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COVID-19 Kills Almost 8,500 in the U.S.; Trump Says He Won't Issue National Stay-at-Home Order; ERs across U.S. Pushed to the Limit; Trump: Captain's Letter Warning of Ship Outbreak "Not Appropriate"; Queen Elizabeth to Address U.K. in Rare Broadcast; U.K. Government Scrambles to Offer Mass Public Testing; Inside a Hospital Dealing with COVID-19; Psychologically Adapting to a New Normal; Spain Overtakes Italy in Reported Virus Cases; American Brothers Stranded in Russia; Woman Visiting Dying Mom is Solo Passenger on Plane; Mother with Virus Separated from Newborn. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired April 05, 2020 - 02:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[02:00:00]

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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, everyone, and welcome to Studio 7 here at CNN Center in Atlanta. I am Michael Holmes.

The United States struggling to get ahead of the coronavirus epidemic ripping through the country. Johns Hopkins reporting that almost 8,500 people have died here and that number is rising quickly. President Trump says it's about to get much worse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This will be probably the toughest week between this week and next week. There will be a lot of death, unfortunately but a lot less death and than if this wasn't do but there will be death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: The White House Coronavirus Task Force says these next two weeks are crucial to flatten the curve, saying social distancing is still the most important tool. Despite that, the president is still refusing to issue a national stay-at-home order and eight states still do not have one.

Meanwhile, state leaders are warning of dire medical supply shortages. The governor of Illinois, for example, says they don't have enough tests to see how many people even have the virus. He says the lack of a federal plan is creating what he called the Wild West out here.

And for the next hour we have teams around the globe, bringing you their reports from London to Madrid to Orange, California. We begin in Washington and the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Jeremy Diamond tells us what the president and his advisors are doing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, as the United States marked a record on Saturday for the single most coronavirus deaths reported in a single day, President Trump warned of the grim reality, that things are about to get a lot worse.

The president warning that this will be a horrendous time for the country, saying that there is going to be a lot of deaths in the coming weeks, specifically this next week to come.

But the president, even as he said that, in the next breath, we heard him also talking about the extent to which he would like to see the country begin to reopen. This has been a singular focus for the president, particularly as he looks at the economy in a re-election year.

So the president once again sending some mixed messaging. I did get a chance to ask the president on Saturday, though, about this issue of ventilator shortages. Ventilator manufacturers have been ramping up production, sometimes in cooperation with auto manufacturers.

But even as they do that there is still likely to be a shortage of ventilators. That at least according to the models. So I asked the president about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: Ventilator manufacturers are doubling, tripling, quadrupling production in some cases.

TRUMP: That's true.

DIAMOND: Yet medical experts and some of these manufacturers are predicting there will still be shortages of tens of thousands of ventilators.

Is it time for you to level with the American public that there likely will be shortages of ventilators in some cases?

TRUMP: Could be. I mean, you could have shortages. It could also be that you have some that way overestimated the number of ventilators they need. We think that we have a good amount ready to move.

I mean literally like an army. They are ready to move to any hotspot. But some of the ones that you are talking about, always a nasty question from CNN, but some of the ones --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: -- because I think that, frankly, you know -- you know what?

You have asked that question 10 times over the course of about a month. Look, we are mobilized and ready to go. We have a lot of ventilators ready to go. And if we had given them all out, we wouldn't. And you would be overstocked in many areas.

(END VIDEO CLIP) DIAMOND: You see the president conceding indeed there could be a shortage of ventilators in parts of the country. That as the Coronavirus Task Force coordinator Dr. Debbie Birx said the apex of this coronavirus pandemic in several hotspots in the United States is expected to hit in six to seven days.

As you see ventilator manufacturers ramping up production, that is a question of weeks and months, not a matter of days. But the president also faced questions on another front and that is why he is not urging governors, these eight Republican governors in the United States, who so far have refused to issue stay-at-home orders.

[02:05:00]

DIAMOND: The president saying it's not his role to direct governors but, at the same time, suggesting he might change his tune if indeed there is a significant outbreak in one of those states.

