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How to Stay Safe Over the Holidays Amid Pandemic; America's Hunger Crisis Worsens During the Holidays; Socially-Distant Santa Brings Holiday Cheer. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired December 25, 2020 - 06:30   ET

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


[06:30:04]

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Creek Fire broke out late Christmas Eve next to the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base. It forced evacuations of 7,000 citizens which have been lifted.

Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff have each raised more than $100 million in a two-month span in their attempt to unseat two Senate Republican incumbents in Georgia. Warnock reported total donations of $103 millions compared to nearly $64 million collected by his rival Kelly Loeffler. Ossoff raised $106.3 million compared to $68 million by his opponent David Perdue.

And that's the latest from the News Desk. Let's go back to John and Alisyn.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, the holidays are normally a time to gather together with family and friends to celebrate, but every single leading scientist has advised people from getting together in large groups for this holiday season indoors.

So when can you expect to get together with the loved ones you are just seeing by Zoom today? What will that feel like? What will it look like?

Joining us now, CNN contributor Erin Bromage. He's a biology professor at UMass Dartmouth.

Merry Christmas, Professor. So great to see you, thank you for everything you've done and all the help you've given us all year.

As we've been saying all morning long hopefully everyone is paying attention to the scientists and spending these days with their insular family. That's the safest way of doing it.

I guess my question to you, when do you think we'll be able to get together again with our loved ones given that people started receiving the vaccine? When can we look forward to seeing our loved ones in- person inside?

ERIN BROMAGE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, merry Christmas to you, too, John. Well, as long as the rollout keeps going the way that it is, so we had the first arms were actually injected back around the 15th of December, over the next few weeks we should be making a really big dent in the most vulnerable population but also the health care worker population.

And that should have a really big impact on the number of deaths that we're seeing per day. So if that keeps going and we can just, you know, implement the mitigation steps a little better, just restrict some of the gatherings we're having and sort of social functions, by March, by April, we really are looking much, much better, as long as this rollout keeps going the way that it is.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: At first I was really upset that we are not going to have, you know, a lot of extended family for Christmas together and then I realized it's just more lasagna for me, like -- and more pie. I saw the silver lining in it basically, and I hope that you are experiencing that, too, Professor.

Meanwhile, your explanation of your layered approach that you use has really kind of opened my eyes to how to stay healthiest and safe. So wearing a mask, good, but wearing a mask and being six feet apart from somebody, even better. Wearing a mask, being six feet apart and being outside, even better.

Like take us through how we should look at it.

BROMAGE: Yeah. So, one, defense layer is usually not enough. I mean, in a car you have air bags and you have brakes so if one fails the other one works. It's the same type of thing that we use here with trying to protect ourself against infection. We don't just rely on one layer to keep us safe.

So masks are good, but masks and distance are better, masks distance and ventilation are better again. If we can take it outdoors, even better.

So what we try to do is layer as many defenses as we possibly can on top of each other so that we reduce the risk as much as we can. We all know when we're eating one of those barriers goes and that barrier is masks. So what we have to make sure is during the eating times when we are talking and eating, we do have distance and good ventilation, which means we really need to be outdoors if we're going to be doing this, you know, on Christmas day and going forward into the New Year.

BERMAN: As we look forward to the New Year, I will say one of the things I've learned about myself over the last ten months is my capacity and willingness to drink alone. As we look --

CAMEROTA: Another silver lining.

BERMAN: Exactly. Glass half full, literally, often.

Professor, as we look forward too new year's and, again, I hope people are paying attention to the scientists, what I want from you is to explain to people why it is such a colossally, epically bad idea to go to a big New Year's party on New Year's Eve.

BROMAGE: Well, we're just seeing, you know, these amplification events and that's what's happened at the end of this year in the U.S. We had, you know, Thanksgiving, we had Labor Day, we had Halloween and

each one of these events brought lots of people together and just gave the virus more fuel to move through the population.

[06:35:07]

So every time we congregate in large groups, it increases the probability that one infected person will come around people that are susceptible, give them a fresh set of lungs to infect and then it starts amplifying through the community.

