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Moderna's Promising Vaccine; European Union Pursuing Vaccine Deal with Moderna; Hurricane Iota Makes Landfall in Northeastern Nicaragua; Biden Transition Briefing Scheduled for Today; Truth Decay: Diminishing Role of Facts in U.S. Public Life; Trump Queries Advisers about Attacking Iran; U.S. Secretary of State Meeting with Turkish Religious Leaders; Navajo Nation Begins Three-Week Lockdown. Aired 2- 3a ET

Aired November 17, 2020 - 02:00   ET

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

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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world, you're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Rosemary Church.

Just ahead, another medical breakthrough in the fight against the coronavirus. Early data shows Moderna's really effective.

Hurricane Iota roars ashore in Nicaragua, slamming an area left struggling by Eta just two weeks ago.

And from Iran to Afghanistan, Donald Trump uses his final days in office to look for ways to frustrate Joe Biden's foreign policy agenda.

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CHURCH: Good to have you with us.

Hopes that the world could start to get back to normal are growing after news that a second coronavirus vaccine appears to be highly effective. This time American biotech company Moderna is claiming the breakthrough with even better numbers than Pfizer.

According to early results, the Moderna vaccine has a stunningly high success rate of nearly 95 percent, a welcome development for a COVID weary world. There are nearly 55 million known infections across the planet, more than 1.3 million fatalities and 47 vaccines in human trials worldwide. Nick Watt has details on Moderna's candidate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. TAL ZAKS, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, MODERNA: One of the greatest moment of my life and my career.

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Because Moderna just reported early results showing its vaccine is 94.5 percent effective.

ZAKS: I think, by the end of the year, hopefully, we could start to vaccinate people.

WATT: No safety red flags so far. And, unlike Pfizer's offering, this doesn't need tricky deep subzero storage.

FAUCI: This is a really strong step forward to where we want to be. We project that, by the end of December, that there will be doses of vaccines available for individuals in the higher-risk category from both companies, we hope.

WATT: And we need a vaccine badly, because the death toll is rising; because inmates are now moving the dead into makeshift morgues in El Paso, Texas; because more than 1 million new infections were logged in the United States in just the past week; because more children have now been infected in all, according to two medical associations and because, for Black and Latinx Americans, rates of hospitalizations are four times the white population, according to the CDC.

MICHAEL MINA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: If bombs were getting dropped on United States and killing 1,000 people every single day, we would be actively engaged in defending ourselves and not just sitting around until the next product comes on the market.

WATT: But in South Dakota, both COVID and COVID denial are rampant, even among those dying of this disease.

JODI DOERING, REGISTERED E.R. NURSE: And their last dying words are, this can't be happening, it not real. And when they should be spending time FaceTiming their families, they're filled with anger and hatred.

WATT: The entire country is a hot zone. Two former FDA commissioners just wrote in "The Wall Street Journal," it's now up to governors to slow the spread.

Kind of always has been but with a lame duck Trump gumming up a transition, it's now more than ever. So Michigan just closed movie theaters, indoor bars and restaurants, also in-person classes in high schools and colleges and in Chicago, a new advisory, stay home the next 30 days.

DR. ALLISON ARWADY, COMMISSIONER, CHICAGO DEPT. OF PUBLIC HEALTH: We've seen just in the last month our cases go up five times, our hospitalizations go up three times, our deaths go up three times and at least here in Chicago, we have recommended cancelling a traditional Thanksgiving.

WATT: And a huge surge here in California. The average number of new cases, we see every day in the state, doubled in just the past 10 days. The governor says he is pulling on the emergency brakes. So, from Tuesday, 94 percent of Californians are going to be living in counties under the strictest tier of COVID restrictions -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.

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CHURCH: So I want to bring in Dr. Robert Wachter for more on the Moderna vaccine. He is the chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. He is also the author of "The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine's Computer Age."

Thank you, doctor, for being with us.

DR. ROBERT WACHTER, UCSF DEPARTMENT OF MEDICINE: Thank you.

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CHURCH: So amid all the bad news of record COVID cases and hospitalizations, some good news at last with Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine candidate proving to be nearly 95 percent effective, even better than Pfizer's proposed vaccine announcement last week. What is your reaction to this news of a second vaccine option on the horizon?

