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Judge Dismisses Trump Campaign's Pennsylvania Lawsuit; Georgia To Recount Presidential Ballots Again Per Trump Request; Biden Team Still Denied Access To Critical Resources; Thanksgiving Travelers Pack Airports; Logistical Challenges Of Vaccine Rollout; Record COVID-19 Surge In California; England To End Lockdown; Americans Share Stories Of Grief With COVID-19 Warning; Navajo Nation Begins Three-Week Lockdown. Aired 5-6a ET

Aired November 22, 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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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Donald Trump is going to get another recount in Georgia. Even though his hopes of overturning the election he lost are dwindling.

12 million cases and counting. How the U.S. Holiday season is likely to exacerbate the pandemic even though a vaccine is expected soon.

And people lining up at food banks across the U.S. How COVID-19 is forcing many to turn to charity for the first time.

Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to our viewers in the United States, Canada and around the world. This is CNN NEWSROOM.

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BRUNHUBER: Here in the U.S. state of Georgia, apparently two counts isn't enough. The Trump campaign has now asked Georgia for yet another vote count, hoping beyond hope that a third one will flip the state from a Biden win.

Earlier an audit found Joe Biden won the usually red state by more than 12,000 votes. Biden's campaign says President Trump is setting himself up to lose the state yet again.

Last week's recount reaffirmed what we knew. Georgia voters selected Joe Biden to be their next president. Any further recount reaffirms the victory in Georgia a third time.

President Trump's challenges to his loss now appear all but over. A federal judge in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Saturday tossed out the case there for having no legal merits. We'll have more on that in a moment.

Georgia is also facing two hotly contested Senate runoff races in January that could determine control of the U.S. Senate. The campaign of Republican Kelly Loeffler announced she tested positive for COVID- 19 on Friday. Another test on Saturday was inconclusive. She campaigned Friday alongside Mike Pence and David Perdue.

Back to Pennsylvania, where U.S. Senator Pat Toomey joined the short list of Republicans recognizing Biden as president-elect. Soon after the judge's ruling on the ruling in Pennsylvania, Toomey said in a statement, "With today's decision by Judge Matthew Brann, a long-time conservative Republican, whom I know to be a fair and unbiased jurist, President Trump has exhausted all plausible legal options to challenge the results of the presidential race in Pennsylvania."

We get more details from Jeremy Diamond.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Trump is suffering his latest defeat in his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. This time, it came in an opinion from a federal judge in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

Judge Matthew Brann throwing out the Trump campaign's attempts to prevent the state of Pennsylvania from certifying the results of the election and Joe Biden's victory in that state.

The judge, Matthew Brann making very clear that the Trump campaign's arguments here are entirely unsupported, especially when they are seeking to essentially throw out the nearly 7 million votes cast in the state of Pennsylvania.

The judge writes, "One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption.

"That has not happened. Instead, this court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations unpled in the operative complaint and unsupported by the evidence."

And much of that judge's opinion, which came out Saturday night, reads similarly, a very scathing opinion and notable because the president's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, went into federal court a few days ago to make that case himself after five previous attorneys withdrew from the Trump campaign's lawsuit here.

Now as the president's legal avenues are slimming and they are, this was the 29th case the Trump case has either withdrawn or seen dismissed in state and federal courts over the last two weeks.

As all that is happening, you're seeing the president uninterested in the business of governing and being president of the United States, even as he's fighting to remain president of the United States.

He's had only a handful of public appearances in the more than two weeks since the presidential election. And on Saturday, the president briefly appeared at one meeting for the G20 summit of world leaders, appearing virtually as most world leaders are -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BRUNHUBER: The Trump White House is still denying Joe Biden and his team access to critical resources and briefings. But the Biden team is moving forward. We get more from CNN's Arlette Saenz.

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ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President-Elect Joe Biden's team welcomed the decision from a federal judge to dismiss Trump campaign's lawsuit in Pennsylvania as the Biden team says it backs up their arguments that there are no legal challenges that the president can credibly wage in order to change the results of this election.

