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Pfizer's COVID-19 Vaccine Being Distributed to All 50 U.S. States; Record High Death Tolls in Europe Due to COVID-19; Japan and South Korea is Hit by Coronavirus Spike; Electoral College Meets Monday to Affirm Biden and Harris; Despite Solidarity Pledge, Rich Countries Buy Up Vaccines; Mexico's Vaccine Rollout To Begin Slowly; Cases On The Rise In Parts Of Latin American; Ivory Coast President On Controversial Third Term; First U.S. Deliveries Of Vaccine Expected Within Hours; U.S. Sets New Record For COVID-19 Hospitalizations; Massive U.S. Vaccine Rollout Begins; First Vaccine Will Arrive In All 50 States Monday as U.S. Nears 300,000 COVID-19 Deaths; JHU: 16.2 Million Plus Cases, Nearly 300,000 Deaths In U.S.; TikTok Users Spreading The Love On COVID Vaccines. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired December 14, 2020 - 02:00   ET

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

[02:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN HOST (on camera): Hi. Welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. Thanks for joining me. You are watching CNN. I'm Robyn Curnow.

Just ahead, special delivery. Millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine, on the way, to dozens of facilities in all 50 U.S. states. Another wave of the virus though hitting South Korea hard. Now, its president is warning tough restrictions could return.

And in just a few hours' time, the Electoral College will certify the votes of the U.S. election, putting the final touches on Joe Biden's victory. But President Trump remains in a state of denial.

After months of the coronavirus raging across the U.S., finally there is hope. The first shipment of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccines will begin to arrive across the country in the hours ahead, and it is not a moment too soon.

Nearly 300,000 Americans have lost their lives to the virus so far, among 60 million nationwide. On Sunday, the U.S. set yet another record when it comes to hospitalization. The head of the Food and Drug Administration says he hopes the vaccines will start right away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN HAHN, COMMISSIONER, U.S. FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION: Well, my hope, again, is that this happens very expeditiously, hopefully tomorrow. We have seen the vaccines go out. We have seen the press reports of hospitals waiting to vaccinate health care workers and those most vulnerable, according to the recommendations of the ACIP and the CDC. So, it would be my greatest hope and desire that that occur tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW (on camera): Well, the plan is for tens of millions of people to be vaccinated by the end of the month, but that requires, of course, a complex strategy to distribute the vaccine by land and air. Pete Muntean is at ground zero for the shipments and has this report. Pete?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: What a moment especially considering the fact that we only first learned of this virus less than a year ago, and now the vaccine is leaving from here. This spot is critical to the vaccine distribution network.

This is Pfizer's largest facility just outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan. And what is so interesting is the trucks carrying the vaccine, from UPS and FedEx, left here 8:30 Sunday morning. In those trucks, 189 boxes of the Pfizer vaccine, 975 vials to a box, 5 doses per vile, now, hundreds of thousands of doses are being delivered throughout the country.

The lion's share of the deliveries begin on Monday morning. The bulk of them, though, later on Tuesday. They are going to 600 individual locations according to Operation Warp Speed. Those are places like hospitals and pharmacies, CVS, and Walgreens. And Pfizer's head of global supply says that this was months in the making.

MIKE MCDERMOTT, PRESIDENT, PFIZER GLOBAL SUPPLY: I couldn't be more confident in the distribution of the vaccine. We've worked incredibly hard over many months doing test shipments, improving our shippers, making sure that they can maintain temperature during the entire journey. And we are very happy with the solution.

MUNTEAN: This is not just a ground game. Also, a major air operation. Trucks left here bound for airports, flights, took the vaccine to larger hubs where it could be distributed better throughout the country. And we saw some of those flights land today at UPS headquarters, Worldport, in Louisville, Kentucky. This is just the start of a massive movement. It all begins right here.

Pete Muntean, CNN, Portage, Michigan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW (on camera): Thanks, Pete. So, California has now seen three straight days of at least 30,000 new coronavirus cases and Paul Vercammen is in L.A. to see how hospitals there plan to distribute the vaccine.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The latest numbers out of Los Angeles County on the COVID-19 outbreak are ghastly more than 13,000 cases and more than 4,000 hospitalizations. One hundred and one of those hospitalizations for COVID-19, right here at the UCLA Medical Center, where they are also bracing for the arrival, they say, in the next day or two of the vaccine.

