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Trump Goes On Rally Blitz As 10 U.S. States Break COVID-19 Records; Thousands Of North Carolina Absentee Ballots Under Review; Biden Leads In Polls, Warns Against Complacency; Hospitalizations Climb Across U.S.; Disney To Lay Off 28,000 U.S. Workers; Italy Reports Record New Cases As Second Wave Grips Europe; Giuliani Targeted By Russian Intel For Disinformation; COVID-19 Misconceptions. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired October 18, 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: Lock them all up.
ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Donald Trump in Michigan. More focus on jailing the governor than controlling the state's spiking COVID cases. We'll tell you about the president's battleground blitz.
But will it be enough with millions of Americans casting ballots in what's shaping up to be a record setting election for early voting.
And later, Italy faces a growing coronavirus caseload with more cases per day than at the height of the first wave.
Live from CNN Hong Kong, welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Anna Coren. CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.
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COREN: Almost 40 million cases of COVID-19 have now been documented worldwide since the pandemic began. The virus is spreading unchecked almost everywhere. The global map is glowing with hot spots from the U.K. to Japan. We'll have the latest from Europe just ahead.
No country has been hit harder than the United States. It only has a fraction of the world's population yet, it counts for one-fifth of all COVID infections and states. At least 10 states are reporting record numbers of new cases, including Michigan and Wisconsin.
U.S. president Donald Trump held packed rallies in both states Saturday. Precautions such as masks and social distancing were largely ignored. Addressing the severity of the health crisis was not on the agenda. Instead, he continued to attack Michigan's Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer for trying to shield her state from the virus.
His words incited an ugly reaction. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Get your schools open, the schools have to be open, right?
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: Lock them all up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COREN: The FBI says Whitmer was recently the target of a foiled kidnapping plot by domestic extremists. She posted this reaction to the president on Twitter.
"This is exactly the rhetoric that has put me, my family, and other government officials' lives in danger while we try to save the lives of our fellow Americans. It needs to stop."
Wisconsin posted the highest number of new COVID cases on Friday. And rallies like the president held on Saturday are the types of mass gatherings public health officials say should not happen. We have more from Jeremy Diamond from Wisconsin.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is now losing to Joe Biden, according to recent polls, by an average of 7 points. So the president campaigning here in Janesville, Wisconsin, trying to win back some support. Talking about his support for law enforcement in particular, speaking in this town of Janesville, Wisconsin, which is 60 miles from Kenosha, Wisconsin, where, of course, a Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot by police.
After that, of course, there were protests and some unrest which the president has amplified and talked about.
But what he didn't talk about here is the surge here in Wisconsin of coronavirus cases happening in the state. Wisconsin is experiencing one of the worst surges in the country at the moment. Hospitalizations have tripled over the last month.
And the state of Wisconsin experienced a record number of cases just the day before the president came here to Janesville to campaign.
Now the White House's Coronavirus Task Force itself has warned about these types of events that the president hosted here.
It wrote in its weekly report about the state of Wisconsin, saying, "Wisconsin's ability to limit further and avoid increases in hospitalizations and deaths will depend on increased observation of social distancing mitigation measures by the community until cases decline.
"Lack of compliance with these measures will lead to preventable deaths."
And so that is what is so startling is to see the White House Coronavirus Task Force say essentially that these very same events that the president is holding with thousands of people, packed closely together, no social distancing, very few people wearing masks, will lead to preventable deaths.
Yet the president of the United States continues to hold these events. In fact, he has pledged to hold very similar events to the one we saw here in Janesville, Wisconsin, over the next few weeks, leading up to Election Day. Once a day, multiple times a day perhaps, in order to try to save his chances at reelection --
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DIAMOND: -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, in Janesville, Wisconsin.
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COREN: Democratic challenger Joe Biden has a significant lead in most polls. His campaign is warning supporters not to become complacent in these final two weeks. For more, here's Jason Carroll.
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JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As expected, the campaign putting much of its time, resources and energy in the battleground states. And states that are doing early in-person voting, we're seeing some of those same images coming out of places like North Carolina.