Of course, what we do know is that because of that asymptomatic spread, once you see an outbreak, in many cases, it's already too late -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: And joining me now in Atlanta, CNN medical analyst Dr. Saju Mathew.

Good to see you, Doctor. You are a primary care physician, a public health specialist. Perfect for this. I mean, every day we are hearing stories of the courage really of health care workers, the risks that they are facing themselves, exhaustion, tears, hard decisions. Speak to the levels of stress being faced by those on the front lines.

DR. SAJU MATHEW, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Michael, good day to you and to our viewers across the world. I am not even sure, Michael, I can really give you a pulse of what's going on in the emergency rooms and in the ICU settings all over the United States.

I happen to be part of this chat line with the emergency room doctors. And I am telling you it is extremely painful. It's literally like walking into a war zone. And you don't have the ammunition or, if you have the ammunition, it's failing.

You don't have enough ventilators. You don't have enough personal protective equipment. You don't have enough masks.

So how are our front line health care providers supposed to take care of patients that are literally dying when we don't have enough equipment and the means to do it?

HOLMES: How worried are you about the shortages of that sort of equipment, the protective equipment, especially when it comes to the health of doctors, nurses, EMTs, all of those who are dealing with infected patients?

I mean, there is the risk of potential attrition, obviously. MATHEW: Absolutely. I am extremely worried. I think this will be an

understatement if I told you that I don't think about it literally every minute of the day. It's a very painful situation because we are in the beginning, if you will, of the pandemic. We are just at the very beginning of climbing up that curve.

We are not even able to talk about flatten the curve right now. And hundreds of people are dying in New York. So it is extremely frustrating because it's not like my fellow physicians and health care providers can just decide to not go to work the next morning.

They are scared. I have physicians that are writing their wills. They are 28 and 29 years old, talking to their family members, if something should happen to me, you know, I want to be a DNR. I do not want to be resuscitated. Give the ventilator to a patient that might need it. It's pretty painful, Michael.

HOLMES: It's unimaginable really. I did want to ask you about the president on Saturday. I mean, pushing and pushing and pushing this drug hydroxychloroquine, which is used for malaria and lupus. The president was basically on a sales pitch in that briefing. It was extraordinary.

What do you have to lose? People should take it, try it, try it, take it.

What did you make of all of that coming from a layman?

MATHEW: I am a physician. I am a scientist. I am a public health specialist. I believe in clinical trials and making sure these medications are put to the test to make sure they're safe.

I was born and raised in West Africa to east Indian parents. I have taken that drug for preventing malaria, which is fairly common in West Africa where I grew up. So yes, this medication has been on the market for a long time. Yes, we do know the side effects and the benefits like you mentioned.

It's used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus and malaria. The problem is we don't have enough clinical trials to really assess the safety in COVID-19. So it would be very difficult for me and my physician colleagues to say, take the medicine, try it, because we don't really have the scientific proof.

And you have to remember there could be a lot of side effects, like heart problems and heart arrhythmias in certain patients that take this medicine, in addition to azithromycin.

HOLMES: It was a curious performance. The insistence on it was extraordinary. I wanted to ask you your thoughts on the FDA's plan to have people who have recovered from the virus donate plasma to people currently suffering from the virus. I want to play some sound from the FDA commissioner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FDA COMMISSIONER: We have allowed academic centers and laboratories and hospitals around the country to do this on a compassionate use basis. We pulled this together in an expanded access program and ran it through the Red Cross because they have the greatest system and capacity for doing this.

This allows us to scale up so when people are sick we can have these donated plasma packs given to the patients who are sick.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: What is your thought?

[02:10:00]

HOLMES: How promising is that avenue?

MATHEW: You know, we don't know how promising that can be. I tell you what is promising, Michael, is that we are talking about certain things that are going through the pipeline right now, one of which is withdrawing the plasma or drawing the blood of a patient who has recovered and checking their antibody levels and see if that could be given to a COVID patient to make sure they recover.

So there are some promising research ideas that are going on, on that front. But it's all very new. This is an evolving story on a virus that we are not familiar with at all.

