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U.S. Sets One Day Record for COVID, 144,000+ New Cases; Texas Becomes First U.S. State to Top One Million Cases; Biden Names Ron Klain White House Chief of Staff; Trump Still Refuses to Publicly Admit Election Defeat; Biden Contacting World Leaders, Despite Trump Obstacles; COVID-19 Soaring to Record Levels Across Europe; Almost 43,000 Italians Have Died of COVID-19; England's Four-Week Lockdown Set to End December 2; Pfizer COVID Vaccine Faces Daunting Delivery Challenges. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired November 12, 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]

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Another day of coronavirus records for the United States, 144,000 daily cases, and record hospital admissions for the second day in a row.

Joe Biden names his right-hand man for the White House as the Trump administration does all it can to make the transition of power anything but smooth.

And storm Eta is lashing the west coast of Florida with warnings of heavy rain and a storm surge.

Live from CNN world headquarters in Atlanta. Welcome to you our viewers here in the United States, Canada and around the world, I'm Kim Brunhuber, and this is CNN NEWSROOM.

U.S. health experts have warned for months that the COVID-19 would explode with the arrival of cooler weather and now it's happening. For nine straight days, more than 100,000 Americans have tested positive. On Wednesday, the country hit a record 144,000 new cases and almost 1,900 deaths. Hospitalizations have soared to their highest levels yet, and even as the virus rages around the world, the United States remains the epicenter of the crisis. The country has documented more than 10.4 million cases since the pandemic began, far more than any other country. More than 241,000 Americans have died from the disease. Texas is now the first U.S. state to top 1 million COVID infections. That's more than most countries. CNN's Nick Watt has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He went to work. That was the last time we saw him. That's the last time his children saw him.

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Daniel Morales, a 39-year-old nurse, among El Paso's COVID dead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He never recovered. WATT: This city is in trouble, nearly 30,000 active cases, more than some entire states have had all year. Another local nurse who helped out in New York in the spring says this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been a little bit more rough for me here than it's been for me in New York. I have done compressions on more people in the last three weeks than I have in a year.

WATT: Meanwhile, the President appears to have lost whatever interest he had in the pandemic and the president-elect doesn't take power for another couple of months.

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: We have a vacuum of leadership, and I think the vacuum of leadership is the biggest problem we have right now in our country in confronting this pandemic.

[04:05:00]

WATT: That promising vaccine, its impact also still months away, and the holidays are on the horizon. United now adding 1,400 flights to its Thanksgiving week schedule, anticipating high demand. Some governors are worried.

GOV. STEVE SISOLAK (D), NEVADA: Do not have people outside of your household over for dinners, parties, or other gatherings.

GOV. TONY EVERS (D), WISCONSIN: It's not safe to go out. It's not safe to have others over. It's just not safe. Our economy cannot bounce back until we contain this virus.

WATT (on camera): Now, President Trump might not listen to his own coronavirus task force much, but they put out a report and every week and distribute it to the states. Last week they warned of significant deterioration across the Sun Belt. That's in the South. That continues. This week, they warn of continued accelerating spread across the top half of the country. It's bad all over.

Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has made tackling the pandemic his top priority, and he's moving quickly to have his team in place when he takes office in January. A key member of that advisory board says COVID is now spreading so rapidly that a four to six week lock down might be necessary but one that wouldn't destroy the economy. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, BIDEN CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE: We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers, for losses to small companies, to medium sized companies, for cities, states, county governments. We could do all of that. If we did that, then we could lock down for four to six weeks. If we did that, we could drive the numbers down like they did in Asia. Like they did in New Zealand and Australia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Now stay with us. Because in around 20 minutes, you'll hear from a member of the Texas medical association's COVID-19 task force on just how bad the situation is getting there.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden is moving forward with his plans to move into the White House despite Donald Trump's refusal to concede. Biden has named long time adviser, Ron Klain as his chief of staff. Klain is a political veteran who led the Obama administration's response to the Ebola crisis in 2014.

Meanwhile, President Trump attended a Veterans Day ceremony Wednesday, then went back to the White House where he continued rage tweeting about the election, falsely claiming he won Pennsylvania and Michigan. But sources say the President has a much different tone about the election's outcome with his inner circle. CNN's Kaitlan Collins explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We are continuing to see the President deny the results of this election and refuse to recognize Joe Biden as the victor in this 2020 race. And as he's doing that, we're being told by sources that behind the scenes, the President has this calm demeanor, and that he understands what's going on and that he is not going to be in office past January.

But the thing is he hasn't told his supporters that, and he has continued to push these baseless accusations about voter fraud even as you're seeing Republican officials, Republican election officials push back on the President's claim and say there is no widespread evidence of it that they have seen, and they have looked into the allegations that you're seeing the President and his allies push.

This comes as the President is increasingly frustrating Republicans who are indulging him in what he's saying for now, his denial, but also they want to look ahead to what's going to happen in January with the Senate runoff in Georgia that' going to determine whether or not Democrats or Republicans have the power. And evidence of that is that the Vice President himself is going to Georgia next week to start campaigning on this.

