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Biden Stresses Health Care At Drive-In Rally In Detroit; U.S. Surpasses Eight Million COVID-19 Cases; Polls Show Biden With Double- Digit Lead Over Trump; Trump Holds Rallies Despite Nationwide Surge In Cases; Cases Rising Rapidly Across Much Of Europe; Police Holding And Questioning Nine In Paris Attack; Japanese Tourist Gets Private Tour Of Machu Picchu. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired October 17, 2020 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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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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ISA SOARES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The U.S. president unwilling to acknowledge the pandemic reality as the U.S. tops 8 million COVID-19 cases.
Meanwhile Europe takes a city by city approach to tackling a second wave. Details on new targeted lockdowns and curfews across England as well as France.
And at least one person on the planet has enjoyed lockdown. We'll tell you how a Japanese traveler went from stranded in Peru to solo touring Machu Picchu.
I'm Isa Soares live from the CNN NEWSROOM.
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SOARES: A very warm welcome, everyone. Now more than eight million Americans have now fallen victim to the coronavirus since the coronavirus pandemic began, one fifth of the world's cases and one million more than just three weeks ago.
More than 132,000 new cases confirmed in just the past two days. It is an alarming rate of infection not seen since late July. Hospitals in seven states report record numbers of COVID admissions.
But the U.S. president Donald Trump now apparently recovered from his own bout of the disease and insists the country is, quote, "rounding the turn" on the pandemic, with the election a couple of weeks away, he continues to hold rallies, as you can see there, all across the country without any meaningful social distancing. One vaccine may be ready by the end of the year but the National Institutes of Health says it is a big if. Here is what Francis Collins said about a vaccine being available before the election.
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DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, DIRECTOR, NIH: Extremely unlikely to be happening until sometime middle to late November and only if the data supports the vaccine works. It is too bad this is all tangled up in other calendar issues.
This is kind of the way science is supposed to go. You do the work, do the careful analysis. You try to make sure that every standard has been met. And then you try to put something out that is going to help people.
I'm still pretty guardedly optimistic that, by the end of the year, we will have one or more vaccines.
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SOARES: Nearly all polls show President Trump trailing his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden and he has launched an aggressive campaign scheduled over the next two weeks and we will get more on that from CNN's Ryan Nobles in Macon, Georgia.
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RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump continuing his blistering pace on the campaign trail after recovering from the coronavirus. The president and his campaign hope to have him in front of supporters every single day, between now and the election.
And the president made three stops on Friday alone, hitting a number of swing states, including two stops in Florida and here in Macon, Georgia, a traditionally Republican state, where the polls show a surprisingly close race.
And the president hitting on all the big themes that he has throughout this entire campaign, picking on Vice President Joe Biden, calling him the worst presidential candidate in history, which is interesting, considering that Biden holds a sizable lead in many of the polls as we get closer to Election Day.
And he also talked about his town hall with NBC this week and listen to what President Trump had to say about the person who moderated that town hall. NBC's Savannah Guthrie.
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TRUMP: And Savannah, it was like her face, the anger, the craziness. I mean, the craziness last night. And I said good-bye. I said great job, Savannah. You did wonderfully. Good job.
(END VIDEO CLIP) NOBLES: And it's worth pointing out that Savannah Guthrie has not
disappeared and hosted "The Today Show" the day after she moderated that conversation and town hall with President Trump. On Thursday, the president will continue this pace through the weekend. He's going to be traveling to Nevada and Arizona and also Wisconsin and Michigan, all states that will be crucial to his hopes at winning re-election -- Ryan Nobles, CNN, Macon, Georgia.
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SOARES: Joe Biden's rallies look and feel much different than the president's campaign, with social distance and face masks and other safety measures. On Friday, he held a drive-in event in Detroit. Jessica Dean was there.
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JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Former Vice President Joe Biden coming to the battleground state of Michigan on Friday and making the Affordable Care Act and health care really center to his closing argument here in Michigan.
His campaign really believes that is a through line to so many issues that are driving this race, from the coronavirus pandemic, to President Trump's response, to the coronavirus pandemic, to Amy Coney Barrett's nomination process and Republicans' efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
And remember, Democrats ran this play, focusing on health care back in 2018, when they regained control of the House. It worked for them then. And the Biden campaign believes it will be a very effective message this go-around.
