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Autumn Surge Brings Terrifying Jump in COVID-19 Cases; Hurricane Iota Makes Landfall in Northeastern Nicaragua; Trump Still Denies Election Outcome; Trump Expected to Order More Troops Home; Trump Expected to Withdraw Troops from Iraq & Afghanistan; The Real Toll of Coronavirus in Russia; United Begins Testing Everyone on New York-London Flight; NYT: Last Week Trump Sought Options to Attack Iran; Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is Interviewed about Michigan's COVID Mitigation Efforts. Aired 12-12:45a ET
Aired November 17, 2020 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, not one but two highly effective potentials vaccines for the coronavirus. The latest medical breakthrough might mark the beginning of the end for this pandemic.
But optimism over a vaccine has been met with concerns over distribution. Because the loser of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, who won't share the government's plans with the man who won.
And another hurricane over Nicaragua, officials saying the region could be uninhabitable for weeks to come.
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VAUSE: For the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, there is real hope that, within months, our lives might return to some kind of normalcy. American biotech company, Moderna, the second drugmaker in a week to make a breakthrough in vaccine development, claiming its candidate has an efficacy of almost 95 percent, which makes it even more effective than Pfizer's potential vaccine.
Both companies are now seeking emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. with hopes the first immunizations could, begin next month. But on a very limited basis.
Most will not have access to the vaccine, until next year. And that will be too, late for many, around the world who are sick and deadly a wave with COVID-19 has sickened and killed hundreds of thousands of people, especially, in the United States, where records are being set for hospital admissions. Right, now there are more than 73,000 coronavirus patients in American
hospitals. For most ever according to the COVID Tracking Project. President-Elect Joe Biden has called out the Trump administration for refusing to concede the election and preventing the transition process, which means preventing the Biden team access to crucial data from government agencies, a refusal which he says could be deadly.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: More people may die if we don't coordinate. They say they have this Warp Speed program that not only dealt with getting vaccines, but also how to distribute this. If we have to wait until January 20th to start that planning, it puts us behind over a month and a half.
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VAUSE: The leading expert on infectious disease in the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says these vaccines are like the cavalry is now coming but it's not here yet and until they are widely available, Fauci says for everyone to continue the social distancing, handwashing and, yes, wearing masks. CNN's Nick Watt has now more on the story.
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DR. TAL ZAKS, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, MODERNA: One of the greatest moment of my life and my career.
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Because Moderna just reported early results showing its vaccine is 94.5 percent effective.
ZAKS: I think, by the end of the year, hopefully, we could start to vaccinate people.
WATT: No safety red flags so far. And, unlike Pfizer's offering, this doesn't need tricky deep subzero storage.
FAUCI: This is a really strong step forward to where we want to be. We project that, by the end of December, that there will be doses of vaccines available for individuals in the higher-risk category from both companies, we hope.
WATT: And we need a vaccine badly, because the death toll is rising; because inmates are now moving the dead into makeshift morgues in El Paso, Texas; because more than 1 million new infections were logged in the United States in just the past week; because more children have now been infected in all, according to two medical associations and because, for Black and Latinx Americans, rates of hospitalizations are four times the white population, according to the CDC.
MICHAEL MINA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: If bombs were getting dropped on United States and killing 1,000 people every single day, we would be actively engaged in defending ourselves and not just sitting around until the next product comes on the market.
WATT: But in South Dakota, both COVID and COVID denial are rampant, even among those dying of this disease.
JODI DOERING, REGISTERED E.R. NURSE: And their last dying words are, this can't be happening, it not real. And when they should be spending time FaceTiming their families, they're filled with anger and hatred.
WATT: The entire country is a hot zone. Two former FDA commissioners just wrote in "The Wall Street Journal," it's now up to governors to slow the spread.
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WATT: Kind of always has been. But with a lame duck Trump gumming up a transition, it's now more than ever. So Michigan just closed movie theaters, indoor bars and restaurants, also in-person classes in high schools and colleges and in Chicago, a new advisory, stay home the next 30 days.
DR. ALLISON ARWADY, COMMISSIONER, CHICAGO DEPT. OF PUBLIC HEALTH: We've seen just in the last month our cases go up five times, our hospitalizations go up three times, our deaths go up three times and, at least here in Chicago, we have recommended cancelling a traditional Thanksgiving.