A spokesperson for Joe Biden, Mike Gwin, says, "Yet another court has rejected Trump and Giuliani's baseless claims of voter fraud and their appalling assault on our democracy.

"The judge's ruling couldn't be clearer. Our people, laws and institutions demand more and our country will not tolerate Trump's attempt to reverse the results of an election that he decisively lost."

Biden's team has long argued these lawsuits and legal challenges are simply political theater and they don't believe that anything credible can be raised to change the outcome of the election.

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SAENZ (voice-over): But they have warned that these types of challenges are threatening to American democracy but they also believe that this election is over and the results will stand. Biden is pushing forward with his transition, even as the GSA has yet to ascertain him as the president-elect.

Biden has been convening his own teams of experts and holding briefings with people, as they are gathering more information about how to proceed heading into January. And Biden is also building up his White House staff but also looking at his cabinet decisions.

And the president-elect has sped up his timeline for announcing his first cabinet picks, with the possibility of the first nominees coming at the start of the week -- Arlette Saenz, CNN, Wilmington, Delaware.

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BRUNHUBER: For more on this politics, let's bring in Inderjeet Parmar, a teacher of international politics at City University London and a visiting professor at London School of Economics and Politics. Thank you for joining us.

INDERJEET PARMAR, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, CITY UNIVERSITY LONDON: Thank you. Happy to be here.

BRUNHUBER: You've written what's happening now is a dangerous coup attempt by a master of mass disorientation. What's more surprising, the attempt at this so-called coup or the mass

disorientation seems to be working, if you judge by the support by Republicans and followers?

PARMAR: I think both are dangerous. I think they portend a continuation of the politics of mass disorientation. I think when the buildup of public opinion, which is so loyal to the president, as they are in this case, with the Republican Party, voters, then I think it's going to roil politics going forward.

But it also sets a dangerous precedent for anyone in future elections, especially if they're close because it will say, well, we can just kind of draw out the process. We can make legal challenges and so on, undermine the very idea of the popular vote.

In this particular case, I suppose you could say it's very dangerous because the overwhelming sort of vote and the certifications and so on that have happened and the elections called are against President Trump.

But the fact that you can challenge it in these conditions suggests, in future terms, if it's even closer, it's going to get worse. That means there's a sharp authoritarian turn in American politics in general, once you've set a precedent of this kind and it could undermine democracy even more fundamentally.

BRUNHUBER: You say American democracy but obviously, keenly watching all of this are foreign leaders and other democracies and maybe not -- maybe even those who haven't yet been elected but waiting in the wings, watching all this.

What do you think they're learning about the fragility of political norms, about the weaponization of outrage and the subversion of democracy?

I mean, can you export this?

Could we see similar leaders and similar scenes playing out in other previously stable democracies in the coming years?

PARMAR: Well, the United States is a pivotal global power. It's the lead power in the whole world system in all kinds of respects that you've mentioned as well. It also has kind of an image and an aura.

It has fundamental democratic norms and institutions as well. So the signals that come from the United States in a variety of areas, including on a democratic processes, they have a big impact. They actually encourage certain kinds of tendencies, certain kinds of forces.

When a President of the United States like President Trump has been backing say white supremacists, authoritarians, praising autocratic leaders and praising the violation of norms, challenging media freedom, not calling out when journalists are being attacked and harassed and maybe even killed, calling his own media, the media in the U.S., the enemies of the people, that has a big effect. It sends a signal. And overall, it undermines the whole notion of democracy. So you will have a big effect.

I'm not saying there should be another side pointed out. One of the things that is interesting to me and impressive, perhaps, is that the courts have stood up to these challenges up to now.

But the Pennsylvania judge, for example, called it a massive attempt at disenfranchisement. That will have reverberations. It suggests the U.S. has deep structures which will also prevent some of this kind of tendency as well.

And, of course, we know that county officials, whose only job is to count and verify elections, they have also stood up to the president and have not been intimidated by him. And many GOP lawmakers at state level have stood up.

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PARMAR: Even though they haven't called him out fully. There has been a kind of general tendency against this.

So I think that's important to bear in mind as well.

