Trump Calls for Reopening Wisconsin
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Of just 10 states that reported their highest single day case count on Friday.</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And yet the president still holding a campaign rally there. Just the kinds of events, crowded, no social distancing, very few masks, that doctors say are dangerous, help spread the virus. Dr. Paul Casey is medical director at Bellin Health Emergency Department in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Doctor, good to have you on the program again. More than half -- I mean this figure really caught my attention here. More than half of all positive coronavirus tests, infections in Wisconsin, have been reported since September 1st, just in the last two months, less than two months. You heard the president. I just want to quote him for our viewers. Here's what he said about the outbreak. Have a listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're rounding the corner. You'll see it. We're rounding the corner. But you've got to open up. You got to go open up. You've got to get the place going.</s>SCIUTTO: Are you rounding the corner in Wisconsin and do you agree the answer to what you're seeing there now is simply to open up?</s>DR. PAUL CASEY, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, BELLIN HEALTH EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT: Absolutely not. We are not rounding the corner. Over the last 30 days we've seen an alarming rise in the number of coronavirus cases. On Friday, as you mentioned, we had the highest single day count of 3,800 new coronavirus cases in our state. We know that 6 percent of those patients will ultimately need to be admitted. So that's just from one day. So in two weeks, when people typically need to be admitted, we're going to have 228 patients across the state who are going to need to be admitted. We are not seeing -- we're not rounding the coroner in this area.</s>HARLOW: This will seem like a dumb question to you maybe, but if I'm wondering it, I think other people might be wondering it. When you look at Wisconsin and they are battling the worst coronavirus outbreak in America right now, at least as of Friday, there was a reporting glitch over the weekend where we don't have their weekend numbers. Why -- why in Wisconsin? Why now?</s>CASEY: So there are several reasons. One -- unfortunately, there's an alarming lack of understanding about this disease. And, unfortunately, a lot of people still think it's a hoax. So 50 percent of the population refuses to wear a mask and we know the current wave is being spread in small family gatherings, lunches with friends, that type of thing. So the biggest thing we're battling is people just understanding that this is a deadly disease and you can catch it very easily. It's highly contagious. That's the biggest thing we're battling right now.</s>HARLOW: And as I understand --</s>HARLOW: Oh, Jim, I was just going to say, as I understand it, reading this weekend, the Republican lawmaker -- there are Republican lawmakers in the state that are still backing a lawsuit fighting the mask mandate, Jim. I just thought, given what we just heard, that was shocking.</s>SCIUTTO: No, it's just amazing that months in, you know, you still have to battle for people to accept the facts of this.</s>HARLOW: Yes. Yes.</s>SCIUTTO: Dr. Casey, I've been asking folks, because we try to look ahead here, right, I mean because the sad fact of the current situation we're in, I mean it's -- it's not -- the president's not going to change his rhetoric it seems and the numbers are rising. What would you recommend on November 4th to either a newly re-elected President Trump or a new president-elect in Joe Biden that's necessary for Wisconsin to get a handle on this?</s>CASEY: Jim, it's not only Wisconsin. We need a unified national response to the worst global pandemic we've seen since 1917-1918. Part of the problem has been that we have not had a uniformed response. States have been disorganized. The federal government has been disorganized, leave it to local public health departments to battle for their communities. So it would be wonderful if we could have a unified national response to the worst health crisis we've seen in over 100 years.</s>SCIUTTO: Yes.</s>HARLOW: Yes. What about the field hospital? I mean we were reporting last week that you guys were setting up a field hospital on the state fairgrounds. And you've talked about, you know, beds being placed in the hallways of other hospitals to handle the load.</s>CASEY: So the field hospital is set up to take care of COVID patients when hospitals become overwhelmed. We have not yet reached that point in our hospital. We look at our daily census, though, and identify patients who might be candidates to go to that hospital. A couple problems with the field hospital. The first is it's 120 miles away. We are facing difficulties with transportation by ambulances. We had a patient yesterday who needed transportation to Frater (ph) Medical Center down in Milwaukee for a different reason and we were struggling to find an ambulance to take that patient. They were estimating it would take five hours until they could come and pick that patient up and take that patient to Milwaukee. So that's going to be a challenge as well. The other problem with the field hospital is they -- really they can't take the sickest patients. Patients have to be ambulatory. They have to be able to check their own blood glucose. They can't do all the fancy treatments we do in the hospital. So although the bed capacity is helpful, it's somewhat limited in the services they can provide there. So we will use that if we need to as a last resort, but there's some difficulties with the field hospital.</s>SCIUTTO: We've got another holiday coming up and the data is very clear that holiday weekends over the summer, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, people traveled more, and infection rates went up. Thanksgiving. What do folks need to know going into this holiday? What would you recommend they do and don't do?</s>CASEY: So family gatherings, as I've mentioned, are currently the biggest thing we're seeing as vectors of infection for COVID-19. So, I mean, Thanksgiving is an American tradition. We all look forward to it. This year is different. And people just need to understand, if you get together with 20 people who don't live in your household, there's a very good chance that one of those people who does not have COVID symptoms may be infectious and several people in that gathering could get infected. And the stats are rather staggering. Currently we're seeing a lot of elderly people admitted. We know that one in three patients above the age of 70 who contract COVID will need to be admitted. And then one in three of those patients who do get admitted will die over the age of 70. So those are pretty staggering statistics in my mind. So I urge families to think long and hard about holding personal gatherings around Thanksgiving because there's medical risk to that.</s>SCIUTTO: Well, Dr. Casey, we appreciate you giving the unvarnished advice there. Thanks so much for joining, as always.</s>CASEY: You're welcome.</s>SCIUTTO: A growing number of Republicans are quietly, just a small number, quietly edging away from the president a couple weeks before the election amid fears that he might lose. Perspective from inside the president's party and Capitol Hill, next.