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Report: 90 Percent Jump In Children With COVID-19 Since July 9; Australia's Internal Borders To Remain Closed; Shipwrecked Tanker Leaking Fuel Oil Into Lagoons; Decision Day Nears For Biden To Choose Running Mate; Man Helps Repatriate South Africans Stranded In China. Aired 2-3a ET
Aired August 11, 2020 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hi, welcome to all of our viewers, joining us from all around the world, you are watching CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for joining me, I'm Robyn Curnow.
Just ahead on the show, pandemic of staggering proportions. How the world hits 20 million cases and what we can do to slow the spread.
Also the leadership (INAUDIBLE) of Lebanon, the cabinet quit amid anger over the deadly explosion so now what?
Plus the unfolding disaster in the Indian Ocean, that is next, too.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.
CURNOW: We begin with another significant moment in the battle against coronavirus, the number of known cases worldwide has now surpassed 20 million. A World Health Organization official admits it is not an easy virus to detect or beat but says countries must do better and react more quickly to the inevitable flare-ups.
Meanwhile European disease experts say there is a true resurgence in several countries there, because physical distancing has been relaxed. Scott McLean shows us where the virus is under control and where it's ramping up.
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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: For months, scenes like this have been playing on a loop especially in Brazil where the coronavirus is spreading like wildfire, foreshadowed by scenes like this one last week in Rio de Janeiro, packed bars and few masks.
Now the world has hit a sad milestone, 20 million confirmed coronavirus cases. More than half of those come from just three countries, Brazil, United States and India. While Countries like Russia, South Africa, Columbia and Mexico are hot on their heels.
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TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: I know many of you are grieving. And that this is a difficult moment for the world.
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MCLEAN: But amidst the mammoth failures to contain the pandemic, there have been successes too. None greater than in New Zealand which says it just marked 100 days since the last locally transmitted case of the virus. The prime minister is now staking her reelection bid on her decision to close the borders and lockdown the country early on.
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JACINDA ARDERN, PRIME MINISTER OF NEW ZEALAND: When people ask is this a COVID election? My answer is yes, it is.
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MCLEAN: There are also encouraging signs in Germany where masks are mandatory in newly reopen schools in some states.
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DOMENICA ACRI, DIRECTOR, CARL-ORFF-GRUNDSCHULE (through translator): Today, not a single child has forgotten his or her mask. All of which seems to show that the situation is returning to normal.
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MCLEAN: Masks are also now required for a stroll down the Seine in Paris. But in Sweden, face coverings are few and far between. Despite World Health Organization guidance to wear them, Sweden's government has no national mandate to wear them anywhere.
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MARTEN SPORRONG, SWEDISH BUSINESSMAN: I think that the Swedish people are taking the responsibility. So if you're sick, we stay at home. And if we're not, we can be outside.
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MCLEAN: And there is more cause for concern across Africa, where experts fear the low testing rates may be masking the true scale of the outbreak. In Britain, beaches have been packed, cases are on the rise and the prime minister is pledging to reopen schools next month.
Vietnam had no locally transmitted cases between late April and late July. But officials there are now trying to tamp down an outbreak in a popular tourist town. And in Australia where new daily cases have gotten down to single digits, there is now a second spike even bigger than the first. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GHEBREYESUS: There are green shoots of hope and no matter where a country, a region, a city, or a town is, it's never too late to turn the outbreak around.
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MCLEAN: The world can only hope that's true -- Scott McLean, CNN, London.
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CURNOW: Thanks, Scott, for that.
So fury poured into the streets of Beirut, Lebanon's government responded by resigning. Protesters have been demanding the ouster of the rulers, after the devastating explosion last week. More than 160 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of people are now homeless. Protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails, while security forces
used tear gas.
In a national address, the prime minister acknowledged the government's role in what he called a disaster beyond measure.
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MICHEL AOUN, LEBANESE PRESIDENT (through translator): This devastating catastrophe that hit Lebanese in the heart, which was the result of chronic corruption in the country and the regime, previously I said the corrupt establishment hit all parts of the country.
However, I discovered that the corruption organization is bigger than the state and the state is controlled by this and cannot face it or get rid of it.
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CURNOW: Sam Kiley is in Beirut, he joins me now with more on this.
Sam, what can you tell us.
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Robyn, there has been a resignation but the government stays on in a caretaker capacity. A promise of early elections was not manifested. In the prime minister speech's where he did admit that there had been systemic failures, as a result, that led ultimately to the explosion.
