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COVID-19 Surge In California; Moderna Vaccine Set For U.S. Distribution; Israel Starts Vaccination Drive; White House Discusses Overturning Election; Trump Downplays Severity Of Massive Cyberattack; Europe Fights Skepticism Ahead Of Vaccine Rollout; Black Americans Hesitate Getting COVID-19 Vaccine; Husband With COVID-19 Writes Final Love Letter To Wife; Nicaragua Facing Food Shortages After Hurricanes. Aired 2-2:45a ET
Aired December 20, 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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ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Parts of the U.K. are going back under lockdown that experts say is due to a new more contagious strain of the coronavirus.
CNN is learning of a heated Oval Office meeting where they floated the idea of enacting martial law as a way to overturn the election.
A second coronavirus vaccine gets emergency use authorization in the U.S. Skyrocketing hospitalizations now crippling California.
Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Anna Coren.
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COREN: Well, the U.S. is gearing up to distribute a second coronavirus vaccine as soon as the CDC director gives the green light. That is expected to happen at any point. The Moderna vaccine is the newest weapon in the U.S. arsenal against the virus, following the Pfizer BioNTech shot. It is badly needed.
Just look at the numbers. More than 18,000 Americans died of COVID-19 in the last week, adding to the more than 316,000 deaths during the pandemic. Skyrocketing hospitalization rates are pushing ICU units and health care workers to the brink.
One expert says the entire U.S. is a coronavirus hot spot. British prime minister Boris Johnson of the U.K. has canceled Christmas for many in England. They've been put under severe tier 4 restrictions for 2 weeks, which effectively amount to a lockdown.
Nonessential shops and businesses will have to stay shut. People can meet only one other person from another household outdoors. And residents are being told to not travel out of the region. England is not the only place clamping down ahead of the holidays. Salma Abdelaziz has more across Europe. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER (voice-over): Europe's nightmare before Christmas, last-minute coronavirus restrictions forcing travelers to unpack their bags and families to cancel plans.
Authorities in some European countries are scrambling to contain a rise in infections with warnings of a third wave next year. In England, an 11th hour U-turn on coronavirus restrictions amid fears of a new strain of coronavirus. Prime minister Boris Johnson says it could be up to 70 percent more transmissible.
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BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: Given the early evidence we have on this new variant of the virus, the potential risk it poses, it is with a very heavy heart I must tell you, we cannot continue with Christmas as planned.
ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Tier 4 rules go into effect Sunday and Monday in other affected parts of England, forcing residents to stay at home, all nonessential shops to close and crucially travel in and out is banned.
The British government also finally heeding advice from health experts to call off a planned 5-day easing of restrictions over the Christmas period. A day earlier, Italy, Sweden and Austria all announcing tough new restrictions to curb social gatherings during the festive season.
Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte will put into force a nationwide lockdown around the holidays.
GIUSEPPE CONTE, ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): It is not an easy decision. It is a painful decision to strengthen the regime of measures necessary for the upcoming holidays and to better protect ourselves.
ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): And in Austria, a third lockdown is set to start on December 26th. The government says residents can celebrate Christmas but must stay at home for New Year's Eve.
Sweden, a country that so far has resisted pandemic measures, will enforce its toughest measures yet, recommending face masks on crowded transport and, from December 24th, alcohol sales must end at 8 pm. Prime minister of Sweden Stefan Lofven pleading with the public to exercise caution.
STEFAN LOFVEN, SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Do not let there be an outbreak during Christmas, do not meet relatives over Christmas dinner, celebrate only with those closest to you.
ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): The question now is one of compliance.
Will people scrap holiday gatherings?
Or are these moves too little, too late, to contain the virus? Salma Abdelaziz, CNN London.
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COREN: U.S. officials say trucks carrying the new Moderna vaccine should start rolling out Sunday. That means Americans could start receiving the vaccine Monday. CNN's Pete Muntean spent the day Saturday watching preparations at a facility in Mississippi.
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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Moderna vaccine shipments start on Sunday and it all begins right here. This is a McKesson facility, that is the company distributing the vaccine for Moderna.
