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Mixed Messaging on Masks From Trump Administration; Italy to Implement New Restrictions; Europe Struggles to Contain Surging Numbers; France Set a Record for New Cases on Saturday; Greater Manchester Resists Tough New Rules; Czech Republic Sees Record Number of New Cases; Alexey Navalny Says U.S. President Must Oppose Chemical Weapons Use. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired October 19, 2020 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: The mixed messaging doesn't stop there. On Sunday, Twitter deleted a tweet from White House coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas that read masks work, no. Twitter called it misinformation. The U.S. healthy secretary was asked about the contradictions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX AZAR, U.S. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: We have it in our individual control, it's our ticket, to be reconnected to education, to worship to work, to health care and also, to our public and civic life, Chuck, where a face covering when you can't be socially distant, Chuck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE, NBC NEWS, MEET THE PRESS: So why is that message so difficult for the President?

AZAR: I think it's a difficult message for al Western democracies. We're seeing that in Europe. People are tired. The American people have given so much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: And earlier I talked about those mixed messages and the importance of masks with Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips. She is the chief clinical officer for Providence Health System. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. AMY COMPTON-PHILLIPS, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: My advice would be to stick with the science and the science is really vetted by the experts at the CDC. Something we've seen with this pandemic and one of the reasons why we have concerns about the national leadership around the pandemic is that we need to let science speak and not take one person's opinion and amplify that. And that's what's happened.

The mixed messaging, you know, the CDC saying one thing, which is where the expertise lies and then I belief for some reason, I still don't understand it that counters what the science says of being promoted by another arm of the government really is incredibly complicated for people to tease their way through. Believe the CDC masks work.

CHURCH: Yes, absolutely. It's confusing people though, nonetheless. And of course, the irony is that if President Trump asked his supporters to wear masks, they would do just that and those actions could very well increase his chances of reelection, but he refuses to do it for whatever reason. What impact would a national mask mandate have on the United States if he calls from one right now?

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Well, you know, it would have to slow down the spread of the virus. Because what masks do is they inhibit the person wearing it from spreading the germ to other people and they also ensure that if do you get the virus you get a lower viral load because if you breathe in, you get a less severe, likely a less severe bout of the disease, because you inhale less viral particles.

And because of that, it slows the spread, and it makes the condition less bad in people who get it. And so, I would believe that if we were able to have everybody wear a mask, we could within a span of a couple of weeks, really get our level of infection much, much better than where it is today. It's the easy way for us to help getting control of this pandemic.

CHURCH: We are currently witnessing the autumn surge in cases that experts had warn us about, and yet we are seeing more reckless behavior at these Trump rallies. No masks or no social distancing. And Dr. Fauci said Sunday night on 60 Minutes that this is exactly why the President's COVID diagnosis came as no surprise to him.

How concerned are you when you watch these rallies and how might they impact where the current surge in cases is going?

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: I am very concerned, Rosemary. I mean, this kind of behavior and it's so unnecessary. It's easy to wear a mask. It's not that hard. We do it in hospitals, we do it in medical clinics all day long every day. It really is not that hard, it's such a simple solution, all it would take is the President and all the leadership in government to be aligned on saying wear a mask, go protect yourself. We would save countless lives, so I am disheartened when that's not the message that comes across.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And that was Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, chief clinical officer of Providence Health System.

Well, Europe is the midst of a second wave of coronavirus cases. And Italy, which was one of the worst hit countries at the beginning of the pandemic is struggling to get it under control. The Prime Minister is desperately trying to avoid another full lock down saying it would, quote, compromise the economic fabric of the country. CNN's Ben Wedeman has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sunday evening Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced new measures to slow what is clearly a second wave of coronavirus here in Italy. The emphasis of these new measures is on limiting public gatherings, particularly night life.

The urgency of the situation was driven home Sunday when authorities announced for the fifth day in a row, record increases in the number of new cases. The numbers, however, don't tell the entire story. Testing is five times what it was during the darkest days of the pandemic last March, and the number of coronavirus patients in intensive care is just a fifth of what it was back then. However, winter is coming, and this second wave is just beginning.