They say shots will go into the arm of hospital workers. That is on Wednesday. But how do you fight a pandemic as well as get your workers vaccinated? We talked to the chief medical officer here at UCLA.

ROBERT CHERRY, CHIEF MEDICAL & QUALITY OFFICER, UCLA HEALTH: There is years of emergency preparedness behind a lot of these efforts. So, while we're taking care of our non COVID-19 patients as well as our patients that are COVID-19 as well, we're doing other things that we need to do to keep our healthcare workers safe, including standing up a vaccination program for them. We will have the staffing to be able to do this and people are pitching in to make sure it works well.

[02:05:04]

VERCAMMEN: Dr. Cherry says the priority here at UCLA, well, to get vaccinations for those healthcare workers who are constantly around COVID-19 patients and close to those patients.

Now, he will not be one of those who gets the vaccine. That's because he is part of the AstraZeneca clinical trial. Reporting from UCLA, I'm Paul Vercammen. Now back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW (voice over): Joining me now, Dr. Jeffrey Smith, executive vice president of hospital operations and chief operating officer at Cedar-Sinai medical center. His hospital will be among the first to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Sir, great to have you on the show. Thanks so much for joining me this hour. So how has your hospital prepared for the arrival of this vaccine?

JEFFREY SMITH, CHIEF OPERATIN OFFICER, CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER: Thank you. Our teams have been working around the clock to be prepared to receive and administer the vaccine. That includes making sure that we can receive the vaccine and put it directly into our ultra-low temperature freezers and make sure that they are kept at the proper temperature at all times.

We've built the information systems so that we can schedule our healthcare workers and prioritize them appropriately to receive the vaccine and we've been scheduled vaccinators, nurses who can administer the vaccine. So lots of logistics involved as we very excitedly prepare to receive this and administer this vaccine.

CURNOW: And we know you're expecting to receive it.

SMITH: We anticipate that it will be within the next two days.

CURNOW: And how much of this first consignment -- I know you mentioned your nurses, and how have you prioritized things? Who gets it first? Have you got enough for all your staff who needs it?

SMITH: We are prioritizing based on both personal risk based on the age, and whether our health care workers have pre-existing medical conditions that put them at risk along with the patients that they care for, and the potential risk of them being exposed to COVID.

So, both people who are caring for patients in areas like our emergency department and intensive care units, as well as people who are handling lab specimens and cleaning rooms, all the staff who could encounter the patients with the virus or materials that put them at risk.

CURNOW: What's the mood in hospital? Obviously, it's been a rough, exhausting, emotionally draining, to say the least, few months this year. How are they feeling with the thought this is going to be coming into the hospital in the next few days?

SMITH: Right. Those staff are really truly the healthcare heroes caring for patients on those front lines. And they are tired. It's been over 10 months now and many of them are picking up extra shifts and taking care of more patients than they typically would in order to provide care for our patients in our community.

But they are excited. They are excited that there is hope on the horizon to protect them, as well as to eventually to be administered directly to patients and, hopefully, bring this pandemic to an end.

CURNOW: How huge is this logistically and will you be able to sort of upscale, increase your capacity in the weeks and months ahead? Is that going to be also part of the challenge?

SMITH: Yes. So, we are preparing to vaccinate our healthcare workers. At the same time, we and most of the people around in California and across the country are dealing with a growing surge of COVID patients. So, we are working very hard to do both of those things at the same time.

So, it is very logistically challenging especially as we are all working hard to make sure that we have adequate people and adequate supplies to continue to provide great care for patients.

CURNOW: And the big question, no doubt, folks in the area around you want to ask, you know, when do you start giving out doses to the public?

SMITH: So we don't yet know. We will be working closely with the Health Department on that and at the direction of both state and local health officials as well as the CDC. We anticipate that it will be sometime after the first of the year.

CURNOW: And that certainly plays into your planing. How concerned are you that there might be log jams or delays particularly when it comes to sort of the moving of this vaccine around the U.S. and to the states?

SMITH: Well, it certainly is a humongous nationwide effort, but we are very encouraged at the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. We're looking forward receiving our first shipments to help distribute those to other hospitals and then soon for additional shipments to be shipped directly to those hospitals. So, big challenge but I think that our country is up to it.

