Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

U.S. Evacuated 300+ American Citizens from Cruise Ship; Patients Quarantined in U.S. Receiving 'Supportive Care'; Bloomberg Face-Off with Rivals; Humanitarian Horror in Syria; Trump Commutes Blagojevich Sentence, Pardons Kerik and Milken; Takes Credit for Economy. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired February 19, 2020 - 00:00   ET

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

[00:00:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.

Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM: containment fail. How a 17-day quarantine of the Diamond Princess left hundreds infected and thousands more exposed to the coronavirus, as passengers are finally allowed to disembark.

A mass exodus and a desperate search for safety in Syria. Civilians flee the horrors of war, now amassing along the closed Turkish border with nowhere to go.

And Trump says he is the chief law enforcement officer. He is not. But that does not matter to a president who says he has the right to do whatever he wants, including pardons for friends.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

VAUSE: The global death toll from the coronavirus outbreak has now passed 2,000, with more than 75,000 confirmed cases. The vast majority are in China's Hubei province, where the virus was first detected. Since mid-December, health workers have treated tens of thousands of patients and say 14,000 have recovered.

The new coronavirus has a mortality rate of more than 2 percent. In other words, two out of every 100 patients will die, that's about three times higher than the everyday flu but lower than SARS and much lower than MERS, which means that medical experts are not ready to call this a pandemic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Global pandemic means you have a disease that is widely spread through multiple regions of the globe, in which there is sustained transmission. And by sustained transmission, you mean one person to another, to another, to another, in a cascading way. The determination is that, although there are human to human

transmission outside of China, in multiple countries throughout the world, it is not pervasive, it's not the major form. So it really is at the brink. I think some people would call it a global pandemic but by strict definition, it is not there. But we may be heading in that direction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Meantime, in Yokohama, Japan, passengers who were quarantined on a cruise ship for more than two weeks have now started to disembark. And CNN's Will Ripley is live for us this hour in Yokohama with more on this story.

So let's review everything. February 3rd, the Diamond Princess arrives in Yokohama with one confirmed case; 17 (ph) days in port, a blanket ban on anyone leaving the ship, confirmed cases as of today, 545. As far as quarantines go, it's not a huge success, is it?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think a growing number of infectious disease experts would agree that this was a failed quarantine. An isolation, perhaps, an incubator, maybe a petri dish.

When you have healthy people next to sick people in a confined space and have staff members moving from cabin to cabin, you can see why a growing list of countries, starting with the United States but also now Canada, South Korea, Italy, Australia trying to get their citizens off of the ship.

And now you have this from a Japanese professor who I have spoken with, who basically said, that, look, he went to the ship and was terrified by what he saw. He has covered outbreaks all over the world for 20 years -- cholera, Ebola, MERS, SARS -- and has not seen anything as scary as what he witnessed. Here is why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KENTARO IWATA, PROFESSOR OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES, KOBE UNIVERSITY: Inside Princess Diamond, I was so scared. I was so scared of getting quarantined because there was no way to tell where the virus is.

No green zone, no red zone, everybody there could have virus and everybody was not careful about it. There was no single professional infection control person inside the ship. And there was nobody in charge of the infection prevention as a professional.

[00:05:00]

IWATA: The bureaucrats are in charge of everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIPLEY: Bureaucrats running the show. And the professor says that is a problem, John, because you have people who are unwilling to admit that they have made a serious mistake by allowing people to walk off the ship and into the general population with no monitoring or quarantine plan.

They have letters saying they have completed a quarantine and are free to disperse. Back to work, back to school, on the subway, on the buses. And that is a big problem because he says the ship felt like it was a breeding ground for infection.

And he told me, theoretically, passengers could even catch the virus as they walk off, today, right now as we speak. You have the Centers for Disease Control basically acknowledging that people on the ship face a higher risk of infection.

And you talk about how we're getting on the verge of a global pandemic. There are some who might argue that Japan is unknowingly or unaware or maybe just ignorantly doing its part to speed the progression of this to that.

VAUSE: Also, what plays into this?

Let's face it, cruise ships are petri dishes for any kind of virus, we've seen time and time again, norovirus, the horrendous cruises. But also adding into this now, a lot of the people that can spread this disease, who have the virus, have no symptoms, which raises the question of how are they screened when they arrive in countries like Japan or wherever.

And a lot of people are getting through, tested by the old means and no one knows where they are right now.

RIPLEY: That is what has a lot of people frightened, this concept you can take someone's temperature and they might not even have a fever and can still be carrying the virus.

