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Trump Stokes Division at Mount Rushmore; COVID-19 Reaches Trump's Inner Circle; Texas Governor Orders Statewide Mask Requirement in Public; Florida Leads Nation in Average Number of Daily New Cases; Pubs Reopen across England; Some U.S. States Once Again Closing Bars; Not All Americans Celebrate Independence Day; New Study Shows New Mutated Version of Coronavirus Spreads Faster; South Africa Health Workers Battle TB alongside COVID-19; NFL's Washington Redskins to Review Name; Hollywood's Dilemma over New Film Releases. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired July 04, 2020 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:00]
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is a new far left fascism that demands allegiance.
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): President Trump playing politics in his Mt. Rushmore address. A distraction from coronavirus as cases climb forcing more mask mandates in the U.S.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN (voice-over): And also this hour, how COVID is change Hollywood.
How will theaters win back viewers after the virus has passed?
We're live from CNN headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to our viewers in the U.S. and around the world. Hope you're having a happy fourth. I'm Natalie Allen, this is CNN NEWSROOM.
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ALLEN: 5:00 am here on the East Coast. Thank you for joining us.
Our top story. U.S. president Donald Trump is back in Washington after doing exactly what public health experts say should not happen during a worsening pandemic. The president courted a large crowd at Mt. Rushmore that pointedly ignored all of the health precautions about social distancing and face masks.
This after the U.S. confirmed more than 150,000 COVID-19 cases in just the past three days. Yet, the president barely mentioned the pandemic. Instead, he railed against what he views as a vast and insidious plot to destroy America.
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TRUMP: In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate board rooms, there is a new far left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, performance rituals, recite its mantras and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted and punished. It's not going to happen to us.
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ALLEN: President Trump also said he will sign an executive order to establish quote a new monument to the giants of our past. We get more on this from CNN's Joe Johns at mount Rushmore.
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JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: This visit by the president to South Dakota featured a fireworks display, the first fireworks display over historic Mt. Rushmore in 11 years. It also featured music as well as military flyovers and a speech by the president himself.
Now you might have expected the president to talk extensively about coronavirus, which is ravaging the United States right now. He only mentioned it once at the very beginning of the speech and he never came back to it.
But one of the themes he chose to hit hardest in this speech was what the president sees as attacks on historic statues all over the country by people who see them as symbols of oppression.
The president said he's not going to let the statues be destroyed. He even said he wants to create some type of garden of heroes with statues in the United States. But he's not going to let Americans destroy the statues that now exist. Listen.
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TRUMP: Those who seek to erase our heritage want Americans to forget our pride and our great dignity. So that we can no longer understand ourselves or America's destiny. They would tear down the beliefs, culture and identity that have made America the most vibrant and tolerant society in the history of the Earth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNS: The president will be back in Washington, D.C., on Saturday for yet another celebration of the July 4th holiday though it will be scaled down, compared to the celebration he had there this time last year -- traveling with the president in Keystone, South Dakota, I'm Joe Johns, CNN.
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ALLEN: The coronavirus has breached President Donald Trump's inner circle again. Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., has tested positive. She is reportedly isolating herself. Trump Jr. has tested negative but is also self-isolating.
This comes as at least eight Secret Service agents who prepped for Vice President Mike Pence's visit to Phoenix, Arizona, earlier this week now have COVID-19. And eight Trump advance team staffers who worked on a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, two weeks ago have also tested positive.
Florida is now averaging more new coronavirus cases per day than any other state in the U.S. but that's not stopping crowds from flocking to some beaches. As the 4th of July weekend gets underway, some beaches down in Miami are closed. Meantime, the U.S. reported an additional 50,000 new infections for a third day in a row.
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ALLEN: And cases are rising in 36 states leaving health officials pleading with the public to take precautions. CNN's Jason Carroll has a look at how states are trying to cope.
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JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fireworks shows, parades and beach barbecues canceled from coast to coast over concerns the holiday weekend could fuel a surge in new coronavirus cases.