CURNOW: You know, we all want to take a deep breath and also just thank, you know, the scientists who got this vaccine in record time. As a doctor, as a person works within the medical field, how astounded are you that we are seeing the delivery of this vaccine within under a year?

SMITH: It really is amazing. This is a new type of vaccine that we have used in only limited circumstances before. We know that no steps have been skipped in development of this vaccine to assure that is safety and effectiveness.

[02:10:00]

But rather, those processes were really done in parallel. And so, it really is a remarkable scientific accomplishment to have a safe and effective vaccine, with more in the pipeline to come in such a short period of time.

CURNOW: Yes. It certainly is a historic moment even in the midst of all these rising infections. It certainly something to pause and to be grateful for. Dr. Jeffrey Smith there in L.A. Thank you very much. God bless to you and all of your staff who have been working so hard this year. Good luck.

SMITH: Thank you so much.

CURNOW: Canada is also preparing to roll out the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It's giving hope after recent lockdowns have failed to curb the spread of new infections there. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted a photo of the plane carrying the first doses just after it landed on Sunday evening as you can see here.

The vaccines are arriving though amid increase in cases despite recent restrictions on movements in major cities. Canada's two largest provinces, Ontario and Quebec, logged record setting case numbers just over the past week alone.

And then several countries in Europe are taking further action to contain their surging outbreaks. This past week, infections rose by more than 10 percent in places like the U.K., Germany. U.K. is now expected to rollout mass testing programs in some of its worst hit areas. The government says more than one and a half million rapid test will be deployed.

And Germany, meantime, says it will go into hard lockdown starting next Wednesday. All nonessential shops, services and schools will close until January 10th while Christmas Day gatherings will be reduced to just a handful of people.

And I want to turn now to Asia with several countries also seeing huge spikes in COVID cases. In South Korea, the infection total has climbed to past 43,000 following a record surge over the weekend. The country is now considering tougher measures including limits in gatherings and closing down facilities to try and slow the spread.

Japan is also expected to discuss countermeasures in the day ahead. Officials there have confirmed more than 180,000 cases since the pandemic began. Well, Kristie Lu Stout joins me now from Hong Kong with more on all of that. Hi Kristie.

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Robyn. You know, compared to the United States and Europe, East Asia is largely been able to keep this virus in check, but with this winter surge of new coronavirus cases over the weekend, we saw both Japan and South Korea set new records in daily coronavirus cases.

Over the weekend, Japan surpassed 3,000 new daily cases of COVID-19. As winter sets in, the infection rates are growing. It is particularly hard in places in the north of Japan like in Hokkaido.

Happening this afternoon, as a matter of fact, the Japanese government is having a special task force meeting where they will discuss additional countermeasures to control this growing outbreak including possibly excluding with Tokyo and Nagoya from a list of places that would be exempt for domestic travel surcharges.

Now, on top of that over the weekend in South Korea, South Korea also announced a record high in daily COVID cases, announcing 1,030 new cases on Saturday.

On Saturday, we heard from the President Moon Jae-in. In fact, he mobilized the nation's military, its police force, as well as medical workers to try to contain the outbreak. On Sunday, he declared that it was in emergency situation and if South Korea was not able to keep control of the outbreak, it would have to issue, for the first time ever, a level 3 alert. Take a listen to what President Moon Jae-in said on Sunday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOON JAE-IN, PRESIDENT OF SOUTH KOREA (through translator): It is a very serious and emergency situation. There is nowhere to back down. It is a desperate time to devote all efforts to stop the spread of corona by focusing all quarantine capabilities and administrative power.

Unless the outbreak can be contained now, it has come to a critical point to consider escalating the social distancing measures to the 3rd level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LU STOUT (on camera): A level 3 alert would mean a ban on social gatherings of more than 10 people. Also, work from home except for essential workers, but we have also learned in the last hour that ahead of a level 3 alert, the authorities there in South Korea have ordered schools in Seoul and in surrounding areas to be closed and to transition to remote learning. Back to you, Robyn. CURNOW: And we're also seeing some pretty positive, at least,

optimistic news coming out of New Zealand and Australia in the Cook Islands.