It's a bit of a strategic spot. We're not too far from Memphis;; that's the headquarters for FedEx. It and UPS will be shipping the vaccine to 3,000 locations across the country. This rollout about four times larger than the Pfizer rollout of last week. And Operation Warp Speed is actually apologizing to states that did not get as much vaccine as they originally hoped.
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GEN. GUSTAVE PEMA, COO, OPERATION WARP SPEED: It was my fault. I gave guidance. I am the one that approved the forecast sheets. I am the one who approved the allocations.
There is no problem with the process. There is no problem with the Pfizer vaccine. There is no problem with the Moderna vaccine. It was a planning error and I am responsible.
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MUNTEAN: Now the Moderna vaccine has a bit of an advantage over the Pfizer vaccine. It does not need to be as cold. In fact, a regular freezer works just fine for storing this version of the vaccine. Six million doses will go out on Sunday. And it all begins right here -- Pete Muntean, CNN, Olive Branch, Mississippi.
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COREN: With more than 1.8 million coronavirus cases and rising, California has a crisis on its hands. The state health department reported more than 43,000 new cases and over 270 deaths on Saturday. Things are particularly bad in Los Angeles County, which one doctor says is quickly becoming the pandemic's epicenter.
Hospitals are at breaking point, with thousands of patients who are sicker than ever. Another doctor tells us what he's seeing.
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DR. THOMAS YADEGAR, PROVIDENCE CEDARS-SINAI TARZANA MEDICAL CENTER: This is by far the worst that it's been in the past nine months. No matter how hard we try to get patients better, to stabilize them and hopefully we get patients home, it seems like there's another four patients who are sicker, waiting for that same bed.
Right now, we need L.A. to turn into a ghost town again, that's what we need, so that we can try to save as many people and heal as many souls.
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COREN: Well, two more health workers in Alaska have suffered adverse reactions to the Pfizer BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. A source from Alaska tells CNN it happened late last week.
We were told the reactions were mild and not life-threatening. That brings the total number of such reactions in that state to five. We previously reported that three other health care workers had allergic reactions after receiving their doses.
Israel is kicking off its coronavirus vaccination efforts. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first in the country to get the shot. He said he chose to do it on television to set a personal example.
He's urging Israelis to get vaccinated as soon as possible. The government has reported 372,000 cases and more than 3,000 deaths.
Elliott Gotkine joins us now from a hospital in Tel Aviv.
How are Israelis reacting to this vaccine?
ELLIOTT GOTKINE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I can tell you, certainly here at this hospital, health workers are celebrating that this vaccine is finally here. You can see them lining up behind me here, getting their jabs.
And this event began with the health care workers coming out and doctors and a deejay playing thumping music. It felt a bit like a bar mitzvah party. Of course, there is a serious message here. That is the vaccination campaign in Israel has well and truly began.
We fired the starting gun last night with Benjamin Netanyahu receiving the first of his two COVID jabs on live television. Afterwards, he spoke about it in somewhat grandiose terms.
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BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL (through translator): That was a small jab for a man, a huge step for the health of us all. May this be successful, go out and get vaccinated.
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GOTKINE: And there were two important reasons why Netanyahu was doing that. The first is to encourage as many Israelis as possible to go out and follow his example, to get vaccinated. I was speaking with the head of this hospital a short while ago, who
was formerly the coronavirus czar. He says they need 60 percent to 70 percent of Israelis to be vaccinated to get on top of things, similar to flu vaccinations.
They have about 4 million doses, enough for 4 million people, with more on the way. Another reason Netanyahu wanted to be seen is also political. He made himself the face of Israel's fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
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GOTKINE: That went well initially after the first lockdown. He received plaudits. When it didn't go well and the cases surged to some of the highest in the world on a per capita basis, he came in for quite a bit of criticism.
So he wants to be the face of what he hopes will be a successful rollout of the vaccine and the vaccination campaign, that he will get some more credit and that will boost his political fortunes.
And not a moment too soon, because s if the country didn't have enough on its plate, this week parliament is due to vote on a budget. And if that budget is not passed, the country will automatically go to elections, its fourth set of elections in the space of two years.
COREN: That would be quite something, wouldn't it?
Elliott Gotkine, joining us from Tel Aviv, we appreciate the update.
A White House meeting on the U.S. election takes a heated turn after desperate and dangerous ideas are floated to overturn the results.
