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Trump Announces Immigration Pause, But Why Now?; U.S. Oil Price Rose After Unprecedented Dive; Antibody Testing Shows Exposure To The Virus. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired April 22, 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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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.

Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, fears of a second wave. A disturbing warning about how long we may have to live under the threat of the coronavirus.

The race for a vaccine, human trials expected to begin this week in the U.K. from the same people who developed a vaccine for Ebola.

And while Donald Trump moves ahead with his plan to suspend immigration, we hear the story of a medical worker, a doctor recipient, who came to the U.S. as a child, now on the front lines of the pandemic in the U.S.

We begin this hour with both reasons for optimism and a warning of a dire winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The positive news comes from Oxford University and the same team which developed a vaccine for Ebola. They are now starting human trials Thursday for a coronavirus immunization and they are moving at an incredible pace, more on that in a moment.

But the grim news now. The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is warning of a dire health crisis this coming winter in the Northern Hemisphere. That is still 8 months away. The fear is the resurgence of the coronavirus coinciding with flu season.

Meantime, 3 southern states in the U.S., Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee, planning to reopen some non essential businesses as well as beaches and parks. That is even though they have not met the suggested guidelines issued by the White House.

Now it seems the decision of how soon and how quickly to lift statewide lockdowns has become part of the ongoing red versus blue culture wars in the United States. For more on that and the rest of today's developments, here is Nick Watt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The virus has killed more than 44,000 Americans and it will return this winter and it might be even worse. So, the CDC director tells the Washington Post, because it could coincide with regular flu season and two respiratory outbreaks at once would hammer our health systems.

Meanwhile, our leaders are trying to agree on how to reopen from round one. Take, Dallas County. They extended stay at home through mid-May, setting off a possible showdown with the governor.

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GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): To the extent of my statewide order has statewide application, it would overrule any local jurisdiction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATT: in Iowan, Democrats lawmakers want a pork processing plant closed after an outbreak. The governor won't do it. The governor in Georgia says barbershops, nail salons, gyms can all reopen on Friday, but sell cycle says it won't. Congregations can gather, but one bishop is telling his flock not to and other governors are wary.

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GOV. NED LAMONT (D-CT): I'm glad I'm not an immediate neighbor of Georgia, because I think all you are doing is potentially throwing some gas on the flames there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATT: Testing, of course, is required to keep track of the virus as we reopen.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If we don't have the data, we don't know what we are up against.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATT: The continued lack of testing, partly what's making some in Georgia so anxious about reopening.

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MAYOR KELLY GIRTZ, ATHENS-CLARKE COUNTY, GEORGIA: We need testing, we certainly need work on treatment and we need contact tracing of the sort that we just don't have in the state yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATT: The White House guidelines say that you should start reopening only after, among other things, a downward trajectory of documented cases within a 14-day period.

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GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): We are on track to meet the gating criteria for phase one.

(END VIDEO CLIP) WATT: Not really. Monday, April 6th, 1,099 new cases. Fourteen days

later, yesterday, just one less. Not so in Tennessee, but they plan to reopen some businesses on Monday. Not so in South Carolina, but they opened beaches and retail stores today.

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MAYOR STEPHEN BENJAMIN, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA: And the reality is that South Carolina has not peaked yet according to our own professionals.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATT: Myrtle Beach, defying the governor, will keep beach parking closed.

So, hair salons open in Georgia on Friday, while maintaining social distancing. How does that work? We don't know. Dr. Birx was asked at the White House press conference and she said, I don't know how, but people are very creative --

[02:05:00]

WATT: -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Joining us now for more on the search for the Holy Grail, a vaccine for the coronavirus, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Doctor, thank you for being with us.

DR. PAUL OFFIT, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: Thank you.

VAUSE: OK, this is a global race on now to develop a vaccine. Researchers from Oxford University seem to be among the front-runners and they begin human trials on Thursday. I'd like to tell you how the U.K. health secretary, Matt Hancock, describes their progress. Here they are.

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MATT HANCOCK, U.K. HEALTH SECRETARY: In normal times, reaching this stage would take years. I'm very proud of the work taken so far. At the same time, we will invest in manufacturing capability so that if either of these vaccines safely works, we can make it available for the British people as soon as humanly possible. (END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: OK. So there are a couple of issues that were raised in that very short sound bite. Let's start with the vaccine itself. The reason it stands out is because it's the same group behind the Ebola vaccine, so they have some runs on the boards.

So what's your assessment?

OFFIT: Well, we will see. We know that typically a program to develop vaccines take 20 to 25 years. I was part of a team at Children's Hospital that developed the Ebola virus vaccine, that was a 26 year effort. That's about average.