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BRUNHUBER: Well, now many more people are heading home for the holidays in the U.S., despite coronavirus. So just ahead, why health experts are afraid the recent surge in U.S. cases could be just the beginning.

And in Europe, how a surge in cases of coronavirus are putting a strain on ICU beds in Germany and what might happen if that trend continues. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: The U.S. has reached another COVID milestone, now topping 12 million coronavirus cases. And upcoming Thanksgiving travel is threatening to further spread the virus.

For weeks health experts have been pleading with Americans to stay home this holiday season but the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, screened more than 1 million passengers at U.S. airports on Friday alone. And airlines are bracing for their busiest week since the pandemic began.

CNN's Evan McMorris-Santoro has more from New York.

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EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: On Saturday, researchers at Johns Hopkins University reported the United States has now passed 12 million cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began.

It's a number that continues to rise. There have now being 19 straight days of more than 100,000 new cases in this country. What scares public health experts is that this surge is coming just at the beginning of the holiday travel season.

Here at JFK airport in New York, things are pretty quiet. But other airports across the country saw big, big crowds, like this crowd at the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport on Friday.

Public health experts worry that those big numbers of people at the airport, people moving from one place to another and congregating before going back to where they started from, is pretty much the worst-case scenario in a surging pandemic.

They are begging Americans to make the hard choice not to travel this holiday season -- Evan McMorris-Santoro, CNN, New York.

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BRUNHUBER: In Britain, prime minister Boris Johnson is set to announce the country will end its national lockdown on December 2nd. But more areas may be placed on stricter tiered system and higher alert levels.

And in France the president is to give a televised address on Tuesday, in which he may announce a partial relaxation of nationwide restrictions. Europe's second wave is straining Germany's intensive care units. It was seen as a model during the first wave.

But on Friday it broke its all-time case record. Fred Pleitgen takes us inside one German hospital coping with the dangerous surge.

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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Working around the clock to save lives. This doctor is performing a tracheostomy (sic), making a surgical airway on a patient with severe COVID-19.

We're in the COVID ICU at Ernst von Bergmann Hospital in Potsdam outside Berlin, where the number of COVID patients requiring intensive care has dramatically risen in recent weeks and they expect things to get worse.

DR. MICHAEL OPPERT, HEAD OF ICU, ERNST VON BERGMANN HOSPITAL: If that carries on with that speed that we are experiencing right now, I would imagine that even our hospital, with over 1,000 beds, is at a point -- will come to a point where we can't -- where we have to send patients home or not home, but to other hospitals, to get them treated.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): When we visited, only two of the 16 ICU beds were vacant. The staff was already canceling other nonurgent operations to free up capacity and making plans to convert more of its general intensive care facility into COVID ICUs.

PLEITGEN: Germany has one of the best health care systems in the world but it's continuing to see high numbers of coronavirus infections and more and more people requiring treatment in ICUs.

One of the things that the government has said, if the current trajectory continues the way it is right now, even Germany's health care system could be overwhelmed in a matter of weeks.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): And that could be bad news for all of Europe. Germany has been taking in COVID patients from neighboring countries, whose health care systems are overwhelmed.

For now, they can continue to do that but it's not clear for how much longer. Official data shows the amount of COVID-19 patients in German ICUs jumped from about 260 to almost 3,600 in just two months, even many younger patients with severe symptoms, a senior physician says.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have patients of 30, 40 years here who are on a ventilator and I'm not sure if they'll survive.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): Germany has recently seen a string of demonstrations against the country's anti-pandemic measures, many protesters denying the severity of the virus, considered a slap in the face by front line medical workers, working hard to keep people alive.

"I also sometimes hear people say things like, it's almost like a regular flu," a chief nurse says. "We just cannot understand people who talk that way."

Germany is still far away from such scenarios. There are thousands of ICU beds available in the country. But the head of Potsdam's intensive care division says, beware of the outbreak's dynamic.

OPPERT: Nationwide, the numbers are climbing and they're still climbing. They're not coming down at the moment.