And because we've gone one gathering after the other for literally the last 8 to 12 weeks, we are just seeing daily cases just amplify and amplify and amplify. So Christmas today is going to do a similar thing if we haven't sort of heeded the advice of keeping the gatherings small or keeping it into your nuclear family, and then when we get to New Year's Eve, we're going to have the same problem as well.

And amplify on top of that New Year's Eve typically for adults usually involves a little bit of alcohol, just a little bit, which means that you drop your sort of social inhibitions and where you may have been amazing at keeping your distance away from people up until now, you have a few drinks and you just forget the safety protocols, you get too close, you give somebody a hug and there we go, we've just moved it from one person to the next.

CAMEROTA: Try that, John, just a little bit of alcohol.

BERMAN: He's saying bad choices.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BERMAN: What he's thinking is people make bad choices on New Year's Eve.

CAMEROTA: I heard that.

About a week ago, Professor, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he thought that we would be wearing masks for the better part of 2021, even with the vaccinations because we don't know yet if you can still be a carrier once you're vaccinated.

And, you know, there are some countries, I'm thinking of some Asian countries in particular, where people wear masks, I mean, regularly, even before coronavirus existed. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about that, that this might be into, you know, a vision of our future.

BROMAGE: Yeah, I'm so done with masks. I've gone through 100 different brands and I really want to be done with them, but unfortunately the vaccine is not a light switch. It's not just going to go from no mask -- from masks to no masks in a short period of time.

It's going to transition. It's going to be dependent on the rollout of the vaccine, how many arms it gets in, the longer term efficacy and really the uptake of the community. I generally think that we're still doing COVID-related protocols for safety, you know, into June and then I'm hoping after that period of time things start to slow down, not in regards to daily cases, I think they really will have slowed down.

But I think when we start getting into those high transmission situations indoors in close spaces, poor ventilation, I think we will still find that masks are part of, you know, particularly office work, maybe retail spaces, those type of things if we don't get those under control.

BERMAN: Professor, thank you so much. Have a wonderful holiday. So nice to see you and thanks for everything you've done with us all year-round.

BROMAGE: Thank you, John. Thank you, Alisyn. Have a wonderful Christmas day.

CAMEROTA: You, too.

BERMAN: All right. Fifty million Americans don't have enough food to eat and food lines are getting longer across the country. So how are the food banks meeting this need? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:41:55]

CAMEROTA: The holidays are a tough time for the millions of Americans who are struggling to put food on the table. An estimated 50 million Americans including 17 million children are food insecure. Heartbreaking numbers that are being, of course, compounded by the pandemic.

So joining us now on how food banks are dealing with all of this as well as how you can help is Trinity Tran. She's the executive director and board member of Urban Partners Los Angeles.

Trinity, thank you so much. Merry Christmas. Thank you for being with us this morning, we really appreciate it.

So just tell us how -- how have you ramped up the need for this Christmas?

TRINITY TRAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, URBAN PARTNERS LOS ANGELES: Well, we realized that the holidays this year will be paired down for many families from the financial hardship caused by the pandemic, but the holidays are also a special time for families and that's why we're here to provide relief where we can and distribute as much food as we can to those in need, but whether it's a holiday or another Saturday, the conditions remain the same, that in the richest country in the world 50 million are living in emergency mode fighting daily for survival.

We have seen a reduction in federally funded food programs, a program where the USDA buys food from farmers and distributors, the supply chain has been disrupted by the pandemic so we have had to seek additional resources, farm food rescue programs that reallocate food to nonprofits and food banks like ours because beyond just redistributing food and providing supplemental food, we really do make a concerted effort to source enough groceries so that a family of four can eat for an entire week.

BERMAN: What have you seen in terms of need this holiday season, in terms of how many people, what types of people are coming to your food banks and how much they require?

TRAN: There is always an uptick around the holiday season, especially now with the economic strain, but we're seeing historic numbers in our food bank lines and that's why we're doing as much as we can to provide this relief.