In the landscape behind me now, kind of seared on the minds of people around The World Right Now. But at the same time there is growing energy here on the ground, that things are not going to change unless the system itself is changed. We spoke to members of political dynasties here and young activists. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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KILEY (voice-over): If you're in the Lebanese opposition, this is democracy in action.
(on camera): Thirty or 40 years down the street, it's barricaded there is now supported for the Lebanese parliament. The demonstrators are absolutely dead set, they've told me, on getting into more and more government buildings to try and demonstrate that the government itself is really a chimera, it is hopeless. It is a sort of joke.
(voice-over): As the cleanup continues after thousands of tons of fertilizer is believed to have blown up and destroyed parts of Beirut, activists are adamant that Lebanon's sectarian system, its dynastic politics, corruption and negligence led to the blast.
SAMIRA EL AZAR, PROTESTER: We will go to the parliament, we will go to their houses and we will go to each place to get them down. They will go to a place where they will not be able to go back to this place ever. They killed people. It is a big thing to us.
KILEY: Lebanon's parliament, which are 128 seats are shared among Christians, Sunnis, Druzes and Shia under electoral law following the Civil War 30 years ago, was dissolve Monday ahead of new elections. But Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader who inherited his role from his father and has arguably benefited from the existing system, is pessimistic that even early elections would bring change.
WALID JUMBLATT, LEBANESE DRUZE LEADER: When I see the protesters, the revolutionary, when I saw them and I see them yesterday and they want to change Lebanon. They want a new Lebanon, but the obstacle for change in Lebanon is, in this specific point, alliance of minorities and the electoral law. Because you cannot change Lebanon through, let's say, a military coup d'etat. It's impossible.
KILEY: Close to the epicenter of Tuesday's blast, the Kataeb Party's headquarters is in ruins. It's a largely Cristian Maronite Party. Its secretary general was killed in the explosion. His bloody handprint is still visible. The grandson of the party's founder and son of the former president, nephew of another president who was murdered, Samy Gemayel supports the street protests.
SAMY GEMAYEL, LEBANESE MP: We are all from families that were part of the old Lebanon. This is how the new -- the new generation didn't come from nowhere. And it's our duty to do our revolution, our own revolution, each one in his society and the place where he is.
KILEY: But in Martyrs' Square protesters now include former Lebanese commando leader, Colonel Georges Nader. He wants to see the old guard swept away entirely.
GEORGES NADER, FORMER LEBANESE COMMANDO LEADER (through translator): Change is coming. And I recommend they leave peacefully or we will go to their homes and do it by force. KILEY: That night, it was the protests who were eventually swept away but not for long. They have plans to harness public anger over the Beirut blast to a more powerful revolutionary rage.
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KILEY: That rage is going to be no doubt about it, manifesting on the street from 5 o'clock more or less from where I'm standing right now. The protesters are planning to march from here to Martyrs Square, about 2-3 kilometers away, where they will continue their calls for a wholesale reform, a revolutionary reform of the structures of Lebanese political society.
As you know, this has been going on and off and it's been somewhat interrupted by the COVID pandemic since October 17th. It already brought down one government and now this second government, that took four months to form.
It's that kind of paralysis, in terms of economic collapse and a widespread frustration among young people here, that the old constitutional dispensations have got to give way to a modern new state.
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KILEY: The problem is, though, ultimately, the Hezbollah remains the most powerful political organism in the country. And it's also by far the most powerful militia, it is more powerful than the Lebanese state and they clearly are not interested in giving up the power that they have here.
CURNOW: OK, Sam, great stuff. Thank you so much.
So frustration with the Lebanese government has been clear, protests erupting last October as the economy tanked. Now protesters are calling for dramatic change and in these videos take a look.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): It is better off without a government, either we have a proper prime minister or it is better without one. We do not want a government anymore, it's not good for us. It's not helping at all.
We refuse a national unity government. This is not what we are asking for, because it will repeat the same history that we've been living with for 30 years, which did not make us reach anywhere.
If the government resigns, then there's hope to be able to build the country and live our lives like we want to. We want to become a proper state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: Mark Daou works at the Lebanese American University and he joins me now for all this. Thanks for joining us. You heard our reporter, you heard folks on the
streets giving their perspective. There's been some change but it doesn't seem to be enough.
MARK DAOU, LEBANESE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: For sure, it is not enough and this government was crippled from the moment it started, because it came with a tag on the old regime that basically did not allow anything to move.
This regime is all about a grab over power, they were dividing deals and dealmaking and electricity factories and others. They were not reforming for the past 7 months and 20 meetings with the IMF. And yet parliament was still debating the numbers, the budget and the losses.
