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U.K. Officials Identify New COVID-19 Variant; Moderna Vaccine Set For U.S. Distribution; Parts Of Europe Enforce Strict Holiday Measures; White House Discusses Overturning Election; U.S. Lawmakers Closing COVID-19 Relief Deal; COVID-19 Surge In California; Israel Starts Vaccination Drive; Mexican Medical Supply Workers Worry About COVID-19 Risk; U.K. And E.U. Facing Brexit Trade Deadline. Aired 4-5a ET

Aired December 20, 2020 - 04:00   ET

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

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Welcome to all of you, everyone watching in the United States and around the world. Coming up --

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BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: It is with a heavy heart I must tell you we cannot continue with Christmas as planned.

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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Christmas gatherings are cancelled in parts of the U.K. Medical researchers identify a new strain of the coronavirus.

Plus a second COVID vaccine is likely just hours from release here in the U.S. We'll bring you the plans for the rollout.

And millions of Americans are struggling. But there's new hope at this hour the Congress will reach a COVID relief deal.

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BRUNHUBER: The final authorization of Moderna's COVID vaccine is expected any time. It will be the second time in a week that the CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield has signed off on a new vaccine.

Earlier on Saturday a CDC panel recommended the Moderna vaccine for Americans 18 and older. It says at least 272,000 Americans have received their first shot of the Pfizer BioNTech drug since it was distributed last week.

Unlike the Moderna vaccine, this one is authorized for people as young as 16. But the vaccines are arriving as new U.S. cases have approached a quarter million people in a single day and almost 200,000 on Saturday.

The head of Operation Warp Speed, the government's vaccine initiative, says about 6 million doses of the Moderna vaccine are ready to ship today. That means the first shots could be administered as soon as Monday. CNN's Pete Muntean is outside a shipping facility outside Memphis, Tennessee.

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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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BRUNHUBER: In the U.K., a new disturbing development prompted prime minister Boris Johnson to cancel his plan to ease restrictions for Christmas. Instead he announced strict tier 4 guidelines for large parts of Southern and Eastern England on Saturday.

The new measures will affect more than 16 million people, including those living in London.

This comes after British scientists detected a new variant of the coronavirus. It appears to spread more easily and may be harder to detect. But England's chief medical officer notes there's no evidence so far that indicates this strain is deadlier or affects vaccines and treatments. But the discovery is raising alarm in other European countries.

Within hours of the announcement, Netherlands banned all flights from the U.K. starting today. For more, Salma Abdelaziz is in London.

It seemed like a few days ago the prime minister was mocking the opposition for urging him to forget about easing restrictions. He was making fun of them for wanting to cancel Christmas. And now here we are. Tell us about these restrictions.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: You're right. This is something the prime minister really did not want to do. He did stand in Parliament Wednesday and said, I'm not going to criminalize Christmas.

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ABDELAZIZ: But the fact is that the authorities, in the last 48 hours, three days, they've been looking at some worrying figures and data and it's all about the new variant you mentioned of coronavirus that the authorities here say is much more transmissible, it is common in London and southeast of England.

And it's driven the spread and driven the last-minute decision to put these tough new measures into place. Take a listen to what the prime minister said about this variant.

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JOHNSON: There's no evidence that it causes more severe illness or higher mortality. But it does appear to be passed on significantly more easily. Nerve tags (ph) early analysis suggests it could increase the R by 0.4 or more.

And although there's considerable uncertainty, it may be up to 70 percent more transmissible than the old variant of disease.

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ABDELAZIZ: There's two numbers to pay attention to: the first, the "up to 70 percent more transmissible." That's concerning. That's high. Up to 70 percent more transmissible and crucially -- and this is the part that really scared the scientists and the authorities. The R number, this is a critical piece of data that essentially tells us how quickly the virus spreads, how many people one person who is infected will then in turn infect themselves.

What the prime minister said there is it could increase that R number, increase that R number by 0.4. That's a very significant increase. So you are looking at potentially this variant that could spread faster and, as it spreads faster, that becomes exponential.

That's why they've put the new restrictions into place; tier 4 rules went into effect this morning. So when the prime minister announced it, it was just a matter of hours. That's why you saw people scrambling toward the train station. Tier 4 rules are like a lockdown.