We have a toy donation where we handed out hundreds of stuffed animals and wrapped toys to families in line because for some children this may be the only toy they receive. It really comes down to the incredible work of donors and community members who came together to alleviate the burden of families living in poverty and it's communities of color who are always the hardest hit, they account for the overwhelming majority in our lines because people of color are always disproportionately impacted by crises.

CAMEROTA: Trinity, we have been so struck by seeing the miles and miles and miles of cars stretching through parking lots, down blocks, down highways of how many people are coming to your food bank and just around the country. I know you see it all the time, but for those of us who haven't seen it for years, is this the worst you've ever seen?

TRAN: Absolutely. These are unprecedented numbers that we're seeing in our line every Saturday morning, it's now a common sight to see lines forming with a long row of people wrapped multiple city blocks in Korea town and Los Angeles.

[06:45:07]

By the time, I arrive at 6:00 a.m. the line is already snaking around the corners. We have families and seniors who are queuing in line, some for over seven hours to receive boxes of groceries. And the majority of people in our line are actually not homeless, but low income people of color who they are fearful about being able to pay rent and the threat of eviction.

Our food bank is in one of the five highest density districts in the United States, we are the longest walk up non-drive through food bank line in Los Angeles, our recipients arrive by foot, they arrive by public transit. We really do serve the most disadvantaged of populations.

BERMAN: So, Trinity, I know you are grateful for all the financial generosity that people give to the food bank throughout the year and holiday season and grateful for all the donations and food you get throughout the year and especially the holiday season.

Always want more and people should be as generous as they possibly can be, but I know one of the biggest challenges this year hasn't been necessarily all with the money or the food donations, it's been with the physical help, people coming to volunteer. It's hard to do things in-person.

So what are you doing around the holidays to deal with that?

TRAN: It's left to volunteers now to feed millions across this country struggling with food insecurity, but true this pandemic what we're really witnessing is the strength and resilience of the human spirit and that's seen in grassroots action in communities nationwide, volunteers who are day in and day out helping to directly address the needs of the underserved, especially when government programs with insufficient. These are committed volunteers in our neighborhoods, in our streets, who are out here doing everything they can to take care of the people and make sure no one is left behind. So, it's been an incredibly beautiful and touching.

BERMAN: People are getting vaccinated right now, this pandemic will end, but I also think it's important for you all to send a message that your services aren't going to end. The need for food banks isn't going to end. You know, where do you think you will be a year from now?

TRAN: Well, it's -- it's difficult because food banks provide temporary relief to millions of people across this nation who need food. They are a lifeline service, and with our food bank, they are a lifeline service to thousands of seniors and families who are impacted as a result of the COVID economic crisis and they join those who are already suffering with food insecurity prior to the pandemic.

Food banks are a vital part of people's lives, especially during these challenging times but at the end of the day food banks are a temporary fix and they should not be normalized. So we have to work at evolving our society into something that is more social conscious social and economic system that eliminates the need for food banks, because tackling food insecurity really requires us to problem solve for poverty to be able to protect vulnerable populations from being left behind because what we're seeing is the current means of relief are not enough and we need long-term solutions.

So that's something that I hope that advocates and -- across the nation will continue to work on are policy solutions, problem solving for poverty.

CAMEROTA: Trinity Tran, thank you for all you do. Thank you for helping get the word out about all of this. We really appreciate you. Merry Christmas.

TRAN: Thank you, Alisyn. Thank you, John. Merry Christmas.

CAMEROTA: For more information on how you can get or give help to those going hungry during the pandemic, please go to CNN.com/impact. You can make a difference.

BERMAN: So things are so different this year, even for Santa Claus.

CNN's Brynn Gingras explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look right here, guys. One, two, three.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What would you like Santa to bring you?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): One thing about Santa, he always keeps his promises.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No matter how bad COVID gets, Santa is going to be there. OK?

GINGRAS: Especially in a pandemic. At malls and stores across America, visits to Santa do look a little different this year. Appointments for pictures instead of long lines. Disinfecting elves between every customer and Santa, in some cases, weekly COVID tests.