For his part, Vice President Joe Biden will be in Durham, North Carolina, today, speaking to voters, telling them to be patient and to get out there and vote. Senator Kamala Harris will be doing the same in Florida on Monday; should be making two stops there.
Biden not out on the campaign trail on Saturday, neither was Harris. Biden met with advisers from his campaign on Saturday; Harris, a couple of people in her orbit have tested positive For COVID-19. So they physically took her off the campaign trail for a couple of days.
She did test negative for COVID-19 on Saturday. So looking ahead, again, you've got Biden; he's going to be in North Carolina today. You've got Senator Harris in Florida; she will be there on Monday. Jill Biden will be in Pennsylvania on Monday, she will be in Michigan on Tuesday.
But Wednesday is the big day. That is the day that former President Barack Obama will be out there campaigning for Biden. He'll be doing that in Philadelphia. And a number of Democrats are saying that, if there's one surrogate you want out there stumping for you, that would be the one.
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COREN: Well, it's set to be a record-breaking year for early and mail- in voting ahead of the November 3rd U.S. election. Early voting officially begins on Monday in Florida. About 2.7 million people voted by mail there in 2016. And the state reports more than 3 million mailed ballots have yet to be cast this year. Out west in Nevada, early voting began Saturday in Las Vegas and
elsewhere in Clark County. So many cars streamed in to polling locations, officials are calling it a ballot dropoff parade.
In Georgia, early in-person voting keeps setting records. More than 1.3 million votes were cast by mid Saturday. That's more than a 130 percent increase from 2016.
North Carolina is also seeing a major jump in early in-person voting but its absentee ballot system has come under scrutiny. Dianne Gallagher reports.
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DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Every day for more than a month now Lee Zacharias checks the mail and comes up empty.
LEE ZACHARIAS, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: I submitted my application August 20th in person at the board of elections office.
GALLAGHER (on camera): You have not voted yet, though?
ZACHARIAS: I have not received a ballot.
GALLAGHER (voice over): Like thousands of others in North Carolina, because of the pandemic --
ZACHARIAS: I have a compromised immune system.
GALLAGHER: Zacharias is voting by mail for the first time this year, or trying to. According to Ballot Trax, a new tool that North Carolina voters can use to check their status, her original ballot was mailed on September 11th. She contacted Guilford County in late September and was told Ballot Trax might not be accurate. So, to be safe, they canceled the original and sent her a new ballot, which she's still waiting to get. ZACHARIAS: Makes me angry.
GALLAGHER: Across town, a different kind of voting problem. Forty- seven-year-old Vincent Gager returned his and his 83-year-old dad's ballots weeks ago. So he was shocked when we told him state data shows their ballots haven't been accepted.
VINCENT GAGER, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: I've been doing it the same way for years. I sign his, you know, I'm -- I'm the witness because, you know, I'm his son.
GALLAGHER: He's not alone. So far, more than 1.3 million North Carolina voters have requested an absentee ballot and almost 40 percent of them have already been returned. But according to state data, nearly 7,200 are still under review, meaning the vote hasn't yet been accepted. Now, black voters make up only 16 percent of the total statewide ballot returns, but they account for almost 40 percent of the ballots listed as pending.
T. ANTHONY SPEARMAN, PRESIDENT, NORTH CAROLINA NAACP: This is no way to run an election.
GALLAGHER: Dr. T. Anthony Spearman is the president of the North Carolina NAACP. He's also a member of the board of elections in Guilford County, where nearly 6 percent of ballots returned by black voters are still listed as pending.
SPEARMAN: So many of them are for the first time undergoing this process and their naivety to it is causing some of these rejections.
GALLAGHER: As election workers review ballots for processing, they're supposed to notify a voter if they find a problem. Most issues can be fixed or cured without having to fill out a new ballot, but a slew of lawsuits surrounding what to do with ballots that are missing witness information led to the state board telling counties to do nothing.
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GALLAGHER: And just wait for court guidance, leaving thousands of voters in limbo as the clock ticks down to Election Day.
SPEARMAN: And people are losing confidence. They're losing trust in the election cycle.
GALLAGHER: Creating suspicion in the shadows of North Carolina's ugly history of minority voter disenfranchisement.