A total incompetence, which was finally exposed with the explosion that killed nearly 200 people and more than 5,000 injured in Lebanon. The regime has a systematic problem and it cannot continue. And I think that is why the people are in the streets for the last nine months.
CURNOW: So how can protesters, the Lebanese people, push for and pressure for a deeper change, especially as we heard Sam Kiley say, the Hezbollah is such a dominant force?
DAOU: I think that two main challenges there are, one is changing the electoral system, which biased to those political parties that have taken over government after the civil war.
And the second one is Hezbollah's links to Iran and the regional agenda which have always crippled Lebanon caused the civil war and other regional issues. What we need to do is prioritize a Lebanese agenda, based on a regular representative parliament.
So the real challenge now with international pressure is to create an independent government, that is capable of real reform, without the influence of the old partisans that have crippled government, mainly Hezbollah.
The way to do that is with the popular support in the streets and the facing off (ph) plus heavy international pressure, which I think was realized with President Macron's visit to Lebanon and the ultimatum or the deadline given to the old regime to release power by September 1st.
CURNOW: When you talk about this pressure, we see images of the devastation and also, of course, the protests. But people still need to fix their broken windows at best, hundreds of thousands of people are homeless. Kids need to get back to school, people need to buy food. And they need to social distance because there is a global pandemic.
And then trying to push for change, deep institutional change.
How does -- how do the Lebanese get the energy to do that?
There seems so much on ordinary people's plates at the moment. DAOU: Exactly and, on top of that, I will tell you it is been 2 weeks
since the garbage companies have been collecting garbage. All the destruction, there is no designated place to take it to.
I think the Lebanese are fighting, because they are left with no other option. It either they fight to have a country and a livable state and a decent living.
Or if they are left to those people in power, they will have systematically destroyed the economy, the currency, the environment and, on top of all of that, explosions and deadly strikes on the Lebanese people. I just mentioned that in one day, after that strike, instead of the government taking aim at the popular protests.
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DAOU: They shot at protesters with rubber bullets, with gas and we have 400 individuals, mainly youth, who have been injured and hospitalized because of the clashes with security forces around parliament.
This government is a government which is closer to a dictatorship, enforcing itself on the popular evolution of the people in Lebanon.
CURNOW: Mark Daou, thank you for your perspective.
DAOU: Thank you.
CURNOW: Still ahead here on CNN, protests turn violent and Belarus election results show that Europe's last dictator was shown with a huge win in Sunday's vote. Hear from the opposition candidate just ahead.
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CURNOW: Well, the president of Belarus said he won't allow his country to be torn apart by foreign puppeteers. Thousands of people have been detained for protesting after Sunday's election.
Alexander Lukashenko, known as Europe's last dictator, claims he won 80 percent of the vote but the opposition candidate is asking for a recount. Independent monitors say she actually won the election. She has moved to an undisclosed location in Lithuania.
The U.S. and U.K. have joined the outcry over the arrest of a pro- democracy newspaper owner in Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai. He was detained on Monday under Beijing's new and controversial national security law. But his newspaper remains defiant, printing thousands of additional copies of its latest issue. Will Ripley joins me now in Hong Kong with more.
That was certainly a brave move by people at the newspaper. WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. After a day like
yesterday, to put together this paper, with this bold red banner saying that "Apple Daily" must maintain its operations, that takes guts.
There were 200 Hong Kong police officers in that newsroom yesterday talking to reporters, collecting evidence and in the case they are trying to build against the owner of the paper, a billionaire who has been in Beijing's crosshairs for quite some time.
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RIPLEY (voice-over): The latest setback for Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement. Police search the newsroom of "Apple Daily," a paper known for fierce support of last year's protest and fierce criticism of Hong Kong's pro-Beijing government.
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RIPLEY (voice-over): Police arrested the newspaper's owner, Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai, hauling him in handcuffs back to the "Apple Daily" newsroom.
Lai is one of a group of people arrested on charges including colluding with foreign countries, a violation of Hong Kong's national security law.
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JIMMY LAI, FOUNDER, "APPLE DAILY": With a dictatorship, freedom is not free and this is a price we have to be ready for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RIPLEY: That price could be steep even for a billionaire like Lai. Up to life in prison, the possibility of a mainland trial hidden from public view. Lai holds a British passport but told CNN earlier this year, he decided to stay in Hong Kong.
The new law came into effect less than two months ago, already leading to drastic changes and freedom of the press and politics. A dozen pro- democracy lawmakers disqualified from legislative council elections postponed to next year. The government says because of COVID-19.
