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Trump Doesn't Sign COVID Relief Bill; Georgia's GOP Candidates in Tough Spot over Stimulus; U.S. Enacts Targeted Restrictions to Avoid Closures; Some Nations Start Vaccinations before E.U. Rollout; Investigators Say Nashville Blast Likely a Suicide Bombing; California Medical Professionals Working to Exhaustion; One in 1,000 Americans Have Died from COVID-19. Aired 3-4a ET

Aired December 27, 2020 - 03:00   ET

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


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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Donald Trump is refusing to sign the coronavirus stimulus package and millions of Americans are about to feel the pain.

New information about the explosion in Nashville leads to perplexing questions about the bomber's motive.

Plus the, pandemic's deadliest month. Vaccines are distributed even though, COVID-19 has killed more Americans in December more than any other month.

Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. Welcome to all of you watching here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.

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BRUNHUBER: The economic toll of the coronavirus has been staggering. Now millions of Americans have just lost unemployment benefits and may soon lose eviction protection. President Trump refuses to sign the $900 billion coronavirus relief bill. The deadline passed 3 hours ago.

That means government funding runs out Monday. Without more action from Congress, a government shutdown will happen midnight Monday night. That moratorium on evictions expires at the end of the month.

Despite the White House giving its blessing to the deal, that passed Congress days ago, President Trump says it doesn't give Americans enough money. He tweeted a few days ago, saying that Congress should raise the $600 in direct payments to $2,000 and blaming China. Jeremy Diamond is traveling with the president and has the latest from Florida.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump on Saturday, only digging his heels in further on the objections to the coronavirus relief bill. The president insisting once again, on Saturday, he wants to see those stimulus checks to Americans tripled from $600 to $2,000.

Tweeting, "I simply want to get our great people $2,000 rather than the measly $600 that is now in the bill. Also, stop the billions of dollars in pork."

President Trump is saying here, all he wants is to increase these stimulus checks but if that was really the goal, the president might have spoken up before the legislation was passed.

Remember, the president only called the bill a disgrace and suggested he may not sign it or, perhaps, veto it, after Congress passed this legislation by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, a veto proof majority at that.

President Trump in the four days since he made that threat, hasn't been on the phone with congressional leadership. He's hasn't been meeting with advisors to find a way to salvage this relief.

Instead, we see the president at his Mar-a-lago resort, palling around with his friends, going out golfing as he did on Thursday and Friday. The president is doing this at a time when not only are key deadlines are coming up for hi to sign this legislation but also when millions of Americans are in need of that financial relief.

More than 20 million Americans currently unemployed and 12 million Americans losing their benefits this weekend if the president doesn't immediately sign this legislation.

The unemployment benefits, supplemental, provided by the federal government during this coronavirus pandemic. There are other key dates, also looming on Tuesday. The government will shut down amid a global pandemic, if the president doesn't sign this legislation into law.

Then, at the end of the, month in the year, on December 31st, the eviction moratoriums also expires. So critically needed relief here for Americans, who are struggling right now.

And the president could just sign this piece of legislation and that relief would quickly get dispersed. There is also concerns of vaccine distribution, with lots of vaccine distribution funding in this legislation as well.

That was one of the messages we heard from President-Elect Joe Biden on Saturday, warning that if the president doesn't sign this legislation, not only would he be hurting small businesses and American families but also, potentially, these very complex plans to distribute a coronavirus vaccine -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, traveling with the president, West Palm Beach, Florida.

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BRUNHUBER: Let's take a closer look at this warning from President- Elect Joe Biden. He didn't mince words, urging President Trump to sign the relief bill. Jessica Dean has the Details

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JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President-Elect Joe Biden has spent his holiday weekend in Wilmington, Delaware, attending mass on Saturday afternoon.

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DEAN (voice-over): He also put out a statement on Saturday, imploring President Trump to sign the COVID relief bill, calling it an abdication of responsibility that could have dire consequences for millions of Americans.

Part of his statement read, quote, "It is the day after Christmas and millions of families don't know if they will be able to make ends meet because of President Donald Trump's refusal to sign an economic relief bill, approved by Congress, with an overwhelming and bipartisan majority."

Biden has called this COVID-19 relief bill a down payment and plans on going back to Congress and asking for an even bigger package when he assumes office on January 20th. He wants more unemployment benefits, direct payments to individuals, also payments to state and local governments, giving them some aid.