By the way, the Japanese government is well aware of what the professor has been trying to sound the alarm about, he got our attention because he posted it on YouTube. He says when you talk to people on the ship about, this yesterday, instead of his concerns being acknowledged or saying, OK, let's look into it, he was kicked off of the ship.

And the Japanese health ministry, when we reached out to them for comment, they said that is the professor's opinion, we have no comment, case closed.

We'll have to see if it's really case closed as these thousands of people now disperse out to the general public and what happens in terms of the numbers of infections in the weeks ahead, just months before Tokyo 2020.

VAUSE: We will see what happens with all of this in the coming days and weeks, we appreciate the update, Will Ripley live for us in Japan.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

VAUSE: Nevada is shaping up to be a turning point for the Democratic presidential candidate. Saturday's caucuses will bring a diverse electorate for a first time. Bernie Sanders is the clear front-runner. His rivals are now targeting him on electability and his Medicare for all plan.

A new NPR Marist poll puts Sanders ahead with 31 percent of the vote. Without entering a single contest, Michael Bloomberg surging to 19 percent. Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren still have double digit support, with Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg rounding out the top six.

Michael Bloomberg has spent more than $400 million on advertising for his candidacy but will face his rivals for the first time on a debate stage in Las Vegas. A preview for the challengers Bloomberg will face at a CNN town hall.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think Michael Bloomberg is trying to buy the Democratic nomination for president?

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes. Yes.

What else do you call it?

What else do you call it when you dip into your endless reserves of millions and billions and don't go through the process of campaigning in states like Nevada or Iowa or New Hampshire, to try to just go around that by throwing colossal sums of money on television?

That shows you what's wrong with our system. And I also believe it's not the best way to pick our nominee or the next president.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think you should be able to buy your way to the presidency. And my issues is, a number of us, including the three of us that you saw tonight, have been going in town halls like this.

We've been answering questions and going to states like Nevada and actually meeting the voters and having them quiz us and ask all kinds of things and put our policies out there.

And I think that is what a presidential candidate should do.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I do think it is a bit obscene that we have somebody who, by the way, chose not to contest in Iowa, in Nevada or in South Carolina.

[00:10:00]

SANDERS: In New Hampshire, where all of the candidates, we did town meetings, we're talking to thousands and thousands of people. He said I don't have to do that, I'm worth $60 billion, I have more wealth than the bottom 125 million Americans. I'll buy the presidency. That offends me very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: CNN's U.S. politics correspondent MJ Lee has more now on what we can expect in Nevada. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANDERS: And the Democratic establishment is getting nervous.

MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight, Bernie Sanders feels the momentum.

On the eve of the Nevada debate, a new national poll showing the Vermont senator rising to 31 percent with the double digit lead ahead of his Democratic rivals.

SANDERS: And they are trying to figure out all kinds of ways how do we stop Bernie and the movement. But they are not going to succeed.

LEE: And there is another White House candidate gaining traction, billionaire Michael Bloomberg. The former New York City Mayor placing second in the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll at 19 percent, qualifying for his first 2020 debate.

Elizabeth Warren already taking aiming at Bloomberg's debate inclusion writing on Twitter, it's a shame Mike Bloomberg can buy his way into the debate. But at least now primary voters curious about how each candidate will take on Donald Trump can get a live demonstration of how we each take on an egomaniac billionaire.

Sources telling CNN Bloomberg's top advisers are playing his rivals in mock debate sessions, including Sanders, Warren and Pete Buttigieg. Bloomberg advisers expecting to be targeted a numerous policy positions, his record as mayor and allegations of sexist and misogynistic remarks.

JASON SCHECHTER, BLOOMBERG CAMPAIGN COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR: He's going to talk about his work record, Brianna. He's going to talk about what he has done to fight for gender equality for 30 years. Mike has never tolerated discrimination or harassment at his company.

LEE: As tensions rise between the two men, Bloomberg's campaign releasing a digital video slamming the aggressive online tactics used by some Sanders' supporters.

SANDERS: It is vitally important for those of us who hold different views to be able to engage in a civil discourse.

LEE: And Sanders hitting Bloomberg's record as mayor.

SANDERS: We say to Mr. Bloomberg, you are certainly not going to win when you have a record in New York City that included racist policies like stop and frisk.

LEE: Meanwhile, the 2020 democratic candidates are delivering their closing pitches to Nevada voters.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you for being in this fight. I want to beat Donald Trump and I need your help to do it.