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TIFFANY YUEN, PRO-DEMOCRACY DISTRICT COUNCILOR: I think that disqualified is ridiculously unfair to us. Many people in Hong Kong are very disappointed because what we only want to do is to protect our hometown and protect our homeland.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RIPLEY: But activities like lobbying foreign governments and voicing objections to the national security law make them unfit to run, the city says. Other arrests include a 15-year-old girl waving a pro- independence flag. And students for social media posts.
Pro-Beijing lawmakers hope the security law will allow Hong Kong to calm down after last year's protest.
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PRISCILLA LEUNG, PRO-BEIJING LAWMAKER: I think the whole development already prove that. The way they use violence to fight for what they want is a failure.
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RIPLEY: More arrests are possible, police says. They are also seeking six activists who fled Hong Kong including Nathan Law, a former lawmaker now in London.
The head of the Hong Kong Journalist Associations calls Monday's newsroom raid shocking and scary, the kind of thing normally seen in developing countries but never Hong Kong. A city quickly realizing life, at least for some, will never be the same.
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RIPLEY: And Jimmy Lai certainly is the example of that, right here on the front page in handcuffs ,being hauled through the newsroom that he has owned and operated for more than two decades.
The newspaper normally prints 70,000 copies a day. They printed 550,000 and a lot of people have been lining up to buy them. It seems these days in Hong Kong, last year was protests; this year just buying a newspaper can be considered an act of defiance.
CURNOW: So talk us through where Jimmy Lai and those other people who were arrested where are.
Do we know where they are?
RIPLEY: We know that they are still in police custody and in some new video in the last couple of hours, police escorted Jimmy Lai to his yacht club, where they continue to look for evidence.
So this is how it works, the police make an arrests, particularly under this national security law, then they seize your phone and computer and they go through everything you ever posted, emailed, ever texted over whatever period of years they can find, to try to build their case of a violation of the national security law.
The same is happening with the other people who have been arrested as well. Hong Kong police hired a whole unit to do this, specially trained. Anybody who supports independence, independence for Hong Kong or Taiwan, they are potentially in violation of this law.
And so a lot of people they've deleted their accounts and erased their phones but Jimmy Lai, even though he has a U.K. passport and could've left here months ago, he made a conscious decision to stay and resign himself to something he's long seen as perhaps inevitable, time in prison. And he could get up to life in prison under this national security law potentially.
CURNOW: So thanks for that update, from a very beautiful looking Hong Kong. Certainly tumultuous times ahead. Will Ripley, thank you.
So Alex Azar is the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in decades and much to the annoyance of Mainland China, he's met with the territory's foreign minister. Earlier the health secretary from the U.S. praised Taiwan for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But he says Taiwan has been unfairly excluded from the global conversation.
Azar talked about that in an exclusive interview with CNN's Paula Hancocks.
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ALEX AZAR, U.S. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: It is a call to action that Taiwan needs to be appropriately represented in international fora so that its expertise, its data, its evidence can be fully integrated by the international public health community, something that has been denied to it by the Communist Party of China, especially working through the World Health Organization and the World Health Assembly.
[02:25:00]
AZAR: The way Taiwan has been treated and the undue influence of Beijing at the World Health Organization are exactly part of the reason why President Trump has determined that the United States needs to leave the World Health Organization.
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Just before you went to meet President Tsai Ing-wen this morning, Chinese fighter jets did cross the median line in the Taiwan Strait with the waters between China and Taiwan, which Taiwan sees as harassment.
But of course, China sees Taiwan as part of its territory. So they're making a point.
What's your response to that?
I mean, obviously, they know that you are here. They are unhappy that this visit is taking place.
AZAR: It seems to be a continued politization by Beijing of public health relationships. This should be about sharing information, recognizing the need for transparent open communication about an unprecedented public health crisis. And instead they seem to want to play political games as they have done at the World Health Organization.
When this disease had its outbreak in China, because China did not reveal the rapid human to human spread of the disease, did not reveal what they were learning about asymptomatic transmission, did not share the initial first-generation viral isolates with other countries, shut down travel within China out of Wuhan and Hubei province even as they allowed Chinese to travel throughout the world, they seeded Europe. And what spread to the United States was actually the disease burden
that China had allowed to seed into Europe which then spread into many different parts of the United States.
HANCOCKS: So what would you say to critics of the Trump administration who say your visit here, three months before an election is political?
AZAR: My visit here is about supporting Taiwan and supporting Taiwan in the international public health community. My visit is about health. It's about the health of the people of Taiwan. It's about the health of the -- of the American people and it's about the health of the people of the world.
