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U.K. Begins COVID-19 Vaccinations; U.S. Adds 1 Million COVID-19 Cases in Five Days; Shocking Conditions in Venezuelan Hospitals; At the Scene of Iranian Nuclear Scientist's Assassination; Chuck Yeager, Fastest Man Alive, Dies at 97. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired December 08, 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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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Robyn Curnow.

Ahead this hour, it's called V-Day in Britain right now. The U.K. begins a nationwide rollout of the Pfizer vaccine for the very first time.

The scene of the killing -- CNN gets rare access to the site where Iran's top nuclear scientist was assassinated. We are live in Tehran for that.

And Chuck Yeager, known as the fastest man alive, dies at 97. We will look at the legacy at the first pilot to break the sound barrier.

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ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.

CURNOW: Thanks so much for joining me this hour.

Certainly, this is our top story, hopes that Tuesday will be a turning point in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic in the U.K. We know that Britain, these are live pictures, is giving out Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines at dozens of hospital hubs across the country.

It's the first country to distribute this vaccine to people over 80, care home workers and frontline health care staff will be the first to get it. The vaccine is a two-shot series with the second dose coming 3 weeks after the first. I want to go straight to Cyril Vanier in London for an update on that.

And Cyril, hi, I believe these are like pictures we've been looking at of people getting their first jab in the arm.

CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Robyn, I cannot see the pictures you are seeing but it is absolutely remarkable that less than nine months after this country first went into national lockdown due to the pandemic, it is able to roll out the very first jabs today across the U.K. in hospital hubs, vaccination centers like this one in Central London.

So people will be receiving this vaccine, the first of 2 jabs as you mentioned. The first people to be getting it here, as in many hospitals in England, will be either outpatients who just happen to have an appointment today, a hospital appointment, or patients who have been staying in hospital and are about to be discharged.

They are above 80-year olds who will be offered a vaccination today. Also, care home staffs will be invited in as quickly as possible to get a vaccination. They will all be given, once they've received the jab, a card that keeps a record of the batch number of the vaccine that they received as well as the date when they are supposed to come back.

They are all supposed to come back, same place where they got the first jab, in 21 days to get the next one. Bear in mind, after that according to the NHS guidance, it will still be a few weeks before they develop full or close to full immunity to the coronavirus.

CURNOW: This is an extraordinary moment and historic in many ways. The health ministry there has been saying, we know it is the biggest civilian logistical effort Britain has faced. That's coming from the prime minister. Talk us through how this is being administered throughout the country.

VANIER: It is not just the biggest immunization program in the country's history; it is the most complex and it has to happen in all the 4 nations at the same time -- England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. And they are all doing it slightly differently.

Here in England it's been rolled out through the National Health Service. But each, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales have their own equivalent of that. It's been logistically complex, because the vaccine was approved less than a week ago. The first doses have been in country for four days, since Thursday.

They had to be checked for quality. They had to be dispatched. These vaccination centers have at least one batch of vaccines. That means 975 doses. That has gone out across the country.

The priority here in England, to actually vaccinate care home residents first and foremost, that is proving hard to do, just because of the challenges of getting the vaccine inside the care homes.

So that probably will not happen until next week. In Scotland, for instance, people are saying they will be vaccinating the vaccinators first, which makes quite a lot of sense when you think about it. You do not want them to get the virus or spread the virus as they are taking part in this effort -- Robyn.

CURNOW: You certainly do not. I think 20 million people about to get the vaccine in the coming weeks, Cyril Vanier, certainly a big moment there. We will continue to check in with you throughout the day. [02:05:00]

CURNOW: Thanks.

Here in the U.S., on eyes will be on the FDA meeting this Thursday, which is expected to clear the way for Pfizer's vaccine to be distributed immediately here in the U.S. Many Americans may be waiting a while for this drug.

"The New York Times" reports the Trump administration actually turned down an offer from Pfizer to secure additional doses late last summer. Now the drug company may not be able to produce more for the U.S. until June because of commitments made to other countries.

The Trump administration denies this report. They say they are confident there will be sufficient numbers of doses for all Americans who want to be vaccinated by the end of June.

Meanwhile, all of this comes at a critical moment in the U.S. The country just hit 102,000 COVID-related hospitalizations on Monday. That's a record. Deaths also rising sharply. This weekend, was the deadliest since April and health officials warned the worst is yet to come.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The blip from Thanksgiving is not even here yet so, we are getting those staggering numbers of new cases and hospitalizations before we even feel the full brunt of the Thanksgiving holiday.