WACHTER: It's staggeringly wonderful. I think as a physician and a scientist I'm supposed to be calm and dispassionate but it's almost -- almost makes you giddy how good it is.

You know, as of a month ago, we didn't know for sure that any vaccine would work and we were hoping that maybe they might prevent two-thirds of the cases. The fact that we now have two vaccines that are at least 90 percent effective is just actually unbelievable.

CHURCH: And Moderna says they could start vaccinations by the end of the year for high-risk categories frontline workers and the elderly of course. How smoothed do you expect that distribution process to be and how different is Moderna's vaccine candidate to Pfizer's?

I mean we saw there on the chart the difference in storage temperatures. That would certainly have an impact on the distribution, wouldn't it?

WACHTER: Yes. That's the main difference, otherwise they are fairly similar. But the Pfizer vaccine needs to be stored in a deep freeze, very different than you have in your kitchen, whereas the Modern vaccine can be stored in a regular freezer.

So if you are in urban hospital or an urban setting where there are big hospitals around, there probably will be capacity to store the Pfizer vaccine but trying to get it into less wealthy countries into rural areas and any other country I think is much more difficult.

So the Moderna vaccine is an option not only increases the amount of vaccine, so it will enable us to get more people get vaccinated more quickly but it's also going to be easier to distribute.

How easy is it going to be to do? Well, we'll have to see. I'm more confident about that than I would have been before the American presidential election. This new administration is going to take this matter very, very seriously. And I think set up a distribution system. But I'm pretty confident they will be able to sort out at least in the United States.

CHURCH: Yes. And I do want to ask you about that. Because I wanted to find out how concerned you are about the blocking of the transition of President-elect Joe Biden's administration by Donald Trump.

Could that interrupt the smooth running of any distribution process come the new year? Presumably they will get it in motion toward the end of this year, so that could make things easier.

WACHTER: Yes, I hope so. I mean, it is going to mock up the transition in all sorts of ways. I have to say I have been entirely critical of the Trump administration's handling of the coronavirus. It's been actually quite awful. But on vaccines, they got it right.

Vaccines they invested early in companies that made a big bet that the vaccines were going to work. And they invested in the distribution channels, purchasing vaccines. They were going to make them available for free.

So far at least, they have done this part right. And I'm hoping that they will see it through to the end, actually it would be a positive part. It will really be the only positive part of Trump's legacy if they get the vaccines out in record time and get it distributed.

Obviously, it doesn't work until it's in people's shoulder, -- you can have -- you can have the vaccine demonstrate to be effective but we actually have to distribute it to tens of millions of people now very quickly.

CHURCH: Dr. Robert Wachter joining us from San Francisco, many thanks.

WACHTER: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: The European Union calls Moderna's vaccine results encouraging and says it is trying to secure millions of doses of the drug and several other vaccine candidates.

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CHURCH: The U.K. has already ordered 5 million doses of the Moderna drug, which could be available in a few months; if approved, of course. All this comes as Europe continues to battle its third and, so far, worse wave of COVID infections over the past few weeks. Countries have been imposing tighter restrictions to try and slow the spread.

France, which went into lockdown last month, is now seeing a drop in daily cases but, on Monday, it reported a record number of hospital admissions, more than 33,000 nationwide.

Austria has entered a second national lockdown after reporting a higher than expected infection rate. All nonessential businesses and schools will remain closed while people will be asked to stay at home for at least 2.5 weeks. In South Korea, the government is imposing stricter social distancing

rules for Seoul and its surrounding areas. The country posted over 200 COVID-19 cases for three consecutive days. South Korea's health minister says trends show small but numerous clusters from restaurants and gatherings.

The new restrictions will force restaurants to put up dividers. Places of worship must limit attendees to 30 percent capacity.

Mexico is approaching 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus. Only the U.S., Brazil and India have more. And a country that had been reluctant to use mask mandates or testing to stop the virus is now taking serious steps to get it under control. The latest now from CNN's Matt Rivers.

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MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The number of new cases and new deaths from the coronavirus here in Mexico, both of those figures have been trending in the wrong direction lately. As a result we are seeing a lot more restrictions being put in place across the country.