And the way we protect that is by entities around the world being transparent, cooperative, collaborative, compliant with the international health regulations. And Taiwan has been a model of that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: You're watching CNN. Still to come, a disaster in paradise. A wrecked cargo ship has been leaking oil off the coast of Mauritius and is now in danger of breaking apart. An army of volunteers is working by hand to try to contain the damage. That's up next.
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CURNOW: Hi, I'm Robyn Curnow. It's 30 minutes past the hour. Thanks for joining me wherever you are in the world. So, the Coronavirus registered another bleak milestone on Monday by exceeding 20 million cases worldwide. And those, of course, are just the ones we know about. Many of the infections are spreading through hard-hit Brazil and the U.S. in maroon on this map as you can see. Sometimes -- sometime this week, the global death toll is expected surpass 750,000.
It's alarming to see just how quickly this virus has spread. It took months for the world to reach 5 million cases back in late May, as you can see from this graph, but the last 5 million infections were chalked up in less than three weeks. Well, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited schools in East London on Monday ahead of their reopening next month. We know that schools in the U.K. shutdown back in March because of the pandemic and the British government has pledged more than a billion dollars towards helping schools and students get caught up. Well, the Prime Minister says, it's the country's moral duty to reopen the schools full time.
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BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: It's not right that kids should just spend more time out of school. It's much, much better for their -- for their health and mental wellbeing there. Obviously, our educational prospects if everybody comes back to school full time in September. It's our moral duty as a country to make sure that happens.
CURNOW: Well, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association said there's been a 90 percent increase in children with Coronavirus over the past four weeks. This comes as schools around the U.S. are reopening. Experts say most COVID-19 cases in children do not require hospitalization. On Monday, when President Trump was asked if he still thinks children are essentially immune to the virus, here's what he responded.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They don't get very sick. They don't catch it easily. They don't get very sick. And according to the people that I've spoken to, they don't transport it or transfer it to other people, or certainly not very easily. So, yes, I think schools have to open. We want to get our economy going.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: Well, experts are quick to dispute that claim of our children not spreading the virus. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Americans are diagnosed with COVID-19 every day, and while it rages across rural and urban America, like so too does this debate about reopening schools as Kyung Lah now reports.
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KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As Florida teachers protests back to school in person, at least 12 counties in the Sunshine State returned to the classroom this week. Nine of them with positivity rates higher than the CDC's recommended mark for reopening. Next door in Georgia, the governor today applauded its first week back to school in many counties.
GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): This week went real well other than a couple of virtual photos.
LAH: That's despite hundreds of public school students and faculty quarantine, testing positive after returning for in-person classes. That includes this high school, northwest of Atlanta and this viral image now temporarily moved to online learning after nine reported cases.
MICHELLE SALAS, PARENT, NORTH PAULDING HIGH SCHOOL: It's like a really bad experiment, you know? They're trying to find some kind of fluency, but they're using my kids and the kids that my kids grew up with as bait.
LAH: The numbers paint a stark picture for the back-to-school season. The American Academy of Pediatrics says nearly 100,000 children tested positive for COVID in the last two weeks of July, a 40 percent increase in child cases. COVID continues to rise in these eight states in red, the death toll flat, the U.S. averaging 1,000 dying every day. In Illinois, cases are up sharply. Chicago's Mayor closed the Lakefront Beach after seeing this packed area.
In Texas, where the state's positivity rate remains above 20 percent, some churches are now worshiping outdoors. And then, there was the Sturgis South Dakota motorcycle rally, which brought about 250,000 people to the small town. On fears of contracting COVID and taking it home?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hell, no. We're going to get it sooner or later. (BLEEP) the mask.
LAH: The reality of the virus is sinking in to college football. The first major conference postponed its season the Mid-American.
JON STEINBRECHER, COMMISSIONER, MID-AMERICAN CONFERENCE: It was not a decision that was made lightly. It was not a decision that was made quickly. And it was a decision that was made based on the advice of our medical experts.
LAH: As the top leagues meet over the future of the fall season, the President urged college football, resume.
KAYLEIGH MCENANY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He is very much would like to see college football safely resume their sport.
[02:35:03]
LAH: This push by the President to get football started in the fall is part of the administration's overall effort to get students back in the classroom, primary, secondary, and even college aged students back into the physical classroom despite all the questions about the safety of those decisions. Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: Australia's leaders are warning people to cancel their Christmas travel plans. Many of the country's internal borders will remain closed, possibly for the next 18 months. Victoria, as we know, has been especially hard hit with more than 300 new cases and 19 deaths on Monday.
Well, I want to get more with Angus Watson, who joins me live from Sydney.