HOLMES: Yes, we keep coming back to it. There was some more articles in "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" today about how infuriating is it that precisely the situation we are in was predicted?

CNN counted 10 different government reports from 2003 to 2015. There was another one in 2017, another one just last year. The current Health and Human Services boss, Alex Azar, said it was the threat that worried him most, yet here we are. That doesn't help in the present.

But how frustrating is that looking back?

MATHEW: Extremely frustrating. If you realize that, yes, maybe you had a chance to get a head start. We are late in the game here.

But ultimately what I want to be also is a voice of hope. We are in the middle of this pandemic and we have to just deal with it and move forward. And if we all can just sort of stick together, like Dr. Fauci mentioned, we really need to make sure that all states really have a hands-down shelter-in-place type program so people are not doing it in sort of a patchwork.

The only way to decrease the number of new infections and fatalities, Michael, is to do this together.

HOLMES: Yes. Exactly. Still eight states not doing that, all Republican states and no guidance from the president to make them do it. Dr. Saju Mathew, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. MATHEW: Thank you, Michael.

HOLMES: And as Dr. Matthew mentioned there in that interview, the FDA is allowing people who have recovered from coronavirus to donate their plasma that is filled, of course, with potent antibodies. We have a story of a COVID-19 survivor who is doing that right now and hoping to help others get well.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The antibody-rich plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients is valuable to hospitals because they can use it to treat current patients who are in dire straits.

Here at St. Joseph's Hospital in Orange, one of the only in the West, they found their man, Jason Garcia, 36 years old, recovered from COVID-19.

Garcia was going through some tough times of his own. He had been isolated from his family inside his house. He couldn't even pick up his 11-month-old daughter. He was getting served food underneath the door.

But once Garcia recovered, they found that they could use him here. He donated his A-positive blood to one person at this hospital, who is undergoing some very tough times. They say that patient turned around. Then blood went to a second patient; it will go to a third and Garcia is ecstatic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON GARCIA, COVID-19 PLASMA DONOR: It felt amazing. It felt good. I am glad that the nightmare of testing positive and the fear, the dread to, you know, know that I recovered and now that this bad thing can now, potentially, my antibodies are there to give to other people and potentially help them fight the fight that they are having problems with, you know, and pretty much help them fight the fight of their lives and survive. So I'm glad that this turned out to be a positive thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: So using the blood from somebody who has survived the disease is a long-time strategy. Now the FDA has approved two trials of treatments from COVID-19 survivors like Jason and this is going to be developed in other areas around the country no doubt -- reporting from Orange, California, I'm Paul Vercammen. Now back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Our thanks to Paul there.

Now the U.S. president Donald Trump also spoke about the controversy of the Navy captain, Brett Crozier on Saturday. He was the commander of the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt until he sent a letter regarding concerns over coronavirus on the aircraft carrier. President Trump said writing the letter and sending it outside the

captain's chain of command wasn't appropriate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I thought it was terrible what he did, to write a letter. I mean, this isn't a class on literature. This is a captain of a massive ship that's nuclear powered. He shouldn't be talking that way in a letter. He could call and ask and suggest.

[02:15:00]

TRUMP: But he stopped in Vietnam. A lot of people got off the boat. They came back and they had infection and I thought it was inappropriate for the captain of a ship to -- I don't want to comment as to whether or not but I agree with their decision 100 percent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: The Navy says 155 sailors from the Roosevelt have now tested positive for the virus. Now in his letter, Crozier pleaded with Navy leaders, that, quote, "decisive action is required."

The Navy says his removal wasn't for raising his concerns but how he did it, by bypassing the chain of command. He had a lot of support from his sailors.

The sudden rush for coronavirus testing in the United Kingdom: coming up next, can enough people fighting on the front lines of this battle get tested?

We will have that and more when we come back.

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HOLMES: You know, it is an extraordinary moment in time when this happens.

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HOLMES: Queen Elizabeth to address the U.K. about the coronavirus. Her televised speech will be broadcast Sunday night 8 o'clock London time. The queen rarely addresses the nation like this but the pandemic warrants it.

