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Trump Holds Rallies Despite Nationwide Surge in Cases; Pfizer May File for Early Vaccine Use in November; Cases Rising Rapidly across Much of Europe; China Conducts COVID-19 Testing Blitz; Polls Close in New Zealand General Election; Over 20M U.S. Ballots Cast; Broadway Shutdown Affects 100K Workers. Aired 2-2:45a ET
Aired October 17, 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 CNN, I am Robyn Curnow. Just ahead --
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The light at the end of the tunnel is near. We are rounding the turn.
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CURNOW: Complete denial; Donald Trump lies about the state of coronavirus as he hosts not one, not two but three packed campaign rallies.
New lockdowns are kicking across Europe as we're live from Paris.
Also, the lights of Broadway may be dark but Bernadette Peters' message of hope and her advice to young stars.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow. CURNOW: Thank you for joining me this hour.
There are now more than 8 million confirmed coronavirus infections in the United States. That is far more than any other country in the world. It only took three weeks for another million Americans to catch the virus. And it is still spreading at an alarming rate.
Cases, hospitalizations and deaths on the rise, with dozens of states trending in the wrong direction. For the first time since late July, more than 68,000 new infections were reported in just one day.
But these numbers didn't stop President Donald Trump from holding more crowded campaign rallies on Friday. He continued to insist that the country was in a good place.
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TRUMP: My message to American seniors today is one of optimism, confidence and hope. Your sacrifice has not been in vain. The light at the end of the tunnel is near. We are rounding the turn.
I say that all the time and some of the media doesn't like hearing it. I say it all the time, we are rounding the turn and we are prevailing. It is amazing what is happening. It's really been very amazing.
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CURNOW: It is certainly a very different message from the director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Dr. Francis Collins told CNN earlier, the rise in hospitalizations and certainly troubling.
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DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: That indicates people are really severely sick and they need to be in the hospital. And that curve has also started up again, which is really troubling. And that probably means, unfortunately, that we may start now to see also an increase in the number of deaths each day.
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CURNOW: CNN's Nick Watt has more on the top pandemic headlines from across the U.S. Here is Nick.
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NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There's a MAGA rally in Wisconsin tomorrow night. Will the president mention the state is now seeing all-time record high new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths? Unlikely.
MAYOR TOM BARRETT (D-WI), MILWAUKEE: We saw it at the Rose Garden just a couple of weeks ago. And we could see another super- spreader event in Janesville tomorrow.
WATT: Hot spots are popping up again in Connecticut, 12 now dead in a nursing home outbreak in California. New Mexico's average daily case count more than doubled over the past two weeks.
GOV. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM (D-NM): Pay attention to the facts. It is a deadly, highly contagious virus. The virus is now winning.
WATT: Nine states just set a record, most new cases in a day. Latest national numbers, yesterday, we topped 60,000 for the first time since mid-August. Second wave, third wave, ominous either way.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: It's still not too late to vigorously apply good public health measures and, again, I emphasize, without necessarily shutting down the country.
WATT: Disappointing news on remdesivir, used on the president, the only drug explicitly authorized to treat COVID-19 in the U.S. It has little or no effect on mortality for hospitalized patients, according to the WHO.
Better news on vaccines. Assuming positive data, Pfizer will apply for emergency authorization use in the U.S. soon after the safety milestone is achieved in the third week of November, so after the election and note the word "assuming" is doing a little work there.
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WATT (voice-over): The data would be reviewed, not only by the FDA's own scientists, but also by an external panel of independent experts at a publicly held meeting convened by the agency to ensure public trust. Some say the president has eroded that trust.
"Foreign Policy" magazine has been analyzing government communications during the pandemic. They conclude that countries that communicated clearly, early, were able to impact the spread. They also ranked 36 countries. The U.S. came in 33rd, ahead of only Iran, Turkey and Russia -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
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CURNOW: Dr. Larry Brilliant is a CNN medical analyst and he joins me now from Mill Valley, California.
Doctor, good to see you. These numbers are staggering. Again, the U.S. passing 8 million. New records, they seem to be worse or at least faster, than the first wave. Gathering speed.
Why did the first million cases take a hundred days to spread and the last million take 17 days to spread?
DR. LARRY BRILLIANT, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Thank you, Robyn.
So, we're working off a higher base, as it were. If this is a third hump or a third wave, we are working off a base of 50,000 cases a day. In the prior, wave summer wave, it began at a base of around 10,000 to 20,000. With the first wave, it began at zero or hundreds of cases.