Angus, hi. Good to speak to you. So, an interesting wire a few hours ago crossing our e-mails here at CNN, that the northern territory basically has said, listen, nobody from Sydney or from Perth or even from Adelaide is allowed to come in here potentially for the next 18 months. Wow.
ANGUS WATSON, JOURNALIST: That's right. And then -- and the Northern Territory there is a huge tourist destination for Australians around the holiday season, the home to Uluru, that famous monolith, but the Northern Territory is being particularly strict because it's not having any new cases of community transmission of coronavirus, Robyn, whereas other parts of Australia are. As you mentioned, Victoria, 321 new cases today. Some glimmer of hope there, however, because it's the lowest number in 13 days. It's, again, lower than the 322 case number that came yesterday.
And the government there thinks that compulsory mask wearing is the reason; that's a rule that they made, masks mandatory three weeks ago. They're saying that we're starting to see the effects of that now, which is excellent. A stage four lockdown in Victoria -- no, sorry, in Melbourne, which is very strict. People not allowed to leave the house for many reasons at all. And nonessential businesses all closed. They expect to see the statistical results of that lockdown, that downward pressure or that slight bending of the curve. They expect to see that happening in the next couple of weeks, Robyn.
CURNOW: And what happened? Because it seemed like Australia was doing OK. You know, it seemed like, you know, you've got a handle on things. What caused the second spike?
WATSON: Well, there's actually a parliamentary inquiry ongoing into that today, Robyn, into the handling of the coronavirus crisis by the Victorian Government. Now, Australia was doing very well. It had very few cases of community transmission until some of the cases though were in mandatory hotel quarantine, Australia's -- Australians returning from overseas, those cases got out of quarantine and infected the community. And authorities it seems didn't know that there was that spread, that community transmission until it was too late, Robyn.
CURNOW: I also just want to get a sense, you know, particularly because here in the U.S., you know, you can go and get a tattoo and you can fly to California if you want, and then fly over to New York and come back here to Georgia. I mean, there's no travel restrictions. So, I'm just interested to know. In Australia, obviously, it's an island. You know, if your family's in Perth and you know, granny is in Sydney, have they not been able to -- are they planning not to allow families or friends to cross those borders until next Christmas, or do you think it's going to be as radical as the Northern Territory leaders are saying?
WATSON: Well, we all hope not, Robyn, but it is the case that it's very, very difficult even for families to reunite there in Australia, if they're split across those state borders, via states leaders have all got together with the Prime Minister and the federal leadership of this country, and really nodded out these plans for tackling Coronavirus as the crisis has moved on week by week. So, there is some consensus there among all leaders that to get on top of this, we really need to keep it from spreading between states here. And that's why that Victoria has suffered so badly, whereas other states haven't in this second wave, Robyn.
CURNOW: In many ways, it's sort of an example of real definitive leadership. Certainly interesting. Good luck. Nice to speak to you again. Appreciate it.
WATSON: God speed. You, too.
CURNOW: So, investigators are trying to find the cause of a home explosion in Baltimore, which killed one woman and badly injured seven other people. Three homes were reduced to rubble. The utility company says no gas leaks were found in the area. Crews have been looking for people who might be trapped in the debris.
You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. Still to come, a shipwreck tanker is leaking oil and breaking apart. A disastrous fuel spill is unfolding in the Indian Ocean. We'll look at what it means for the plants and the animals and the ocean there as well as the people of Mauritius. That's next.
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CURNOW: Welcome back. I'm Robyn Curnow. So, while the world is focused on the coronavirus pandemic and many other crises, an environmental disaster has been slowly unfolding in the Indian Ocean. A Japanese tanker ran aground off Mauritius two weeks ago, and it's been spilling petrol fuel into the sea. The fuel has been washing ashore as you can see here. Now, satellite images show the slick is more than a kilometer long. Well, now the situation could even get even worse as the tanker is starting to break apart.
We know that volunteers are turning out to scoop up oil with their bare hands. Vikash Tatayah is the conservation director at the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, he joins me now from Mauritius. Vikash, hi. Thank you for joining us. This is an unfolding situation, a desperate situation. What's the status right now?
VIKASH TATAYAH, CONSERVATION DIRECTOR, MAURITIAN WILDLIFE FOUNDATION (via Skype): 400 tons of oil has leaked into the sea, causing a major environmental disaster. And after 400 tons has leaked out, the threat is that a lot more oil probably over 2,000 or probably 3,000 tons of oil is about to leak out unless the authorities can pump the oil out and the ship is actually breaking into two.
CURNOW: So, what can you do? What can be done?