Again, calling this a down payment and asking the president to sign it as soon as possible. On Sunday, we are told President-Elect Biden will be meeting with his transition advisers -- Jessica Dean, CNN, Wilmington, Delaware.

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BRUNHUBER: Natasha Lindstaedt is a professor of government at the University of Essex. She joins us now from Colchester, England, to talk about all these issues.

Thank you so much for being here. So the easy way, of course, is for the president to just sign this.

The hard way, let's say, is there a chance the president can move enough Republicans to increase the check to $2,000?

Democrats are on board.

NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: That's what the House Democrats had tried to do, which the Republicans in the House have rejected, to get the package up to $2,000 per person.

But the Republicans have rejected this, so this is why this is somewhat confusing. I don't understand what Trump's endgame is here, because he's definitely hurting the Republicans, because even his own spokesperson has said that they're going to be providing this, relief. The secretary of treasury Stephen Mnuchin said this as well, this type of aid would be coming later in the week. Now he's thrown everything into disarray for the Republicans.

But it's not just the Republicans who are affected. It's very much something that hurts all Americans. And as you indicated, there are millions of Americans who were affected by this decision to not support this aid package.

So there is a possibility that the House will vote on this again. And they can get it up to $2,000 as Trump was hoping. But the other indication is that it was not just $2,000 that was needed but also that some of the aid was going to foreign aid and to "pork" as the report indicated. And these are some of the things that he had disagreed with.

BRUNHUBER: All of those things were things that his aides had negotiated with congressional Republicans and Democrats. So the fact that President Trump is only making these demands now, after the bill was passed and Congress left town, what does that suggest about where the president's attention was during the time his aides were working with Congress to craft this?

LINDSTAEDT: That's a great question I think this demonstrates that he is still focused on the fact that he has lost the election and he is trying to just get into some sort of scorched Earth policy. It's really difficult to understand his mindset.

But he is trying to destroy any kind of potential aid package by just not doing anything, you are right. The Republicans and the Democrats had finally come to agreement on something. All he needed to do was just sign it. This was a win-win situation.

But he is distracted. Maybe he is focused on other things, on trying to project this narrative that everything in Congress is corrupt and that the elections were corrupt. Maybe he doesn't want to take any part of it.

I think it's actually very detrimental to his own party, as I mentioned before. This will not help Republicans. And with the really important Senate race coming up in Georgia in January, I don't see how this is going to help those senators that are trying to beat a very close race the two Democratic challengers.

BRUNHUBER: Let's delve into that then. We have both of the Republican senators here, Perdue and Loeffler voted for the bill. Perdue had ads running yesterday that he delivered these billions of dollars in COVID relief, which, of course, hasn't happened yet.

Yesterday, Loeffler said she would be open to the idea of bigger checks but other things would have to be cut.

So now where does that leave them?

Will there be a cost to them in these races do you think?

LINDSTAEDT: That's the big question. Whether or not voters in Georgia will punish Loeffler and Perdue because of Trump.

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LINDSTAEDT: Because they are Republicans or whether or not they're just going to vote with their party or with the candidate they feel is best able to serve in the Senate. It's really difficult to tell.

Now in the big election in 2020, we saw that Republicans actually did better than Trump, even though Trump did win 74 million votes. The question that Republicans have to ask themselves is how much of a help Trump is to their party.

We're seeing rumblings of, should Republicans, who disagree with Trump, those who were part of The Lincoln Project, should there be a break away from Trumpism?

Which I find to be incredibly dangerous, because Trump is so unpredictable and self-centered. You just don't know what is going to do from one moment to the next.

So on paper, you have these aides saying we're going to agree this, we're going to support this thing, he does a 180 and he changes his mind. This is really damaging to Republicans.

As I already mentioned, in this Georgia Senate race, because they had come out and supported it, now they're really put into a corner as to what they're supposed to do.

Are they supposed to support Trump, is that going to alienate the pro

Trump people in Georgia, or are they supposed to disagree with this?

So it makes it very difficult for the senators in the Georgia race.

BRUNHUBER: Very small tightrope to walk there. Natasha Lindstaedt, thank you so much for being on with us. Appreciate it.

LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.