GAGER: And I feel like they're trying to do voter suppression.
GALLAGHER: Still waiting on her ballot, Zacharias is suspicious, too.
ZACHARIAS: So I want to cast a vote.
GALLAGHER (on camera): Are you afraid that your state is going to prevent you from doing that?
ZACHARIAS: I don't know the answer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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COREN: Let's bring in Robert Gutsche, who teaches sociology at Lancaster University in England.
What is your take on the scenes we're witnessing across the U.S., where Americans are casting early voting?
What does it say?
ROBERT GUTSCHE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, LANCASTER UNIVERSITY IN ENGLAND: For those who rallied for the republic as soon as a huge win and shows us maybe how voting needs to change and has needed to change for a long time in the United States. Not just in terms of early voting but through technology and through the Postal Service, something that Donald Trump actually was trying to get rid of. But this is showing a lot of enthusiasm and maybe having us think
differently about trying to get everything done in such a short time. Now I don't know if that means people are going to want to wait a few days for results. That may need a few more years before we can do that over a few days.
But this is a good sign for those who want to see the Republican, the democracy take hold.
COREN: Just over two weeks until Election Day. And obviously the sprint is both on for Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
What strategies are you expecting from both sides?
GUTSCHE: Donald Trump's strategy all along has been to attack, attack and to make fun and shame. He's going to need to figure out how to balance that out with some policy. It's not just about make America great again like it was the first campaign.
And it's not just about the emotion, either. Certainly that's driving a lot of his supporters. He's going to have to come down with more specific policies if he wants to get those people off the fence.
And for Joe Biden, he has to do the same thing. He's been laying low, trying to keep his gaffes low and trying to let Donald Trump make a ruckus and react to that.
But we don't know what kind of president Joe Biden would be. So he needs to step up and tell us more about how he would govern, not just how he would govern differently from Donald Trump.
COREN: And what about seeing Obama on the campaign trail this week?
Do you think that will be an obvious boost for Joe Biden?
GUTSCHE: Well, that's his ace in the hole. Right?
And Barack Obama came out earlier for Biden. He's been playing it fair in the background, quiet, because this isn't Barack Obama's campaign. This is Joe Biden's campaign.
But it is about time for Barack Obama to come out and do that for Harris and Biden. But that also might have a bit of a flip side to it.
If people start to look at Joe Biden as Barack Obama and, said, well we didn't want him in office anyway, let's flip back to Trump. So all this stuff is coming down to what people find as a fundamental aspect of what they want in a president. So it will help. But for others, it might just rally even more Donald Trump support.
COREN: Robert, it's been a tumultuous first term for Donald Trump. Support for the president is eroding across the country, according to national polls.
What do you think Trump can do to win back the voters who were with him in 2016? GUTSCHE: Well, I do think some of what he might be losing is support among white women. That was a huge push for him in his first election. And I think we saw in this last town hall debate a softer side maybe to Donald Trump or how he can try and tone it down a bit.
I think for him that might help, to keep it softer, not just for women but in that sense he wasn't attacking the woman sitting across from him, which we would hope and expect a candidate to behave that way.
But for Donald Trump, that was something a bit new. And I think that response to seeing a lack of support or slipping support from that strong base that he's had. So he's going to have to think about that strategy.
At the end of the day, people have to judge him on the way he's treated women in that case.
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GUTSCHE: That hasn't looked good. He has to figure out who he is and how he's going to answer to those past times, because, in the last few weeks, they have a lot of dirt they could dig up on Donald Trump and put out on the ads.
And Democrats have to decide if they want to go that route.
COREN: President Trump only has two weeks to turn that image around. Great to get your analysis, Robert Gutsche, joining us from Lancaster University in England.
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COREN: There's much more to come right here on CNN, including a look at the escalating coronavirus cases in the U.S. and whether the long- feared cold weather surge has arrived.
And Disney Parks employees in the U.S. are facing layoffs as the pandemic decimates revenue. We'll look at the human cost behind the financial decisions.
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COREN: Welcome back.
Coronavirus cases are increasing rapidly in the U.S. as experts warn that a feared cold weather surge is underway. On Friday, 10 states reported their highest ever single day tallies of new infections. And more than 30 states are seeing more cases this week than they did the week before.