TATAYAH: Well, what -- we ourselves, we operate on an island. They're called Ile Aigrette, and we try to secure the plants and the animals. We've actually removed thousands of plants that were in the nursery, and we've also removed fruit bats that were captive on the island. And we've also taken off a small number of threatened birds, the Mauritius olive white-eye and the Mauritius fody. And that's what we have been able to do. But otherwise, what we've also engage with with the authorities is to mop up the oil that is in the lagoon. And also, there are a lot of thousands of civilians that have voluntary come up, and are trying to remove this oil.
CURNOW: Yes, I've spent many happy holidays swimming and snorkeling, you know, in the waters around Mauritius. It's God's paradise. I mean, it's just devastating to think that those reefs and those beaches could be ruined. Also, I have friends there who say that they are on the beaches trying to mop up. But the government has said they don't want volunteers. They want to be left alone to try and do it themselves. But ordinary Mauritians are saying, uh-uh, we need to be in this, as well. Why?
TATAYAH: I think -- I think there's been some miscommunication on this as far as I understand. They were flooded with volunteers coming, and a lot of people come without any protective equipment. Now, we must understand that this is petroleum products, which is -- which is highly toxic, can burn the skin, can cause cancers, and can cause irritation to the eye. And can affect pregnant ladies or ladies would like to have children in the future. And so, there are some reasons why the government has been saying that there needs to be some sort of restriction into you know, the -- how the other operations are conducted.
And I think he's been probably misinterpreted how the government has said this. The people feel that the government aren't doing enough or haven't done enough. And they say, if you haven't done enough, we are going to come and do it ourselves. You know, this is the attitude of volunteers that are coming down in the thousands, and you know, heroically trying to mop up the oil.
CURNOW: Yes. And then, these pictures that we're seeing, they've actually been sort of wrapping hay and doing these sort of makeshift sponges, essentially, to try -- to try and mop up the oil. I just want to get your sense of the ship. It's a Japanese ship, I understand. What was -- what was the conditions and why did it run aground? I understand that they didn't listen to authorities, telling them not to come closer. Are you angry? And will there be some justice perhaps to what appears to be negligence and possibly other corruption involved in why the ship is where it is and why it's in such a state?
TATAYAH: The first thing is that this ship should not have been there at all. It was a ship coming from Asia and it was meant -- it was bound for Brazil. It should have been way off the coast of Mauritius. People are mad furious about this as this happened. Mad furious. And I think we need a proper commission of inquiry to look into this. And to use all the light is -- comes out of this of this matter. And reparations, I think it's very, very important that the insurance pay for the environmental damage and for the material damage and the cost to livelihoods because there are thousands and thousands of people, fishermen and people who work in tourism that are badly affected by this -- by this wreck, especially after we've had COVID in Mauritius, which has already affected livelihood greatly.
CURNOW: Vikash Tatayah, thank you very much for joining us. I know you've got to go to a series of meetings. I hope you managed to get a handle on this and I hope the international community can at least help get behind you and hopefully give you that much-needed extra help that you need. Thanks so much. Good luck.
TATAYAH: Thank you.
CURNOW: Well, you're watching CNN. Still to come, Joe Biden is about to make headlines any day now. We look at who he might choose to join him on the democratic ticket. That's next.
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CURNOW: Welcome back. So, barring some unforeseen major events, I might have jinxed it. It is 2020. Joe Biden will accept the Democratic nomination for U.S. President just nine days from now. That's pretty much set in stone, but the question everybody wants answered is who will be on the ticket with him? Well, Jeff Zeleny has the inside scoop.
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JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Two of the final contenders to be Joe Biden's running mate just happened to be alongside him at the last rally of the primary, California Senator Kamala Harris and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, before he clinched the nomination, and Coronavirus changed the campaign. His decision is coming any day now, ahead of next week's Democratic Convention.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Every one of the women I've -- we've interviewed is qualified, and I've narrowed it down. You'll find out shortly.
ZELENY: Aides tell CNN he's narrowing it down from a list of at least 11 women who have undergone extensive vetting. People close to the search believe Harris, Whitmer, and former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice are among those he's most seriously considering with Senators Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, and Congresswoman Karen Bass also in the mix. The choice will be historic, marking only the third time a woman will be nominated as a running mate on a major party's presidential ticket, a pledge he made months ago.
BIDEN: I would take a woman to be my vice president. He faces rising pressure from several black leaders who have implored Biden to choose a woman of color. Congressman Cedric Richmond, a co-chairman of the campaign says those please have been heard. But the decision is up to Biden.
REP. CEDRIC RICHMOND (D-LA): All of those letters, all of the calls, all of the statements are being considered very heartfeltly, and I believe he's going to make the right decision.
REP. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): I believe in Joe.