PLEITGEN (voice-over): And while the staff here can provide top-notch care, they urge people to protect themselves from the virus to minimize the risk of ever winding up in the COVID ICU ward -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Potsdam, Germany.

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BRUNHUBER: As the world is on the cusp of approving vaccines, health experts worry they might not arrive on time to stop a new surge of infections after the holidays. We are joined by Dr. Hans Kluge, the regional director for Europe for the World Health Organization.

Thank you for joining us, Doctor. I want to start with the holidays. Some jurisdictions like Quebec are already loosening restrictions for Christmas gatherings. You suggest, among other things, instead of parties, people should gather for picnics in the park.

Do you think it's realistic that people abandon their traditions, especially when the pandemic has been dragging on for so long and a vaccine seems so close at hand? DR. HANS KLUGE, REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR EUROPE, WHO: Right. Here at WHO, we see an increase in mortality in patients. This is going to continue. But I heard you speaking about the vaccine. It did give some hope.

But for the time being, everyone in the community has to do its share, because even with a vaccine, we will have to work out the deployment, the community engagement. So the best we have today are the low technology measures as public health and social measures.

BRUNHUBER: Are you recommending anything specific, though, over the holidays?

KLUGE: Right. Everyone has to do a little bit of a mini-assessment of its own family. I always say we will celebrate Christmas. It can be a merry one but it has to be safe. We have elderly people in the family. We have people with decreased immunity.

So we know that risk is higher with mobility and social contact. So, in that sense, we have to go through a different Christmas this year.

BRUNHUBER: You spoke about having to make sacrifices.

I'm wondering, are we sacrificing the wrong things sometimes?

We're seeing more and more jurisdictions shutting down in person learning but lawmakers worried about the economic effects of shutdowns. In many cases, bars and restaurants are staying open. That's at least here in the U.S.

And many European countries, they've done the opposite, nonessential businesses, restaurants and bars closed; schools stayed open.

Do we here in the U.S. have our priorities backwards?

KLUGE: Well, WHO in Europe, we clearly advocate for primary schools to stay open as long as possible. We want to avoid a COVID-19 lost generation. Data suggests that children, particularly below 10 years, are followers and not drivers of the transmission.

But we cannot compare, basically public health measures are implemented locally. So if in New York, certain institutions are closed, this is based on tracing and tracking data. This may be different than in Brussels or in Paris. There's no right and wrong. The key is that the voice of the scientists has to be respected by the politicians.

BRUNHUBER: Even before the vaccines were developed, experts were raising the specter of vaccine nationalism. Now we have the vaccines on their way. We heard at the G20, Saudi Arabia, for instance, calling for the vaccine to be made available to everyone.

The European Commission president called for global solidarity on vaccines. But we've seen the opposite as well, with the president of the United States saying he wants U.S. citizens to be the first to be vaccinated. So how big a problem will vaccine nationalism be, given the limited

supply and so many nations scrambling to take care of their own?

KLUGE: The key issue is not who is the first for the vaccine. The key issue is really an equal access and deployment and distribution.

And that's why the WHO, the Global Alliance for Vaccines, established a facility, a way to benefit from a multilateralism to leave no one behind. It has to be done ethically but also for security because soon, countries which look only inward will realize no one is safe until everyone is safe.

BRUNHUBER: And we can't get ahead of ourselves. Many people seem to be acting as if a cure is already at hand. Obviously, the vaccine is not a cure. And if it's successful, of course, there seems to be a magical belief that it will transport us back to the summer of 2019.

But when you look ahead, what will we need to see from the vaccine and from our own behavior to get us back as close as possible by this summer?

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KLUGE: Great questions. The fact that there seem to be vaccines coming, the efficacy of 90 percent to 95 percent is really very, very needed, hopeful message. Absolutely. But it could take a while,, at least a couple months, three to six months before we have all this deployment, engage the community. In that sense, we have to continue to stand together.

The other issue is, because I was listening about the situation in Europe being analyzed, is that we still focus in Europe a little bit too much on the hospitals. We have to focus on the mild and asymptomatic cases in the community who are wandering around and continuing transmission.

