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White House Sends Mixed Messages to the Public; When Did Coronavirus Spread Really Begin in United States?; Wuhan after Lockdown Ends; Georgia Governor Is Reopening State Too Soon; U.S. Oil Prices Rise After Trump's Threat to Iran; Trump Expresses Concern Over Georgia's Reopening; 'An Army of Tracers' Needed to Control Coronavirus Spread; PA State Legislator Mike Jones (R) is Interviewed about Protests; Business Owners Struggle with Impact of COVID-19; What Asia's Wet Markets Are Really Like; Tennis Star Andy Murray Talks About Life Under Lockdown. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired April 23, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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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, for months, leading experts have warned the coronavirus will see a second wave by year's end but rest easy, U.S. president says it will be a distant memory by then because he just knows this stuff.
The new normal in Wuhan, China, emerging from a months-long lockdown.
And the push and pull, the yin and yang of when to reopen state economies pitting some lawmakers against the medical experts.
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VAUSE: On a day when U.S. officials reported more than 2,000 dead from the coronavirus and an overall death toll which is quickly headed towards 50,000 and on a day when state governors warned they still could not carry out widespread testing, seen as an essential for restarting the economy, the president was furious.
His anger is directed at comments made a day earlier by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the virus could make a comeback by year's end and could be even worse second time around.
The president said "The Washington Post" misquoted the head of the CDC, who said more difficult, not worse. Dr. Robert Redfield appeared at the coronavirus briefing on Wednesday
but if the plan was for him to scold and criticize the media, it backfired. Redfield admitted he was not misquoted.
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DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: I'm accurately quoted in "The Washington Post," as difficult.
But the headline was inappropriate.
TRUMP: What does the headline say? What does the headline say? Give me the headline.
QUESTION: The headline says: "CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus is likely to be even more devastating."
And isn't that...
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TRUMP: That's not what he says. That's not what he said.
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QUESTION: But if you have the two things happening...
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TRUMP: The headline doesn't...
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REDFIELD: No, I actually think it's actually going to be -- I think the American public is going to heed the requests to relook at their vaccine hesitancy, the vaccine, with confidence for flu.
And I'm confident that the public health infrastructure that we're putting together now across this country, so that we can early-case diagnose, isolate and contact trace, as I say, block and tackle, block and tackle, that system is going to be there. And we're going to be able to contain this virus.
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VAUSE: Then came the confusing statements, yet more of them from Donald Trump, insisting by the end of the year, only embers of the virus would remain. But Dr. Anthony Fauci shot that down, insisting the virus would most certainly be back.
And after encouraging state governors to restart their economies sooner rather than later, the president completely abandoned his fellow Republican and Trumper, Georgia governor Brian Kemp, criticizing him for moving too quickly to restart his state's economy. Trump added it was up to the governor to do what he believes is right, even though modeling used by the White House projects Georgia and 11 other states should wait until at least June before they consider easing up on restrictions.
Then there's the case of Dr. Rick Bright, who was in charge of developing a coronavirus vaccine in the U.S. but now claims he was abruptly forced out of his job and reassigned because he spoke out against using the anti malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19.
You may remember Donald Trump has been pushing hydroxychloroquine as a potential game-changer, a miracle drug, even a gift from God, he said.
As for the man leading the U.S. effort for a lifesaving vaccine for a virus causing havoc, destruction and death across the planet, turns out Donald Trump has never heard of him. Well, that's what he says. But amid the chaos, the confusion at the White House, which seems to only get worse by the day, there is real news to report.
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VAUSE: Researchers say the first COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. came weeks earlier than we thought and community spread was well underway as far back as January, possibly earlier. CNN's Nick Watt has more on that.
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NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We thought the first coronavirus death in the U.S. came the last day in February in Washington state. Not true. Now we know COVID-19 killed someone in the Bay Area more than three weeks earlier.
DR. SARA CODY, SANTA CLARA COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT: The fatality on February 6 was a 57-year-old woman.
DR. ASHISH JHA, DIRECTOR, HARVARD GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE: That is a very significant finding. The things we put into place in late January, like the travel ban, the virus was already here by then and probably circulating quite widely.
WATT: Meanwhile, the president plane states are safely coming back, but one model used by the White House now says 12 states, including Georgia, should wait the longest, at least another six weeks, before relaxing social distancing.
Georgia's governor forced to defend even on FOX what he calls a measured step to open gyms, hair salons and the like this Friday.
GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): The fitness owners, I have great confidence in them spreading people out when they're doing a workout. It's not saying they have got to screen them. These are best practices. They could do temperature screening.
WATT: While others preach caution. GOV. JAY INSLEE (D-WA): And it will look more like a turning of a dial than the flip of a switch. We will not be able to lift many of the restrictions by May 4.
WATT: In New York, that Navy hospital ship no longer taking patients, pressure on beds easing in the city, but the body count continues to mount. Some dead will now be stored in freezer trucks in Brooklyn, waiting for the backlog at cemeteries and crematoriums to clear.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): In talking to many local officials, they feel political pressure to open. I get the pressure, but we can't make a bad decision. Frankly, this is no time to act stupidly.
