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U.S. Hospitals Fear Deadliest Season Yet; Bahrain Approves Pfizer Vaccine; Georgia's Special Election; Trump's Continuing Lies; Thousands of Refugees Have Fled to Sudan from Ethiopia; Biden Acknowledges "Grim" Jobs Report; Bangladesh Forces Hundreds of Rohingya to Island. Aired 2-2:45a ET

Aired December 05, 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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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, welcome to our viewers all around the, world I am Michael Holmes, appreciate your company.

Now ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, the U.S. has one of its worst days on record, as other countries charge forward with a vaccine. What Joe Biden asked to say about America's lack of strategy.

President Trump, gearing up to inspire Republicans to vote in a Senate runoff, the problem is, he spent the last month telling them that their votes are not being counted. Why local Republicans are nervous.

And, the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia, CNN's exclusive reporting.

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HOLMES: Welcome, everyone.

The coronavirus is devastating the U.S. with a record number of cases, Friday, more than 227,000. Another record, more than 101,000 people, currently, in hospitals with COVID. That number, coming from the COVID Tracking Project.

Johns Hopkins University, reporting more than 14.3 million cases. Experts fear this winter will be deadlier than any other point we've seen so far.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We have not yet seen the post-Thanksgiving peak. That is the concerning thing because the numbers, in and of themselves, are alarming.

Then you realize, it is likely that we will see more of a surge as we get 2 to 3 weeks past the Thanksgiving holiday.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HOLMES: More people have died in the U.S., this week, because of COVID-19, than any other cause of death. A research center at the University of Washington made that calculation. The same research center is projecting almost 540,000 deaths in the U.S. by April, a staggering number.

And no vaccine is expected to be widely distributed before the spring.

Joining me now, live, CNN medical analyst and professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health and Science University, Dr. Esther Choo.

Doctor, good to see you again. The death rate now, around a 9/11 a day, a person every 30 seconds or so I think it is. Dr. Fauci said, we have not seen the Thanksgiving surge peak.

How concerned are you about people traveling, gathering for Christmas?

What do you see in the next couple of weeks?

DR. ESTHER CHOO, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Good to be with, you Michael. The Christmas surge will be something we cannot afford to do. We are still braced in hospitals, waiting for the Thanksgiving aftermath to happen and, of course, as we said all along, there is such a delay.

There is high risk behavior and then there's a delay before we receive a case count uptick. Then we see hospitalizations and then we see severe illnesses and death. In this case, we already see a really dramatic rise in case counts, hospitalizations and deaths, going into Thanksgiving.

And yet people gather, they travel, they crowd into airports. We saw those concerning pictures without masks. So, we are just waiting for that to hit.

And, as we wait, people are making the next round of holiday plans. We have seen this ever since the beginning of the pandemic; every time there's a holiday where people gather, there was another surge.

HOLMES: It's chilling to realize the 4 of the top 5 days for deaths in America were in the first 4 days of the month. That is just staggering.

A majority of Americans, 60 percent, now say that if a COVID vaccine were available today, they would get vaccinated. That is according to Pew Research Center survey. That is an improvement.

But is it enough for herd immunity?

That's meant to be more in the 75 percent range, isn't it?

CHOO: Yes, that's exactly right. Certainly, upwards of 60 percent. Of course, you will note, in the Pew survey, there is a lot of heterogeneity. So certainly, among white Americans, among Asian Americans, there is upwards of well above 60 percent for Asian Americans, with 83 percent plan to get the vaccine. But among Black Americans, it's closer to 42 percent. That is because

we have not earned trust, uniformly, across the population, meaning, the medical establishment. So, we stand to double down on some of the inequities we've already seen play out in this pandemic.

So we have plenty of work to do to make sure that we take that receptivity, increase it.

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CHOO: And also do distribution, well so that we can actually get an available vaccine into arms.

HOLMES: That was interesting, and it also showed that 54 percent of people know someone who has been in hospital or died of COVID-19 but 71 percent of Black Americans did. It just goes to show the racial disparities, as you say.

