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CNN Exclusive: Navalny, Novichok and Moscow; Electoral College Cements Biden Victory; U.S. Tops 300,000 Deaths on Vaccine Rollout Day; Over 300 Nigerian Students Missing after School Raid; Trump to Impose New Sanctions on Turkey; U.S. Health Workers among First to Get COVID-19 Vaccine. Aired 2-2:45a ET

Aired December 15, 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]

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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): New evidence links Russian security services with the poisoning of Putin nemesis, Alexei Navalny. We will have an exclusive report.

And COVID deaths in the U.S. top 300,000 as the first health care workers get vaccinated.

Plus Joe Biden hails democracy and calls for unity, after officially clinching the U.S. Presidency.

Hello and welcome to CNN, I'm Robyn Curnow.

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

CURNOW: We begin with an exclusive report about the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The investigative group Bellingcat and CNN have uncovered evidence that Russian security service, the FSB, formed an elite team specializing in nerve agents, following Navalny for years.

He was poisoned with a lethal toxin back in August, very nearly. Died our chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward and her team have been working the story for, months. She spoke with Navalny as he continues to recover in Germany. Here's her exclusive report.

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CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): August 20th, on a flight to Moscow, a passenger captures the awful wails of Alexey Navalny.

WARD (voice-over): The Russian opposition leader has suddenly fallen ill and he knows exactly why.

ALEXEY NAVALNY, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER: I get out of the bathroom, turned over to the flight attendant and said to them, I was poisoned, I'm going to die and then -- then I laid down under his feet to die.

(LAUGHTER)

WARD: You knew in that moment that you've been poisoned?

NAVALNY: Yes.

WARD (voice-over): Quick thinking from the pilot saves his life. Instead of flying on to Moscow still three hours away, the plane diverts to Omsk. Two days later, Navalny is flown to Berlin, where the German government announces he has been poisoned with a nerve agent Novichok.

Now an exclusive investigation can reveal a top secret mission, tracking Navalny, involving experts in chemical weapons, who work for the FSB, the Russian successor to the Soviet KGB.

This nondescript building on the outskirts of Moscow was the headquarters of the operation. We are staying in the car because we don't want to attract any attention.

WARD: But this compound is part of the Institute of Criminalistics of the FSB, Russia's security service. And that fence, an elite team of operatives has been tracking Navalny's every move for more than three years.

WARD (voice-over): CNN has examined hundreds of pages of phone records and flight manifests that reveal the backgrounds, communications and travel of the group. The documents were obtained by online investigative outlet Bellingcat, which two years ago identified the Russian military intelligence agents allegedly sent to England to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).

WARD (voice-over): The FSB toxins team was activated in 2017 just days after Navalny announced he would run for president in the election the next year. The team's leader is Stanislav Makshakov, an expert in chemical weapons. Several of the team are doctors but they weren't recruited to save lives.

WARD: I just wanted to show you some photographs here and ask you if you -- if you recognize -- if you've ever seen any of the men in those photographs.

NAVALNY: No.

WARD: You don't recognize.

NAVALNY: I don't recognize any of them.

WARD: Would it surprise you to learn that some of these men went on more than 30 trips with you over the course of three years?

NAVALNY: This is absolutely terrifying. I don't know if terrifying is a good word.

WARD: I think it's a pretty good word.

NAVALNY: Yes, but the -- well, I understand how system works in Russia. I understand that Putin hates me. And I understand that these people who are sitting in the Kremlin, they are ready to kill.

WARD: Is it your contention that Vladimir Putin must have been aware of this?

NAVALNY: Of course, 100 percent. It could have not been happened without direct order of Putin because it's a -- it was big scale.

WARD (voice-over): In the weeks before he was poisoned, Navalny and his wife Yulia took a short vacation to a resort in Kaliningrad.

[02:05:00]

WARD (voice-over): Our investigation has uncovered that the FSB team followed.

According to Bellingcat, the security cameras inside the hotel were mysteriously turned off while they were there. Navalny says Yulia felt uncomfortable. She took videos and photos of men she believed were following them.