LEE: As the State's Democratic Party hopes to avoid the chaos that plagued the Iowa caucuses.

MOLLY FORGEY, NEVADA DEMOCRATIC PARTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: We are feeling confident, you know, we have our heads down working around the clock on the last three weeks and we feel very good, very confident.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Thanks to MJ Lee for that report and we'll have more on the Democratic debate later this hour.

The worst humanitarian crisis Syria has seen in nine years of war is unfolding. Syrian government forces have intensified a military offensive to retake Idlib, the last province under rebel control.

Schools, hospitals even refugee camps are being targeted, forcing almost 1 million to flee to the border with Turkey. The U.N. says it is cruel beyond belief that so many are under fire without shelter in freezing winter conditions.

Turkey has announced reinforcements will be sent to Idlib to join hundreds of troops already there to try and counter the Syrian offensive. Joining us now is Mark Cutts, the U.N. deputy humanitarian coordinator for Syria. He's at a refugee camp not far from the Syrian border.

Thank you for being with us. And hard as it is to believe, they are the lucky ones because the roads to the borders are jammed, the border is closed, those who do not make it out are left to fend for themselves, exposed to the elements.

And there are reports that children who have been killed from the crossfire are now dying from the elements, from exposure.

What else do you know?

MARK CUTTS, U.N. DEPUTY REGIONAL HUMANITARIAN COORDINATOR FOR SYRIA: It's a truly desperate situation and more than half of the people that have been forced to flee their homes in the last few months have been children.

This is a terrorized population and they are traumatized. They've seen -- many of these children were born during the war, they've seen nothing but war. And this has lifelong consequences for the whole society.

It has been ripped apart by war and the bombs keep falling. Our big concern is that many of these people have fled to areas, where they are living in tents.

[00:15:00]

CUTTS: And yet the shelling has been moving closer and closer to this area. They were not well protected in cities, which were hit by airstrikes and shelling. They are certainly not protected if they are living in tents and the fighting moves into that area. So it's a desperate situation at the moment. VAUSE: Bashar al-Assad talked about this military offensive on TV,

one last push which he described as the beginning of the end. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASHAR AL-ASSAD, PRESIDENT OF SYRIA (through translator): We are fully aware that this liberation does not mean the end of war, nor the collapse of schemes nor the demise of terrorism. Nor does it mean that the enemy has surrounded. But it certainly means rubbing their noses in the dirt as a prelude for a complete defeat, sooner or later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: While he's rubbing the opposition fighters' noses in the dirt, has there been any indication that the Syrian and Russian forces have anything which comes close to rules of engagement, which prohibits the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure?

CUTTS: We do have huge concerns about the way in which this war has been conducted. We have constantly called on all the parties to adhere to their responsibilities, under international humanitarian law, to ensure that they apply the principles of precaution and distinction and proportionality.

And, unfortunately, that is not what we have been seeing. We've been seeing attacks on densely populated civilian areas, no one is safe in this area. This is not a case of civilians that have fled from the front lines, where two opposing forces are fighting.

This is an attack on the civilian population itself. They're being bombed day and night. And wherever they go, the bombs seem to follow them.

VAUSE: Turkey has closed its border with Syria. There are already 3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. The situation between Lebanon and Jordan is almost as bad.

So ultimately, where they go?

Where do these moms and dads go, are they just waiting to die?

CUTTS: This is why the situation is so desperate today, there's nowhere left for these people to go. The border with Turkey is closed at the moment and Turkey already hosts more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees.

Turkey hosts the largest refugee population in the world so they don't want to see more refugees coming across the border. Meanwhile, if they cannot come into Turkey, the international community must ensure that these people are and protected within the borders of their own country.

VAUSE: As government forces have retaken towns and cities and provinces and the rebels and those opposed to the regime have refused to give in and have been bused out, they've ended up in Idlib. So it's not exactly a surprise that this day of reckoning has finally arrived.

CUTTS: This is the situation now. The whole of northwest Syria has become a large displacement camp. These are people that fled from other cities where there were big battles during this long war, places like Aleppo and Homs and Raqqah, which was the capital of the ISIS- controlled area at that time.

They fled to the Idlib area thinking they would be safe there but now they are coming under attack again. No one is safe there, we have to ensure that this fighting stops immediately. Our secretary-general has been calling for an immediate cease-fire and there's no other option at the moment to protect these civilians.

VAUSE: It is a tragic, desperate situation and hopefully things can change for the better soon but it doesn't look likely. But thank you for being with us. We appreciate your time.