For example, in Mexico City, the government there is now forcing bars that had been allowed to be open as long as they were serving food. Those bars will now have to shut down for at least the next two weeks.

The Mexico City government has also started a public awareness campaign to try and urge its citizens to comply with these sanitary guidelines so they could avoid being met with even more restrictions that the government says they would have to put into place.

The kind of restrictions that are already in place, where I am right now in the Mexican state Durango, the government officials say the number of cases have spiked lately and has forced them to put these heavy restrictions into place on non essential businesses. They are not allowed to be open.

There are no alcohol sales allowed anywhere in the city. On certain days, there is even restrictions on public transportation. That is what Mexico City officials are trying to avoid. But as a whole, the number of cases and deaths continue to be extremely concerning here in Mexico -- Matt Rivers, CNN, in Durango, Mexico.

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CHURCH: Central America takes a hit from another powerful storm. We will find out how strong Hurricane Iota is and where it's heading right now.

Plus, President Trump is still keeping his successor out of the loop on critical intelligence. How Joe Biden is finding new and creative ways to bypass those roadblocks. We are back in just a moment.

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CHURCH: Hurricane Iota is moving across northeastern Nicaragua after making landfall as a dangerous category 4 storm.

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CHURCH (voice-over): Just look at the giant waves crashing the shore as it approached the Central American coast. While Iota is expected to weaken pretty quickly as it moves inland, it could also do some very serious damage and the region is still reeling from Hurricane Eta 2 weeks ago.

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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are moving along, knowing what the outcome will be and, as I said earlier, I probably shouldn't repeat it, but I find this more embarrassing for the country than debilitating for my ability to get started.

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CHURCH: U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden is again blasting president Donald Trump for rejecting the outcome of last week's election and for refusing to begin the transition.

At a news conference on Monday, Biden said the rocky process could hamper his efforts to fight the pandemic when he takes office and he warned the chaos could lead to many more American deaths.

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BIDEN: More people may die if we do not coordinate. They say they have this Warp Speed program that not only dealt with getting vaccines but also how to distribute this.

If we have to wait until January 20th to start that planning, it puts us behind over one month, 1.5 months. So it is important that it be done, that there be coordination now, now or as rapidly as we can get that done.

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CHURCH: Biden also warned the pandemic will continue to batter the economy if the government does not take action soon. He urged Congress to pass a new stimulus package and proposed more investment in clean energy infrastructure and union jobs. For more than a week now, Biden has been denied access to classified

intelligence reports, as President Trump continues to delay the transition.

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CHURCH: But now the president-elect is creating a back door to those reports by receiving an informal briefing from intelligence and defense experts. CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more on the chaotic transition of power.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nine days after losing the election, President Trump is burrowing deeper into a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and lies as he fights to overturn the will of voters and refuses to allow the presidential transition to begin.

After briefly and perhaps inadvertently acknowledging reality with these two words, the president quickly retreated to his baseless allegation that the election was rigged tweeting, "I concede nothing."

A social media barrage of grievances and falsehoods quickly followed. Trump's allies say there is no overarching strategy behind his refusal to concede and people close to the president privately admit lawsuits won't stop President-elect Biden from being inaugurated in 65 days.

But even as Trump refuses to acknowledge defeat, he is rushing to complete a draw-down of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan before he leaves office.

Two U.S. officials telling CNN the president is expected to issue a formal order as soon as this week, bringing the total number of U.S. troops in each country to 2,500 by January 15th, but the transition is still stalled.

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: That transition process that we go through, that time period of measured in several weeks to months is really important in a smooth handing over of the information.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Health experts are beginning to sound the alarm warning that delays could hurt the coronavirus response including vaccine distribution.

FAUCI: The virus is not going to stop and call a time-out while things change. The virus is just going to keep going. The process is just going to keep going. So hopefully, we will see that soon and transitions are important.

DIAMOND (voice-over): While the president is happy to take credit for a coronavirus vaccine developed in partnership with the federal government, he's ignoring the dangerous coronavirus surge gripping the U.S. right now. And his preferred coronavirus adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, a radiologist with no public health expertise, is urging people to rise up against new coronavirus restrictions imposed by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer who was the target of a right wing kidnapping plot that was foiled last month.