LU STOUT: Absolutely. An incredible announcement happening this afternoon. We've learned that the government have announced an expected travel bubble to open up in early next year. The announcement was made this afternoon by the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who said that there will be a travel bubble that could open by Q1, the first quarter of 2021.

But of course, a travel bubble would have many conditions, the most important condition, they would have to be no community transmission. Zero local transmission of the virus in the places involved for at least 28 days. An exact date on when the travel bubble would begin, as well as details. That remains yet to be determined. Back to you.

CURNOW: Okay. Thanks. Live from Hong Kong, Kristie Lu Stout.

[02:15:01]

So coming up here at CNN, in just a few hours' time, U.S. electors will begin meeting to confirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Just ahead, the details on how this big day will go down.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CURNOW (on camera): It is 18 minutes past the hour. Welcome back. I'm Robyn Curnow. So Monday is a big day for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. U.S. electors, just a few hours from now to officially confirm their victory.

Biden is then expected to deliver remarks on Monday evening. But as CNN's Boris Sanchez now reports, there is still time and opportunity for more political drama. Boris?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The electors of the Electoral College will gather in their respective states to cast their ballots and certify President-elect Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

Now, here is how it's going to work. This is going to be happening all throughout the day. These electors that have been selected since earlier in the summer and the spring, they're going to gather and recorded their votes in writing. An actual paper ballots, individually for president and vice president.

[02:19:56]

Once they cast their ballots and count them, they're going to sign six copies of a certificate of the vote. Those copies are the actual official documents that certify their vote. And they're going to wind up going to their respective secretaries of state, to the U.S. Senate, to the National Archives, et cetera. But the most consequential certificates are going to be the ones that

go to Capitol Hill because that's where they will be counted on January 6th. Notably, an event that Vice President Pence will be presiding over, and there is a chance, in that process, for some drama, for Republican lawmakers, who are supportive of the president, President Trump, to raise an objection.

Ultimately though, to sustain that objection, for it to be consequential, they would need both chambers of Congress to sustain that objection to agree to it and because Democrats control the House of Representatives, that appears extremely unlikely but there are still may be some moments rife with drama.

Ultimately, the big thing to watch for tomorrow as the Electoral College certifies the results of the election, certifies that Joe Biden won the election, how many Republican lawmakers? How many Republican senators will finally come out and acknowledge the reality that Joe Biden won the election, that there was no widespread electoral fraud. That, of course, is something President Trump is not ready to do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW (on camera): Well, he certainly not. In fact, Mr. Trump seems stuck on criticizing fellow Republicans and even the Supreme Court for following the rules of democracy.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We've proven it, but no judge has had the courage, including the Supreme Court. I am so disappointed in them. No judge, including the Supreme Court of the United States, has had the courage to allow it to be heard.

The Supreme Court, all they did is say we don't have standing. So they saying essentially that the president of the United States and Texas and these other states, great states, they don't have standing. Here is the point, they're winning these things on little technicalities like a thing called standing. They're saying the president of the United States does not have standing.

BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS HOST: Right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW (on camera): In modern American history, no other major party candidate has gone this long after the election without conceding. As Biden looks ahead though to his inauguration, President Trump says his fight to overturn the election isn't over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: No, it's not over. We keep going and we're going to continue to go forward. We have numerous local cases where, you know, in some of the states that got rigged and robbed from us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW (on camera): Rigged and robbed, the president says, even though he has never presented proof to back that up. Earlier, I spoke with CNN political analyst, Julian Zelizer, and asked him what he thinks Mr. Trump actually means when he says the fight is not over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it still has to go to Congress in January and Congress has to tally up the votes and accept them. And obviously, he might be hoping that somehow Republicans are going to break with the official vote, but that is not going to happen other than a couple of people who have said they're going to do this.

He is fighting for something beyond the election. I don't think he's even fighting to win anymore. He is fighting to de-legitimize the election, and is fighting to make himself a hero within the Republican Party in the next years to come.

CURNOW: Well, this is what is interesting because in many ways particularly the legal battle, it certainly has seen like a dead lost legally from many experts, when they assess all of these legal challenges, but in many ways, it is created a momentum, a message and potentially even a movement for Mr. Trump in these days and weeks, since we lost. And of course, a sizeable war chest of donations and dollars. I mean, how do you see Mr. Trump -- President Trump channeling that?