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BRUNHUBER: A major development in Nashville, Tennessee. Investigators say now the explosion Christmas morning that devastated parts of downtown was likely a suicide bombing. That's the word from two law enforcement sources.

The FBI says there's no indication of any other suspects or threats of more explosives. It injured three people and damaged dozens of buildings.

So if it was a suicide bombing, who did it and why?

We're still waiting to hear if there are answers. Saturday, the case took law enforcement to a home in suburban Nashville. An RV like the one who exploded was photographed there last year. Shimon Prokupecz has the latest on the investigation. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE PRODUCER: Authorities here in Nashville, continuing to try to figure out the motive behind the Christmas morning attack. One belief from authorities is that this was a suicide bombing.

But they don't know what led up to the events. They are exploring every theory at this moment, every motive, as they work back and identify the person and also trying to find out the motive.

What caused this person to come here and cause such a massive explosion?

For the last 48 hours, authorities have been going through every piece of evidence, collecting debris from a lot of the destruction. Authorities say some 40 buildings were damaged here. As we know, three people were injured.

But for now, for people here in Nashville, the one thing authorities say is that they should feel safe. Police are not looking for anyone in connection with this bombing and, at this point, they are just trying to get the streets reopened and, hopefully, continue to work this investigation to try and learn a motive -- Shimon Prokupecz, CNN, Nashville, Tennessee.

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BRUNHUBER: All right, ahead this hour, we will take a look at the home federal agents spent Saturday morning searching. Plus I will talk with a former FBI special agent about what investigators might be looking for.

And, when it comes to COVID-19, the U.S. is breaking record after record. Why December is America's deadliest month so far. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Health experts in the U.S. are bracing for yet another surge in cases, just like we saw after other holidays. That is the last thing the country needs right now. COVID-19, claiming the lives of one out of every 1,000 Americans, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

With four days left, December has already been the deadliest month for the U.S. since the pandemic began. More than 63,000 people have died this month, bringing the total number of lives lost to nearly 332,000.

But the vaccines are, gradually, getting into the arms of Americans. Officials are saying 2 million doses are being administered across the country. U.S. officials are especially worried about the staggering increase of hospitalizations, so they've targeted restrictions like travel from the U.K., as a way to stem the spread, while avoiding closing down the economy. CNN's Evan McMorris-Santoro explains from New York.

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EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The pandemic numbers in New York are continuing to creep in the wrong direction this weekend. In a tweet, Governor Andrew Cuomo reported higher numbers of hospitalizations and a positivity rate over 5.3 percent.

It wasn't that long ago, that number was regularly below 3 percent. So the numbers are very worrying. And despite the fact that the vaccine is starting to roll out, officials are concerned that the second surge could get worse.

About a week ago, Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York asked major airlines to voluntarily impose a testing requirement on all travelers to New York from the United Kingdom. The goal was to try and stop the spread of that U.K. variant we've heard so much about. That is supposed to be very contagious.

On Friday, the federal government backed up Cuomo's request, requiring that all travelers into the United States, from the United Kingdom, get a negative test within 72 hours of their flight, in the United Kingdom.

Governor Cuomo, welcomed the news. We've seen a real effort here in New York and across the country to not impose the kind of blanket restrictions we saw in the spring, during the first surge of this disease.

But the numbers are still quite concerning. So officials are trying to do targeted new restrictions, like this travel restriction, this testing requirement, coming from the United Kingdom. And the goal of keeping the disease in check while also trying to keep things open -- Evan McMorris-Santoro, CNN, New York.

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BRUNHUBER: Several countries in the E.U. officially launching their coronavirus vaccination programs right now. Health workers were the first to get vaccinated in Italy just moments ago. France, Spain and, others also starting this Sunday, countries with a head start.

A member of Slovakia's pandemic commission, becoming the first person there to get the Pfizer BioNTech shot on Saturday. We have CNN's Cyril Vanier, joining us from Paris along with Barbie Nadeau in Rome and Atika Shubert in Valencia, Spain.

Cyril, first to you. Take us through the rollout there and, just in time, I imagine, as officials there in France are not yet ruling out another lockdown.

CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's a very good observation. The rollout will be extremely gradual. The mask deployment will only start next month. But since all European countries, or a majority of them are starting today, France wants to be, obviously, in that group.