So, the question is how much longer does the President really keep this charade up. Many people don't think it will be that much longer. The question is, how does he end it? And does he finally publicly acknowledge Joe Biden's victory.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: Right now to another obstacle facing President-elect Joe Biden. Sources tell CNN the Trump administration is preventing Biden from accessing messages left for him by world leaders who have contacted the U.S. State Department. But Biden's team apparently is working around this problem by contacting foreign governments on its own. So far Biden has held numerous calls with world leaders including the President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in, the two reaffirmed their commitment to a robust alliance and peaceful and prosperous Korean peninsula.

So, let's discuss this with CNN global affairs analyst, Kim Dozier. She is also contributor for Time magazine. So, I want to start with the ridiculous. That stack of messages to Joe Biden from foreign leaders that are sitting at the State Department, but the Trump administration isn't letting Biden get them.

Now obviously, you know, in and of itself that's not the most serious situation facing the Biden transition team, but it's a pretty apt symbol for the intransigence and lack of cooperation from the administration.

[04:10:00]

So how does the Biden teamwork around those blockades and are areas in which those hacks won't work?

KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, the thing is, Biden has been in this business for very long time. And he has a very experienced team around him. So, the diplomats in town, many of them, because by the time you get to Washington, D.C. you're at a very senior level.

So many of them and other iterations have already worked with Joe Biden. They know how to reach him. A lot of them were -- well, all of them had to hold back prior to him being named president-elect throughout the whole campaign for fear of violating the Hatch Act, for fear of violating U.S. law because there is always supposed to be as they always say, as Biden himself has been saying one president at a time.

The team worked with him knows how to reach the right people and hit the ground running. The hard part are the things like the personnel issues. They are not getting to get inside the agencies to see OK, just how spare are they in terms of personnel? Who do I need to hire first? It's those kinds of practical considerations that are really going to be slowed down by this.

BRUNHUBER: So, now from the Trump administration the call at the Pentagon, the firing of Mark Esper. The fourth Defense Secretary President Trump has turfed, the replacing of Defense Department leaders with Trump loyalists. How loudly should alarm bells be ringing? Not just that the act itself but also the silence from Republicans?

DOZIER: Alarm bells are ringing because some of the people that they have brought in are those who have advocated a swift draw down to zero troops in Afghanistan, for instance, and that's a real risk.

President Trump did tweet before the election that he was going to bring all the troops home from Afghanistan before Christmas. The problem with that, as many officials tried to reach him and explained to him, is that you can't get all their equipment out that fast, and if you draw down that fast, it also means your intelligence footprint has to shrink.

That means organizations like ISIS can plot without the U.S. watching them. And also, the Afghan government is really reliant on U.S. air power, U.S. logistics to survive the ongoing Taliban onslaught. So, many officials that I've spoken to both in this administration and who may be in the next one are worried that if there is a precipitous pull out from Afghanistan or Iraq and Syria, that that could spell danger to U.S. citizens and U.S. personnel overseas down the line.

BRUNHUBER: Now, lastly, I want to ask you, the fact that the vote was close, Republicans, you know, gained some House seats and may hold the Senate, many are saying that it shows that Trumpism isn't over. But how does that translate to foreign policy? Can we say that this is an endorsement of that, you know, America first isolationism or should we just read it as sort of a reflective of the entrenched partisan divide?

DOZIER: Well, what diplomats are thinking looking at that big is this country could very well flip-flop back to Republican, back to isolationist in four years.

So when a Biden/Harris administration asks them to make sacrifices in terms of deals or in terms of sending their personnel together with U.S. troops in harm's way, they are going to have some tough questions about, you know, why should we make that sort of bet on this White House when we don't know if we are going to be here in a couple of years.

BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll have to leave it there. Thank you so much, Kim Dozier. We appreciate you joining us.

DOZIER: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: Up next, the latest COVID-19 global headlines. Japan warns of a third wave while two European countries hit milestones as they struggle to stop the virus surge. Stay with us.

[04:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: COVID-19 is spiraling out of control around the world. Even in countries that once thought they had the virus in hand. Japan is now warning of a third wave as new cases there are returning to levels not seen since early August.

Europe isn't fairing any better as slowing the virus. Italy, one of the hardest hit European nations early in the pandemic has now become the 10th country in the world to surpass 1 million infected people.

And England is in lock down where COVID has been surging since mid- September. The U.K. death toll is now more than 50,000.

To talk about the situation in Europe, let's bring in CNN's Ben Wedeman who's in Rome, and Salma Abdelaziz who's in London. Ben first to you. Italy has become one the top 10 worst affected counties. As I mentioned, I saw the vice president of an Italian doctor's federation calling for another national lock down. Is that where the country is heading?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It certainly seems to be heading in that direction, Kim, given that what we're seeing is daily increases, the likes of which we didn't see in the first wave of the pandemic earlier this year when Italy was the hardest hit country in the world. That we've now surpassed more than a million recorded cases.

There are currently more than 600,000 active positive cases of coronavirus in Italy, so we already have five regions of the country that are called red zones, basically under lock down, and they include about a quarter of the country's population. And it may be simply a matter of time before the rest of the country follows suit.

The intensive care units are at this point close to being overwhelmed in many parts of the country.