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DEAN: Meantime, at a town hall on Thursday night, Joe Biden talked more about a question he's dodged for several weeks now, whether he supports packing the Supreme Court. Biden has said in the past, he said last night, he's not a fan of the idea. But he said he will offer his decision on it before Election Day.
He wants to see how Republicans will handle the whole process before he announces his decision but committing to saying something before Election Day.
And we move ever closer to Election Day. This is a voter engagement event in Detroit, Michigan, the campaign really focusing on states where early voting is already happening.
And they're going to send perhaps their biggest surrogate out to an early voting state out next week, former president Barack Obama, who hits the trail for his first in-person event for Joe Biden on the campaign trail next week in Philadelphia -- Jessica Dean, CNN, Detroit, Michigan.
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SOARES: Now let's get international perspective and bring in Natasha Lindstaedt, professor of government at the University of Essex.
And thanks very much for being with us today. Let's start off with the one impressive image I think it's fair to say that we've seen around the United States, of people lining up, some braving for hours and hours on end, actually, long waits to cast their ballots.
What do you think is driving this record early voting?
Is it enthusiasm?
The pandemic?
The presidency?
NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Yes, I think it's all those things. I think it's going to be an election that will have record turnout. And we're seeing that 21 million people have already cast their votes early, according to states reporting data. That's 15.3 percent of the total vote counted in 2016.
And we're also seeing that it seems to be favoring Democrats. They have been really rallying their supporters to get out the vote early in states like Florida, like Michigan, like Wisconsin, where early voting has reached over 20 percent.
And Democrats in the states that are reporting data thus far have claimed that they have returned 2.5 million more ballots than Republicans. And now, this is part of the Democrats' campaign.
They want their supporters to get out early because they're worried about the way the counting is going to take place, because Trump has indicated he might not accept the results. The Republicans remain confident that their supporters will turn out to vote on Election Day.
SOARES: So with that point you made, part of the messaging, to get out and get out early to vote. Let's talk about the very different ways of campaigning that we've seen. President Trump, as we just showed you, Natasha, continuing to hold more campaign rallies, in defiance, I must add, of his own government's social distancing recommendation, as we're seeing now on our screen.
And he continues, as well, to minimize the impact of the pandemic.
For our viewers around the world, Natasha, does this disregard for the pandemic is, that hurting him at all?
Is there a way of knowing?
LINDSTAEDT: His disregard for the pandemic doesn't really affect those that are already going to vote for him anyway. They love everything he does. There's really nothing he could do that is going to turn these voters off. What he does, is people who are hovering between voting for Trump or
for Biden, they were uncertain, they were independent, people who really care about getting a handle on the pandemic and who aren't part of Trump's base, feel he has been incredibly irresponsible by holding all of these campaign rallies, in person, where people are crammed in.
They're sometimes not wearing masks. And this is reflective of the way he's handled the pandemic in general. He doesn't seem to really care about it. And he's downplayed it. And he said he did it to not create panic.
But this isn't resonating well with voters who see that one of the biggest issues of this election is health care and COVID-19 and who they think is better able to get the crisis under control.
SOARES: And what is clear is I think, as we head into the final stretch, that the more prominent members of the Republican Party are already starting to distance themselves, from the president.
Let's talk about today. Today, President Trump is campaigning in Michigan and Wisconsin, two states showing signs of trouble for the Trump campaign. Joe Biden having a clear lead there. But we've been here before and Trump won.
How is this different?
Is it different?
LINDSTAEDT: It is different because, in 2016, Trump was an unknown candidate. We didn't really know what he was going to do. So it was like a wild card situation.
And you also had Hillary Clinton, who was an unlikable candidate, in that she never had a 50 percent or more favorability rating.
Also Trump was really effective in characterizing her in a negative way by calling her Crooked Hillary. He has really struggled to negatively characterize Biden, he called him Sleepy Joe but that hasn't really worked.