YULIA NAVALYANA, WIFE OF ALEXEY NAVALNY: (Speaking foreign language).

WARD (voice-over): "This man, I also don't recognize," she says.

Hours after the FSB's toxins team left Kaliningrad, Yulia suddenly felt sick.

NAVALNY: She said, "Well, I feel really, really bad."

Do you need an ambulance?

No.

Is it heart?

No.

Is it stomach?

No.

Is it the head?

No.

Could you describe it?

No.

And then we approached a restaurant and she said, "Well, I feel like worst in my life, I've never felt it before," but unfortunately --, of course, I couldn't connect these dots. Now I realize how bad she was feeling.

WARD (voice-over): Yulia recovered but the FSB unit was apparently not done with the Navalnys.

WARD: In the days after Kaliningrad, cellphone data shows that several senior FSB officials were in regular contact with a lab in this compound. It's called the signal institute. And CNN and Bellingcat have established that it has been involved with researching and developing Novichok.

WARD (voice-over): In mid-August, Navalny and his team travelled to Siberia. At least five members of the FSB unit make the same journey on different flights. In Tomsk, Navalny and his colleagues stay at the Xander Hotel.

We travelled to the Siberian city to retrace his steps on the night he was poisoned.

WARD: So this is the room that Alexey Navalny was staying in and it looks like my room here is right next door.

WARD (voice-over): According to Navalny, he went to bed at around midnight after drinking a cocktail with his team. The FSB's toxins unit was not far away.

WARD: Using a ping from a cellphone, we have been able to place on of the FSB operatives in this area, just blocks from the Xander Hotel on the night of August 19th, the night that the nerve agent Novichok made its way into room 239.

WARD (voice-over): Navalny left the hotel early the next morning. He boarded the Moscow flight feeling fine. Three hours later, he was close to death.

Back in Tomsk, Navalny's team frantically collect any evidence they can from his hotel room, including water and shampoo bottles, a toothbrush and a towel.

As they did, there was a surge in communication among the FSB unit and their bosses. If it was expected that Navalny would die on the flight, they were now scrambling to deal with a very different situation.

After much back and forth, Russian authorities allowed Navalny to be transported to Berlin. What they don't know is that the items recovered from his Tomsk hotel room were also on board. Some later tested positive for Novichok.

Back in Moscow, we went in search of the FSB's toxins team.

WARD: So we're here now at the home of one of the FSB team and we are going to go see if he has anything to say to us. WARD (voice-over): We enter a rundown apartment building on the outskirts of Moscow, where operative Oleg Tayakin lives.

WARD: (Speaking foreign language).

My name is Clarissa Ward. I work for CNN.

Can I ask you a couple of questions?

(Speaking foreign language).

Was it your team that poisoned Navalny, please?

Do you have any comment?

He doesn't seem to want to talk to us.

WARD (voice-over): Toxicologists tell CNN that Navalny is incredibly lucky to be alive and that the intention was undoubtedly to kill him.

WARD: So you said that you want to go back to Russia.

NAVALNY: And I will do.

WARD: You are aware of the risk of going back.

NAVALNY: Yes, but I'm Russian politician. And even when I was not just in the hospital, I was in intensive therapy. I said publicly, I will go back and I will go back because I'm a Russian politician, I belong to this country and definitely, especially now when these actual crimes are cracked open and revealed. I understand the whole operation. I would never give Putin such a gift.

[02:10:00]

WARD: CNN has not established that the FSB toxins team were in fact the individuals who actually poisoned Navalny. We have, of course, reached out for comment from the Kremlin, also the FSB who told us we might be able to expect the response in nine days.

We also reached out to members of the team as you saw in our report. But so far, we have not heard anything back and it should come as no surprise that Russian officials have not yet opened any criminal investigation into the poisoning of Alexey Navalny.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Thank you to Clarissa Ward and her team reporting from Moscow.