[05:20:00] COREN: Hospitalizations are climbing nationwide. And the nation's daily average of new cases is up more than 60 percent since mid- September. According to Johns Hopkins University, the total cases in the U.S. is more than 8.1 million with almost 220,000 deaths.
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COREN: We're now joined by Dr. Peter Drobac, an infectious disease and global health expert at the University of Oxford.
What's your take on the rallies President Trump is holding in states where we are seeing record surges of coronavirus infections?
DR. PETER DROBAC, INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND GLOBAL HEALTH EXPERT, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Frankly, it's irresponsible. Minnesota has been tracking the outcomes of a rally held there a couple weeks ago and has already documented 20 cases among people who attended the rally or counterprotested. And likely there are more infections seeded from there.
We can very much see the rallies, which most people are in close contact and not wearing masks, can be super spreader events. And that they're happening in places where the amount of transmission is exploding is concerning.
COREN: The White House Coronavirus Task Force urged officials in Wisconsin last month and this week to prevent large social gatherings. It's being labeled a red zone with the fourth highest rate of positive cases per capita in the U.S.
You have to assume that what the president has been doing is highly dangerous and could potentially be causing preventable deaths.
DROBAC: It certainly could. It's another example of the White House not following its own guidance. In Wisconsin we've seen a surge not just in infections but in hospitalizations up well over a third over the last week. There's a field hospital that's been set up in anticipation of a crush of new COVID patients coming.
And so we may be starting to see the kinds of terrible scenes that we saw in New York and other places last spring occurring in places like the Midwest.
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COREN: And Doctor, the fact that many of the people attending the rallies are not wearing masks, even though that is commonplace across much of the world?
DROBAC: It's one thing we know works. They are a tool to prevent the spread and also a tool of freedom. The more of us that wear masks, the higher likelihood we can keep things open and never have to lock down.
If everybody was doing it, models estimate we could prevent 75,000 deaths with a simple intervention. It's extremely important. And the continued politicization of masks and the talk about so-called herd immunity strategy is dangerous right now.
We're just on the cusp of things here. We've seen this wave of cases across much of the country right now. It's different than what we saw before, where -- in the spring where the virus hadn't seeded everywhere. Now it really has. As we move indoors to the winter, the ongoing first wave could turn into a tsunami.
COREN: I want to ask you about the 70,000 new infections reported in the U.S. on Friday. It's the highest number in a single day since July.
Why are numbers still going up and will it get worse with winter?
DROBAC: Yes, there are a number of reasons why things aren't going up. The first is we don't have a coordinated national strategy for trying to address the COVID-19 pandemic. What we've seen obviously is that, as we move into the cooler months of the fall, more people are moving indoors, where the risk of transmission is much higher versus outdoors.
We've had kids back in school, students back in universities. All of these things are starting to drive things up.
Also if you go back to the spring, most of our cases were concentrated in a few areas. It hadn't, again, seeded some of the Midwest and Mountain West states to the extent they are now.
We're seeing a much more kind of distributed surge in infections and a high level of community transmission across almost all the country. That's why I'm so worried. I think it's going to potentially get much worse unless we act quickly to turn the tide. (END VIDEOTAPE)
COREN: That was Dr. Peter Drobac, speaking with me with a short time ago.
Disney is set to lay off 28,000 people in the U.S. after the coronavirus shattered attractions around the globe. Disney World in Florida has reopened but the company's California parks remain closed and it's left workers in a tough spot. Stephanie Elam has more.
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STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Disneyland: it's known as the happiest place on Earth. But for some people, it's more than a slogan.
MARK GRIFFIN, DISNEY HOLIDAY DECORATION DESIGNER: My return to Disney is like my return to home. I started there as a teenager.
ELAM (voice-over): Designer Mark Griffin gives Disneyland that holiday magic.
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ELAM (voice-over): In two stints, he's worked more than a decade at the park. This month, he was told it would all be coming to an end.
ELAM: Disney announces they're laying off some 28,000 employees.
How did that impact you?
GRIFFIN: It's devastating. We're all worried about our livelihood. I'm worried, am I going to be able to stay in this house?