WATT: In Texas, daylight emerging between the Republican governor, who is expected to soon announce business openings and the Democratic mayor of the state's biggest city.
MAYOR SYLVESTER TURNER (D-TX), HOUSTON: When it comes to allowing something like the surgeries, which will start today, I agree with it. But if you go much further than that, if you start opening up everything, like what is taking place in Georgia, then I think you run into a serious problem of creating a resurgence of this virus.
WATT: A pork processing plant in Iowa just finally closed after pressure from local Democratic officials and resistance from the Republican governor.
MAYOR QUENTIN HART (D-IA), WATERLOO: I understand the impact that this has on our national food chain, but, in order to be able to stop the spread, this was the best course of action.
WATT: We heard from the governor of Montana on Wednesday he is going to lift that stay-at-home order on Sunday, let stores open Monday, restaurants open a week from Monday and perhaps even schools that week as well. But that is pretty much in line with the assessment of Montana by those esteemed researchers over in Seattle. Montana's numbers have been going down -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
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VAUSE: Dr. Jonathan Reiner is a cardiologist a professor of medicine at George Washington university. It's good to have him here with us, this hour.
Dr. Reiner, good to see you.
DR. JONATHAN REINER, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: My pleasure, nice to see you.
VAUSE: On Wednesday, health officials in California confirmed that the cause of death for a 59 year old woman on February 6 was the coronavirus. Two weeks after that an elderly couple also died from the virus and not seasonal flu, so initially the first death in the U.S. was believed to have happened at the end of February.
What do you draw from this? What are the conclusions, the ramifications about this in terms of community transfer and just how contagious this disease actually is?
REINER: So I think what we are learning is that the virus was here earlier than we thought and what we have learned over the last few months is that the virus lives in asymptomatic people.
A lot of the reservoir for the virus in humans is asymptomatic people. So the virus probably came to the U.S. quite early in January and spread through parts of the West Coast and then came to the East Coast.
VAUSE: This virus essentially lives on in someone who's asymptomatic and that is kind of how that -- the state of health remains that way?
REINER: We are seeing studies from all over the world. There was a study done in a small town near Padua and they sampled people at the beginning of their lockdown, about 6 weeks ago and then the sampled most of the town at the end of the lockdown.
The consistent finding on both sides of testing, where they tested almost everyone in the town, 80 percent of the folks in town was 45 percent of the people in the town who tested positive for the virus were asymptomatic.
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REINER: And that is almost exactly the same finding as they found when they sampled a huge proportion of the entire population of Iceland, about 40 percent of the folks who tested positive for the virus were asymptomatic.
The authorities in Boston tested a large homeless shelter and found that about half the residents of that homeless shelter were actually positive for the virus and none of them had symptoms. So we know there is really an immense reservoir of infection in folks with really no symptoms at all.
VAUSE: At Wednesday's White House briefing on the coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, he was adamant this virus will be back. Here's what he said.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We will have coronavirus in the fall. I am convinced of that because of the degree of transmissibility that it has, the global nature. What happens with that will depend on how we are able to contain it when it occurs.
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VAUSE: If you could just speak there with what Dr. Fauci described as a degree is transmissibility.
What does he mean by that? REINER: Every virus has a different degree of a sort of the ability of the virus to infect someone else. This particular virus has what's called an R nought or reproductive capacity of over 2, which means an infected person on average infects more than other two people, highly infectious.
And because when this virus came to the world, no one had seen it before, no one had immunity to it. And instead of reaching fire breaks like the flu does sometimes, where it infects one person but the next person is relatively immune to it and it stops, this virus went from person to person to person.
So this virus is widespread in the community. So I think Dr. Fauci is acknowledging, is that while we are going to suppress it now with social distancing and testing, it will not be eradicated and it will remain in low levels in our community throughout the summer and probably re-emerge in hotspots in the fall.
VAUSE: It's interesting you say that about the level of infectious nature of this transmission, because "The Washington Post" puts it like this.
"The vast majority of Americans are still believed to be uninfected, making them like dry kindling on a forest floor. Barring a vaccine or treatment, the virus will keep burning until it runs out of fuel."
So this is the invisible enemy that Donald Trump talks about. So the way to reveal that enemy is with widespread testing and then you know who has it and who doesn't. So if everyone is tested, the virus becomes visible and if he goes into quarantine, the rest of the world goes on.
REINER: Right. Think about what we are doing now. We are isolating the entire population to try and keep those who are infected out of circulation. But if we were to widely test the population in the United States, both symptomatic folks and asymptomatic people, you could then simply isolate the people who are infected.
The Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Romer (ph) has suggested testing up to 30 million people a day to do this and then only isolating those who are sick. The recommendation from the Rockefeller Foundation just published yesterday calls for ramping up U.S. testing capacity so that we can test 30 million people a week.
