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Texas Hospitals Struggling to Handle Surge in Cases; Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine Faces Key Test in South Africa; Chefs and Restaurant Owners Join Protests in Israel. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired July 22, 2020 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:31:55]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: For the first time in two weeks the daily death toll in the U.S. has topped 1,000. This pushes the country's total COVID-19 deaths passed 142,000 with nearly four million cases confirmed.

The U.S. president is finally acknowledging the grim reality of this crisis after months of downplaying the threat. In his first coronavirus briefing since April he said the pandemic is not expected to improve any time soon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Some areas of our country are doing very well, others are doing less well. It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better. Something I don't like saying about things but that's the way it is. It's the way -- it's what we have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: During the briefing President Trump didn't wear a mask but he did encourage others to do so. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And we're asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance wear a mask. Get a mask. Whether you like the mask or not they have an impact. They'll have an effect and we need everything we can get. We're instead asking Americans to use masks, socially distance and employ vigorous hygiene, wash your hands every chance you get while sheltering high-risk populations. We are imploring young Americans to avoid packed bars and other crowded indoor gatherings, be safe, and be smart.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: And Texas recorded more than 9,000 cases on Tuesday alone with 131 deaths. And you can see from this graphic how the number has been rising since the end of June. But what graphics and number don't always show is the raw human emotion felt by doctors, patients and families. Ed Lavandera shares some of their stories.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the daily routine for Dr. Federico Vallejo. A critical care pulmonologist, when he gets dressed it looks like he's getting ready to be launched into another world. That's exactly what it's like to work in the COVID-19 unit of a south Texas hospital.

DR. FEDERICO VALLEJO, CRITICAL CARE PULMONOLOGIST: It's overwhelming. It's a tsunami what we're seeing right now.

LAVANDERA: Coronavirus patients have filled the hospital where Dr. Vallejo works. On most days, Dr. Vallejo says he's treating about 70 different patients. Four to five times more than he usually sees in a single day.

VALLEJO: I have never had to sign these many death certificates that I have been signing the last couple of weeks. Talking to these families has been very, very difficult.

LAVANDERA (on camera): Can you describe the suffering that you've seen among these patients?

VALLEJO: This is a disease that affects the lungs. And they would have trouble with their breathing. And when it happens it's heartbreaking. It is so difficult to watch them. Many saying goodbyes to their relatives by picking up the phone and saying, I'm having more problem, I'm having more trouble, I don't know what's going to happen next. I see nurses crying all the time. I see the doctors breaking down all the time. But then, again, that is what we do.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): South Texas is the COVID-19 hotspot inside the Texas hotspot.

[04:35:05]

Health officials are warning that hospital bed and ICU space are running out. Nursing and doctor teams are stretched to the limit.

(On camera): Do you feel when you walk into these COVID units that it's like a parallel universe?

DR. IVAN MELENDEZ, HIDALGO COUNTY HEALTH AUTHORITY: It's definitely a parallel universe. If they only knew what lurked behind those walls. If they could only have x-ray vision and see the feign and suffering.

LAVANDERA: Dr. Ivan Melendez is the Hidalgo health authority based in McAllen, Texas. He says the COVID units are filled with the sound of patients gasping for air. Many needing ventilators and gut-wrenching conversations.

MELENDEZ: So you have people telling you, you know, doc, please, don't put me on that. Don't put me on that. And you struggle because, you know, that's what they need. And then finally they just give up and they say go ahead, but you know, you may be the last person that I ever talk to. So please tell my family, tell my parents, tell my kids that I love them and that I fought hard.

LAVANDERA: Jessica Ortiz says her twin brother, Jubal Ortiz, fought the virus for almost two weeks. The 27-year-old worked as a security guard at a jewelry store.

JESSICA ORTIZ, BROTHER DIED FROM COVID-19: It hurts. For someone

LAVANDERA: Jubal died on July 3rd. At the funeral friends and family paid their respects through a plastic shield over the casket. There was a fear his body still might be contagious.

ORTIZ: He meant the world. I just wish it wasn't him. I wish I had (INAUDIBLE).

LAVANDERA: Jessica is left with this last image of her brother, a screen recording of one of their last conversations. Jubal Ortiz waving good-bye.

(On camera): You saw that shield over that casket of Jubal Ortiz. We should point out that medical experts have told CNN there is no evidence that people are still contagious after they passed away but it really speaks to the fear and uncertainty that so many people have. And one of the other themes that stuck out as we interviewed the people for this story is that they're all dealing with a sense of frustration and anger as they're living the nightmare of this pandemic.