Am I going to keep a roof over my kids' heads?
I'm 52 and I'm on food stamps for the first time in my life.
ELAM (voice-over): After Disney World's full reopening in July, Disneyland hoped to reopen as well. But California's summer COVID-19 spike led Governor Gavin Newsom to toughen his approach, delaying reopening indefinitely. On October 12th, he repeated his health first approach to theme parks.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): They're cities. They're small cities and there are people from all around the world that descend, not just people that are proximate to these theme parks that come together and mix.
ELAM (voice-over): Earlier this month, Disney fired back. Its chief medical officer tweeted, "We absolutely reject the suggestion that reopening Disneyland is incompatible with a health first approach. We have taken a robust science-based approach.
ELAM: The longer that Disneyland stays closed, the harder the impact on the economy and as much as Disneyland employs, the entire region relies on the tourism that comes here because of the park.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): 264,000 jobs lost in the Anaheim area during COVID.
ELAM (voice-over): Anaheim's Chamber of Commerce launched a campaign to push back against the governor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Let's reopen theme parks and reawaken our region.
ELAM (voice-over): Nineteen state lawmakers agreed, telling Newsom of news reports that outbreaks simply aren't being traced back to these theme parks that have already reopened.
But Newsom wants his own answers. He sent his health officials to inspect safety protocols at Disney World in Florida and to tour California parks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We wanted to show them first-hand it's not what you're thinking. Walking through a park and seeing all the different signage, the Plexiglas, the staff they'll have there, visibly cleaning all the high-touch surfaces.
ELAM (voice-over): Not everyone is jumping to reopen for the sake of the economy.
INES GUZMAN, HOUSEKEEPER: It scares me.
ELAM (voice-over): Ines Guzman is a housekeeper at the Disneyland Hotel and one of nearly 3,000 unite here local 11 service workers at the park.
GUZMAN: I love my job.
ELAM (voice-over): She wants to go back but is worried about the virus.
GUZMAN: If I bring that home, I could lose my mom, my children. That's a deadly disease.
ELAM (voice-over): Mark Griffin agrees. Safety is priority one, followed closely by a return of the magic.
GRIFFIN: We make the magic. The thought of losing that, I'm in kind of withdrawals from that.
ELAM: Is it part of your identity?
GRIFFIN: It's definitely part -- Disney is my identity.
ELAM (voice-over): Stephanie Elam, CNN, Anaheim, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COREN: After the break on CNN NEWSROOM, the coronavirus is surging once again across Europe. We'll take you to Italy to find out how it's changing its tactics to fight a second wave.
Plus how a second wave of coronavirus is jeopardizing restaurants as they struggle to recover across Europe.
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COREN: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world.
European governments are scrambling to get COVID-19 spread under control. New cases are sweeping the continent. The red and orange you can see here show areas where the virus spread is up from last week. At least 10 percent more than the week before.
Germany recorded more than 7,800 new cases Saturday. That's a new record. One German governor warned the nation is in danger of, quote, "losing control" in some areas. Meanwhile in Italy, one of the hardest hit nations at the start of the
pandemic, there were almost 11,000 new infections reported from Friday to Saturday. That's a new daily high. CNN has reporters covering the COVID crisis from across Europe. Let's join Ben Wedeman.
A record number of new daily infections in Italy. The prime minister is due to announce new restrictions.
What can we expect?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's important to keep in mind this is the fourth day in a row that we've seen record highs, highs far higher than we saw earlier this year in March, which was the height of the pandemic here in Italy.
Now just to give you an idea of where we are, we're in Naples outside a COVID hospital, where tents have been set up for COVID testing. This facility is open seven days a week. They test about 1,000 people a day.
Unlike in the past, when you needed to show symptoms of COVID-19, now anybody can show up and get these tests for free. Now people can come as early as 5:00 am to get numbers. They open at 8:00 in the morning. And it seems to be a fairly smooth operation.
And everyone we've spoken to who has come out of this testing center seems fairly satisfied with the efficiency and the speed of the work that's been doing here.
