Interview With Daytona Beach Mayor Derrick Henry About Massive Crowd Gathered in Daytona Beach; Crowds Gather on Holiday Weekend as Health Experts Urge Caution.
ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: And now we remember that's the weekend that saw a number of Americans choose to throw caution to the wind and gather in big groups despite the coronavirus death toll in the U.S. edging painfully close to 100,000 people. Zero to nearly 100,000 in just three months. The pandemic lockdown put in place nationwide so many weeks ago being eased this week in some places for the first time. Beaches and public parks cautiously allowing visitors to venture out most of those places with visible reminders of health and safety guidelines, instructions to wear face masks and to avoid close human contact. Clearly the advice not being followed at this large swimming pool party in Missouri. This video was made yesterday by a TV reporter in Lake of the Ozarks. No signs of any precautions at all. People partying, clustered close together. Nobody visible wearing a protective mask. And as a reminder that swimming parties are not safe events. The governor of Arkansas this week had announced a second peak of coronavirus cases in his state blamed in part on a swim party that resulted in a cluster of new infections. And there is this stunning scene from last night. A crowd of more than 5,000 in Daytona Beach, Florida, in a Daytona Beach, Florida, neighborhood with no social distancing, no masks, after nearly three months of dire warnings, almost 100,000 Americans dead, and endless warnings on how to head outdoor safely. This scene is yet another example of the disconnect we are seeing play out in a number of places this holiday weekend. Daytona Beach Mayor Derrick Henry is joining us now. Mayor, your reaction to these scenes. Can you provide some context to what we are seeing?</s>MAYOR DERRICK HENRY, DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA: Well, you're seeing a scene of visitors largely to our community who have been cooped up for several months now and who are looking for something to do. For the most part we opened up the beach and in public, there's basically no other outlet for folks. You don't have movie theaters, no theme parks are available, folks are looking for an outlet and to have a good time. They're typically young people between the ages of 18 and about 30 years old.</s>CABRERA: We saw estimates up to 5,000 people were part of this congregation of sorts. What was your reaction when you heard or saw this?</s>HENRY: Well, we expected large crowds, so my reaction was concern. Great concern in large part because if they're infected. They were not obviously practicing social distancing nor were they wearing masks. So that is my first concern. Our beach, we're used to or accustomed to having large, large crowds on the barrier islands very often. So the biggest issue was affected. They were not practicing social distancing and they weren't from here so they did not necessarily respond in a lot of ways that we wanted them to as it relates to the normal expectations of visitors.</s>CABRERA: Could police have done something to stop this before it developed into a dangerous situation?</s>HENRY: No. Our police work very hard and local promoters to help them to essentially cancel the event because it wasn't sanctioned. I felt that our police did an excellent job responding. But when you're talking about you got 500 -- maybe 300 to 500 people per law enforcement officer, it's a tall order. But things by and large were well-maintained. The police did a good job as you can expect with law enforcement.</s>CABRERA: So how do you prevent things like this, though, in the future?</s>HENRY: Education. You continue to educate folks in your community as to how to respond. And then we have to do a better job I think of promoting it to surrounding communities and let them know what our expectations are and what the rules and protocols are here in the city of Daytona Beach. But it's a tall order because the real reality is folks do not have theaters to attend. As I said Disney World is not open. Even the rides and other amenities that are associated with our parks and our city are not opened. So the one thing that is opened is the beach. And so when you get this volume of people, it's going to be tough to control until we get other things opened or close things off. And that's certainly</s>CABRERA: Sure.</s>HENRY: What we expect when they visit our city.</s>CABRERA: But why do you think people thought that this was OK?</s>HENRY: Well, it's not -- I'm not sure what you mean by they thought that this was OK? That it was OK for them --</s>CABRERA: Well, clearly they -- they came. They didn't stay away. They didn't wear masks. They didn't social distance. They showed up and thought that this was something they wanted and could be a part of.</s>HENRY: Well, I think that as I said before people are feeling a sense of relief. They're looking to release their emotions. And I believe that even as a society we have sent mixed messages about what's most important and what's most important continues to be, from my perspective as mayor of the city, is the health and well-being of my residents and the health and well-being of Americans across the board. And I think to some degree the mixed messages of trying to open the economy up has send the message that most things are fair game. When we have to send a message that yes, we do want you to interact in society, we do want you to have a good time, but we want you to do so responsibly and that the most important thing that any citizen can do is to protect themselves when they're out and about. And that has not been a message that I think that has been properly illustrated by many in authority.