What happens now is the virus is embedded in every county in the United States. And each one of them is a separate epidemic. After seeing large numbers aggregated, they represent the combination of tens of thousands of individual chains of transmission. We're in for a really tough couple of months.
CURNOW: As a doctor, when you look at these graphs and you look at these numbers, how do you feel?
What goes through your mind?
BRILLIANT: I feel terrible. I feel like this is a wildfire and an epidemic out of control. We shouldn't have gotten here. We should have stopped this a long time ago. Right now, we have to double down on those public health interventions we know will still work.
Chris Murray, who's the esteemed modeler from Washington, has said that if 95 percent of Americans, even now, wear a face mask, we would save 75,000 lives. Deaths would be averted by the first month of next year.
How can we not do that?
Why are we not doing that?
CURNOW: There is also the question about the politicization of the coronavirus and it's certainly a central, issue if not the key issue, for many voters in this election.
How has the fact that it has been so politicized, so inextricably linked to this election, impacted the work of doctors?
BRILLIANT: I think the answer to the two questions, that one and this, one are intermingled. I think the president, having made a series of mistakes, errors and mismanagement, is afraid to admit that he was wrong for fear it would jeopardize his election prospects.
So the result of that is he is doubling down on all of the errors and is now having a series of what can only be considered superspreader events by bringing thousands of people together in a closed space, with no social distancing and hardly a mask in sight in order to get that flush of adrenaline or OxyContin or whatever he is getting from these events that make him feel like he is popular again.
This is a very serious thing. We have a president out of control, and we have a pandemic out of control, each one feeding in to the other.
CURNOW: What you are talking about is a uniquely American cocktail, a very unpleasant cocktail, that is playing out day by day. We are also seeing the pandemic getting out of control in Europe.
Why is that?
BRILLIANT: I wouldn't think that Europe unfortunately, has been spared by either part of this cocktail. I think what we're seeing in Europe is what we're seeing in northern parts of the United States. That is as much a seasonality issue as the cold weather comes, especially in the northern climes. People go indoors and the virus is given the advantage. We are indoors, huddled together, spreading the virus.
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BRILLIANT: That is what you see now. And the WHO is very worried about what is happening in Europe right now and has issued a notice that what is going on in Europe right now could increase by 2, 3, 4, even 5 times by the end of the year.
We are seeing the same thing in the northern part of the United States right now. In fact, latitude is one of the key indicators of disease spread today.
CURNOW: OK, that's fascinating. Thank you very much for your expertise there. Dr. Larry Brilliant, good to speak, to you thank you very much.
BRILLIANT: Thank you Robyn, thank you for having me.
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CURNOW: Coming up on CNN, as Dr. Brilliant was speaking there, Europe is certainly seeing a dangerous surge of coronavirus cases. We're talking about what's going to stop the spread.
A dozen infections with a massive and rapid response in China. Nearly 11 million people are tested quickly. What officials say what they found, when we come back.
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CURNOW: Countries across Europe are smashing records for daily coronavirus cases. New infections are spreading quickly and now far exceed the rise of new cases in the U.S. That's what Johns Hopkins and the World Health Organization are reporting.
The WHO's Europe director says he is concerned but that national lockdowns must be a last resort.
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HANS KLUGE, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: Is there a reason for panic, Becky?
No.
Am I worried?
Yes, I'm very worried. There are some simple measures, systematic, generalized mask wearing, together with a strict control on social gatherings could save in this region about 281,000 lives in six months.
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CURNOW: Melissa Bell joins me now from Paris.
Melissa, hi, good to see you. Talk about this rise of infections in Paris and beyond.
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The greater Paris region, which is one of the really worrying parts of France right now, has 46.8 percent of its ICU beds taken up by COVID-19 patients. That is already causing them to reprogram other emergency procedures. And it's increasingly worrying.
The question is whether the fairly radical steps to impose these curfews, that came in effect last night at midnight, will be enough to control the rise that continues. Just this week, we saw a fresh record set on Thursday, night with more than 30,000 new cases declared.
And, again, last night, 25,000 new cases declared. Just to give you an idea, that figure, once the French president announced the curfews on Wednesday, night explaining what he was trying to achieve, he said he wanted to get it back down to a situation where we are having no more than 3,000 to 5000 new cases announced every day.
That is the distance that has to be achieved through these curfews.