More than 42,000 confirmed infections in the U.K. as of Saturday. More than 4,300 deaths. Health officials warning the death toll likely will be high for the next couple of weeks.

The pregnant partner of the prime minister Boris Johnson says she is recovering from symptoms of the disease, although she hasn't been formally tested. Mr. Johnson, of course, tested positive and continues to self-isolate. Nick Paton Walsh is live for us in London.

Let's talk about the testing. Testing or lack of it still a huge issue in the U.S. and one that is not sorted in the U.K., right, Nick?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: It's an issue globally. Absolutely, Michael. And the U.K. somewhat behind the rest of the world in trying to acquire the testing.

It's now realized it urgently needs to keep NHS staff on the front line. They can't go to work if they have symptoms or someone in their family does. They obviously fear they might infect other patients.

I am standing on Hampstead Heath in London. As the weather warms up in London and we go into the peak two weeks, now 600 dying daily or reported dying daily, staggering numbers, frankly.

These parks have been filling up with people, to criticism of government officials, saying have you not heard our message of only two people in public gatherings?

This is early morning and still a lot of people out. It will get busier later on during the day. But this testing crisis has Britain on edge.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is no longer needed for us to identify every case.

WALSH (voice-over): For the U.K., testing was not a priority a month ago, yet now it is.

BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: Because it is so important.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why now?

WALSH: The U.K.'s sudden rush to testing perhaps explained by a rapid health care testing center. Behind me here, nearly a tenth of health care workers aren't turning up to work because they are not sure if they have the disease. That's a question increasingly difficult for Britons to answer.

Here in Cambridge is a gold standard, Samba 2 and yes, it is named after the dance, results in 90 minutes and it's easy to test and process.

HELEN LEE, CEO, DIAGNOSTICS FOR THE REAL WORLD: I can teach it to you if you know how to cook, you know how to do Samba, which leaves half of the men out.

WALSH (voice-over): One line means negative. Two, a slight infection. Three, a bad one.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you are negative.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kickstarted by $3 million from a wealthy donor. The company says it costs $24,000 a machine and $38 a test. But they can't make enough of them to ensure its 99 percent accuracy fast enough. The U.K. health service wants a lot, now, they say. Health workers, officials everyone all want a test but that's just not possible.

LEE: It's really, I said, like a worldwide tsunami and you don't have the life jacket for the whole world.

WALSH (voice-over): And here in a cramped, airless office in Old Street, London a life jacket for sale. Right Angled used to do health DNA testing and is now repurposing kits to test the coronavirus for about $250 less if you are a health care worker. You receive it at home and express mail it to their lab. The results come about three days later.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are talking thousands in the period of time of one week since we launched.

WALSH: So something in the region of 200,000 pounds at least worth of inventory coming to you at the moment?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it's not all coming from individuals. We're talking about bulk orders coming from private clinics.

WALSH: So you open this straightforward, sterile there, put it in your mouth, back of your throat?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the back of your throat and gag. And keep doing this for a minute.

WALSH (voice-over): It's cramped here, not ideal. They declined to name the lab they use, yet say it has government approval. But no home testing method does yet, U.K. officials told CNN, we don't have confidence in their reliability.

WALSH: What would you say to anyone looking at what you are doing here and was torn between deciding whether you are a good Samaritan offering a service in whole or whether you are making money out of a crisis?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We say we are simply offering a service at a very reduced price from what other providers are doing.

WALSH (voice-over): The U.K. behind in a global race to test with still no mass solution at hand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALSH: Now the queen will be speaking to a country that's about to see really a painful moment of truth. The death toll is staggering. 600 plus a day, dwarfed by other countries at this point in a world, frankly, that kind of daily number coming out.

[02:25:00]

WALSH: But it's places like this where the government's advice will or will not be listened to. Frankly, yesterday, it seemed like people were preferring the good weather than to abide by social distancing requirements.

