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France and Germany Lock Down As Second Wave Worsens; Czech Republic Battles One of the Worst COVID Surges in Europe; Russia Reports Record High Cases and Deaths. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired October 29, 2020 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

CYRIL VANIER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Everybody, when they leave their house, everybody in this country is going to need an authorization to actually leave their house.

Social gatherings are going to be forbidden, family gatherings are going to be limited to the smallest number of possible people, mostly parents and children. Non-essential businesses or businesses that are deemed such are going to shut. That means bars, restaurants, cafes, that means retail. So parts of cities like Paris are going to look like ghost towns once again.

Having said that, the president when he addressed the nation last night said that they have learned the lessons from the first wave, and they don't want to do everything exactly the same. So, yes, there is a national stay-at-home order, but there are two main differences. Number one is that there are -- there is a bigger chunk of the economy that is going to remain open.

While most people who can will work from home, agriculture will continue, factories will remain open. Some public services will continue to work. Building, contracting, all of that will continue.

Those are things that can't easily be done from home, of course. And the second big difference is that schools will remain open, so parents can take their kids to school in the morning, but they will be needing that authorization. All of this, Alisyn, for one month, renewable every two weeks. They're going to reassess this every two weeks, see what the numbers are. They're aiming for 5,000 new cases, new infections a day, right now, they're anywhere between 30 and 50,000 a day.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Cyril, I'll take it. Thanks so much. Let's go to the Czech Republic now, the country with the highest rates of infections and deaths per capita more than anywhere else in the European Union. CNN's Scott McLean live in Brno with the latest there, Scott.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John, so, the Czech Republic already has one field hospital set up in Prague, this one in Brno that they're building right now is expected to hold 300-plus patients.

You can see, they're just setting it up right now into these cubicles, trying to get all the wiring, all the curtains, everything set up before they actually get patients in here next week. And you can see it from here in this convention center, this expo grounds, it is just row after row of cubicle after cubicle. PPE beds, that has all been relatively easy to come by.

What hasn't been, though, is staff. That's because this country is seeing about a thousand healthcare workers get sick from the virus every single day. And so the hospital that's supposed to be staffing this facility right now is negotiating with Germany, with Poland, with the red cross to try to get doctors and nurses to actually come and staff it.

We visited two hospitals in the Czech Republic this week. We found that they were bursting with patients, doctors were exhausted, and they are so short-staffed that they're appealing to volunteers to actually help.

Some of those volunteers have no medical experience, others are just teenagers, not even old enough to vote or to drive. One of the hospitals says that if it does not get help soon, it will have to start turning away patients on Monday or Tuesday. And John, the Czech Republic was pretty slow to re-impose restrictions in the Summer and the Fall when cases started to rise again.

And so Germany just next door is trying not to follow their lead, trying not to make the same mistake that this country did. They just reported a record number of case counts. They're also seeing deaths and hospitalizations rise. And so starting on Monday, the Chancellor, Angela Merkel said that schools can stay open, but bars, restaurants, theaters, gyms, they will all have to close.

People are being told to stay home and to avoid travel. She said that the healthcare system right now is in pretty good shape still, but if this upward trajectory of cases and hospitalizations continue, she says the ICUs could be overwhelmed in just a matter of weeks. John, Alisyn?

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Right, I'll take it, I'll take it, Scott, they don't want that worst case scenario. Thank you very much. Russia is reporting record highs in coronavirus cases and deaths as a mask mandate gets wider. CNN's Matthew Chance is live from Moscow with the latest. Matthew?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Alisyn, 17,717. That's the latest figure of new coronavirus infections that has been recorded in the past 24 hours in this country.

That's the highest number in any single day since the pandemic began. So it gives you an indication of how sort of intense this surge is of new cases in Russia at the moment. It brings to 1.6 million, the number of confirmed cases in the country. That makes it the fourth highest number in the world after Brazil, India and of course, the United States. But remember, Russia has a much smaller population than those countries.

Russia has also revealed how some of its regions and some of them are very poor, a long way from Moscow are coping with the upsurge in coronavirus infections. The Russian deputy Prime Minister yesterday saying that in 16 of Russia's 49 regions, hospitals are filled to 90 percent capacity at this stage already. And obviously, that's rung alarm bells across the healthcare services. But in five regions, the worst-affected regions, hospitals are filled to more than 95 percent capacity.

[07:35:00]

There's a real concern that Russia is going to run out of hospital beds if this coronavirus pandemic continues to build in the way that it has been over the past several weeks in this country. Now, what is Russia doing about it? Well, it's controversial in the United States, but over the past couple of days, Russia has taken strong measures, for instance, to impose a mask mandate across the country.