I wanted to touch on, that because you put out a powerful tweet, on health care capacity and you talked about this before.

Speak to the impact of reaching capacity and beds and staff?

At what point to people, who may have survived a month ago now, die, because people and facilities are overwhelmed?

CHOO: We are so sensitive to increases in volume. And I think what is hard to make people understand is that, at baseline, usually, in the hospital, we staff it so that people are still quite busy. It's not as if a year ago, pre-pandemic, we were sitting around board. We were always working quite fast to deliver high quality care.

And now you add on to it, just these volumes that are breathtaking. Hospitals that are 90 percent, 100 percent, 110 percent full in their intensive care units. We have these incredible numbers of people hospitalized across the United States, more than 100,000 people hospitalized and the most, so far, in this pandemic.

And there is only so much we can go up from where we are. Obviously, you cannot pour patients into hospitals indefinitely, things will break down. A lot of our efficiencies just go away. There is only so much we can scale up. It's not about physical space, because you can bump out physical space. We only have so many trained providers.

You start to ask people to practice out of specialty or just carry the staggering number of patients at a level where we just cannot practice safely. So, outcomes will worsen as we start to overcrowd hospitals.

HOLMES: It is such an important point. I urge people to check out your Twitter feed, because I was glued to it, reading it. It's quite depressing.

I want to ask you one other thing, vaccines, great news, hopefully they do the trick. One thing I am curious about, do we know whether vaccinated people can still be carriers and give the virus to the non- vaccinated? CHOO: That's a great and important question. We do not know that information. The trials simply don't tell us. They only tell us that, so far, that the vaccine can reduce the chance of people getting COVID and, it looks, like can reduce the chance of people getting severe symptoms from COVID.

It does not tell us that we can't, get it and continue to be asymptomatic carriers. That is why, until we have that information, people need to behave like they can still spread it. So, face mask wearing will not go away. Social distancing will not go away anytime soon.

So, it will certainly improve our experience with COVID-19. But a lot of these behaviors will need to continue well into next year. We actually cannot stop being vigilant in that way.

HOLMES: Great points and good to get you on. It's always a pleasure to have you, Dr. Esther Choo, thank you very much.

CHOO: Thank you, Michael.

HOLMES: As the U.S. struggles with devastating pandemic numbers, many other nations also facing grim months ahead. Johns Hopkins University says that the global number of confirmed cases is nearing 66 million.

But some countries are making promising moves. Bahrain is just the second country, in the world, to approve emergency use of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. State run news says it will be available to vulnerable groups, including the elderly.

Just hours ago, Russia opened its first vaccine centers. President Vladimir Putin ordering his government to start large-scale COVID immunizations with its Sputnik V vaccine. CNN has reporters ready with the latest. Sam Kiley is the first to join us from the Middle East.

Sam, bring us up to date on what is happening.

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Just in the last 48 hours, the small kingdom of Bahrain, here in the Gulf, has issued authorization for the use of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.

Of course, that is the second country to have done so after the United Kingdom. The vaccine, in that country, in Bahrain, will be rolled out in support of more vulnerable patients, the elderly people with underlying diseases and such.

In fact, it is the second virus that has been approved -- rather, vaccine, I should say. They have also been using the Sinopharm, the Chinese developed vaccine. That was authorized for use in November.

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KILEY: In a similar way to what has been happening here in the United Arab Emirates, where, Michael, there has been a very large program of vaccination testing with more than 100,000 people here, also in the United Arab Emirates, having been vaccinated using the Sinopharm formula, if you like.

Now these two countries, of, course relatively small in size but with a long tradition of close connection to Britain. It's interesting that Bahrain is straddling both forms of vaccine. They also know that, here, in the end routes, the officials are working hard to watch developments around the world and hope to, eventually, be able to have every authorized vaccine in use, here, in the Emirates.

HOLMES: I'm curious to hear your take on what we see in the U.S. which is still a lot of non-mask wearers, a lot of doubters and it worries the experts remarkably.