WATT: And a huge surge here in California. The average number of new cases, we see every day in the state, doubled in just the past 10 days. The governor says he is pulling on the emergency brakes. So, from Tuesday, 94 percent of Californians are going to be living in counties under the strictest tier of COVID restrictions -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
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VAUSE: Joining us this, Dr. Eric Topol, cardiologist and professor of molecular medicine at the Scripps Research Institute, in California.
So, Doctor, thank you for being with us.
DR. ERIC TOPOL, SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE: Thanks, John, good to be with you.
VAUSE: Let's start with an announcement from Moderna, in the vaccine. The hype, the company's chief medical officer tells us that there are still trials and testing to be done, listen to this.
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ZAKS: This is an interim analysis and the trial will continue for a few weeks as we gather the final data. We anticipate a final count to be reached over 151 cases and, ultimately, we will be also sharing the final data. I don't think this number is going to move significantly; in fact, I'm quite sure it will not.
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VAUSE: So the FDA emergency approval will be based solely on evidence, which is interesting. But explain to, us what would the FDA be looking for here, what are the red flags?
TOPOL: Well, the FDA threshold was only 50 percent efficacy. And what we're seeing, are two vaccine programs with over 90 percent. So really, this is kind of the best of times and the worst of times. We're in the worst surge of the pandemic in the United States.
And we've got the best news, far better than expected, for how good the vaccines are going to perform.
VAUSE: Moderna's is similar to Pfizer; the big difference is Moderna doesn't require this deep freeze.
How significant will that be, when it comes to getting this vaccine, not just to the United States but around the world?
TOPOL: Well, that's a key point, because we want to, have in this country, hundreds of millions of people vaccinated. And the, same worldwide. So we have many billions of people to vaccinate.
So anything that will make it more practical, such as not requiring a minus 70 degree centigrade freezer would be welcomed. You know, I think the other thing to know, here, it is likely all of these vaccines are going to be highly effective, not just the first two. Because they all have the same a shared target, the spike protein of the virus. So that makes them ideally suited.
We're doing so far better, against this virus, than we had ever expected.
VAUSE: And with that, Dr. Anthony Fauci was saying these vaccines, all of which are in trials, are possibly the beginning of the end of the pandemic, here's what he said.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The cavalry is coming but the cavalry is not here yet. So what we should do is that we should make the hope of a vaccine motivate us even more to be very, very stringent and very, very attentive to fundamental, simple, doable public health measures.
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VAUSE: There really is two worlds right now, as you say, on the science and medical side, leaps and bounds and reason for hope. On our own personal responsibility side, social distancing, washing hands, wearing a face mask, we're playing COVID roulette, in several parts of the world, especially in the United States.
TOPOL: Yes, and we're going to be wearing masks throughout next year, because, as you're pointing out, it's going to take a while to get this vaccination implementation phase, you know, really, in a high proportion of people in this country and around the world.
So we're just turning the corner, that is the cusp of an exit strategy. You know, the fact that it is so much better than we thought, with the efficacy, much more like measles as compared to flu, we're going to see that timing much faster, as getting to the pre- COVID life that we had, of less people will have to get immunized.
So these are really good things we didn't anticipate. Just remember, just over a week, ago we didn't know if these vaccines would actually work. And their safety looks quite good, as well. So it really is, true.
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TOPOL: As Anthony Fauci pointed, out by mid December, the implementation of the vaccines to health care workers and high-risk individuals will start. And that will ramp up considerably over the weeks and months ahead.
VAUSE: In the meantime, the head of the, WHO warned the, countries like the United States, where the virus has been allowed to spread, pretty much unchecked. Here he is.
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DR. TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: This is a dangerous virus which can attack every system in the body. Those countries that are letting the virus run unchecked are playing with fire.
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VAUSE: So how worried should everyone be about the unknown long term prognosis?
TOPOL: Well, very. We have an unbridled virus who's got free rein over most of this, country right now. It's uncontrolled. And, so a lot of people cue into the fatalities and the hospitalizations but what they're missing, is the long COVID-19. I think you just touched on, there's a chronic condition, at least 10 percent of people suffer from, many are debilitated.
So the toll it's taking throughout the world is far greater than the statistics that we typically look at each day.
VAUSE: Yes, Dr. Eric Topol, thank you for being with us. It seems the science side has been the stellar star here and our own personal responsibility has been kind of the letdown.
TOPOL: Yes, you're right, John. Just the opposite, public health not good; science, extraordinary, unparalleled achievement.