Right now we only test -- we have only tested in total about 4 million people, so an immense increase in testing capacity.
VAUSE: Very quickly, touch on the herd immunity. We hear a lot about it and if enough people have this virus, become immune, they act as a protective buffer to those who do not have immunity.
The other side of this is that a lot of people will have to get sick first, right?
REINER: Right, or immunized eventually, hopefully. So it's not that perhaps in order to have effective herd immunity, you need about 60 percent of the population to have antibodies to the pathogen.
But if you think about what those numbers would mean, that would mean in the United States something like 200 million people being exposed to the virus. We don't really know what the true case fatality rate is from this virus, because we don't really know the denominator.
But if we used the most optimistic number, which would maybe be a mortality rate of around 1 percent, although if you look at the raw numbers in United States, it is more like 5 percent. But if you used a very low number of 1 percent and 200 million people are exposed to this virus, that means 2 million people will die.
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REINER: So, yes, we could all go back to work and just go for herd immunity and hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people will die. That's not my option.
VAUSE: And that's what we wanted to avoid at the beginning of the year. The doctor overseeing development of a vaccine in the United States claims he was ousted from that job because he questioned the use of hydroxychloroquine, which is the miracle drug that the president has been touting. Donald Trump denied he even knew the doctor but he also said, well, maybe he was ousted for questioning the use of hydroxychloroquine.
The views expressed by the doctor was simply medical scientific opinion.
What is your reaction to someone losing their job over that?
REINER: You know, I train younger doctors. And the first thing I tell them at the beginning of the year is that if I ask them a question while we are doing a procedure, I want to hear what they think, not what they think I want to hear.
And I think any leader, particularly government leader at the highest level, needs to encourage people around them to be able to come to them with thoughts that might counter what the leader wants to hear, speak truth to power.
We are seeing this split between the science people in our government and the spin people in our government. The concern has been that if some of the science people don't really follow along the party line, that they could lose their jobs, it's a scary thought because this is science.
This has nothing to do with politics, except here, you see when you run afoul of a politician's belief, you can get fired.
VAUSE: Which is just, at any other point in time, would be unthinkable or unbelievable but it is believable at the moment. Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you for being with, us we appreciate.
REINER: My pleasure, good night.
VAUSE: Cheers.
Please join us Thursday for a special coronavirus global town hall with Alicia Keys joining CNN for the world premiere of her new song, dedicated to the everyday heroes of the front lines of the pandemic. Thursday, 8:00 pm Eastern time in the U.S. and Friday 8:00 am in Hong Kong.
Even now, months after this virus was first detected in Wuhan, China, there is an ongoing controversy of where it came from.
Was it a wet market?
Was it a high security lab?
CNN's David Culver has returned to Wuhan for the first time since January, when government officials imposed a draconian lockdown on the entire city.
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DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You can just look at the street behind me here in Wuhan, China and you can tell that traffic is coming back onto the roadways, you can tell life is starting to resume. Albeit amidst a cautious optimistic.
A lot of the folks there hesitant that this virus is gone for good. In fact, many of them believe there could be a second wave.
CNN back at the original epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, Wuhan, China and it's more than 11 million residents navigating this post-lockdown uncertainty. Among them, American Christopher Suzanne.
Let's switch out masks, that's your preference here.
He suggested we upgrade our protective equipment before going for a stroll. It's a city he knows well.
CHRISTOPHER SUZANNE, WUHAN RESIDENT: So, this place is, you know, I was married here, I had a baby here. I've been here for the past 10 years.
CULVER: This is home.
SUZANNE: Yes, this is home.
CULVER: Christopher's home is slowly emerging from a brutal 76-day lockdown. He returned to Wuhan in the midst of it.
SUZANNE: I'm really happy to see like people, at least, you know, keeping their distance, getting around going about their day.
CULVER: But just two weeks after the reopening and some here are closing the gap on social distancing. Many stores and restaurants keeping people from coming inside, but that's not stopping crowds, like this one from standing shoulder to shoulder waiting outside for their orders. In places like our hotel, there are noticeably stricter measures. Staffs spraying us down each time we walk in and checking our temperatures inside, even the elevators telling you where to stand. And offering you a tissue to touch the buttons. But will it last?
Like we are afraid that there is going to be the second wave, I think everybody here knows.
CULVER: You think it's coming?
SUZANNE: Absolutely.
CULVER: Yet, there is growing skepticism over where the first wave actually originated.
So, this is where Chinese health officials believe the source of the novel coronavirus is. This is the Hunan seafood market, of course, they believe other things have been sold here, hence, the transmission from animals to humans of this virus.
But you can see it's all closed off still. This has now been since January 1 that they shut it down.
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CULVER: However, I want to take you now to the lab where U.S. intelligence is looking into the possible origins of this virus having come from there.
We drove to the lab inside China Centers for Disease Control, just down the street from the market.
