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Biden Transition Process Finally Begins; Millions Travel for Thanksgiving; Riyadh Denies Netanyahu-Crown Prince Meeting; Tigray Leaders Vow to Fight on in Northern Ethiopia; Biden to Pick Janet Yellen as Cabinet Secretary; Seoul Begins "Emergency Period" with New Restrictions. Aired 2-2:45a ET

Aired November 24, 2020 - 02:00   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hi, welcome to all of our viewers joining us from around the world. I'm Robyn Curnow here in Atlanta.

Ahead on CNN, President-Elect Joe Biden gets a green light to begin his formal transition into the White House. He has swiftly put together his administration while Donald Trump is still refusing to concede.

Plus, there is skepticism over a third possible coronavirus vaccine. Why experts say it may be too early to call it a success.

Plus South Korea prepares for tighter COVID restrictions. We will have a live report from Seoul where it's getting serious.

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CURNOW: In the words of one source close to the White House, it's a blaring wakeup call and it's over. A key government agency has acknowledged Joe Biden as the winner of the U.S. presidential election, allowing the transition from Donald Trump to move forward.

The current president says he recommended the move but he still claims he has a strong case and believes he will eventually prevail.

Later he tweeted his legal challenges were moving full speed ahead and he would never concede.

But the president suffered two more major legal setbacks on Monday. Michigan voted to certify its election results for Joe Biden. And Pennsylvania's supreme court rejected the Trump campaign's effort to block 10,000 absentee ballots.

Joe Biden has not been waiting for a formal announcement from the White House to put together his team as Jeff Zeleny reports -- Jeff.

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JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President-Elect Joe Biden's Cabinet is taking shape tonight, announcing his intention to nominate seasoned advisers from the Obama administration into new history-making roles.

Janet Yellen, former Federal Reserve chair, will be tapped next week as the Treasury Secretary nominee, CNN has learned, and would become the first woman to serve in the post.

QUESTION: Why are you going national security first?

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because it's national security.

ZELENY: Before a virtual meeting with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Biden unveiling key members of his national security team, including Alejandro Mayorkas, who would become the first Latino to run the Department of Homeland Security, the agency tasked with the nation's immigration policy.

Avril Haines, a former deputy CIA director, who would become the first woman to lead the nation's intelligence community as director of national intelligence.

And John Kerry, the longtime senator and former secretary of state, to serve as an international climate czar, a new post underscoring Biden's commitment to fighting climate change.

The president-elect is wasting no time filling his team, expediting his announcements, in part, CNN has learned, because President Trump is still seeking to sabotage the outcome.

Biden making clear again today he is surrounding himself with experienced hands, many of whom he's worked with for years in the Senate and White House.

TONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE NOMINEE: And now, on a personal note, it gives me particular pleasure to introduce a man who has been my mentor, my partner, my friend and the greatest public servant I know, the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden.

ZELENY (voice-over): That's Tony Blinken, a longtime adviser, now to be nominated as secretary of state; Jake Sullivan, another longtime aide, to be named as national security adviser and Linda Thomas- Greenfield, a veteran foreign service officer, who has served in posts around the world, to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Republicans were nearly silent about Biden's nominations, nearly all of which face Senate confirmation. When asked if he was concerned about the GOP putting up roadblocks to his team, he said this.

BIDEN: Are you kidding me?

ZELENY (voice-over): Former President Barack Obama praising Biden's pick, saying they send a signal to allies of strength and stability.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They are going to be greatly relieved and pleased to see people like Tony. There is going to be a lingering sense that America is still divided.

OBAMA: Some of the shenanigans that are going on right now around the election, that is making the world question how reliable and steady the U.S. may be.

ZELENY: The Biden transition moving forward even faster now that they do have that ascertainment from the General Services Administration. That means the Trump administration finally signing off on transition funding and, more importantly, opening the doors to information.

Finally, three weeks after Election Day, the Biden transition in full force is, of course, well underway, already naming his cabinet picks -- Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Wilmington, Delaware.