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SANDRA LINDSAY, NURSE: I am very proud to be a health care worker. And I'm also very proud to be in this position to promote public confidence in the safety of the vaccine and encourage everyone to take the vaccine. CURNOW (voice-over): An ICU nurse in New York is among the first

people in the U.S. to get the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

The FDA authorized Pfizer BioNTech vaccine is now going out in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Officials hope this pivotal moment marks the beginning of the end of the pandemic.

A new rival of the vaccine comes at a critical time. On Monday, the national death toll from the virus surpassed 300,000 lives in the U.S. The U.S. also recorded its highest number of new cases in a single day ever.

There are now more people hospitalized with coronavirus than any at the point of the pandemic. It will be several months before most Americans can get the vaccine and, in the meantime, thousands of people are dying from the virus every day.

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CURNOW: I want to bring in Dr. Esther Choo. She is a professor of Emergency Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University.

Doctor, hi, lovely to see you again.

On the positive note, we are seeing the beginning of a massive, massive vaccination program. Have you ever seen anything like this before here in the state?

DR. ESTHER CHOO, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Hi, Robyn, great to be with you. No, this is inspiring. I am really admiring my colleagues in public health who are responsible for distributing this vaccine. I mean, the speed with which people are moving on this is incredible.

We have, you know, a vaccine hitting the state in one day and already pivoting into distribution the next in a very orderly fashion. So this is really on the backs of many, many public health workers working night and day in anticipation of this vaccine. It is a wonderful, wonderful week.

CURNOW: It's certainly as but at the same time tempered with these ghostly terrifying figures of infections, of the number of people dead, the predictions of how many people may die. We are seeing that ICU nurse publicly having an inoculation injection to try and get public confidence up.

At the same time, how important is it still to wear masks, just that simple act?

CHOO: Yes, that is an incredibly important point. We keep on saying the vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel but the tunnel is incredibly long. We still have a long way to go before we really realize the benefit of this vaccine and before it's distributed enough that we are going to feel the difference in the way that we can behave.

And so, you know, especially this first round, it is just to shore up the health care workers so that we are still around to take care of everyone as we are just hammered with these case rates and the death rates.

And it won't be until spring until we get everybody out there to get the vaccine. People need two doses of the vaccine. There's a lot of uncertainty about how efficiently we will be able to get it distributed to the entire population, also get enough confidence in the vaccine so that people are willing to take it.

So really until then, until we have herd immunity through the vaccine, nothing will change about needing to wear face mask, about needing to avoid large gatherings, particularly indoors, about social distancing, staying home whenever we can. All of that is what we need to change these incredible numbers, just week after week of setting record that we never thought that we would set to begin with. It is just amazing.

CURNOW: Yes, and, of course, the U.S. is the worst by far in the world.

So at the same time, though, as people line up to get the shots, how important is it for people who already had COVID to get vaccinated, as well?

CHOO: We are still advising that they get vaccine just like everybody else. We know that some people who get COVID will have an antibody response. We don't know how long it lasts or how effective it is at keeping them from getting sick or keeping them from getting the virus again and be able to spread it.

So we are still recommending that even if you have had COVID, line up for the vaccine just like everybody else.

CURNOW: And when will doctors like you know if a vaccine stops infection or just stops you getting sick?

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CHOO: It's simply an endpoint we haven't seen yet so we will be keeping an eye out on the data from the studies that are looking at COVID. We have some main end point data right now, which just shows how many people are getting symptomatic COVID-19 and how many people are getting severe disease.

Those are the kind of things that we have been told about so far. But as the months wear on, we will have additional data points and secondary outcomes like, can you spread the disease? And so this is a moving target and we will have a lot to talk about in upcoming months.

CURNOW: We certainly will. Dr. Esther Choo, thank you. And again, also thank you for all you're doing. I know you're there at the frontlines.

CHOO: Thank you, Robyn.

(END VIDEOTAPE) CURNOW: The U.S. attorney general calls it quits with just a few

weeks left of the Trump presidency. What William Barr said in his letter of resignation. That's still ahead.

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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: In this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed. We, the people, voted. Faith in our institutions held. The integrity of our elections remains intact. Now it is time to turn the page, as we have done throughout our history, to unite, to heal.