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CURNOW: Joining me now from Westport, Massachusetts, is Dr. Erin Bromage, a biology professor specializing in immunology at the University of Massachusetts.

Good to see you. The U.K. vaccine rolls out. They may have developed in record speed at a variety of companies.

How impressed are you at the sheer scientific will in just getting these vaccines out?

DR. ERIN BROMAGE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It really has been one of the most amazing stories in this whole pandemic, that we can go from discovering and sequencing a new virus in a matter of a month and then, from that point, go to a vaccine that has been shown to be both safe and effective in people's arms 10 months after that.

It is really just a marvel of modern science that has been able to happen, based off 10-15 years of working in these types of vaccines. But it's amazing that is happening at this time.

CURNOW: The U.S., when do you expect some sort of vaccine rollout here? BROMAGE: I think officially it's the 11th but I heard that the earliest we can expect is the 15th of December, is the first arms will receive injections. Then a few million doses that will happen throughout the next couple of weeks. So December hitting those people at highest risk for infection and eventually people who are most risk for severe outcomes.

CURNOW: We are looking at thousands of people dying every day in the U.S. I think the numbers are one person dies every 30 seconds. It's mind-boggling.

How much worse is it going to get?

BROMAGE: It is a really strange time. I mean epidemiologists have been talking about what is coming for December for such a long time. It came and it came in full force. We've got staggering numbers around the world.

But in the U.S., the U.K., we are seeing these crazy numbers of infections. We know that 3 or 4 weeks after those numbers, we start to see the deaths mount up and that is where we are at right now.

But the numbers of new cases haven't peaked, which means the deaths have not peaked. It's a really strange and frightening, I guess, humbling time to be living in right now, where we can see the end of the pandemic. It literally is within reach and within our fairly recent timeframe.

But we have this really dark period to get through. It is quite surreal to be living that right now.

CURNOW: It certainly is. With that in mind also, the politics have certainly complicated things here in the U.S.

With the incoming Biden administration weighing on how to manage, it they're coming in the peak of this in the middle of January, what would be your advice on lockdowns in particular right now?

BROMAGE: Lockdowns when they are done the Australian way are incredibly effective. And we saw what happened in Melbourne, Australia, when they decided that enough was enough, they would just drop the hammer and got it down to zero cases within 4 to 5 weeks. It was amazing the way it could be done.

But that was a very localized outbreak in a major city but they still got it under control; whereas lockdowns in the U.S., they really can't work for what we are after. It is too late. We are burning everywhere. We do need some sort of circuit breaker to slow things down because it really is not sustainable. These numbers of cases, these numbers of infections and people ending up in hospital beds, it's not sustainable.

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BROMAGE: So the breaking point for many states is when your hospital beds fill up and we are there in many places. I think I read 31 states are increasing in hospitalizations right now. That is going to put us into a pretty rough spot.

CURNOW: Dr. Erin Bromage, thank you for joining us, biology professor specializing in immunology at the University of Massachusetts.

Doctor, thank you very much for sharing your expertise with us.

BROMAGE: Thank you for having me on the show.

CURNOW: With South Korea struggling to contain the worst outbreak in nine months, the government has announced plans to buy enough COVID vaccines for 44 million people. New social distancing rules and other restrictions have also now been imposed, effective today in Seoul, where new cases are surging.

Nationwide, masks are now mandated indoors. And Japan is set to finalize its third stimulus package this Tuesday with $700 billion to help an economy hard hit by the pandemic. Ivan Watson is in Hong Kong.

Let's talk about Japan first, Ivan. Hi, good to see you. This is quite a shot in the arm, financially.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure. The first time the new prime minister Suga is doing this and it is coming on the back of some $2.2 trillion worth of stimulus announced by his predecessor, the former prime minister Shinzo Abe in earlier months of this crisis.

The prime minister says these are, quote, "measures to maintain employment, to stay in business and restore the economy and open a way to achieve new growth in green and digital areas."

This is as Japan struggles with this third wave of coronavirus infections, which is hitting across other parts of East Asia as well. And in the case of Japan, there are hotspots in Tokyo and in Hokkaido and in Osaka. And those latter 2 cities have called on the Japanese government to send help in the form of nurses from the Japanese self- defense forces; the military, in effect, with Osaka seeing some 70 percent of its hospital beds right now occupied by COVID patients.