People must stay at home and work from home and, crucially, all travel is banned. Also a special relaxation of rules that had been set for Christmas time for five days are cancelled. Dramatic U-turn here to deal with this new variant and the spike that's been caused by it.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Thank you so much, Salma Abdelaziz from London.

All right. Let's bring in Sterghios Moschos, an associate professor of molecular virology.

I want to start with the new strain. Viruses mutate all the time. I believe there's already been several variants of COVID. But when I hear the new variant in the U.K. is 70 percent more transmissible, when COVID seems already easy to spread, it worries me.

STERGHIOS MOSCHOS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MOLECULAR VIROLOGY, NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY: And rightly worries you. If all other things are equal between the two variants, including hospitalization, damage to organs, et cetera, then this is bound to increase the number of people that will end up in hospital and it will increase the number of people who will die out of it.

Because it gets out there more effectively. We need to stress that it's a little difficult to take apart how exactly this has taken over and whether or not it is indeed more transmissible. We need to do experiments to confirm that before we can say it 100 percent. And those things take days, if not weeks, to execute.

But we are at a stage now, a year into this dreadful pandemic where we know we can't like things pan out and hope for luck. We have to act on the precautionary principle.

On those grounds alone, it's worthwhile, unfortunately and it hurts me because I had plans for Christmas. But unfortunately, we have to stop the mass movement of people because if this thing is transmitting more efficiently, we're going to explode up the R number, up to 3.5.

And that will be a massive, massive increase in the transmission. The consequences early in the new year will be brutal if we don't do anything.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. I want to get back to Christmas later. On what you said, so emphasize it, this variant isn't necessarily more deadly. But more people might die because of it. I'm just wondering, with the flu vaccine, the efficacy waxes and wanes, depending on the mutations, that season, sometimes its efficacy dips to less than 50 percent, depending on how well it's matched.

Would we see similar implications for the efficacy of the COVID vaccines?

MOSCHOS: So this strain, as well as another strain that's in South Africa, are a little concerning. They've got more than just one mutation on the spike protein. These things tend to come in groups.

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MOSCHOS: If you've got too many differences, then the vaccine has a higher chance of not working anymore. But there's no such thing as a yardstick.

It's something that we have to determine experimentally. The precautionary principle applies. We've seen what happens if we just let things be. These things take over. They overcome our defenses, if you'd like. And they put economy and society at risk. So the right thing to do right now is to contain, at least the U.K.

variant in the U.K. and in the parts of the U.K. where it's spread out, and do correctly now, this time around, what we didn't do correctly in February, allow the original version of COVID to spread like wildfire through the country.

BRUNHUBER: To stop that, so many countries, England, Italy and so on, they're enacting the Christmas lockdowns. Here we've been encouraged to cancel Christmas but if Thanksgiving is any indication, that's not going to happen. We're sort of being left to our own good judgment.

Is that a mistake?

MOSCHOS: There are many cultural differences that define what the outcomes are. And unfortunately, there is -- one can argue that in the United States, there's a lot of talk around mask denialism and vaccine denialism and there's no COVID and all this nonsense.

Unfortunately, my personal view is that there is a substantial risk to the society, to the U.S. society if the heartfelt requests from health care professionals and those associated to health care like myself is not listened to.

The moment the ICU units fill up -- and the U.S. is in a really bad situation right now -- the moment the ICU units fill up, that's it. People will die in the corridors and ambulances.

Is that what we want for a couple of days of eating a lot and being all together not to see people again?

That's the concern really. We really need to think about what is most important, our loved ones or a piece of turkey.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, absolutely. Well said and hopefully people will heed that warning. Thank you for being with us, Professor. Always appreciate it.

MOSCHOS: You're welcome.

BRUNHUBER: The U.S. Congress appears close to approving a new round of economic relief and stimulus checks could go out soon to millions of struggling Americans. But it's not a done deal yet. We'll have the details just ahead.

And the U.S. president throws cold water on suggestions from his own top officials that Russia was behind a massive cyberattack on federal agencies. I'll have that story after the break. Stay with us.

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(MUSIC PLAYING) BRUNHUBER: This is a live shot of Capitol Hill. Now we're looking at

it because we're keeping close tabs on the situation. After months of stalemate, U.S. lawmakers appear close to a deal for a new COVID relief package. Minority leader Chuck Schumer said both houses could vote today.