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CURNOW: Let's talk about what goes into building a cabinet. Joining me now is Chris Lu. He managed President Obama's first-term cabinet and later served as Deputy Secretary of Labor.

Good to see you, sir. I want to take your take on all of this. It's a fascinating week. The Biden cabinet is taking shape. It is certainly clear that the president-elect has tapped trusted advisers. People he knows. People he's worked with, unlike the last 4 years so far. There are no outliers and no surprises.

How important is that for this presidency?

CHRIS LU, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF LABOR: It's absolutely important, given the range of problems that this new team is facing. It's not just an economy in recession but it's a global pandemic and obviously the constant national security, Homeland Security considerations.

This is a group of people with whom the president-elect has worked with. But importantly, these are people who have served at the highest levels of government. It can't be understated how important that experience is.

When you take on a job, running cabinet agencies or managing major national security functions, you need people that could hit the ground running. People who are familiar with the organizations and, as importantly in this case, with the national security team, are comfortable and knowledgeable about national security policies and know the players they're working with overseas.

CURNOW: That was going to be my next question. There is a personal element of trust from Mr. Biden and, of course, the element of institutional trust here. Many of these, who you say, he worked with for decades in national security and foreign policy. For allies, adversaries, competitors, why does it also matter that

this team is a team of familiar faces?

LU: President-Elect Biden is a known figure on the international stage. He was the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the U.S. Senate, served as vice president, has traveled to dozens and dozens of countries, knows foreign leaders on a first-name basis.

He has really established that he wants the United States to be a player on the world stage. He wants to rebuild the alliances with our partners overseas. To do that, he needs experienced people helping him who also share the values but also can jump in immediately and begin to rebuild these really frayed relationships that we have with our allies.

CURNOW: As we were saying, you were in the Obama cabinet, which was sometimes cerebral and ponderous, according to some critics. Then, of course, there was the Trump administration, which was chaotic and raw.

How much has changed, whether it's the need for communication with Twitter or divisions in America, how adaptable do you think this cast of old school D.C. folks needs to be?

Are there some lessons that have been learned?

LU: I think it's unlikely that any president will go back to the old style of communicating with the American people through press releases, through set stages, press conferences. Donald Trump really has revolutionized the use of Twitter in social media, generally and getting his message out.

Frankly, that is a trend that had begun with President Obama. So I think that will continue. But I think the idea of working quietly behind the scenes, focusing on substance, building relationships, taking a long term view and not just trying to always look for short term PR gains, that is who Joe Biden is.

And I think the team of people he has around him, he is comfortable with and I think will embrace that style of diplomacy.

CURNOW: But how difficult is this going to be?

Simultaneously trying to perhaps put together or put back the institutions that have been weakened by the Trump administration while at the same time trying to push forward the Biden agenda?

LU: It is going -- to

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CURNOW: There is a push and pull there.

LU: Yes, I think it will be a lot of work. We don't want to underestimate the amount of damage that has been done to our relationships with our allies by this president. This is a person who, in the current president, who has frankly been

more interested in the short-term political gains, who sees everything as a deal to be made, always looking at what is in his own political interest versus what is in the national interest.

I think we are going to have an experienced group of people, who understand the value of multilateral institutions.

CURNOW: Chris Lu, appreciate you joining us. Thanks so much.

LU: Thank you.

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CURNOW: Coronavirus cases here in the U.S. are expected to skyrocket over the next two months if social distancing measures are eased. That's according to a scientific model. The U.S. could reach 20 million cases by late January unless tight restrictions are imposed.

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CURNOW: Researchers say the numbers could also rise as more people travel for the holidays. Take a look at these images.

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CURNOW (voice-over): This past weekend, U.S. airports saw a huge rise in air travel. More than 3 million passengers preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving. All of this coming despite warnings from health officials to avoid large crowds.

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CURNOW: Over in the U.K., a different story. Officials there are planning to ease restrictions now the cases are falling. The government says it will lift a nationwide lockdown and impose a new testing strategy, which would reduce quarantine periods for international travel.

