9 Vaccine Makers Sign Safety Pledge in Race for Vaccine; 11 States Report Rise in New Coronavirus Cases; Dr. Mark McClellan Discusses Rise in New Infections & Vaccine Maker Safety Pledge
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Only three mothers have ever won a grand slam in the last half century. Amazing work by all of them. Congrats, ladies. Thanks so much for joining us today. We'll see you back here tomorrow. I'm Poppy Harlow.</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Tweet us who you think those three moms are, because we think we have the answer and we'll tweet them back. I'm Jim Sciutto. "NEWSROOM" with John King starts right now.</s>JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everybody. I'm John King in Washington. Thank you for sharing your day with us. Today is back-to-school day for millions of American students and also a stark reminder that most everything is still disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. Just a snapshot here of the 16 largest school districts starting school today, 14 are doing it fully online. More than 7.3 million students beginning the academic year not in a classroom but on a computer at home. When it will be safe to return remains a big open question. The speed of the vaccine race, well, that's one factor. The trajectory of the new case count is another. And some positive signs today, but it's going to take us a week, a little bit more to know if Labor Day weekend like holidays before it contributes to a spike in new infections. Today is also eight weeks to Election Day. The president is the traveling to two big battleground states. The environment his focus in Florida and an evening airport rally in North Carolina. Noteworthy, it's the second presidential visit to North Carolina in a week. That, a reminder that the president's troubles right now include states that are absolutely essential to his re-election map. His morning tweets tell us what matters most to him. While many of you were testing the school Zoom log-in, the president was attacking Joe Biden, Black Lives Matter protesters, and taking aim at Democratic governors. The president says, quote, "The Democrats will open up their states on November 4th, the day after the election." That's his complaint. He says shutdowns are ridiculous and only being done, in the president's view, to hurt the economy prior to the most important election perhaps in our history. A constant refrain from the president in recent days is that a vaccine should be ready by Election Day. Well, today, nine biopharmaceutical companies that are rivals signed a remarkably unusual joint pledge to uphold, quote, "high ethical standards" and be certain they say science alone dictates any vaccine approval requests. Pfizer's CEO says it's absolutely critical that you, the people who need these vaccines, trust the process.</s>ALBERT BOURLA, CEO, PFIZER: With increasing public concerns about the processes that we're used to go develop these vaccines and even more importantly the processes that will be used to evaluate these vaccines we saw this critical to come out and reiterate our commitment. We will develop our products. Our vaccines use the highest ethical standards and the most scientific review process.</s>KING: There are positive trend lines when we look at the numbers but question is it just a blip coming out of a holiday weekend, or are we getting better control of the virus. Let's take a look. Look at the 50-state trend map. Eleven states trending up, meaning reporting new infections now than a week ago. You see them in the orange and the red. Florida and Arizona back trending up. The numbers not as high as they were in the summer surge but trending up in those two states. But overall, 24 holding steady and 15 states trending down. Not fantastic but better than the map a few weeks ago. Trending down. Five states in terms of in infections yesterday, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina. The Midwest one the current problem zones as we look at it. The top five states in terms of reporting new deaths yesterday, Texas, California, Florida, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. Every one of these numbers is horrible, but these numbers are a little bit lower than they have been in recent days. Again, does that continue? Let's hope so in that regard. If you look at the overall case trend, very important to note this is below 25,000 new infections reported yesterday. But it was a holiday. The question is: Can it go down you? See sometimes these drops. The drops tend to come right out of a weekend and then things go back up and the reporting. The baseline, about 40,000 new infections on average in the United States. It was 20,000, just below that, to start the summer. So you had the summer surge, come down to Labor Day. The question is: Can you push it down more as we head to fall? The experts tell you that's critical. Or is this just a blip? Stay with us throughout the week. We'll see what the numbers do there. The positivity rate is something that looks a little bit better. You're looking for signs of progress. On Monday, the report was just shy of 5 percent of coronavirus tests nationally came back positive. All the public health experts say get it below 5 and try to shove it lower. It's at 5 at the moment but the question is can you keep it there and shut it down. Here's where people get worried Labor Day weekend. More people out. Were they being safe? Were they in close crowds, especially in states that have a way higher 5 percent positivity: 20 percent in North Dakota and 19 percent in South Dakota, 15 percent in Iowa, 18 percent in Kansas, 13 percent in Florida, and 17 percent in Mississippi? Do those states, can they push it down? Does the holiday weekend bring it back up? That's one of the problems. Look at New Jersey on the map right here. Its positivity rate right now is 1 percent. Remember back at the beginning, march and April, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut was driving everything? This part of the country is in much better shape right now, much better shape. If you look at New Jersey overall, over three million coronavirus tests since the beginning in New Jersey and 6 percent have come back positive and 94 percent negative. The positivity rate at the moment down to 1 percent. The Governor of New Jersey says we're in a good place but we won't let up.