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CDC Warns Antibody Tests Could be Wrong Up to Half the Time; NYSE Floor Reopens with Changes After Shutdown; Ten Vaccine Candidates Now in Human Trials; Trump Mocks Biden for Wearing Face Mask; Video Shows Cop Kneeling on Neck of Suspect Who Later Died; Twitter Flags Potentially Misleading Trump Tweets; Protests Break Out in Hong Kong Over National Anthem Bill. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired May 27, 2020 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM and I'm Rosemary Church.

Just ahead, with nearly 100,000 COVID deaths in the United States, mixed signals from the Trump administration over masks.

Demanding justice in Minneapolis after yet another black man is dead at the hands of police.

And later, the tweet that finally got Twitter to fact-check Donald Trump.

The global death toll from the coronavirus has surged past 350,000 people. Nearly 100,000 of those deaths are in the United States. And you can see the hotspots around the country here. Johns Hopkins University says there are more than 1.6 million confirmed cases in the U.S., and this comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns antibody tests could be wrong up to half the time. Antibody tests are used to determine if people have been infected in the past with the virus. But the CDC says they could be generating false positive results and are not accurate enough to make important policy decisions.

Across the Americas, the virus is raging. Latin America has overtaken the U.S. and Europe as the new epicenter of the pandemic. Regional health officials say they are particularly worried about Brazil, where for two days now, the daily number of deaths surpassed those in the United States. And we will have much more on Brazil just a little later.

But first, states in the U.S. are shifting into reopening. More people are out and about and not always following social distancing guidelines. And with that, there are fears new hotspots could crop up at any time. CNN's Nick Watt begins our coverage.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We're nearing 100,000 dead, and we're reopening. While the rate of new cases still climbs in 17 states, including California.

GAVIN NEWSOM, CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR: We are walking into the unknown, the untested, literally and figuratively, and we have to be guided by the data.

WATT: Among the 20 states seeing new case numbers fall, New York. Some traders today back on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. It's been more than two months.

JONATHAN CORPINA, SENIOR MANAGING PARTNER, MERIDIAN EQUITY PARTNERS: It's a great sign. It's a great symbol of our economy getting back in motion.

WATT: Mandatory masks everyone must sign a waiver stating they know the risks.

ANDREW CUOMO, NEW YORK GOVERNOR: They wanted to get back to business, but they wanted to be smart and they're doing it in a way that keeps people safe.

WATT: Long island starts to reopen tomorrow. New Rochelle, that early New York hotspot, starts today.

NOAM BRAMSON, MAYOR OF NEW ROCHELLE, NEW YORK: I think the people of New Rochelle take special satisfaction in reaching this milestone, and we are cautiously optimistic.

WATT: Will there be a fallout from that now infamous Memorial Day party in the Ozarks? Well, we'll find out in a week or two.

DR. SAM PAGE, COUNTY EXECUTIVE, ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MISSOURI: The responsible thing to do now is to self-quarantine, don't put others at risk, don't put your loved ones at risk, and make better decisions moving forward.

WATT: Neighboring Arkansas, a month after reopening began, now suffering a sharp spike in cases.

KAREN LEE, VISITING HOT SPRINGS, ARKANSAS: I could get killed by COVID today or I could get hit by a bus or a car tomorrow.

WATT: The governor says some of us might need to learn a lesson the hard way.

ASA HUTCHINSON, ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: It's disappointing when we have a lack of discipline by a few outliers. How do you remedy that? Part of it is re-education, and part of it is experience.

WATT: Meanwhile, in Vernon, California, more than 150 workers at this meat processing plant have tested positive. Outbreaks reported at eight other facilities in the city. The union wants the plant closed for cleaning. JOHN GRANT, PRESIDENT, UFCW LOCAL 770: The spikes keep coming, and

it's sort of like amity island. There's an invisible, insidious, deadly shark out there and it's time to get people out of the water to figure out what's going on.

WATT: CDC numbers show nearly 80 percent of COVID deaths are among the 65 and older, but interestingly, nearly 80 percent of cases are in the under-65s. A tenth potential vaccine is now moving into human trials, and today, Merck announced it's also entering the race, but an effective vaccine is still far from guaranteed.

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: The virus itself is going to do what it's going to do, you know.

[04:05:00]

We're not driving this tiger, we're riding it. For all the suffering, pain, death and so forth, we've had so far, only about 5 percent of the U.S. citizens have been infected, and this virus is not going to rest at all until it gets to 60 or 70 percent.