Florida now leads the nation in the average number of new reported COVID-19 cases per day. The state announced 9,488 new cases Friday.
DR. NICHOLAS NAMIAS, JACKSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL MIAMI: The numbers are going up in the hospital. The ICU beds are filling and it's requiring a lot of work and a lot of effort to move patients around to make a spot for the new patients whether they're COVID or not COVID.
CARROLL (voice-over): The state's youngest victim, an 11-year-old boy from Miami-Dade County, who died from COVID-19 complications. Tonight, a 10:00 pm curfew goes into effect County-wide to discourage holiday goers from heading out.
MAYOR DAN GELBER (D-FL), MIAMI BEACH: There's nothing more American than making a sacrifice by staying home to keep a family member safe, a neighbor safe or a stranger safe.
CARROLL (voice-over): By early Friday, crowds had already started gathering on Florida's Gulf Coast on this beach in Clearwater.
Health officials seeing record hospitalizations in California, where singing and chanting in that state is now banned at houses of worship. The concerns that the virus will be transmitted through infected exhale droplets.
While in Texas, masks are mandated in more than two-thirds of the counties in the state. The governor, who critics say was slow to make the move now says ...
GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): If people gather on 4th of July the same way they did on Memorial Day, it is going to lead to a massive increase in the number of people testing positive, the number of people who will be hospitalized and it could lead once again to an increase in the number of people who lose their lives.
CARROLL (voice-over): Despite having once downplayed the importance of wearing a mask, the country's surgeon general says it is imperative.
DR. JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: If you want college football in the fall, young people, please wear a face covering. If you want prom next year, please wear a face covering. It can prevent asymptomatic spread and help us overcome this virus.
CARROLL: Health officials did see a spike in coronavirus cases following Memorial Day weekend. They hope people have learned their lessons. Since then, there have been a number of closures, restrictions but ultimately health officials say what it's going to come down to is people taking the advice of health officials, practicing social distancing and, of course, wearing a face covering -- Jason Carroll, CNN, New York.
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ALLEN: Florida's Miami-Dade County has now a curfew to keep people off the streets. The mayor spoke with CNN's Jim Sciutto about why a curfew became necessary.
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MAYOR CARLOS GIMENEZ (R-FL), MIAMI-DADE COUNTY: We had sanitation, we had all rules that were put together with our infection control doctors, that they told us, look, if the people follow these steps and these rules, the likelihood of contagion is low.
But, unfortunately, a lot of people, especially the young, did not follow these rules and that's why we had this sharp rise in the young, which then infected some other people and that's why we had this increase in cases of COVID-19 in our hospitals.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: So you talk about the two simple rules there, mask wearing and social distance. The president tonight is holding an event again without required mask wearing, without social distancing.
Does that hurt your efforts to try to save lives there in Miami, to have the commander in chief not be willing to follow those rules or ask people at his events to do that?
GIMENEZ: Well, look, what I have said before about what the president does is he needs to follow what local rules are. I don't know what local rules are in South Dakota. I would expect that they're --
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SCIUTTO: Why should they be local rules, if those rules -- every -- there's not a health expert in this country who doesn't say wear a mask and social distance.
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GIMENEZ: Yes, but --
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SCIUTTO: -- science don't change.
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GIMENEZ: -- local contagion --
SCIUTTO: -- locality, locality.
GIMENEZ: Yes, except that in South Dakota, I think they had 85 cases in the entire state yesterday. And so they have different rules and -
SCIUTTO: Not in Tulsa --
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GIMENEZ: -- even in the -- even in the state of Florida, they have, you know, we have counties with much less. That's why the governor has allowed us local leaders to make rules that are in excess of what he's got in place.
That's what we have done in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties. We are a lot stricter here because the cases that we have here are much higher than the rest of the state.
And so --
SCIUTTO: You don't want to see leadership from the president, you know -- I know you're trying say -- you're trying to be -- you don't want to see leadership from the president saying, you know what, I'm taking this simple step, I'm wearing a mask and keep yourself safe here, even as you come to watch me speak.