What is your sense in the Middle East?

I know you are in Abu Dhabi.

But what do you see in terms of acceptance?

KILEY: A wide divergence, frankly. If you look at a country like Egypt, like many countries in Africa, it doesn't appear to have a particularly severe response in the population to the COVID-19 pandemic. They are not seeing the astronomical death tolls one may imagine would flow from a complete lack of social isolation and mask wearing.

In contrast, for example, in terms of approach with here in the United Arab Emirates, where things are extremely strict, having spent months here during lockdown, we are all quite well trained. We do not leave our flats or, homes without immediately putting on a mask.

One is not allowed into any public space without a mask and, a temperature check. Shops will issue rubber gloves, so when you touch produce, you will not leave any trace of any germs behind on products.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, things are slightly different. Israel is really struggling to come to terms with its repeated lockdowns and you have seen a significant increase in infections.

Of course, Jordan, which had draconian first rounds of lockdowns, hoping to have escaped the virus pandemic, and it has now, sadly, been caught up by it. Having allowed people to circulate more freely, they then saw a spike in infections and they too had extra lockdowns imposed.

Of course, in Iran, they has just crossed the, I understand, 1 million infections figure and it was Iran after China, right at the beginning of this pandemic that was showing, quite high rates of infection and, indeed, of deaths from this virus.

So it is widespread but certainly here, in the Emirates, the system is extremely strict and the infections are, relatively speaking, low.

HOLMES: Fascinating, the regional wrap up like that. Appreciate that. Senior international correspondent, Sam Kiley in Abu Dhabi, appreciate it. Good to see you, Sam. We will take a short break here on the program and when we come back, fears of humanitarian catastrophe as rebels in northern Ethiopia say, they will keep on fighting. We have the latest on that conflict.

Also, the U.S. president, heading to the state of Georgia ahead of a crucial runoff election. But his visit is making some Republicans very nervous. That is coming up next.

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HOLMES: Welcome back.

We are now just one month from a critical runoff vote, here, in the state of Georgia in the U.S. It is going to decide which party controls the U.S. Senate. Pretty important. President Trump is going to visit the state to campaign for Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

But he has sown a lot of doubts with his own baseless claims of election fraud. Some conservatives say, they do not want to vote in the runoff, they do not trust, it partially because of what the president has told them. It is so bad, Vice President Mike Pence called it out as he campaigned in Georgia.

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MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And I actually hear some people saying, just don't vote. My fellow Americans, if you do not, vote they win.

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HOLMES: Georgia is drawing a lot of national attention and donor money as well. CNN's Jeremy Diamond, with the latest.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With Georgia's special election looming, President Trump and vice president pence both heading South to defend Republican Senate majority. Pence is there now. Trump going tomorrow.

But after weeks spent attacking the state's November election as fraudulent.

TRUMP: Listen, you have a fraudulent system.

DIAMOND (voice-over): And railing against Republican officials in charge.

TRUMP: He is an enemy of the people, the secretary of state.

The governor has done nothing. He's done absolutely nothing. I'm ashamed that I endorsed him.

DIAMOND (voice-over): Trump's Saturday visit has Republicans on edge. Worried that another round of attacks on Georgia's election system could depress turnout among the Trump faithful. One Trump adviser telling CNN it's not helpful if he goes down there and attacks the governor for an hour and a half. But if he says the few things that we need him to say, it would be helpful.

Trump stuck to those attacks this week.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: He's kind of mad at you. He's tore at you, right?

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): Well, I know, but I'm frustrated like he is. We've had a few battles, but nobody worked harder for Donald Trump before November 3rd.

DIAMOND (voice-over): While Trump refuses to accept President-elect Biden's victory, one of the candidates he is campaigning for tacitly acknowledged reality, Senator David Perdue telling members of the Republican Jewish Coalition, quote, "We know what this change of command at the top will mean with our foreign relations.

"If we can keep the majority in the Senate, we can at least be a buffer on some of the things the Biden camp has been talking about."