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BELL: From 9 pm to 6 am, you're not allowed to be out unless you have a piece of paper explaining you're visiting a doctor or looking after someone. For instance, you're one of the exceptions to the rule. Otherwise, you have to be home or you face a fine of 135 euros. Robyn?
CURNOW: No doubt, these rising infections, all of these announcements, to some extent, overshadowed by the beheading of a schoolteacher in a terror attack. It's just shocking.
What do we know?
BELL: For the time being, we have a better idea now of how the events unfolded. This was a teacher who was decapitated in a Parisian suburb yesterday afternoon. His body was found in one location; police then gave chase to the man identified as the perpetrator of this attack and shot him.
For the time being, authorities are very tightlipped about the identity of that assailant. Plenty of speculation from the French press. It has profoundly shocked the country and the French president went to the location last night, spoke of an Islamist terrorist attack and explained that the man in question, the teacher, the secondary school teacher who was found beheaded, had been simply trying to teach his children about freedom of speech.
I think that is what is interesting in this case. Bear in mind, the context here is that the "Charlie Hebdo" trial continues here in Paris. We had an attack 3 weeks ago outside of their former offices.
And this may also be linked. There is speculation in the French press about the fact that this teacher would have been shown the pictures of the Prophet Muhammad, asking Muslim children to leave the room in order to not offend them.
The fact that he showed them in a classroom, causing a number of parents to complain and could have led this young man to decapitate him. That is essentially what the French press reports today.
For the time being, again, the French authorities are being very tightlipped about this and we will learn more over the course of the day.
CURNOW: Thank you so much, we will come back to you, with any new updates. Thank you so much, live from Paris. Going back to the coronavirus and the cases that are reaching alarming
levels, certainly, this is happening in the U.K. Especially as some cities, in the northwest of England, prime minister Boris Johnson had a message for the mayor of Greater Manchester.
The mayor has been criticizing the British government for wanting pubs in the area to close, among other measures. Salma Abdelaziz explains.
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SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: London has raised its COVID alert level to high. That is the middle tier and starting Saturday, Londoners will be banned from meeting anyone outside of their household in an indoor setting.
That means no meeting friends at pubs, bars or restaurants. Meanwhile, here in Manchester, the mayor is an open standoff with prime minister Boris Johnson over his plans to raise the alert level of the city to very high, the top tier.
The mayor argues, he isn't willing to gamble the economy of Manchester over, what he says, is an experimental strategy.
Prime minister Boris Johnson has responded by essentially hinting at an ultimatum, saying, he hopes the mayor will reconsider and engage constructively.
Otherwise, the prime minister says, he will intervene to save Manchester's hospitals and the lives of its residents. The prime minister went on to say that the situation in Manchester is grave and gets worse with every passing day. That means the clock is ticking to get a grip on the virus.
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CURNOW: Officials in China are trying to reassure residents from the port city of Qingdao that a recent COVID-19 outbreak out there is under control. Now the small cluster of infections prompted an honest look at mass and rapid testing for millions and millions of people. Selena Wang now reports.
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SELENA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: China has tested 10 million people for COVID-19 in less than a week for COVID-19. The testing blitz was in response to just a dozen locally transmitted cases that were reported last weekend in Qingdao. This is a northeastern city in China.
The clusters linked to two dock workers who were treated at a local hospital. Turns out, the room where they got the CT scans was not disinfected properly, leading to more infections.
Two local officials in Qingdao have already been fired over this latest outbreak. Up until this latest flare-up, China had not reported a single locally transmitted case since mid-August. We've seen local officials get removed before, as, well over these outbreaks for instance, in Beijing and Wuhan.
China is concerned about even a handful of cases Qingdao, because this is coming right after Chinese Golden Week Holiday where more than a half billion people in China were traveling at the same time.
Qingdao is a very popular tourist spot, known for its beaches and beer and, according to government statistics, more than 4 million tourists came to the city during the holiday. The fear was that people may have taken the virus back home with them.
We have seen China use this playbook as well before, with clusters found in Beijing and in Wuhan. The city goes into wartime mode, with mass testing, contact tracing and restrictions. For instance, over the summer, when a new cluster of cases was found in Beijing, parts of the city were in lockdown and millions were tested in days.
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WANG: I actually had to stay home in quarantine for 2 weeks during the outbreak. They set up testing sites across the city but some, people including myself, were tested in their homes by people in hazmat suits. So I was not allowed to leave my home until I tested negative at least twice.
