Dr. Fauci, CDC Director Robert Redfield To Testify Before Senate Committee
SCIUTTO: Happening within minutes, you can see the live picture on right-hand side of the screen, Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Robert Redfield, other top government health officials as well, will testify before a Senate committee as much of the U.S. is right now failing to contain the spread of coronavirus. With me now is Dr. Peter Hotez, Infectious Disease Specialist, he is also the Dean of the School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Hotez, good to have you on.</s>DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AT BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Good morning.</s>SCIUTTO: You say, and this is remarkable, there's no proof that partial closures will help stop the resurging coronavirus. Why is that, and what does that mean needs to be done?</s>HOTEZ: Well, we've never been in this situation before where, really, where we've had a successful closure and helped stem the transmission of the virus and then reopened potentially prematurely, and now we have virus transmission, and now, how do we put it back? So my point has been all along that we need to make some informed decisions, work with the epidemiologists, work with the CDC and get some information. what is the expectation on taking partial measures, meaning only focusing on the bars or only focusing on the restaurants and see do we anticipate that's going to a big impact, because the models looked nearly apocalyptic in terms of the rise that we're starting to see and will that have a substantial effect or not. I haven't seen evidence of that.</s>SCIUTTO: I mean, don't we already have massive test cases for this looking at other countries that got hit first, right? Look at Europe, look at Italy, Spain, even China, though there are doubts about a lot of their data. But, still, can you not look at those countries to see what worked and what didn't work? And if so, why aren't we doing that?</s>HOTEZ: Well, what we know works is if we do what we did back in March, which is a complete stay-at-home and aggressive social distancing measures. What's less clear and is what the impact of partial measures are, especially in unique settings of the American southwestern metro areas and some low-income neighborhoods. That has to be looked at. I just want to see an informed plan and not be reckless about this, not wait three weeks and say, oh, my God, the deaths are starting to climb and the ICU admissions are now insurmountable, now what? We can't wait for that. So we've got to make some really informed choices right now, and the states I don't believe can do this on their own. This is where we need the full power of the CDC and the federal government. And what I'm looking for Dr. Redfield and the others to articulate this morning. So far, they have not done that.</s>SCIUTTO: Well, they may, right? I mean, they have been consistent in their message, the Faucis and the Redfields. But the fact is the president has contradicted their message and some other Republican state leaders have followed that lead right on, for instance, masks, wearing masks, whether that helps or having indoor events. I mean, the president has continued to have indoor events and campaign rallies. I mean, everybody says you need to wait for a national plan. It does not appear to be happening. So what do you do in lieu of a national plan and national leadership to save lives?</s>HOTEZ: Well, this is what needs to be done. I don't believe that the current measures being taken and simply leaving it to the states that don't have the horsepower in order to really take on something so aggressive and so difficult as this virus. I think we'll not be able to get there without a full national plan with specific guidance on what we need to do now. And so far, we really have not seen that. What we're hearing from Secretary Azar and the others of a national plan is stockpiling PPE, manufacturing issues and ventilators and FEMA responses. And all that's good but it doesn't go that next higher level order, which is specific guidance in creating that road map for public health control. Every other country seems to have done that. We've not so far.</s>SCIUTTO: The president and vice president's claim that the jump in cases is all or primarily because there's more testing. That's just not true. We've already mentioned that on this program multiple times. They have also said that the death rate is coming down. Is the there any truth to that?</s>HOTEZ: Well, the death rate has been coming down, responsible for that first initial aggressive level of social distancing. But now, with the cases accelerating at the level they are, I believe it's just a matter of time before the deaths start to climb again. Remember, it's not immediate. There's a lag of several weeks while people are on ventilators. And now we're also learning it's not just the number of deaths. We're seeing long-term consequences of this because of the assault of this virus on the vasculature, permanent injury to the lungs, neurologic complications, we're learning about even neuropsychiatric complications of this. This is an awful virus. So even beyond the deaths, there's a hidden burden of disease that we're not really talking about and articulating. And we've got to prevent it. We have the ability to prevent it and we need to prevent it.</s>SCIUTTO: Well, we wish you luck in your work. Dr. Hotez, always good to have you on the program.</s>HOTEZ: Thanks so much.</s>SCIUTTO: The president said he was never briefed on Russian bounties to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but a source tells CNN it was, in fact, in one of his daily intelligence briefings. Whether he read it is another question, but we're going to have more on that, next.