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): We know that the White House likes to single us out here in Michigan, me out in particular. I'm not going to be bullied into not following reputable scientists and medical professionals.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Atlas later said he was not advocating violence. Also in limbo, national security briefings for the president-elect. The White House still refusing to provide Biden with top-level intelligence briefings. The national security adviser Robert O'Brien now admitting Biden is likely to be inaugurated.

ROBERT O'BRIEN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: If the Biden-Harris ticket is determined to be the winner and it's, you know, obviously, things look that way now, we'll have a very professional transition from the National Security Council. There is no question about it.

DIAMOND (voice-over): As for former President Obama, his message to Trump, it's time.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My advice to President Trump is, if you want, at this late stage of the game, to be remembered as somebody who put country first, it's time for you to do the same thing.

DIAMOND: Just as we learned on Monday that President Trump is expected to issue an order as early as this week to begin drawing down more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, bringing that number down to 2,500 before he leaves office in January, sources familiar with the matter also telling CNN that the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who was fired last week by President Trump, that he warned the president and the White House in a memo earlier this month against doing exactly that, warning that it was the consensus of the U.S. military chain of command that no more troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan until specific conditions were met on the ground in Afghanistan and that it was the assessment of that chain of command that those conditions had not yet been met.

Those sources are also saying that they believe that Esper's memo to the White House, warning against a further troop drawdown, was one of the key reasons why President Trump fired him last week -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.

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CHURCH: We just heard former President Obama urging Mr. Trump to begin the transition process. He is also speaking out about a troubling disregard for truth and facts in American politics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: Maybe most importantly and most disconcertingly, what we have seen is what some people call truth decay, something that has been accelerated by outgoing President Trump in the sense that, not only do we not have to tell the truth but the truth does not even matter.

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CHURCH: And that term "truth decay" is from a 2017 report by the RAND Corporation think tank.

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CHURCH: It's a study of the diminishing role of facts and analysis in public life. Earlier I spoke with the corporation's CEO Michael Rich. He coauthored that report and says the problem has never been worse but is not impossible to fix.

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MICHAEL RICH, CEO, RAND CORPORATION: It's going to require attacking the causes of truth decay, so reforming or improving the way that important information is provided by government, by media, by scientists; helping people learn to distinguish between facts and opinions, between sound statistics and statistics that are designed to mislead; between authoritative sources of information and unreliable sources.

It will require reducing political, social, economic polarization and it's going to require developing better strategies and tactics and tools for detecting and defeating efforts at disinformation.

We've emerged from similar periods in our history though, as I mentioned, none quite as dangerous as the one we are in. We should not underestimate the difficulty ahead. It's going to require more than the passage of time. That's because truth decay is not limited to a particular region of the country. It's not limited to one demographic.

Certainly not limited to one political party or to a single politician. It is truly a systemic problem, a societal problem. It will require a multifaceted response, sustained over decades.

What I hope President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris do is launch a major infrastructure initiative. I'm not talking about physical infrastructure here. I am referring to the revitalization of our civic infrastructure, beginning with steps to rebuild public trust in major civic institutions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: We all have to be more discerning with the information we read.

So the U.S. election is over and, even though Donald Trump lost, he still wants to make good on his campaign promise to pull troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. And that could cause havoc in the region. Plus, the U.S. secretary of state is in Turkey but Turkish leaders are

not rolling out the welcome mat. We will go live to Istanbul. Back with that in just a moment.

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CHURCH: Donald Trump has two months left in the White House and he is evidently looking for ways to make a big impact before he goes. The U.S. president reportedly asked senior advisers last week would options he had for attacking Iran's main nuclear site.

"The New York Times" reports Mr. Trump asked about potential strikes after international inspectors reported a significant rise in Tehran's nuclear stockpile.

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CHURCH: But several top officials reportedly talked him out of it, warning a military strike could turn into a broader conflict in the final weeks of his presidency.

The potential military strikes also would have created a foreign policy nightmare for Joe Biden but the president-elect could still inherit a different type of challenge in the Middle East.