They say what bothers them most is looking around and seeing so many people living their lives as if everything were normal and they're urging people to take this far more seriously.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Dallas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Pharmaceutical firms around the world are racing to get a coronavirus vaccine to market. According to the World Health Organization, 23 trials are currently taking place. Speaking to CNN earlier Dr. Anthony Fauci said people shouldn't wait once a vaccine gets FDA approval even if others are in the works.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I would not wait to see if one was better than another because the very fact that it gets approved by the FDA means that it's good enough to protect you. The relative percentage of how good it's going to be, you may get one vaccine that's a bit better than the other, but I would say that some protection by a vaccine is certainly better than no protection.

So I like the idea about there being multiple candidates in the queue, and I hope that we do get approval of more than one candidate because we need a lot of vaccine not only for people in the United States but for the rest of the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: But another issue is whether Americans would even get a vaccine if it were made available. A former U.S. surgeon general says half of Americans say they wouldn't. Dr. Vivek Murthy says there is a lack of trust on the issue of vaccines.

Well, there's a lot of hope riding right now on the coronavirus vaccine being developed at Oxford University and its fate could be determined in South Africa.

CNN's David McKenzie joins me now from Johannesburg with more on that.

So, David, explain to us what role South Africa will play in Oxford University's COVID-19 vane?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rosemary, it could play a very critical role. In fact a critical role. Just this week the researchers announced that they believe that the virus -- the vaccine for the virus is safe and that can it be rolled out into larger trials. Such a trial is going on just a few miles from where I'm sitting here in South Africa but it's happening right in the middle of a surge and that brings big opportunity but also huge challenges.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT HANCOCK, BRITISH HEALTH SECRETARY: The Oxford vaccine produces a strong immunity response in patients.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): It was the announcement he was hoping for.

(On camera): This isn't it, right?

SHABIR MADHI, VACCINE TRIAL HEAD: This is far from it.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): But the head of South Africa's arm of the Oxford study is far from comforted.

MADHI: That's what keeps me awake at night. That we did a study first in African continent but we bring it in the midst of a pandemic.

[04:40:08]

MCKENZIE: Madhi's team is testing the same experimental vaccine in the middle of a COVID-19 storm. They're even finding enough negative volunteers to make up their 2,000-participant study is a challenge.

MADHI: It might (INAUDIBLE) that we fail not because the vaccine doesn't work in protecting people but simply because a force of exposure is so tremendous. So this is really going to test the mettle of this vaccine.

MCKENZIE: South Africa's number of confirmed cases now ranks among the highest in the world. What happens here over the next few weeks, the WHO warns, is that a troubling marker of what the rest of the continent could face.

MADHI: We could experience multiple waves of an outbreak for the next two to three years. So to think that's going to probably break the back of this pandemic at the end of the day not just in South Africa but globally is a vaccine.

MCKENZIE: In just the last few weeks, Nurse Neliswa Zozi has seen colleagues fall ill. Family, too.

NELISWA ZOZI, VACCINE TRIAL NURSE: So by doing this for me it means a lot because we are not only trying for the community, trying for our lives also, for our families also.

MCKENZIE: Her hours here at the trial site are long, same for the team inside the lab, working seven days a week, 16 hours a day. But no one is doubting this sense of purpose as cases surge. All the potential payoff when the South African results are expected to be released in November.

MADHI: If the vaccine works and this circumstances in South Africa then the vaccine would work anyway.

MCKENZIE (on camera): It's high-risk, high reward?

MADHI: Exactly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCKENZIE: Well, Rosemary, it's sometimes easy to forget how extraordinary the times we are living in. You know, just a few hundred, up to 2,000 volunteers from in and around Johannesburg are really critical to the whole of humanity in the case of this vaccine. There are trials going across the world for a whole number of vaccine options.

You know, Professor Madhi did say to us that many vaccines don't end up succeeding and that people need to brace themselves for bad news but they do believe if they can make this work here, as you said, it could work anywhere, but they're only going to see a rollout of this vaccine according to these scientists maybe second, third quarter of next year, even later. And so all the efforts of scientists all over the world are critical in getting enough successful vaccine options out into the world population -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: Absolutely. We hope for good news of course.

David McKenzie joining us live from Johannesburg. Many thanks.

Well, the Australian state of Victoria hit a record number of new virus cases. This despite the city of Melbourne being in week two of a six-week lockdown. Nearly 500 cases were reported Tuesday but only 97 of them are linked to known outbreaks. Premier Daniel Andrews attributed the new cases to shift workers going to work when they're sick. So he announced a $1500 hardship payment for them. The premier says workers should be able to wait at home for test results. Public mask use in Melbourne becomes mandatory on Thursday. Well, coronavirus restrictions in Israel can change by the hour and

people there have had enough. More on the measures that even some government leaders find frustrating. That's when we come back. Stay with us.