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CURNOW: That was U.S. president elect Joe Biden, saying Donald Trump's assault on democracy has failed. A few hours before Biden spoke, the Electoral College voted to affirm his victory in November.

Electors from all states and the District of Columbia met in their capitals. In most years, few pay attention to those proceedings. But this year, viewers around the world were able to watch the process unfold.

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SHIRLEY WEBER, CALIFORNIA STATE ASSEMBLY MEMBER: For Joseph R. Biden of Delaware, a Democrat, ayes 55, nos zero.

(APPLAUSE)

CURNOW (voice-over): Applause breaking out there in California when they put Biden over the 270 votes he needed to win the White House.

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CURNOW: It was only a few minutes after Biden crossed the Electoral College threshold when Donald Trump tried to shift the spotlight to himself. He tweeted the resignation of attorney general William Barr, who has been on thin ice ever since he admitted there was no evidence of widespread election fraud. Correctly, of course.

Kaitlan Collins has more on Mr. Biden's win and Mr. Barr's resignation.

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KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is a process that President Trump has tried to subvert every step of the way since he lost this election to Joe Biden. But you saw yesterday, the Electoral College did affirm Biden's win. He gave a short speech afterward talking about it and talking about

what has gone on with the president and his Republican allies' desperate efforts to try to overturn the results of this election, by taking matters like what you saw last week with the Supreme Court in that swift rejection of the lawsuit that attorney general of Texas is trying to bring.

[02:20:00]

COLLINS: But despite the fact that we have seen the Electoral College affirm Biden's win we are still told by sources that the president does not expect to concede this election. At least certainly not anytime soon. And he has said publicly as well that he plans to continue to fight it.

And claims that there are more legal steps his team can taken even though if you speak with people close to the president's campaign and close to the legal team, they just believe they're running out of options after that Supreme Court rejection and they're not sure where they're going to go next.

One tactic the president may try to pursue over the next few weeks, as we wait for the end of his presidency and for Joe Biden to be inaugurated, is a distraction technique. And that was in part what you saw yesterday, as the last states were certifying their votes.

That's when the president chose to announce on Twitter that the attorney general, Bill Barr, is resigning in the next few days. His last day at the White House will be December 23rd, he said in a resignation letter that he gave to the president.

And if you looked at the tweeting from the president announcing this and look at Bill Barr's letter, you would think that this is an amicable departure between these two individuals. But it is certainly anything but that.

And sources who we spoke to in recent weeks said the relationship between the president and once one of his most favorite cabinet members had deteriorated so greatly after Bill Barr undercut the president's claims about voter fraud and then even more so over the weekend after it was revealed that Barr did work to follow DOJ protocol, by stopping that Biden investigation from becoming public, something the president criticized him over and said he should have done the opposite.

But that is not what the president mentioned in his tweet, announcing that Bill Barr will be stepping down and his deputy, Jeffrey Rosen, will be taking over as the attorney general just for a few more weeks -- Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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CURNOW: Joining me now is Lisa Lerer, a CNN political analyst and national political reporter for "The New York Times." Lisa, hi. It is lovely to have you on the show. Let's talk about Mr.

Trump and what does he get by showing Bill Barr the door now? What is the strategy, do you think?

LISA LERER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think part of the strategy is to distract. Of course, today was the day that the Electoral College here in the United States officially affirmed Joe Biden as the winner of the election, which most people have known since November but the president has tested again and again the weeks that have followed.

And I don't think it was coincidence that the president announced Bill Barr's firing on Twitter within half an hour of California officially putting Joe Biden over the top and making him the Electoral College winner and the president-elect.

CURNOW: So it is distraction but at the same time, we also heard the president-elect Joe Biden's comments.

CURNOW: It seems like a parallel universe, doesn't it? They were optimistic. They spoke about trust in institutions and democracy. What do those comments tell you about the presidency to come and more importantly, can he put those words into actions, especially during a pandemic?