If you are in a public space, a public transport, a parking lot, an elevator, anywhere, basically, you have to wear a mask, otherwise, you face fines. Also, the night life here, which has been, you know, somewhat thriving over the Summer months, restaurants, bars, you know, packed with people.

That's been sort of spurring on the rate of infection, as well. They're not ordering them to close at this stage, but they are saying they should limit their hours overnight in a bid to try and sort of curve this spread of coronavirus. Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Matthew, thank you very much for that report from the ground there. Back with us now, we have CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. So, Sanjay, I know you were listening to that closely. What does what's happening in Europe tell us about what may be coming here?

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, it's always been a bit of a precursor. I mean, it was -- we saw what was happening in Italy in the Spring and sort of got a sense of what might happen in the United States, and it did.

And we surpassed the numbers, obviously, at that point, for most of the Summer. I think it's very interesting to see how these countries are figuring out their different strategies, but they're all pretty aggressive strategies. France basically saying only essential workers are going to go out there. The Czech Republic, obviously building these field hospitals.

Germany, closing down bars and theaters and restaurants and things like that. And then Russia, you know, mask mandates and real concerns, because hospitals are over 90 percent to 95 percent full. So take the context of all those things.

Field hospitals shutting down these -- some of these locations, essential workers only really going out and about. That is a glimpse of what is likely to happen here. And again, you know, if you listen careful to the leaders of these countries, what's forcing their decisions is not, hey, look, let's be preventative here. What's forcing their decisions is the hospitals. The hospitals are really becoming overwhelmed.

It's why the Czech Republic says, hey, look, we've got to start building field hospitals and a thousand of our staff are getting infected every single day. Where the staff going to come from?

Those are the sorts of things we need to be thinking about here in the United States. Hospitals, the staff for those hospitals, how do we make sure they're protected? How do we reduce viral transmission overall? Pay attention to what's happening in Europe, because a lot of that is going to start happening here.

BERMAN: It is interesting, they're doing this as you said it before as sort of circuit breakers. Finite periods of time as opposed to what we saw earlier in the Spring. Schools largely staying open, and that's different as well. But --

GUPTA: That's right --

BERMAN: They are taking action, which compared to where we are in the United States, seems much larger and more substantive. Sanjay, one of the things that I'm concerned about -- and if we look at the map of how bad things are in Europe, one of the things you've consistently pointed out is that Europe pushed the case loads down, not to zero, but very low.

They got things much better than we ever did in the United States. So, if it's this bad in Europe, starting from a better position than we're starting right now, how much worse could it get in the United States?

GUPTA: Well, I mean, John, it's going to get a lot worse. I mean, in -- you know, it saddens me to say that. You know, it didn't have to be this way, and I still do think there are things that we're going to do. But the patient, the country is sick.

It's going to require some aggressive treatments and it's going to take a long time. I mean, to give you some context, you're in New York, April 10th was the day where you had the highest per capita number of cases, I think it was around 507 per million at that point in New York. Wisconsin has already exceeded that.

And we're on our way up, still there. You're going to see that in many places around the country that don't have nearly the density -- population density as you have in New York, which gives an indication of just how widespread this is.

And as you know in Wisconsin, the positivity rates are very high as well. Which means they're probably missing, you know, four to five times as many people are getting infected as are actually getting tested and confirmed. So, it's going to get worse. You know, and again, it saddens me to say that.

I do think that these circuit breakers, which is a really unpalatable option, I know, but it may be the best option just to basically break the cycle of transmission. The virus can't jump that far. It's pretty easily contained by a mask. If we would just separate ourselves out for a period of time, very strategically, by mostly staying at home for a period of time, it will make a difference.

We will be able to stall this thing. And what does it mean to stall it? What does it -- we've been in sort of mitigation mode for the last eight months. To get to containment mode would mean we would have below 1 in a 100,000 new cases.

[07:40:00]

So right now, you know, there's 35 -- you know, what, 70,000 cases per day. We would need to bring that down to closer to 700 or even a little bit lower than that per day. It's a big jump, but it can happen.

CAMEROTA: That feels like a long way away --

BERMAN: Yes --

CAMEROTA: Sanjay, thank you very much for explaining all of this for us.

GUPTA: Yes.

CAMEROTA: We want to take some time now and remember some of the more than 227,000 Americans lost to coronavirus. Sam Corpora managed his family's business in Texas for 49 years. He and his wife, Debora, had just celebrated 46 years of marriage.

His family says he worked hard for his wife and children. He's described as a generous soul who always believed in giving people a helping hand. He was 72. Dorothy Halley(ph) was a beloved mother, grandmother and great grandmother. She lived in a nursing home, so her family was unable to be at her side when she passed. Halley's(ph) daughter says she will miss her mother's smile the most and the way she would light up when she saw her. She was 77.