Now yesterday we spoke with the senior infective disease specialist here in this region, who told us that they are testing numbers far larger than before. That explains why the numbers are so high, the positive numbers.
But it's important to keep in mind that the number of deaths is actually relatively low. It's still in the double digits. It hasn't gotten anywhere near 100 at this point.
Now in this region of Italy, the governor has ordered all schools and universities closed. Restaurants, in theory, are supposed to close their doors at 9:00. We were in a restaurant yesterday and it was past 9:00 and people were still going in. There's a lot of life in the streets. You don't really get the feeling that anything is out of the ordinary -- by COVID terms, of course.
And, therefore, there doesn't seem to be a lot of panic or fear at this point. The government, it's believed, has done a thoroughly decent job under the circumstances in dealing with this.
Now as you mentioned, Giuseppe Conte, the Italian prime minister will be speaking this evening and it's expected there will be some measures taken although we're nowhere near a lockdown we saw earlier this year being implemented.
[05:35:00] WEDEMAN: There's a possibility of local overnight curfews along the lines of what France has implemented but they're trying to maintain this balance between effective measures to stop the surge of new cases and not damaging the economy any more than it has already been hurt from this pandemic.
COREN: Ben Wedeman, as always, great to see you, joining us from Naples in Italy.
Restaurants in Europe seemed to be recovering from the initial impact of the pandemic. But the new wave could change that. CNN's Scott McLean reports.
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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Last call in London. Life is changing for people there, now subject to tighter tier 2 coronavirus rules. That means they can no longer mix with people from other households indoors and outside they're limited to groups of 6.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am with my friends. We don't know how long it's going to. Last
MCLEAN (voice-over): More than half the population of England is under new restrictions as well as many parts of Europe. Where that meal out with whoever, whenever, is now regulated by governments to try to stop the spread of the virus. Hospitality workers say it's bad for business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Our pay is reduced. But the bills are not reduced. It's not right. But we don't have any choice.
MCLEAN (voice-over): But more countries are clamping down on eating out. Poland's prime minister is urging people in areas with high infection rates to stay at. Belgium is soon closing its bars, cafes and restaurants for a month.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I really believe the cafes and restaurants are really stigmatized. It's more than clear. We feel that we are the bad guys.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Germany's Angela Merkel is encouraging people to avoid social gatherings to stop a second wave of the virus.
ANGELA MERKEL, CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY (through translator): Please forsake any journey that is not absolutely essential and every party that is not absolutely essential. Stay at home where at all possible.
MCLEAN (voice-over): But some local businesses are fighting back. In Berlin, a court overturned a curfew for bars to close at 11 pm. But alcohol still can't be sold after that time. Bar and restaurant owners say they can't afford to lose their livelihood.
But with the world surpassing more than 400,000 new cases a day Friday, many people in Europe, tougher restrictions may be something they have to live with, even though they're hard to digest -- Scott McLean, CNN, Berlin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COREN: After a summer of managing the spread of COVID-19, France is now setting shocking daily records for infections. A nighttime curfew is now in effect in major cities to try to bring down the numbers. Melissa Bell joins us from Paris.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said the curfew is necessity to avoid the risk of hospitals being overrun. Tell us about the strain the health system is currently under and how are people reacting to the curfew.
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Because of the nature of the pandemic localized, so in places like Marseille and the south of France, in greater Paris, already the ICUs are seeing serious strain on their resources.
And here in the greater Paris region, more than 46 percent of ICU beds taken up by COVID patients. It is as much as the system can bear. As the French president said Wednesday, the second wave is likely to prove even more dangerous than the first because of now the fact that the virus has spread across the whole of France because also health workers are tired and there are this time around no spare beds.
That is the severity of the situation that France is facing --
COREN: OK, we seem to have lost Melissa Bell joining us there in Paris. But as we said, the French president said that curfew that is now in place for the next month is necessary because of the strain that is currently on the health system.
President Trump's former White House chief of staff John Kelly is telling friends extremely unflattering things about the president. When we return, former national security adviser John Bolton offers his perspective on Kelly's harsh assessment of their former boss.
Plus we'll find out why a recent military parade in North Korea may have a loaded message for the United States.
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COREN: Welcome back.