VAUSE: Absolutely. Doctor, thanks for being with us, we appreciate it.
TOPOL: Thank you.
VAUSE: The European Union is trying to secure millions of doses of not just Moderna vaccine but other candidates as well. The U.K. has ordered 5 million doses of Moderna's vaccine and, if approved, it could be available in just a few months; all this comes as Europe continues to battle its third and worst wave of COVID infections.
Over the last few weeks, countries have been imposing tighter restrictions to try and slow the spread. France went into a lockdown last, month and they are now seeing dropping daily cases.
But on Monday, it reported a record number of hospital admissions. More than 33,000, nationwide.
Austria has ended its second national lockdown, after reporting a higher than expected infection. Rate all nonessential businesses and schools will remain closed, while people will be asked to stay home, for at least 2.5 weeks.
Hurricane Iota is hitting Central America, with powerful winds, torrential rains, life-threatening storm surge. It made landfall in the coast of northeast Nicaragua, a short time ago, extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane. Iota is expected to weaken fairly quickly, as it moves inland.
But this is the second major storm to slam the area in the past few weeks. The full extent of the damage from the first, one Hurricane Eta, is not even clear yet. Maria Lilly Delgado join us now form the capital of Nicaragua.
Maria, explain to, us what is the situation outside your window, I guess. How are the conditions, how bad is it expected to get?
MARIA LILLY DELGADO, JOURNALIST: Hello, John, good night. Well, actually, I'm in Managua and it has started to have a little bit of rain. But you know, the real danger is in the Atlantic coast, where, as you mentioned, Hurricane Iota just made landfall.
Along the northeastern coast of Nicaragua, near the town of Haulover (ph). This is a Mestizo (ph) indigenous community, which is located 30 miles or 45 kilometers south, from Puerto Cabezas.
Puerto Cabezas is in the north Caribbean coast, autonomous region, and its capital is Bilwi, where indigenous communities live there, Mestizos (ph) and Mayana (ph) communities.
Just to understand what is happening, this is one of the poorest and most vulnerable areas in Nicaragua. It's not easy to get to Puerto Cabezas. To get you an idea, you have the drive more than 13 hours, if you go by car. Or, if you take a plane, it would take an hour.
So right now, what we are, we have talked with citizens in Bilwi and some of them are really scared. There is no energy since noon. The winds are extremely strong. This is what they are describing. And, according to authorities, according to the Ortega government, at least 40,000 people have been evacuated at this moment.
So what will happen during the next hours, this is what we are expecting.
[00:15:00] DELGADO: Because the National Hurricane Center has warned all day about this hurricane, which was an hour ago category 5. Now it's made its landfall as a category 4. But it's still extremely dangerous for Nicaragua.
VAUSE: Absolutely, Maria Lilly Delgado, in the capital of Nicaragua, with the update. This is the second major storm to hit the region in a very short period of time. Maria, thank you for being with. Us
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VAUSE: We will take a, short break when we come, back the U.S. election is. Even though Donald Trump lost he's still making good on at least one campaign promise, pulling out troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Even though it may cause havoc in the, region more on that. After the break.
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VAUSE: Donald Trump has 64 days left in the White House and, during that time, it seems, he's being faced with global challenges. The U.S. president reportedly asked secret advisers last week about options for attacking Iran's main nuclear site.
According to "The New York Times," Trump asked about potential strikes after international inspectors reporting a significant rise in Tehran's nuclear stockpile. Officials reportedly talked him out of it, warning a military strike could turn into a broader conflict in the final weeks of his presidency.
For now, a week on, Mr. Trump has refused to acknowledge Joe Biden actually won the election. He's been preventing his successor from accessing classified intelligence reports. But now the president-elect is creating a back door to access crucial information by receiving an informal briefing from intelligence and defense experts.
CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more now on what has been a chaotic transition of power.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nine days after losing the election, President Trump is burrowing deeper into a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and lies as he fights to overturn the will of voters and refuses to allow the presidential transition to begin.
After briefly and perhaps inadvertently acknowledging reality with these two words, the president quickly retreated to his baseless allegation that the election was rigged tweeting, "I concede nothing." A social media barrage of grievances and falsehoods quickly followed. Trump's allies say there is no overarching strategy behind his refusal to concede and people close to the president privately admit lawsuits won't stop President-elect Biden from being inaugurated in 65 days.
