HOLMES: What has surprised you most in terms of those, what sort of things we do not have expected?</s>STEPHEN: I really would not expect to see such lingering shortness of breath, especially with light amounts of activity. I really did not expect to see this generalized weakness or fatigue weeks, even a month after it had resolved.</s>M. HOLMES: Is it surprising how broad the damage can, be? Not only the, lungs I mean we are hearing kidney damage, liver, heart, brain, nervous system, gastrointestinal, all of these, things -- all of these things were noted, Friday in a review about COVID patients, it's a very broad range of damage.</s>STEPHEN: Yes, I think the medical community, when the pandemic initially started, was kind of modeling it after flu infections, so primarily lung infections. But unfortunately we're getting a lot of data from autopsies. What it's showing is that people are dying of systemic inflammation, blood clots. It's a much more ubiquitous infection than a traditional flu.</s>M. HOLMES: Yes, the blood clotting in lots of organs as well, I remember Chris Cuomo and Richard Quest, they talked about who had the virus, they've spoken about things like balance and brain fog and so on. What are you seeing in terms of neurological impacts, even among patients who didn't have respiratory symptoms?</s>STEPHEN: I actually read the piece that Richard Quest had put in. And that's a very apropos article. That's exactly what I'm. Seeing I'm seeing a lot of patients who are having chronic fatigue. Can't quite get their breath. Even with light amounts of activity. Generalized weakens, kind of a malaise feeling that does not go away. And sure enough the pandemic is still young, in its 5th month so we don't know if mostly symptoms would eventually recover down the road. But that's exactly what I'm seeing.</s>M. HOLMES: Yes, and you touched on, this I mean we obviously what we're showing is how much we don't know. We have a lot to learn, as you say. What would you like to see done in terms of getting your hands around the wider impacts of the virus and those lingering affects going forward? What sort of needs to be done to study that and get our heads around that?</s>STEPHEN: Now that we're getting a lot of data, both here in the United States and around the world, I think the -- we should really focus on creating an international database, classifying these things for better targeted treatment for those that are affected. I don't think we have enough of an international cooperative database to start looking at these large volumes of patients that we have the benefit of studying.</s>M. HOLMES: I wanted to touch on this, as well, I was seeing reports of people uninsured, under insured, getting massive treatment bills, given that the U.S. doesn't have universal health. Are you seeing stuff like that, what could we see in terms of the financial impact on people post-treatment or with ongoing treatment needs? The U.S. system isn't kind to people who are not uninsured and the unemployment issues only adding to that.</s>STEPHEN: Yes, I'm starting to see quite a few patients who have ended up losing their jobs and possibly losing their health insurance. I think it's affected the patients who have critical illness the most, people on ventilators for weeks to a month, they're going home, they recovered, then they're going home and they are being hit with these very large bills. So I really don't see that changing until Congress starts addressing that particular focus of the population.</s>M. HOLMES: And just, finally what are you saying regarding non COVID emergencies? I guess in terms of people, perhaps not seeking medical treatment when they should because they are worried about, COVID and those with other conditions heart or whatever, those perhaps having to wait to be seen, is that a problem?</s>STEPHEN: Well, when the pandemic first started, we had to put off these elective procedures. So fortunately most of them were not, critical. As far as the critical cases people were initially afraid to come into the hospital in case they got COVID-19. So they were putting off symptoms related to heart, attack strokes, they just were not coming in. And by the time they just couldn't tolerate the symptoms anymore, much of the damage was irreversible. So we have these education programs in our system to make sure patients are vigilant about some of these symptoms and not stay away from hospitals. We have a lot of protections in place now. We are much better with protection to patients that have come into the hospital and we're better at treating COVID at this point.</s>M. HOLMES: Much to, learn, much to be concerned about.</s>M. HOLMES: Dr. Jacob Stephen, we really appreciate, it thank you so much.</s>STEPHEN: Thank you, Michael.</s>M. HOLMES: Now the CDC estimates that 40 percent of people infected with the virus don't have any symptoms. And while they may not show any signs, they could, of course, still be spreading it to other people. CNN's Brian Todd has more on a new study of these so-called silent spreaders.</s>JASON HARTELIUS, RECOVERED CORONAVIRUS PATIENT: I've had oxygen coming in, up my nose, coming out of the wall.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before he was admitted to a hospital in Pennsylvania this spring, TV sports producer Jason Hartelius believes he carried the coronavirus in his system while he moved around and his work for about a week. A danger that Hartelius warned about as he was recovering.</s>HARTELIUS: You may say you're fine, you may say your low risk. You know what, you might get it, not know it. Go back to work thinking you're fine never have any symptoms. You could give it to people you work with who could get very sick or die.</s>TODD: That danger of silent unknown transmission of coronavirus is coming into greater focus. A new study published by the National Academy of Sciences says people who are so called silent spreaders could be responsible for about half of all coronavirus cases.</s>ALISON GALVANI, DIRECTOR, YALE UNIV. CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE MODELING AND ANALYSIS: And this makes control of COVID-19 particularly challenging. With COVID-19, people are infectious before any symptoms. So most people who are transmitting the virus are doing so inadvertently without even realizing that they are sick.</s>TODD: Study author Alison Galvani says that means the silent spreaders are mostly people who are going through those few days just before symptoms show themselves or who are completely asymptomatic. And she says younger, seemingly healthy people are disproportionately responsible for silent transmissions. A key question now, given this new study, how do we combat silence spreading? Experts say it means doubling down on the basics.</s>JENNIFER NUZZO, EPIDEMIOLOGIST, JOHNS HOPKINS BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: First thing is distance. Second thing is if you do have to go out, you know, try to physically separate yourself from others. And try to avoid those crowded indoor spaces and wear masks reduce the chances that you could transmit your virus to others if you have it and don't know about it.</s>TODD: And experts say this new information on silent transmission does not mean we should panic when we venture out or think that everyone we see, is a silent spreader of coronavirus.</s>NUZZO: We still very much think that this virus is spread by close prolonged contact. So we shouldn't take from this that if you're just out in the streets or in the grocery store and you're maintaining distance from people that this puts you at even greater risk than we may have thought otherwise.</s>TODD (on camera): Still, tracking silent spreaders of coronavirus is going to be a huge challenge in the months and years ahead. This new study says more than one-third of silent infections would need to be identified and isolated in order to suppress any future outbreaks. And the author of the study says, we are not there yet. Pointing out there's not enough contact tracing available and not even enough tests for people who have symptoms, let alone people who are asymptomatic -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.</s>M. HOLMES: Robert Mueller, the former special counsel who investigated the 2016 Trump campaign's ties to Russia, says the prosecution against Roger Stone was legitimate and his conviction, of course, stands. Roger Stone, President Trump's friend and political ally, was found guilty of lying to Congress, seven charges in all. Guilty verdicts were handed down. Now Mr. Trump commuted Mr. Stone's 40-month sentence on Friday night. And in a rare op-ed in "The Washington Post," Mueller defended his team against the White House cries that the investigation was a hoax and a witch hunt. He writes in part, quote, "We made every decision in Stone's case, as in all our cases, based solely on the facts and the law and in accordance with the rule of law. The women and men who conducted these investigations and prosecutions acted with the highest integrity. Claims to the contrary are false." The U.S. president putting pressure on states to get students back to class but can it be done safely? I talk with two teachers who know the dangers firsthand. That's when we come back.