That's why testing strategies will need to be adapted as well to put the communities in the center, just like we did for the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which still don't have a vaccine. But we got it under control.

BRUNHUBER: We really appreciate you joining us, the World Health Organization's European director, Dr. Hans Kluge, thank you for joining us.

KLUGE: My pleasure.

BRUNHUBER: And that wraps up CNN NEWSROOM for our international audience. "MARKETPLACE AFRICA" is up for you. If you're in the United States or Canada, stay with us. We have much more after this.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back.

California's adopting tough restrictions to halt the spread of COVID- 19. The state recorded more than 15,000 infections Saturday, an all- time high. Testing is in such high demand, we're seeing sights like this, lines of cars in Los Angeles, stretching on and on. Restrictions have been tightened but so far that hasn't stopped the uptick. Paul Vercammen reports.

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PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just a dramatic U-turn in California, which seemed to be doing so well with its COVID-19 numbers just a few weeks ago. And now, 15,000 cases and counting in one day in the state, an all-time record.

So they're battling this on a couple of different fronts. First off, contact tracing and testing here at Dodger Stadium; 7,000, 8,000, 9000 people being tested per day. They are also very aggressive in some new rollbacks, new restrictions.

A curfew has been invoked in most of California that forbids people from gathering in large clusters, from 10:00 at night until 5:00 in the morning. This is very much aimed at young people.

What they don't want is people getting together at their local watering hole or restaurant or in a park and being out in those early hours. You can, however, go walk the dog, drive to your friend's house, go to the grocery store.

But this is very much aimed at reducing the number of large groups that seem to be going out at times in California against the wishes of public health officials -- reporting from Los Angeles, I'm Paul Vercammen. Now back to you.

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BRUNHUBER: The world is fast approaching 60 million confirmed coronavirus cases but that's not scaring off many holiday travelers. CNN's Anna Stewart is in London for us.

Anna, we're hearing from many health experts who are afraid all the travel means the high numbers, it's just the beginning.

How are governments around the world responding?

ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, really a mixed response when we look at the holiday season. I think if you take Europe in the summer as an example, we saw restrictions eased. People were allowed to mix. We saw travel and then outbreaks of coronavirus in what became the second wave that really engulfed the whole continent.

This is a conundrum for governments around the world as the holiday season approaches. In the U.S., it starts in a few days with Thanksgiving.

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STEWART (voice-over): Going home for the holidays. It's what the CDC advises against this Thanksgiving. Crowded airports, people mingling from different households is the perfect way for a virus to travel as well. But the warning isn't enough to ground some passengers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The planes are safe, they sanitize everything. You got to live your life at the end of the day.

STEWART (voice-over): But in many places, the concern is saving lives. As many governments reimpose restrictions and coronavirus cases reach alarming levels.

On Monday, Toronto, Canada's most populous city, will go on lockdown for nearly a month. That means outdoor gatherings will be limited to 10 people; restaurants, curbside or delivery only. Even grocery stores can only operate at half capacity. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau appealed to people to stay at home.

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JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: If you are planning to see friends this weekend, maybe don't. If there was a birthday party or a gathering for dinner you were thinking about doing, don't do it.

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STEWART (voice-over): A similar message in Iran where the deputy health minister says family gatherings are the main cause of infection. The country recently closed nonessential businesses in 160 towns and cities but some residents say people will continue to gather.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): No matter how much the government imposes restrictions, people do not comply. It's useless.

STEWART (voice-over): In New Delhi, India, not complying with coronavirus rules comes with a. Cost the government has increased fines from 500 to 2000 rupees, about $27, for those who don't wear masks.

Cases in Brazil are once again on the rise, passing the 6 million mark, after infections steadily declined since their peak in the summer. Officials say the surge is fueled by people out in about, in some cities packing into public places at pre pandemic levels.

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STEWART (voice-over): Russian president Vladimir Putin says he will provide the Sputnik V vaccine to countries that need it. That hope is perhaps too far down the road and the wave of infections sweeping the world right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE) STEWART: Here in Europe the second wave of coronavirus has been devastating. Lockdowns have been severe. There are perhaps a few good signs.