All of this comes amid rising hope for a new vaccine. AstraZeneca says its candidate on average 70 percent effective. Questions still remain about how that data was gathered.

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ADRIAN HILL, OXFORD UNIVERSITY JENNER INSTITUTE: It is certainly as safe as other vaccines that have been licensed. So what we know about it today is that 32,000 people have been enrolled in trials, more than half of them receiving this vaccine. They have been no serious adverse events attributed to the vaccine.

We also know, very importantly, that this type of that vaccine, an adenovirus vector, which is licensed for other diseases, like a vaccine against Ebola in many countries, has been safe. So the platform, the vaccine platform technology has been safe and has been used in humans since the early 1990s. (END VIDEO CLIP)

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CURNOW: So with us now from Oxford University, Dr. Peter Drobac, an infectious disease and global health expert.

Peter, wonderful to see you again. Thank you for joining me. So you are there in Oxford. You know some of these doctors who have been working on that AstraZeneca vaccine.

What is your reaction to this criticism about this vaccine that we are seeing in many areas?

DR. PETER DROBAC, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: I don't exactly understand this vaccine. Like all of the others, it has undergone an incredibly rigorous clinical trial program in over 30,000 people enrolled in the phase 3 trial.

Safety is always number one with all of these trials. I think scientists have been racing to develop vaccines in record time. But in general this is true of the process around the world, have not cut corners on safety. We don't have the safety data. We only got the top lines as for all 3 of these vaccines that have reported results so far.

But so far the safety results are encouraging.

CURNOW: It's good news for all of us, a light at the end of the tunnel. But until we get there, here in the U.S., we have seen skyrocketing cases compared to Europe.

What do the numbers tell you about the U.S., the sheer breadth and depth of the infection rate, particularly because Europe seems to be coming out of a pretty rough patch?

DROBAC: The situation in the U.S. is breathtaking and really tragic. And this is how exponential growth works. It's just continuing to rise and rise and rise in these kind of eye-popping waves unless we do something different.

The reality is we're not. Europe and the U.S. sort of diverge in the sense that, over the last couple of months, some stronger measures have been taken in Europe. Those have yielded some results in flattening the curve. There does not seem to be the same appetite, apart from some states and localities in the U.S.

We just have to expect things are going to get a lot worse unless we change our behaviors. This virus does not care that it's Thanksgiving or Christmas is coming up. It will just keep behaving the same way. We need to change what we do.

CURNOW: We talk about these mind-boggling figures here in the U.S., the exponential growth. But Mr. Biden is going to be taking official control on January the 20th, when he is inaugurated. His team needs to do a number of things. What would you suggest to them if you were on the Biden COVID team?

DROBAC: They have got a lot of work to do. They have an incredible team that has been working hard for months and months to prepare for this. They are going to need some policy decisions made on things like universal masking, simple measures that could make a big difference.

I think a lot more support to states and localities to make smart decisions, to put the CDC back front and center as one of the premier public health agencies in the world, and lead with science-based communication. That will really help.

But as all of this happens, to start to control the surge, of course, there is a massive effort that needs to be conducted, to prepare the country for vaccination, because we are now close to having these vaccines ready.

But they are only effective when they're in someone's arm. So it's a really significant manufacturing distribution effort that needs to be organized in order to make sure that we can vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible, along with communications efforts to build trust so that people are willing to take the vaccine.

CURNOW: Thanks for that, Dr. Peter Drobac joining us live from Oxford. Thank you.

DROBAC: Thank you.

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CURNOW: Coming up, political unrest in Uganda turns deadly. Coming up, witnesses described terrifying scenes of gunfire and narrow escapes.

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CURNOW: Welcome back. I'm Robyn Curnow.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman met for the first time over the weekend. That is at least what some are saying. Mr. Netanyahu would not confirm or deny the meeting with reporters.

Meantime, the Saudi foreign minister said it simply did not happen. We are joined by Nic Robertson with more on that.