WATT (on camera): In most of California, you can now get a haircut again. I say most because the reopening here is regional. The governor says that we are walking into the unknown, using the data as our guide.

Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Joining me now is CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner. He is a professor of medicine at George Washington University. So good to have you with us, doctor.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Thanks for having me.

CHURCH: So, let's start with the issue of masks. And President Trump retweeted criticism of his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, for wearing a mask on Memorial Day. Mr. Biden responded by saying the President is stoking deaths by mocking him for wearing a mask and needs to lead by example. What's your response to that?

REINER: I think Mr. Biden's right. The President, for reasons that only he knows completely, has taken the wrong side of this mask controversy. What we know with clarity is that masks prevent the spread of this virus. This is a respiratory pathogen, and masks prevent the spread of this virus from people largely who may be asymptomatic, unknowing that they have the virus, to other people.

Asian countries have used this strategy to vastly reduce the amount of coronavirus in their populations and to put this pandemic down. And for reasons that only the President fully understands, the President has at best issued mixed feelings about wearing masks in public. And whether he thinks it makes him look weak or, somehow, it interrupts his narrative that we're getting back to normal, he's giving the wrong message to people around this country, and his messages have repercussions.

When the President speaks, people listen to him. And when he doubts the necessity of wearing a mask and when he, frankly, refuses to wear a mask in public, people emulate his behavior, and that results in the spread of the virus, and undoubtedly has cost lives in this country.

CHURCH: And doctor, what's interesting is a recent Quinnipiac poll shows that 64 percent of Americans believe that masks should be required in public. And we now see Japan -- you mentioned Asian nations. Japan is being viewed as a success story with people there wearing masks. They bow instead of shaking hands, and they follow really good hand hygiene. They also take shoes off in the home. Should we all be following that sort of behavior to try to control this virus while we await a vaccine, the big hope?

REINER: Absolutely. I think, you know, rather than painting a picture that, you know, we're opening the country and we're moving back to normal. We need to really set more realistic expectations and create a new normal. And we're going to transition this country to sort of an interim place where we learn how to function safely in this higher threat, higher viral threat environment, and that includes wearing a mask when we go out, really anywhere, trying to keep our distance from people, redeveloping commercial enterprises that also value these safety features.

CHURCH: The Centers for Disease Control now says antibody tests might be giving the wrong results perhaps half of the time, and we still don't know if a person is immune, of course, if they do have a positive result. But talk to us about the medical response to this new finding on antibody tests.

REINER: Yes, very interesting. We do think that if you've had the virus, you will develop antibodies. That's the immune-competent person. That's what our system does. The issue is, when the FDA and the CDC encouraged commercial enterprises to develop antibody tests, they encourage this in a manner that did not require rigorous testing before the release of these tests. And many of the tests are really insufficient in terms of having enough positive predicted value, being accurate enough to really, truly understand whether the person who is being tested has these antibodies.

[04:10:00]

And if put that with testing a group of people, where the incidence of the virus might be relatively low -- these are people who maybe never tested positive, maybe they worry well -- and you couple an imperfect positive predictive value with a low incidence of disease, you often get sometimes a 50/50 chance that the test is correct. So, we're not really advocating antibody testing on any kind of large scale right now.

CHURCH: Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you so much for talking with us. We appreciate it.

REINER: My pleasure. CHURCH: Now, we mentioned Joe Biden's reaction to the President

mocking him about wearing a mask. It came during an extensive interview he did with CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's a fool, an absolute fool to talk that way. I mean, every leading doc in the world is saying we should wear a mask when you're in a crowd. I think you've got to -- the President's supposed to lead by example. And I watched the President yesterday wearing no mask, you know, and saw him making fun of the fact that I wore a mask. The truth of the matter is that I think you're supposed to lead by example.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: And you can find the full interview at CNN.com.

Well, police and outraged citizens faced off outside a precinct in Minneapolis, Minnesota, late Tuesday. Officers fired dispersant at a crowd gathered to protest the death of George Floyd, a black man who died Monday in police custody shortly after a white officer was seen kneeling on his neck. CNN's team witnessed people throwing debris at officers. A bystander captured video of the police holding Floyd to the ground as he repeatedly says he can't breathe, and the men holding him down do nothing. We warn you this video is very disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE FLOYD: I can't breathe!

WITNESS: Let him breathe least man.

WITNESS: Boy you got him down, man. Let him breathe, please, man.

FLOYD: I can't breathe.

WITNESS: I've been trying to help out.

FLOYD: I can't breathe (INAUDIBLE).

WITNESS: One of my homies died.

Floyd: (GASPING) POLICE: Relax.