In Qingdao, China was able to test so many people at once through something called batch testing. It is a method that combines 10 samples at a time. If any batch turns out positive, all 10 people are quarantined and tested individually. This method is efficient, but some experts have raised questions about its effectiveness.
A person can initially test negative, then come back positive days later -- Selena Wang, CNN, Hong Kong.
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CURNOW: Thank you, Selena, for that.
Coming up on CNN, polls are now closing in New Zealand as the country decides the next prime minister.
Live report, after the break.
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CURNOW: Welcome back to CNN, I'm Robyn Curnow, live from CNN's world news headquarters in Atlanta. It's 22 minutes past the hour.
The polls have closed in New Zealand's general election and Jacinda Ardern is seeking a second term of prime minister, as she faces her main opponent, national leader Judith Collins.
According to New Zealand election officials, nearly 2 million of the registered 3.5 million voters got their ballots in early.
Donna-Marie Lever joined us from Canterbury, New Zealand, with the latest.
What do we know about the results?
When can we expect them?
DONNA-MARIE LEVER, JOURNALIST: Local election results have just begun to trickle in here in New Zealand. With early voting closing 20 minutes ago. Labor, led by Jacinda Ardern, is currently sitting on 50 percent with the main opposition party, the center right national party, led by Judith Collins, sitting on 26.8 percent.
Look, very early days. Only 3.5 percent of the vote has been counted so far. That is around 180,000 votes.
What we know is that a record number of New Zealanders went to the polls, almost 2 million people, 1.9 million casting their votes early. That is almost half of all registered voters, here in New Zealand.
Those interim results are not expected to become clear for several hours yet. Other parties, watching some of the minor parties, the Greens and New Zealand First, all of which could play a part in forming a coalition government under MEP.
CURNOW: Many people are watching this, because Jacinda Ardern has become a respected global figure the way she's dealt with the pandemic and the way she dealt with the terror attack. The fact that she is a working mom. She has certainly got respect globally.
But how is she viewed at home?
Is she as universally loved?
LEVER: She has captured headlines all around the world when someone like Oprah, endorses her. I do think the country sets up innocence (ph). She has featured very strongly here in the preferred prime minister polls sitting around 50 percent to 35 percent, that being consistent, sort of right throughout this election.
It has been a long election, extended by 4 weeks, due to our COVID status.
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LEVER: And I think that is another thing that is front and center for voters this time around.
CURNOW: What can you deduce from the fact that people have turned out?
And they came early?
Clearly showing enthusiasm and momentum, what does that tell us about what voters want from the election? LEVER: I think many voters made the decision relatively early on with those numbers, 1.9 million early. This election was touted as a COVID election, with the economy and the response to this global pandemic, being absolute front and center.
There has been pressure on Labor and the prime minister to relax the border, allowing the economy to recover. And many people have very openly supported many political parties, supported how Jacinda Ardern has handled the COVID-19 response.
The full impact of that fallout of that may not be known. And I guess it is what critics would say as well. But she has a lot of support and that has been consistent in the polls throughout.
CURNOW: Interesting to see how people may be voting for, someone but potentially against someone.
How do bread and butter issues, such as house prices and poverty and the stuff that really affects people's lives, how is that playing into this election in terms of policy and decisions about bread and butter issues?
LEVER: This is front and center. Everything is revolving around the economy, the impact of COVID and how people are living. Here in New Zealand, I guess we are very thankful of the way COVID has played out here. Ardern went quick and fast with her response. She put the country into lockdown and it does appear to paid off for her, I guess.
That issue really seems to dominate what parties have been campaigning about.
CURNOW: Thank you for that update there from New Zealand and of, course we will bring you the latest results when we get them.
We also see early voters in the U.S. are showing up in record numbers as well. CNN is keeping track; we will tell you how many millions of Americans have already cast their ballots.
Then, there is this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BERNADETTE PETERS, BROADWAY ACTOR: I'm concerned about people that were living on that salary.
CURNOW (voice-over): The pandemic may have closed down the stage but a Broadway legend is urging actors not let it close down their dreams.
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(MUSIC PLAYING) CURNOW: Just 17 days to go before Election Day, here in the U.S. Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are hitting crucial battleground states, in an effort to pick up as many votes as possible.
In Macon, Georgia, Mr. Trump joked he may have to leave the country if he loses while Biden spoke to supporters in Michigan about bringing Americans together.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I will work as hard for those who do not support me as those who do. I do not see America in terms of red and blue.
Bringing the country together, that is the job of a president. It is the duty to care, to care for everybody. We can be so much better than what we see. We can be -- we're at our best when we're the United States of America.