France and the U.K. appear to have cases leveling off. They may be past the peak of the second wave. But governments remain cautious, particularly when it comes to restrictions.

The U.K. government said the English national lockdown, going on for over two weeks, will end on the 2nd of December but not going back to normal. England will return to a regional three tier system and the measures will get stronger and more regions will enter into strictest of the tiers.

This is part of the U.K. COVID winter plan. They are speaking about it today at Number 10 Downing Street and it will be presented to Parliament tomorrow and be voted on later in the week.

Of course, it's always a balancing act. Part of it will be stricter restrictions put on more regions of England, that could mean more businesses closed for longer. We're expecting some good news for curfews, perhaps some pubs and restaurants able to be open longer.

But it's in flux. Lots of discussions going on. And the big one as we mentioned in the report is Christmas in the weeks ahead.

Can they relax restrictions temporarily to allow families to mix?

And what is the cost of doing so?

BRUNHUBER: Absolutely. All right. Thank you so much. Anna Stewart in London.

There's a gulf between the South Dakota government and many of its citizens. How the state is handling or not handling the COVID outbreak. We'll have details after the break. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: We want to bring you two stories of heartbreaking loss from two different U.S. communities. These families are speaking out in order to warn their fellow Americans of the real danger of COVID-19.

First, South Dakota: the state still refuses to impose stricter measures, forcing families of those who lost their lives to COVID to urge the public to take the crisis more seriously. CNN's Lucy Kafanov has the story.

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CHRIS BJORKMAN, COVID-19 WIDOW: I wanted him to come home. I always thought he would come home.

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Chris Bjorkman of De Smet, South Dakota, is missing her husband. She and John Bjorkman tested positive for coronavirus three months after their 39th wedding anniversary. She got better but John's health took a turn for the worse.

JOHN BJORKMAN, COVID-19 VICTIM: No energy, no drive, no nothing.

KAFANOV (voice-over): He was struggling to breathe and was put on a ventilator, the Sioux Falls hospitals so overwhelmed he had to be airlifted to Minnesota, sharing his struggle with CNN affiliate KSFY.

J. BJORKMAN: When they flew me over here, I literally didn't know if I would see the next day. Makes me more nervous, that's about it.

KAFANOV (voice-over): Chris describes visiting him in the ICU.

C. BJORKMAN: It's awful to see someone on a ventilator. And there, all the other rooms, people were on ventilators, too, but they were all by themselves.

KAFANOV (voice-over): John died after spending 30 days in the hospital, one of nearly 250,000 American lives claimed by COVID-19.

The pandemic is ravaging the Dakotas. At the Sanford Medical Center in Sioux Falls, Dr. Austin Simonson says the medicine is the easy part.

DR. AUSTIN SIMONSON, SANFORD MEDICAL CENTER, SIOUX FALLS: I get asked over and over again by people who are trapped in a room by themselves, when do I get to go home?

You know, will I get better?

And I don't know.

KAFANOV (voice-over): Health experts say months of lax regulations have contributed to South Dakota's public health crisis. Republican governor Kristi Noem ignoring safety measures that curbed the spread of COVID-19 elsewhere in the world.

GOV. KRISTI NOEM (R-SD): My people are happy. They're happy because they're free.

KAFANOV (voice-over): The governor welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Sturgis motorcycle rally this summer, didn't cancel the state fair and has resisted issuing stay-at-home orders or a mask mandate, saying she would leave it up to the people to decide.

AMY BILLOWS, SIOUX FALLS RESIDENT: Viruses are so small that expecting a mask to block them is like expecting a chain link fence to keep out mosquitoes.

KAFANOV (voice-over): In Sioux Falls, a proposed mask mandate divided the city council. The mayor, who has previously urged residents to mask up --

MAYOR PAUL TENHAKEN (R-SD), SIOUX FALLS: I obviously believe in masks. The importance they play in slowing the spread of COVID-19.

KAFANOV (voice-over): Voting against the mandate after the city council ended up deadlocked.

TENHAKEN: My official vote on this is a no. And that item fails 5-4.