ZELIZER: Well, one option is that he decides that he wants to run again in four years and try to return to the White House and use this controversy to argue he never lost. And to mobilize supporters that somehow, they were robbed of a fair result.

And others, he doesn't want to come back into politics, or he doesn't, but he is using this to remain relevant within conservative circles, to remain relevant as a public figure, someone who is going to be feared and listen to, even if he does not re-enter the world of politics and goes into the media or stays into business.

It's a dangerous way to do this. He is doing this by attacking the legitimacy of the election and attacking the legitimacy of the results, and that's the thing we can't forget. This isn't some kind of game. This is the president attacking our democratic process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW (on camera): That was CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer. So don't miss our special coverage of the Electoral College vote, starting at 11:00 a.m. Monday in New York, 4:00 p.m. in London right here on CNN.

And coming up on CNN in just a moment, a closer look at this massive, massive vaccine rollout beginning in the U.S. What the head of the FDA is saying about the decision to authorize it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [02:25:00]

CURNOW (on camera): Welcome back to "CNN Newsroom." I'm Robyn Curnow. Back to our top story this hour. Finally, the historic moment people in the U.S. have been waiting for. About six hours from now, the first shipments of COVID vaccines will be delivered and soon, all 50 states will have doses available to them.

The White House had placed enormous pressure on the FDA to get the vaccines authorized for emergency use. But the FDA chief told CNN's Jake Tapper, they were not influenced by politics and only followed science. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN HAHN, COMMISSIONER, U.S. FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION: We have been very clear, and I will say it again here, that nothing guided our decision, no external comments, no external pressure other than the science and data guided our decision-making.

If you look at the timetable here, immediately after the vaccine advisory committee, our team spent that night. We decided to go forward and you know by early morning, before 7:00 a.m., we issued a statement saying that we were moving forward working with Pfizer to get the authorization out.

And then we worked throughout the day to do that. Our timeline, how we approach this was based upon our thorough review of the science and data. That's the promise we made to the American people, the transparency around that and that is what we did.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Most governors expect to run out of their first shipments of the Pfizer vaccines within days. There are 2.9 million doses the vaccine the first shipment. That's a lot, but it's also less than 1 percent of the U.S. population. Can you give us some sort of timetable as to when, say, 100 million doses will have gone out the door?

[02:29:59]

HAHN: I, personally, can. FDA is responsibilities on the regulatory side, however, we're working very hard to help the manufacturers and supply chain to get as much supplies as possible up and running and, of course assessing the quality of manufacturing. I have heard public reports from the Department of Health and Human Services, that the expectation is in the next several months that there will be enough supply on vaccines to vaccinate a 100 million Americans.

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Now that vaccines have shipped in the U.S., what about developing countries who cannot afford them? Early on in the pandemic, a solidarity pledges commit donations to not hoard vaccines, or vaccines, when one was found. That seems to now be now nonexistent according to Oxfam. 9 out of 10 people in poor countries won't receive a COVID vaccine next year. And wealthier nations have brought up enough doses to vaccinate their populations as much as three 3 times over. Mexico is among those countries where the vaccine will be in short supply, or at least early on. Is expected to receive 250,000 doses by the end of the year even though the pandemic is at peak there, here is Matt Rivers.

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here just south of the U.S. Mexico border, in the City of Tijuana Mexico, just like many others places around the world, we are watching as the United States has begin to distribute vaccines all across that country. And we know that the U.S. is not going to be able to vaccinate the vast majority of its population very quickly, but it is safe to say that the U.S. is in a better position than Mexico is when it comes to vaccines. Consider the plan announced why Mexico's government so far.

250,000 doses from the Pfizer vaccine will arrive here in Mexico for distribution this month. From January through April, we are expecting another 15 million doses to arrive here of that same vaccine. That is good enough to vaccinate roughly 7.6 million Mexicans against COVID-19 of a total population here in this country, of roughly 130 million people. And as we watch the U.S. distribute vaccines, here, in Mexico, it is arguably the worst time of this pandemic so far.

In recent days we have seen several new records set in terms of newly confirmed cases, the number of daily confirmed deaths from COVID-19, remains stubbornly high. And so, I think it is an important reminder that during times of a pandemic, even with the shortcomings that we see in the United States, it is still better to be a richer country, than it is to be a poor one. Matt Rivers, CNN Tijuana, Mexico.