This is one of the labs within Wuhan, not too far from the market either. It's an origin theory Chinese official quickly dismissed. They also pushed back at claims that their reported number of cases and deaths is far less than reality, even as numbers have repeatedly been revised upward to account for previous undercounts.
Just last week, another 50 percent was added to the Wuhan death toll alone.
SUZANNE: You know, whether or not they want to share that information with the public, it doesn't really concern me. I'm really more concerned about my family and what we can do.
CULVER: Others, like this convenience shop owner more worried about resurrecting their businesses.
"I'm a bit worried, I don't know when we will resume completely."
As China claims to get the virus under better control, in places like Wuhan, there is now greater concern of those coming in from elsewhere. From our arrival in the city to this interview out in the street, we were questioned repeatedly.
SUZANNE: I'm from -- I'm from the U.S., but I live in Beijing. CULVER: A group of plain clothed police grew increasingly uneasy with our being there, a reflection of both their fear of imported cases and a mounting distrust of foreign media.
SUZANNE: Yes. We'll walk in the car.
CULVER: Yes.
SUZANNE: We'll go.
CULVER: It is interesting to note that as you walk around Wuhan, you begin to assess different levels of complacency. You have some folks who seem to be very comfortable just wearing the mask, which is part of the law, it's mandatory and will often go into crowds and be shoulder to shoulder with others.
And then you have those who are still wearing protective gear, from head to toe, they are not in the medical profession. They simply do not trust that this virus is gone for good. And hence, they want to protect themselves in as many ways as possible and that means sometimes wearing as much protective garb as possible.
And for them, it's about protecting not only themselves, but also those they could come to contact with -- David Culver, CNN, Wuhan, China.
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VAUSE: We will take a short break now. Still to come, a closer look at Asia's wet markets with growing calls for China and other countries to shut them down.
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DR. TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: Make no mistake, we have a long way to go. This virus will be with us for a long time. One of the greatest dangers we face, now, is complacency.
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VAUSE: A warning to remain vigilant and it comes from the World Health Organization as many countries consider easing up on stay-at- home orders. The director general, was also defensive, insisting the WHO raised the global alarm about the outbreak at the right time, despite criticism that it came too slow.
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VAUSE: And he says he is hoping the U.S., which means Donald Trump, will reconsider the decision to freeze funding for the organization. Just hours from now, researchers in Oxford, England, will begin human
trials of a possible vaccine. It's based on a weakened version of the common cold virus found in chimpanzees.
The British health secretary says the government will throw everything at the hunt for a vaccine, which so far, at least, $24 million in funding. He says, if it works, it will be manufactured as early as humanly possible.
Asian markets emerged higher on Thursday, following Wall Street's lead and a rally in oil markets. Trading still volatile as investors remain cautious over the pandemic. Journalist Kaori Enjoji is live for us in Tokyo with details.
KAORI ENJOJI, JOURNALIST: Thanks, John. A rally on the oil markets, $14 for a barrel of oil.
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ENJOJI: Yes, exactly.
And Brent it at $21, we're calling that a rally so we can tell how far we dropped.
But yes, it's a bit of a better picture than it was yesterday and I think the equity markets are playing out in tandem in Asia with Japan leading the way higher. But we are going into earnings season and I think the warnings that we have had from corporations, particularly in this part of the woods, where 160 companies are basically saying that they have to wait a couple more weeks before they give us any kind of guidance at all, it means this is going to be a tough one because they have no visibility going forward.
And the ones that do, are saying their profits are going to be down 40 percent in the business here. You are also seeing a lot of interest in oil price. For a country like Japan, cheaper oil should be good news because it imports all of its oil.
But there is one problem that is concerning financial markets authorities and that Japanese banks will have a lot of exposure to shale gas companies in the United States. They have a lot of loans outstanding.
So if that sector, we see more signs of trouble because of the price of oil, the central bank has said this week that they are concerned about pressure on the financial system and that could lead to broader financial market instability.
So I think that is one development to closely watch for in respect to the decline in oil. Otherwise, I mean, the ongoing cases, the number of cases continues to rise, here in Japan.
We heard from one area in Japan, close to Tokyo, that says today they are considering converting a venue that would have originally been used for the Olympics into a makeshift bed. It's a convention center, they are making preparations, possibly for using this site, to house 1,000 beds in the case that there is an overrun in the hospital facilities.
So John, unless we hear any kind of improvement in that situation, I think we are going to see some rocky times ahead for these financial instruments.
VAUSE: Rocky and every other word you throw in there that says bad. Kaori Enjoji, thank you. As always, we appreciate it.
VAUSE: The Walt Disney Company has seen significant blowback for its decision to furlough theme park employees during the pandemic and, notably, that blowback is coming from a real living Disney.
In strong language, Abigail Disney slammed the company for not taking care of hundreds of thousands of its employees while paying dividends and shareholders and big bonuses to executives. Abigail Disney is the granddaughter of Walt Disney's brother, Roy.
The company's chairman is forgoing his salary during the pandemic and the CEO did take a 50 percent pay cut to a gazillion dollars.