According to several sources, Mr. Trump is expected to order thousands of troops to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. The move would fulfill a campaign promise but it has been widely criticized by U.S. lawmakers and officials. CNN's senior international Kiley joins me now live from Dubai.

Good to see you, Sam. According to "The New York Times" Donald Trump might be considering ways to strike Iran, although his senior advisers apparently talked him out of it last week.

What more are you learning about this and how might Iran respond to this news?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think in the immediate term, Rosemary, Iran will enjoy the program that is likely to be poured, in terms of analysis at any rate, on the Trump administration for even considering a strike against the sovereign nation that it has, in its view, stuck more or less to an internationally agreed deal to restrict its development of nuclear capability.

That is a little disingenuous perhaps because the Iranians have indeed been expanding their nuclear capabilities and are reported by the International Atomic Energy Authority to developed enough nuclear material to potentially build a weapon in 3 to 4 months.

Very much closer, therefore, to the so-called breakout point than before Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the very deal it was supposed to delay that breakout.

Clearly, according to "The New York Times" -- and we cannot yet corroborate this -- Donald Trump, it would appear, was talked out of some kind of preemptive strike. A strike against Iranian nuclear capabilities had been on the cards in previous administrations and, of course, an option that Israelis, at least publicly in the form of Benjamin Netanyahu had left open to themselves in terms of making sure that there is not a nuclear power developed with a dedicated policy, if you like, of the destruction of the state of Israel.

So a lot of that I think perhaps may have been thinking out loud from the Trump administration; more potentially worrying for military planners, I think, now that that plan to hit nuclear facilities in Iran may have gone away. The plan is reinforced by what is called warning orders, Rosemary, to scale back troop numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan from around 4.500 to around 2.500 in both locations. That could be highly problematic at a time when in Afghanistan, the Taliban and government are inching toward a peace deal. The U.S. had committed to withdraw from Afghanistan as part of that.

But premature departure, certainly military officials argued that many months could endanger troops there. And meanwhile in Iraq, this is connected to Iran, Iranian-backed Shia militias will no doubt see a U.S. withdrawal from that location close to the anniversary of the American killing of Qasem Soleimani i January this year as something of a victory and perhaps an opportunity, Rosemary.

CHURCH: All right. Sam Kiley joining us from Abu Dhabi. Many thanks.

The U.S. secretary of state is in Turkey for a brief visit that notably does not include any meetings with political leaders. Mike Pompeo will be spotlighting the issue of religious freedom instead.

Pompeo criticized Turkey during a stop in Paris, saying its recent actions had been quote, "very aggressive," so let's get more from CNN's Jomana Karadsheh.

A visit to Turkey by the outgoing U.S. secretary of state that does not include any meetings with political leaders, what is going on here?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's the question, Rosemary. Perhaps this is the strangest stop on this seven country tour for the secretary of state. He's going to different countries, where he will be meeting the leadership in all those countries -- emirs, sheikhs, presidents, prime ministers, and this is the only country where he is not going to be meeting with any Turkish officials.

Of course the strange thing also is that the Trump administration has had really good relationship, working relationship with the government here in Turkey.

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KARADSHEH: Of course these two allies have had a rocky relationship over the past few years. They have disagreed over a number of different issues. But, in general, overall, they've had a good working relationship. They have had some disagreements in recent months, notably Turkey's support of Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict; Turkey's actions in eastern Mediterranean and, of course, Turkey's relationship with Russia and the purchase of that defense missile system the S-400.

But still, what irked Turkish officials about this visit is how it was phrased, the context and how it was announced by the State Department, saying the secretary of state was going to be visiting Istanbul, not going to the capital of Ankara and in Istanbul, he was going to focus on religious freedoms in Turkey and in the region.

He was going to be meeting here with the ecumenical patriarch, Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox. He will be meeting with other religious leaders in Istanbul.

The only statement that we heard from Turkish officials was about a week ago after the announcement of this very harshly worded statement from the foreign ministry, saying basically that Turkey has no issue with anyone coming to Turkey, meeting with religious leaders here but they take issue with basically the United States lecturing Turkey and other countries on freedoms, basically saying, and I quote, that "it would be more suitable for the United States to first look in the mirror and show the requisite sensitivity toward human rights violations in the country, such as racism, Islamophobia and hate crimes."