A last-minute snag was worked out over the Federal Reserve's emergency lending authority. Senate leader Mitch McConnell says lawmakers can finally nail down the remaining details of the $900 billion measure. Cash payments of about $600 a person are expected to be part of the final legislation.

We get the latest from CNN's Manu Raju on Capitol Hill.

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MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Congress is running up against a Sunday deadline to fund the government. By 11:59 pm Sunday night, if no deal is reached, then the government will down heading into Monday, because now government funding is tied to this $900 billion COVID relief package because the leadership wants to tie the two issues together.

But if they don't get a deal on either, both collapse, we'll be headed into government shutdown come Monday. All major questions remain. So much is riding on this $900 billion package for COVID relief, including unemployment benefits. People are seeing those dry up in a matter of days.

There's $600 for individuals under a certain income threshold, money for schools, over $80 billion for schools and education, providers, as well as money for vaccine distribution. So much, so critical at this moment.

Can they get there, can they get it passed?

Big questions remain as we head into a pivotal moment on Capitol Hill -- Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

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BRUNHUBER: And we're learning that President Trump is still looking for ways to hold on to power. Sources tell CNN there was a fiery meeting at the White House Friday as the president desperately seeks a way to stay in office. CNN's Jeremy Diamond has details.

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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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BRUNHUBER: For more on all of this, let's bring in our next guest, professor of international politics at City University and a visiting professor at London School of Economics. Inderjeet Parmar joins me now from London.

Thank you for being with us. I want to start with the hacking attack. President Trump says no big deal. Probably wasn't Russia. Might have been China. It seems his administration won't be punishing Russia and he's happy to hand this mess off to Joe Biden.

INDERJEET PARMAR, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, CITY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON: Well, I think President Trump has long admired Vladimir Putin and I think has admired the kind of powers he exercises at home. And he's been reluctant, if at all ever, to criticize anything that Russia might do. Although, it's clear we're not fully sure what the intelligence is at the moment on this particular hack.

But we always know President Trump has his own personal interests. I think there are some business interests and nuclear power program building in the Gulf states, which the Elijah Cummings House Oversight and Reform Committee was looking at.

And there's also a kind of broader division among the kind of foreign policy establishment about whether Russia is a greater threat to the U.S. and West or it's China. And I think President Trump has always erred on the side of China.

And I think that is going to -- that balance, if you like, has always been contested throughout this presidency.

BRUNHUBER: So then how will President Biden have to deal with this when he takes office?

PARMAR: He's basically -- I think their strategy is that Russia and China are equally threatening in different kinds of ways. And China is a power with which to more closely engage at the global level as well as the economic recovery.

On climate change and so on. But the way to contain and engage China at the same time is through an alliance with the European Union and other Western allies and build a Trans-Pacific Partnership sort of institution to, if you like, to contain China that way and maybe to integrate China more.

But it's an alliance between the E.U. and the U.S. rather than a unilateral type program, of the type President Trump handled.

BRUNHUBER: The COVID relief deal. It seems a deal is pretty much done. It hinged on the Republican plan to limit the Federal Reserve's ability to intervene in the U.S. economy.

Did the Democrats cave?

After all, it wasn't really even on the table initially and Republicans seem to have got some major concessions here.

PARMAR: Yes. It does seem to be that the Democrats have caved, I think, on this question.

[04:25:00]

PARMAR: They basically have given up the power of the Federal Reserve to have emergency powers from about March this year under the CARES Act in order to give money to relief to small businesses, to cities and states and so on in order to stimulate the economy in a state of crisis.

And that kind of curbing of Democratic governmental power means that they actually have far less room for maneuver. And I think it tells us something really big going forward.

That is working people's conditions are less important than the power of the Republican Party to contain the government when they're out of office in order that ordinary people don't get as much relief, because the Democratic Party, of course, has constituencies among poor and working people at a greater level than the GOP.

So I think the Senate and Republicans generally are going to really keep a tight grip on that and make sure that money -- continues to go to Wall Street type interests but not to ordinary people's interest and maybe force them back to work as early as possible through low benefits.

BRUNHUBER: Now President Trump hasn't been engaged in any of this. He's been too busy trying to stay in office. The fact that people around the president have been reportedly discussing martial law, it seems incredible.