But even as Trump refuses to acknowledge defeat, he is rushing to complete a draw-down of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan before he leaves office.
Two U.S. officials telling CNN the president is expected to issue a formal order as soon as this week, bringing the total number of U.S. troops in each country to 2,500 by January 15th, but the transition is still stalled.
ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: That transition process that we go through, that time period of measured in several weeks to months is really important in a smooth handing over of the information.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Health experts are beginning to sound the alarm warning that delays could hurt the coronavirus response including vaccine distribution.
FAUCI: The virus is not going to stop and call a time-out while things change. The virus is just going to keep going. The process is just going to keep going. So hopefully, we will see that soon and transitions are important.
DIAMOND (voice-over): While the president is happy to take credit for a coronavirus vaccine developed in partnership with the federal government, he's ignoring the dangerous coronavirus surge gripping the U.S. right now.
And his preferred coronavirus adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, a radiologist with no public health expertise, is urging people to rise up against new coronavirus restrictions imposed by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer who was the target of a right wing kidnapping plot that was foiled last month.
GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): We know that the White House likes to single us out here in Michigan, me out in particular. I'm not going to be bullied into not following reputable scientists and medical professionals.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Atlas later said he was not advocating violence. Also in limbo, national security briefings for the president-elect. The White House still refusing to provide Biden with top-level intelligence briefings. The national security adviser Robert O'Brien now admitting Biden is likely to be inaugurated.
ROBERT O'BRIEN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: If the Biden-Harris ticket is determined to be the winner and it's, you know, obviously, things look that way now, we'll have a very professional transition from the National Security Council. There is no question about it.
DIAMOND (voice-over): As for former President Obama, his message to Trump, it's time.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My advice to President Trump is, if you want, at this late stage of the game, to be remembered as somebody who put country first, it's time for you to do the same thing.
DIAMOND: Just as we learned on Monday that President Trump is expected to issue an order as early as this week to begin drawing down more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, bringing that number down to 2,500 before he leaves office in January, sources familiar with the matter also telling CNN that the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who was fired last week by President Trump, that he warned the president and the White House in a memo earlier this month against doing exactly that, warning that it was the consensus of the U.S. military chain of command that no more troops should be withdrawn from Afghanistan until specific conditions were met on the ground in Afghanistan and that it was the assessment of that chain of command that those conditions had not yet been met.
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DIAMOND: Those sources are also saying that they believe that Esper's memo to the White House, warning against a further troop drawdown, was one of the key reasons why President Trump fired him last week -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.
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VAUSE: From Washington, our CNN global affairs analyst and contributor to "Time" magazine, Kimberly Dozier.
It is good to see you.
KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Good to see you.
VAUSE: There seems to be a few explanations as to why Trump would order these U.S. troops home; notably, he promised he wouldn't. Just last month he tweeted, "We should have the full remaining number of our brave men and women serving in Afghanistan home by Christmas."
The other explanation is the spoiler factor, it could make it difficult for an incoming Biden administration. I guess there is also the fact that maybe this is the unfinished business on Putin's honey- do list.
So how do you see it?
DOZIER: Well, Steve Bannon, when he was in the White House, on a whiteboard on the wall listed all the campaign promises. One of the main campaign promises was to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Well, various U.S. national security officials argued to him that if you go to zero, that's dangerous. They had gotten to the point where he is not talking about going to zero, according to Barbara Starr and Jake Tapper. He is talking about going to 2,500 in each location. Funny, that, because that's around the ballpark figure that President-
Elect Joe Biden had given in a "Stars and Stripes" interview.
And one of his national security advisers had later told me, in an interview for "Time," that they were probably going to keep around 2,500 or so, a few thousand, in each location. So this is also a way of Trump beating them to it, just possibly?
The problem with this, is, the risk for the people on the ground, when you draw down precipitously.
VAUSE: OK, let's talk about the troop numbers because you mentioned this. About 4,500 U.S. troops are already based in Afghanistan, reduced by 2,000, leaving 2,500 in country. And in Iraq, currently about 3,000 U.S. troops and 500 are heading home possibly in this plan.
Again, leaving 2,500 in country.
So what other dangers in a drawdown like this?
DOZIER: In Iraq, because they're already expecting a bit of a drawdown, losing 500 is something that they can make up for, especially, since a lot of Iraqi forces have recovered some of their capability and replaced some of the people they lost, in the years fighting ISIS.