All told, even though Japan is struggling with this, these are numbers and statistics that a country like the U.S. would be desperate for because you are talking about perhaps under 2,000 new cases a day in Japan, new cases, whereas the U.S. is getting thousands of deaths a day.

CURNOW: That's for sure. Also, I want to talk about South Korea. Initially, South Korea seemed to be doing so well but now we are seeing also some major pushback from the government.

I think troops have been sent out to try and quell at least this one?

WATSON: You've got a top health official in South Korea who has called this the biggest crisis yet of South Korea's experience with the pandemic. Going back to February and March, South Korea had the most coronavirus cases outside of Mainland China. Right now you've got Seoul being the hot spot, the capital. And the

authorities there announcing that they are extending level 4 out of 5 for social distancing restrictions. Their wave of infections, similar in some ways, perhaps a month off from what we have seen in Japan right now.

The military are being called in as well as police to help with contact tracing. One of the measures that South Korea has announced to deal with this is allocating some 1.2 -- equivalent of $1.2 billion to purchase some doses of vaccines for approximately 44 million people.

Another interesting note that an official in South Korea's unification ministry says there is consensus there to offer North Korea vaccines even though, to date, the North Korean government insists it has not detected a single case of confirmed coronavirus.

Most experts say that is likely not to be true. And remember I did say that South Korea, at one point, February-March, had more cases than any other country in the world aside from Mainland China where coronavirus was first detected.

As for today, according to Johns Hopkins University 552 people have died thus far in South Korea, a tragic number but far, far proportionately lower than Western Europe and North America.

CURNOW: Thanks for that update, Ivan Watson, good to see you. Thank you so much.

In Venezuela, years of government mismanagement have crippled the health care system and the government says fewer than 1,000 people have died from COVID-19. But doctors tell CNN the situation is a lot worse than the official account. CNN's Isa Soares got access to two of Venezuela's largest hospitals.

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CURNOW: Her report reveals the nation's shocking state of health care.

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ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Los Magallanes Public Hospital in Caracas, remnants of this once wealthy nation lie strewn on the dirt floor. Its shackle wards hiding what the Venezuelan government doesn't want us to see.

Here, COVID-19 has unmasked Venezuela's open wounds. And, practically, every floor in this hospital is empty, tells me this hospital worker, who prefers to remain anonymous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): It's empty because there's nothing here. There are no supplies. There's no way to treat patients, no lights, no working pipes, the baths are clogged and there's no water. If patients don't die of their disease, they die of contamination. SOARES: It's a risk only a few dare to take. This is the COVID-19

ward. Only this part of it is functional. The rest is completely run down after years of mismanagement.

So it's no surprise many would rather face the pandemic outside these walls, choosing instead their homes over these decrepit rooms, where darkness has literally taken over.

SOARES: This is the intensive neonatal ward. And the reason I'm holding up this light right here is because there is no electricity in this hospital. Have a look around. Bare bones.

And what I have been told by doctors around Caracas and outside of Caracas is that this is a situation day in, day out.

SOARES: Even in the morgue, death comes with shortages. There's no pathologists here and, with intermittent electricity, the stench is unbearable. Now imagine having to face a pandemic in these conditions.

It's why doctors like Gustavo Villasmil are no longer afraid to speak out.

SOARES: "I have friends of mine who have been criminally charged," he says.

Why?

For protesting the conditions in which they have been forced to practice. So he doesn't hold back.

"In Venezuela," he tells me, "there are only as many recognized COVID cases as the regime wants."

With testing limited to three government control labs, Villasmil says it's impossible to paint an accurate picture.

"With regards to COVID," he says, "we don't know where we are."

The government, however, claims the pandemic is under control, saying its strategy has worked.

A government minder shows us inside a hotel, where suspected infected patients are kept in quarantine for up to 21 days. It's a lockdown strategy employed by China, which the government of Nicolas Maduro has been keen to extol.

Dr. Rodriguez shares a similar pride.

"Venezuelans have shown an immunity to the virus," he says.

The families of those died on the front lines may see it differently. Two hundred seventy-two health-care workers have lost their lives in Venezuela as of November 30th.

At Hospital Vargas in Caracas, you can see why. They are overworked and not protected. SOARES: That's one nurse for this whole area here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): We don't have masks, we don't have gloves. They turn on the water one hour in the morning, one in the afternoon and one at night. There's nothing. There's not broom, no mop, no cloth.

SOARES: This is evident all around. And as I walk this ward, I stop to speak to a patient's daughter.

She tells me her frail 69-year-old father is here because of malnourishment, the same state-imposed (ph) malady that we've seen across Venezuela.