It's great that this group has experience developing so-called vector vaccines, meaning you take a virus that's harmless, you insert the gene that coats the protein that sits on the surface of coronavirus that attached coronavirus to cells.

So if you can make antibodies for that protein, you can keep the virus from binding to cells, which means you can be protected.

But it's a long way from creating those strains to having a vaccine, which is mass produced and distributed to millions and tens of millions of people. You need to make sure that vaccine is safe and effective before you vaccinate that many people.

VAUSE: If it does work and the health secretary talked about ramping up production to meet the needs of the British people, who decides how the vaccine will be distributed worldwide and is there the capacity for mass production on a global scale?

OFFIT: Again, it's what the strategy is used to make the vaccine. Again, it's a vector virus. I think the way it would roll out is the people who are most likely to get infected would likely get it first. People, for example, who are on the front lines of health care. People who work in nursing homes. People who work in grocery stores or pharmacies. Those people who have been working throughout this pandemic.

And then, gradually, bring it up to other people. If this is as miraculous as the researchers hope it is, there will be a number of companies that would jump in and do everything they could to scale up production so that this vaccine could get to all who need it.

But I suspect the way this will roll out, remembering there are more than 50 companies who are making this vaccine, who are trying to make a vaccine, and I suspect it will be more than one product that will end up coming to market.

VAUSE: Is there a concern that some of these research efforts are more about people making these announcements that we're close, we're getting closer, for stock price reasons?

OFFIT: That I can't answer. I think as an academic I'm able to say this. I think academics are much more excited about vaccines early in the research stage. The hardest part is research and development.

You have to show you have the right buffering agent, the right stabilizing agent, the right vial, that you've done real-time stability studies, that you can mass produce the product.

And you have to really end up with a big phase 3 trial, where you show that the vaccine tested thousands and maybe tens of thousands of people and is safe and effective. And then and only then can you comfortably release that vaccine to tens of millions of people.

And that takes time. We will see -- obviously, there's pressure to do this quickly. When you are trying to produce something quickly, sometimes you skip steps. So we'll see how this plays out.

VAUSE: The other approach taken by some researchers has been to try to repurpose existing vaccines. The BCG vaccine, the TB vaccine, first used almost 100 years ago has shown some promise. And now Dr. Konstantin Chumakov and Dr. Robert Gallo, doctors with the Global Virus Network, are suggesting a vaccine used for polio.

Here's part of their thinking from an op-ed in "USA Today."

"OPV, oral polio vaccine, activates other protective mechanisms, including an innate immune system, thus making people resistant to infections caused by other viruses and bacteria.

"For example in large scale multicenter clinical trials conducted in the 1970s during outbreaks of seasonal influenza, OPV protected more people from influenza than most flu vaccines do."

How much stock do you put into these efforts to find a solution from an already trialed and safe vaccine?

Because, in some ways, that would be the ideal solution, right?

OFFIT: I guess I don't see it that way, exactly. I think the thinking there is paraimmunity. You get a BCG or a polio vaccine, you induce something called interferon.

[02:10:00]

OFFIT: It's a protein made by the immune system that interferes not only with the virus you're interested in but could interfere with other viruses.

For example, you have an oral polio vaccine, that will give you specific immunity against polio but it'll give you non specific immunity through interferon to a variety of other viruses.

I still think the best approach is a specific vaccine approach that is directed where antibodies are directed against that surface protein or spike protein that will prevent the virus from binding to cells. And there are many different strategies that are currently being used to do that.

VAUSE: The reality is that there is still no one vaccine for the seasonal flu. Some years, it can be effective, some years not so much. We are looking at a vaccine more like the one that we have for the flu currently, where you may have to get it every year, or one that can be one and done from birth or something?

OFFIT: I think this virus is stable. I mean, it's almost a single strand virus like influenza. Unlike influenza, it really does not appear to mutate. So I think it's more like other single strand RNA viruses like measles, mumps, German measles, where does not mutate.

I think if we can get an effective vaccine against this virus, I think that the vaccine will protect you for years, probably not decades but for years.

VAUSE: Dr. Paul Offit, thank you for being with us. Your insights are valued and appreciated.

OFFIT: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: The U.K. was already on track for Europe's worst death toll from the coronavirus and now word the official count has been underreported.

In England and Wales, the actual number of fatalities could be as much as 40 percent higher because the government has only been counting those who died in hospital from COVID-19.