I covered an election after an African civil war; the ruling party there lost. And as far as I know, no one in that administration was floating martial law.

What's going on here?

It's hard to imagine.

PARMAR: Well, it shouldn't be too hard to imagine. President Trump has said for a long time that any result which -- of the election which ends in his defeat is fraudulent and stolen. He even complained about the 2016 election results, actually, when he

lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million. His argument is he deserves to stay in power for a very long time and anybody who takes it away is stealing the election. So it's an authoritarian turn.

What's really important is, what is the response of the Republican Party leadership?

Did they call him out early?

Or have they allowed him to normalize the language of martial law and overturning a democratic election when all the machinery of the government has said it's the most secure election in history?

I think the Democrats have been quiet on that front as well. And what that suggests to me, which is worrying going forward, is there's a normalization of an authoritarian top-down government which I think wasn't there as strongly as before but has been normalized the last few years and may well auger a continued kind of a tendency in American government.

And I think the fallout of COVID and the economic -- resistance to the economic effects of that could well be connected with this broader authoritarian turn as well. So I think it looks worrying going forward.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. You have to be seen whether any of this does lasting damage after Trump leaves the White House. Listen, thank you so much for joining us, Professor Inderjeet Parmar. Appreciate it as always.

PARMAR: Thank you very much.

BRUNHUBER: A second vaccine to battle the coronavirus. Now mere hours away from being distributed to thousands of locations across the U.S. The only thing left is for the CDC to give the go-ahead.

And Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets a shot in the arm, hoping to encourage all Israelis to do the same. We'll take you to Tel Aviv for Israel's vaccine rollout. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you, everyone watching in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

Final authorization of Moderna's COVID vaccine is expected at any time. It's the second time in a week the Dr. Robert Redfield has signed off on a vaccine. Earlier a CDC panel recommended the Moderna vaccine for Americans 18 and older. But the vaccines are arriving as new cases approach a quarter million people in single day.

The death toll keeps soaring. About 16,000 Americans have died of the disease since last Monday.

With more than 1.8 million coronavirus cases and rising, California is facing a severe coronavirus crisis. The state's health department reported more than 43,000 new cases just on Saturday. Things are particularly bad in Los Angeles County. One doctor says it's quickly becoming the pandemic's epicenter.

CNN's Paul Vercammen is in Los Angeles with the distressing details.

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PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Doctors, nurses here in California battle weary because 43,000 new cases announced, 272 deaths. And then the hospitalizations at about 18,000, 3,500 of them in the ICU.

When the head of the unit here in Tarzana started a shift at 2:00 am, he walked into a perfect storm of COVID-19 infections.

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DR. THOMAS YADEGAR, ICU DIRECTOR, PROVIDENCE CEDARS-SINAI TARZANA MEDICAL CENTER: I had a patient this past week who waited too long.

And I asked, why are you not coming in earlier?

And it broke my heart. But what he said was, I didn't want to take someone else's bed. I didn't want to take someone else's bed. I thought that someone is going to be sicker and needed it more.

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VERCAMMEN: So as the death toll rises and so does the number of people in the ICUs, the doctors, nurses, physician's assistants, so many others are playing a role in trying to get the sick in touch with their relatives.

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SARA TROYER, NURSING ASSISTANT, KECK USC SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Until you have to go through talking to someone's family and telling them that we have to take these extra steps because they're not getting any better or people calling their family and telling them they're about to get intubated because they're not getting any better, it's a feeling that's indescribable, indescribable. And it's so sad.

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VERCAMMEN: And so as the pandemic rages on in California, what's the solution?

Dr. Yadegar here says he thinks that Los Angeles needs to go back to being a ghost town, meaning people need to stay at home.

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BRUNHUBER: Israel is kicking off its coronavirus vaccine efforts. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first in the country to get the shot. He says he chose to do it on live TV to set a personal example. He's urging Israelis to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

The country has reported more than 373,000 cases and more than 3,000 deaths and already has locked down twice. Elliott Gotkine joins us now from a hospital in Tel Aviv now.

I can see behind you there plenty of action.

[04:35:00]

BRUNHUBER: How is the rollout being received?

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's going very smoothly here at this hospital. They've been lining up pretty much for the last four hours or so to receive their vaccines.

In fact, it started off with kind of big beats from music, a deejay leading hospital workers, who were dancing out on the floor. Then they got on with serious business of launching this vaccination campaign in earnest.