Meanwhile, Trump and his political operation raised over $207 million since the election after flooding supporters with 400-plus fundraising emails falsely claiming the election was rigged. Those fundraising appeals ongoing even as Biden's margin of victory rose to 7 million in the popular vote.

Biden telling CNN he still hopes Trump will attend his inauguration for the sake of democracy.

BIDEN: Important only in one sense; not important in a personal sense, important in the sense that we are able to demonstrate, at the end of this chaos that he's created, that there is peaceful transfer of power with the competing parties standing there, shaking hands and moving on.

DIAMOND: As for those comments from Senator David Perdue, Perdue spokesman John Burke putting out the statement, saying, "Senator Perdue totally supports President Trump and his fight for transparency and accuracy in this election.

"It is notable that all Perdue did here was tacitly acknowledge the reality that Joe Biden will, indeed, be the next President of the United States."

Yet, in this day and age, it seems that is something that is worthy and requires some kind of a cleanup from a Republican fighting for reelection. But no question, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, they are both hoping Trump's visit to the state of Georgia, his campaign rally, will help boost turnout among the Trump faithful in that state.

Of course, there are plenty of risks. But both Perdue and Loeffler, I have been told by Republicans familiar with the matter, both called President Trump for Thanksgiving to ask him to come down to the Peach State and campaign on their behalf -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.

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HOLMES: CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein joins me now from Los Angeles.

Always a pleasure, sir. You still have the president casting doubt on the election that is gone and, so many Republicans are still silent about it.

I'm curious, do you worry that the president is doing lasting damage, not just in the faith of the democratic process but in American democracy itself?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Absolutely. I think this is one of the most corrosive and shameful moments, really, in American political history, where we have two things happening, each of which, are almost unimaginable.

We have a president who is, one month after the election, continuing to refuse, to acknowledge the results and spreading these baseless claims of conspiracy and of conspiracy so immense, as Joe McCarthy once said, vast, intertwined efforts to overturn, subvert the vote in multiple states.

And all of, this happening, as we are living through almost unimaginable levels of the pandemic, ravaging American society, a Pearl Harbor number of deaths every single day, many days with the number of people who died at the Twin Towers on 9/11.

And on both fronts, he is, virtually his entire party is silent and very few Republicans, calling out the danger of these conspiracy theories or, for that matter, calling out the president for being AWOL and essentially leaving Americans to fend for themselves in what I would argue is the biggest national security challenge the country faced since World War II.

HOLMES: Yes. I was just talking to Dr. Esther Choo earlier, 4 of the top 5 days of deaths have been this month. And it is only the 5th.

I was interested, to further discuss that point, Fareed Zakaria was writing about this in "The Washington Post" on Friday.

He said, "Unrelenting Republican pressure on local officials to delay or reject the routine certification of results, raising where there is a need to reform how democracy is run in this country."

Things like standardized rules, nonpartisan boards and so on. Do you think this is just, really, shone a light for a need overall?

BROWNSTEIN: It has but it also shines a light on why it would be so difficult to achieve it. I think I've said to you before, one of the clearest lessons of the Trump presidency is that one party, alone, cannot uphold the rules of small D democracy. The Republican Party has, step by step, gone into deeper waters, moved further away from being a traditional party, operating in a democratic system and becoming more and more willing to accept, in any means necessary, mindset of how you maintain power.

Mitt Romney was the only Republican, in either chamber, who thought that the president should be sanctioned for openly extorting the government of Ukraine with military aid to manufacture dirt on his opponent.

No Republicans complained about him trying to manipulate the census or weaponize the Postal Service or intervening in the criminal cases in the Justice Department.

So time after time, we have seen the party be willing to allow Trump to undermine democratic principles, if it is in their short term interest. And, in that world, it is hard to see how changes in the structure of the law can protect and defend the democracy.

Really, it is a deeper challenge we are facing, a pulling apart of the country and the 2 parties are playing by very different rules at this point.