Others who may have passed away in nursing homes, for example, have not been included until earlier this month. So far Johns Hopkins University has recorded more than 130,000 confirmed cases. And the government warns that number is yet to peak.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN VAN-TAM, BRITISH DEPUTY CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER: The numbers remain high and it is not clear that there is an enormous downturn at this point. So the numbers are varying by day to day but they remain high and we remain in a situation of danger that we must take very seriously, indeed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Live now to London. Nic Robertson standing by for. Us

Nic, this underreporting on the number of dead, precisely what the prime minister did not want as he returns to work now.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Precisely as you say. But the government says in its reporting, it is accounting for those who have died in hospital. We know this and those who have died in hospital and it has been confirmed that it was to do with coronavirus.

The government says it's important for it to keep statistics like that, that it presents at its daily briefing. They say that because this is what it is measuring Britain against in these charts that other countries similarly measure their dead as those who died in hospitals.

But that does mask a deeper situation if you go back to the 8th of April. That week, the Office of National Statistics said that the government recorded in hospitals 9,288 people dying. The reality was the figure was 13,121. That's a discrepancy of 41 percent, taking into account those who have died at home, in care homes, et cetera.

There is that discrepancy. There is also an indication that if you compare, not just the deaths in care homes and homes with those just in hospitals but if you compare what was the norm for Britain and apparently these statistics for the normal death toll in weeks in previous years, it actually shows a 75 percent above the rate that is being reported in hospitals.

So you have potential at the moment for as many as 40-odd thousand people in the country dying of coronavirus so far. Boris Johnson doesn't want those figures. I think if he wants to look for a glimmer of hope, he can look to the countryside in the U.K., the countryside outside of London where people are taking this in stride a little better.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning. It is 6 o'clock on Friday the 17th of April.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): England stirs from sleepless slumber.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The headlines this morning, the boss of an --

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Fretful nights pass, more fevered days ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mayor of London said he believes people should wear face masks whenever --

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Yet far from the capital, in country villages, there is a new calm.

This butcher, Lee Downer, is putting on extra deliveries.

ROBERTSON: How is it going over the last few weeks with coronavirus around?

LEE DOWNER, BUTCHER: Extremely busy. Every shop in the local.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Fishmonger Ashley Major benefiting, despite supply issues, because villages want to stay away from big towns.

ASHLEY MAJOR, FISHMONGER: We've got more people staying in the village. People aren't going into Salisbury to do a weekly shop. They're shopping local, which is nice.

[02:15:00]

ROBERTSON (voice-over): An old resilience is re-emerging and not just to the country's fickle weather.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The community here is fantastic. That's made all the difference. We got lots of local farm shops and small businesses who have been really good at getting sort of small scale supplies.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Tisbury Parish, population 2,400, has a history of getting through tough times, survived five years of the 14th century black death pandemic and is adapting to today's.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have been doing our services over Zoom, which has been very exciting.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Something else making the difference here, too. Distance from the hot zone, London.

IAN TALBOT, TISBURY DELICATESSEN: I think we're probably quite lucky because we're living in the countryside where you don't feel you're quite so close to people.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Psychological, not just social distancing, the new village normal.

TALBOT: I don't look at the news continuously because I think you can fill your head with a lot of negative stuff.

DOWNER: I stopped buying newspapers because it is a bit depressing otherwise.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this is BBC Radio where it's half past 4:00, so it's time for "PM with Evan Davis."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello there, heading to the fourth weekend of lockdown --

ROBERTSON (voice-over): At the nearby hospital, where the few courageously help the many, infrequent ambulances come and go in calm- inducing silence. Cases of COVID-19 in this southwest corner of the country, so far at least, the lowest in the nation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it's exactly 5 o'clock right now. Any moment we'll head over to Downing Street for the official daily COVID-19 briefing.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Yet, even here, no man an island, no home a castle against the virus' greedy onslaught.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 80,978 people are currently in hospital with coronavirus in the U.K. And sadly, of those hospitalized with the virus, 14,576 have now died. That is --

ROBERTSON (voice-over): In pretty, well heeled Teffont Evias, population around 260, five homes have self-isolated so far. The village rallying to keep that number down. But now a COVID-19 closed hotel shopping for the village, saving residents' exposure to the virus. SIMON GREENWOOD, HOWARD'S HOUSE HOTEL: Our demographic is quite old.

They're all staying in. They don't want to go out. They don't want to have to drive to the nearest village, which is at least five miles away. So we came up with the plan to do this from here.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Rural England has risen.

ROBERTSON: Another three weeks of this?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that a problem?

I used to be in a submarine. So three months, 90 days underwater with 70 people is normal.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): So sets another day. The only certainty, dawn will follow. And eventually lockdown, fear and virus will be purged.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: And if those things do abate, which is what we expect, I expect the finger-pointing to begin after that. And it has already started, criticism within government. A senior civil servant saying it was a political decision not to get involved with buying or getting involved with the European Union, buying ventilators and other equipment.