So 90 minutes from now, they are delivering the very first jabs to about a dozen patients in a geriatric ward of a hospital outside of Paris. That is 10:30 am local time. As I said, it's quite gradual. Two establishments today, 2 dozen next week. They are expecting to bring 100 establishments, mostly care homes, online next week.

By the end of February they are hoping to have vaccinated 1 million of the most vulnerable people in France. That is to say, the oldest and those who are most at risk of dying if they get the coronavirus. Then, that is phase I.

Phase II, another 14 million people, so people who are retirement age, 65 and above. That should carry us through late spring, which means the vaccine will not be made available to all adults, including people like myself, until this summer.

So that is the schedule. That is the timeline we have right now. It is going to depend, Kim, on more vaccines coming online. This Pfizer vaccine, with all of its logistical challenges that it involves in the cold chain, that one is hard to roll out. So the French government hoping that more vaccines will become available soon.

BRUNHUBER: Thank you so much Cyril Vanier, in Paris, I appreciate that.

Now to Atika Shubert for an update on Spain.

The vaccination, set to begin, there just as you have discovered the U.K. variant in Spain as well.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, it is a matter of concern. So far only four cases have been detected in Spain. All in the Madrid area. None very severe.

But it's a matter of concern, according to Madrid health authorities. Fortunately it does seem to be confined at the moment.

In the meantime, the vaccine is rolling out, Guadalajara, in central Spain, will be where the first injections are conducted to take place. And then, they will roll out across the 17 autonomous communities here.

The plan is to try and really focus on those most vulnerable members of the community, specifically the elderly and residence homes but also medical front line workers, health and sanitation frontline workers as well.

Now the first phase of the vaccination program will mean that what we are looking at is, in the next 12 weeks, Spain is hoping to get 350,000 doses of the vaccine every week, ramping up to about 4.5 million doses in about 12 weeks.

The aim is about is to vaccinate about 2 million people in that time. It's a huge logistical effort, the biggest and quickest rollout of vaccines the country has ever seen. Kim?

BRUNHUBER: Thank you very much, journalist Atika Shubert in Valencia.

Let's go to Barbie Nadeau in Rome. I imagine particularly poignant there after the suffering that Italy went through in the spring?

BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely right. It really feels like we've come full circle with the vaccine. Five people were vaccinated this morning, two, nurses, a doctor and a medical researcher. Those people will be part of the team that vaccinate other. People.

Italy only has 9,750 doses as of today. But there are expected tonight to get about 450,000 doses this week and then just continue to scale that up. So it's a really big effort here, obviously, to try and vaccinate so many people across the country.

So many of the doses will be going to the Lombardy region in the north that really suffered. All this comes against a backdrop of Italy now having the highest number of deaths in Europe, more than 71,000. Over half of those deaths happened in the second wave, not the first one.

BRUNHUBER: All right, thanks so much, Barbie Nadeau live in Rome.

Federal agents are beginning to piece together the details of that Christmas morning explosion in downtown Nashville. We watched as they searched a suburban home for clues.

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BRUNHUBER: We will have the latest on the investigation, just ahead. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to you watching in United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber, you are watching CNN NEWSROOM.

The blast that tore through historic Nashville Christmas morning, likely the work of a suicide bomber. That is what investigators are now saying. A tip about the camper truck that blew up leading federal agents to search a home in a Nashville suburb. Natasha Chen, with the latest.

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NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Federal investigators have been at this property for most of Saturday and left in the early evening after hours of work. The FBI tell us that this was court authorized activity.

First, we saw a bomb technician team come and clear the property, making sure it was safety enter. Then, we saw an evidence team come in and spend hours going in and out of the house. This fence line behind, me surrounding a yard and we did see them go into the yard at a side door.

What we understand they were meticulously going through documenting and photographing, things inside of the house and we did see them take out bags of evidence. Neighbors were very perplexed to see this all going on.

They did tell me that they have seen an RV parked at this property. When we showed them images from Google Street View of this property in years past, where an RV was parked there, they did recognize that one. One neighbor said they saw it here over the summer.

Another neighbor saying, it has been parked here as recently as the last few weeks.

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CHEN (voice-over): The marking of that RV, similar to the one that was involved in the explosion downtown. A law enforcement source tells us, however, they can't be entirely sure because, of course, the one in the explosion was destroyed in the blast -- Natasha Chen, CNN, Antioch, Tennessee.