Health experts are warning it is too soon to relax restrictions in the U.S. But some politicians are eager to put their states back to work, despite the risks. One of them even joined a protest to reopen. I will talk to him in a moment.
Across the U.S., many minority owned businesses are struggling, be it financial help from the government. Will the next round of small business loans be any different?
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you heard anything?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We haven't gotten an email back, a call, nothing.
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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I told the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, that I disagree, strongly, with his decision to open certain facilities. It's just too soon. I think it's too soon.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Yes, that is the U.S. president, saying Georgia's governor is moving too quickly with his plan to begin reopening some businesses as soon as Friday. Almost every health expert agrees, and they're warning the premature opening could see a rebound in the virus, and that would make contract [SIC] -- contact tracing even harder. CNN's Brian Todd explains.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The mission: build an instant army.
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): I have to put together an army of tracers. That's thousands of people. It's never been done before.
TODD: Contact tracers who track down the people who a coronavirus person has had contact with to monitor them for infection. Public health officials say it's a crucial component of being able to reopen the economy so new cases can be contained.
A John Hopkins study says an army of about 100,000 contract tracers may be needed to track the number of cases in the U.S. Other experts suggest two or three times that many.
But a crisis within this crisis could be brewing. According to various reports, the U.S. has nowhere near the number of contact tracers needed. By some estimates, only a couple thousand people have been doing it before the outbreak started.
ERIC FEIGL-DING, FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS: Health departments are completely overwhelmed. Health departments are not designed to send out field armies of people to trace every single case that pops up in their community. Some communities have hundreds of cases in a single day.
TODD: States are rushing to ramp up.
DR. JONEIGH KHALDUN, CHIEF MEDICAL EXECUTIVE, STATE OF MICHIGAN: We're already training hundreds, if not thousands, of contact tracers.
TODD: But among the concerns, how quickly states can build armies big enough to call dozens of people for each new person infected and who's going to pay for them. As for the type of person needed --
CUOMO: It's a detective investigator in the public health space.
TODD: For example, this Massachusetts job posting seeks people who can make calls, follow a script, and give instructions or referrals. Quote, "A headset is preferred." They have to interview an infected person, get them to help identify anyone they've been in close contact with over the past two weeks.
FEIGL-DING: We could define it as anyone within six feet for more than one minute. Or it can be anyone within six feet for more than 10 minutes.
TODD: And contact tracers have to race against the clock. Experts we spoke to say they have, on average, less than three days to find someone who an infected person's been in contact with and get that person to isolate.
At this contact tracing center in Arizona, now working virtually, a team leader tells us it's time-intensive, emotionally taxing work.
KRISTEN POGREBA-BROWN, EPIDEMIOLOGIST, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA: Our biggest challenge, honestly, is just getting people on the phone initially and talking to them, and then getting them to open up once you get a hold of them.
TODD: And there are more obstacles. Health professionals say the decision by some governors to reopen businesses so quickly, like Georgia's governor throwing open gyms and hair and nail salons this week, will make accurate contact tracing harder.
FEIGL-DING: If you reopen businesses, now you infinitely increase the number of people that people have been in contact with. It makes contact tracing so much more difficult than if we have a lockdown or shelter in place.
TODD (on camera): Experts say another major challenge regarding contact tracing is that it's like a police officer trying to get a witness account of a crime. People's memories of encounters are often shady and unreliable.
[00:35:04]
To help with that, Apple and Google will soon have apps that people can download, where they can share data on anyone they've been in contact with, with health departments through their cell phones. But that raises concern over privacy issues.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: The economic pain caused by these lockdown is being felt the world over. By the time the Italy's nationwide lockdown reached its fourth week, there was growing unrest in the south, many demanding the right to leave their homes and go back to work.
In states across the U.S., relatively small groups of protesters are making the same demand, arguing their state governor has overreached. Their shelter-in-place or stay-at-home orders, they say, violate the Constitution.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I lost my job as a bartender. And I live on way less income. And I'm very upset that my constitutional rights are being trampled all over.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sick people and people with bad immune systems should stay home. And everybody else that's healthy and can go to work needs to go out and go to work and keep the country running.
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VAUSE: Joining us now on the line is Mike Jones. He was one of the protesters who gathered on the steps of the state capital in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Monday, a rally which demanded the state reopen. He is also a Republican lawmaker, a representative in the Pennsylvania state legislature.
So Mike Jones, thank you for taking the time and bearing with us through all this. It's good to have you with us.
But I want to start off with, you know, it's important to stress that times are not just economically tough right now, but that uncertainty and the financial trouble and everything that comes with it, it's sort of manifesting itself in very real health problems, and there's an impact here. And you're seeing that in your district. And you wrote about it in an op-ed for "The Washington Post."
REP. MIKE JONES (R), PENNSYLVANIA STATE LEGISLATURE (via phone): You're exactly correct, John. And I think, you know, part of the issue here, you touched on it -- made a good point. The psychology of this, we're really in uncharted territory. And it seems like each day brings new regulations and restrictions, with really, no light at the end of the tunnel.