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LINDSTAEDT: The other issue in 2016 was low voter turnout, from key demographics that support Democrats. So now with the polls, they seem to be not wavering much and there are big leads for Biden in key states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan and he is really close in the race in Florida.
So what we're seeing here is these leads are pretty big. And there are a lot of people who have started to change their mind on Trump or who won't vote for Trump. He's held a lot of his supporters but 6 percent of Trump supporters, said that -- voted for him in 2016 said they will not vote for him in 2020. And he hasn't made up any ground.
Remember all of these races were incredibly close. He won Wisconsin by 23,000 votes. He won Pennsylvania by 44,000 votes. So he doesn't need to only just win or maintain what he had before but he also has to make ground. And he has not done that.
SOARES: Natasha, always great to get your insight. Come back on the show any time. Have a wonderful weekend.
LINDSTAEDT: Thanks for having me.
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SOARES: Now despite the pandemic, millions of Americans are standing in lines, around the country, to cast their ballot. Election Day is more than two weeks off but this is already is what is playing out around the nation.
Here is a look at some U.S. states and how the early voting numbers are stacking up compared to the 2016 election.
In Georgia, 62 percent more people have already voted in person compared to this point in the last presidential election. In Illinois, there's a 400 percent jump. Tennessee and Kansas both remarkably up as well. Pretty staggering.
Still to come right here on CNN, with COVID cases and hospitalizations on the rise in the United States, officials are telling people how to stay safe over the Thanksgiving holiday. We're giving that advice next.
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SOARES: U.S. Health experts are sending out dire warnings about the upcoming holidays and the coronavirus. They say, as bad as the numbers are right now, they likely will get even worse this winter. CNN's Brian Todd takes us to communities already being pushed to the brink.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hospital beds on the move in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with hospitals pushing capacity. Officials in New Mexico say many coronavirus patients there need to be transferred from one hospital to another throughout the state.
And, tonight, they're worried about having enough people to take care of them.
DR. DAVID SCRASE, NEW MEXICO HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Our hospital leaders' greatest concern today is staffing up those beds. They point out that the health care work force that's been fighting valiantly against COVID in New Mexico, they're getting tired. There's some people who've stepped back.
TODD: Cases have spiked to such an extent in New Mexico that the governor is telling people flat out don't leave your home if you don't have to. The virus, she says, is winning.
GOV. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM (D-NM): This is the most serious emergency that New Mexico has ever faced.
TODD: Wisconsin is also seeing horrific spikes. And officials say many new cases are tied directly to virus spreads in prisons and veterans homes, like the King facility in Waupaca County.
DIANE LYNCH, WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS: There are 52 members currently in quarantine. And there are 25 staff members currently out of the work unit with positive COVID tests.
TODD: Wisconsin and New Mexico are two of 10 states that just reported their single highest day of new cases ever.
The numbers are daunting all the way around. The U.S. topped 60,000 new cases in a single day for the first time since August 14, 32 states today trending up in new cases. The U.S. just passed eight million total cases of this virus. And America's top experts are very worried about the months ahead.
DR. ANNE RIMOIN, UCLA EPIDEMIOLOGIST: As we move towards the winter and the weather is getting colder, people will have fewer and fewer opportunities to be outdoors and to be able to just naturally social distance. We're going to be creating opportunities, more opportunities for this virus to spread. It is a dangerous moment in history.
TODD: Experts say, this year, even with so many Americans desperate for some kind of celebration, holidays will have to be scaled back to combat the virus.
The CDC has just issued new guidelines for how Americans can stay safe at Thanksgiving, among them, assess the infection rates in your community, consider postponing or canceling activities. Think about having outdoor dinners, weather permitting, or hosting virtual dinners.
And limit the number of people at any gathering. Mask-wearing and distancing are more important than ever, America's leading voice on infectious disease says. And he's becoming impatient with people who aren't doing those things.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: So, if you think that by getting infected and saying -- pooh-poohing the prevention modalities, that you're living in a vacuum and you're not -- no, you're becoming part of the problem.
TODD: But Dr. Fauci said it is still not too late to turn the tide for what will happen with the virus this fall and winter, if Americans act responsibly, if state and local officials take good public health measures and emphasize all of that can be done without shutting the country down -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SOARES: With us now to talk more about all of this is Oksana Pyzik, a public health expert at University College London.