CURNOW: In Latin America, some countries are struggling to get handle on this pandemic. Only handful of countries are reporting few of COVID cases on average on average this past week. Most, either staying the same or reporting higher numbers. And that includes Venezuela in our interior at the top. Venezuela has recorded almost 108,000 cases according to Johns Hopkins University. But Experts say, those numbers may be severely under reported.

Years of government mismanagement have left the healthcare sector grossly unprepared and under resourced. In fact, many COVID patients told CNN, they would rather take their chances at home then be in hospital. And still ahead here on CNN after winning a third term for office the President of the Ivory Coast amongst allegations of corruption and human rights abuses. And exclusive interview with CNN, that's next.

[02:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CURNOW: So in the day ahead the President of the Ivory Coast is expected to be sworn in for his third term in office after winning a highly disputed election marked by violence, and political unrest. Scott McLean has our report. In a warning, it does contain graphic images. Scott?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This video shows people in the Ivory Coast blocking a major highway last month to protests the reelection in the country's president. In some time after the video ends, shots are fired. This was the aftermath of what was supposed to be a peaceful protest, victims, lying motionless on the pavement. Witnesses told human rights watch, that there were three people killed after Ivorian security forces opened fire. The government says investigations are underway but the president, Alassane Ouattara who spoke exclusively to CNN, has made up his mind.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALASSANE OUATTARA, IVORY COAST PRESIDENT: No, this is a lie. I had given a strict instruction to the defense forces not to use fire guns. And no one shot among the defense forces.

JIM WORMINGTON, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: It's premature at this point to call that research ally.

MCLEAN: The shooting kept off a string of pre, and postelection protests, and violence. 85 people have been killed on both sides, hundreds more injured, and more than 15,000 fled the country, fearing a return to the civil war violence that brought President Ouattara to power almost a decade ago. Opposition supporters, say he should not have been allowed to run for a third term, sin the constitution limits Presidents to just two.

OUATTARA: Is a decision, I am glad that I took today, because the country would have been in a mess, if I had not been a candidate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you understand why some of your opponents, and a lot of people in your country, were upset by your decision?

OUATTARA: No, I think they just know they could not win, if they want to grab power without election they are not Democrats.

MCLEAN: While the Ivorian Supreme Court allowed the President to run, the Electoral Commission barred 40 others from challenging it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does that sound like democracy to you?

OUATTARA: Let me tell you. Democracy does not invite anyone should come and run where there is young countries the official countries candidate should be allowed to say what they are going to do for the people and for the country.

MCLEAN: Those candidates who are allowed to run boycotted the election before the vote. And afterwards, setting up a parallel government to organize a new poll. When exiled candidate, went even further.

GUILLAUME SORO, OPPOSITION POLITICIAN: Mr. Ouattara is a con artist. And a lier. And he is behaving like a culprit. And a culprit should be jailed.

MCLEAN: But it was one of Ouattara's main rivals, who was jailed, another was put under house arrest.

OUATTARA: Suppose that Donald Trump, decide to form a government because Biden has won reelection. He would be sent to jail right away. And this is what we are doing in Cote d'Ivoire. MCLEAN: Election observers, from the American Carter Center, found serious concerns about restrictions on civil liberties, freedom of expression, and the right to vote, and be elected which threatening to undo democratic progress.

But it seems the rest of the world is unwilling to make a fuss not even France, which has strong ties its former colony.

[02:40:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With the relatively recent instance of civil war in only 2010 and 11 in the country and before the election are been real possibility of returning to that, I think it kind of seeing as better to just except what is, and what people know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Democracy has been sacrificed in the name of stability.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it is fair to say, that yes.

MCLEAN: For now, at least, there is peace in Ivory Coast. But the real war may be with democracy itself. Scott McLean, CNN, London.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: Well, thanks for watching CNN. I am Robyn Curnow, for our international viewers, world sport is next. For everyone else, the news continues, after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CURNOW: Welcome back. I'm Robyn Curnow. It is 45 minutes past the hour. More though on our top story. After months of waiting, the first shipments of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine are on their way to all 50 states here in the U.S. and you can see one of those shipments here arriving in L.A. just a short time ago. This relief, of course, can't come soon enough with deaths and cases soaring to new records across the country.

