CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Kim Schrier

Interview

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VAUSE: Well, joining me now is Dr. Kim Schrier, who's a pediatrician and also an elected member of Congress from Washington State.

So it's good to have you with us. Thank you, Doctor and congresswoman, Representative.

REP. KIM SCHRIER (D-WA), PEDIATRICIAN: Thank you, John. Very nice to talk with you.

VAUSE: Thank you for being with us. It's appreciated. So one of the big unknowns about the virus right now. Once you've had it, can you get it again?

I want you to listen to what the World Health Organization said on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MICHAEL RYAN, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: We don't know yet whether it's possible with this particular virus, whether the virus -- once you've had an infection and recovered, whether one can be infected again.

We do know with other coronaviruses that that is the case.

And there is some data out there that may suggest that immunity will wane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: And there's a new study out (inaudible) from the U.K. which has found that protective antibody responses in the coronavirus that causes COVID-1, quote, "appear to wane rapidly. Whilst longer lasting in those with more severe disease, this is still only a matter of months."

There's an earlier study which found asymptomatic patients had weaker immune response. Another study from Spain reported immunity lasts just a few weeks as well.

So -- and I know it's a long question. But if all this proves true, what does that race in terms for the vaccine, which is under production right now? How much does the bar get lifted in terms of making this vaccine to be effective?

SCHRIER: Well, I think you raise some excellent questions. You're absolutely right.

We still don't know whether antibodies that we make naturally protect us and for how long. And so we really can't answer that question about a vaccine until it's gone through all of the clinical trials that we need.

And so I think people should just exercise a degree of caution.

What we heard back in February was that it would take at least 12 to 18 months to have a vaccine available. But I think people forget the "at least" in there because we still don't have an HIV vaccine. I think the fastest we've ever developed one has been four years.

I just we should have a degree of caution here because we still don't know whether a vaccine is safe, whether it's effective, how many people have an immune response and how long that response will last.

And there's a lot to learn before we just decide that this is all going to be over in four months or so. VAUSE: Exactly. I'm just wondering if it would be sensible just to give up on the vaccine right now and just don't expect there to be one.

But I'm also wondering about the pace of the development here. Is speed coming at the expense of public safety?

SCHRIER: No, I think this is really widely misunderstood. That what we're trying to do -- in these cases, you either overshoot or undershoot.

And so in this case, we have many companies working on vaccines. Several of them who are kind of leading the pack are going to be put in a position where they can research the vaccine, see if is safe and effective and at the same time before they even know if it is going to be the winner, they will start production.

And that means we may produce millions of doses of an ineffective vaccine.

But it would be pretty awful to get to the day where you say, "Hey this vaccine works," and now we're going to scale up production, we want it available as soon as possible.

That's why the Congress devoted so many resources to the development of vaccines and therapeutics.

VAUSE: Well, we heard from President Trump on Monday. He continues to boast about doing a great job in dealing with this pandemic. And I guess that the now includes reopening schools nationwide.

(INAUDIBLE), listen to this.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Schools should be opened, kids want to go to school. You're losing a lot of lives by keeping things closed.

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VAUSE: He went on to say that kids want to go back to school but they also don't want to kill their grandparents.

If the White House and Congress actually allocated funding which many have been asking for to refit classrooms and schools for the reality of a pandemic world, it would've still been risky to send kids back, right? But they've done nothing.

SCHRIER: Well, you're right on multiple accounts.

First of all, let me just be really clear that, as a pediatrician, as a mom, as a member of Congress, I can say that we all understand that children are better off in school.

But we need to make it safe for them to be there and safe for their families to know that if their children go to school, they're not going to bring the disease home and infect their parents.

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SCHRIER: And so, it's all good and fine to just say open the schools. But, you're absolutely right, that we can't put the community at risk.

Also, no country out there has opened schools without first getting control of this disease. And we are utterly failing in our country right now to get the numbers down.

And until we wrap our heads around that -- I really feel like the adults in this country are not behaving as adults. And we're really letting our kids down.

It's our fault that they're not going to be able to go to school in the fall.

VAUSE: Yes. So I want to finish up with two theme parks, same corporate owner but two different parts of the world.

Both theme parks were actually reopening, state and local officials in one region, let's call it Region F reported a spike of 15,000 new cases in one day. The other, we'll call it Region HK, saw 52 new cases, that's just 52.

So which park would you expect to close down again?

The one (INAUDIBLE) by 15,000 new cases or 52? Because it was 52, Hong Kong Disney was closed down, but Disney World in Florida, how about it, they're still going.

How do you explain that discrepancy?

SCHRIER: I was discussing that very issue with my husband just about an hour ago.

About the notion that a big kind of explosion of cases in Hong Kong is 52 cases and they take that so seriously and they clamp down and they get control so that it does not become the wildfire that we have here in the United States. In so many of the states.

Here, I think that there is an under-appreciation and I have to say that I think a lot of that comes from the top.

That we have had a lot of downplaying, a lot of rhetoric about how this is under control from the administration. And it's just not true.

And I think at first parts of this country thought oh, it's just New York, it won't affect us here. Well, now it's in -- it's everywhere, it is in every state, it is in rural America and people need to wake up.

We know how to deal with this, we just have to do it.

VAUSE: Yes. I don't what people don't understand about more than 130,000 dead people. That just is a staggering toll. But we're out of time. So thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.

SCHRIER: Thank you.

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