KAFANOV (voice-over): Dr. Shannon Emry is a local pediatrician, who spent 14 years in the Air Force and blames politicians for not doing enough.

DR. SHANNON EMRY, PEDIATRICIAN: Our governor has been misleading her constituents. From the start, she has downplayed the dangers of the virus, downplayed the importance of wearing a mask.

KAFANOV (voice-over): Governor Noem's office did not respond to CNN. But with elected leaders reluctant to intervene and COVID policy turning political, the burden of pushing people to take the virus seriously has now fallen on the families of those who have died.

KAFANOV: Why did you feel like you had to speak out?

C. BJORKMAN: Because I want people to not go through this, what I did. I want people to care enough about their neighbors, their family, that they wear a mask and that something gets done, that maybe we have some leadership and guidance to help with that.

KAFANOV (voice-over): Lucy Kafanov, CNN, De Smet, South Dakota.

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BRUNHUBER: The Navajo Nation has started a three-week lockdown. The indigenous community in the southwestern U.S. is fighting a dangerous resurgence of the coronavirus. CNN's Martin Savidge speaks to one woman, whose family suffered a terrible loss.

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MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Winter-like cold has returned to the Navajo Nation, so has coronavirus. Last spring, COVID-19 devastated the sprawling 27,000 square mile Navajo reservation that stretches across Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

In May, per capita Navajo infection rates surpassed New York and New Jersey.

Darlene Dixson's younger sister among those infected.

DARLENE DIXSON, NAVAJO NATION RESIDENT: She went in to get tested and she said she tested positive.

SAVIDGE: Just two weeks later, Dixson listened helplessly over the phone as her sister's COVID battle ended in a distant hospital room.

DIXSON: I was telling her, you can't go. You have to come home to us. By 5:45, you just hear that tone of her heart stopping and the doctor came on the phone and she said she was gone. SAVIDGE: Now COVID is back.

[05:45:00]

SAVIDGE (voice-over): Navajo health officials warn the virus is uncontrolled spread in 34 communities and fear an outbreak as bad as spring or worse.

DR. JILL JIM, NAVAJO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: The cases have been increasing. There is no plateau. There is no flattening.

SAVIDGE (on camera): How many ICU beds do you have here?

JIM: We have 14 in Navajo area. Here at this site, we have six.

SAVIDGE (voice-over): Last time, Navajo sent many other cases off reservation, to larger hospitals, in New Mexico and Arizona. Health volunteers poured in.

That's not likely this time. Hospitals nationwide are struggling to find beds for their own critical cases, so the Navajo are preparing to fight alone, locking down the entire Navajo nation for three weeks, announcing the news on Navajo Radio.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good morning, I hope everybody walk up feeling good. Feeling that they want to stay home and take care of themselves.

SAVIDGE: Under the order, people can only leave their homes for emergencies or essentials. Government offices and businesses must close. Learning is online. Gas stations and grocery stores can open, but under limited hours and capacity using strict sanitizing procedures.

(on camera): Checkpoints like this one are designed to limit travel, meanwhile nonresidents and tourists can pass through, they just can't stop.

(voice-over): Face masks already mandated, now are encouraged to be worn indoors with family.

JONATHAN NEZ, PRESIDENT, NAVAJO NATION: We are like an island in the Navajo Nation. So, of course, if you have record-breaking numbers all around us, it will come in to that nation or that area. And that's what's happening today.

SAVIDGE: Aggressive screening continues. Officials say more than 50 percent of the nation's residents already have been tested in more than 250 contact tracers work to isolate transmission. Health officials have identified sites to quarantine thousands and to place hundreds of hospital beds.

Native utility groups raced to bring electricity to some of the 30 percent of Navajo who live without it, saving them searching for firewood or fuel. And running water could be about 40 percent to have none, to make handwashing and hygiene easier.

JEFFERY ETSITTY, NAVAJO ENGINEERING CONSTRUCTION AUTHORITY: With this help, it will greatly improve their lives.

SAVIDGE: So far, the strict lockdown has received little pushback. Perhaps because even those who have already enjoyed agonizing loss realize there is still so much more than Navajo could lose.