We want to go live to Bangkok, where protesters are filling the streets in Thailand's capital. Demonstrations and marches have been ongoing in Thailand since July. But we've seen them escalate in recent weeks.
Protesters are calling for a new constitution, reform of the monarchy, the dissolution of parliament and resignation of the country's prime minister.
The police earlier in the week used water cannon to clear demonstrators who had gathered in the main business district. Thai public broadcasting service showed rows of security troops advancing on the site. This protest right now is peaceful. But stay with CNN for any further developments.
Many former Trump officials have had unkind words about their former boss. But some of the most disparaging comments yet are coming from a former White House chief of staff John Kelly.
CNN recently learned Kelly has described President Trump to friends as the most flawed and dishonest person he's ever met. Former national security adviser John Bolton, also a harsh critic of the president, spoke about Kelly's remarks with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. Here's some of the conversation.
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JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I hope John Kelly and the others would think about this. I think they would find a lot of support. They will be criticized by people who will call them traitor, there's no doubt about it.
But we've got less than three weeks until the election. If we're going to hear it, let's hear it now.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: We've got 17 days, to be precise. Ambassador Bolton, let's talk about Russia for a moment. The U.S. intelligence community has known for months that Russia is actively trying to hurt the Biden campaign. And now, Rudy Giuliani has gone public with what may be misinformation tied to that effort. What do you make of this?
BOLTON: Well, I want to be clear that I'm not going to talk about anything that that I learned that was classified while I was in the White House. But this Ukraine situation really -- it just -- it was a tragedy that the people who wanted to impeach Trump were so determined to get it done quickly that they didn't look at the larger picture.
I don't want to say Kiev is the -- you know, the Vienna of this century, the location of the iconic film, The Third Man. There a lot of Russian agents working Ukraine, not because of the United States, because they're trying to influence Ukraine.
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BOLTON: And when people go there and supposedly get information about all these different conspiracy theories, if there aren't Russian agents working them, then the FSB is asleep on the job.
So I think it's a dangerous situation. Some of these things we've seen report in the press, if they had come to normal U.S. intelligence operations, it would have been given a very, very hard counterintelligence scrub. We haven't seen that here obviously. This is really, potentially very damaging, very destabilizing to the United States, which is what Russia fundamentally wants. They're not really in this for one candidate or the other. They're in it fighting asymmetric warfare against the Constitution in our institutions.
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COREN: Russia is not the only country focused on the U.S. election. North Korea is showcasing its military might. A calculated move during the final days of the campaign. Paula Hancocks looks at what this means for the U.S. and the region and whether Kim Jong-un will stay quiet as Americans vote.
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PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kim Jong-un had a dual message, rare tears of regret and appreciation for his domestic audience; for the United States, a glimpse of what analysts believe to be one of the world's biggest ballistic missiles.
JEFFREY LEWIS, MIDDLEBURY INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: This new missile is so large it could carry several nuclear weapons, three, perhaps four anywhere in the United States. So what this represents is a dramatic increase in the ability of North Korea to target nuclear weapons at the United States and overwhelm U.S. missile defenses.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): A new submarine launched ballistic missile also identified by weapons experts along with more conventional armaments, from tanks to body armor. Significant developments during a period the U.S. president Donald Trump had been talking to the North Korean leader, three face to face meetings and countless flattering letters did not get in the way of the North's military progress.
Although secretary of state Mike Pompeo says the fact that they haven't tested these weapons shows diplomacy has worked.
As for when the new ICBM tests could come, few believe North Korea would want to upset the apple cart before the U.S. election.
MARTIN NAVIAS, KINGS COLLEGE: I suspect we're moving closer to a North Korean test. And that will come in the not too distant future, especially if there's a new American administration. North Korea will test that administration. They will rattle the cage and they will gain attention.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): As for who Kim Jong-un would want to deal with come January...
NAVIAS: Kim Jong-un would prefer Donald Trump over Joe Biden. There's no question about that. Donald Trump, while he sometimes is erratic, Kim Jong-un has built up a relationship with him.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): Both the U.S. and South Korea agree Pyongyang's nuclear and weapons programs pose a significant threat.