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CURNOW: Our reporting shows that more than 20 million Americans have already cast their ballots and the lines have been, long all across the country. As you can see here.
Early voting started Friday in Louisiana and this is what it looked like at one precinct. Pamela Brown has more on this record-setting push to the polls.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I see it as probably being one of the most important elections in my lifetime going forward.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): And it seems she's not alone. Not by a long shot.
More than 20 million Americans have already voted according to data from 45 states and Washington, D.C. analyzed by CNN, Edison and Catalyst.
In North Carolina, these long lines on the first day of early voting Thursday were the first indicator of huge turnout in the Tar Heel State. The state board of elections is tweeting that more than 330,000 voters cast ballots on day one. That is believed to be a new record, beating the 304,000 ballots cast on the first day in 2016.
In Georgia, they've seen a 62 percent increase in early, in-person voters compared to the same time four years ago. A similar story in Tennessee, where early voting in person or by mail started yesterday. And they've already seen a 91 percent increase compared to 2016.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think more of the millennial and younger are a little bit more aware and maybe are more wanting to get out there and more aware of the issues. BROWN: In Pennsylvania, the secretary of state says she expects that full results from mail-in ballots won't be available until the Friday after Election Day.
KATHY BOOCKVAR, PENNSYLVANIA SECRETARY OF STATE: Sometimes you might have an omission or an illegible postmark, received three days later, they can be counted.
BROWN: And in Michigan today, the secretary of state there announcing that people can't carry guns on election day at polling places, saying in a statement she's, quote, committed to ensuring all eligible Michigan citizens can freely exercise their fundamental right to vote without fear of threats, intimidation, or harassment."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't feel he's been treated fairly by the Democrats at all.
BROWN: In Florida, the edge Democrats have in voter registration is narrowing. New data from the state shows about 134,000 more Democrats are registered to vote than Republicans, which is down from 2016, when they led by about 327,000.
And in California --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know what? It's not -- you can't just trust anybody right now.
BROWN: That frustration, part of a week-long drop box drama, which today appears to have been ended. The secretary of state announcing this afternoon the California Republican Party agreed to no longer deploy these unofficial ballots drop boxes, which were found in at least four counties, a move the former Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called --
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), FORMER CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR: It's a stupid thing they're doing right now with these ballot boxes.
BROWN: In Florida, election officials are taking steps to remove ex- felons with court debt from the voter rolls after a Democratic led effort to raise millions of dollars to pay off some of the court debt for those ex-felons so they could vote -- Pamela Brown, CNN, Washington.
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CURNOW: Sabrina Siddiqui is a CNN political analyst and joins me now from Washington, D.C.
Sabrina, great to see you. We are seeing this massive early voting, voters that are energized, willing to wait. They want to get their ballots in early.
What does this turnout indicate? SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It certainly means there is a
record level of enthusiasm at this stage with less than 3 weeks remaining until the election. More than 22 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting.
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SIDDIQUI: That is roughly 16 percent of the number of people who voted in the 2016 election. Currently, Democrats have a 2:1 advantage over Republicans in early voting. But of, course that can change. Some states are not yet reporting their totals from early voting and, of course, there is the turnout we may see on the day of the election itself.
Some experts are saying -- again, these numbers can change -- that this may be the highest turnout since 1908 in a U.S. presidential election. If anything is apparent, it is we're seeing enthusiasm like we haven't seen in recent memory.
CURNOW: It'll be interesting to see whether that enthusiasm is for or against Donald Trump or for Joe Biden. That certainly can play into how this all comes about over the next few weeks.
I just want to talk about these battleground states. We saw both candidates going o key states and the president seems to be playing defense.
How much can he swing votes in key states, the ones that he won, with 17 days to go?
SIDDIQUI: It's difficult. Anytime you have an incumbent president up for reelection, it's typically a referendum on the person's first term in office. Many people have been comparing the polling in 2020 to that of 2016.
They say Hillary Clinton had a big lead at the stage, in the 2016 election, how much weight can you put in the polls that are showing Joe Biden comfortably ahead not just nationally but in battleground states?
It's different because Donald Trump is no longer a hypothetical candidate. And so opinions of Donald Trump are already pretty set in stone. It's Joe Biden who has the potential to, perhaps, persuade some of those undecided voters.
CURNOW: You mentioned, at this stage in 2016, it looked like Hillary Clinton was a clear winner. Despite being ahead in the polls and despite last night's great TV ratings for him, are many Joe Biden supporters and even Joe Biden, in his camp, are saying let's be cautious, don't write off Trump yet.