Turkish officials have not addressed why there will be no meeting with Secretary Pompeo, why no Turkish officials are meeting him here. State Department officials insist that the reason he is not meeting with Turkish officials is scheduling issues, that he has a very tight schedule. He has no time for a stop in Ankara.

But it's worth noting that he arrived in Istanbul yesterday evening and it did not seem like he had anything on his schedule -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: Interesting, Jomana Karadsheh, joining us live from Istanbul. Many thanks.

I want to take a short break. We will have more news in just a moment.

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CHURCH: The Navajo Nation in the southwestern U.S. began a three-week lockdown Monday in an effort to fight the uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus. Navajo president Jonathan Nez said, "If our citizens don't abide by the three-week stay-at-home lockdown, then our health care system is going to be overwhelmed very quickly. We have to do it ourselves.

"Our leaders and health experts can caution everyone constantly but each of you has to make good choices and stay home as much as possible."

CNN's Martin Savidge has more on the drastic measures.

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MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Winter-like cold has returned to the Navajo Nation, so has coronavirus. Last spring, COVID-19 devastated the sprawling 27,000 square mile Navajo reservation that stretches across Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

In May, per capita Navajo infection rates surpassed New York and New Jersey.

Darlene Dixson's younger sister among those infected.

DARLENE DIXSON, NAVAJO NATION RESIDENT: She went in to get tested and she said she tested positive.

SAVIDGE: Just two weeks later, Dixson listened helplessly over the phone as her sister's COVID battle ended in a distant hospital room.

DIXSON: I was telling her, you can't go. You have to come home to us. By 5:45, you just hear that tone of her heart stopping and the doctor came on the phone and she said she was gone. SAVIDGE: Now COVID is back. Navajo health officials warn of the virus

is uncontrolled spread in 34 communities and fear an outbreak as bad as spring or worse.

DR. JILL JIM, NAVAJO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: The cases have been increasing. There is no plateau. There is no flattening.

SAVIDGE (on camera): How many ICU beds do you have here?

JIM: We have 14 in Navajo area. Here at this site, we have six.

SAVIDGE (voice-over): Last time, Navajo sent many other cases off reservation, to larger hospitals, in New Mexico and Arizona. Health volunteers poured in.

That's not likely this time. Hospitals nationwide are struggling to find beds for their own critical cases, so the Navajo are preparing to fight alone, locking down the entire Navajo nation for three weeks, announcing the news on Navajo Radio.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning, I hope everybody walk up feeling good. Feeling that they want to stay home and take care of themselves.

SAVIDGE: Under the order, people can only leave their homes for emergencies or essentials. Government offices and businesses must close. Learning is online. Gas stations and grocery stores can open, but under limited hours and capacity using strict sanitizing procedures. (on camera): Checkpoints like this one are designed to limit travel, meanwhile nonresidents and tourists can pass through, they just can't stop.

(voice-over): Face masks already mandated, now are encouraged to be worn indoors with family.

JONATHAN NEZ, PRESIDENT, NAVAJO NATION: We are like an island in the Navajo Nation. So, of course, if you have record-breaking numbers all around us, it will come in to that nation or that area. And that's what's happening today.

SAVIDGE: Aggressive screening continues. Officials say more than 50 percent of the nation's residents already have been tested in more than 250 contact tracers work to isolate transmission. Health officials have identified sites to quarantine thousands and to place hundreds of hospital beds.

Native utility groups raced to bring electricity to some of the 30 percent of Navajo who live without it, saving them searching for firewood or fuel. And running water could be about 40 percent to have none, to make handwashing and hygiene easier.

JEFFERY ETSITTY, NAVAJO ENGINEERING CONSTRUCTION AUTHORITY: With this help, it will greatly improve their lives.

SAVIDGE: So far, the strict lockdown has received little pushback. Perhaps because even those who have already enjoyed agonizing loss realize there is still so much more than Navajo could lose.

DIXSON: To keep us -- to keep us safe, to keep us alive. That's with the lockdown is for.

SAVIDGE (voice-over): Martin Savidge, CNN, Navajo Nation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Thanks for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. I'll be back with more news at the top of the hour. "WORLD SPORT" is next.

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