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SCIUTTO: You don't want that kind of leadership?
GIMENEZ: If he comes to Miami-Dade County, I would expect that he wears the mask because that's what we make them do down here.
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ALLEN: Joining me is Dr. Richard Dawood, the medical director of Fleet Street Clinic in London.
Good morning to you, Doctor.
DR. RICHARD DAWOOD, FLEET STREET CLINIC: Good morning. Happy 4th of July.
ALLEN: Thank you, appreciate it. We'll see if the 4th holiday causes more spikes.
As we heard, cases hit record breaking highs in the U.S. this week.
What do you make of these numbers, 50,000 new cases for a third straight day; deaths are down from April but cases are up.
As you see, why does the United States have it so bad?
DAWOOD: Well, these numbers are obviously very alarming. I think they reflect the non-uniform situation in the U.S. New York is done with the worst of it and cases there are in decline where they're rising elsewhere.
It's quite easy to predict the behavior of the virus. What is much harder to do is to predict the behavior of people. That's what's going to dictate spread from now on. And it is the individual and public health precautions that we follow that is really pronounced (ph).
We have a vaccine or any other kind of magic bullet, that's the only way that the spread can be controlled. It really is going to take some very determined action to reduce person-to-person spread before this can be brought under control.
And I appreciate the frustration everybody feels. We have the same thing in the U.K. Everybody feels they have had enough of this. They've had enough of lockdown. They want to get out and do what they want to do and not let anything get in their way. But the consequence of that behavior is going to be to facilitate spread.
And you can see even bigger, in some parts of the country, cases are rising pretty exponentially. We're going to see some really big numbers, unless drastic measures are taken in the places where the cases are rising to intervene and stop person-to-person spread.
ALLEN: Donald Trump Jr.'s girlfriend has tested positive for COVID before the president's South Dakota speech. Thousands packed that event, Doctor. Many, without masks sitting side-by-side. Even the seats were ziptied together per fire code.
What are the risks of these types of events, people clustered together like this, that the president is holding?
DAWOOD: It's highly risky and dangerous. Broader, outdoor events are safer than indoor. There's much less shared space.
But when you put people together in very close contact like that and when you consider at how people arrive, what they do before, during, after, that boils down to a pretty risky environment.
Especially when people are being encouraged to thumb their noses at the risk, told it's OK not to take any measures to prevent spread. I'm not sure how much hand sanitizing there is or buy-in to social distancing.
This is a disease that spreads efficiently and effectively, from person to person. (END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: Well, England is ready to start reopening in a few hours, including its famed pubs.
They have been closed down for three months, so what can we expect?
The prime minister cautions people and we'll have a live report about it.
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ALLEN: Pubs and restaurants across England are reopening their doors for the first time since coronavirus forced them to close in March. Prince William was among the first to grab a pint. He enjoyed cider to celebrate the occasion. The British prime minister is offering this advice.
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BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: Enjoy summer safely. I mean just -- I do want people to feel that it's safe to go and enjoy themselves, to enjoy hospitality. But it's got to be done in a responsible way.
If not, Chris says the risks are there and they're obvious. And I'm afraid that the risks are absolutely manifest in other countries that we know and love well, where, you know, there are difficulties. And we've got to look at that and think, we don't want to go down that route.
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ALLEN: Will people heed that advice today?
Well, CNN's Salma Abdelaziz joins me live from London, where more businesses are about to reopen.
Hi, Salma.
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: Hello, we're inside a hair salon. It's a little too early for the pubs but the hair salons are full. I want to introduce you to Diana (ph). One of the managers here.
Diana, sorry to get you right in the middle of your work. Tell me what are some of the changes you have had to make so you can abide by the new rules.
DIANA (PH), SALON MANAGER: The gown is the first thing. We've got the temperature gown. We have to remove the sitting area, the waiting area. Our clients have to wait outside and, yes, we have a station downstairs we have been using now because we need to have enough space.
ABDELAZIZ: Are you worried about being profitable under these new rules?