FLOYD: I can't breathe, my face. It's killing me.

POLICE: What do you want?

Floyd: I can't breathe. Please, the knee on my neck. I can't breathe. (BLEEP).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: It is so disturbing. And that video goes on for ten minutes, people standing nearby can be heard pleading with the officer to get off him. Police say Floyd died at a hospital a short time later and that no weapons were used at any time by Floyd or the officers. Four officers were involved and all have now been terminated from the force.

Well, the family of George Floyd wants the officers charged with murder. Ultimately, they want a conviction. Floyd's brothers say the officers losing their jobs is not enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILONESE FLOYD, BROTHER OF GEORGE FLOYD: They could have tased him. They could have maced him. Instead, they put their knee in his neck and just sat on him and then carried out. He screamed, mama, mama, I can't breathe, I can't breathe, and they didn't care. So, I don't -- I just don't understand what more we've got to go through in life, man. They didn't have to do that to him. He's a gentle giant. He don't hurt anybody. He'd give his last to anybody. They didn't care. They treated him worse than they treat animals and I wouldn't act like this. They took a life, now they deserve life. I don't feel sorry for them. They hurt me and they hurt my family. I can't take nothing back. I can't get my brother back.

RODNEY FLOYD, BROTHER OF GEORGE FLOYD: Again, we say neck, but the knee was on his throat, his windpipe. We've got to tell it like it is, and I'm tired of this just crying on TV, and this hurts all of us deeply. And you know, look, we just need murder, complete charge them with what they've done, because you know what, they can go home to their family. My brother said earlier, we don't get to see our family. We don't get to see him, see his family. This upset the whole community where we're from, in Houston, and you know the family. And this hurt me that I'm crying on TV, another we are, another black family going through this nonsense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Just a heartbreaking situation for that family. And the bystander video doesn't show what happened before Floyd was taken down. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fray says how the officers restrained Floyd was against department policy.

Well, U.S. President Donald Trump is fuming after Twitter fact-checked tweets he posted about mail-in votes and voter fraud. Mr. Trump tweeted in usual fashion, claiming Twitter is interfering in this year's election by labelling some of his tweets potentially misleading.

[04:15:00]

The President also said Twitter's actions are stifling free speech, something he wouldn't allow to continue, he said. CNN reporter Donie O'Sullivan joins me now to talk more about all of this. Good to talk with you.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Good evening. CHURCH: So for first time ever, President Trump is now being fact-

checked by Twitter, beneath two of his tweets on mail-in ballots. The social media company had a message linked to a page saying, get the facts about mail-in ballots. You can see it there in the blueprint. So, why did Twitter decide to do this now, after all of this time and after many thousands of false and misleading presidential tweets?

O'SULLIVAN: Yes, that's right. This is Twitter's first-time fact- checking its most prolific user. Twitter has tried to make it clear to say that if there is misinformation about going to the polls, about misinformation that could in some way confuse people about how they should vote or to deter them from voting, that that would be banned from their platform.

So, today, on Tuesday we saw Twitter place two very small labels underneath tweets from Trump where he talks about mail-in ballot voting, where he says that that would lead to voter fraud. He doesn't give any evidence for that, and that is why Twitter puts this fact- check in there. But I mean, you will see that the labels themselves are pretty small.

CHURCH: Yes, they most certainly are. And what's interesting is President Trump was particularly busy tweeting over the Memorial Day weekend holiday, attacking his political rivals and spreading conspiracy theories. Let's just listen to this exchange regarding baseless allegations directed at former Rep. Joe Scarborough, regarding the death of a Congressional staffer years ago. Let's bring that up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The woman who died here suggesting that Joe Scarborough was responsible?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes, a lot of people suggest that. And hopefully, someday people are going to find out. Certainly a very suspicious situation, very sad. Very sad and very suspicious. Question, please?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- have asked you not to tweet it out anymore.

TRUMP: Go ahead. Please go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, have you seen the letter that was written by her husband, begging Twitter to delete your tweets, talking about how hard it's been for his family, for him to deal with that?

TRUMP: Yes, I have, but I'm sure that ultimately, they want to get to the bottom of it, and it's a very serious situation. And as you know, there's no statute of limitations, so it would be a very good thing to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Just reminding everyone, this is baseless, and Twitter hasn't cracked down on this or any of Mr. Trump's other conspiratorial tweets, so how likely is it that that will change?

O'SULLIVAN: Yes, I mean that really is the incredible thing. And so you can see there Twitter on Tuesday sets a new precedent by fact- checking Trump when it comes to voter misinformation and to say that that's against their rules.