Thank you very much for joining me. You heard the numbers in the United States are pretty staggering, eight million infections with dozens of states trending in the wrong direction.
And looking at the numbers, eight million, that is up from seven million just three weeks ago. And this seems to be moving faster than the first wave.
Why is that?
OKSANA PYZIK, PUBLIC HEALTH EXPERT, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: We are further along now into this pandemic. And there is a real sense of weariness amongst many people, about the extent of restrictions that have had to come into place.
That along with encouraging relaxation and misinformation around mask wearing, et cetera, have all set in to accumulation of cases due to the behaviors.
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PYZIK: The virus will behave based on how we will behave. So we can trace that rise directly back to, unfortunately, the fact that some areas are just not following the public health guidance.
SOARES: So when we see health officials saying, look, if we stick to the rules, we can contain this. You know, we have the misinformation, as you said, we've got also elements as you pointed out of COVID fatigue.
As in Europe, as leaders put pressure and ways to contain the virus in different measures, do you think these measures are enough?
PYZIK: Well, certainly, we have had the introduction in the U.K. of this tier one, tier two, tier three system. But as we have already heard, it's unlikely that tier three will really be enough to start to reverse in some pockets where we have exponential growth, particularly in the northwest of England.
So it is likely that more aggressive measures will have to be introduced quite soon, in order to keep things at bay and, certainly, to avoid something as drastic as a national lockdown, which we have heard the prime minister, Boris Johnson, repeatedly say he is not willing to do.
But at the current rate, the 10:00 pm curfew, along with other measures, just haven't worked in bringing down the numbers. So it's likely that this concept of circuit breakers will be next in line, in order to really get us in a safer place by Christmas.
SOARES: Do you believe a circuit breaker is inevitable here?
PYZIK: I do think that this is the direction that we are heading. The numbers will really be an indicator quite soon about whether it is containable using these local strategies. That is, of course, preferable in some ways.
But from a public health perspective, we have independent sage also pushing for a circuit breaker while we have school breaks coming up soon and this will be a good time to introduce it.
SOARES: Let's talk about the United States. We've seen rallies now, we're heading up to the U.S. election, three weeks or so to go before the U.S. election, rallies, we've seen people wearing masks, some people not wearing masks and that includes the president of the United States.
And it seems like fighting this disease, it has become a partisan issue.
How worried are you about the politicization of the pandemic?
PYZIK: There is no argument here that the coronavirus has become entirely politicized with -- and this has actually fed into this issue of misinformation that we had talked about earlier, with a disinformation, which is slightly different from misinformation in the fact that there is an intentional, political strategic point of view in order to destabilize communities.
And in this instance, we do see that, having the U.S. leader also misrepresenting the effectiveness of wearing face masks, et cetera, at a point when we head into winter, where it's critically important for us to keep things -- to slow down the rates of infection, it is incredibly worrying.
And it is leading to calling anyone that you disagree with just fake news. And unfortunately, we see that that sort of denialism is growing. It is coming from a number of sources.
We see this also happening widely, coming up with political actors, for example, the Russians but also when we talk about online how much misinformation is out there, which can lead to people buying falsified COVID medical products, hocus pocus remedies. So it's extensive and dangerous for this to be propagated by the U.S. president.
SOARES: So great to get your insight. Oksana Pyzik from the University College London. Thanks very much. Have a wonderful weekend.
PYZIK: Thank you.
SOARES: Now as the U.S. election draws closer, President Trump has ramped up his rallies, jam-packed with spectators and hardly any masks. Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains the correlation, this is important, between the crowded spectacles and a spike in COVID cases.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald J. Trump.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: For President Trump's supporters, these rallies have come to represent a show of force against fear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a 99.9 percent survival rate. And I am going to continue to live my life. I hope everybody else does, too.
GUPTA (voice-over): For many public health experts, though, these rallies also have the elements of a contagion. Few masks. Lots of people closely clustered together for more than 15 minutes at a time.
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GUPTA: You can't see the virus but what is happening during a super spreading event?