His immune system is compromised, yet he shares this ward with a COVID patient.

His daughter tells me he needs iron supplements that the hospital simply doesn't have.

SOARES: Have a look at this. I mean, this is what -- this is what they have to work with here, nurses and doctors, syringes. It's astounding. They've got nothing.

SOARES: There's a vast emptiness all around and a sense of disillusionment and surrender, painful, no doubt, for those who saw this once oil-rich country as one of the wealthiest in Latin America, now teetering on the brink of survival -- Isa Soares, CNN, Caracas, Venezuela.

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CURNOW: CNN did reach out to the Venezuelan government for comment on the conditions seen in these hospitals in Caracas and also on the criticism by health care professionals shown in the piece.

To date we have yet to receive a response.

Coming up, Iran says he paid the ultimate price for his nation, their top nuclear scientist assassinated in what some said was a high-tech plot. CNN visits the site of the killing. That is next.

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CURNOW: Iran's top nuclear scientist long had a target on his back. But those who wanted him dead are staying silent and whoever it was who pulled the trigger remains a mystery. Nick Paton Walsh reports now from the scene of the assassination.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR (voice-over): Amid Tehran's holiday homes by the snowy roadside is where the man, whose work Iran says must go on, was fatally shot reportedly in front of his wife.

Nuclear scientist Dr. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was Iran's repository of nuclear bomb knowledge, Israel has claimed, while not saying they were behind the assassination.

A lot of the debris has been cleared away here but you can still see the surge from the explosion on the curve and the damage done to the road below me. There are still so many different versions of events of what happened here.

But one witness we've spoken to says at first they heard an explosion, a wood truck they say that detonated here, and then there was an exchange of gunfire the lasted about eight to 10 minutes. You can see over here the damage still done to the site by the bullets.

From the orchard nearby, possible vantage points for a low-tech ambush. Even though, Iranian security officials are telling state media this was a high-tech plot involving an AI-powered, facial recognition, satellite-controlled robot machine gun, whose bullets Fakhrizadeh stepped into when he got out of his bulletproof car.

One of the many reasons offered through a lapse in security in this neat backwater, Fakhrizadeh's son told state media his father ignored warnings from his security detail the day before.

"My father said he had a class," the son says, "one he could not teach virtually and an important meeting. They could not persuade him to turn back."

Deep inside the defense ministry Sunday they remembered him again at the highest levels.

Among Iran's critics louder and louder the question, does this, another lapse in security, make a race towards a possible nuclear weapon a good idea or a worse one?

Officially, Iran says it does not want the bomb. But its parliament last week demanded Iran enrich uranium to 20 percent in the first weeks of the Biden administration. That could make a weapon a lot closer.

Yet there remain two versions of Iran both a bit visible here. It's hard-hit by sanctions and wants to talk or has resisted and will hit back.

MIKE POMPEO, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: We know our campaign is working because now the Iranians are desperately say to like their willingness to return to the negotiating table to get sanctions relief.

SAYEED MOHAMMED MARANDI, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN: Israeli regime if it feels that it can continue carrying out acts of terror. Iranians will pay an unnecessary price. The only way to stop these acts of terror is for them to pay a price that makes it not worthy. I have no doubt that the Iranians are going to respond.

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WALSH: Iran has been here before a lot as this museum of blown-up cars attests, all Peugeot models going back in the ages, all nuclear scientists assassinated in Iran's pursuit of what it says is peaceful nuclear technology that it needs alongside its huge oil reserves.

We may never know what knowledge perished with Dr. Fakhrizadeh or what impact that will have on Iran's critics, the hawks, who claim that it could be as little as four months away from a possible nuclear weapon.

Deals, scientists, assassins, all have come and gone. But the mounting tension, which Joe Biden has a huge diplomatic task to ease in a matter of months, has about 40 days left to build.

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CURNOW: Nick Paton Walsh joins us live from Tehran.

It's fascinating, particularly if you look at the diplomacy.

And the big question is what next?

WALSH (on-camera): Yes. Looking at the scene, it's almost possible to see the remnants of that attack slowly fading over time. The question is whether or not its memories, still being honored here by Iran, Dr. Fakhrizadeh, whether that still compels Iran to retaliate.

You heard there the more strident voices saying that there are those here in Tehran that feel if Iran does not respond, they essentially invite further aggression against them. But there is a broader question, frankly, about what diplomacy can achieve.