However, in Afghanistan, when you draw down by that many troops, that fast, what you risk is having to leave behind equipment. The last time there was a precipitous drawdown under the Obama administration, I was told by the CIA and U.S. military officials that they had to abandon some locations, including leaving some armed equipments, very sophisticated equipment.
They did let the Afghan forces know. But there weren't enough Afghan forces in the area to take over those locations. And the Taliban ended up using that equipment.
Now the footprint in Afghanistan now, is much smaller. U.S. forces are already drawn in to a few bases. But they are still going to see a risk. And it also means that they might lose some of the logistics support, which is key to supporting Afghan forces and is key to them being able to resist a Taliban onslaught.
VAUSE: I guess, if you look at what, happens with Afghanistan, you know when there's a troop withdrawal, look at what happened when they withdrew U.S. troops from Syria. Here's CNN reporting, from the time, about a year ago.
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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: On Wednesday night, video emerged of a deeply symbolic moment, Syrian regime forces entering the city of Kobani, where the Syrian Kurds fought for months, with American air support, to kick ISIS out of the rubble but where now Russia and the regime are the new protectors for America's NATO ally.
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VAUSE: There is this danger of evacuating once U.S. troops are gone, I think in Afghanistan and Iraq.
DOZIER: The danger vacuum also, the important point is, we have allies on the ground. We had allies on the in Syria, there were as many allied forces on the ground backing up the U.S. troops as there were U.S. forces. They got no warning and all of a sudden they, too, were scrambling to retreat because, without U.S. air cover, without being collocated with U.S. bases, they couldn't stay out there.
A similar picture, a similar scramble, will likely be happening in Afghanistan right now. Now that this news has broken, even though many people had been warning me that they were worried something like this would happen, so it's not like they hadn't already been thinking about it, doing back of the envelope calculations.
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But now you're going to have all these NATO allies waiting to see, well, what is the number of Americans who are left? And what are our governments going to be willing to keep here to back them up? Because the risk rises for everybody when the troop numbers reduce.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Thank you. We appreciate your reporting on all of that. You spent a lot of time in the region. You really know what you're talking about, so thanks for being with us. We appreciate it.
DOZIER: Thank you.
VAUSE: When we come back, Russia's Potemkin response to the coronavirus pandemic, versus the reality, as uncovered by a CNN exclusive investigation.
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VAUSE: Officially, the Kremlin claims to have the coronavirus outbreak under control. But there is what the government says, and then there is cold, harsh reality. A CNN investigation has revealed hospitals are overcrowded and overwhelmed. Morgues, bodies are left on the floor.
CNN's Matthew Chance has the hidden story of Russia's battle with COVID, and a warning: his reporting includes some disturbing images.
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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is the pandemic response Russia wants us to see. A vast, state-of-the-art field hospital, set up to manage the coronavirus surge.
(on camera): And we're just about to head into the -- to the red zone.
(voice-over): Once a world championship ice-skating stadium called the Ice Palace, now the view from the stands is 1,300 beds. And the staff of highly-protected medics, apparently in control of this COVID-19 crisis.
"We have all the necessary diagnostic equipment, including ultrasound and ventilators," the chief doctor on the left tells me. "The Russian government is taking serious anti-coronavirus measures," he insists. "Not just here in Moscow, but far beyond."
But there's another side of Russia's raging pandemic, one the authorities here would prefer that we ignore, with shocking evidence of an overloaded healthcare system, buckling under the strain of COVID-19.
On social media, there are heartbreaking scenes like this one, of an ambulance medic trying in vain to get a 90-year-old patient committed to an overcrowded ward. "I won't take her home to die," the paramedic shouts. "Why do I have to weep and beg you to take in a patient," she cries.
Russian authorities admit hospitals in some regions are at more than 95 percent capacity.
But there's mounting evidence of a surging death toll, too. In this video, recorded last month, sent to us by an opposition-linked Russian doctors' union, a dead women dangles, unattended, from her hospital bed, while other patients grasp for breath, just feet away.
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"We lost another two in the ward overnight," says a male voice on the video. "This is how COVID-19 is killing everyone," he says.
There are horrific scenes of inundated morgues, too, some too graphic to show, with corpses strewn across floors and stretchers.
It's also emerged that official Russian COVID death figures, suspiciously low compared to other badly-affected countries, may grossly understate the real toll by excluding people presumed to have COVID postmortem, even those with pre-existing conditions that proved fatal, due to the infection.