HOLMES: I absolutely agree with what you're saying. It sorts of leads to the question, in this situation, the margin of victory for Biden is huge. It's massive.

Do you wonder what could have happened if the election had been closer, if some of those Republican officials had pushed back on Trump demands and had been less ethical or if Trump or the next Western honest president had been less bumbling in how he did this?

BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely. I think the evidence, based on their response in this past month, does anyone think, if Donald Trump had been able to convince Republican judges here or there or Republican legislators and some of the key states, to subvert the will of the voters, to obviously cheat and steal the election, if that was happening, how many people now feel confident of Mitch McConnell or Marco Rubio or even Lamar Alexander or Kevin McCarthy would stand up for small D democracy and try to resist this?

I find myself wondering, if he did find a way to steal the election, what would blue states do in response?

This would not be 2000, where Joe Biden would give a speech, saying, the Supreme Court has spoken, we are done.

The post-election period, to me, has really, like a flash of lightning on a dark night, put a light on just how strong the centrifugal force now is and how great the threat is to the cohesion of the country. [02:25:00]

BROWNSTEIN: Unless we find a way to move back to a more traditional idea of what the rules are, what the boundaries of competition are, because Donald Trump has barreled way past that, and Republicans have gone along with him.

HOLMES: It does make you wonder what may happen next time. I want to squeeze this in if we can, the job market recovery at the risk of stalling, the pandemic intensifying, evictions underway. Many more coming. It's not looking good for millions of Americans and, as you put it many times, to the eternal shame of Congress, still no stimulus.

So, Joe Biden won't have a honeymoon period, will he?

BROWNSTEIN: No. It's a bit of a catch-22, because he needs Congress to do something, in the near term, because, as you say, the consequences can be so enormous, by the time he takes office, because of the refusal of McConnell for so many months to deal with this and, of course, Trump walking away from the public health challenge, but if Congress does pass something, right now, what are the odds that, after Biden takes office, Republicans will, say we've done enough?

We will refuse to act on the much larger package he has in mind as a way to use the COVID stimulus to advance much of his agenda, the way Barack Obama, did in 2009, with the post financial stimulus.

So he may be caught in a catch-22. If they don't do, it he is in a difficult situation, if they do pass something, it may be harder to get his own agenda through early next year.

HOLMES: I still think the chances of Mitch McConnell playing ball if Republicans hold the Senate is pretty slim. Ron, good to see you. We will talk, more I know.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you so much, good night.

HOLMES: We will take a quick break. When we come back, Americans are closer than ever to seeing a coronavirus vaccine approved. But Joe Biden says the Trump administration has no detailed plan on how to distribute it. How he says he will do better, when we come back.

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HOLMES: Welcome back.

President Trump is pulling almost all U.S. troops out of Somalia. This is the latest in a series of major military decisions in the last days of the Trump administration. About 700 troops are being ordered to leave the African nation by early next year. The Pentagon says some will go to neighboring countries so the U.S. can participate in cross- border operations.

Ethiopia says it has captured or killed most commanders of the TPLF rebel force in the northern Tigray region. But a rebel leader spoke exclusively to CNN, saying, the war is far from over and that troops from neighboring Eritrea are fighting alongside the Ethiopian army.

He is calling on the international community to intervene. Human rights groups say that thousands of people have died, and tens of thousands of refugees have fled to Sudan.

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JAN EGELAND, NORWEGIAN REFUGEE COUNCIL: TPLF is, of course, a party to this conflict. It is very worrying what they are saying. They are saying there will be much more war in a zone full of vulnerable civilians.

So, the government, TPLF, all of these men with guns and power have to sit down and talk because women, children are bleeding here. And we should not allow for another ethnic conflict on the Horn of Africa. There are too many.

[02:30:00]

EGELAND: I mean, in Sudan here, there was 1 million refugees before this last 50,000 came. There was millions of internally displaced in Sudan. There were hundreds of thousands displaced elsewhere in Ethiopia.

We need the international community to come and to urge peace, the neighbors, the African Union, everybody. We need to urge that there be reconciliation.