But to your point, yes, we're concerned about we've seen a dramatic increase in drug overdoses, like almost a tripling of the calls to the suicide hotline. We're very concerned about domestic abuse, particularly with children. It's not being reported, because they're not in school.
And then there's a lot of elective surgeries and cancer screenings and things like that that have been put off. You know, you can only go so long. These are necessary procedures that -- that need to be done. So we're putting -- we're putting those medical procedures piece of it off, as well. So we're very concerned about that.
VAUSE: I want to read a little from the op-ed that you wrote. Here it is: "Public health officials bring valuable scientific expertise to an unprecedented challenge. But these public health officials are advisers, not policymakers. It is the job of elected officials to consider their advice seriously and then weigh it against competing concerns, including economic ones."
This seems to be a softer, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) more measured version of what the president was arguing a few weeks back when he wanted the country to reopen by Easter.
But I'm just wondering if your point is a little more nuanced here. Because I'm sure these advisors are looking at the full picture. Are you arguing that maybe they need to put more weight on the other side, the economic side, the other -- the impact that this is having on families, and the health -- health consequences not associated with the coronavirus.
JONES: Yes. I think that's exactly correct. And two quick points there. First, I think there are -- there's a bit of tunnel vision there. And whenever you focus on a single variable, in this case minimizing COVID deaths, you can do a lot of -- I'm sure it's unintentional, but there's a lot of collateral damage. And I'm not sure that those folks, while they may be experts in their
field, they are not experts in business and economics and looking at the bigger picture. The other point is that I think there's a big difference between a four- or five-week shutdown and a seven-, eight-, nine-, ten-week. Financially, whether it's business-wise or personal finances, you can -- a lot of people can weather a one-month storm, but you start to get to two or three months, especially with no end in sight, and it gets exponentially worse.
VAUSE: Yes. I want to play some sound, though, for you from the mayor of Las Vegas. Because she spoke with Anderson Cooper. And like so many mayors in this country, she wants her city back in business as soon as possible. Here's part of the interview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: So he knows you want them open? Because obviously, visitors are not going to come without casinos and shows and things.
MAYOR CAROLYN GOODMAN, LAS VEGAS, NEVADA: Well, no, they'll come, because they love -- we've got major league sports here. And --
COOPER: You want stadiums open?
GOODMAN: -- we've got so many -- I'd love everything opened, because I think we've had viruses for years that have been here.
COOPER: So that -- that is the call you said you weren't making. That is the call. You want casinos open. You want stadiums open. You want restaurants open. You want Vegas back in business.
GOODMAN: Anderson, you're being very specific. I appreciate it. Because that's where you're seeing it. No, the reality is I want us open in the city of Las Vegas so our people can go back to work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: I'm wondering if, in some ways, that kind of sums up the problem here. You know, the outbreak has to be brought under control first, which is part of the White House guidelines, before you can actually really embark on any serious reopening of the economy.
[00:40:10]
GOODMAN: Yes. It's a bit of a catch-22, but I would say particularly here in Pennsylvania, John, we went -- we're beyond the norm, even by U.S. standards.
So the big one, the big issues, we jumped -- our governor jumped immediately to this idea of essential and nonessential businesses. And three big ones -- construction, real estate and automobile sales -- have been shut down. And they've been -- that's not the case in virtually any other state.
So we have now almost double the national average of unemployment, which then overburdens that system. The other thing is there's been little consideration to what I'll call the profile of the business. So unlike -- unlike the -- I believe you said it was the mayor there who was commenting, I'm not -- we're not advocating, necessarily, for restaurants and bars, stadiums to open immediately.
But there are a number of businesses that are inherently safe. Virtually all manufacturing and virtually any business that can be connected with five or less people.
The other thing is there is really not much consideration for geography. So Pennsylvania, obviously, has a -- you know, big city like Pennsylvania or Pittsburgh. Where, you know, maybe even a complete shutdown almost may make sense.
But we have vast rural areas where they naturally social distance. We want those people working, not just for the sake of the economy, but we're going to need those funds to take care of the people that -- that need to be shut down. So we're going to pay a terrible consequence just a few months down the road if we don't start to get back to business.
VAUSE: You know, it's a much more nuanced approach. It's not just simply open it up or leave it closed. And you know, it seems a lot to talk about there with your Democrat -- you know, Democrats on the other side of the aisle. So we'll leave you to it.
JONES: Yes, you're 100 percent correct. We're just looking for a little common sense and some common ground here, John.
VAUSE: That would be a nice of change of things, if that can happen.
JONES: There seems to be a shortage of common sense in the world today, doesn't it?
VAUSE: Absolutely. Thank you. Be well. Appreciate you being with us.
JONES: Thank you, John.
VAUSE: Cheers.