[04:35:00]

Ben Wedeman, CNN, Naples.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Officials in the U.K. and France are struggling with that second wave, too. Both countries have seen major spikes in cases, and both have introduced new measures. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is covering the story from Manchester, England, and CNN's Melissa Bell joins us live from Paris. Good to see you both. So, Melissa, what is latest on these record coronavirus cases across France, and the curfews?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we've seen over the course of the last four days, Rosemary, are rises in terms of the number of new cases every day above 25,000. Tonight, close to 30,000. Of course, a fresh record was set on Saturday, but these are large rises in the number of new cases. And of course, these are going to have a knock-on effect in a couple of weeks nationally in terms of the entry into ICU.

Just to tell you where we are nationally here in France, at the moment. More than 35 percent of ICU beds at a national level are already taken by COVID-19 patients. So that is likely to get worse over the course of the next couple of weeks. The positivity rate here in France, 13.2 percent, and of course the problem with those curfews is that even if they have an impact on those figures, it's going to take some time for the impact to be felt. Both in terms of the number of new cases announced daily and of course in terms of the number of people entering ICU.

And we remain -- there remains, I'm sorry, Rosemary, here in places like the greater Paris area that particular worry because of the nature of the pandemic that strikes locally very strongly. Here already, 46.8 percent of ICU beds taken up by COVID-19 patients and there's a point at which the system simply can't cope. Because the emergency help, medication, and help that is given in urgency units to other patients gets taken away in favor of COVID-19 patients. That's what authorities are looking at, the number of people in ICU that are COVID-19 patients very closely in the coming days -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: Thanks, Melissa. And Salma, what is the latest on the resumption of talks over Manchester restrictions?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: Rosemary, we finally have a breakthrough after this day's long standoff. The mayor of greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has said he has held constructive talks with a Downing Street official. We've also heard from a government official that a larger financial package will be offered to Manchester to help affected businesses deal with tier 3 restrictions.

Essentially the argument was over whether or not to raise the alert level of the city. The government in London said the cases are too high here, you need to move into tier 3 restrictions. That means shut down your pubs, your bars, potentially your gyms, ban households from mixing together.

The mayor of greater Manchester's, Andy Burnham, response to that was, no. I don't want to raise the restriction levels of my city for two reasons. A, I disagree with Prime Minister Boris Johnson's strategy, I think these limited regional lockdowns simply are a negative impact on businesses without giving much in terms of a reward when you're speaking about how much it would bring the number of coronavirus cases down.

And two, his argument is if you're going impose the restrictions on our city, then I want a better deal for my city. He's been calling for 80 percent of wages to be paid by the government to anyone affected. Now the mayor did say that there is nothing planned or scheduled today in terms of talks. But the government has said they are hopeful that they will find a resolution today.

But it's important to remember here that Manchester is just one city. Imagine having to negotiate these restrictions town by town, city by city, while the virus spreads through the population. That's why the country's scientific advisers, or at least in part, that's why the country's scientific advisers are saying have a nation lock down instead -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: All right, many thanks to Melissa Bell and Salma Abdelaziz joining us there with live reports. Appreciate it.

All right, turning to the Czech Republic now and a country that's now among the hardest hit in Europe. Despite spike in case numbers, protesters took to the streets of Prague Sunday. They're unhappy about new restrictions but back in the spring, it was a very different story.

And CNN's Scott McLean has been tracking this angle from Berlin. He joins us now live. Good to see you, Scott. So, the Czech Republic showed the rest of the world how masks work to fight COVID-19, and then they stopped wearing them and paid the price. What happened?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so the spring and the fall in the Czech Republic, Rosemary, really could not have been more different. The country may have been too good at controlling the virus in the spring because Czechs never saw overflowing hospitals, they never saw mass casualties, and it kind of seemed like the virus wasn't that harmful. Only now are they realizing that, well, they may have underestimated it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MCLEAN (voice-over): In this Prague ICU, the sickest coronavirus patients are treated by staff in full hazmat suits. Some are hooked up to ventilators, others placed face down. For now, there's still a bed for everyone.