More than 30,000 Americans have died just in the first two weeks of this month and the U.S. also set another new record for COVID hospitalizations since the pandemic began. Scientists are now reassuring Americans the vaccine was approved after rigorous scientific review and they're urging everyone not to be skeptical about getting it.

Meanwhile, the U.S. plans to distribute 40 million doses of the vaccine just by the end of the year, with the goal of having 100 million people vaccinated by the end of March. Dianne Gallagher has more on the logistics of this massive vaccine rollout, Dianne.

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was the fight that so many had been waiting. Wales of that Pfizer vaccine loaded up on to a cargo plane here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, set for Memphis, Tennessee, the Headquarters of FedEx where they're going to divvy up those vaccines and send began sending them to the western half of the country. Now UPS did the same thing, flying to its Headquarters in Louisville. It will handle the eastern half of the country.

Now a lot is being discussed about the chain of control because these packages take a lot of effort. This is a complex logistical operation. Every couple minutes we are going to know what's going on. FedEx says that it receives a transmission every two seconds on the location of these vaccine packages. UPS says it's using Bluetooth technology as well to make sure it has precise eyes in real time on where these packages are located. Both companies say they are also able to monitor those extreme cold conditions.

We're talking negative 100 degrees Fahrenheit that they have to stay in so they can make sure there's no sort of change in that - in transit there. Now, at this time, all 50 states are going to receive some vaccine. What's going to happen from there will differ depending on the state. But Pfizer says it plans to send out an even larger shipment on Monday from its facilities. Dianne Gallagher, CNN, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

CURNOW: L.J. Tan is a vaccine expert. He's also the Chief Strategy Officer of the Immunization Action Coalition. And he joins me now from Chicago. Lovely to have you on the show. What we're seeing now is the biggest vaccination drive in U.S. history. Has anything actually ever been done like this before?

L.J. TAN, CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER, IMMUNIZATION ACTION COALITION: No, no. Robyn, thank you so much for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. Just to - I think the word unprecedented has been used a lot, but I think there's a reason for that. This is unprecedented. This is going to be a huge, huge enterprise in the United States to get as many people vaccinated as we can as quickly as possible. So, not only are we talking about capacity and number of people. We're talking about trying to do this fast so that we can get out of this pandemic.

CURNOW: How optimistic are you when you know that these vaccinations are going to start getting into peoples' arms in the next few days? As you look at the death rate, as you look at the infection rates, where do you see this ending?

TAN: So, this is - so, I think we all are, like, looking at this and we know it's going to get us out of this eventually. But I think I'm really optimistic about that. I think what we want to do is temper that with a little bit of reality. We're not going to get all our vaccine at the same time. So we're going to have to keep vaccinating through the spring.

And I would argue probably into the summer and in the United States, I think we probably be out of this hopefully by the fall. I think we'll get in other words sometime in summer we're hoping that anybody in the U.S. wants to get protected and get vaccinated will have access to vaccine. But until then, I think we will still have to do what we need do to get through the pandemic. But we do now have the tools to get us out of it.

CURNOW: And how important is it for people who have already had COVID to also be vaccinated?

TAN: I think it's extremely important but I think if you're thinking at the beginning when we have a shortage - or not a shortage, but we have a supply capacity build up, when there's not enough vaccine to meet the number of people we need to get vaccinated, I think we can move to people who have already have COVID lower down in the line or cured to get vaccinated because they have had COVID. But ultimately, the recommendation is they still get vaccinated. And the reason for that is we do not know the duration of immunity from natural infection, right.

So, I think there's a general feeling that at least three months, yes, we still have that immunity from the natural infection.

[02:50:00]

But beyond that, we are - we don't know. I mean, I think we need to keep reminding ourselves, as hard as it seems, we're not even at a year out from actually first discovering this virus, right?

So, I think we need to remind us of that. We don't know a lot of the duration of immunity from natural infection, and I think that's the reason why we're going to keep recommended people get vaccinated even though they might have had prior infection.

CURNOW: And with that in mind, it's also unclear if the vaccine prevents infection or just sickness. And so there really is still so much to understand about the virus and also as you were saying the body's immune response just to the vaccine as well.