DIANA: That will not affect the shop. We have a basement that we weren't using usually but now we have to use. So it won't affect too much, I mean, hopefully.
ABDELAZIZ: Thank you so much, Diana. Thank you.
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ABDELAZIZ: So for this business it seems rules and regulations will be a bit easier to follow while the shop can still be profitable. But that's a question for so many. The restrictions are you must maintain distance, one meter of space, provide your contact details to any bar and restaurant you go to.
You must maintain hand washing and required hygiene. So the question for so many businesses is can they adapt to this new reality while still being able to make a profit? -- Natalie.
ALLEN: That's very important and we have seen bar owners in the United States have really been compromised, they are really struggling. So we'll see what the situation is for pubs as well. Salma Abdelaziz in London, thank you.
Here in the U.S., the average age of people diagnosed with COVID-19 has dropped dramatically. Young people now make up a big chunk of new cases reported each day. Many public health officials want bars and night clubs to be shut down -- or shut down again -- to try and ease the spread. CNN's Brian Todd has this.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A carefree crowd at a bar in Austin, Texas, many inside not wearing face masks. In Jersey City, this bar was cited twice in one weekend for overcrowding. Police say hundreds of people were inside not wearing masks or social distancing.
At this club in Houston, an owner says they required patrons to show they had a mask in order to get in and had the tables spaced out. But he says customers ignore the rules.
BRET HIGHTOWER, CO-OWNER, SPIRE NIGHTCLUB, HOUSTON: As much as distance is we try to put everyone based on the guidelines, it's not the facility, it's the people.
TODD (voice-over): These scenes from recent days have prompted America's top voice on the coronavirus outbreak to issue a stern warning about bars.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Bars really not good. Really not good. Congregation at a bar inside is bad news. We really got to stop that. TODD (voice-over): In Texas where a coronavirus spike has surged to alarmingly dangerous levels, Governor Greg Abbott admitted he made a mistake with his states reopening.
GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R), TEXAS: If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would have been to slow down the opening of bars. Now seeing in the aftermath of how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting and, you know, how a bar setting in reality just doesn't work with a pandemic.
TODD (voice-over): But Abbott and his state are certainly not alone. Tonight, Texas is among seven states, some of them experiencing massive spikes in cases which have either shut down bars completely or have partially shut them or paused reopening. Experts say crowded bars alone don't account for the recent spikes. But they say the natural social atmosphere in bars is especially dangerous.
DR. JOHN SWARTZBERG, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, U.C. BERKELEY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Bars are places where people are not wearing masks, places where people aren't social distancing. And after some drinks, of course, you lose your inhibitions and you even are less conscious.
TODD (voice-over): The doctors we spoke to say there's almost no way to make an indoor bar setting safe during this pandemic. Indoors, they say, especially if there's loud music playing at a bar, it's like a petri dish for the spread the virus.
SWARTZBERG: Inside in the bar if it's noisy, if there's music playing, the ambient noise is going to make you talk louder. When you talk louder, you expel more droplets from your mouth. Those droplets, of course, can contain the virus and infect other people.
TODD (voice-over): Another part of this so-called perfect storm of infection, experts, say is the average age of many people who go to bars
DR. JAMES PHILLIPS, PROF OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL: They feel invincible because they're young. And, quite frankly, throughout the beginning of this pandemic, it's mostly been messaging about older folks and people with pre-existing health conditions as being vulnerable.
TODD: Has the pandemic killed the bar scene completely?
The medical experts we spoke to don't believe it has. They believe traditional crowded bars would make a comeback. They say that can't be until we have proven vaccines and herd immunity and they say that could take another year or so -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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ALLEN: Independence Day in the U.S. celebrates the ideals of freedom and equality. But some Americans say those ideals still are not available to everyone. We'll have a story for you about that next.
Also, a recap of President Trump's divisive Friday night speech at Mt. Rushmore, where he mentioned the coronavirus pandemic only once.