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[04:46:47]

CHURCH: Well, coronavirus and corruption claims against the prime minister are drawing Israelis into the streets. Israel is experiencing a recent surge in the virus and there's a lot of confusion and anger about the country's restrictions.

CNN's Oren Liebermann has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This was forbidden at 5:00 Tuesday morning but allowed by noon. It was forbidden Friday at sunrise but OK by sunset.

ITAMAR NAVON, CHEF AND OWNER, MONA: If it wasn't so frustrating and sad it would have been funny.

LIEBERMANN: Israel's coronavirus restrictions have become a mixed plate of rules that sometimes change by the hour. Itamar Navon says he was determined to open his restaurant Mona even if it meant open defiance of the latest government restrictions. He wants a long-term solution, not patchwork rules and regulations.

NAVON: We're businessmen. We know how to work our business, we know how to calculate our models, but we need some answers. We can't have it that the government plays with us all day. And it really feels like they're playing with us and they're playing with each other instead of taking this crisis seriously.

LIEBERMANN: The government instructed restaurants to close Tuesday morning, a decision that was reverse a few hours later in the Knesset with some lawmakers saying data showed restaurants were not a major source of infection.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tried to show he's in charge of leading the country through the coronavirus crisis. But in the midst of a rising new confirmed cases public trust in Israel's longest- serving leader has plummeted.

(On camera): It's been a revolving door of protests outside the prime minister's residence here in Jerusalem. There's the Black Lives protests against corruption, the economic protest against the government's handling of the coronavirus crisis. We've seen pro- annexation protests, anti-annexation protests, and now there's a restaurant owners' protests to express their frustration with the government's handling of all of this.

(Voice-over): Restaurant owners prepped meals from their surplus stock, food they say would have otherwise been thrown away because of the changing rules around restaurants.

BARAK AHARONI, CHEF, ALENA: The idea behind it is that because the government and the state doesn't take care of the people, then instead of us just throwing food away we can just serve it to people who cannot afford it for themselves in this situation that we're having right now in the country.

LIEBERMANN: The confusion has spread beyond the kitchen. The Special Knesset Committee to deal with coronavirus started with a simple goal.

"Let's give rules that the public is able to understand," said the committee head. But it ended up producing more confusion about what's open and with what restrictions because of major disagreements between the Knesset committee and the government. Much of the country, and beaches, gyms, pools and more, all stuck in this limbo of limitations.

Oren Liebermann, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And this is CNN NEWSROOM. Still to come, she helped pull the U.S. through World War II and she's stepping up again. How one of the original "Rosie the Riveters" is taking on the coronavirus. We'll explain. Stay with us.

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[04:53:43]

CHURCH: Well, lots of people have stepped up to the plate to help out during these difficult times, but for one women, stepping up in a time of crisis, well, that's just second nature. 94-year-old Mae Krier is one of the original "Rosie the Riveters." They are women who answered the call to work during the Second World War. She worked in Boeing factory back then helping to make warplanes. Now she's making red polka dots facemask, similar to the famous red and white bandana worn in the iconic Rosie the Riveter posters.

And Mae spoke to CNN earlier. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAE KRIER, ONE OF THE ORIGINAL "ROSIE THE RIVETER": I've always made the polka dot bandanas for when we traveled. We go to Washington and places. And whenever we do, they loved the bandannas. And I was making a lot of them when this virus started and I just switched over from bandannas to facemasks. I said it's amazing. I made 300 by myself and sent them out to my friends and people, what have you.

But now that it's been on the news we've got over thousands of requests. So now I've got to, you know, reach out to a lot of friends that have offered to help resell. We'll get there. We can do it. And the energy I have, I'm very fortunate. I was gifted with good energy and good health.

[04:55:02] At first I started with material -- people were starting to send me material and elastic and everything that I need from all over the country. It's absolutely amazing. I'm stunned. I write on Facebook, and said, just mentioned that I ran out of elastic and I wouldn't go to a store now to get any. I've written and then a whole package of thread, everything that I needed from Delaware, and that started it. It just seemed like everywhere people wanted to help me. And it's absolutely amazing. Every day I get material or elastic or thread, everything I need.

American people are wonderful. 99 percent of our people are just great. When you need something or need them they are there for you. When we went through the Great Depression and Dust Bowl like in the Midwest, and was really difficult times. And even when World War II we just all banded together, men, women and children, and we did what had to be done. I don't understand why people can't come together now. It just seems to me we wore bandannas and the we carried red batons, the girls (INAUDIBLE) and they carried torches.

We did that for days and years and I think wearing a mask seems simple to me after going through that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Isn't she just marvelous? We want to wear all of those masks.

Thanks you so much for your company. I'm Rosemary Church. "EARLY START" is coming up next. You're watching CNN. Have yourselves a great day.

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