But if he accuses falsely somebody of murder, that that seems to be OK. And that's even when the widower of this poor staffer who died in just tragic circumstances in 2001, wrote to Twitter and said, you know, this is ruining my wife's memory, the memory of my wife. Twitter came back on Tuesday and said, you know, we're very sorry to hear about the hurt that this is causing, but essentially, it's not going to do anything.

And you might ask, well, why wouldn't Twitter do something about this? And I mean, I think, frankly, Twitter is afraid of the President, because you can see even from Tuesday, when they fact-checked the voter misinformation tweet, Trump was immediately out there saying, you know, Twitter is attacking freedom of speech. They are rigging the election. And I mean, of course, the Trump campaign was immediately out with messaging as well. And you know, Twitter and Silicon Valley were really, I think, afraid of regulation and what the Trump administration could do to them.

CHURCH: We shall see if it's the beginning of something new or just a one-off. Donie O'Sullivan, thank you so much for talking with us. Appreciate it.

O'SULLIVAN: Thank you.

And you are watching CNN NEWSROOM.

Still to come, police and protesters are facing off once again in Hong Kong. We will take you there live to the scene of one of the demonstrations.

[04:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. We'll get back to more coronavirus news in just a moment. But first, let's get to a developing story in Hong Kong.

The vote on a Chinese national anthem bill has been pushed back to June 4th. That's according to a legislative council document obtained by CNN. Protests have erupted in the heart of the city's financial center over the bill. The measure would seek to criminalize insults against China's national anthem. So, let's go now live to Anna Coren. She joins us now from Hong Kong. Anna, what's been happening and what's the scene there right now?

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rosemary, we have moved to Corday Bay, which is a very busy shopping district not far from where we spoke to you last hour. In the distance, you can see crowds of protesters who have been chanting slogans like "Hong Kong independence, it's the only way out." That is something that we've been hearing. It is no longer five demands or six demands. It is now calling for independence. This, of course, is in the wake of Beijing saying that this national security law that it's proposed is going to be enforced on Hong Kong.

A short time ago, Rosemary, we were following the protesters as police came in, and one of the protesters was arrested right in front of me. Police were spraying pepper spray, which has sort of been their go-to over the course of the day. I got hit with pepper spray. Other members of my crew got hit with pepper spray. It's not a pleasant experience at all, a real burning sensation. But this is how they have been dispersing the crowds today.

[04:25:00]

We heard from police they have arrested 240 people to date. And remembering, too, that the reason everyone turned out was for this national anthem bill being debated in LegCo. That is due to be debated over four days. The final vote, however, will now take place on June 4th, next week, which is the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. This is incredibly controversial to be placing the vote on that particular day. Many people feel this is just rubbing salt into the wounds.

Hong Kong protesters, if Sunday was an indication, if today is any indication, considering police have arrested around 240 people, they will not be allowed to gather on the fourth of June to show their respects, to hold that vigil like they have every single year since the massacre. The only place in China where they have been allowed to gather. But police are not allowing any type of assembly of people. Every single protest that we've been to throughout the day -- and we haven't seen any violence, Rosemary. I think that's very important to note. This is just people gathering, people chanting slogans. One person started playing the anthem to Hong Kong, "Glory to Be to Hong Kong." Police ran in and detained her.

I mean, we are seeing a police force that is showing zero tolerance. And as Joshua Wong, who I spoke to earlier, he said, this is now a police state. We are living in a police state here in Hong Kong -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: Yes, there's a lot of concern across the globe as we watch what's happening there on the streets of Hong Kong. Anna Coren bringing us the very latest there from Hong Kong. Appreciate it.

Well, the last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, says the U.K. should stand up to China. He hopes the country will raise the question of Hong Kong at the G7 meeting next month. Take a listen to how he describes the current situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS PATTEN, FINAL BRITISH GOVERNOR OF HONG KONG: Well, there are a lot of things that struck me. First of all, China, which has broken its word -- or rather, the Communist Party of China, which has broken its word about so many international agreements, is driving a coach and horses through the international agreement that it reached with Britain. In a treaty launched at the United Nations to safeguard Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy, its rule of law and its freedoms for 50 years after 1997, and it's simply not carrying that agreement out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Meanwhile, Beijing is wearing countries to stay out of its affairs. A short while ago, China's foreign ministry spokesperson said it would take necessary countermeasures against any foreign interference.

You are watching CNN NEWSROOM. Much more on the coronavirus pandemic still ahead, including why Brazil's official numbers don't tell the whole story. We'll explain when we come back.

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