[04:40:00]

DR. HANA ROHACOVA, HEAD DOCTOR, NA BULOVCE HOSPITAL (on-screen text translation): We have other back up beds prepared in other departments in case the capacity exceeds our current possibilities.

MCLEAN: The government is also building a temporary field hospital it expects to need in just weeks. The Czech Republic has more new cases per million people than any other major country on earth. This is technically the second wave of infection. The first was barely a blip on the radar after the government moved quickly to close borders and implement a lockdown. Just like many other countries.

(on camera): What set the Czech Republic apart?

PETR LUDWIG, DATA SCIENTIST: We were the first country in Europe with the mandate for masks from the government.

MCLEAN (voice-over): In mid-March, months before the W.H.O. was recommending masks, Czech data scientist, Petr Ludwig, read the scientific evidence supporting masks and made this video to explain why he was convinced they were the answer.

LUDWIG (on-screen text translation): More importantly, masks protect you from spreading COVID-19.

MCLEAN: The video went viral and a few days later, the populist Czech Prime Minister, Andrej Babis, made masks mandatory everywhere outside the home. With medical masks still scarce, Czechs started sewing. The mask mandate was unpopular but wildly effective. By late June Prague threw a party to mark the end of the pandemic. Dr. Roman Prymula is the newly appointed health minister.

(on camera): Do you think you maybe did a victory lap a little bit too soon?

DR. ROMAN PRYMULA, CZECH HEALTH MINISTER: That's true because we had many experts, and those were not epidemiologists, not virologists but they were arguing that, OK, the disease is there but it's very mild. So, they tried to push politicians just to skip out of strict countermeasures.

MCLEAN (voice-over): With almost no restrictions the number of cases started to slowly bounce back in late summer. The top government epidemiologists called on the Prime Minister to reinstate the mask mandate.

(on camera): Why do you think the Prime Minister said no? LUDWIG: I think it was because we had an election. After the election they started to push some harder rules again, but it was too late because we already had an exponential growth.

MCLEAN: The government close schools and bars but the same strict mask rule so effective in the spring still hasn't been fully reinstated.

(on camera): You don't think a mandatory mask mandate would have prevented you being in the situation that you are in right now?

PRYMULA: I think just now we have a mandate for protective masks but indoor. There is discussion if to introduce it outdoor as well. But it's not only wearing a mask, it's an issue of other countermeasures, and particularly social contact. This is the reason why the situation is still not under control.

LUDWIG: I think that one of the main causes is really populism. During the first wave they were convinced that people want masks, so they pushed masks. Now they are convinced that people don't want to wear a mask, so they are against it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MCLEAN: And one Czech scientist that I spoke to said that despite the real success of that strict mask mandate in the spring, Czechs really do not like wearing masks. They don't have the same kind of mask wearing culture that they have in some other Asian countries.

At that protest you mentioned over the weekend in Prague, Rosemary, well, there was no social distancing and there were very few masks in sight. The Czech Republic now is reporting three times more new cases per capita than the U.K., four times more than the United States. And with hospitals starting to reach their capacities, the Czech medical chamber and now also the health minister are calling for Czech doctors abroad to come home to help deal with the surging number of patients.

CHURCH: And of course, what we're learning from all of that is that masks work, we need to wear them. It's just a matter of getting used to them, right. Scott McLean joining us there live. Appreciate it.

And breaking news coming into CNN. Moments ago, Johns Hopkins University reported that the global COVID-19 case total has topped 40 million people. Incredible number there. The United States making up more than a fifth of those, having topped 8 million this week. India is rapidly catching up to that, Brazil and Russia are the other countries with more than a million confirmed cases each, but right now, the figure that shows the virus's relentless spread, Johns Hopkins reporting more than 40 million cases worldwide. Unbelievable.