Well, the depth of this financial crisis can be seen almost in real time in the U.S. in the overwhelming demand for small business loans. Billions were set aside in an historic $2 trillion aid package. But the fund was bankrupt within days. A second round of funding for the loans looks set to be available relatively soon.
But CNN's Kyung Lah reports that many minority business owners who say that they're now struggling to get the help they need.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As days turn two weeks, with money fading fast, Kim Prince feels that she and her community's businesses are the ones getting burned.
KIM PRINCE, OWNER, HOTVILLE CHICKEN: You know, they're dismissed. That's how it feels. It feels you've just been pushed to the side. You're not deemed essential enough.
LAH: Hotville Chicken in south L.A. is among the countless small businesses who applied for the paycheck protection program. Hotville is a black-owned restaurant in a majority black community.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a dark time for the city.
LAH: Joe Rouzan leads a community economic group, helping dozens of black and Latino businesses apply for the PPP.
(on camera): Eighty-three businesses?
ROUZAN: Eighty-three, yes.
LAH: And of those 83, how many of them have gotten the money?
ROUZAN: As of today, four have actually been funded.
LAH (voice-over): Just four minority-owned businesses, servicing an economically-challenged community, where police choppers are common, but traditional bank loans are not.
ROUZAN: If you don't have a relationship with a bank, that's what we're hearing from our constituents, our clients, is that because they didn't have a strong relationship with their bank, they haven't been able to compete for those dollars.
LAH: Kim Prince just opened last December, using her 401(k) and seed money from a local investor. But no bank. She's heard nothing about her PPE application, even as large chain restaurants received millions.
PRINCE: Access to that capital during normal times was already hard enough.
LAH (on camera): What about when you read that Shake Shack and Ruths Chris got all that money?
PRINCE: I was speechless.
LAH (voice-over): Shake Shack returned their PPP money. And President Trump says he will ask other larger recipients to do so, as well.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin defended the overall distribution of the funds.
STEVE MNUCHIN, TREASURY SECRETARY: We have over a million companies that have received this with less than 10 workers.
LAH: The PPP, out of cash now, is on the cusp of a new multi-billion- dollar funding deal. It reserves $60 billion for banks, geared to lending to minority businesses.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we bring the truck to you.
LAH: Like mobile boutique, Summer Solstice. (on camera): Have you heard anything?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We haven't gotten an email back, a call. Nothing.
LAH (voice-over): Owner Vasima Pena (ph) set up in this parking lot for us.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So we have lots of beautiful dresses.
LAH: She's not able to open during the coronavirus shutdown. She hopes round two of the PPP will mean more businesses in her community will get the funding help they desperately need.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have been suffering the most. We've been hit the hardest.
[00:45:11]
LAH (on camera): In the White House briefing, the president announced that an existing White House council would now focus on targeting minority and underserved communities that have been especially hard hit by the coronavirus impact, the economic impact.
Now, in response, we reached out to some of these south L.A. businesses. And they're skeptical. They say, quote, We'll see. Words don't matter, they say, until the cash hits their businesses.
Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Well, Asia's wet markets have come under a lot of scrutiny recently, especially those selling wild animals linked to disease. But not all wet markets are created equal. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Well, in Asia, wet markets are often an affordable way for many to get regular food and do their shopping. But not all wet markets are equal, which is why they've come under harsh scrutiny during this pandemic. While some don't sell any animal products, others do, even sometimes wild animals which have been linked to previous disease outbreaks.
CNN's Kristie Lu Stout explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Walking through, it's clear why it's called a wet market. There's live fish in open tubs, chicken wings on ice, and plastic boots on slick floors.
Here at Hong Kong's Grand Street Market, I meet student Alex Chang. Since he was a young boy, he shopped here once a week with his family.
ALEX CHANG, SHOPPER: The meats and the fish is more fresh. And the vegetables are more fresh, as well. This is cheaper.
STOUT (on camera): A wet market is a term commonly used across Asia to describe places like this. Markets that sell fresh produce, fish and meat. They are very popular across the region and in China.
(voice-over): The initial outbreak of the novel coronavirus has been linked to a market in Wuhan. CNN is not able to independently verify these graphic images from inside the Wuhan market. Taken in early December, they show a disturbing array of wild animals ready for sale and slaughter before the market shut down.
When wild animals are kept in close proximity and unsanitary conditions, experts say there is a high risk of viruses spreading between animals and humans.
PROFESSOR LEO POON, VIROLOGIST, HONG KONG UNIVERSITY: Because these animals, we don't know their history. We don't know what type of pathogens or viruses that they are having in their body.
STOUT: As the pandemic slows down in mainland China, its wet markets are opening back up, sparking outrage online. Several petitions have attracted tens of thousands of signatures.
And this from Australia's prime minister, who slammed the World Health Organization for supporting the reopening of China's wet markets.
SCOTT MORRISON, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: I think that's unfathomable, frankly. We need to protect the world against potential sources of outbreaks of these types of viruses. And look, it's happened to many times. I'm -- I'm totally puzzled by this decision.