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ALLEN: Welcome back to our viewers in the U.S. and around the world. I'm Natalie Allen and you're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
As the COVID-19 pandemic rages here in the U.S., president Trump attracted a large holiday crowd at Mt. Rushmore Friday. There was no social distancing and face masks were rare. The president barely mentioned the coronavirus but he railed against what he called "a merciless campaign" to erase U.S. history.
In 1852, African American author and abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave a famous speech called "What to the Slaves Is the 4th of July?"
He explored the tension between the oppression of slavery and U.S. ideals of freedom. Today that tension lives on in different forms and, for some, it still casts a shadow over Independence Day. Here's CNN's Leyla Santiago.
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LEYLA SANTIAGO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fireworks, parades, ceremonies. The celebration of U.S. independence once declared by founding fathers that wrote, all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
But the very rights being celebrated on Independence Day are the same rights that millions of Americans say they and their ancestors have not been allowed to enjoy.
SANTIAGO (on camera): What does Independence Day mean to you?
JESSE HOLLAND, AUTHOR, "THE INVISIBLES": I will always be a proud American. But that doesn't mean I don't realize the faults and the flaws that this country has.
SANTIAGO (voice-over): For historian and author Jesse Holland, that includes the injustice that has led to unrest across the country, the inequalities in communities of color highlighted by a pandemic.
HOLLAND: I think it's fair to sometimes question whether America loves African Americans as much as we love them.
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OPAL LEE, ACTIVIST: We can solve these problems if we just do it together. SANTIAGO: For 93-year-old Opal Lee, independence must commemorate the freedom for all, including Juneteenth, the day enslaved people in Texas learned that all those enslaved in Confederate states had been freed.
LEE: And I'm advocating that we have Juneteenth from the 19th to the 4th of July. You know, slaves weren't free on the 4th of July.
SANTIAGO: As Americans face a reckoning over racism past and present, there's no message of healing from the White House.
Instead President Trump is calling a Black Lives Matter street mural a symbol of hate after New York City announced it would be painted in front of Trump Tower. He's also demanding protection for symbols of Confederacy at campaign rallies...
TRUMP: The unhinged leftwing mob is trying to vandalize our history, desecrate our monuments, our beautiful monuments.
SANTIAGO: -- during diplomatic visits...
TRUMP: Not going to happen, not as long as I'm here.
SANTIAGO: -- and even on Twitter. And he's refusing to sign anything changing the names of military bases named after Confederate leaders.
HOLLAND: I am hopeful that we will, as a country, decide that the Confederacy is something to be studied, not something to be glorified and we're able to actually celebrate who we are when we celebrate Independence Day.
SANTIAGO: And President Trump kicked off the Independence Day weekend standing at Mt. Rushmore in front of a monument of two slave owners and on land that was wrested away from Native Americans for the national park -- Leyla Santiago, CNN, Washington, D.C.
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ALLEN: Let's get more perspective from Thomas Gift, a lecturer in political science at University College London.
Thank you for coming on.
THOMAS GIFT, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Thank you, Natalie.
ALLEN: The president's speech was divisive. He spoke from the same playbook. Let's listen to one quote.
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TRUMP: Our children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes but were villains. The radical view of American history. It's a web of lies. (END VIDEO CLIP)
ALLEN: That was one quote. You hardly heard anything about unity in his speech. And a former ambassador to Russia said it was perhaps the most un-American speech given by a president on the 4th of July.
What do you think of his message which was centered on protecting controversial monuments. And he had harsh words for people who want to take them down.
GIFT: I think last night was a harbinger of what we will see from Trump until November. He is continuing to stoke division, painting Democrats as far left and depicting Joe Biden as beholden to some of the more progressive elements of the party.
It was (INAUDIBLE) speech as you said on July 4th. The terminology he used, phrases like new far left fascism and referring to his opponents as angry mobs. It's a tone we can expect from him going forward.
Almost absent from the speech was a discussion of the increase in COVID-19 cases, that suggests that the president is trying to change the narrative going on here. And it shows that Trump is doubling down on his strategy, not focusing on swing voters but activating his base.