Plus the U.S. president speaks for the first time about the suspected Russian cyberattack. But instead of blaming the Kremlin, he blames another country who may be involved.
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COREN: U.S. lawmakers say they're close to a deal for a COVID relief package. Senators had been deadlocked over how much power to allow the Federal Reserve under its emergency lending authority.
They reached a compromise late Saturday night. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says they can now go ahead with the remaining details. Meantime we are learning what president Donald Trump is looking for in his ways to hold onto power. Sources tell CNN there was a contentious meeting at the White House Friday, where staff argued over highly controversial ideas to overturn the elections. CNN's Jeremy Diamond has the details. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump isn't just publicly refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election; he is also, privately, still grasping for ideas and ways to possibly overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Sources tell CNN those ideas were floated during an Oval Office meeting that the president held on Friday, that grew heated and ugly at times, according to our sources, as two allies of the president pushed some really deranged ideas about overturning the results of the election.
Those two people are Sydney Powell, the attorney who is part of the president's legal team and who has been pushing these deranged conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, including suggesting that the deceased Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez, was behind rigging the 2020 election; as well as Michael Flynn, who is a client of Sydney Powell's and the former national security adviser, who pleaded guilty to counts of lying to federal investigators before he was ultimately pardoned by the president of the United States.
According to our sources, the president discussed the possibility of naming Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations in the 2020 election. He also discussed this idea, brought forward by Michael Flynn, just a few days ago.
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MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: He could order the -- within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and place them in those states and basically rerun an election in those states.
I mean, it's not unprecedented. These people out there talking about martial law like it's something we've never done. Martial law has been instituted 64 -- 64 times.
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DIAMOND: To be clear, there is no indication that the president will be imposing martial law in the United States in order to re-run the 2020 election, as Flynn suggested.
But, honestly, just the fact that this was an idea that was being discussed in the Oval Office, with the president of the United States, a president who's refusing to accept the results of a democratic election, certainly is alarming.
And it generated quite a bit of pushback from several of the president's advisers inside of the White House, including, we are told, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows as well as the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone.
Both of them really pushing back on some of these more outlandish ideas about overturning the results of the election. In fact, our sources tell us, at times this meeting devolved into quite a shouting match.
Now as the president is still hyping up these claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, trying to overturn the results of a democratic election, he is also downplaying an attack on the U.S. government.
This cyberattack that U.S. government officials believed was conducted by Russian intelligence services, the president, tweeting, on Saturday, that the cyber hack is far greater in the fake news media than in actuality. He goes on to say, while Russia is the priority whenever something happens, he says he is also discussing the possibility that it could be China that was behind the attack.
That notion has been really pushed back on by members of the president's own administration. In fact, it was the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who, on Friday, said it was very likely that Russia was, indeed, behind this attack.
We are told that White House officials were drafting a statement on Friday to ascribe blame for the cyber hack to Russia. Now it seems, we know why that statement, ultimately, was not released -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.
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COREN: Well, CNN National Security Analyst, Samantha Vinograd joins us now from New York.
Samantha, let's begin with the apparent Russian hack, the largest hack in American history, which, we should point out, is still ongoing. Tell us about the scale of this attack and what is at threat.
SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: We do not yet know the full scale of this attack. There is no ability to do damage control until the U.S. government understands the entire scope of the damage.
At this point, despite what President Trump says, these attacks are still ongoing. This means the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and Director of National Intelligence are working to identify the full scale and scope of compromise entities.
In terms of what Russia got from this operation, we know, at minimum, that Putin scored major PR points once this attack became public.
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VINOGRAD: The world now knows that U.S. cyber defenses were not able to accurately detect and avert this attack. The world now knows that our intelligence community did not detect this attack in its planning and execution stages.
That is a huge victory for Putin, because he has been peddling the narrative that the U.S. is weak. In terms of what else Russia got, Anna, it certainly appears that they were able to monitor, at a minimum, U.S. government email communications on an unclassified server. That's a big intelligence advantage. If they had access to
unclassified email addresses, they could use those in future phishing operations, for example. We don't know if they were able to go in and disrupt any operations. And fully assessing the scale of the damage will take months, if not years.