We saw the finance minister, a former chief rabbi, the head of the hospital, a former coronavirus czar, also receiving their vaccines. As you say, the prime minister received his vaccine on live TV last night and described it almost in terms of a significance almost akin to the lunar landings.

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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 Netanyahu doing this on live TV to set an example, to get Israelis to follow his lead and get vaccinated but also to try to be the face of what he hopes will be a successful rollout of the vaccine so he can boost his political fortunes and of what could be a fourth election in the space of two years in the first part of 2021.

BRUNHUBER: What about the Palestinians living under Israeli control?

When might they get the vaccine?

GOTKINE: They're not part of the Israeli vaccination campaign. And actually, even if they were able to get access to the Pfizer vaccine, they only have one refrigeration unit in Jericho capable of keeping the vaccine at the temperatures that are required.

So what they're hoping to do is be a part of this World Health Organization rollout under the auspices of an organization called COVAX, which is aiming to help poorer countries vaccinate up to 20 percent of their population.

There are also reports on the Palestinian news agency that they may try to get hold of the Russian vaccine as well. For now, the Palestinians are not a part of this vaccination campaign that's now rolling out across Israel.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Elliott Gotkine, thank you so much from Tel Aviv.

Well, throughout the pandemic we've been sharing stories about the world's frontline workers. In Mexico, there are factory workers who make some of the essential products and supplies that doctors need to save lives.

But now some Mexicans say they feel like they're putting themselves at risk to keep others safe. CNN's Matt Rivers has their story.

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MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Medical supplies, now more than ever, essential products, though some are not made in the U.S. but here, south of the border wall in Tijuana, Mexico.

There, a sprawling landscape of factories called maquiladoras employ hundreds of thousands of Mexicans in low-wage jobs. They make billions of dollars' worth of U.S.-bound exports each year, including medical supplies.

RIVERS: Mucho gusto. (Speaking Spanish).

RIVERS (voice-over): Maria Elena has a job making oxygen level readers in a factory she doesn't want to name publicly. She got sick in early November.

"My son was crying outside the clinic, waiting for news," she says, tearing up as she remembers the post-diagnosis moment.

"It was horrible."

Maria Elena recovered from COVID-19. She thinks she got it at the factory, though she's adamant that the factory follows COVID safety protocols. Some of her colleagues were not so lucky.

She says, "They gave us some stats and told us 12 people have died of COVID."

Multiple co-workers confirmed that number to CNN, though the company didn't respond to our questions. For decades, workers have said poor labor conditions in the maquiladoras are rampant and some workers say a pandemic has only made things worse.

The next day, we hide this worker's identity because what she has to say about her employer, another factory making U.S.-bound medical supplies, could get her fired.

RIVERS: De que los jefes -- RIVERS (voice-over): We asked, "Do you think the bosses care more about health or production?"

"Definitely the production, no doubt," she says, "we're nothing but pawns."

She says her work environment is cramped, no social distancing, limited mask wearing, bosses indifferent to employee health.

She says, "We were all in close contact with some colleagues who just got COVID and were still working. Now the janitor is sick, coughing, and the bosses know it but she's still working, too."

To start, base annual salaries are often less than $4,000 a year here. And sick or not, if workers don't go to work, many do not get paid and might even get fired.

At Ollin Calli, a local advocacy group, Margo Avalos Salas interviews workers all the time with similar stories. She says Americans should know some of their essential products come at a cost.

MARGO AVALOS SALAS, OLLIN CALLI: (Speaking Spanish).

[04:40:00]

RIVERS: She's saying there were conditions, bad conditions before here in Mexico. But the COVID pandemic has only made them worse, made them more intense than they were before.

RIVERS (voice-over): Tijuana is in Baja California, the Mexican state, where 17 of every 100 patients diagnosed with COVID have died. The government says it doesn't specifically track the deaths of maquiladora workers from COVID-19. But activists tell us they've counted at least 500.

Some of them are now buried in this nearby cemetery. This COVID victim's coffin is wrapped in protective plastic, laid to rest in a swiftly dug grave. His family joins a growing list recently of those saying final goodbyes.

RIVERS: Desde Halloween. (Speaking Spanish).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Spanish).