Well, a leading Kremlin critic is speaking out about his horrific poisoning. Just ahead, we will find out how Alexey Navalny thinks President Trump should get involved. Back in a moment.

[04:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CHURCH: The Russian opposition activist at the center of a poisoning scandal is speaking out to U.S. news media. Alexey Navalny became gravely ill during a flight to Moscow in August. It was later determined that he had come in contact with the toxic nerve agent Novichok. He says Russian President Vladimir Putin is responsible.

For more, let's turn now to CNN's Fred Pleitgen. He joins us live from Moscow. Good to see you, Fred. So, what all did Navalny have to say about his poisoning?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That was a wide-ranging interview with CBS 60 Minutes. Alexey Navalny did his first with American media. And he talked about what it was actually like to feel when he realized he had been poisoned. He said he did not feel any pain, but he realized that he was dying. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEXEY NAVALNY, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER: I said to the flight attendant and I kind of shocked him with my statement of, well, I was poisoned and I'm going to die, and I immediately laid down under his feet, and every cell of your body just telling you that body, we are done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: One of the other interesting things, Rosemary, was also that Alexey Navalny said he not only believed Vladimir Putin was behind his poisoning but that he was that he was sure that Vladimir Putin was behind his poisoning. Simply because he says no other entity except the Russian state would have been able to get the chemical nerve agent Novichok to conduct such a poisoning. The Kremlin, of course, already responded to this earlier saying they call all of this absurd and of course vehemently deny any sort of involvement -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: And Fred, what was the message Navalny had for President Trump?

PLEITGEN: Yes, I think it was a pretty important one. Of course, he was asked as well about President Trump's pretty much silence on this case, and certainly not condemning and not blaming the Kremlin either. He said that he took note of that. He was quite surprise bid that. And he believes that the U.S. President, of course, being the most powerful person in the world should take a stronger stance on that issue. Here's what he had to say?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[04:50:00]

NAVALNY: I think it's extremely important that everyone, of course including and maybe in the first row, the President of the United States to be very against using chemical weapon in the 21st century.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PLEITGEN: And then of course if you recall when the European Union conducted its sanctions against six Russian individuals and a Russian entity, they also did that, they said, because this chemical warfare agent, because Novichok or a substance similar to Novichok was used in all of this. The Germans and French, of course, on the forefront of all of that. Alexey Navalny says he believes that there should be more said about this by President Trump. But again, the Kremlin is continuing to say they had nothing to do this -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: Fred Pleitgen many thanks, as always.

Well still ahead, a remarkable rescue, we will tell you about a missing hiker who survived for nearly two weeks in this national park. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Firefighters in Boulder County, Colorado, are struggling to contain its largest blaze on record. The CalWood fire has spread almost 9,000 acres since it began Saturday.

[04:55:00]

That's close to 3,700 hectors. Weather conditions prevented air operations planned for Sunday. Hundreds of firefighters are trying to control the blaze with a federal firefighting team on the way to help.

A number of other fires are also burning in Colorado. They include the Cameron Peak fire, the largest wildfire in state history. It's burned more than 200,000 acres or around 80,000 hectors.

Well, now to an incredible story of survival. A U.S. hiker missing in a national park for almost two weeks has been found. Holly Courtier disappeared on October 6th after she went hiking in Zion National Park. The 38-year-old was rescued Sunday and taken to a hospital for medical treatment. Courtier was spotted by visitors to the park who alerted officials. A family friend says she's in good spirits although malnourished and dehydrated. The family released the following statement.

Well, a tough day for baseball fans here in Atlanta. The Los Angeles Dodgers are headed to the world series after beating the Atlanta Braves in the National League championship series. Here was the go ahead run from L.A.'s Cody Bellinger. He blasted a tie breaking solo home run in the bottom of the 7th and here was the final out. The score, 4-3 after the Dodgers trailed in the series 3-1. Los Angeles is set to face the Tampa Bay Rays in game one of the world series on Tuesday. How about that.

And thanks for your company. I'm Rosemary Church, "EARLY START" is coming up next. You're watching CNN. Have yourselves a great day.

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