If they were counted, as in many other countries, Russia's official death toll, of over 33,000 people, would be higher. Much higher, according to a former government statistician, who's compiled figures on excess deaths and spoke to CNN.
ALEXEY RAKSHA, FORMER RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT STATISTICIAN: I think it's 130,000 people.
CHANCE (on camera): A hundred and thirty thousand people who have died, in Russia, with COVID-19?
RAKSHA: Because of COVID. Because of COVID.
CHANCE: And do you believe that the Russian government is purposely hiding the real cost of the COVID death toll? RAKSHA: Of course. They need to make people not afraid of the virus.
It's very helpful for providing a good picture. So we are Russian. We are Russian, we're very proud of our country. Everything is good with us.
CHANCE: Russian authorities haven't responded to the allegations they're downplaying the figures. But outside the highly-organized and spacious field hospitals the authorities are happy to showcase, there are signs Russia's pandemic is getting worse.
Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.
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VAUSE: Well, the future of air travel might be here. After the break, we'll take you on the first flight where everyone needs a negative COVID test before they get a boarding class.
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VAUSE: About an hour and a half ago, the SpaceX Crew Dragon docked with the International Space Station. One Japanese and three U.S. astronauts will join another U.S. astronaut, as well as two Russian cosmonauts on the space station in a welcoming ceremony, planned for about an hour's time.
The docking ends the first leg of this landmark mission between NASA and Elon Musk's rocket company. The Crew One astronauts are expected to spend about six months on board the station. They'll work on scientific experiments, as well as carrying out space walks, to do a little fix-them-up there in the space station.
Air travel, it's still a big concern. How to be certain that person just inches away from you is not contagious with COVID-19? That uncertainly has been a major issue for the airline industry. So, now United Airlines is testing everyone, passengers and crew, on at least one flight from New York to London.
CNN's Richard Quest was on board which the very first flight, which the airline says is guaranteed to be COVID-free.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Boarding all remaining passengers --
RICHARD QUEST, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Newark Airport, once a thriving hub for travelers, now a comparative ghost town. As COVID-19 runs rampant through the United States and Europe, many travelers are shunning planes, worried about catching COVID on their travels or onerous quarantine restrictions, when they get there and when they get back.
(on camera): International travelers face specific problems, a patchwork quilt of quarantine restrictions and regulations. For instance, who's going to fly to London if it means they have to quarantine for 14 days, if they're just going on holiday?
(voice-over): Testing could be the way to avoid lengthy quarantines. And United is experimenting with testing all passengers over the age of 2 for free on select New York to London flights.
They guarantee everyone on board, crew and passengers, has tested negative.
(on camera): You have to think of this not about what's happening now, with one flight to London, but imagine that this is the way it's going to be for multiple flights across the ocean, as testing becomes more accepted by various governments. Then you're going to have five, 10, who knows how many flights of passengers doing the COVID tests.
Yes, we're ready. The nurse will see me now.
Now that was a piece of cake.
(voice-over): Easy for me, a potential lifeline to the ailing airlines. United's chief executives, Scott Kirby told me they're trying to prove to governments, testing is the answer.
SCOTT KIRBY, UNITED AIRLINES CEO: We're hoping that a negative test can give confidence to governments around the world, to let people come in and avoid the quarantine requirements. Because as you know, if there's a two-week quarantine, people simply aren't going to travel in these international markets.
QUEST: Public health experts remind us testing has its limits. There's a small chance the test could be wrong. And the risk someone could have the virus and still be in the incubation period. Testing negative in New York, but testing positive in London.
A recent attempt to restart cruises in the Caribbean required all passengers to test three days in advance and on board, only to end up with seven passengers contracting the virus.
United's chief executive says he knows testing is not 100 percent foolproof but believes, as the world waits for a vaccine, testing, air filtration systems, and enhanced cleaning, along, of course, with masks, help passengers get back into the friendly skies.
(on camera): We are now on our way to London. And I've since learned that one of the prospective passengers did test positive for coronavirus. United had a plan in place for such an eventuality, and that person has been isolated and is being taken care of.
As for the flight, the airline regards it as a great success. After all, it has managed to weed out those passengers that would have been a greater risk to others. As a result, it means the rest of the passengers can fly with greater confidence and safety.
Richard Quest, CNN, aboard UA-14, heading to London.
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VAUSE: In business class, no less.
Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. WORLD SPORT is next.
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