DR. ERIN BROMAGE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It is a rough analogy but if you think of a campfire and all you have is a gentle breeze that night, not everybody sitting around the campfire is equal in regard to the amount of virus -- or smoke -- that they're actually getting into their face.
GUPTA (voice-over): It is true, that outdoors can be up to 20 to 30 times safer than indoors. The virus more likely to disperse into the air. But it is still not completely safe. Again, think of that campfire smoke. It drifts and lingers and then travels wherever the wind may carry it.
But here's the problem, definitively linking a gathering like this -- or this -- to a later spike in new infections can be challenging, especially with 50,000 people becoming infected every day.
So to better understand the impact, CNN took a look at data from large rallies several weeks ago to see what happened to a relevant and related measure of the virus' damage: hospitalizations.
Now as you watch this, remember, after someone's exposed, it typically takes about four weeks before they might become sick enough to require hospitalization.
June 20th, Tulsa, Oklahoma: an indoor rally. Here was the situation going into that weekend in Tulsa. On that particular day, there were 197 hospitalizations in the state. On July 8th, 2.5 weeks later, the Tulsa Department of Health held a press conference.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The last few days, we've had almost 500 cases and we know we had several large events a little over two weeks ago, which is about right, so we can connect the dots.
GUPTA (voice-over): Then five weeks after the rally, the number of hospitalizations is at 625, more than triple what it was on June 20th.
June 23rd, Phoenix, Arizona: just days after that stop in Tulsa, President Trump held another indoor event, this time, Phoenix. When he visited, around 2,000 people were being hospitalized daily in Arizona, though the number was already rising.
Fast forward 10 days and that number shoots up to more than 3,000 cases daily and that's maintained over the next three weeks. August 17th, Oshkosh, Wisconsin: take a look at what happened after
the president visited Oshkosh, on August 17th, this time outside. Five weeks later, the number of hospitalizations rising by nearly 20 percent and continues its upward climb.
As far as the recent rallies go, Florida, Pennsylvania and Iowa, they have been all within the last few weeks. So we may not have seen the impact on hospitalizations as of yet.
BROMAGE: There's no doubt that there has been transmission at the protests, the political rallies. It's just a fact that the virus doesn't discriminate. It will find a new host in a crowd that's there.
If you are gathering together in a large group of people, there has almost certainly been transmission. It is impossible, very difficult to visualize that transmission or document that transmission, when there are so many people attending these events and then they scatter back out into their communities.
GUPTA (voice-over): On Saturday, the president's heading to Janesville, Wisconsin, about an hour away from where this 530-bed field hospital was erected earlier this week, a foreshadowing of what may be to come.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: Now as COVID cases spike in the U.K., some are lashing out over the government over planned restrictions and coming up we will find out what Boris Johnson is responding to the backlash.
And new measures across the English Channel, too, as numerous French cities face nighttime curfews. We will go to Paris to find out how the new restrictions are working.
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SOARES: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world.
Europe is fighting a difficult battle with coronavirus, one that is getting worse each day. New infections are spreading quickly and now far exceed the rise in new cases in the U.S.
That's what Johns Hopkins and the World Health Organization are reporting. Here are just some of the latest headlines for you.
Italy reported more than 10,000 new cases. The record high for the third straight day and that's more than any recorded at the peak of its first wave back in March. Russia reported another record high number of new infections. Cases
have surged there during the past week, breaking records of single day increases almost every day.
German chancellor Angela Merkel has canceled a E.U. special summit in Berlin as cases rise right across the country. And cities in France are trying to stop infections from spreading, with nighttime curfews now in effect.
Even as cases in the north of England spike, local leaders and residents in the area are pushing back against restrictions the government is planning there but the reality is that enforcement already ranges from lax to nonexistent. CNN's Scott McLean explains.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Next slide, please.
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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Almost every work week it seems there's a new government slideshow in Britain. Charts, graphs and bullet points change but the warning is the same. Coronavirus is making a comeback.
And response have come or stricter ones. With social gatherings are limited to six, masks made mandatory in stores and on public transit and now pubs, gyms and casinos in the city of Liverpool will have to shut down.
But in the east London borough of Barking, local council leader Darren Rodwell noticed not everyone was following the rules. Local bylaw officers don't have the power to do much about it.