The president-elect Joe Biden and even the German foreign minister in the last few days or so have hinted that any new negotiation they want to be about something called a nuclear plus agreement. Joe Biden saying it would be good if it dealt with the, quote, "missile issues."

But also there were Iranian voices here in government, saying, no, we are not interested in a broader deal. We want to see ourselves going back to the 2015 deal and the U.S. agreeing to what it agreed to back then.

That only has about 4.5 years, if it was signed early next year again or re-agreed to, I should say, early next year, 4.5 years left until its sunset clauses begin to expire. So there is a bit, I think, outside of Iran, for this to essentially deal with a lot more of Iran's conventional weaponry and its posturing in the region; whereas Iran simply wants sanctions relief very fast.

You saw parliamentarians there arguing for a very aggressive timetable, in which they want to see sanctions relief before they demand further enrichments. There are a lot of competing elements here to the negotiations. Much of that is, frankly, likely to be bluster, because there is clearly a need here in Iran for sanctions relief.

They are really suffering from the pandemic. But then the broader question on top of that, is you saw the scene there of Dr. Fakhrizadeh's assassination, for which Iran blamed Israel. Israel says nothing about whether it was them or not.

But there is the possibility, particularly in the closing days of the Trump administration. of further destabilization here, further aggression as Iran would have it. And that could certainly impact the possibility for talks, although the broader consensus really is that we will see some sort of diplomacy take root.

The question is, can it deliver fast enough?

CURNOW: Great stuff there. Thanks so much. Nick Paton Walsh live in Tehran, thanks, Nick.

Coming up on CNN, the U.K. kicks off its COVID vaccine rollout.

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CURNOW (voice-over): And there you have it, the first shots happening now.

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

I want to bring you up to speed on our top story, the COVID-19 vaccine rollout getting underway in the U.K. right now. The effort makes Britain the first country to distribute the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. People over 80, care home workers and frontline health care staff will be the first to get it.

The vaccine is a 2-shot series with a second dose coming 3 weeks after the first. Just a short time ago, the first dose was given to a 90- year-old grandmother named Margaret Keenan (ph). She turns 91 next week. She says this is the best birthday present she could receive.

With that happy news, I want to bring in Professor Anthony Harnden. He's coming to us from Oxford, England. He is deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization.

Well done. Congratulations. This is such a big day and an amazing light at the end of the tunnel for the whole world, isn't it?

PROF. ANTHONY HARNDEN, DEPUTY CHAIR, JOINT COMMITTEE ON VACCINATION AND IMMUNIZATION: Thank you. Yes, this is a momentous day for the U.K. and a momentous day for the whole world, as you say.

We are very proud to be one of the first countries to introduce a vaccine. And you can be rest assured we are determined to make this work in the U.K. This is the first day of our rollout. It won't be straightforward. It will not be easy. But we are going to make this work in the U.K. So we are very pleased indeed.

CURNOW: We have seen these images of Margaret Keenan (ph), 91 next week, saying this is the best birthday present she is getting, which is a shot in the arm.

How hard has it been to be able to deliver that injection to someone like Margaret right now?

What are the complexities?

HARNDEN: Many people at work tirelessly over this. In the U.K. we have a vaccine task force, who have been procuring the vaccination. We have a medicines health care regulatory authority, who will be examining, scrutinizing all the safety data as it comes through in time.

We have had my committee, which is the Joint Committee on Vaccination And Immunization pored over epidemiological, frequency and distribution data, to look very carefully at who is most at risk of dying in hospitalization from this terrible virus.

And we've got our implementers, the NHS England, the public health, department of health. This is a huge effort for many, many people. One we must also give massive acknowledgment to Pfizer and BioNTech and the people who have worked to develop this vaccine, tremendous advance for science.

It's going to be what gets the world out of this pandemic eventually. This is just a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel that everybody needs. But it is going to be a long, long process.

CURNOW: This year's scientific momentum of this, it has been extraordinary, just from start to now, the fact that this is barely less than a year and you are getting this vaccine into people's arms.

So no doubt many Brits are asking you, yes, get the frontline workers vaccinated, get elderly people over the age of 80.

But how long do you think before the whole country has been vaccinated?

What do you --

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HARNDEN: That's a very difficult question, which I probably can't answer. It will depend on the number of issues, including how many other vaccines in the pipeline are approved by our regulator, what are supplies of this particular vaccine?

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HARNDEN: What the coverage and uptake is amongst the general population, it's going to be a while. But I do expect by Easter that that we will be in a much better place than we are now and we will be looking forward to spending time outdoors and having more freedom.