SIDDIQUI: I actually think there is much concern among Democrats about the prospect of complacency, maybe voters who this is already in the bag. The Biden campaign and the Democratic Party more broadly have really been ramping up these efforts. Initially during the pandemic, they were encouraging Americans to vote
via mail because of public safety concerns. Now they just tell them to vote, whether it's in person or by mail. However it is they can get out there and vote. There is a sense of urgency that Joe Biden's campaign believes it has capitalized on, to limit Trump's presidency to one term.
But Trump supporters may show up on the day of the election. Republicans have been less likely to vote by mail. Democrats have always had an advantage of early voting .So they don't really want a repeat of 2016 where people think this election is already said and done.
A majority of the public thinks this country is heading in the wrong direction and it is very clear that this election is about something bigger than the issues that typically you would lead up to an Election Day in November.
This is about Donald Trump and a referendum, really, on the direction of the country under his stewardship, especially when the U.S. is still significantly lagging behind in its response to the coronavirus pandemic under his watch.
CURNOW: Sabrina, always great to have your perspective and your expertise, thank you for joining us. Have a great weekend.
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CURNOW: The U.S. economy is certainly feeling the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. The federal budget deficit has soared to a record $3.1 trillion. This after the government passed massive spending packages in an attempt to curb the impact of those economic shutdowns. That's more than triple last year's shortfall.
With that in mind, ticket sales for Broadway performances in New York City are being suspended through the end of May, into next year. Those several months might not seem that long to tens of thousands of workers who depend on Broadway but it could mean, potentially, changing careers just to survive.
Vanessa Yurkevich spoke to a Broadway A-lister who is trying to help.
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PETERS: It's been very tough for Broadway.
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Bernadette Peters is one of Broadway's most revered stars with decades of Tony winning performances.
But, today, she's turning her spotlight on her fellow Broadway workers.
PETERS: I'm concerned about people that were living on that salary. That came to the city that were living on that salary to pay their rent, to buy their groceries. [02:40:00]
YURKEVICH (voice-over): Nearly 100,000 workers rely on Broadway for their livelihoods. This single theater district brings $15 billion to New York City each year. But the pandemic has killed the lights on Broadway and will stay dark until 2021.
PETERS: Everyone in the show becomes a little community, a little family. From the ushers, to the people that sell the tickets, to people that clean, it's -- we're all part of it.
YURKEVICH: Laura Prather, a stagehand, keeps the lights on, on Broadway.
LAURA PRATHER, BROADWAY STAGEHAND: We have a saying, we light every light every night.
YURKEVICH: So she never thought she'd be the one tasked with turning off the marquee at American Airlines Theater.
PRATHER: It was the wildest moment of asking myself, are we going to be able to return?
YURKEVICH: She moved from St. Louis four years ago, buying a home. Her savings will only last her another six months.
PRATHER: My career of 15 years into this has basically vanished overnight.
YURKEVICH (on camera): What's the alternative for you right now?
PRATHER: Possibly finding a job in a different -- completely different field. The possibility of worst-case scenario, longer-term, is selling my place.
YURKEVICH (voice over): A worst-case scenario came true for actor Morgan Ashley Bryant. She's one of more than 50,000 people working in theaters across the U.S., now out of a job. Many local theaters are hanging on by a thread without federal aid.
Bryant's role in the "Mean Girls" national tour is just one dream cut short.
MORGAN ASHLEY BRYANT, ACTOR: It's not prudent for me financially to stay in the city for an extended period of time with no idea of when I'm going to be able to go back to work.
YURKEVICH (on camera): So what does that mean?
If you're deciding you can't be here anymore, where are you going to go?
BRYANT: I'm going to go home, to Alabama.
YURKEVICH (voice over): The financial pain has been great, but the emotional pain of not being able to perform has been greater. YURKEVICH (on camera): Do you miss that feeling?
BRYANT: It's the best. Oh, my gosh.
YURKEVICH (voice over): But a little advice from Peters, who has been through the ups and downs of a storied career.
PETERS: If you have to go home and then come back, come back. You know, don't give up on your dream. Your dream is your dream. It's the most important thing you have. You have to see it through.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: That was CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich in New York for us.
Thank you for that, Vanessa.
You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Robyn Curnow. I'll be right back in 15 minutes with more news. "MARKETPLACE AFRICA," starting right after this.