LERER: I think Joe Biden is someone who has been in Washington a long time, more than 3 decades. He's someone who sees himself as a politician who can work across the aisle. But the Washington that he was in for all these decades is no longer the Washington that we have now.

So even if Joe Biden wants to cast himself as someone who can heal the soul of America, which he does, that was his campaign slogan, he is really going to have his work cut out for him.

The Senate majority leader has still not acknowledged that he is the president-elect, not even today after the Electoral College voted him in. So restoring faith in these institutions is going to be a heavy lift for Joe Biden. And a lot of it will depend on how President Trump conducts himself in his post-presidential period after leaving office.

CURNOW: I want to talk about that because it's still pretty shocking that the U.S. president has not conceded an election that he has lost and obviously many Republicans, as well.

So what happens if he never does and creates a sort of a theater or a parallel presidency, false as it is, at Mar-a-Lago?

How disruptive does that become for Mr. Biden?

How does Mr. Biden manage that?

LERER: Well, I think the biggest risk for Biden is that the Republican Party will still see themselves unable to shake President Trump, because the president has such a hold on the republican base.

If he is able to maintain that connection with promises that he is going to run again in 2024, which is something he has been floating, it will be really hard for Republicans, even if they want, to cut a deal on things that the country desperately needs like economic relief from the pandemic or help with vaccine distribution if President Trump does not see those align with his personal ambitions.

So I think that political dynamic will really be the one to watch as Biden navigates the contours of the first months of his time in office.

CURNOW: So how likely do you think that is though, that Mr. Trump is not just a kingmaker but in many ways still controls the agenda in some way?

[02:25:00]

LERER: That is really the biggest question in Washington right now. Nobody knows frankly because we have never seen a post-presidential period quite like this. We have never seen the president like this.

Traditionally, when presidents leave office from either party, they fade away. They refrain from getting involved in partisan politics. If anything, maybe they give a speech in the final weeks of an election, you know, to rally the voters but they are not dazzling in the day- to-day business of politics. They feed themselves a statement to who rise above that kind of partisanship.

We have no reason to believe that President Trump will conduct himself in that way and he has given every indication that he won't. He's already talking about raising primary challengers to some Republican incumbents who he doesn't think supported him on his quest, reverse the outcome of the election and disenfranchise millions of voters.

So the question is not so much what President Trump does, it's whether his base in the Republican Party continues to follow him or if when he is out of office, the fever is broken in some way.

CURNOW: Lisa Lerer, great to speak to you. Thanks so much for your expertise. We appreciate it.

LERER: Thanks for having me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CURNOW: Next on CNN, hundreds of students missing after a gunman raided an all-boys school in Nigeria.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We want them to rescue our children, because they have the capacity to do so. But their actions are slow, because it is not their children that are involved in the incident.

CURNOW (voice-over): Hear one mother's desperate plea to the Nigerian government. Plus a live update on the search.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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CURNOW: Welcome back to CNN. I'm Robyn Curnow, live from Atlanta. It's 28 minutes past the hour.

A mother in Nigeria is pleading with the government to help find and rescue her son. The 13-year old is believed to be among hundreds of boys abducted on Friday when gunmen on motorbikes raided their school. Some students have been found safe but more than 300 are still missing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): If this government is just, as they say they are, we want them to rescue our children, because they have the capacity to do so. But their actions are slow, because it is not their children that are involved in the incident.

They put us in this situation, where both, we, the parents and grandparents, are in absolute confusion. They have stopped us from having peace of mind. We are totally sad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: Officials believe this may be a kidnapping for ransom plot to say the attackers are making their demands known through a teacher.

[02:30:00]

CURNOW: Let's go to David McKenzie in Johannesburg.

David, hi. You have been obviously monitoring the story.

What is the latest? What can you tell us?

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, what you say, Robyn, that there have been kidnappers or some of these gunman getting hold of teachers of the school, a this boys' school in northwest Nigeria, in the last few hours. It's unclear what demands they've meant if any.

But this indicates that there could be a ransom demand situation here. One thing they did ask for, according to that source, was for the government to take helicopters out of the region. Earlier government officials said they had located the kidnappers by helicopter in this relatively remote part of northwest Nigeria.

