CDC: Hundreds Infected At Georgia Camp In Just Days
HILL: New York State's Coronavirus infection rate now has dropped under 1 percent, the state continuing to make significant progress. All this is a dire new forecast from the CDC projects another 20,000 lives could be lost in this country over just the next three weeks. CNN's Polo Sandoval joining us now from New York. So Polo, what more are we hearing this morning?</s>POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Erica, one of the big areas of concern is actually right across the River in New Jersey where the Governor is saying that he's alarmed by a recent rise. They confirmed about 2,000 COVID cases in about four consecutive days. Those are numbers that we haven't seen in about a month. You're about to hear what the Governor believes is behind it and why he's even considering possible rollback in reopenings? The Coronavirus may kill another 20,000 Americans by late August, according to a sobering fresh forecast from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC projections warn of an increase in increased deaths in Puerto Rico, Washington State, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee and New Jersey. The Governor there says house parties are contributing to COVID spread among young people.</s>GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): We are not past this. Everyone who walks around refusing to wear a mask or who hosts an indoor house party or who overstuffs a boat is directly contributing to these increases.</s>SANDOVAL: The White House Coronavirus Task Force says COVID cases are plateauing in the hard-hit states of California, Arizona and Texas. Florida is also on that list, though it may face further complications with approaching Hurricane Isaias. Nearly 8400 COVID patients remain in Florida hospitals and there's a possibility some Floridians near the storm's path may have to turn to shelters.</s>MAYOR DEAN TRANTALIS (D), FORT LAUDERDALE: The storm just exacerbates the conditions. What it does, it forces people to remain in close quarters and this is the - this is where we need to get that message out that people need to make sure that those protocols are not sacrificed, that they understand how important it is to wear face masks.</s>SANDOVAL: This week, Texas became the latest state to surpass New York in the number of COVID cases. The hot spot is in South Texas where death counts are staggering. Ron Rivera, a Funeral Director in hard hit Hidalgo County says his facility is overwhelmed. They are turning to additional storage for the influx of bodies and worried surviving family members may worsen the spread of the virus.</s>RON RIVERA, OWNER/DIRECTOR, RIVERA FUNERAL HOME: It's the loved ones, the families that come in to give their condolences to the family. That's where the danger is. And you get all sorts of people coming in at one time, and that's what really makes these families vulnerable to having this disease spread amongst the living. Not actually the dead.</s>SANDOVAL: With many schools nearing reopening, a new CDC study offers insight into what can happen when young people are allowed to assemble? Researchers looked at a Georgia summer camp not named in the study and found high infection rates among campers at that facility. The data shows the camp followed most but not all of the CDC's safety guidelines.</s>DR. ROSHINI RAJAPAKSA, NYU LANGONE HEALTH: As this study shows, when you have large groups of people and children especially because you really can't expect children to strictly adhere to some of these safety precautions, there's a high risk of transmission.</s>SANDOVAL: Students already back in the classroom at Indiana's Hancock County where the local health department confirmed on the first day of school that a middle schooler tested positive for the virus. Officials with the school district told parents the student was immediately isolated. Another similar case in Northern Mississippi where authorities confirmed that a high school student tested positive for the Coronavirus this week after the first week of classes here, this is certainly not surprising to health officials who have warned school districts that they can expect these kinds of cases. But Erica the key here is to isolate these kinds of cases as soon as they are identified to try to limit exposure to students and staff.</s>HILL: That's for sure. Absolutely, Polo, thank you. Joining us now to discuss, Dr. Michael Saag (ph), who is an Associate Dean for Global Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a Medical Professor in the School's Division of Infectious Diseases? As we look at this CDC study that looked at this overnight camp in Georgia, what's interesting is a parent of a child who went to that camp who ended up becoming infected, weighed in this morning, I just want to play a little bit of what this dad had to say, take a listen.</s>TOM MAIELLARO, SON ATTENDED SUMMER CAMP WHERE VIRUS BROKE OUT: The camp had done everything they possibly could to ensure that our kids were safe. And they had the best laid plans. Well, we know that the best laid plans as we saw with camp, something could happen.</s>HILL: There's always the possibility that something can happen. The CDC said they followed most of the guidelines but they didn't follow all of them. The kids didn't wear masks. We know there wasn't as much ventilation, the windows and doors in certain areas weren't open, per CDC guidelines and the way they recommended. And there was a lot of singing and chanting. How important is the planning as we look forward to school, which as we, you know, as Polo just pointed out, has are started in some areas?