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HOLMES: The United Nations said continuing fighting in the Tigray region is complicating efforts to deliver humanitarian aid.

Still to come, on CNN NEWSROOM, the winner of the 2020 Global Teacher Award was announced on Friday. But it is what he chose to do with the multimillion-dollar award that is a lesson for all of us.

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HOLMES: Welcome back to our viewers, all around the world, I am Michael Holmes, you are watching CNN NEWSROOM.

U.S. Democratic lawmakers, expressing optimism that an economic stimulus deal could come by the end of the year. That is after a pretty devastating jobs report, showing the labor market is stalling and millions of Americans are struggling to put food on the table.

House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, defending how they handled negotiations with Republicans.

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QUESTION: Was it a mistake though not to accept half a loaf months ago, when you said I'm not going to accept half a loaf.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Let me tell you something --

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PELOSI: -- don't characterize what we did before as a mistake as a preface your question, if you want an answer. That was not a mistake. It was a decision and it is taken us to a place where we could do the right thing. The fact is, I am very proud of where we are.

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HOLMES: The road ahead of U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden, getting rougher every day. He is vowing to address the country's economic crisis, the coronavirus pandemic and many other pressing issues. CNN's Arlette Saenz tells us what he is promising.

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ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After November's jobs report showed fewer gains than expected, President-Elect Joe Biden acknowledged the hardship facing many Americans amid the pandemic.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: The jobs report was released, and it was grim.

SAENZ (voice-over): As negotiations are ongoing on Capitol Hill, the president-elect pressed Congress to act on a bipartisan coronavirus relief deal.

BIDEN: I'm talking about the folks out there aren't looking for a handout.

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BIDEN: They just need help. They are in trouble through no fault of their own. We are in a crisis. We need to come together as a nation. We need the Congress to act and act now.

SAENZ (voice-over): With the FDA on the brink of approving a coronavirus vaccine, Biden vowed planning for its distribution is a top priority while also signaling concern about the state of plans under the Trump administration.

BIDEN: They have included us in on their planning on how they plan to distribute the actual vaccine to the various states. But is there no detailed plan that we have seen, any way as to how you get the vaccine out of a container, into an injection syringe, into somebody's arm. SAENZ (voice-over): In an interview with CNN, the president-elect revealed the ask he'll make of Americans when he takes office as he looks to curb the spread of the virus.

BIDEN: I'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask. Not forever, 100 days. And I think we will see a significant reduction if we incur that.

SAENZ (voice-over): Biden is also building out the team that would lead his coronavirus response, including asking Dr. Anthony Fauci to remain involved.

BIDEN: I asked him to stay on the exact same role he's had for the past several presidents and I asked him to be chief medical adviser for me as well and be a part of the COVID team.

FAUCI: Oh, absolutely. I said yes right on the spot.

SAENZ (voice-over): With Biden's inauguration 47 days away, there are questions about whether President Trump will attend the traditional ceremonies as he refuses to concede.

BIDEN: The protocol of the transfer of power I think is important but it's totally his decision and it's -- of no personal consequence to me but I do think it is for the country.

SAENZ (voice-over): But as President Trump weighs possible preemptive pardons for his family and allies, Biden is expressing concern over the president, it might set and insisting he will let the Justice Department operate independently.

BIDEN: It's not my Justice Department. It's the people's Justice Department.

SAENZ (voice-over): As he builds out his cabinet, Biden is also facing pressure to diversify his picks but has resisted offering a commitment on two top jobs.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you commit to nominating a person of color for those positions?

BIDEN: You're going to see significant diversity. I'm not going to tell you now exactly what I'm doing in any department.

SAENZ: As President-Elect Joe Biden weighs his remaining cabinet picks, his transition team has signaled it will be a very busy few weeks for the president-elect. Biden is expected to name members of his health team early next week as he is trying to put together that group that will tackle the pandemic -- Arlette Saenz, CNN, Delaware.