I must say that our public must carry on the vigilance during this period and beyond because we still need to wash our hands and maintain social distancing, because, even as this vaccine rolls out, there are uncertainties about issues, such as whether the vaccine prevents transmission.

We expect it to do so but we don't that for definite yet and, of course, how long the vaccine lasts. It may be the vaccine needs to be given on an annual basis, like influenza immunization. But as the vaccine is rolled out, data will become apparent and we will be able to guide policymakers to make the right decisions.

CURNOW: A long road ahead but certainly you are on that road, congratulations, a massive, complex organization to do what you have done today. So good luck for the rest of it. Press on. Thank you very much. Joining us live from Oxford.

The world is mourning the loss of Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to faster than the speed of sound. He was a legend. His life was extraordinary. We will get on to that next.

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CURNOW: A U.S. Air Force officer often referred to as the fastest man alive has died at the age of 97. Chuck Yeager became a household name with a book and movie, "The Right Stuff." Yeager's wife tweeted that the World War II flying legend died on Monday. Here's CNN's John Berman's obituary with more on his incredible life.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): General Charles M. Chuck Yeager was the very embodiment of the right stuff. He will forever be known as the first man to break the sound barrier.

Born in 1923 in rural West Virginia, Yeager says he was not a born pilot.

CHUCK YEAGER, PILOT: I didn't know anything about flying because I've never been in an airplane in my life.

BERMAN: Yeager joined the Army as an aircraft mechanic at the start of World War II. His first airplane ride didn't go so well.

YEAGER: I puked all over my airplane. I said to myself, man, you've made a big mistake. BERMAN: Pressing on, Yeager took advantage of an Army program that offered enlisted men the opportunity to become pilots.

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YEAGER: I remember in March 4th, 1944, on my eighth mission, I shot down an ME-109 right over the middle of Berlin with a Mustang. Next day I got shot at.

BERMAN: When the war ended, Yeager returned to California to marry his sweetheart, Glennis Dickhouse. Yeager later became a research pilot at Edward Air Force Base, making dangerous test flights civilian pilots couldn't or wouldn't do.

YEAGER: It's like combat, you know. You either get killed or you don't. Well, if you have no control over it, Don't worry about it.

BERMAN: That's how he found himself 45,000 feet above Rogers Dry Lake in California, on October 14th, 1947, breaking the sound barrier, a feat many believed could not be done.

YEAGER: I don't look at things, you know, as being scary or not, you either do or you don't. If you live, you've done your job.

BERMAN (voice-over): Yeager eventually returned to combat flying and retired from active duty in 1975 as a brigadier general. "The General," as he preferred to be called, became a household name in the '80s with the book and movie, "The Right Stuff."

LARRY KING, FORMER CNN HOST: You like watching someone else play you?

YEAGER: Yes, Sam Shepard did an excellent job.

KING: Sam Shepard did it.

YEAGER: Yes.

BERMAN: Through it all, Yeager remained airborne. In 2012 at the controls of a borrowed Air Force F-15, an 89-year-old Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier again, 65 years to the minute after his first sonic boom.

Yeager's logbook documented more than 10,000 flight hours over 60 years in 350 different kinds of planes around the world, always a pilot, with the right stuff.

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CURNOW: What an amazing life. Rest in peace, Chuck Yeager.

I will tell you about the Louvre auctioning off a personal tour of its masterpieces, including an up close look at the Mona Lisa, something most visitors only get a chance to see over the tops of heads in a crowd. The online sale is to help support the famous museum, which has lost an estimated 90 million euros in revenues this year because of the coronavirus. The highest bidder will be able to view the painting when it is taken

off the wall for its annual inspection, a sight usually reserved for VIPs.

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EMILIE VILLETTE, CHRISTIE'S BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR: It's really unprecedented possibility. And in the past, only a few statesmen have had the possibility to attend this very moment when they were visiting their countries.

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CURNOW: Now the Louvre has been closed for more than five months under two lockdowns. Museums, theaters and cinemas are due to reopen on December 15th if infection rates have slowed.

Some blockbuster news from the music world. Nobel Prize-winning songwriter Bob Dylan is selling his entire catalog to Universal Music Publishing.

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CURNOW: That is more than 600 songs and "The New York Times" says the deal could be worth more than $300 million. Universal says becoming the owner of Dylan's musical output is, quote, "a privilege and responsibility."

Thanks for watching CNN, I'm Robyn Curnow. "WORLD SPORT" starts after the break.

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