Kevin McKenzie was a coach and a bus driver for the Greenfield School District in Missouri. His team says he had a bigger-than-life personality, and that he cared deeply for his students and players. The team says, of all his titles in life, the ones that gave him the most joy were husband, dad and grandpa. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:45:00]

BERMAN: Get your ballots in, just six days left, including today, the final day to cast your ballot, November 3rd. The president not the only person on the ballot, obviously, the Senate hangs in the balance. Joining us now, CNN senior political writer and analyst Harry Enten. Let's talk about the Senate, Harry. Obviously, Democrats want it back. What's your current forecast?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER & ANALYST: Yes, I mean, look, I think that Democrats will get it back. You know, right now, obviously, they have 47 seats. We're picking -- suggesting they're going to get a net gain of 5, up to 52. I should point out that this race remains within the margin of error, but if the election goes as we think it's going to go, Democrats should hold the Senate majority come next year.

CAMEROTA: OK, so break it down for us. Where are the best places for Democrats to pick up?

ENTEN: Yes, sure, this graphic sort of gets at it really well. And what we're essentially thinking is Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina. Democratic candidates lead in all of those races, the leads being the largest in Arizona and Colorado.

I would say Iowa and North Carolina are the states to watch. Democrats need to certainly, probably, pick up at least one of those, they have slight leads there right now. Republicans are probably going to pick up a seat in Alabama, but despite that, that is really their only pickup opportunity. Democrats have the best ones on the board, at least at this point.

BERMAN: So when you have an election year when the president is on a ballot as well as senators and governors, you often talk about coat- tails, if it's a good situation for them or a drag. What are you seeing in terms of either coat-tails or a drag for Republican senate candidates?

ENTEN: Yes, for Republican Senate candidates, Donald Trump is certainly a drag. For Democratic Senate candidates, Joe Biden is certainly a boost, and you can see this really well in the top five pickup opportunities.

Look at this, where the Democrats are leading in those Republican house seats, Joe Biden is also leading, and usually by pretty consistent margins, perhaps the one exception is Maine where Biden is running well ahead and Susan Collins is keeping it close against Sarah Gideon. But otherwise, you really are seeing a very strong correlation.

And I'll point out that in 2016, every single state where Trump won, the Republican Senate candidate won in every single state that Hillary Clinton won, the Democratic Senate candidate won, and we could be looking at a similar situation here.

CAMEROTA: OK, so where are the Republicans leading, but you think could be Democratic reaches?

ENTEN: Yes, this is really interesting, and this is part of the reason why I at least at this point think that the Democrats could get up to 52 seats. It's because there are all these Republican seats right now where Democrats are either tied or very close. Both the Georgia special and the Georgia regular election, Democrats look like they're coming on very strong.

And then you look at Montana, Kansas, South Carolina, Alaska and Texas, where the Republicans are ahead, but especially in a state like Montana, it wouldn't really be too surprising on election day, that even though Steve Bullock, the current governor is behind, he could in fact win one of these seats, even though the Republicans are ahead or it's tied, I really would not be surprised if the Democrats come out on top come next Tuesday.

BERMAN: We've talked a lot about how the pandemic is affecting the presidential race. But it's interesting when you overlay the pandemic and where it's hitting particularly hard on the Senate race as well there.

ENTEN: Yes, I mean, just take a look at the top ten Democratic pickup opportunities. Are the COVID-19 cases climbing higher? They are in every single one of those top ten Democratic pickup opportunities. And we do know, obviously, that Democrats are more favored on who is trusted to handle the coronavirus.

So, if the coronavirus is to have an impact, and I believe it will, it will likely help the Democratic candidates across all of these races, especially in the Midwest, a state like Iowa, where obviously those cases are climbing ever-higher. And we have seen the Democratic candidate, Theresa Greenfield, open up a slight lead in that state.

CAMEROTA: So Harry, John and I have been talking a lot about how we may not have results on election night, Tuesday night, we may have to wait a while. There may still be counting. So, give us an example of when that happens.

ENTEN: Yes, I love pulling out these examples because it is more important that we get the count accurate than quickly. And today's example is from two years ago in the California 21st special election. This one took a month, a month to declare the winner.

In fact, a lot of folks had this state -- this contest wrong on election night, and then ultimately, T.J. Cox, as more and more ballots came in, in the California 21st house election, ended up overtaking the incumbent. And keep in mind here, although this race was close, it wasn't that close, it was about a point-margin, and yet it still took one month to be able to declare the winner.

[07:50:00]

And you know what? We were able to survive as a democracy. It is more important, more important to get the count right, than to get it fast, and I hope everyone recognizes that.

BERMAN: There is always counting after the polls --

ENTEN: Yes --

BERMAN: Close for some time, and that's OK, Harry, and you're OK.

ENTEN: You too, you're both great.