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HOLMES: Crucial Brexit talks are now on hold. The British prime minister and European Commission president will try to have to break that stalemate. They are set to discuss the deadlock in the hours ahead. Now after a week of tough talks, Europe's top negotiators say there

are significant gaps. The major sticking points: E.U. access to U.K. fishing waters and how to ensure fair business competition. Time running out to get a deal through. Britain leaves the E.U. trading rules in less than four weeks.

Bangladesh, moving forward with a plan to relocate tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees, despite protests from human rights groups who say that refugees are being coerced or bribed. Bangladeshi officials strongly deny those accusations. Ivan Watson with more on the controversial relocation.

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IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Men, women and children, infants and seniors, crowded side by side, only some wearing face masks. They are carried to another unfamiliar home, another uncertain future.

More than 1,600 Rohingya refugees aboard this ship are among those feeling located by Bangladesh officials. They're en route to a remote island in the Bay of Bengal.

Before their departure from a sprawling refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, some of the Rohingya say they did not make the choice to leave mainland Bangladesh.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): My family did not want to go. They are taking them by force.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): My brother did not want to go to Bhashan Char. They beat my brother and, then brought my nieces and sister-in-law, here, last night.

WATSON (voice-over): Bangladeshi officials claim, the transfer is voluntary, as they try to ease pressure on overcrowded tent cities, housing around 1 million Rohingya. Since 2017, Bangladesh has absorbed hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighboring Myanmar, as the Muslim minority group fled a brutal military crackdown. They were raped, tortured or killed.

[02:40:00]

WATSON (voice-over): Their villages, set ablaze.

SIMON ADAMS, GLOBAL CENTRE FOR THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT: The rest of the world, the rest of the region, it must be said, are trying to turn their back on the Rohingya and on the crisis that we're developing in Bangladesh border.

My heart really goes out to Bangladesh. It is caught in a very difficult solution -- problem here. But the solution is to not simply take the survivors of a genocide, one of the most persecuted people on the face of this planet and dump them on an island in the middle of the sea. WATSON (voice-over): Bhashan Char only emerged from the ocean some 20

years ago and the island often goes partially back underwater during the monsoon season. Bangladesh's foreign ministry says it will provide a better life.

The government spent years building facilities for up to 100,000 people. But the U.N. says it has not been involved in preparations for the relocation or been given to access to the island for safety assessments. Rights groups are voicing concern over dubious conditions there amid claims that some Rohingya were forced to go.

ADAMS: People do not have enough information, people are very nervous, and, in some cases, people are saying they may have been misled or, potentially, coerced. And they do not know how their names turned up on some of these lists.

There is great unease inside Cox's Bazar and amongst Rohingya refugees themselves about what is going to greet them on the island and what is in store for them.

WATSON (voice-over): As the stateless Rohingya sail toward their new fate, they can only hope that what lies ahead is no worse than what was left behind -- Ivan Watson, CNN, Hong Kong.

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HOLMES: Now the 2020 Global Teacher Prize was announced on Thursday in London. The actor and TV host Stephen Fry announcing the winner of the $1 million price.

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STEPHEN FRY, ACTOR: The winner of the Global Teacher Prize 2020 is Ranjitsinh Disale from India.

HOLMES (voice-over): Ranjitsinh Disale celebrating with his parents, there pretty excited. And he was recognized for promoting girls' education at his village school in western India. What he said after he won is truly remarkable.

RANJITSINH DISALE, 2020 GLOBAL TEACHER PRIZE WINNER: Today, I would like to announce that 50 percent of the prize money will be equally shared with the other nine top 10 finalists because I believe, together, we can make a difference and we can make this world a better place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now that is why he won because he's that kind of guy. He is giving half the prize money to the nine other finalists, so they can do good. It is about $55,000 apiece, a truly kind gesture and a lesson for us all.

What a good news story. We needed that, didn't we?

Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Michael Holmes, "MARKETPLACE AFRICA" starts after this short break, I will see you in a little bit, 15 minutes from now.