DARREN RODWELL, BARKING AND DAGENHAM COUNCILOR: I can fine somebody for finding their mask on the floor but I can't fine somebody for not wearing a mask in an enclosed space.
MCLEAN: The government's making the rules but they're not actually expecting anyone to enforce them.
RODWELL: And that is the problem.
MCLEAN: Rodwell has used his office to try to force big grocery chains to comply with coronavirus rules.
RODWELL: There's two ways you can beat this epidemic. First is education --
MCLEAN: Yes.
RODWELL: -- second is enforcement.
MCLEAN: Yes.
RODWELL: And it's a mixture of the two. MCLEAN: Carrot and stick.
RODWELL: Carrot and stick.
MCLEAN: But if people don't take the carrot, don't expect the stick from police. Across all of England and Wales, police have only 89 fines for not wearing a mask, only 15 fines for violating the rule of six and 38 fines to people who failed to quarantine.
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MCLEAN (voice-over): A recent study also found less than one in every five people legally required to self isolate actually did.
And as the number of new cases has sky rocketed, the prime minister has repeatedly promised stricter enforcement offering police forces more money law, even military health. But their approach has stayed largely the same.
STEPHEN CLAYMAN, DETECTIVE CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT, METROPOLITAN FORCE: -- which IS effectively engage, explain, encourage and as our last option enforce.
MCLEAN: But at this point, it seems like enforcement is so rare, that the rules really seem optional.
CLAYMAN: No I disagree with that. I mean the rules are the rules. It's how you apply the legislation is another matter.
If it changes, they are all out there and they are asking people to comply and they do. That's all we need. We don't need to then ticket them.
MCLEAN: Yet that's not the message we heard on the street.
Do you think police are being strict enough on coronavirus rules?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, mate. They're not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Never. You never see a police officer on the bus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I haven't really seen any policing of the rules to be honest.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we need more enforcement BUT they need to recruit more people.
MCLEAN: The town of Oldham near Manchester is a virus hot spot with harsher restrictions than the rest of the country but no stricter enforcement.
HOWARD SYKES, OLDHAM COUNCIL: I think they are taking quite a softly- softly approach to it. I just think if we made some examples of prolific offenders that would give some reassurance to the rest of the community.
MCLEAN: You think the kid gloves approach is not working?
SYKES: I see no evidence it's working. There needs to be consequences, We'd like to go one, everybody will ignore the rules. And then we'll have care. On the net result is, it's that simple.
MCLEAN: Police in Oldham say they're working with businesses to get them to do their own enforcement but --
COLETTE ROSE, DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT, GREATER MANCHESTER POLICE: It was hard, police saw a way out of this. It's absolutely wrong for the police for just giving out fines isn't the answer to this.
MCLEAN: And ultimately, she says there's another reason police aren't more strict.
ROSE: We don't want to damage the relationship with the public by being overly authoritarian in our approach.
MCLEAN: So far it seems there is little risk of that -- Scott McLean, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: Well, the British government announced last week almost $80 million in new funding to help police increase patrols and step up enforcement of coronavirus restrictions.
The money also allows local councils to fund coronavirus marshals to remind the public about what the rules actually are for those who needed reminding. For more on how this plan and additional restrictions are being received, let's bring in Salma Abdelaziz in Manchester.
A bit of a standoff between the mayor of Manchester and Boris Johnson. Manchester still resisting the prime minister's calls to enter the highest level of restrictions.
So where do we go from here?
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: It is really an extraordinary standoff, Isa, essentially now after prime minister Boris Johnson came out yesterday and encouraged the mayor to renegotiate with the government. But he did also hint of an ultimatum.
He said I am happy to intervene, to save Manchester's hospitals and the lives of its residents.
Those are the words of prime minister Boris Johnson. So far, it does not seem that there are any meetings scheduled between the government and the local leadership here in Manchester.
So it remains to be seen what will happen next. But essentially the mayor's argument is twofold.
First, if you are insisting that we impose this higher tier, that you provide the economic packages that will support businesses. Second, why is it that we have to do these small regional lockdowns
when the government's own scientific advisers have said we should do a nationwide lockdown?