Harrowing stories emerging of these young boys, several of them, who have managed to escape over the last day or so, saying they had to come from that remote area, were terrified in getting away from the gunmen. Also in the chaos of that attack on Friday, many children were able to

get out. But it's unclear exactly how many are still in the hands of those gunmen and exactly who they are.

There is an increasing level of insecurity in the northwest and kidnapping for ransom. So there would be dual processes going on. One would be the security agents trying to get at these kidnappers and I am sure at this point more comprehensive discussions possibly getting them released for money -- Robyn.

CURNOW: All the while no doubt, pressure mounting on President Buhari?

MCKENZIE: That is right. President Buhari, ironically, was in that state. That's his home state, about 200 kilometers from where this incident happened.

There has been growing anger on a very personal and tragic level from the mother that we heard from earlier of just how devastating it is for these families that have lived through this insecurity for so long while there has been a lot more tension paid to the northeastern part of Nigeria over the years and the insurgency there.

Of course, you remember the kidnapping of the Chibok girls in 2014. The northwest has seen more than 8,000 people killed since 2011, according to the crisis group. A lot of it it's kind of this chaotic banditry because of a lack of oversight from the federal and state government.

People in Nigeria are angry and it seems that, in many parts of the country, this violence and criminality is out of control. There will be huge pressure on Buhari to sort out the situation. What we have seen in more recent large-scale kidnappings, like when I was in northern Nigeria several years ago, is there has been a painstaking process of negotiations.

And thankfully, in that case, almost all of the children who were kidnapped were released. In this case, it is unclear how this will play out but the mothers, fathers and siblings of these kids are just saying yet again, this is a scenario in Nigeria that these gunmen can act with impunity.

CURNOW: We will come back to you for more details. David McKenzie, thank you so much.

Negotiations for the European Union and the U.K. are far, far apart on several key issues as they are navigating the terms of their future relationship. The British prime minister Boris Johnson warns there may not be a resolution by the 1st of January deadline. Nic Robertson has more from London. Nic?

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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, negotiations are continuing, precisely what they are focusing on in the nuance and detail, we don't know. Michel Barnier, the E.U. chief negotiator briefed E.U. diplomats on Monday morning. He also briefed the European parliament. They want to have a vote on whatever comes out, whatever agreement is found at the end of this.

They want to have a vote on it. Their the deadline for that would be the 27th of December, around that sort of timeframe. The deadline to get a deal is actually right at the end of the year.

But what progress is being made at the moment really isn't clear. Going into talks this weekend, it really felt like it was a gloomy scenario. Invigorated gloom I think is where we're at right now, dark clouds still. Boris Johnson saying, look both sides recognize that there are big gaps. But he is saying prepare for the possibility of a no deal. A huge amount of pressure and concern from both sides about what that could mean.

But where they are making progress, if they are making progress, really that remains absolutely in the dark at the moment -- Nic Robertson, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

The Trump administration is planning to impose new sanctions on Turkey over the purchase of a Russian air defense system. Mr. Trump delayed the sanctions more than a year because of his relationship with the Turkish president.

[02:35:00]

CURNOW: He's been forced to sign off on it because Congress voted to make it mandatory.

You are watching CNN. Coming up, it is going to be a very COVID-19 Christmas in Europe. Find out what the holidays will look like under stricter lockdowns.

And also hear from some of the first U.S. health care workers to get the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. Now it's giving hope and how it's giving hope to all of those on the front lines.

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CURNOW: The Netherlands is going into its strictest lockdown of the pandemic for at least 5 weeks and that's because of a dramatic rise in cases there. Schools and universities will close for the most part with nonessential shops and all public gathering places. The Dutch prime minister announced the measures in a rare address from his office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARK RUTTE, PRESIDENT, THE NETHERLANDS (through translator): The Netherlands is closing down. This means we will close all places where people gather in groups with a few exceptions that are necessary to keep society running or to protect vulnerable people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CURNOW: The prime minister says that home gatherings should be limited to 2 guests at a time and the exception will be Christmas Eve through Boxing Day. Gatherings of 3 people will be allowed then.