ALLEN: Right. He had one mention of the coronavirus pandemic in that speech. This is a tactic he has decided to stay on.
Will he stay the course on this with the U.S. seeing incredible spikes in cases?
GIFT: I don't think Trump is looking away from the coronavirus necessarily. But he's looking for opportunities to deflect from the number of cases that has soared. We saw 50,000 new cases reaching the first time a few days ago.
I think it's early to say if Trump can bounce back from that. His re- election team is cognizant that the status quo isn't working. So I would expect Trump to continue to go on offense and try to change the conversation as much as possible and distract from the handling of the coronavirus.
That's what he did at Mt. Rushmore last night.
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ALLEN: A new global study says there's a new version of the deadly coronavirus that has spread from Europe to the U.S. It is more infectious than previous versions.
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ALLEN: And yet it does not appear to be making people any sicker. The study was published in the journal "Cell" and goes on to say this new version is the dominant one being spread around the world.
What does this mean for all of us? CNN spoke with Erica Ollmann Saphire, a professor at the La Jolla
Institute for Immunology, who worked on the study.
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Dr. ERICA OLLMANN SAPHIRE, LA JOLLA INSTITUTE FOR IMMUNOLOGY: Together, we looked 29,000 virus sequences and thousands of patients and multiple systems and what we see is that a mutation emerged in the coronavirus at the end of February. And by one month later, it had become globally dominant. That mutant virus is now the virus that has taken over the planet.
What we found is that is -- it is what we call fitter. It is more fit. It replicates two to nine times better in the laboratory and also better in patients. It grows to a higher yield.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Does that mean it's stronger, that is spreads faster? Does that mean it's more dangerous?
SAPHIRE: Yes. Exactly. Those are the right questions.
We don't know about spread. That's the different kind of experiment. We have to look at transmission from one place to another. We haven't done that yet.
We do know that there's something fitter about it, where it can rely Kate better or make more copies of itself. And there are a lot of laboratories exploring why.
The other question is, is it worse. We have looked at the antibodies in the blood of San Diegans and we found that they could neutralize the new virus just as well as the old virus. So for those people, their human immune system was up to the job.
When we looked at 1,000 patients in the hospital in the United Kingdom, there wasn't a difference between whether they were treated in the ICU or inpatient or outpatient. Their age and sex and underlying conditions is what determined the severity of their disease.
There's a lot of things we don't know. We don't know if the change in the virus could change someone from being asymptomatic to symptomatic. Because, if they were asymptomatic, they didn't come to the hospital to be counted.
It's possible that it could transmit better if there are more copies of it. It' possible it can catch hold in your cells better if it's more fit. It's possible it could make more people sick that were previously asymptomatic. Those are studies we need to do now.
BOLDUAN: Regardless, you need this information to get to any of that, which is so fascinating it.
And I hope that this is not a dumb question, but if the virus is mutated, can it mutate again?
Do your findings -- does it mean it's more or less likely to mutate again?
SAPHIRE: Every time a virus replicates, it's a roll of the dice whether it will pick up a mutation. Most mutations are bad. We like those. We like the ones that kills the virus. But sometimes it finds ones that's better.
The ability of the virus to pick up this mutation and for that mutation to sort of take over the globe within a month, is alarming. It could very well happen again.
Now, this kind of virus has some proofreading capacity to fix errors in its genome. HIV doesn't. Hepatitis C doesn't. But this virus does. So it mutates more slowly than other viruses we know.
But with 10 million cumulative cases around the world, that's a lot of rolls of the dice. And we're concerned that additional mutations could arise. So we're all, as a body of scientists, keeping an eye on that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ALLEN: Next here, South Africans are battling more than the coronavirus. Tuberculosis is a severe problem and COVID-19 might be helping TB spread. We'll have a live report from Johannesburg, next.
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ALLEN: It's not just coronavirus causing serious health issues in South Africa. When a person there feels sick with the flulike symptoms related to COVID-19, they can't assume that's what it is.