ZELENY: Harris has long been seen as one of the strongest potential candidates on Biden's list, but he met face to face last week with Whitmer, CNN has learned, as well as at least a handful of other contenders. Whitmer's handling of the coronavirus crisis in Michigan impressed Biden, people familiar with the search say, and the two have grown close. She's been in office less than two years, a point we asked her about earlier this year.
GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): I've never had the call to Washington DC. But the fact that there's even a conversation about what the future of our country looks like and that I'm included in a conversation that has some phenomenal women leaders across this country, is truly an honor.
ZELENY: Friends of Biden say he's intent on finding a governing partner who could help tackle the tremendous challenges awaiting whoever wins the election.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The best vice president America's ever had, Mr. Joe Biden.
ZELENY: It's Biden's own time as vice president that's guiding and complicating his search. Friends say he's looking for a loyal partner in hopes of building a rapport as strong as the one he forged with President Obama. Yet the dynamic of the race and Biden's running mate is different. She will be the history-making choice, a point Biden also acknowledges.
BIDEN: Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else. There's an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.
ZELENY: Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Washington.
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CURNOW: So, with a phone, a laptop, some ingenuity and dogged determination, one man in Canada did what the South African government could not do. He got dozens of South Africans on a flight home from China, where they'd been stranded for months because of Coronavirus. Here's David McKenzie. And David explains how he pulled it all off.
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DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Two South Africans abroad, one stranded in China because of a COVID-19 travel ban, the other starting a new life in Canada.
CARMEN JOHANNIE, STRANDED SOUTH AFRICAN: When he sent out a message, he said that anybody stuck in China -- anybody stuck in China needs to contact him. So, I sent him an e-mail.
MCKENZIE: Brought together by that first message and Carmen Johannie's unshakable determination to get home.
JOHANNIE: All we had to do for five months was be patient, be patient. And that's the hardest thing you can say to someone.
TERTIUS MYBURGH, MAPLE AVIATION: Well, it's me, me, me alone, my phone.
MCKENZIE: Tertius Myburgh seemed an unlikely savior, sitting on his dining room table in Canada, with barely enough credit on his phone, pulling off a rescue mission that South Africa's national carrier said was impossible.
MYBURGH: I got bombarded with phone calls and e-mails and everything from people itself that are stuck and people are running out of money because their world becomes very small. It honestly felt as if they were forgotten.
JOHANNIE: That was a team effort thing that we did, and then I just realized, like how many people are actually relying on us, and the pressure was hectic.
MCKENZIE: Johannie quickly became aviation veteran, Myburgh's vital link to more than 100 South Africans stranded for months in China and they're anxious families back home. His plan, lease Air Zimbabwe's only functioning airplane and crew and relying on Zimbabwean diplomats to get enormously complex COVID-19 clearances.
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JOHANNIE: I called him my guardian angel from day one because that's literally what he was, literally the only man that could help us. Sorry. Sorry.
MCKENZIE: It's a very emotional journey you've been on.
JOHANNIE: It was very hard. It was extremely hard. It was something I never wish on anybody.
MCKENZIE: The 30-year-old 767 that once carried Robert Mugabe, routing from Harare to Johannesburg, to Bangkok to change a faulty engine, into Kuala Lumpur to pick up stranded Chinese seafarers to help offset the cost. Then, onto Guangzhou, back to KL, to Wuhan, then to Johannesburg.
And it seems that things that could go wrong did go wrong.
JOHANNIE: 100 percent. 100 percent. And so, yes, it's a matter that you look back and you laugh and you say you actually you can't believe it, but it was real.
MYBURGH: To find space for this engine, and to get it to route all the way out of Harare and eventually get into Bangkok, that was a mission on its own. How can I say to them, listen, it's becoming too difficult? How can I go and sit down in the garden and have a -- have a whiskey and a barbecue because I made it easy for myself, but all these people who are stuck, they --
MCKENZIE: The South African government told us they are legally obliged to assist all citizens who are distressed abroad. It did eventually help with passenger permissions for arrival in South Africa, and the group's quarantine at this hotel.
JOHANNIE: This is the T.V. room, and then we've got a beautiful kitchenette. There has been times where like reality has hit, and then there's other times where it just feels like it's not real.
MCKENZIE: But Johannie knows her five-month ordeal is finally over thanks to one man. David McKenzie, CNN, Johannesburg.
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CURNOW: Another great story. Thanks, David and his team for that. So, I'm Robyn Curnow, you've been watching CNN. We continue. Rosemary Church joins you next, so enjoy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our
viewers joining us from all around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM, and I'm Rosemary Church.
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