What can you tell us?

Hi, Nic. NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Look, the Saudis

said very clearly, the foreign minister is the person saying it and he was there where the crown prince was, where Mike Pompeo was. He picked up Mike Pompeo at the airport and drove him to the meeting with the crown prince, drove him back from the meeting as well.

He is saying very clearly in his tweet that this meeting did not happen. Indeed, his first tweet in English left some ambiguity. He followed up with a tweet in Arabic that cleared it up.

The Saudi position on Israel is very straightforward. It is that, if Saudi Arabia is to recognize Israel, that Israelis need to guarantee and be able to implement a two-state solution. The debate, the public debate about that is not something that goes on, on the screens here per se.

This is not something that the leadership is talking about and engaging the country in. Saudi Arabia is in a very important position, because the king is the custodian of the two holy mosques. He carries huge weight. His decisions carry huge weight within the Muslim world.

What we know from talking to Saudi diplomats is that the Trump administration put huge amounts of pressure on Saudi Arabia to make good its relations with Israel, because that was sort of a foreign policy triumph that Trump wanted.

He said it was important for Netanyahu as well. So this is something that, my understanding is, that the Trump administration has been pushing and pushing. Indeed the trip of secretary of state Mike Pompeo could be seen in that light as well.

From a Saudi perspective, if you look at it from many countries' perspective as well, why get into something with a new deal under the auspices of a president who is about to leave office?

I think there is an expectation that Benjamin Netanyahu is not going to be around as prime minister in Israel forever and there are even questions as to whether he could deliver a two-state solution if he committed to it.

So I think when you look at those ambiguities, this is what we understand from the Saudi denial. They are very clear. This didn't happen.

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CURNOW: OK, thanks for the update, Nic Robertson in Saudi.

Police in Uganda said at least 45 people were killed in protests last week, sparked by the arrest of a popular music star turned presidential candidate. Bobi Wine was arrested for violating COVID regulations at a campaign rally.

Witnesses said military police and plainclothes gunmen fired rifles in heavily populated areas to end the protests. Police say some of the officers' actions are being investigated. Let's turn to David McKenzie, who has been monitoring all of this.

Hi, David.

What can you tell us?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The security forces in Uganda have called some of these protesters "hooligans." They've condemned them likened them to terrorists.

But our reporting shows that innocent Ugandans have been killed in the worst protest in a long time in Uganda and that this is a generational fight that is brewing.

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MCKENZIE (voice-over): He secretly filmed as, below him, Kampala descended into days of chaos and death.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They couldn't listen to anyone. The only thing was to beat, tear gas and bullets. Many were shot in the legs and their back or in the stomach and the heads.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): He was afraid to move beyond the building stairwell, afraid if the soldiers spotted him, that they would kill him.

He's still afraid, only agreeing to speak to us if we concealed his identity.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These guys are shooting in front of the --

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Widely circulated videos show soldiers and plainclothes gunmen firing high caliber rifles into crowded urban slums.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mummy, I'm very scared.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): At least 45 people were killed, hundreds more injured. Uganda's worst violence in years sparked by the arrest of Bobi Wine, a pop star turned presidential candidate in January's election.

FRED ENANGA, UGANDAN POLICE SPOKESMAN: These events were not just impromptu actions, but part of a loosely coordinated campaign.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): A police spokesman told CNN that there were quite a lot of incidents where their officers, quote, "allegedly conducted themselves unprofessionally and such cases are being investigated."

But he claims some officers used bullets to disperse crowds in self- defense. The Ugandan military did not respond to our repeated calls. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) free and fair elections because they're being arrested, are being tortured and unarmed citizens are being killed.

MCKENZIE: Bobi Wine is charged with contravening strict COVID-19 rules. But he says his arrest is an attempt by authorities to stop his popular campaign against President Yoweri Museveni, who has held an iron grip on power for more than 30 years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This election is very different because it is a generational fight. President Museveni, who is approaching 80 years old, is facing a young man who is half his age. It is a fight between the past and the future.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Yusuf's (ph) family says he wasn't political at all, he was just going out to buy milk.