That's because South Africans also are dealing with another potentially deadly respiratory infection, tuberculosis, an illness that spreads the same way as coronavirus. Joining me now from Cape Town, South Africa, is CNN correspondent David McKenzie, he has been looking into this for us.
David, hello to you.
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Natalie. Tuberculosis is an endemic problem here in South Africa, as is HIV/AIDS. These epidemics have hammered the country for many years now.
Public health officials say that, because everyone is focusing on COVID-19, things like tuberculosis could be on the rise and it could have extremely damaging effects.
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MCKENZIE: Wow. So this was what you were coughing up.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): It didn't take long for Mndele Manchancha (ph) to realize just how serious his cough had become.
MCKENZIE: Were you nervous about going to get treatment because of COVID?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I was very nervous. (INAUDIBLE) and at the time I was vomiting the blood. It was terrible really.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): The doctor told him it wasn't COVID-19. What he had was tuberculosis, a disease that kills upwards of 66,000 South Africans per year. Now just weeks into his treatment, he's responding well.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a lot of kids, also, in the -- these houses that they are staying in.
MCKENZIE: So that's a danger for infection.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very dangerous.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): But healthcare workers like Spindele Mobo (ph) worry that, for every success like Mndele (ph), they are now missing many, many more.
MCKENZIE: So there hasn't been screening here since lockdown.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People have been scared of COVID, themselves, did not want us to come in their houses. And I really think that they believe that we have COVID ourselves.
DR. LINDA-GAIL BEKKER, SOUTH AFRICA: We're already seeing quite an impact on the ground.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker worked through the worst of South Africa's co-epidemic of HIV and TB. She fears that the decades of hard-fought gains could be lost because of a focus on COVID-19.
BEKKER: So I think it was right that people had to galvanize. But I do think, you know, this cannot be at the expense of other diseases where we know we have, every day, significant morbidity and mortality. And so, it is about sort of walking and chewing at the same time.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): Nationwide, the government lab says TB testing is down 50 percent; diagnosis, down 33 percent.
BEKKER: That is ongoing infection in community, which is the very thing we're trying to curtail.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): Even as lockdown eases, people continue to stay away from HIV/TB mobile screening sites across Cape Town. Pre-COVID, they averaged 30 tests per day here.
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MCKENZIE: Now they tell me they are lucky to see just a handful of people.
And South Africa's well-intended focus against a new virus may just, again, give rise to one of the world's oldest diseases.
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MCKENZIE: Well, Natalie, it's not just a problem here in South Africa. There's been a significant drop-off, according to the figures in this country, in China and in India, in new TB cases being identified and people staying on their medication.
Now the danger of that, of course, is more people sick, more people dying and also the developing of drug-resistant tuberculosis, which is also a problem. And that's just one disease.
If you look at other infectious diseases like measles, for example, that over the years there has been a huge amount of focus put on vaccinations, because vaccination drives are also slowing and stopped because of the danger of COVID-19, that means even more people, many, of course, children, are at risk here on the continent and elsewhere in the world.
Now one public health official told me they expect kind of a certain range of deaths for COVID-19 here in South Africa.
But they're worried that the effect of TB, HIV and other issues could be substantially worse than that and that effect could roll over in the years ahead. Likely decades of work by public health officials here on the continent might slip because everyone's focusing on this new disease.
They say it's important, of course, to focus on COVID-19 but the unintended consequences could be much worse and they warn that this is an issue that people are just not paying attention enough to -- Natalie.
ALLEN: So complicated and so very disturbing. Thank you so much for that report, David McKenzie there in Cape Town.
After a quick break here, summer is here and normally that would mean blockbuster Hollywood movies. But the pandemic has all but shut down film production. What that means for Hollywood's future and your movie watching.
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ALLEN: The Washington Redskins football team is reviewing its name in response to demands from major sponsors. The name has long been criticized as racist and offensive to Native Americans. Here's Carolyn Manno reporting. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CAROLYN MANNO, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: The Washington Redskins released a statement, saying they've been having internal discussions over the last couple of weeks and plan to conduct a thorough review as to whether or not a change needs to be made to the team's name.