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BRUNHUBER: Steve Moore, a retired FBI supervisory agent, also a CNN law enforcement contributor.

Steve, thank you for joining me. We know a bit more now than when we spoke yesterday.

What do you make of the new developments?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: It's just as bizarre as everything else we've heard. Right now, it looks like the FBI is fairly certain that the remains found in the van were the perpetrator. There is no one outstanding.

So now, motive becomes a real hard one. He is, apparently, at least as far as we know, leaving no manifesto, no list of grievances, no reason for this bomb. In that, way it kind of brings up the shooting in Las Vegas years ago.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. I covered that one extensively and it is still quite a mystery.

Take us through then, how they are trying to solve that?

I think we are seeing pictures of them searching his home and so on. What exactly are they looking for and how can they crack that?

MOORE: They are going to be talking to anyone who knows, him anyone who has interacted with him in the past or as far back as they can go. They will also look at his electronics profile, his computers, his phones, anything that would show what he was looking, at what he was interested in and what he was doing with his money.

Was he buying things?

How did he get these explosives?

How did he get wire?

How did he set up this device?

What is going to be interesting for the FBI to find out is, when he began all of this planning, when the decision was made. And, as we saw in the shooting in Vegas, it was probably a year before that he started stockpiling weapons.

In this case, we see indications that, months ago, possibly, he had a plan to end his life and go forward with this. But they will want to start planning down to the day or a week and try to find out whether there was a trigger or a motivation for him to go that direction.

BRUNHUBER: Something like a job loss or a personal pivot in his life.

What about the location, then, in front of the AT&T transmission building?

What does that suggest to you?

MOORE: That is something that we are going to have to, again, dig into. As we talked yesterday, when someone is crazy enough to blow themselves up with a bomb of that size in a populated area of a city, then they are going to be just as unpredictable and crazy about the reasons for doing it, for doing it there, in fact.

You may find something as trivial as a cell phone disruption or a dispute over a cell phone may have caused a problem. I am hypothesizing here, obviously. Maybe one of the restaurants nearby, he was thrown out or has a problem with someone there.

You are going to have to all but write a biography on this guy if you are the case agent to try and find out what possibly motivated the location of the bomb and why he actually did it.

Unfortunately, as we learned in Las Vegas, sometimes, you just never have a concrete reason.

BRUNHUBER: Maybe helping, people are bringing in tips and so on. The authorities likened it to solving a giant jigsaw puzzle.

What are the challenges that authorities have when they need to sift through those hundreds of leads? MOORE: Leads and people calling in with tips are a blessing and a curse because they are tremendous, tremendously valuable. The problem is, out of every hundred you get, maybe two or three are going to be those gold nuggets that you are looking for.

So part of the manpower issue is sifting through 98 to find the two that are important. So that creates a huge backlog.

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MOORE: And I can remember, after 9/11, the days right afterwards, we were measuring our number of leads and tips in feet, by stacked paper. Sometimes, it just gets that ridiculous.

BRUNHUBER: That is why authorities are pleading for patience here. Steve Moore, thank you so much for joining, us we appreciate it.

MOORE: Thank you for having me.

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BRUNHUBER: Coronavirus, continuing its relentless spread across the world. After the break, we get answers from an infectious disease specialist. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: California has become the first state in the U.S. to record 2 million coronavirus cases. The director of the Los Angeles Health Department says, on average, one person in the county dies every 10 minutes from COVID-19.

Doctors and nurses in the state, working themselves to exhaustion. Paul Vercammen has more, from Los Angeles.

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PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The war against COVID-19 in California, being waged on two fronts. One in the hospital, with almost 19,000 people hospitalized, 4,000 of those patients, in intensive care units.

That means staffing ramped up, doctors and nurses being called in on their days off, working longer shifts and, literally, expanding the intensive care units, as well as the emergency rooms to accommodate the flood of COVID-19 patients.

Look behind, me testing, extremely important. They tell me here, you can talk all you want about vaccines but you have to keep testing. A daughters dating it had days (ph) where they have tested 11,000 people. Unsung heroes of the pandemic, the people conducting the testing, on

their feet, for lengthy hours, speaking to people in cars who may not have talked to someone for months, crawling those children sometimes, who break out in tears.