Meanwhile, of course, the three-tier system is going into force across England. Today, Londoners will wake up to new restrictions. You cannot meet with anyone outside your household in an indoor setting. That means no meeting friends at pubs, bars or restaurants.
The mayor has said he understands the economic impact but that this is necessary. And he is also one of those who is calling for a nationwide lockdown. And while all of the political vying is going on, the number of infections continues to rise. Isa.
SOARES: Such an important point to make. Salma Abdelaziz, thank you very much.
And another European country is seeing an exponential rise in new infections, 10 metropolitan areas in France are under a nightly curfew with a new daily record of new coronavirus cases.
It started Friday at midnight daily from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am The final morning and new infections reported. Melissa Bell is in one of the areas under curfew.
How is the curfew being received by those in France?
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, so far, it has been proven really controversial. Because, Isa, there are so many people, local businesses, that will be affected by. This if you imagine everybody if you imagine everybody closing at 9:00 pm, restaurants, cinemas.
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BELL: All kinds of businesses that have been trying to claw back some of the losses made during the two month lockdown in the spring, very unhappy now with this burden on their shoulders.
And when Emmanuel Macron announced the curfews for the 10 cities involved, he explained all of the businesses would see the same sorts of help given in the first lockdown, so the salaries of their employees paid for with state finances.
This will add to what was already a hefty financial burden for France in coping with the economic fallout of the first lockdown. And the measures are to avoid a second lockdown. But the measures and the curfew, a drastic one, are adding to the difficulty of trying to get the country's economy back on its feet.
But what the government authority has explained, it's about protecting ICUs and the balance that governments are trying to strike between protecting public health and trying to allow the economy to continue functioning and to recover.
It is proving increasingly difficult, because it is the need to protect the health service once again that is being made the priority, simply because it has to. We're at 46.8 percent now of ICU beds in the greater Paris region taken up by COVID-19 patients. And there comes a point when the system cannot cope with the amount of people coming in.
SOARES: Melissa Bell in Paris, thank you very much, Melissa.
Still to come on the show, France is treating the gruesome killing of a teacher as an act of terror. Why the investigation is focusing on something that may have happened in the classroom.
And New Zealand's popular prime minister has just won a second term in an election that wasn't even close. We will bring the details just ahead.
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SOARES: Nine people are now being held for questioning in France after a history teacher was attacked and beheaded in a Paris suburb. Police say they shot and killed the attacker. According to multiple reports, the teacher had recently shown students controversial caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
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SOARES: And a source says the main suspect is identified as an 18- year-old man of Chechen origin and his parents, grandfather and brother are being held. And the French prime minister Emmanuel Macron said the government will respond, quote, "with the greatest firmness." CNN's Jim Bittermann has more.
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JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The attack occurred in a suburb about 45 kilometers from Paris. The secondary schoolteacher was decapitated at the scene and in the moments that followed, the assailant was spotted going down the street.
Police gave chase. They confronted him, told him to drop his knife and when he didn't, they brought him down with a hail of bullets. He was killed at the scene as, of course, was the teacher.
President Macron, visibly emotional, went to the scene this evening and he had this to say.
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EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT OF FRANCE (through translator): One of our fellow citizens was killed today because he was teaching students about freedom of speech, the freedom to believe and not believe.
Our compatriot was attacked. He was the victim of an Islamist attack.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BITTERMANN: The investigation into the attack has now been turned over to the terrorism prosecutor in France and this has been labeled by the president himself as an act of Islamic terrorism.
The minister of education, who also was tweeting and speaking about this tonight, said that he had -- attack, this attack was a despicable assassination of one of the republic's servants -- Jim Bittermann, CNN, Paris.
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SOARES: And breaking news from New Zealand, where Jacinda Ardern has won a second term with 90 percent of the ballots counted. Ardern's Labor Party has won nearly half the vote and appears headed to a parliamentary majority, her opponent, the national party leader Judith Collins conceding. Take a listen.
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JUDITH COLLINS, NEW ZEALAND NATIONAL PARTY: And I promise you, the national party will be a robust opposition. We will hold the government to account for failed promises. And we will push on behalf of all New Zealanders for the government to do better for Kiwis.