The term "Redskins" has been affiliated with the team since back in 1933 but is viewed as racially charged. The team owner Dan Snyder has said for years he has no plans to change the name of the team.
But in a recent statement he said something else, saying, "This process allows the team to take into account not only the proud tradition and history of the franchise but also input from our alumni, the organization, sponsors, the NFL and the local community it is proud to represent on and off the field."
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell quickly added his support to the team's announcement also, saying in a statement, "In the last few weeks we have had ongoing discussions with Dan and we're supportive of this important step."
The mention of sponsors in Snyder's statement is important here, as we've seen Snyder pressured in the past.
But this comes after "Adweek" reported investment firms totaling more than $600 billion who were concerned about brands not aligning with their stance on diversity and inclusion. And that's a very loud alarm bell for an owner, particularly in a climate surrounding a global pandemic.
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ALLEN: Summer is typically the season for big Hollywood blockbusters but with the coronavirus shutting down theaters and pushing back release dates, Hollywood faces a dilemma: wait or go ahead and sell movies online. Richard Quest has more.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good day so far?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today, tomorrow, it's all the same.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You, what is going on?
RICHARD QUEST, CNNMONEY EDITOR AT LARGE: It was back in January when "Palm Springs," Andy Samberg's new romantic comedy, was on track to make a big splash. It had sold at Sundance for a record price, reportedly more than $17 million.
The buyers, Hulu, and the distributor, NEON, had agreed for a jewel release. It would go to the theaters first and then online.
Then came COVID. Now the movie theaters are shot across the United States and in the rest of the world. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's one of those infinite time loop situations you might have heard about.
QUEST: The producer said goodbye to the idea of a splashy theatrical release and instead, "Palm Springs" will premiere on Hulu on July the 10th, and there'll be a few drive-in theaters as well.
DYLAN SELLERS, PRODUCER AND FINANCIER, "PALM SPRINGS": It was something that, you know Andy and I and the director and everybody, you know, we're looking forward to. So we're definitely bummed out a little bit. But that's the world we're in right now.
QUEST: To release so not to release, that is the question that faces all of Hollywood now. The studios have delayed big budget films like Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" and Disney's "Mulan," waiting, hoping that movie theaters may reopen.
Studios cannot wait forever. Some are choosing instead to rent or sell the movie direct to viewers known as PVOD or premium video on demand.
JEFF BOCK, SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST, EXHIBITOR RELATIONS: If theaters do not open in July or even if they do and then they close down or if attendance is just air, I guarantee that one of these big blockbuster films is going to take a chance go PVOD and we're going to know we're going to have the answer to how much film can -- how much a film can gross on this streaming format?
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BOCK: Can it make a billion dollars?
QUEST: More on these films like kids' movies, indie comedies and horror, are already releasing on streaming service or on demand. And what's more, they're finding captive profitable audiences.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are other kinds of trolls.
QUEST: "Trolls World Tour" actually brought in more money for universal through on demand and the first Trolls movie did in the theaters. As for "Palm Springs," the producer, Dylan Sellers, says putting the film on indefinite hold wasn't really an option.
Because they're a small studio they need to recoup the costs. Even without theatrical release, he says, they'll turn a profit.
SELLERS: I think if you talk to the folks at Hulu, they'll tell you that this has been an incredible attraction for their viewers. It is surpassing all their expectations in terms of, you know, audience subscriber interest.
QUEST: The clear losers in all of this are the movie theaters. The movie chain AMC is now warning it has serious doubts it can even stay in business. Viewers were already shifting online. The pandemic has sped up this transition.
BOCK: The battle is being won by streaming right now and, for the foreseeable future, that's going to continue.
QUEST: Blockbusters, to be sure, will probably always be shown in the movie theaters first, at least for now -- Richard Quest, CNN, New York.
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ALLEN: Thanks for watching, I'm Natalie Allen, I'll see you this time tomorrow. "NEW DAY" is next.