Well, it's a pardon-palooza by the U.S. president, who declares himself the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. More on that in a moment.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:20:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

VAUSE: In the United States, there are greater calls for the attorney general to resign over what is a total lack of independence from the president. CNN's Jim Acosta reports that Trump continues to publicly support Bill Barr but then declared himself the chief law enforcement officer, a position held by the attorney general.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Beating his chest over the U.S. justice system, President Trump is standing by embattled attorney general Bill Barr who is coming under mounting criticism for his involvement in the cases against convicted dirty trickster Roger Stone and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But I think he's doing an excellent job. He's a strong guy. I never spoke to him about the Roger Stone situation.

I think Roger Stone has been treated unfairly. I think General Flynn has been treated very unfairly.

ACOSTA: The president insisted he wasn't involved in the Stone case before going on to declare himself the top law enforcement officer in the country even though that's the job of the attorney general.

TRUMP: The attorney general is a man of incredible integrity. Just so you understand, I chose not to be involved. I'm allowed to be totally involved. I'm actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country.

ACOSTA: Mr. President Trump is flexing his presidential powers announcing he's commuting a prison sentence for disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich as well as offering pardons for former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik, junk bond trader Michael Milken and former football team owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr.

TRUMP: Rod, you're fired.

ACOSTA: Blagojevich, who once appeared on the Trump reality show "Celebrity Apprentice," was convicted of trying to sell the Senate seat of Barack Obama after he became president, a crime the FBI caught on tape.

ROD BLAGOJEVICH, FORMER ILLINOIS GOVERNOR: You know what I mean? I mean, I've got this thing and it's a (INAUDIBLE) thing, golden.

ACOSTA: The president even took a jab at former FBI director James Comey claiming he had some sway over the Blagojevich conviction. But that's not true because Comey became FBI director years after the Blagojevich case.

TRUMP: He was on for a short while in the "Apprentice" years ago. He seemed like a very nice person. I don't know him. But he had served eight years in jail. It was a prosecution by the same people, Comey, Fitzpatrick, the same group.

ACOSTA: As for pardons for Stone and Flynn, the president said he's nowhere near a decision.

TRUMP: There is a process that people are going through. These are unrelated situations where people have done a great job with very, very strong recommendations. But we haven't thought about that yet.

ACOSTA: While he's looking for leniency for his friends, the president is hinting he's ready to punish more of his enemies like the mysterious writer of a scathing op-ed in "The New York Times" known as Anonymous.

TRUMP: Together is -- it's not so much to you search.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who do you think it is?

TRUMP: I know who it is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who is it?

TRUMP: I can't tell you that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why not? Why not? Why not?

TRUMP: But I know who it is. ACOSTA: President and his team are also straining to take all of the credit for the U.S. economy as Mr. Trump's trade adviser claimed the Obama record was "horrible."

[00:25:00]

ACOSTA (voice-over): Even though more jobs were created on average during the last three years of the Obama administration than the first three years of Mr. Trump's presidency.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN HOST: I'm asking it.

PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER: There is a horrible economy during the Obama years.

HARLOW: OK.

NAVARRO: We had the new normal. We were sending our jobs offshore and Barack Obama himself said that you need a magic wand to bring half a million manufacturing jobs back. And guess what, President Trump was the magic wand, because that's what he did.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Thanks to Jim Acosta for that report, from the White House.

We should note, there is bipartisan pushback on President Trump's decision to commute Rod Blagojevich's sentence but Trump said he relied on recommendations from good friends like Rudy Giuliani and Rupert Murdoch, the guy who used to own FOX News.

Tuesday's pardon-palooza could be just a hint of what is ahead. The president's longest-ever political adviser and friend, Roger Stone, is due to be sentenced Thursday for lying to Congress, obstruction and witness tampering.

His lawyers requested a postponement until the court ruled on his request for a new trial. That request was denied.

Going on a cruise on the Diamond Princess turned into the holiday from hell. But the voyage is not over yet, even though some passengers are now back in the United States.

Also ahead, doctors keeping patients in quarantine as comfortable as they can. We spoke with a doctor from the U.S. medical facility they are calling home for the next two weeks.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

VAUSE: Outside of mainland China, the highest number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus was on the Diamond Princess. The moment the luxury cruise ship arrived at Yokohama in Japan, it was placed under quarantine.

And what followed for almost 4,000 passengers and crew was two weeks of uncertainty, confusion and fear as a growing number tested positive for the virus.