And he's socially distant, whether six feet apart by a stack of presents, virtual or behind Plexiglas.

GINGRAS: How important was that for you to make it happen?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very important. It was a big part of our psyche, really. We look forward to this as much as the children.

GINGRAS: The changes do take some getting used to.

GINGRAS: For Santa, too.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: High five in the air.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Give high fives in the air.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're used to the hugs. We're used to the high fives.

[06:50:00]

We're used to "come on over" and "let's get the shot together."

At least we're able to be here.

GINGRAS: Even COVID can't take away the joy of getting --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Awesome, guys.

GINGRAS: -- that perfect picture.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We didn't want the tradition to just die down so we were like let's keep it going masks and all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wanted to have that memory because I have every single year at Christmas time. And it meant that much.

GINGRAS: In Queens, New York, there's a special kind of magic happening.

GINGRAS: Where are we? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is Santa's socially distant workshop.

GINGRAS: Santa typically delivers donated toys to boys and girls in hospitals and orphanages. Since that's not possible --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Emma (ph). Merry Christmas to you.

GINGRAS: -- he's allowing kids an up-close and safe peek while he makes their toys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is actually going to be for you.

I miss the ability to see the look in their eyes and, believe me, that brightness, that joy is just overwhelming, especially to me.

In this particular case, we're trying to just keep hope alive. It's important that the kids know that Christmas is not cancelled.

GINGRAS: So this Christmas, whether you want --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A makeup set.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A Barbie Dreamhouse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Immunization or just for it to go away.

GINGRAS: -- Santa promises nothing, not even coronavirus, will keep him from bringing Christmas to the believers.

Brynn Gingras, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Well, look, Dr. Fauci made clear that Santa has immunity, but Santa is smart enough to know he should get the vaccine, wear a mask and remain socially distant when possible as well.

CAMEROTA: None of that is suppressing Santa's joy from what I can see from Brynn's piece there.

BERMAN: No.

CAMEROTA: OK, if ever there was a year when America needed heroes, 2020 was it. Anderson Cooper looks back at some of the most dramatic emotional stories of this surreal year, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:55:42]

BERMAN: Well, 2020 may go down in history as a year some people would like to forget.

CAMEROTA: Some.

BERMAN: Some. Earlier this month, CNN Heroes revealed the most inspiring moment our

viewers chose this year. Protester Patrick Hutchinson carrying a white counter-protester to safety at a Black Lives Matter protest in London.

CAMEROTA: And Meghan, duchess of Sussex, also made a surprise appearance to honor every day heroes who stepped up to ensure the basic needs of communities were met during the coronavirus pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGHAN MARKLE, THE DUCHESS OF SUSSEX: They made sure that those around them did not have to suffer in isolation. They nourished their neighbors in more ways than one. And they showed us, all of us, that even in the darkest times when we come together, we have the power to remind someone else that there is hope and that we will be okay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: She's the best. She's the best.

Happy Christmas is what the Brits say, but I'm going to say merry Christmas to Meghan Markle --

CAMEROTA: Just to Meghan.

BERMAN: -- because she's American. Merry Christmas, Meghan.

CAMEROTA: OK.

Anderson Cooper looks back at the front line heroes who have carried us these past long months.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "AC360" (voice-over): Before, we never noticed a shift change, we didn't see the nurses, the doctors and hospital workers head home, we didn't notice the first responders leaving their stations after a long day, but now we do.

It's 7:00 p.m. in New York, at 8:00 in Los Angeles and France and Italy and all around the world, the deafening applause and humble salutes, we stop to say "thank you", from sidewalks, windows and balconies, masked and alone in homes, people joined together to give thanks to those incredible heroes who spent their days tending to the sick, helping families say good-bye and holding back their own pain to keep saving countless lives.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's so nice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To everybody, thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You can watch this year's "CNN HEROES: AN ALL STAR TRIBUTE" on demand on CNN Go and on HBO Max. CAMEROTA: OK. And speaking of heroes, we will hear from two in our

next hour, critical care nurses from the front lines share their stories on this Christmas when NEW DAY continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)