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VERCAMMEN: And, of course, comforting each other.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not just about that one person, but it's families that are struggling and mourning and the pain it brings. We definitely have known people who have passed from this pandemic and it's heartbreaking.

We had a coworker who just lost her grandmother last week. A day to mourn and then, right back to work. We have a big task in front of us and we know we just got to keep on going strong right now.

VERCAMMEN: Daniel Lu (ph) and many of his coworkers, also fan out and go to other parts of Los Angeles County, underserved parts, where people may not be getting tested regularly like they should. Sometimes, it's as simple as they don't have transportation to get to a testing site -- reporting from Dodger Stadium, I'm Paul Vercammen, now back to you.

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BRUNHUBER: Israel, beginning its third national lockdown on Sunday as, infections surge there. The new lockdown will allow most schools to remain open and people can move about freely but only within a kilometer of their home.

Restaurants, also remaining open for delivery. Let's go to Elliott Gotkine in Tel Aviv.

Elliott, last we spoke, you were in a hospital with the vaccine starting to roll out there but obviously it will take months to get those case numbers down, so, here we are, in another lockdown.

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The government thinks that it will take, perhaps, 3 or 4 weeks of lockdown to get cases down. Just 2 weeks to begin with but can be extended to that length of time.

The backdrop is that cases in Israel have been surging as of late. Before the weekend, there was about 4,000 per day in a 24-hour period. They are keen to get those numbers back down again.

I know you mentioned some restrictions. I should note, it's not as onerous a lockdown as the previous two. In previous ones schools have been closed. In the first, one it was much tighter restrictions.

But you aren't allowed to go beyond one kilometer away from your home, with a number of exceptions, like exercising on your own. Schools, except for grades 5 to 10, will remain open. Those grades, 5 to 10, reverting to home schooling. Nonessential businesses closing as well. One reason why we saw stores

like IKEA, over the weekend, were quite full.

On the vaccination front, it has been a week since we started vaccinating here. They have now vaccinated, the health ministry, says, almost 300,000 people.

BRUNHUBER: That's a huge number. And with elections coming in March, prime minister Netanyahu put out a statement, suggesting that the entire country could be vaccinated in time to cast ballots.

Is that actually realistic?

Or is that a political gambit?

GOTKINE: I'm sure there is an element of politicization there. But certainly, that's prime minister Netanyahu's ambition. He put out a statement over the weekend or his office did, talking about how his target was 150,000 vaccinations every day.

He said he spoke to the heads of pharmacies and to companies to ask them, can you meet that target and he said they think they can. He said it would make Israel the world record holder, as, Israel would be the first to emerge from coronavirus. He said at that rate of 150,000 per day, within 30 days, half of the population could be vaccinated.

He said that most important was getting all of those in at-risk groups vaccinated, because they account for 95 percent of the fatalities in Israel. So that certainly, is his ambition.

Netanyahu coming for a lot of criticism for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. He is clearly hoping, if he can meet that ambitious target and if everyone is more or less vaccinated in time for March elections, that could do his political fortunes a world of good. Perhaps, everyone will be vaccinated in time to cast their ballots, perhaps.

But certainly right now, Netanyahu is talking about this. It's kind of like a victory lap and this lockdown Israel is set to go into at 5 pm local time is just a tiny little bit of inconvenience. Part of that victory lap toward the prize of vaccinating the entire country, ahead of every other country in the world. Kim?

BRUNHUBER: Certainly an admirable goal. Elliott Gotkine in Tel Aviv, thank you for joining us.

For more perspective on the COVID crisis, let's bring in Dr. Peter Drobac, a global health and infectious disease expert at the University of Oxford.

Thank you so much for joining us. I want to start with that terrifying statistic here in the U.S. One in 1,000 Americans have died of COVID- 19, yet, as we speak, large families are traveling and gathering, with few restrictions. Few people are gathering together to party over the holidays. I can just imagine what New Year's Eve will be like. Are you surprised at the tolerance for risk given that more and more of us are statistically likely to know someone who died from this disease?

DR. PETER DROBAC, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Thank you for having me, Kim. I am surprised.

[03:45:00]

DROBAC: We can all get numb to the numbers. But as you say, at this stage, so many of us have a friend or a loved one who has been victimized by this virus. And it's really hard to fathom how, particularly with California right now, with ICUs literally out of capacity, with doctors and nurses near collapse and with the death count continuing to rise, that some are still minimizing the severity of this.