COREN: This is believed to have begun back in March but was only detected a few weeks ago. You have described this as a failure of epic proportions.
What does it say about America 's national security apparatus?
VINOGRAD: Certainly, it says that the perpetrators of this attack, believed to be the Russia Cozy Bear group or Advanced Persistent Threat 29, which is deeply tied to the Russian external intelligence service, the SDR, is highly advanced and sophisticated capabilities that were able to trick U.S. cyber defenses and avoid detection by the U.S. intelligence community.
Russia is a sophisticated adversary and, this time around, whether it's because we were distracted, focused on other priorities like securing our elections and COVID-19 or whether because they are just better than us at this juncture, it is clear that Russia is a serious adversary and needs to be confronted with a really well-informed strategy.
That is something that President Trump has never been capable of but which I think President-Elect Biden is working on as we speak.
COREN: What is to say that there are other hacks, undetected, taking place as we speak?
VINOGRAD: Well, that certainly can be the case. We do know that this Russian attack is ongoing so we don't know who else is being compromised as we speak. But this whole episode really bolsters the case for passing a key piece of legislation in the United States, the National Defense Authorization Act.
Trump is threatening to veto this act and it's currently sitting on his desk. That legislation, NDAA, would give U.S. authorities the ability to go in and hunt for hacks. They don't currently have that authorization.
That could be critically important in identifying other hacks at an earlier point rather than learning about them from a private security firm, as we did with this Russian hack. I think that would be a very helpful step into trying to weed out other intrusions into our most private places.
COREN: Let's pivot to the inner workings of the White House and those reports of a screaming match breaking out in the Oval Office among Trump aides and lawyer Sydney Powell and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
What more are you learning? VINOGRAD: Well, just from reading the headlines, which, frankly, this all sounds like something out of Page 6, it certainly seems like the wheels are coming off. Trump is surrounding himself with sycophants who are frankly spouting nonsense. We're learning that aides are increasingly alarmed about Trump's behavior.
Yet they're not quitting, they're just speaking with reporters. It is likely that President Trump will continue to rant and rave until he's kicked out of the Oval Office on January 20th.
But at this point, everything seems to be on track for the next President of the United States to be sworn in on January 20th. And we have to keep an eye out for what damage Trump does between now and then.
But writ large, I think we have to put these rantings and ravings in context and focus instead on the peaceful transfer of power, which seems to be mostly going forward.
COREN: Samantha Vinograd, great to see you, appreciate your time. Thanks so much.
VINOGRAD: Thank you.
COREN: Coronavirus vaccines are coming to Europe. Just ahead, we'll see what health experts are doing to convince the skeptics to get their shots.
Plus, President-Elect Joe Biden's latest round of cabinet picks. The diverse team he wants to help him tackle the climate crisis.
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COREN: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Anna Coren.
The first vaccinations are just over a week away in many parts of Europe. But countries across the continent are finding skepticism from those who are not sure if they want to get the shot. CNN's Melissa Bell reports from Paris.
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MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With infection rates in France and other European countries out of control, hope is just around the corner. With the E.U. to start its vaccination campaign on December 27th, but it may not be that easy.
ARANCHA GONZALEZ LAYA, SPANISH FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, I think vaccination is a question of trust and this is why in Spain we are spending a lot of time and energy, building trust with the citizens.
BELL (voice-over): Hence the TV campaign to convince the reluctant, with polls showing only 41 percent of Spaniards intending to get the vaccine.
In Italy, the figure is just 52 percent. Authorities there going with a primrose-based commercial matched by primrose-shaped pavilions to attract people to where the vaccines will be dispensed.
BELL: Experts say that 70 percent of the population need either to have recovered from infection or to have been vaccinated for herd immunity to kick in. Now as of earlier this month, only 1 in 2 people here in France said they were willing to get the vaccine and that's something that's repeated across the European Union.
In fact, Europeans were the most vaccine skeptical on Earth before the pandemic and the pandemic doesn't seem to have changed that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It has crystallized because made worse for the tensions between people. People are afraid and, when you are afraid, most of the time you get quite extremist.
BELL (voice-over): Across Europe, skepticism not only of vaccines but of governments, encouraged these last few months by populist and far- right parties, also by mistakes made by several governments early on in the pandemic.