On top of that, too, the prime minister is clearly still suffering, he says, from a fever from coronavirus. His partner, sadly, has come forward and said she thinks she has had it. She is better now.

The queen will be delivering a message, thanking Britain for its resolve but also saying you need to keep listening to these messages.

Will the preparations for the U.K.'s free health service be adequate for this difficult two weeks ahead?

We don't know. It's those painful discoveries that Britain, unfortunately, will be learning in the next fortnight when the peak is expected to get to its worst -- Michael.

HOLMES: Indeed, extraordinary, the notion of good weather in London, people go out. This is not the time. Nick Paton Walsh, great report. Thank you.

We're going to take a short break. When we come back, going to work in a war zone. We'll hear from some of the doctors and other medical staff risking everything to fight the coronavirus. We'll be right back.

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HOLMES: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and indeed all around the world. I'm Michael Holmes. This is CNN NEWSROOM.

On the front lines of the pandemic are the health care workers. Even though they deal with life-and-death situations every day, this crisis is unprecedented. And they have had to push fears for their own safety aside. CNN's Ryan Young talked with some of those workers in Chicago.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just amazing to me how quickly people turn. They come in and suddenly, they looked OK and then they don't.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: At Chicago's Rush University Medical Center, doctors and nurses come to work to fight COVID-19.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm seeing all of the beds lined up in the hallway waiting to be used. That's not anxiety provoking at all.

YOUNG (voice-over): The work starts right as they walk in the door.

DR. MEETA SHAH, RUSH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: The patient was hypoxic. So they were trying to get her oxygen saturation improved and get her stabilized quickly. This is kind of what happens when a patient comes in. You try to minimize the number of people in the room. There is probably three or four people in there.

Only the key people and they will try to get her stabilized so she doesn't need to get intubated and put on a ventilator.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The stress level is definitely high. (INAUDIBLE) difficulty sleeping at night. I think it's important to note that this affects the young and the old. No one is immune to this at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is our decon area. See, don't enter unless. We are taking care of our PUIs, our persons under investigation.

YOUNG (voice-over): The sick many times show up in denial of their symptoms. Not wanting to be sick, unsure, afraid of what could be next.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some people turn around and leave, actually. Or it can be an anxiety-inducing experience, I think, when people come in and they are -- maybe they haven't been in the medical system for a while or they don't know the state of things now.

And they see us in full personal protective equipment and our masks and the tents set up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can see we have a patient who has come in who is known COVID-19 positive and is feeling very short of breath.

YOUNG (voice-over): Despite the risk to themselves, those here believe in an oath to help save lives.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think something that's going to stick with me through all of this is just kind of the initiative people are taking and the ingenuity people are exhibiting, just like figuring this out as we go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think every health care professional gets into this field because they want to help people. So being able to be somebody who can make a difference in this time is also something that I think is empowering.

YOUNG (voice-over): Ryan Young, CNN, Chicago.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Joining me now in Vancouver, British Columbia, clinical psychologist Steven Taylor, also a professor at the University of British Columbia.

Doctor, great to have you on, not least because you have just released a book called "The Psychology of Pandemics," which seems rather apt right now.

What are some of the ways people react to being in a situation like this, lockdown and shortages and loneliness?

STEVEN TAYLOR, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: We are seeing a lot of things. We are seeing -- the good news is about 75 percent of people are doing fairly well. They are adapting to the new normal, that they are coping fairly well.

Bad news is 25 percent of people are highly anxious, lonely, depressed, stressed out and not doing too well under the current circumstances.

HOLMES: A poll that you quoted I think suggested that people are more worried about the financial stresses, unemployment and so on, than they are about the virus itself.

Is that just because those things are more present?

TAYLOR: It varies among people. It's a real shifting pattern. Early on, people were more worried about the virus. But now, when people are living under lockdown, many people are worrying about their finances.

I guess you could say that the four big fears we are seeing is fear about the social and economic consequences, fear of getting sick, fear of getting contaminated, fear of touching and xenophobia. People are frightened of strangers at the moment.