He has retracted that statement. The government is highlighting, if you will, human trials of vaccine that will begin tomorrow. That's something the government is putting money into, looking for a good news result. They will be anticipating quick positive results from that.

VAUSE: 20 million pounds I believe they are investing in that vaccine. And it is moving ahead quite quickly. We appreciate the update. Nic Robertson live for us in the early morning in London. Thank you.

When we come back, return to Wuhan. Normalcy is settling over the city where the pandemic began, while almost everywhere else seems to have nothing but upheaval.

An upheaval could see world hunger doubling in only a month. Quick and decisive action is the only thing that can prevent it. More details on that when we come back.

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VAUSE: The global death toll from this pandemic is already in the hundreds of thousands but that could be in the millions within months because of food shortages. The World Food Programme is warning a widespread famine of biblical

proportions, which could see 30 million people starve to death by the end of the year, the number suffering from acute hunger could almost double to more than 265 million.

As the director warns of a catastrophe for millions, who were already struggling long before this pandemic began.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW HOLLINGWORTH, WFP SOUTH SUDAN: Nowhere else in the world has this level of food insecurity in South Sudan. Last, year we had to feed 5 million people due to fighting and flooding.

Already in 2020, we have had locust invasions and now COVID-19, which we predict could almost double the people in acute hunger by the end of 2020 across the world. The only way we can halt this trend is if generous funding for humanitarian crises like the one here in South Sudan continues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Food shortages in Nigeria are already causing a surge in crime. It's made worse by a government ordered lockdown. And as Stephanie Busari reports from Lagos say that social distancing is a luxury when they can't afford to work, can't afford food and hunger pangs are biting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEPHANIE BUSARI, CNN PRODUCER (voice-over): These extraordinary scenes show young men looting a truck carrying bags of food in Nigeria's capital, Abuja. there is very little social distancing and they are concerned only with getting their hands on the food. These are signs of the desperation and hunger that people feel here as the country battles the pandemic.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Yes. If my job is for me to go out, I will go out. I don't care. I don't care. I am angry.

BUSARI (voice-over): It is nighttime and these men are patrolling the streets of a Lagos neighborhood, armed with machetes. They say they have seen a surge in crime since the lockdown started.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We decided to use whatever we have to defend ourselves and our people in the community.

BUSARI: Nigeria's police say they have dispatched extra forces to deal with the trouble and they urge its citizens for calm. But as hunger bites in the poorest communities, the president ordered 70,000 tons of grain to be released from the country's reserves and hundreds of bags of rice seized by Nigerian customs are also being distributed to the country's poorest.

But for the millions of hungry Nigerians stuck at home and not earning, this relief is not coming quickly enough. And there are fears that this country could soon be pushed to the brink in this battle of lives against livelihoods -- Stephanie Busari, CNN, Lagos.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[02:25:00]

VAUSE: New this hour, what could be a first of its kind lawsuit. The U.S. state of Missouri is suing China over the coronavirus. Missouri's attorney general released a statement saying the Chinese government lied to the world about the danger and contagious nature of COVID-19, silenced whistleblowers and did little to stop the spread of the disease. They must be held accountable for their actions.

It goes on to say businesses are closing, people are struggling to put food on the table, the virus has claimed more than 200 lives in Missouri, infected at least 6,100 others. But legal experts say the lawsuit faces an uphill battle.

China is protected by sovereign immunity. CNN has reached out to Chinese authorities for comment.

Around the world, there is growing suspicion that Beijing has been less than honest about the origins of the coronavirus. U.S. president Donald Trump and others have suggested the virus was leaked from a high security viral laboratory in Wuhan, China.

But the WHO says all available evidence suggests the virus originated in bats, not a lab. David Culver reported from Wuhan in January, when the outbreak began. He managed to leave just ahead of the lockdown taking effect. Three months on and he has returned and here is his report with details you see only here on CNN.

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DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Being back here in Wuhan, the original epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, you get the feeling that this is a city trying to reawaken after what was a 76-day halting of life.

A brutal and a harsh lockdown, conditions kept many people in some cases sealed inside their homes for those 2-plus months, unable to leave even for some fresh air. Now as you can hear behind me, traffic picking up again, people are starting to resume a life.

Though it is with this cautious optimism as they go forward, knowing that things could change quickly. The lockdown happened 76 days prior to April 8th and, when it came into effect, it came with little notice, just a few hours notice. So people know things can change rather suddenly and they are prepared for that.

And yet, the screening mechanisms in place now are rather intense. To get into Wuhan, for most locals, it is rather straightforward. But for foreigners in particular, this shows the concern for imported cases, they are questioned extensively about what country they are coming from, how long they have been in China and where they planned to be going from here. It is all about tracing from here on out and they, of course, have

technology that does that but they also rely on self reporting and a lot of questioning as you make your way from the train station, for example, into a hotel.