Two of those passengers now safely off the ship are Gay and Bill Courter. They were evacuated Monday on a flight organized by the U.S. government. And for two weeks while they were under quarantine, they kept a very detailed record of their ordeal. Both are now at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas where they will spend another two weeks.

But for now, Gay Courter is able to join us via Skype for more on what truly sounds like an absolute holiday from hell.

Gay, can you describe that sense of relief, that moment your flight touched down on U.S. soil?

What was it like?

GAY COURTER, DIAMOND PRINCESS PASSENGER: Well, it was very eerie when the plane landed. It was -- first of all, it was a big cargo plane, like no flight you've ever been on. There were Porta-Potties bolted into the floor. Seats bolted down. There's a whole triage area behind the curtains where some people who had just been discovered to be positive were put.

[00:30:15]

If you were hungry, you went back and rummaged through boxes and coolers, not the most sanitary way either. There were no airplane rules like tray tables up or down.

I can't even -- It was -- We were tended to by men in white hazmat suits, and sometimes another group would come around. Honestly, you're not going to believe this. They were wearing green "Ghostbuster" suits with the hoses and the thing in the back. It was so otherworldly.

And we walked towards a terminal, a giant aircraft hangar and this little lighted door. And just as we start to go in, there's all these servicemen applauding us, and we walked into the bright lights like this. They were applauding us, and that's the moment I burst into tears.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Yes. That was the relief moment.

I want to go back, though, to your time on board the Diamond Princess, because serious concerns started pretty much within days of the quarantine starting, and it was about the virus spreading through the ship's ventilation system.

February 6, you issued a press release which said the situation on board was "unlikely to be safe in this quarantine, because the air recirculation cannot contain the droplets of this virus." And just to paraphrase the rest here, with everyone confined to their cabins, you were all essentially sitting ducks to get this virus. That must have been a fairly dark moment for you, in fact for everyone on board.

COURTER: Well, I think very early and very quickly, we got in touch with our children and doctors and friends. And we found out we were about two degrees of separation from anyone we wanted to get information from. And our team worked tirelessly.

When we got information, right from the top of the -- powers that be in the United States, that there was certainly question whether this was a safe quarantine. They said never, never quarantines healthy people with sick people, which is what it had done.

And they suggested several methods of populating this disease, one of which was the air vents. But very quickly, that went on -- went to the news, directly from us. And it happened over the public address system, which was the only, only way we got information, was saying that it's absolutely not true. We're pumping fresh air all the time. Don't worry about air circulation. And it may not be air circulation, it may have been plumbing. There's a lot of factors and ways it could have gotten to us, but we did not feel safe.

And we -- nobody would listen to us, so we went to the media and said we are not safe. We're sitting ducks here. And guess what? We were.

VAUSE: Yes.

COURTER: The virus just went -- the rate of contagion on the ship, just went like this.

VAUSE: Absolutely.

COURTER: Yes. Because let's just go forward two days, with the rate of infection on board the Diamond Princess, you know, increasing at the same rate as mainland China.

You sent out these images, and it was essentially all these ambulances lining up on the dock, with a press statement, which read, "Six new ambulances arrived, and two infected patients were evacuated." And here is -- This was the announcement which came over the ship from

the captain. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPTAIN GENNARO ARMA, DIAMOND PRINCESS: We are able to confirm that those two guests safely disembarked the vessel, and are, as I speak, in the hospital receiving all necessary medical care.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Not to be glib here, but it sounds like an Agatha Christie novel. Every day, new victims were being found, and those who were left on board would just sit there and wait and wonder if they might be next.

COURTER: Well, yes, and then, you know, we had a day with no announcement of more sick people. And so I was feeling, wow, you know, things are going steady now. We're going to be OK. And then the next day -- and I don't remember which number it was, but

it was something like 60 or 80, 101, whatever cases it was. And then the last three days I was there, even though we could Google it and find out how many cases there were, they stopped telling us.

VAUSE: It seems that quarantining the ship made a bad situation a whole lot worse, but now you are there on the Air Force base in San Antonio in Texas, and it doesn't seem to be quite the controls that you would expect that would be in place for when a group of people in your situation would arrive.

COURTER: Well, we were told, in writing, I believe, that only people who had tested negative -- we had been swabbed, but the tests hadn't come back yet. But -- that's the first swab they do. But you had to have temperature checks along the way, and apparently the first sign is a temperature. And so we were negative all along.