HOLMES: Wow. That was not the first thing that leapt to my mind. I admit the teenager son of a friend of a friend who had depression before coronavirus committed suicide this past week.

His parents think it was sort of triggered by the lockdown and school being done for the year. So tell us about what about those who are already perhaps being treated for depression.

How does this impact that or magnify it?

TAYLOR: Yes. Well, we are finding that, among our very distressed people, many do have pre-existing mental health problems and lockdown and the other stresses adds an extra layer of stress and isolation. So for some people, it becomes too much and tragically they take their own lives.

HOLMES: How does how you are normally play into how you handle the current environment?

I mean, I'll admit, I'm a pretty solo type ordinarily. I know many who are.

[02:35:00]

HOLMES: But a lot of people are extroverts, they need significant social interaction to make them happy.

TAYLOR: Yes, extroverted people are going to be experiencing this as stressful when they are isolated. They are the people who exactly need to reach out and connect via social media to friends and family. Also people who are normally very anxious about their health are finding that this is a particularly trying time.

HOLMES: You also wrote about how during the SARS outbreak in, I think it was 2003 in Hong Kong, that suicides, specifically among seniors, older people, tripled compared to previous years.

I mean, what do we take from that, the whys and the what to look out for?

TAYLOR: Right. It's difficult. May be cautious comparing SARS because there are so many things that are different. But that suicide trend is troubling. So we should be reaching out to our seniors.

The ones who committed suicide tended to be socially isolated and feared they would become a burden on other people around them. So we need to ensure this doesn't happen this time around with COVID-19, that the senior members in our community feel plugged into the rest of society.

HOLMES: Good advice. Medical professionals, I mean, them, too. We are talking to a doctor yesterday about hearing a patient who would volunteer to not take a ventilator so somebody else could have it.

The time could come when it's the medical staff are having to make that decision, not the patient. And I just can't get my head around the stress of making that call.

How are they impacted, those medical professionals?

TAYLOR: Well, they are experiencing particular stresses, as you said. They are making life and death decisions. They are under lockdown all the time, particularly the ones working with infected patients. They need to self-isolate.

For them, they need particular support and they need support from management. They need adequate tools to do their jobs, masks, ventilators and so forth and they need the appreciation of their community. I am glad to see that that is happening.

HOLMES: Yes, thoughts go out to them. You know, I have covered a lot of wars and conflicts over the years, seen a lot of PTSD, post- traumatic stress disorder.

Do you see that being an issue in just normal society once this is over?

TAYLOR: Yes, I do. In fact, we are getting indications of it, now that people are having nightmare, increases in nightmares, intrusive thoughts about COVID-19. And we saw a spike in PTSD in SARS as well. And that could happen here as well, particularly for people who go through very severe stresses.

So people who get very ill and lose their jobs, lose family members, lose their houses, those sorts of stresses can be cumulative in their effects and can lead to PTSD.

HOLMES: All vital things to be on the lookout for. I am glad we talked about this. Dr. Steven Taylor, thanks so much.

TAYLOR: Thank you, Michael.

HOLMES: And still ahead on the program, two American brothers racing home from Russia to see their dying father. Their flight suddenly canceled while they were on board. Will they make it back before it's too late? They will join me to discuss next.

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HOLMES: Welcome back.

Spain is set to extend its restrictions on movement and businesses through most of the month. This as data tracked by Johns Hopkins shows the country has overtaken Italy in its number of confirmed virus cases. While infections are rising, there are signs the increase rate might be slowing.

Journalist Al Goodman with the latest from Madrid in Spain.

So the numbers seem to be stabilizing.

What do we read into that?

AL GOODMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is the kind of cautious optimism that the Spanish officials have been talking about for two weeks, that they believe they are getting to the peak and they are going to start to be able to push down this curve.

And the influx of the patients to the hospital like the one behind me. Now just in the new cases that we look at those numbers, in the most recent 24 hours, just 2,500 new cases of COVID-19. That was the lowest in a week.

The earlier percentages on the cases has been in the 20 percent. This has been 3 percent. An increase in the number of deaths, Spain is the second -- the country with the second largest death toll from COVID-19 after Italy.