TAN: Absolutely. And I think this is something that I think we're all actively looking at, right. So, the idea is there's immunization and then there's immunity. So immunization is going to create immunity within us, and that's what ends up protecting us from getting sick. But our immune system is pretty remarkable. And one of the things that we're beginning to make sure is that that immunity that's created by immunization will also prevent us from spreading the disease. And the reason for that is because there's something that happens with a lot of respiratory infections that's called carriage.

So like it's called - in the carriage only happens in what we call the nasopharyngeal area which is your nose and your mouth. And so, we need to make sure that when you get vaccinated the vaccine will also prevent the virus from staying in your nasopharyngeal area and so that when you cough and sneeze you're not shedding virus still even though you yourself are not getting sick.

So, that's something people are looking at, to make sure the carriage is not there. And then if the carriage is not there, you're not transmitting. Now I would be personally speaking, I would be surprised if we end up not preventing transmission. And the reason for that is because the data from the two vaccines that we've got right now, the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine is that the immune response to the vaccine is extremely vigorous.

In fact it's better than what we get with people who had natural infection. So, I think I'm optimistic that we will also prevent transmission, but we need to look at the science.

CURNOW: And who shouldn't get this vaccine?

TAN: Yes. So right now the only so-called contraindication to not getting the vaccine actually is just if you've had an allergic reaction to any component in the vaccine. Now, because of some of the experience, the very preliminary experience we've had with the Pfizer vaccine in the United Kingdom where we had a couple of allergic reactions - and I remind folks that the allergic reactions were in people who were severely allergic because they were carrying EpiPen's.

The recommendation colony said those people should be differing for vaccination as well. Otherwise, everyone else can get vaccinated. Now with pregnancy we don't have a lot of data regarding the vaccine's effectiveness and safety in pregnant women. The general feeling is that pregnant women can choose to get vaccinated if they want to do that. And there is a lot of ongoing research to continue to compile the data for pregnant women.

CURNOW: L.J. Tan, thank you very much for joining us, giving us your expertise, Vaccine Expert, also Chief Strategy Officer of Immunization Action Coalition. Thank you, sir.

TAN: Thank you, Robyn for this opportunity.

CURNOW: Well, coronavirus vaccines are on the way. But where there's hope, there's hesitancy, so how do you know what is facts? So TikTok is coming to the rescue in only the way it can as Anna Stewart now reports.

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ANNA STEWART, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Explaining how a vaccine works isn't easy. So, these Tiktoking scientists have got creative.

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STEWART: Answering all sorts of questions to allay vaccine concerns and promote confidence. They're part of team Halo, an international group of experts put together by the UN and they've generated more than 20 million views on Tiktok.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure. We'll be working almost exclusively on making a COVID-19 vaccine.

STEWART: A vaccine research scientist for 30 years, Paul McKay is working on a COVID-19 vaccine candidate being developed by Imperial College. And he's creating TikTok videos on the side.

STEWART: You're not just tackling the anti-vaxxers or the anti-vax sentiment. You're tackling people who aren't sure and ask questions. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have the right to ask questions. You have the right to know what goes into your body.

STEWART: You're now aware of the TikTok star.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wouldn't say star. We come out and say vaccines have been the single greatest health benefit since clean water. It's saved more people's lives than any other medical intervention.

STEWART: Team halo is using social media to bolster vaccine confidence.

[02:55:00]

Of course, that's also where rumor and misinformation spreads. In the U.K., just 63.4 percent of people surveyed said they would definitely get a COVID-19 vaccine. After viewing this information online, that number dropped to just 54 percent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm very cautious. If anything I don't really know or understand.

STEWART: It's been researched and everything and clinical trials.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. We trust the scientists I guess.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got take a leap of faith for the greater good of society, no? If you don't do that, nobody takes it then it's not going to work.

STEWART: Health experts warn that a vaccine will need to be accepted by at least 70 percent of the population to provide herd immunity, and perhaps more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm just giving people facts and information. I'm not trying to change their minds. I'm not trying to make them think differently or change their lifestyles. I'm just trying to give them the information that they don't have access to. So, I'm not against them. I am wanting to work with them.

STEWART: Anna Stewart, CNN, London.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: Well, thanks so much for watching. I'm Robyn Curnow. I'm going to hand you over to my colleague (inaudible) for another hour of "CNN" right after the break. Enjoy.

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