Here overall, you get the sense that people are trying to look past what was a very difficult period. And they are doing so by taking advantage of what they have right now in this moment.

For our driver, for example, that was going outside the city and taking a hike with his family or camping, enjoying the outdoors, enjoying nature, for this moment, at least -- David Culver, CNN, Wuhan, China.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: The world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, is about to begin a Ramadan unlike any other. The government there has ordered a travel ban to hometowns for Eid al-Fitr celebrations. Marking the end of Ramadan, the eve at homecoming is an important tradition for millions of people.

Immigration to the U.S. has slowed to a crawl amid this pandemic.

So why is Donald Trump moving to reduce it even further?

We will take a closer look at that when we come back.

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VAUSE: Welcome back, everybody. Thank you for staying with us. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. The headlines this hour, a senior us health official is warning of a resurgence of the coronavirus this winter in the Northern Hemisphere. That could be even worse than what we're seeing now. The head of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention says if the virus hits during flu season, it could overwhelm the healthcare system.

Researchers in Oxford, England are getting ready for human trials of a possible vaccine that will begin on Thursday. The British health secretary says the government will throw everything at the hunt for vaccine and says if it works, it will be manufactured as early as humanly possible.

The World Food Program is now warning the number of people experiencing acute hunger could almost double to more than 265 million because of the coronavirus. For millions already hanging by a thread, the pandemic is pushing them deeper into poverty.

For the past few weeks, immigration into the United States has dramatically slowed amidst the pandemic. Even so, President Trump has announced further restrictions on immigration. He stopped short of a total ban, instead of announcing a temporary pause on those seeking permanent resident status. A move which could still affect hundreds of thousands of people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This course will be in effect for 60 days, after which the need for any extension or modification will be evaluated by myself and a group of people based on economic conditions at the time. This order will only apply to individuals seeking a permanent residency. In other words, those receiving green cards.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Joining us now is Catherine Rampell, a CNN Economics Commentator and opinion writer for The Washington Post. So Catherine, good to see you. I'd like you to listen to a little more from the U.S. president explaining the reason for this hold on issuing green cards.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: As far as our new immigration will also help to conserve vital medical resources for American citizens. A short break from new immigration, depending on the time we're talking about will protect the solvency of our healthcare system and provide relief to jobless Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: OK, so for weeks, Donald Trump has been all happy talk during those briefings. For the most part, he's the best, the response has been amazing, it's been the best ever, he's the greatest, the economy will bounce back sooner than anyone thinks, and nobody could have done what he's done. Well, that's probably true. And now suddenly, this is me to preserve medical supplies, reduce demands on the healthcare system, preserve jobs for Americans. None of this makes any sense.

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS COMMENTATOR: Well, it makes sense if you pay attention to everything else that Donald Trump has done to date and his message, right. Since he launched his political career, he has been all about hating on immigrants, regardless of what the problem is. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right?

And so, this is an excuse for him to once again, bring out his Xenophobic playbook and find ways to try to upset the lives of immigrants again ostensibly in the name of economic and national security, although of course, this very action in finding ways to sort of turn off the spigot of immigration to the extent that he can do it even more, he's already actually taken a number of actions and make it much harder for non-citizens to come to the United States.

To the extent that he can find another excuse to do that even further, it's throwing red meat to his base, and he will take the opportunity.

VAUSE: And one of those actions that he has taken in recent years is to roll back the Obama era executive order protecting the DREAMers, the undocumented workers who were brought to this country as kids and had no choice in it.

You wrote to the Washington Post that there are 29,000 of these DREAMers working in healthcare. Many of the E.R. and hospitals are saving lives as we speak. You wrote about one woman and you say she's in her first year of residency in emergency medicine. Each day after she takes off her protective gear, attempts to wash off both the virus and the fear, she goes home and worries about whether she will be allowed to complete her residency.

Losing DACA would mean losing her ability to repay her loans, treat desperate patients, even stay in the only country she has ever known. She's been here since age two. You know, from what you've written, this woman's dedication, her commitment in job, it's unbelievable. I mean, this is what you need in these health care workers right now. And yet she's there waiting for the Supreme Court to decide if she'll stay or have to leave.

[02:35:10]

RAMPELL: Yes. I mean, look, there has been tremendous courage, great personal risk taken on by healthcare workers of all sorts of nationalities and immigrant backgrounds or, you know, native-born backgrounds for that matter. But I think that the plight facing those who do not have security in their immigration status is particularly moving right now.

And I think that the consequences of those kinds of measures are just all the more salient, of course, during a pandemic, when literally, American lives are dependent on these people continuing to be able to show up and put their own. again, personal safety at risk to save American lives.