London and some of the surrounding areas are returning to a strict lockdown on Wednesday. The U.K. health secretary announced a new variant of the virus has been found that may be linked with a faster spreading of cases in the southeast of England.

He said similar variants have been identified in other countries in recent months. The U.K. says it's notified the WHO about the mutation they found.

In the U.S., the first doses of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID vaccine have been injected into frontline health care workers. The rollout comes as the national death toll now tops 300,000 people. A critical care nurse in New York state was among the first to receive the vaccine. For medical workers like her, it is the light they've been waiting for.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. STELLA OGAKE, CRITICAL CARE PHYSICIAN: I would say this is a very exciting moment. It's very surreal as well. But for us who are in the front lines taking care of these patients, it is such a moment of hope, because we can see the light.

ELISSA SPEDOSKE (PH), ER NURSE, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN HOSPITAL: This is hope. This is hope that we can start to really flatten the curve and really turn things around for us.

DR. LENA NAPOLITANO, ICU DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN HOSPITAL: Most of our staff, including me, as director of the ICU, are fearful. You know, we are exposed to it every minute of every day. So I can't tell you how much this means to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Dr. Jorge Salinas is an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa Health Care. He's one of the first people in the U.S. to get the vaccine.

Doctor, wonderful to have you on the show.

When did you get the shots and how are you feeling?

DR. JORGE SALINAS, EPIDEMIOLOGIST, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA HEALTH CARE: Very glad to be here. I got my shot 12 hours ago early today.

[02:40:00] SALINAS: And I'm feeling pretty good other than a mild soreness in my shoulder, which is expected after a shot i. Feel pretty good.

CURNOW: We've got pictures of you taking it.

Why did you feel the need to show your support for this vaccine publicly?

SALINAS: Well, I think that this vaccine is one of the greatest medical breakthroughs in recent history. This is one that is a safe and effective strategy to end the terrible pandemic.

CURNOW: So you throw your support behind it?

SALINAS: Absolutely. Absolutely. This vaccine has not only been proven to be efficacious but also quite safe and is one of the best strategies we have in hand to stop this pandemic.

CURNOW: You're going to have a second dose in the next few weeks.

As a doctor, are you worried that some people might not follow through with a booster shot, especially if they have side effects?

SALINAS: I think that, yes, a vaccine regimen that requires more than one dose has that possibility. But I think everybody is so cognizant that these two doses are needed that I think that the uptake will be quite high.

CURNOW: You mentioned this has been such a historical moment.

How do you feel about being part of one of the first people to get the vaccine in the U.S. in such record time?

And being part of such a scientific feat as a doctor, what is it about this particular vaccine that has you excited?

SALINAS: Today was one of the happiest and saddest days for us. But of the happiest because, again, because of work in vaccine development over the last couple of decades, we are now able to produce safe and efficacious vaccines in record time, to respond to pandemics that are becoming more frequent.

At the same time, this is a very sad moment, especially for the United States, where nearly 200,000 new infections every day, more than 100,000 Americans being hospitalized and more than 1,000 Americans dying every day.

So we are happy and we are sad. We are sad about -- with the current state of the pandemic is but happy that this is the beginning of the end of the pandemic. We do see very clearly the light at the end of the tunnel.

CURNOW: We do, indeed. Thank you for the part that you are playing it. Doctor, we appreciate you joining us.

SALINAS: Absolutely. CURNOW: Even as the vaccine doses are slowly becoming available, many

around the world are still battling the coronavirus and beating it. That includes 104-year-old Elena (ph), who was released from hospital in Madrid on Monday after recovering from the virus and pneumonia.

The staff cheered as she was wheeled out after spending two weeks inside. Spain plans to start vaccinations as early as the beginning of January if a vaccine is approved by Europe's top medical agency.

Thanks so much for watching CNN. I'm Robyn Curnow. "WORLD SPORT" starts after the break. I will be back with much more news after that.