</s>CABRERA: Why not require face masks if people are going to go to the beach?</s>HENRY: Well, even if you are required to face masks there is no way -- and they are an expectation and essentially a stated requirement, but when you've got 10,000 people on the beach, and an X number of law enforcement officers, it is impossible to enforce that. And so it's a matter of public choice. And the second thing is, even if you were to enforce social distancing, you enforce face masks, the courts are not going to likely uphold if you begin arresting people. And we don't have enough arrest powers or facilities to harbor that many people who are not following the guidelines as it relates to face mask. But I've said over and over again that I believe that the most important thing that you can do when you're out and about is distance yourself. When we put out protocols and procedures, we ask people to stay 10 feet apart, stay within a group of six, even on our beaches as it relates to their parking. You know, we allow driving on our beach. So we're asking people to be 25 feet from the next vehicle. And so there are a lot of protocols we put in place but they're just difficult to maintain when you have this volume of people. And they're coming from all over central Florida. That's the other thing. It's not Daytona Beach.</s>CABRERA: Right. Right. All right, well, thank you very much, Mayor Derrick Henry. We appreciate your time. Best of luck as you work through this challenging situation. And be well.</s>HENRY: Thank you. Take care.</s>CABRERA: Thank you. I want to bring in Dr. Esther Choo, an emergency room physician and associate professor of emergency medicine and public health at Oregon Health and Science University, and cardiologist Dr. Jonathan Reiner who is also a professor of medicine at George Washington University. Doctor Reiner, doctors have been clear, the FDA commissioner tweeted this morning, reminding Americans the coronavirus is not yet contained. Dr. Anthony Fauci warned earlier this week now is not the time to tempt faith and pull back completely. Where do you think the breakdown in communication is as we see images of people clearly not listening?</s>DR. JONATHAN REINER, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Hi, good evening, Ana. This is what happens when the natural tendency of people to want to exert some personal freedom after months, you know, at home mixes with really at best a mixed message from the administration in term of social distancing. The president has really fueled this very combustible mix by refusing to wear a mask and by stating that he wants to open churches and get back to normal. The message to the public should have been that we can't get back to normal but we need to get back to a new safe new normal. But the public hasn't heard that and this is what you see.</s>CABRERA: Dr. Choo, now we know scenes like what we saw in Daytona Beach, in Tybee Island, Georgia, Ocean City, Maryland, massive crowds, no masks. So now what happens medically?</s>DR. ESTHER CHOO, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN: Now we watch and wait. I mean, it really is a shame that things opened like this on Memorial Day weekend. It could have been an opportunity to showcase creative public health measures to encourage masks wearing, ways that we could demarcated areas so that people are encouraged to walk separately and to sit on the beach separately. But now we wait and see. I mean, part of the difficult thing of this virus is it takes a little time to spread. There's a long asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic phase, and then people get sick, and some of those people get very sick and require hospitalization and ICU level care, and some will die. And it just takes a number of weeks to see. So we've said at every stage of this. You know, April, we learned -- we learned about April in May, we'll learn about May in June. And in the meantime I think we just do the best we can to improve public health messaging so we don't have -- we don't, you know, test the virus and give it so many opportunities to flourish.</s>CABRERA: And as we just heard from the mayor there, a lot of these people aren't from here, aren't from Daytona Beach, coming in from out of town, which means they're going back to their own communities after being in these large groups with no masks. How concerning is that, Dr. Reiner?</s>REINER: It's super concerning. You know, it's important to remember that, although just about every state has opened in some degree, the virus is far from in retreat. If you remove New York from the national statistics, at best the number of daily cases has plateaued. With New York in the mix, it looks like the number of daily cases is dropping nationally. But without New York, nationally we're at best plateau. So to, you know, let our guard down now is a fatal mistake. And what will happen from Florida if there is a super spreader, where that becomes a super spreader event, all those folks are getting on airplanes and going back to their communities, and then we have to rely on whether we have enough or vigorous enough contact tracing back in those communities to put those fires out. I'm not confident about that.</s>CABRERA: Dr. Reiner and Dr. Choo, please stay with me. We'll discuss why the simple act of wearing a mask to protect your fellow Americans has become such a divisive issue. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Don't go anywhere.