DIXSON: To keep us -- to keep us safe, to keep us alive. That's with the lockdown is for.

SAVIDGE (voice-over): Martin Savidge, CNN, Navajo Nation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: As one might expect, the coronavirus is dominating discussion at this year's G20 virtual summit. Ahead, a live report on the event from host nation Saudi Arabia.

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BRUNHUBER: Thanksgiving in the U.S. is just four days away. But many families won't be able to get together for the traditional turkey meal because of the coronavirus. Others are struggling to put food on the table.

Food insecurity and hunger have been on the rise since the pandemic broke out and millions lost their jobs. Many of them are depending on food giveaways, like this one in Arlington, Texas.

Lines for a food bank in Los Angeles were so long some families were there since Friday. CNN's Natasha Chen visited one food drive in Georgia on Saturday.

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NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The first cars arrived at 5:30 am for an event that was scheduled to start at 10:00 am. So that just goes to show the desperate need of the people in this community.

You can see these are the final cars coming through, getting a box of produce, getting a gift card for turkeys and hams at Walmart.

Some of these people tell me that they had not been to a food drive prior to 2020. It's because of the pandemic and the economic strains, that their jobs have been affected. Others tell me they're here, picking up food for their elderly relatives just so that they can keep them safe.

We talked to the Dekalb County CEO about the people he's met in line. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL THURMOND, CEO, DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA: I spoke with one lady who said that she never dreamed that she would end up in a food line, having worked her entire life.

And I just told her that there's nothing to be ashamed of, that we're in this together, we're going to rise through this challenge. We'll meet it and we'll stand together as a county, as a state and as a nation.

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CHEN: They gave out about 850 boxes of food today and this is just one of three locations in Dekalb County. We know of so many other food drives around the metro Atlanta area and around the country.

It's a similar story, wherever we are talking to those people. It's a lot of folks who are coming to these drives, who may not have needed this help before and, of course, everyone has in mind the safety of Thanksgiving gatherings. And a lot of people here telling me they're going to try and keep those gatherings small.

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BRUNHUBER: The G20 summit continues today, hosted by Saudi Arabia. This after COVID-19 dominated discussions on Saturday. For more, Nic Robertson is live in the Saudi capital.

Nic, obviously the big topic stateside is the video of President Trump golfing during the pandemic session but a lot more has happened. So bring us up to speed on what you've seen so far and then what we're expecting next.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Sure. In a couple hours, about five hours, we'll get the communique. That's the final agreement of what all the leaders agreed.

We heard some of them and some of them, like President Trump, we didn't hear from because it wasn't released from the White House. They spoke behind virtual closed doors.

And the resounding theme has been to help poorer nations combat COVID- 19, to make sure vaccines are distributed equitably across the world. The figures that have been talked about so far, $21 billion that was earmarked earlier in the year for COVID on the medical side, already assessed at the G20 to have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

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ROBERTSON: They're putting up what's expected to be about $4.5 billion for what's being called the advanced COVID tool kit accelerator. That's essentially to boost the capacity and capability of the poorer nations to test for COVID-19, to treat and get the vaccines for COVID- 19.

What language gets wrapped up in here, of course, climate change and carbon emissions, has been a part of the conversation. We'll get those details later this afternoon.

But I think the central notion here has been that international institutions, like the World Health Organization -- we heard President Macron of France speaking about the importance of that and the coping with the pandemic and rolling out the vaccine around the globe.

We heard the Saudi king talk about the importance of the WTO, the World Trade Organization, for having financial institutions that are capable of combating a future pandemic.

And all of those, the WHO is something President Trump's pulled out of, he's removed U.S. funding from it. He has been against strengthening the controls and mechanisms of the World Trade Organization.

So really, we don't know everything that President Trump said behind closed doors. But really, you get the sense that President Trump is really the outlier, he has been. And perhaps that's why we saw him at the golf course and not paying attention to the rest of the virtual conversations.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Thank you so much, Nic Robertson. Appreciate it.

Well, that wraps up this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. "NEW DAY" is just ahead.