[00:35:23]

We get on the plane. We're assuming everybody on the plane is negative. And then I was standing in a line for -- the toilet was a porta-potty. I was standing in the line when one of these white suited guys came up to a woman and said, Are you Misses so and so?

She said yes.

He said, OK, you have to go sit there. And it was inside -- I think you would call it a Visqueen tent that was gaffer taped to the floor on all the sides.

And she said, Why? Why do I have to go in there?

And he said, Your test came back positive. You're not showing symptoms, but you're positive.

And she started shaking and -- It was two feet from me.

VAUSE: Obviously, you have a few issues to worry about over the next couple of days, about whether or not, you know, your health will maintain, you know -- you will maintain to be healthy and not catch this virus, I should say.

But we are out of time, OK, so I'll wrap it up there. But thank you so much for speaking with us. We wish you all the very best for you and your husband. Hopefully, it will be 14 days, and you'll be out of there, and this will all just be a memory.

COURTER: Well, you know I'm a writer. So my son says, Oh, Mom, two weeks locked in a room with a good story. You'll get something out of that.

VAUSE: Judging by what you've already posted, I'm sure you will. Looking forward to it.

COURTER: Thank you so much.

VAUSE: You're welcome.

First, it was the Ebola outbreak in 2014. Now it's the novel coronavirus. And the Nebraska Medical Center once again dealing with patients who have been exposed to a deadly new virus.

This hospital has the only federal quarantine unit in the country, state-of-the-art technology, and 13 of the 20 beds are now taken from passengers from the Diamond Princess.

CNN's Nick Watt has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not able to leave this room at all.

NICK WATT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): For 13 Americans evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, this is home for at least the next two weeks. There's a TV, WiFi, expert care, but --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No clothes, no toothbrush, no brush, no nothing.

WATT: She's in the quarantine unit right now, but Jeri Seratti Goldman's husband, Carl, has tested positive for novel coronavirus and is in the bio-containment unit.

We spoke to him on the phone; sounds upbeat. He's being treated by nurses and a doctor, all wearing hazmat suits.

DR. MARK RUPP, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST, NEBRASKA MEDICINE: We feel like we are a resource and doing something for the national good, so these are U.S. citizens. They need to come home. We want to make sure that's done safely.

WATT: Three Ebola patients were treated here in 2014. The unit is designed and staffed for victims of a bio terror attack or hazardous, communicable diseases like this one.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Although in the United States right now, the risk is minimal. This day it's minimal, but if it turns into a global pandemic, we could have a significant problem.

Meanwhile, scientists still scrambling to assess just how this coronavirus spreads. Earlier this month, researchers found other coronaviruses can survive outside the body on glass, metal or plastic for up to nine days if the surface hasn't been disinfected.

China's central bank is now even deep cleaning or destroying potentially infected cash.

Chinese authorities have also now calculated this coronavirus's death rate, at 2.3 percent among those infected and that may fall. Right now it's higher than influenza, which hovers around 0.1 percent but a lot lower than previous viral outbreaks. SARS had a 9.6 percent death rate and MERS, a staggering 35 percent. This morning, just outside San Diego, some very good news for about

160 Americans evacuated from the outbreak's epicenter of Wuhan, earlier this month.

JULIA ZHU, EVACUATED FROM WUHAN: That quarantine, it was -- I feel good. It was great. They're doing a very good job, so we appreciate it.

WATT: Their two-week quarantine finally over.

(on camera): Meanwhile, nearly half of China's 1.3 billion people remain under some kind of travel restriction or quarantine as the death toll, globally, of coronavirus tops 2,000.

One notable death on Tuesday, the director of a hospital in Wuhan, the most senior healthcare worker to die in this epidemic so far.

[00:40:02]

Nick Watt, CNN, Omaha, Nebraska.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Turns out there's another jet pack out there, another chance to imagine life as "The Jetsons." And hey, let's face it. We're suckers for these pictures. More in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: There's a new member of the jet pack club. They've been doing this stuff since the 1984 L.A. Olympics. This time, though, the jet- powered wing suit making its debut in the skies over Dubai.

The pilot reached an attitude of 1,800 meters, about 6,000 feet. The flight lasted three minutes. Average speed, 240 kilometers an hour, about 150 miles an hour.

The company that built the jet pack says this is the first time they've launched from the ground for a high-altitude flight, as apparently, that's a big, important deal.

There you go.

Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. WORLD SPORT is next. I'll be back at the top of the hour.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:45:14]

(WORLD SPORT)

[00:57:29]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)