</s>DR. MICHAEL SAAG, ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR GLOBAL HEALTH, UAB: Well, it's an issue of planning, but it's also an issue of implementation. So in the case of the camp, the counselors wore masks, the campers did not. And if you dig into those data a little bit, you'll see that the rate of infection among the counselor was about half of what you saw in that camper. So that kind of makes sense. When we translate this into school reopening, we need plans for sure. And they need to be different than just business as usual. But once the plan is made, the implementation has to follow in lockstep. If it doesn't, we should be expecting cases in schools and it won't be news that somebody in Mississippi or somebody in other school system became infected. That's going to be the rule. The question is, what are we willing to live with?</s>HILL: Yes. I think that's a question that people are having a hard time answering, right? But when you look at the protocol, you mentioned the student in Mississippi that Polo mentioned. We also know there was a student in Indiana who tested positive, that student was isolated per protocol in the school district, they said. It's not just isolating, though, it's about quarantining. We heard here in New York City yesterday from the city, that if there are positive cases, for example, in a classroom, where they're trying to limit kids to staying within that classroom pod and limiting adult interaction, that there could be a two-week quarantine for the class. How broad do you think a quarantine would need to be in a school if there's someone in one classroom where they are pretty much contained to that group of kids?</s>SAAG: Right. So let's take that one single individual who tests positive. The problem is if that person was probably symptomatic. In the days before the symptoms came on, they were spreading virus to others. So that means a fair number of people in that class were also infected. Certainly everybody in that class was exposed. So then the question becomes, are you quarantine the whole class? And if you do, 10 days is probably long enough to pull them out. But at some point, it becomes impossible to quarantine everyone. And this is why the decisions of when do we go back to school matter so much. If we were in Canada, where the rates are about 128, on what they are saying now, you can do that with a little bit more confidence. But coming back to these, what we call red zone states, the ones you mentioned earlier and some more, the rates are so high of infection, that the chance of at least one person in a classroom of 25 being infected starts to go up to about 75 percent likelihood. And how are we going to manage all that? One other point real quickly, we have to ask the question, are we willing to live with the end result of the inevitable situation where teachers are going to become infected, that's going to happen. And then the teachers because they're older have a higher likelihood of getting sick. And God forbid if one of them passes away. Are we willing to live with those consequences? Because I think that's what we're going to see in about three months from now, unfortunately, with the rates of infections that we have, and those are individual decisions.</s>HILL: What we're seeing in terms of the rates of infection, as you know, while things may be plateauing in these current hotspots, Arizona, California, Texas, even showing a little bit of a decline yesterday on their seven day average, they're plateauing in such a high level. We know deaths arriving -- are rising and that there a lagging indicator, at least two to four weeks in this new prediction from the CDC, we could see an additional 20,000 deaths in just three weeks. A, do you agree with that prediction? And B, is there anything at this point to make sure we don't get there?</s>SAAG: The deaths are relatively easy to predict, unfortunately, because that's what follows that spike in cases. So you get transmission, infection, reporting, hospitalization, and then it's just a simple calculation to say we're going to have about 1,000 deaths a day based on the number of people in the hospital right now. Those certain proportion are going to die. That's understood. But I think the real question here coming back to the notion of how do we mitigate this? Everybody knows what we're supposed to do. Everyone can tell you about distancing and mask. The question is, can we do this reliably? And finally, when you see those things plateauing, that's not good enough. That's obviously a step in the right direction. But look at how New York manages. It wasn't just plateau. It was actually going down to pre epidemic levels. And unfortunately, that's what we have to be patient and wait on.</s>HILL: The patience for a lot of folks is the hardest part, but boy, is it worth it? Dr. Michael Saag, I appreciate your time and your expertise this morning. Thank you.</s>SAAG: Thank you, Erica.</s>HILL: President Trump dropping a bombshell this week floating the idea of delaying the election even though, let's be very clear here, the President does not have the power to do so. So what's behind that move? And does it actually undermine the President's effort to reopen schools?