VAUSE: So here, 8:00 Eastern in Atlanta, people go to their balcony to say cheer, at 7:00 they do it in New York, they're doing it all around the country. Maybe a better way of showing appreciation would be to remove that uncertainty that these workers have about their future.

RAMPELL: One would think, yes. And actually, this position that I -- that I profiled in that piece, I asked her, I said, what do you think the country owes you for the sacrifices that you're making right now, for the risks that you're taking on?

And, and she paused and she said, you know, it's, it's nice to hear the applause and everything. But she basically said, look, I don't think the country owes me my student loans. She has hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans. She doesn't think that the, you know, that Americans need to roll out the red carpet for her every time she goes to the hospital from now on. She just wants a chance at a normal life.

VAUSE: Many times, it's all about choices for a country, you know, what is the value? And this is a bit of a segue way, but sort of explain this to me. When it comes to government spending for pandemic prevention, corrected for inflation, combined spending went from over $2 billion in 2003, to get under $1 billion in 2020. Meantime, when it comes to counterterrorism, counterterrorism spending

peaked at $260 billion in 2008, the height of the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq. This represents a 16-fold increase since 2001. Now in 2017, as war funding declined, total counterterrorism spending amounted to $175 billion, but that's still 11 times an increase from 2001, and yet, more than 40,000 dead Americans now this virus compared to what a handful, who have been killed over terrorism in recent years, and that is tragic in itself. But this seems to be a question of politicized priorities, which on close look did not make a lot of sense.

RAMPELL: No. And look, obviously, we can't go back in time and change money that was -- changed how money was allocated in past years. But at the very least, what we can do now is try to get ahead of this problem through more testing, through more tracing of infections, isolation of infections. Investing, whether in personal protective equipment, testing supplies, things like that, you know, try to do things that represents sort of an investment rather -- an investment in trying to get ahead of this virus or at least try to mitigate it spread, rather than chasing after it through treatment and, you know, after the disease has already progressed, and it's much more expensive, and the chances are much lower of being able to save lives once people are put on ventilators and things like that.

VAUSE: Catherine, thank you so much for being with us. It's a great story too in the Washington Post, and it's well worth the read, so thank you for doing that.

RAMPELL: Thank you.

VAUSE: The oil market collapse continues to weigh heavily on investors. U.S. stocks closed down sharply Tuesday. Concerns about the availability of storage and weaker demand are keeping oil prices down and a whole lot of all of that. John Defterios is live for us in Abu Dhabi. You know, the pain from the collapse in oil prices, it's being felt around the world. So is this being driven only by oversupply, falling demand, or have much bigger problems being exposed.

JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN BUSINESS EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Well, I think it is those two key factors, John, that you're talking about here. It's record oversupply. To give you a sense, we usually see a drop of say, one million barrels a day. If there's a recession, we're looking at 29 million barrels a day.

And many thought this was contained to the U.S. when we saw that huge sell-off on Monday, but Tuesday and now Wednesday is proving that theory absolutely wrong. We had a major sell-off on Wall Street, but the Asian markets, for the most part, are pretty stable with the exception of Tokyo, which is down about three-quarters of a percent.

But if we look at WTI and Brent today, massive selling. The new normal john is down five percent, 15 percent, even 20 percent. And we had Brent yesterday hit an 18-year low. Now the swelling that you're talking about of the surplus did it again last night. We had figures showing another 13 million barrels and we're approaching this record amount of 535 million barrels in the states. It's parked with nowhere to go because there is no demand. And I think the real danger here, John, that a lot of people aren't

talking about is that those who had put out expectations just a month ago, were saying demand has dropped 10 million barrels a day, which was a record, then 12, then 14, now we're looking at 30 and it could be deeper for longer.

Can you imagine, if this spills into July and August, with WTI hovering and holding on to $10.00 a barrel, but just barely. So this will have a contagion of the stock markets, but also jobs in the oil patch of the United States. And even here, in Abu Dhabi or in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Russia, they're all under intense pressure.

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VAUSE: Donald Trump has sort of indicated that there could be some kind of government assistance for oil producers. What are his options? And is he willing to take action, I guess? This is hypothetical but you know, that could be harmful for his Saudi mates.

DEFTERIOS: Well, you know, this is interesting that you say that because it's no longer a hypothetical. He's kind of kicking into action. He was suggesting yesterday in a tweet that we need to formulate a bailout plan. So think about the airline industry has to do the same he sees for oil and gas because that is his base.

But there is a danger here on a couple of fronts, John. Number one, if you seem to be bailing out big oil, they'll have the backlash by other voters at the ballot box in November. Number two here, he has touted U.S. supremacy in oil at 13 million barrels a day. By the end of the year, that'll probably be about 10 million barrels a day and behind Saudi Arabia, behind Russia. So again, another political challenge.