More than 11,000 deaths in Spain. Again the number of increase, the 809 in the most recent reporting period, was the lowest increase in a week. And by percentage it was the lowest percentage increase in three weeks.

These are the kinds of numbers that are giving encouragement to the Spanish officials. And patients entering intensive care wards, which have been so pressed to try to take care of people, 116 new cases to the intensive care wards in the new period.

And one of the signs that this is working is a field hospital next to this hospital which was set up last week but it has not got a single patient in it yet. It's waiting to see if a new patient will come in. So that is a sign that there has been some easing on the intensive care wards -- Michael.

HOLMES: Hopefully, the good news continues there in Spain. Appreciate your reporting there, Al.

Now Russia has curtailed flights in and out of the country due to the coronavirus pandemic and a flight from Moscow to New York was all set to take off when it was abruptly canceled.

Among those on board were brothers, Julian and Nicholas MacKay, of the U.S. Julian is a ballet dancer and they are trying to get home to the U.S. to see their father, who is sick and might not have too long. The MacKays join me now.

How is your dad?

And there was a rush to get going, right?

JULIAN MACKAY, AMERICAN STRANDED IN RUSSIA: Yes, my dad, he is in Montana where we're from. And he is in his final days battling cancer. And so it's very difficult time.

HOLMES: I mean, I can't imagine. I mean. So you get the flight, you get the ticket and they were difficult to get and very expensive you were saying. So you get on the flight. What happens?

NICHOLAS MACKAY, AMERICAN STRANDED IN RUSSIA: Well, I mean, first of all, if it wasn't for this situation with our dad, we wouldn't be traveling. We would be staying at home like everyone else. But as soon as we got on the flight, everyone boarded, it was a full flight.

[02:45:00]

N. MACKAY: And about five minutes before we were supposed to take off, we were told the flight was canceled and they started to make passengers leave. And a lot of people started yelling and screaming and saying they weren't going to leave because it was the last flight of the month.

J. MACKAY: The last flight and we don't know when the next one is.

HOLMES: Why did they tell you they stopped it?

You are on board ready to go.

N. MACKAY: They didn't give us any reason or explanation still to this day.

J. MACKAY: I mean, we kind of grew up here. We went to ballet school in Moscow and I have been dancing here and I worked here in Russia. We love Russia. It's like a second home to us. But it's scary when you can't get home.

HOLMES: So what happened? I mean, I understand that the U.S. embassy wasn't happy, either.

What are the plans now?

N. MACKAY: Well, now they have told us that there might be a charter flight they are trying to work on for the middle of next week. But we have been trying to leave for two weeks now and there hasn't really been much movement or kind of news. Nobody really knows exactly what's going to happen.

J. MACKAY: It's also hard to know what's going to happen because nothing is very clear. Everyone, it kind of seems like no one knows what's going on and how all of us are going to get home.

HOLMES: Yes, and we'll show some video, actually, of you dancing. I mean, you are there because of ballet. And tell me a little bit about that.

The background, what are you doing?

I mean, it's a terrific video. If the circumstances were different, we could talk about that.

Why are you there?

J. MACKAY: So I'm an international ballet dancer. And (INAUDIBLE) we came to Moscow to train for (INAUDIBLE) ballet (INAUDIBLE). It's considered the top school for boys in the world.

And I came when I was 11 and he was 9. Yes, it was my mom and dad, my dad working through jobs, supporting that and making that possible. And then, when I graduated, I decided to work in London. Then I came back to Russia because they have this great culture for (INAUDIBLE). And that's why we're here.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: Yes, go on, sorry.

J. MACKAY: No, yes.

(CROSSTALK)

N. MACKAY: Yes.

HOLMES: Carry on.

N. MACKAY: I moved here with Julian when I was 9. Since then, I danced for a while. Now I have become a ballet and dance photographer. The culture here is amazing. We love it here. We have been here over 10 years now. And it really is a second home for us.

HOLMES: I imagine this time it must be very stressful for you.