LEWIS: So every day we wait and every bit of progress they make, I think, is ultimately irreversible.
HANCOCKS (voice-over): Each new weapon creating a new reality for future negotiations -- Paula Hancocks, CNN, Seoul. (END VIDEOTAPE)
COREN: We know a lot more about COVID-19 than we did six months ago but there are still misconceptions. After the break, Dr. Sanjay Gupta with the latest information.
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[05:50:00]
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COREN: Results won't be official for three weeks but the New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern is savoring her landslide victory in Saturday's general election. Her Labor Party won almost 50 percent of the vote and an apparent parliamentary majority. She said she'll govern for every New Zealander at a very divided time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACINDA ARDERN, NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER: Tonight we are living 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 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.
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COREN: And staying in New Zealand, rugby's second Bledisloe Cup match wrapped up a short time ago with a win for the All Blacks. They beat Australia 27-7 in Auckland. But the real test may have been New Zealand versus the coronavirus.
More than 46,000 fans were able to watch the match in person after the country's successful effort to halt COVID-19. You can see the crowds here at Coopers Catch, better known as Eden Park. It's all about what you don't see: there
are no masks and there is no social distancing.
The world has had a steep learning curve with the coronavirus. We've been fighting a disease that didn't even exist a year ago. While we know much more than we did when the pandemic began, there is still a lot of misconceptions. Here's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I went through it and now they say I'm immune. I can feel -- I feel so powerful, I'll walk into that audience.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Misconception number one, once you get COVID-19, you're forever immune. One study has shown that neutralizing antibodies are produced for at least five months after someone's been infected, but we don't know just how that translates to how long someone will be protected or immunized after an infection.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We're starting to see a number of cases that are being reported of people who get re-infected, well-documented cases of people who were infected after a relatively brief period of time. So you really have to be careful that you're not completely, quote, immune.
GUPTA: Misconception two, we should try to mitigate this virus by naturally achieving herd immunity.
DR. SCOTT ATLAS, WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: It's important for people to understand medical science, to know that natural human immunity of populations, that is sometimes called herd immunity, it's very important that that develops. That's how viruses are eradicated.
GUPTA: Let me clarify something, herd immunity is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a question of how you get there. One way is a vaccine, which many people are hopeful for, but what Dr. Scott Atlas seems to be describing is just letting the infection run free.
[05:55:00]
GUPTA (voice-over): And now this idea has gained more traction with a controversial declaration written by some scientists who seem to be encouraging those who are not vulnerable to go ahead and get exposed to COVID-19, to resume normal life in order to reach herd immunity.
DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, DIRECTOR, CDC: A majority of our nation, more than 90 percent of the population, remains susceptible.
GUPTA: What CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield is talking about is a study that shows fewer than 10 percent of the people in the United States have likely been infected. Now, keep in mind, to achieve herd immunity, that number would need to be around 60 to 70 percent of the population. Now considering more than 217,000 people have already died from COVID-19 with 10 percent infected, look at what 60 percent infection could mean. IHME calculates this could mean more than 1.2 million deaths.
TEDROS ADHANOM, DIRECTOR GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: It's scientifically and (INAUDIBLE) problematic.
GUPTA: Misconception three, early travel restrictions helped prevent millions of deaths.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The country would have been left wide open, millions of people would have died, not 200,000.
GUPTA: On February 2nd, the Trump administration began to implement travel restrictions from mainland China. Restrictions but not a complete ban. Since U.S. citizens and permanent residents were still able to travel into the country from China. DR. PAUL SAX, CLINICAL DIRECTOR OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES DIVISION, BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL: Travel bans could potentially prevent the spread of infection in a country, but not if they're instituted solely for the people who are traveling as citizens of the foreign countries.
GUPTA: And an analysis by the CDC found that the restrictions on travel from Europe came too late, since by March 15th there was already widespread infection in New York City, an early epicenter of the U.S. outbreak. Back then we had fewer than 100 deaths. Now we have more than 200,000 -- Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COREN: Well, that wraps up this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Anna Coren. Thank you so much for your company. "BUSINESS TRAVELLER" is next. For U.S. viewers, "NEW DAY" is just ahead.