MCKENZIE: Where were his injuries?

Where was he shot?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was shot from the back.

MCKENZIE: Shot in the back?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because you couldn't be alive -- because no one was helping him -- the people were on the scene, they said he stayed there almost 2.5 hours while he was losing blood until he died.

MCKENZIE (voice over): He was buried on Friday, just a few days before what would've been his 21st birthday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need peace in Uganda. We need democracy in Uganda.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Right now, Uganda has neither.

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MCKENZIE: Yusuf's (ph) 21st birthday was this week. He had already organized a celebration with his grandfather. He is just a victim of this political violence in Uganda.

And Robyn, the average age in Uganda is under 16 years old. And there are many, many disaffected youths, who mostly live in the capital of Kampala. I've spoken to many people over the last few days.

And they are really concerned that this uptick in violence, the 45 people that died in the last few days, could just get worse as we approach Uganda's election in January. The bigger issue across many parts of the continent is this generational divide between those who live in these countries and those who rule it.

CURNOW: That is why Bobi Wine and his leadership and his charisma have really hit a call (ph) there. And of course the president has been in power for decades, so that amplifies this division. Good to see you, David, very powerful piece. Thanks so much.

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CURNOW: Leaders in Tigray region are vowing to fight on, rejecting the prime minister's ultimatum to surrender by a Wednesday deadline. The Ethiopian federal government and regional Tigray forces have been fighting since earlier this month.

Leaders accused federal forces of killing civilians while targeting churches and homes. The government denies this. And CNN has been unable to verify claims from either side. The U.N. says hundreds of people have died and more than 30,000 fled to neighboring Sudan to escape the conflict. We will continue to monitor that story.

Next on CNN, Joe Biden will make history this week when he nominates the first woman as U.S. Treasury Secretary. Reaction from the business community.

Plus just ahead --

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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm excited to let you know my digital show "FULL CIRCLE" is back. You can watch every Monday, Tuesday and Friday, 6:00 pm live Eastern time or anytime on demand. And to make sure you never miss a show, you can get alerts on every episode on the CNN app. I'll see you then.

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CURNOW: Welcome back to CNN. I'm Robyn Curnow, live from the CNN Center here in Atlanta.

Donald Trump says he will never concede that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. But that is not stopping Mr. Biden from moving forward to fill his cabinet. He announced a slate of foreign policy and national security picks on Monday, many are longtime advisers and also served in the Obama administration.

Notable among them, former senator and secretary of state John Kerry, who will now serve in the newly created climate czar role. And Janet Yellen will be the first woman to serve as Treasury Secretary as she was when she chaired the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018.

Let's head to Abu Dhabi and CNN's John Defterios,

John, is Janet Yellen being viewed as the right person at the right time to oversee the U.S. Treasury?

What is the reaction to this? JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: Well, it's a very safe bet by President-Elect Joe Biden that's for sure. I think both Wall Street and Main Street can appreciate the work that she has done in the past.

Also the global business community thinking this is someone who knows what she is doing and has years of experience. If you think about it, she chaired the Federal Reserve, the first woman to do so. Many overlook the fact that she was a chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Bill Clinton White House.

Now with the U.S. Treasury, that is a flush if you're in a cards game. She has all the credentials. Her number one task will be getting the stimulus package through to avoid this double dip recession. It's a real threat there.

Having served at the Federal Reserve board, Steve Mnuchin, the current U.S. Treasury Secretary, stopped the additional funding for the Federal Reserve. She would not do something like that.

I would think it would be important for her to support the president- elect in getting an infrastructure bill through and one that has green credentials and rejoin the Paris climate accord. A green infrastructure of $1 trillion or more, that's something that Donald Trump could not deliver.