What is the mood in Moscow? J. MACKAY: I think everybody is really nervous about what the future is going to bring and about kind of what more restrictions are going to be put in place, especially for the foreigners that I was speaking to, mainly now the Americans. Most other countries have brought back their citizens. They just don't know.

N. MACKAY: I mean, the flight as well, full, almost full of Americans. There was a lot of Americans on that flight. They are still stuck here.

HOLMES: Very quickly, how is Dad?

J. MACKAY: Not good. I called him just before this, to just talk with him a little bit. It's really hard not being able to be there and physically help. As a ballet dancer, you never make a lot of money and you are never really able to use the kinds of things your parents that, I think, any son would want to. But the worse is you can't actually physically be there.

HOLMES: I really, really hope you get back sooner rather than later. And thoughts with you guys. It's a tough time. At least you are together. But appreciate you coming on and talking about it. I really hope you get back, guys.

J. MACKAY: Thank you, thank you.

N. MACKAY: Thank you.

HOLMES: All right. That's Julian and Nicholas MacKay there.

We'll be right back.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:50:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

HOLMES: A woman traveling to see her dying mother got a surprising show of support from a group of strangers. Sheryl Pardo was flying from Washington to Boston last week when she found herself not only the only passenger on the plane but upgraded to first class, because, why not?

The crew of the American Airlines flight tried to give her a little relief from her difficult trip with a little levity in their onboard announcement about being the sole passenger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JESSICA, FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Good morning. Welcome aboard American Eagle's service to Boston. My name is Jessica. Dion and I will be your flight attendants. And we have Sheryl as our passenger, livin' it up in first class. Yes, everybody shout out to Sheryl, the only passenger on the plane.

Thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate and value your business and we hope you fly with us again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Pardo was able to spend time with her mother before she passed away and says she's grateful to those flight attendants for making her journey a little easier. A sign of the times, only passenger on the flight.

Out of Spain, a mother reunited with her newborn. She was separated from her baby shortly after she gave birth because she tested positive for coronavirus. It was a 10-day wait before mother and child could embrace and the family could leave the hospital. CNN's Lynda Kinkade reports on a touching reunion in Madrid.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): An embrace between a mother and child 10 days after the baby's birth. Little Oliver was born by cesarean in Madrid to a mom who tested positive for the coronavirus.

Fearing for his health, doctors separated the newborn from mother, Vanesa, soon after birth and he was kept in quarantine for a long 1.5 weeks with nurses snapping photos of the baby to keep his mother's spirits up.

She was sent home to husband, Oscar, who was forced to miss the birth after also testing positive. Eventually, Oliver was reunited with his family and allowed to go home after testing negative for the virus. His parents say they're grateful to finally be together.

[02:55:00]

VANESA MURO, OLIVER'S MOTHER (through translator): It's true it's difficult. But it will pass. Look, Oliver will be one month in a short time. And then we'll go outside, meet his grandparents, his uncles and then it'll all just be a nightmare that we've been through.

KINKADE (voice-over): At home, the family remains under quarantine and both mom and dad are taking extra precautions with Oliver, wearing gloves and masks when caring for him. His father says he dreams of the day when he can hold his son without protective gear and fear.

OSCAR CARNILO, OLIVER'S FATHER (through translator): I still haven't been able to touch my son without gloves and with the sensitivity he would have had with his mother or with me. We're impatient for it to end so we can hold him or give him a kiss.

KINKADE (voice-over): A late start for a family yearning to get closer after the coronavirus kept them apart -- Lynda Kinkade, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE) HOLMES: Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM, everyone, and spending part of your day with me. I'm Michael Holmes, we'll be back with more news in a moment,

But as we go to break, I want to remind you that it's not just the medical professionals and the first responders who are the heroes in the coronavirus fight, that is undeniable.

But there are others, the people you're seeing now, delivery people, the store clerks, the drivers, mail men and women, farm workers who are picking the food you eat and the grocery store people who are putting it there for you every day, people proving that even in dark times, there are rays of light. Be nice to them. Take a moment to thank them.

We'll be right back.