So he could go radical, not just a financial bailout. There's a proposal in the Senate from a North Dakota senator saying we should ban Saudi exports into the United States and put a tariff on oil coming from overseas as well. That's the radical or the nuclear option.

VAUSE: Wow. OK, yes. Everything is on the table. John, thank you. John Defterios live in Abu Dhabi.

DEFTERIOS: It is.

VAUSE: Thank you, John. It seems Netflix might be the big winner from the Coronavirus pandemic, with millions stuck at home binge-watching shows like Tiger king. The streaming service added 16 million new subscribers in the first quarter of the year, and now has 183 million worldwide.

Even the most filming is shut down, the company plans to release all of its shows and movies scheduled to run in the second quarter. Well, that's some news. Well, as the best way to check with coronavirus and Dr. Sanjay Gupta is putting his antibodies to the test. Coming up, what can be learned from his results?

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VAUSE: Welcome back. To find out how widespread the Coronavirus might be within a community, testing for antibodies is seen as one of the best and most reliable ways. CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta took the test and explains the process.

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SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There are two different tests that we are all becoming familiar with. A diagnostic test that searches for the genetic markers of the coronavirus and this one that tests for antibodies.

The first thing you'll notice is that the antibody test requires blood. For me, it was just a poke. But then look at all the steps that take place after that. My blood is taken down to the lab and then spun down in a centrifuge. You're looking at my serum. That's the clear part that might contain antibodies if I have been previously exposed.

The way to find that out is fascinating. Just take some of my serum and put it in the same test tube as the virus and see what happens.

JOHN ROBACK, EMORY UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: If you have antibodies against that. They're going to bind and we're going to be able to detect that.

GUPTA: Dr. John Roback is the medical director of the blood bank at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta where I practice as a neurosurgeon. I was able to get this test because I'm still working as a doctor at Emory and healthcare workers are considered to be at high risk for COVID-19.

Now, this particular test approved under FDA emergency authorization at Emory was developed by Roback and his colleagues. Right now, they test up to 300 people a day. By mid-June, they expect to be processing thousands a day. It's far more sophisticated than the tests you may have heard of recently.

What do you make of these at home test for antibodies?

ROBACK: I don't think that they can achieve the sorts of performance characteristics we can -- we can with these tests that we have in our clinical laboratory. We have a lot better control over the testing conditions over the sample that was collected.

GUPTA: Here's what happens in your body when you're infected. The blue line, that's how long the virus typically lives inside of you. Take a look at the green line. Early on, IGM antibodies appear, but they disappear shortly after. And then the red line, that's the IGG antibody. That's the one that appears after the infection is cleared and might provide immunity. For just how long, how strong, that we don't know yet.

We do know that for other coronaviruses like SARS, antibodies lasted two to three years. And MERS, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome had antibody presence of about three years. But with this new Coronavirus, it's still too early to tell. And in order to answer the question, researchers are going to focus on this term, neutralizing activity.

You see, it doesn't necessarily matter how many antibodies you have. It only matters how well they work at keeping the virus from entering a human cell. And that can vary from person to person.

ROBACK: It's fascinating that not everybody that has high levels of antibodies on the test we're doing now actually have very much neutralizing activity that those antibodies might still be helping. It, you know, causes us to pause a little bit before we, you know, just categorically say if you have high antibodies or immune.

GUPTA: What is the real value of having the test?

ROBACK: I think if you have -- if you're positive on this test, it indicates you've been exposed. That can give you a little bit of peace of mind, I think, that you know -- that, you know the cough I had two weeks ago that was really COVID-19. It could indicate that you know, some of your close contacts should be tested.

GUPTA: But perhaps most importantly, Dr. Roback told me something I hadn't really considered before. That if you test positive for the antibodies, that means you've dealt with this infection and you beat it. And chances are that if you're exposed to it again, you'll beat it again. As for me, that part is still an open question mark. I tested negative.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: And join us this Thursday for a special Coronavirus Global Townhall. Alicia Keys joining CNN for the world premiere of her new song dedicated to the everyday heroes on the frontlines of this pandemic. That's Thursday 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time in the U.S., Friday 8:00 a.m. in Hong Kong.

50 years ago this Wednesday, the modern environmental movement was born Earth Day. How do we come a long way? Earth Day this year will celebrate a planet in the grips of a deadly pandemic, and all the time the threat to our species from climate change continues to grow practically unchecked. So 50 years old, what is our problem? Here's CNN's Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir.