</s>GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): At this point, we don't see any hot spots. We don't see any specific reason, but this is a virus that is still among us. It ebbs and flows. We'll do everything that we can to obviously monitor it but also put the policy in place that will keep it in a box. And that's what we're trying to do every day.</s>KING: Let's continue the conversation. With me is the director of the Center for Public Health at Duke, a former FDA commissioner, Dr. Mark McClellan. And Dr. McClellan, it's good see you. So where are we? You see below 25,000 new infections reported yesterday. Let's hope that every infection is a bad thing but let's hope that trend line continues. But as you well know, sometimes out of a holiday weekend you get a bit of a blip in the data there. But if, right now, seven-day average, 40,000 new infections, where does the United States of America need to push that baseline as we begin to go into the dangers of the fall?</s>DR. MARK MCCLELLAN, PROFESSOR & FOUNDING DIRECTOR, DUKE-MARGOLIS CENTER FOR HEALTH POLICY, DUKE UNIVERSITY: John, that was a great overview of some numbers that are still concerning in terms of their levels but for most part have been trending in the right direction. As you said, we won't really know of the consequences of what happened over Labor Day weekend for a few more days at least. It takes a few days for the cases to develop symptoms and to be reported and so forth. We, right now, are trying to reopen schools and universities, which, in turn, will help more parents get back to work. Also, if we can keep getting case levels down, it makes it easier to reopen businesses successfully. These are trends we need to continue. It's challenging when we head into the fall when people spend more time closer together. The good news in all of this is we know steps that work, distancing it at work and wearing a mask personally and increased testing, especially for people who don't have symptoms and have to be in places together, like in universities and some essential workplaces. We can do more of all of these things and keep trends going the right direction.</s>KING: You mentioned if people do the right things. Among the many things you do is it advise the governor of Texas. During the summer surge with the biggest takes, Arizona, Texas, Florida and California. Texas has come down dramatically since the summer surge. That's good for the people and the country. We hope the numbers stay down. One thing we saw, Dr. McClellan, in the middle of the surge, that's when Governor Abbott got much more aggressive about masks. I believe you're on the record that you thought bars opened too soon in Texas. The governor did get very aggressive. We see now Dr. Birx, of the Coronavirus Task Force, delivering reports to Iowa, to Missouri, a few weeks back it was Georgia, urging the Republican governors there to impose a mask mandate, and they have resisted. Would that help at this time? As you mentioned, kids going back to school, all the kids going back to campus. Parents head willing back to work. Should we develop a mask mandate in place nationally at the moment?</s>MCCLELLAN: The evidence is wearing masks does make a distance. It reduces the rate of spread. States that have adopted mask mandates have had slower growth. It's important to remember, John, it's not only imposing the mandate but changing behavior. What also mattered in Texas, as an example, was new steps to enforce the mandate and in businesses. Also a lot of outreach to public to remind them it's not only about when you go into a workplace but also when you gather with friends in the backyard, other social events on your own. These same distancing and mask rules are important to follow. I think the mask mandates at the state level can and do make a difference. Arkansas has seen an impact as well. But it needs to be backed up with other steps. And that's hard for the national government to do by itself. It really needs to be -- as you said, we're all in this together.</s>KING: Help me understand, from your past experience as the FDA commissioner. You have nine competitors coming together to sign a statement saying only science will dictate our decisions to ask for approval of a vaccine. They are trying to allay a lot of concerns that the president or others may have their thumb on the scale. Imagine you're the FDA commissioner and the president of the United States almost every day said this.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to have a vaccine very soon, maybe even before a very special date. You know what date I'm talking about.</s>KING: Is that helpful?</s>MCCLELLAN: Well, I think it's very unlikely that we're going to have a vaccine available, even for emergency use in very high-risk groups, like health care workers and some military personnel and first responders. Very unlikely that that's going to happen before the election. Lots of things have to go right. And I think, John, the concern is, with all the politics going on right now, we need to remember that there's a strong regularity science team base at the FDA, experts who are watching very closely what's going on with the trials now. They've laid out clear guidance for what they expect to see. And they to see real results on lowering the rates of infection and severity of infection in a vaccine before we can even be used in an emergency limited situation. That's very unlikely to happen before the election. I think what you're seeing from industry, from public health experts, former FDA commissioners like me, is just a reminder to the American people that we have a good regulatory mechanism in place. We need to be sure to follow it.</s>KING: Dr. Mark McClellan, grateful for your expertise and insights, sir Thank you very much.</s>MCCLELLAN: Thank you.</s>KING: Thank you. Up next for us, the president, at that press conference you saw a clip of there, attacks his own military leaders. More on that. But as we go to break, the president's former fixer, Michael Cohen, with a colorful choice of words to describe his longtime boss.</s>MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER PERSONAL ATTORNEY TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: I describe Mr. Trump as a cult leader. And I was in this cult.