DOMENICO ARCURI, ITALIAN CORONAVIRUS COMMISSIONER: At the beginning of this year, all of us didn't know nothing about the virus.
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ARCURI: After some months, we are fully in power.
BELL (voice-over): But even because though the vaccines that will soon be available in Europe have been tested, found to be safe and effective, skepticism goes deeper than you might think.
JEREMY WARD, SOCIOLOGIST: There's something that we tend to forget is that doctors are actually not so different from the general public and lots of them are hesitant.
BELL (voice-over): It's Europe's moment, tweeted the president of the European Commission on Thursday, to announce the beginning of the European Union's vaccination campaign. From December 27th, the first Europeans will get vaccinated.
The question is, how many people will choose to do so -- Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
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COREN: One third of African Americans are hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine. That's according to a recent study. The nation's public health leaders are trying to shift that thinking but they're up against history and the government's role in fostering vaccine mistrust.
The nation's surgeon general, who is African American, was vaccinated on Friday. But he says he understands the fear and reluctance.
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DR. JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: To truly promote confidence in these vaccines, we must start by acknowledging this history of mistreatment and exploitation of minorities by the medical community and the government.
But then we need to explain and demonstrate all that has been done to correct and address these wrongs.
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COREN: Ronald Peters is the chairman of the Alpha Phi Alpha's COVID-19 international task force. He joins us now from Texas.
Ronald, great to have you with us. There is deep mistrust in vaccines among the African American community, roughly one in 3 are apprehensive about taking the COVID-19 vaccine.
Why is this?
Give us a bit of the backstory please.
RONALD PETERS, ALPHA PHI ALPHA'S COVID-19 INTERNATIONAL TASK FORCE: This is a cause-and-effect relationship to everything. So they're trying to get us to get a vaccine but the reality is that this didn't start a couple of years ago.
This started since the antebellum period, since we came off of the boats. When you look at what was done to us -- they call it Darwinism -- where you have one race that's superior intellectually as well as some of the things that they did to us during that time, as slaves, using our ancestors for medical projects, looking at the different organs and teaching medical students off of our ancestors.
Native Americans and most importantly poor people of all races, it's so sad that now they say, hey, we should trust when the country has an unbroken history of eugenics.
COREN: I want to ask you about the Tuskegee experiment. That study began in the 1930s. That has obviously been ingrained into the Black community throughout the generations. Remind us about that study and how damaging it was.
PETERS: Like I said, there are so many studies but that's the one that really sticks out because it went through 1972. I was born then. It's not like it went on back in slavery. This is when you had the O'Jays and the Ohio Players, the music that we listen to now.
SO when you list look at, unfortunately people getting a pill, a placebo pill for a syphilis study, because they want to see the degenerative effects of syphilis on a brain. And you have three different stages of the syphilis, where a person can lose their mind during the third stage and they just want to examine us, knowingly not giving us the treatment.
These are the kinds of things that we are dealing with now with this vaccine. Here we have six vaccines. They just say, take the vaccine. That's like telling someone to eat a steak but you don't want cube steak no more. You want filet mignon. You want the best treatment you can get.
So it's not just the vaccine. We don't want the one that doesn't have the most efficacious use for us as a race. But for the poor people and for all people most importantly.
COREN: Ronald, how do the authorities, the big pharmaceuticals, how do they gain people's trust?
PETERS: Well, number one, we have had a very segregated, stratified experience, most of us, sadly, in the world, with race and culture. And the way to gain our trust is, number one, to give us the information on all of the vaccines. And not just take a vaccine.
But we have to assess them with people who are from our cultures, people who are from our communities, to make sure that they are efficacious. We have been stratified by race.
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PETERS: We have the National Medical Association, which is a group of African Americans from all different disciplines of medicine, virologists, who can look at this information.
COREN: The U.S. surgeon general Jerome Adams, obviously African American, he had the vaccine on live TV.
Do more people like him, high-profile Black Americans, need to be out there, advocating the safety of this vaccine?
PETERS: Well, yes, let me be very clear. We want the vaccine. But again, America has six different contracts. You have Moderna, Pfizer, which is efficacious.
But what about the other studies?
Are we going to get the ones that haven't been proven yet, that are less efficacious?
Are the poor people going to get that?