[00:50:12]
STOUT: In a statement, the WHO says, "All sectors affected by COVID- 19, including food markets in China and around the world, need to ensure high standards of cleanliness, hygiene and safety once they are in a position to gradually resume normal activities."
The vast majority of wet markets in Asia do not sell exotic wildlife, and attitudes are changing. At the market, I meet David Olson, director of conservation at the World Wildlife Fund. According to a poll, he says there is overwhelming support for the closure of illegal wildlife markets across Asia.
DAVID OLSON, DIRECTOR OF CONSERVATION, WORLD WILDLIFE FUND: The message should be we need to end the wildlife trade. The sale of wildlife for consumption, for other purposes. These -- these -- this is what's creating situations where diseases can jump from wild species to humans.
STOUT: Olson says this is where the problem lies, and not here, a wet market where there are mandated cleaning regulations, regular inspections, and loyal customers who return again and again.
Kristie Lu Stout, CNN, Hong Kong.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: More (ph) pets in the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus. Two cats from separate households in New York were showing respiratory symptoms and were tested. Somehow, testing is available for a cat.
Officials stressed there is no evidence suggesting pets can spread COVID-19. Even so, they are encouraging social distancing among animals, especially dogs. You know what they're like.
The CDC recommends limiting interactions between pets and others outside the home, keeping cats indoors when possible, walking dogs on a leash, while maintaining six feet from other people and behind other dogs. And if someone has COVID-19, they're encouraging someone else in the household to take care of the animal.
Well, with the sports world in an extended time-out, tennis star Andy Murray has a surprising prediction about when he might return to the court. That's next on CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Yes, who's that little guy? It's Prince Louis. This is one of the moments where we have a nice story to take your mind off the coronavirus. So Prince louis, the third child of the duke and duchess of Cambridge. A lot bigger since the last time we saw them. You can tell these birthday photos were taken by the Duchess Kate herself. She can use a camera.
Louis turns 2 on Tuesday. How about that?
Andy Murray is a British icon, and he was nearing a comeback earlier this year when the coronavirus pandemic shut down the sports world.
Now, he's speaking with CNN's Christina Macfarlane about life during lockdown and actually getting back on the court.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Give us an idea of a typical day in the Murray household.
ANDY MURRAY, TENNIS PRO: We get up with the kids. That can be anywhere from 5:30 in the morning till 7. We've been doing Cosmic Yoga for, like, anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 minutes until, like, 9.
I normally try and train over -- over lunchtime. So whether that's -- I have like a little kind of gym set up in my bedroom here, which kind of looking at just now, it's quite -- quite amusing, with weights and kind of medicine balls and boxes.
There has been, you know, some positives, obviously. You know, I've got to spend lots of time at home with -- with the family and the kids. And I guess when you're traveling and stuff, you often miss, like, the first time that maybe your kids walk or the first time they crawl and things like that. And both of our kids, we got some bikes for our kids. And they -- they, you know, like cycled for the first time. So that's been the positive in what's been, you know, certainly, a challenging time for everyone.
[00:55:25]
MACFARLANE: Do you know any -- of any one of your friends and family who have been affected by coronavirus?
MURRAY: Yes, I mean, I think most people, I'm sure, you know, have had people that they know and people close to them that have -- you know, have been affected.
I was a little bit sick for two or three days about four weeks ago. But it's kind of difficult to know, like, whether you are -- I don't know, whether you actually had the virus or not. And obviously, the tests, obviously, should be saved for, you know, people that are in severe, you know, situations, and you know, the frontline NHS workers.
MACFARLANE: Your tennis, and this lockdown, if you like, came at a time when you were really nearing fitness again. When do you think we might see you back on a tennis court?
MURRAY: Yes, I mean, I would definitely play on the clay, you know, if it goes ahead. I'm a bit skeptical whether it will. You know, I'd imagine that tennis would be one of the last sports to get back to normality, because we've obviously got players and coaches and teams coming from all over the world into one area.
So I'd be surprised if they were back playing sport by September time. But we'll see.
MACFARLANE: So we know that you and your wife Kim set the 100th volley ball challenge. How impressed have you been with how people are taking up this challenge? Are there any favorite videos that you've seen?
MURRAY: Yes, I was just thinking of something that might be fun for people to try with their friends and family. Thankfully, quite a lot of the tennis players and stuff have given it a go and tried it, which was nice.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Andy, thanks for nominating everybody in the tennis community.
MURRAY: I keep getting videos sent in from people trying it, like, in China and South America and kind of all over the world.
MACFARLANE: You know who else have given it a shot, Andy? Me and my partner at home, which I'm going to show you quick.
MURRAY: Pretty good. That was good. The sauce pan, as well.
I can send you a couple of tennis rackets, if you'd like, so you can give it a go with some -- some proper rackets.
MACFARLANE; I think my partner said, We're never doing this again as he sort of walked out the front door. (END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Thanks for watching. "AMANPOUR" is up next at the top of the hour. And then I will be back after that with more news from around the world. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN.
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