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SOARES: Ardern also spoke as a result. Take a listen.
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JACINDA ARDERN, NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER: We are moving in an increasingly polarized world, a place where more and more people have lost the ability to see one another's point of view.
I hope that in this election, New Zealand has shown that this is not who we are, that, as a nation, we can listen and we can debate. After all we are too small to lose sight of other people's perspective.
Elections aren't always --
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ARDERN: -- elections aren't always great at bringing people together. But they also don't need to tear one another apart.
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Journalist Donna-Marie Lever is (INAUDIBLE) New Zealand with the latest.
I'm glad you're back with us. So a second term for Jacinda Ardern seems like a comfortable and a strong mandate here.
DONNA-MARIE LEVER, JOURNALIST: Excellently. And we have seen her address more than a thousand supporters at the town hall, where she has since shown the Labor Party's greatest support in more than 50 years.
She promises to be a leader of party and government for the next three years that will support every New Zealander. So almost 90 percent of the vote is now in and it has not changed dramatically, throughout, hovering at around 49 percent mark.
And national on 27 percent. I think what is very telling about this, national leader Judith Collins and in conceding defeat, she (INAUDIBLE) Jacinda Ardern. She congratulated her on what she called an outstanding vote. We have not seen a result like this in New Zealand politics since the mid '90s.
SOARES: Pretty historic.
So how has Ardern been promising to use the ground game here?
What should be expected from a second term?
LEVER: She has talked very much about leading the recovery through the COVID-19 crisis. And that being front and center of all of the campaigning. And I think many New Zealanders, as we've seen tonight, in the results, agree that she has handled the crisis incredibly well.
And the focus will very much be on the economy, in the next three years and national leader Judith Collins is promising to keep her honest on that.
SOARES: Wonderful journalist. Thank you from the breaking news from New Zealand, where Jacinda Ardern has won a second term as New Zealand prime minister.
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SOARES: After the break, not a common story, a tourist travels to Peru and he gets stranded because of coronavirus lockdown. But then came the experience of a lifetime. We'll show you straight ahead.
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SOARES: A Japanese tourist can officially cross off making history from his bucket list. After all, it is not every day someone gets stranded in a country because of the global pandemic and ends up with a private of Machu Picchu. CNN's Matt Rivers with his remarkable story.
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MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jesse Katayama was a tourist who went to Peru to see Machu Picchu. And that is about the only normal part of this story.
He says, "If I arrived a day earlier or a day later, this wouldn't have happened. It might be fate."
The 26-year old was nearing the end of the trip around the world in March. He got to Peru on the 14th and then the country locked down. Not only was Machu Picchu closed, so was the airport.
But panic?
No. He just rented a room. He stayed in Aguas Calientes, a town at the foot of Machu Picchu. He quickly made friends and says his neighbors cooked for him all the time. When some Japanese made it home on repatriation flights, Jesse chose to stay.
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RIVERS (voice-over): Limited Spanish didn't stop the boxing trainer from setting up a local club for the neighborhood kids.
"Uno, dos, tres," was simple enough. And it worked.
He showed us the gifts the kids gave him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Japanese.)
RIVERS (voice-over): He says, "On the back, it says 'I love you.' So cute. I'm not the same person I was when I first got here."
Machu Picchu had become kind of an afterthought. He lived close enough that he could see it but figured he'd leave before it reopened. And then came the call. The Peruvian government heard his story and made an exception.
Jesse, this week, became the first and only tourist to enter the site since March. Just him and his photographer guides and a whole bunch of history.
He says, "In the beginning, I wanted to go home and there were some tough times. But what I gained from this is invaluable. If anybody else finds themselves in a similar situation, I say, do your best and go for it."
Or essentially just roll with the punches, fitting advice, from a boxing trainer -- Matt Rivers, CNN.
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SOARES: And he had plenty of time to take it all in and to meditate.
Well, that wraps up this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks very much for your company. For international viewers, "SAVED BY THE FUTURE" is next. For viewers in the United States, it is "NEW DAY." You're watching CNN. Have a wonderful weekend. Thanks for watching. Bye-bye.