[04:20:00]

We've heard some doctors saying that they're starting to have to make those hard choices about who to put on a ventilator, and who simply has no hope, and will have to die. So definitely things are, at this point, looking like they're going to get much worse than they were in the first wave.

Yesterday Italy reported in 24 hours, 623 deaths from COVID-19. We are approaching what we saw, the worst -- I mean this is actually the worst daily death toll in seven months, and it appears that it's only going to get worse from here.

Now, there is some -- there are some scientists who are saying that perhaps this current wave will reach its peak by the end of this month, but certainly if the numbers continue to grow, the situation, which is already very concerning is going to become profoundly grave -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Worse than the first wave that's hard to hear. Salma let's turn to you, the U.K. becomes part of the dismal five, the U.S., Brazil, India, Mexico, all now with more than 50,000 COVID deaths.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: It's a truly tragic England milestone, Kim, 50,000 people who have lost their lives due to this virus. It is worse than the worst case scenario than the government had laid out themselves at the beginning of this pandemic. And it's not just about the death toll. It's about the rising case numbers. We're looking at about 20,000 new cases being reported daily across this country.

Hospitals are being overwhelmed. I was in the north of the country just last week. That's a hot spot where they were telling me that hospital capacity was at over 95 percent in some areas. So truly concerning to hit this milestone, and it is something the Prime Minister had to address when he spoke to reporters yesterday. And he said he believes that the country's entering a new phase of dealing with this pandemic, and he had a two-fold strategy. Let me break down that strategy for you. First, he says he wants to

roll out mass testing across the country. There's been a pilot program for that in Liverpool in the north of the country. So far, very low turnout on that. So, very far from the vision of everyone getting tested regardless of their symptoms.

And the second part Prime Minister Boris Johnson's strategy is the vaccine. This very hopeful vaccine that we're all hoping, waiting and wishing for but we all know will not be widely available until next year.

So really the government here has very few tools left in its toolbox. We're already under a nationwide lock down. We already have masks mandated. We already have all these restrictions in place. So, the optimistic view of this very terrible death toll is that there is a lag, right, that's a two-week lag, and we'll see the results of these restrictions in a few weeks and things will get better. But the sobering and worrying view of this death toll number is it is indicative of something much larger and the government simply does not have control of the virus -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Well, all right, Salma Abdelaziz in London, and Ben Wedeman in Rome. Thank you both, appreciate it.

Well, promising coronavirus vaccine from the drug makers Pfizer and BioNTech is in advance trials and could be available to some in just a few weeks. But the vaccine has to be stored at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit, that's minus 70 degrees Celsius to remain effective. Now distributors must figure out how to transport millions of shots around the world while keeping them viable. CNN's Anna Stewart reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALBERT BOURLA, CEO, PFIZER: We are in a very, very good situation. Because 1.3 billion doses globally, again, next year.

ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): Millions of doses have already been made. Ready to go, should the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine candidate get regulatory approval. This one uses messenger RNA, a new technology which poses a major challenge. The storage and transportation of the vaccine.

JOHN BURKHARDT, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT. GLOBAL DRUG SAFETY R&D, PFIZER: We have to keep the product very cold and chipped and very much subfreezing temperature. There will be a short term of stability perhaps if refrigerated temperatures, and that's going to be a logistical challenge.

STEWART: Logistics firms like UPS, FedEx, and Deutsche Post DHL started planning for this months ago.

OSCAR DE BOK, CEO, DHL SUPPLY CHAIN: We've got about 9,000 healthcare specialists around the world. About 140 certified warehouses around the globe. About another hundred terminals that are certified for healthcare. We also had to make some specific investments in minus 80 degrees storage points and containers to be able to distribute. So those are all things that we had to do.

[04:25:00]

STEWART: These firms are critical link between the pharmaceutical firms and governments.

DE BOK: What we have to focus on is our interactions with our customers. When they say that we need to be ready, we are working, and we are planning accordingly to that and we will be ready.

STEWART: Logistics firms may be ready to transport a COVID-19 vaccine. Some countries may not be ready to receive it.

TOBY PETERS, PROFESSOR OF COLD ECONOMY, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM: This challenge is probably the biggest logistical challenge we've ever faced regardless of the temperature. Minus 80 adds another dynamic and another problem. You know, I'm being told that this vaccine isn't really designed and being expected to be used in the low and middle- income countries. That personally concerns me because we should be making sure that we deliver vaccine equitably.

STEWART: Other promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates are nearing the end of phase three trials. And they won't all need sub-zero storage. They will, however, all need huge logistical support to make it to all the corners of the world.

Anna Stewart, CNN, London.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: A spike in cases, overwhelmed hospitals, and now mobile morgues, this is the grim reality in hard hit El Paso, Texas. We'll speak to one doctor about the extraordinary challenges his city is now facing.

And tropical storm Eta is set to make landfall in the U.S. in the coming hours, but the Florida coast has been hit by heavy rains causing major flooding. We'll have the latest, stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRUNHUBER: And welcome back to you, our viewers in the United States, Canada, and around the world, I'm Kim Brunhuber and you're watching CNN.