Those of the things that I want to assess. So before we go ahead and say we want the vaccine, we have to have people from the community, virologists from our community, from the National Medical Association, to assess the efficacy of all of the vaccines, instead of just saying, hey, take the vaccine, because, of course, that's the one that's 95 percent efficacious. But what about the others that are going to come in the following
weeks?
COREN: Ronald Peters, we appreciate your time, thank you so much for sharing it.
PETERS: Well, we appreciate you and, on behalf of my general president Alpha Phi, Alpha, that would be Dr. Edward Ward, we appreciate the time.
COREN: Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, a husband died from coronavirus. But before his passing, he wrote her one final love letter. We speak to her after this.
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COREN: On Thanksgiving Day, Billy Laredo checked into a Texas hospital with COVID-19.
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COREN: For two weeks, he struggled to breathe but continued to battle. As his condition went from bad to worse, he wrote his wife a love letter.
"If I don't make it, I want you to know that I lived a happy, wonderful life with you and would never have traded it for all the riches in the world. I also want you to be happy and continue to live your life without me with no regrets.
"We had our time and it was wonderful. I love you and miss you very much. I will keep fighting. Love, Billy."
Sadly a week ago today, Billy lost his battle with coronavirus and left his wife, Sonya Kypuros, behind. Sonya joins us from Dallas on a very emotional day. She laid her beloved Billy to rest just a few hours ago.
Sonya, firstly, our deepest sympathies and respects. We are so sorry for your loss. Tell me about what you went through today and what you've gone through these last few months.
SONYA KYPUROS, COVID-19 WIDOW: It has been very difficult because Billy and I both tested positive on the 16th of November. Initially, I had no symptoms but initially I just thought Billy had a mild version of it.
For the first week, he was doing fine, with mild symptoms. But then, suddenly things changed really overnight. That was Thanksgiving morning in the middle of the night.
It's just been difficult since. I tried really hard to fight for Billy. I wasn't able to be there and be by his side the entire time, so that was even more excruciating.
Usually when your loved one is in the hospital, you are able to be by their bedside and that just made it even more difficult for me that I couldn't hold his hand, that I couldn't motivate him, that I could only text him and FaceTime him occasionally, because he was just so exhausted to be able to even talk with me and communicate with me at times.
So a lot of my communication was communicating with the nurses and the doctors when he couldn't communicate. So I was trying to advocate strongly for my husband, when could text me and tell me his concerns.
COREN: I can only imagine, Sonya, what you have been through and not to be able to be there and hold his hand and comfort him. Sonya, he was only 45 years old, that is relatively young. He clearly was a fighter. He said he was fighting every single day and he had so much to live for.
When did he write this letter to you?
KYPUROS: He wrote it about maybe 3 or 4 days before he actually got intubated. Billy always would leave me little notes, bring me flowers, so it did not surprise me that he wrote the letter.
I think it was just devastating when he said in the latter part of the letter, that he wrote when he was saying that, if I don't make this is what I need for you to know about how much I care about you. And that was his --
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COREN: Tell me -- tell me how you felt when you read that letter for the first time.
KYPUROS: Honestly, I felt hopeless because it was really kind of acknowledging that my husband might not ever come back and see me. And that was just difficult for me to accept.
COREN: Sonya, he said that you were the most important person in his life and that, if he survived, he wanted to be a better man and a better husband. Tell us about your husband, Billy.
KYPUROS: Billy didn't have to be a better man or a better husband because Billy was -- he was a magnificent man. And many people, not just myself, loved him, everybody who I have ever known who has known my husband.
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KYPUROS: People that I would come into contact with, who I had never met, would always communicate how much they loved Billy. And I entirely understand and identify that amount of love that they experienced because I felt that when I met him 21 years ago.
So he was -- I think that makes it even more difficult because he didn't have to -- I never doubted my love for Billy. Billy showed me in countless ways and he truly was a man of honor, a man of love, loved by many.
And I think that's -- I know everybody is struggling right now because many people are lost. But he was just one of those great people that you come across in your lifetime, that you just think, not him. His life should not have been taken.
COREN: He sounds like a remarkable person.
Sonya, when did you realize that Billy was not coming home?