BRUNHUBER: The good news, the flip side, polls found that nearly 75 percent of Americans are now wearing masks when they leave their homes and the percentage of people who say that they will get the vaccine is rising. One poll had it up to 73 percent. I think.

Does that give you cause for optimism?

DROBAC: It's great news. Certainly something we hoped for, that many people who may have been on the fence with these vaccines that have been developed in record time, once we were able to see the scientific scrutiny and then actually see people out getting vaccines, getting jabs in their arms, that it really started to build more confidence.

The fact we've gone from maybe 50 percent of Americans to somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 percent, at least by some polls, saying they're willing to get vaccinated, is, a great sign, of course. Still plenty more work to do and a lot of vaccine misinformation out there that we need to continue to fight.

BRUNHUBER: Now a new threat, that new variant, spreading quickly in the U.K. where you are. The first cases have been found in Canada. Some can only assume it's in the U.S. as well. It seems to spread faster and the fact that it spreads particularly quickly among children.

Some experts in the U.K., already suggesting, in order to control it, we may have to close schools in the new year.

Do you think that is likely or advisable?

DROBAC: I do, actually. I think it will be a strong consideration and it's probably likely. One of the curious things about this particular virus, children have been relatively spared, maybe half as likely to get infected when exposed or to pass it to others.

These are younger children. With this new variant, early evidence suggests this is just epidemiological monitoring, that children are about as likely as adults to get infected. If that is the case, then we really have to consider the increased risk of transmission in schools.

Certainly, here in the U.K., where keeping schools open is such a high priority, that would be a significant change. But numbers are going up in terrifying ways right now. I don't think the current restrictions will be enough.

BRUNHUBER: The good news, though, vaccinations are proceeding apace of the U.S., in the U.K. where you, are in the E.U., some countries, just now starting vaccinations.

When will we concretely start to see cases go down because of the vaccinations?

DROBAC: It depends on how quickly we get a critical mass of people vaccinated. We've seen plenty of estimates of somewhere around 70 percent of a population getting vaccinated before we can see herd immunity effect. That is assuming the vaccine prevents the transmission of the virus, which has not yet been conclusively determined.

I think, realistically, it is still going to be several months before we see a meaningful dent at a population level from vaccines. So we do need to use all the other tools in our arsenal as well as continuing to increase testing and hopefully, support for tracing and isolation. These public health one-on-one tools, still the best measures we have to save lives.

BRUNHUBER: Unfortunately, working against that human nature, being what it is, we've seen a case of COVID-19 vaccine being fraudulently obtained and diverted to members of the public, in the words of the authorities, basically, stolen and sold. We are starting to see fake vaccines starting to pop up, being sold online and elsewhere.

What worries you the most here?

DROBAC: Obviously, all of that is a concern. And the most important thing is that these vaccines, particularly when they are scarce, are seen as public goods, for public health. Their distribution is controlled through government. As long as that is the case, people are able to trust that the vaccine they are getting is certified, is going to be effective.

Obviously, it's in such high demand, we've seen the wealthy trying to get doses and offering up to $25,000. The pressure will always be there. But if we can keep it regulated keep it as a public, good for public health, I think we're on a good trajectory.

BRUNHUBER: Absolutely. Listen, thank you for being with us, Dr. Peter Drobac with the University of Oxford, always appreciate it.

DROBAC: Thank you, Kim.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: It is now officially winter in the Northern Hemisphere and on cue, parts of Western New York are seeing record snowfalls. We will have the latest on the lake effect snow warnings when we come back. Stay with us.

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[03:50:00]

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BRUNHUBER: Crowds turned out in Moscow, despite coronavirus restrictions, to take in a little cheer. Thousands of lights adorning landmarks like Red Square, the Kremlin and the Bolshoi Theater.

The city has been decorated to mark New Year's Day, which Russians celebrate as their main winter holiday.

Millions of Americans, in the Northeast are experiencing lake effect snow. Buffalo, New York, seeing nearly 2 feet of snow in one day. The cold is reaching down South. Millions more, under freezing mornings, extending all the way into central Florida.

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[03:55:00]

BRUNHUBER: That wraps up this hour of CNN NEWSROOM I'm Kim Brunhuber, I will be back in a moment with more news. Stay with us.