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DEFTERIOS: So I would say, if you look at the market reaction here so far that we have overseas, both on the General Services Administration and the Yellin announcement, we have rallies of about a 0.5-1 percent. There is kind of a relief taking place that there is clarity now, light at the end of the tunnel for planning.

CURNOW: Certainty and familiarity are certainly a big part of this Biden team, at least, what we are hearing about first.

How important was it when the business community broke with Donald Trump and said time to move on?

The Trump handover to Joe Biden, this transition needs to happen.

How key was that?

DEFTERIOS: If you understand the U.S. corporate culture -- you've been living there for years now -- it's a very significant voice from Wall Street to Main Street. That is what we saw.

A couple of the prominent names that stood out for me, Steve Schwarzman, who was actually very close to Donald Trump as the CEO of Blackstone, the major investment banking firm from Wall Street; JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, another respected voice, they said what you are suggesting.

We have to trust the system. We have to let the transition proceed and we need to move on; 160 CEOs from New York released an open letter yesterday, suggesting the same. If I was going to pick out a couple others, the CEO of Walmart, Doug McKinnon, also the CEO of the business roundtable in the United States, and the CEO of Intel representing Silicon Valley.

They all suggested the same. And it's not by accident that the GSA is now watching these things and thinking, OK, it's time to make that transition. Even Donald Trump is seeing the same.

CURNOW: OK, thanks so much, John Defterios in Abu Dhabi.

To London now with Julie Norman from University College. She can discuss a lot of these things we've been touching on in the last half hour or so.

Julie, good to see you. We know Mr. Trump says he will not concede but that the transition can now go ahead.

How important is this?

It's not just unlocked funds, is it?

JULIE NORMAN, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Absolutely. This is a big step for the procedures and the nuts and bolts of the transition to move forward.

With the GSA issuing this letter yesterday, the funds are released but it also gives the Biden team, quite crucially, access to all the individuals currently working in those agencies and all the information that has been developed, that is moving things forward in terms of the coronavirus and in terms of everything that keeps the government functioning domestically and in terms of foreign policy.

So starting to have that overlap as soon as possible is crucial for the Biden team. It's not just about the funds.

CURNOW: No, I suppose it's also about building the team. We know that the Trump administration was pretty ill prepared when they came in, in January four years ago. This is about background checks. It's about getting seats or desks in offices and agencies in departments.

It's literally about getting your hands dirty and prepping for January the 20th.

NORMAN: That's exactly right. We know that the Biden team has been moving forward really quite pragmatically in terms of lining up their nominees, in terms of thinking about who they want in key positions.

That is something they have been preparing for since before the election. But actually confirming those individuals in posts, getting those necessary background checks and national security clearances is something that takes time.

That's why we have this transition period now. Now all of that can start moving forward. As well, Biden and some key individuals can start receiving security briefings, which are also quite crucial during the transition. CURNOW: I also noticed there was some analysis where an expert here

in the States suggesting that by now having access to these federal resources, that the Biden team will essentially be able to look under the hood, under the bonnet of the departments, agencies that the Trump administration has been running for the past few years and be able to assess if there has been a weakening or a stripping of certain aspects of many of these agencies.

They will be able to see the impact of these Trump years in many areas, such as the EPA, for example.

NORMAN: Very true. What we understand of course, is a lot of what happened under the Trump administration, were many measures, regulation changes that may not have made major headlines, for example, in terms of environmental and climate changes.

Over 100 different measures were put in place to unwind environmental protections. So these are kind of slow, bureaucratic buildups of changes that will need to be more understood fully by the Biden team, to understand where they will be coming into and what kind of changes will need to be made, especially in these crucial first several months.

CURNOW: But this is a transition unlike any other.

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CURNOW: This is a president who is going to be taking office where millions and millions of people are going to have COVID. Hundreds of thousands are going to have died by mid-January. This really is about opening up access to COVID planning, vaccine planning.

How crucial is that?

Do you think lives will be saved with the fact that they can now access a lot of those federal funds?