KYPUROS: I think, honestly, I think a couple -- I think maybe the next day after they had intubated him. Billy, before he died, had actually coded two times and they had revived him. They spent about an hour and they had revived him.
And at that point, I was mostly hopeful because I was just afraid to be entirely hopeful. I was afraid that God was just kind of messing with me. And I guess he was.
So I think, at that point, when he had coded and he had come back, I wanted to believe that he came back for a purpose and that purpose was maybe to spread the news of, hey, look, we got to take COVID seriously. I just thought we were going to do that alive together. I didn't think his message was going to come at the sake of his death.
COREN: Sonya, this pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 300,000 Americans, including your husband. And despite the emergence of two vaccines, health experts say hundreds of thousands more Americans will die.
What is your message to anyone who is listening to this?
KYPUROS: I think you cannot be negligent and you need to be extremely mindful and careful about just being precautious and taking all the necessary measures that I thought we took.
But we are all human and I think sometimes we just become comfortable or just -- and we are not used to be it being so hypervigilant of ourselves when we are sick. And this pandemic is requiring us to do exactly that, be extremely hypervigilant to not only take care of yourself but, more importantly, to take care of somebody else that you love, the you don't know how their body -- because I don't just feel it's about pre-existing conditions because my Billy had none.
So you just need to be vigilant about -- that this could harm somebody else and you don't know how their body is going to respond to this virus.
COREN: Sonya, how would you like people to remember Billy?
KYPUROS: Remember that he was larger than life, magnificent man who loved everybody and who made everybody feel loved. That was my Billy.
COREN: Sonya, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us, for sharing your story, your heartache, your pain and your message. Our hearts go out to you and your family. [02:50:00]
COREN: Thank you.
KYPUROS: Thank you.
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COREN: Well, back-to-back hurricanes devastated Central America in November, affecting more than 5 million people. Hurricanes made landfall in Nicaragua, one of the hardest hit countries. As CNN's Rafael Romo reports, that's causing a major food shortage for thousands of people.
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RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice-over): What's left is on the ground or destroyed. As thousands of farmers were getting ready for harvest season in rural Nicaragua, not one but two powerful hurricanes ravaged the region in November, flooding fields and ruining crops.
"The rains washed away our crops," this farmer says.
"It destroyed our irrigation systems and our hearts. Now we don't even have the drive to go on."
Olivia Gomez says that, since there were two hurricanes in the span of two weeks, farmers like her didn't even have the time to recover. Mudslides covered about half of her 6-hectare field, where she had sown beans.
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ROMO (voice-over): Now she wonders if she will make ends meet.
"I prayed to God there's a little left for us to eat," she says. "We are 6 people at home, we had dreams but our hope is gone."
The situation is even worth on Nicaragua's northern Caribbean coast, where both back-to-back hurricanes made landfall. Farmer Jeffy Odal Blanco, whose farm is located 28 miles north of the port of Puerto Cabezas, says he lost all of his crops of yucca and plantains.
"Everything has been damaged," he tells us, as he shows what's left of a yucca plant torn off the ground. He says he has no seed left and, even if he did, he would have to wait 7-8 months for the next harvest. Last month the Nicaraguan government estimated both hurricanes caused more than $742 million in damage and economic losses.
Miguel Barreto, regional director of the World Food Programme, says 260,000 people were affected by the hurricanes and 95,000 of them don't have enough to eat. The hurricanes not only destroyed their homes but also the farms they owned and their ability to make a living, Barreto said.
The World Food Programme calls Nicaragua a low-income food deficit country and one of the poorest in Latin America; seven out of 10 Nicaraguans work in agriculture, according to the WFP and almost 30 percent of the families in the country live in poverty.
In the aftermath of the hurricanes, the World Food Programme delivered more than 220 metric tons of food to the hardest-hit areas. Last week, there was another 35-ton food shipment to the so-called mining triangle in northern Nicaragua, according to the government.
For farmers like Flores and Gomez, the help is welcome but the need doesn't end there. Their only hope is that next year's harvest will allow them to not only pay their farming loans but also feed their families -- Rafael Romo, CNN.
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COREN: Well, thanks so much for your company. I'm Anna Coren. My colleague, Kim Brunhuber, has more of CNN NEWSROOM in just a moment.