RIVERS: He's saying, since Halloween, he's seen the number of bodies with COVID here in the cemetery go up.

Nearly all of these graves have been dug in just the last month, in large part due to COVID-19. As another funeral goes on to our left, the truly depressing thing is that all of this land behind me has been newly designated and plowed to receive more graves because officials think that many more bodies are still to come.

RIVERS (voice-over): Yet despite the severity of Mexico's pandemic, so many have to keep working, making critical products for other countries. "It bothers me a lot," says Maria Elena. "Some Americans don't think

about anything but themselves. But we're the ones running the risk and that bothers me."

Every night, thousands of workers like these stream out of local factories, some having spent their shifts making products for the U.S.

Who knows how many of them are sick? -- Matt Rivers, CNN, Tijuana, Mexico.

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BRUNHUBER: Still to come, what's next for the U.K. and the E.U. if they don't strike a post Brexit trade deal by the end of the weekend?

We'll get the latest on the struggling talks live from London. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: With just two weeks to go before the U.K.'s post Brexit transition period expires, the heavy pressure is on for the two sides to reach a trade deal.

Discussions have been largely stuck over fishing rights and fair competition rules and the U.K. says it would prefer to leave with no trade deal rather than compromise their independence. That's a viewpoint the British prime minister, the face of the Brexit campaign, has always maintained.

With talks supposed to end Sunday, it's not clear if there will be a breakthrough. CNN's Nic Robertson joins me now from London.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's been pretty much radio silence through Saturday. I mean, both sides laid out their position during the week and, coming into the weekend, some progress made. That's the E.U. view.

Both sides agreeing that gaps remain. Sitting here Sunday morning, trying to figure out if the deadline that's expected today -- but not expected, if you will -- a deadline that the European Parliament says it needs the talks to conclude by because it needs time to ratify whatever deal there is, if there is one. Michel Barnier, the E.U. chief negotiator, saying Friday, we're in the final hours of decision making.

So Sunday morning you're sitting here looking at the British media in particular, who are obviously talking a lot about COVID today, but there are a small -- there is a small parade of British ministers going across the TV channels here. So listening to what they're saying. Matt Hancock, the health

secretary, speaking this morning on one channel about the possibility of a deal today, seemed to indicate that, for him, the deadline, and for the British government, the deadline for the talks, is Christmas. I mean, this is what he said.

We want to have a deal by Christmas. Fisheries does seem to be the big outstanding issue. The rhetoric around that has been the strongest. Michael Gove, a senior British government minister, involved in Brexit negotiations, said British fisherman and the U.K. government want control of the British coastal waters and six t6-iles out from the shoreline. The

E.U. chief negotiator said he personally doesn't understand why the U.K. fisherman should have exclusive access to those waters after a transition period. And the European Commission president Ursula van der Leyen said all we want to get is some predictable for the European fisher men and women going forward.

Look, I think we're in a place where there are big gaps. This is what both sides say. We don't really know the nature of the talks. But both sides say they're willing to keep talking. So I think today's deadline is one this I think will perhaps and most likely come and go.

BRUNHUBER: We'll certainly check in with you later. Thank you so much for staying on top of this for us, Nic Robertson in London.

CNN NEWSROOM will be right back. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: As the U.S. gets ready for the holiday week, severe weather is being forecast for some parts of the country. Christmas Day looking soggy along the East Coast with the possibility of snow in the South.

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BRUNHUBER: Well, as we just heard, it looks to be a wet Christmas for Santa Claus this year but now we know the jolly old elf will be COVID- free. Several children had important questions about St. Nick and coronavirus and they got a big answer from America's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

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CONNOR, MOUNT HOLLY, NJ: How can Santa Claus say put out presents with COVID-19 spreading everywhere?

How can he do it?

PAXTON, GENEVA, IL: Will Santa still be able to visit me in coronavirus this season?

What if he can't go to anyone's house or near his reindeer?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Well, I have to say that I took care of that for you, because I was worried you'd all be upset.

So what I did a little while ago, I took a trip up to the end of the North Pole. I went there and I vaccinated Santa Claus myself. I measured his level of immunity and he is good to go.

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BRUNHUBER: What can't Dr. Fauci do?

Taking the time right here on CNN to let kids around the world know he vaccinated Santa himself. There you go.

That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'll be back in a moment with more news. Stay with us.