CAMEROTA: Thank you --

BERMAN: Thanks so much for being with us. ENTEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: And join us for CNN's "ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA" special coverage, it begins Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The push to reopen classrooms, one state under-reporting cases among children next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: In Florida, students are back in classrooms in person, but each district has different rules about what happens when a student shows coronavirus symptoms. Some of those rules suggest the state may be under-reporting cases in children. CNN's Rosa Flores is live in Miami with more. What have you learned, Rosa?

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, good morning. You know, there is a lot to unpack here, but let me start with this, since schools began to reopen here in the state of Florida on August 10th, the state has reported more than 20,000 new cases in school-aged children, but that data probably doesn't show the full picture.

[07:55:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning my big boys, how are we doing?

FLORES (voice-over): Face-to-face learning, that's the type of education Florida Governor Ron DeSantis not only pushed for --

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): The risk level to school kids is very low.

FLORES: His administration citing an emergency order pressured some school districts including Miami-Dade, Hillsborough and Broward to reopen early.

PATRICIA GOOD, BROWARD COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER: This is extortion by the Department of Education.

FLORES: Since some school districts began to reopen on August 10th, state data shows a 60 percent increase in COVID-19 cases in school- aged children.

AILEEN MARTY, PROFESSOR OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY: Absolutely. There is an under-reporting of cases in the state of Florida.

FLORES: How? At least, 13 districts in the state making up nearly 50 percent of all public school students say they don't require children who are quarantined due to exposure to COVID to present a negative test before returning to in-person learning.

MARTY: If you do not test the close contacts of the individuals that tested positive in the school, you are missing cases, you are under- reporting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Enter the physics --

FLORES: And potentially exposing teachers to a deadly virus, says Christina Finn(ph), a science teacher working from home for Hillsborough County, a district that doesn't require quarantined students to present a negative test.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's wrong.

FLORES: Christina used to run half-marathons, now since getting COVID four months ago, she's out of breath just walking her dog. She has heart, lung and kidney issues, no taste, no smell, her hair fell out in clumps, so much so she had to cut it short.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If I get the COVID again, I may not come back.

FLORES: Here she is with longer hair in August, pleading to the county school board to teach from home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please, think about us.

FLORES: Of Florida's five largest school districts, Broward is the only one requiring quarantined students who show symptoms to present a negative test before returning to face-to-face learning.

ROBERT RUNCIE, SUPERINTENDENT, BROWARD COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT: Testing has to be part of that equation.

FLORES: Superintendent Robert Runcie says the state pressured or as one school board member put it, extorted Broward with threats of losing state aid into reopening early after the school board had already voted to continue with distance learning.

RUNCIE: If you go and open too early, you're going to see a spike in cases.

FLORES: While Governor DeSantis did not respond to CNN's request for comment --

DESANTIS: You do not quarantine healthy people who have been exposed.

FLORES: We played a portion of his recent remarks to FIU's infectious disease expert, Dr. Aileen Marty.

(on camera): If a leader doesn't have the complete data to make decisions about public health in the state, what's the result?

MARTY: The result is that you may make the wrong decisions.

FLORES (voice-over): And during a pandemic, wrong decisions can lead to more death.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES: Now, here is Dr. Marty's main point. She says that when there is a child who has tested positive for COVID-19, and you don't test all of the children that were closely exposed to that child, and instead all you do is send them home to quarantine for 10, 14 days, then, Alisyn, all of those potential cases are not being counted because these children are not being tested, and that is what she says is the problem. And unless you test, you don't get a clear picture.

CAMEROTA: Thank you --

FLORES: Alisyn --

CAMEROTA: For explaining all of that, Rosa, we really appreciate it. And NEW DAY continues right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE FOR 2020: I'm not running on a false promise of being able to end this pandemic by flipping a switch. We'll let science drive our decisions.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The safe vaccine is coming very quickly that eradicates the virus. We're rounding the turn.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We get a vaccination campaign by the second or third quarter of 2021. It will be easily by the end of 2021 before we start having some semblances of normality.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The average daily death toll just topped 800 for the first time in more than a month.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not just a function of testing. The cases are actually going up, hospitalizations are going up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome, to our viewers in the United States and all around the world, this is NEW DAY, just five days until election day. John wants me to tell you, you can vote early, though.

BERMAN: You have six days left to vote including today, do the math.

CAMEROTA: OK, but it is still five days until what we call election day.

BERMAN: But today is election day.

CAMEROTA: Right, we'll take this up during commercial break. President Trump and former Vice President Biden will cross paths today, both on the campaign trail in Florida, both holding rallies in Tampa hours apart. The resurging pandemic continues to dominate the race. Overnight, the U.S. reported nearly 79,000 new coronavirus cases. Four of the five worst days of the entire pandemic have all happened in the last week.