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BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: On the golden anniversary of Earth Day, it's as if Mother Nature has sent us all to our rooms to think about what we've done, and to give us a glimpse of life without us.

There have been penguins wandering the streets of Cape Town, and wild pigs on the sidewalks in Corsica. Kashmiri goats are helping themselves to the shrubbery in Wales, and the sea turtle hatch in Thailand is reportedly setting modern records.

A normally shy puma ran a stoplight in Santiago. A pride of lions was caught snoozing on an empty South African highway and with no wall of cars to navigate, Yosemite park rangers are seeing more bears than ever.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the most part, I think they're having a party.

WEIR: And while they aren't unheard of in New York City, these days, it's hard not to be shaken by vultures circling over the Navy's floating hospital, The Comfort.

Man, it'll be a great day when the only big naval ship docked in New York City is a museum. When The Comfort finally set sail, surely those vultures will fly away. And we can finally come out of our homes, surely all those wild critters will go back to what's left of theirs. But what about the effects that are harder to see? What is this pause and the industrial revolution doing to the chemistry of our sky?

Locals in northern India say they can see the Himalayas for the first time in decades. And before and after satellite imagery shows how nitrogen dioxide pollution over North America's big cities is down by as much as 30 percent. But the blanket of heat-trapping gases around our planet is still thicker than ever.

And there seems to be this perception that maybe the virus has helped humanity buy some time when it comes to global warming. What's wrong with that assumption?

JONATHAN FOLEY, CLIMATE SCIENTIST, PROJECT DRAWDOWN: We have to keep doing this even more and do it for the next 30 years to really begin to bend the curve on the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It's kind of like having a really huge bathtub in the sky filled with pollution and we have the faucet pouring, pouring, pouring more in. And all we've done is kind of turned down the faucet a little bit, but it's still filling up.

WEIR: Thanks to the current oil crash, when the lockdown is lifted, we'll see the lowest gas prices in generations. And with Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency gutting dozens of regulations, experts say a spike in pollution seems inevitable.

Both the EPA and Earth Day were born when the air and water got too foul for everyday Americans to ignore. 50 years later, science is warning that the storms, floods, and fires of the climate crisis are growing too frequent and too severe to ignore.

Saving what's left will take everyday folks everywhere, deciding that their planet deserves more than one minor holiday like a dead president, deciding that to save life as we know it, every day should be Earth Day.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Our thanks to Bill Weir for that report. Now, while these atoms are being forced to shut their doors because of the pandemic, exhibits are finding a new place to thrive. How they grow in crowds by the thousands, that's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: Andy Warhol was a legend of pop art. He once said I am a social disease, no word on social distancing though. Now, his collections have gone online and they become an instant sensation once again. Here's CNN Nick Glass.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK GLASS, CNN REPORTER AT LARGE: The landmark Andy Warhol show at London's Tate Modern, closed after just five days. The gallery's swift response, an online video from the curators.

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FIONTAN MORAN, ASSISTANT CURATOR, TATE MODERN: Andy Warhol is mostly known as a pop artist, but actually he really wanted to attend to the man and think about all of the desires, the fears that might have to drove him to create art.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We wanted to take him out of the hype and start to look at Andy Warhol through the three lenses of the idea of the immigrant story, his queer identity, and the idea of death and religion.

GLASS: From bewigged Andy Warhol, to a youthful Raphael. The Italian Renaissance artist died 500 years ago this very month. The show celebrating his brief life closed in Rome after just four days. The gallery video went online shortly afterwards. It attracted well over 300,000 visitors in a matter of days.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Leo X was a highly cultured lover of the arts, who was conscious of the role that images could serve in consolidating and promoting the identity of the papacy. In the years spent in the service of this Pope, Raphael was vetted as the greatest living artist.

GLASS: This is the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent in Belgium, hosts to a rare exhibition of work by the Flemish master Jan Van Eyck. But now you can only visit it online in what they call the stay at home museum. Early about 20, Van Eyck painting survive. This show has managed to assemble half of them.

Now, this room is dedicated to the subject of mother and child. It's focused on actually on one of two versions of the Madonna and Child, the Madonna at the Fountain. It's a gem-like painting and you can see how precisely and for like depicts even the splash of water coming up.

The Frick Collection in New York claims to be one of the American museums to pioneer virtual tours over 20 years ago. There's much to see including three Vermeer's. You just have to imagine the flood of invisible visitors, 1,000 percent more than normal, says the Frick.

Something similar is happening at London's Courtauld gallery, which was in fact closed for refurbishment before the coronavirus. This month alone, the Courtauld says that it has had more virtual visitors than it normally gets in the year. Nick Glass, CNN and his laptop in central London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Thank you, Nick. And thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Please stay with us. The news continues with my friend Rosemary Church right after this.

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