NORMAN: That's exactly right. A transition at any time is the time that we want to go smoothly but especially in a year like this one. Over 250,000 Americans have lost their lives to the pandemic. We know millions are still unemployed and feeling the economic effects of this crisis.

So this is a very key time for the Biden administration to be able to move forward with their task force, to work with those who have already been working and those agencies over the past several months to start on the vaccine planning in particular.

But also form a more comprehensive response to the corona pandemic and the other crises surrounding it.

CURNOW: Thanks so much for your analysis. Julie Norman, I appreciate it.

NORMAN: Thank you, Robyn. CURNOW: Still to come, emergency restrictions and new social distancing rules in Seoul, where a new outbreak of COVID will lead to tightened measures for the rest of the year. That's next.

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CURNOW: Qantas Airlines says when a COVID vaccine becomes available, international travelers will have to prove they have been vaccinated before they can fly. Take a listen.

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ALAN JOYCE, QANTAS CEO: We are looking at changing our terms and conditions to say, for international travelers, that we will ask people to have a vaccination before they can get on the aircraft. Whether you need that domestically, we will have to see what happens with COVID-19 on the market.

But certainly for international visitors coming out and people leaving the country, we think that is a necessity.

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CURNOW: The CEO of Australia's national carrier says he expects other airlines to follow suit. Australia currently requires travelers returning from abroad to spend 2 weeks in quarantine.

An outbreak of coronavirus in Seoul, South Korea, has forced the city's acting mayor to declare an emergency period through the end of the year. The country fared much better than other regions containing the virus. South Korea has less than 32,000 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Despite this, Seoul will enforce new restrictions, including use of masks in all indoor facilities. Let's go straight to Seoul, where Paula Hancocks is, with more on all of this.

Hi, Paula.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Robyn. We have been hearing from health officials that they believe that this is the third wave and, of course, the concern they have at this point is, we are going into the winter months and South Korea does get particularly cold.

So there will be a lot more indoor activities. And because of that, health officials have said that they are worried that this could become an even more significant mass infection than the previous two waves.

[02:40:00] HANCOCKS: So they are concerned about that. We are at level 2 at this point when it comes to social distancing. All indoor facilities, you have to wear a mask. If you don't, you could be fined around $85.

On top of the level 2 social distancing, health officials brought in this emergency period until the end of the year as you mentioned. And what they are trying to do with that is to strengthen the rules when it comes to interaction, things like public transport after a certain time in the evening will be down to a fifth of capacity.

Restaurants at 9:00 pm will be only open to delivery and takeout. Religious services and churches, this has become an issue in this country. There have been a number of clusters that have originated from church services.

The government has urged these church services to be online. They have not mandated it at this point. But if they are in person, they only have 20 percent capacity that they are allowed.

So it is worth pointing out that, even though South Korea is calling this an emergency period, the restrictions are nowhere near as stringent as you would have, for example, in the lockdowns in Europe.

The numbers we're seeing here of new cases that are concerning officials are still relatively low, when you consider the country's 349 new cases reported over the last 24 hours.

But we have been hearing health officials say it is a risky situation. The president of the country Moon Jae-in said he wants public cooperation, that is desperately needed, pointing out that it is a precarious and worrying situation -- Robyn.

CURNOW: Thanks for that update. Live in Seoul, Paula Hancocks.

Scientists have discovered evidence of catastrophic flooding on Mars nearly 4 billion years ago. The Curiosity rover captured images from a crater on the planet. They show channel and ripple patterns carved by water.

Scientists think the heat from a meteor vaporized frozen reservoirs all those billions of years ago that, in turn, produced floods and brought about a warm and rainy season.

Closer to Earth, a mission to the moon to collect samples of space rock is underway for the first time in 40 years.

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CURNOW (voice-over): China has launched a probe to drill deep into the lunar surface. They hope soil and rocks they bring back will hold clues to the moon's magnetic field and its volcanic past.

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CURNOW: Thanks so much for watching. This is CNN. I'm Robyn Curnow, live from Atlanta. "WORLD SPORT" is next. Enjoy.