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Countries Halting Travel to and from U.K. as New COVID-19 Variant Spreads; Lawmakers Strike Deal on $900 Billion Package; Americans Expected to Start Getting Moderna Vaccine Soon; Santa's Helpers Get Creative in Pandemic Year; California Hospitals Under Pressure as Cases Rise; Biden, Harris to Receive Vaccines Soon; Biden Official Slams Trump Administration Response to Cyberattack. Aired 12- 1a ET

Aired December 21, 2020 - 00:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[00:00:20]

ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Anna Coren. We are following two major stories this hour.

Countries around the world are halting or restricting travel to and from the U.K. as a new variant of the coronavirus is spreading quickly in London and southeast England. Many flights are now suspended, and with the British government tightening COVID restrictions even further, people in the U.K. and beyond are left scrambling to reach their loved ones with the Christmas holiday just days away.

Meanwhile, in the United States, it's the relief so many Americans have been waiting on for months. After weeks of haggling and bickering, Congress has finally reached a deal on a COVID relief package totaling $900 billion. We'll take a closer look at the most significant parts of that plan a bit later this hour.

We begin in the U.K., where the list of countries blocking British travelers from other countries is growing by the hour. Well, Canada just joined nearly two dozen European, South American, and Middle Eastern countries in banning travelers from the U.K. The United States is not on that list. Saudi Arabia has gone even further, banning all international flights from all countries.

As a new variant of the coronavirus spreads through the U.K., Sunday was another day of record COVID-19 cases there, with nearly 35,000 new infections and more than 300 deaths.

Crowds of people are fleeing London's, with chaotic scenes at train stations like this one after the government announced the highest level of restrictions in the city.

And with the country being cut off from the continent, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will share a high-level meeting to discuss international travel and flow of freight into the U.K. in the coming hours. Well, CNN's Nic Robertson is joining us live from London with the

latest.

Nic, this variant was first detected in the U.K. back in September. Why has it taken the British government so long to act?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, what the British government says is that it has excellent genomic sequencing in the U.K., and they're very good at keeping their finger on the pulse of all the sort of expected mutations of coronavirus. They say that they -- that their scientists have -- have picked this up.

But the key fact for the government, and this is what they're saying very clearly, is they weren't aware that it had this suspected and feared increased range of infection, this ability to infect more people more quickly, until very, very recently.

So when a week ago, the British prime minister said that he wouldn't be canceling Christmas, that you could have three families together over Christmas, the country took this as -- as a sign that, you know, the government -- the government was accurately understanding dealing with its own concern about -- about this new variant.

However, over the course of the past week, the government said that it had gotten more information from its scientists, that it had been able to see that this variant had been responsible for driving up the rate of infections in the southeast of the country, and in the capital, as well. And therefore, that they had to have this massive change of plans, putting 16.4 million people in England, a very significant number, the southeastern corner of the country, and including London, as well. Put them on these tier four restrictions.

So the government's position is they didn't have all the data. When they did have more data, given specificity on the capacity to increase the rate of infections, then they decided to act.

Of course, they're being very heavily criticized for not acting fast enough, not acting soon and giving misleading information and leading to this sort of panicked situation, where you have people trying to flee London to get home around the country in time for Christmas, for plans that had been, you know, cemented perhaps only as recently as a week before, based on what the government had said a week beforehand.

COREN: Yes. I want to ask you about that, Nic, because that lockdown, you know, particularly in London, came into effect at midnight. We're seeing the pictures of people cramming onto trains, going to airports. They're trying to get out the the city. I mean, surely, this is a recipe for disaster and further spreading the variant around the country.

ROBERTSON: Yes. Chris Whitty, the England chief medical officer, when he was asked this question at a press conference over the weekend, he was asked on Saturday anyone, you know, that was the moment -- at the moment that this new tier of new restrictions were announced. He was asked, what should somebody do if they're packing their bags to leave to get back to some part of the country to see or other relatives? [00:05:07]

And his warning was absolutely very clear. Stop packing. Don't leave.

The reality is that this government has responded slowly at almost every step of the way with coronavirus, from the very early lockdowns to -- to a provision of PPE, to testing. And they've lost the confidence of a large number of people in this country who have witnessed government officials. Not following the government's own guidelines.

And this has led to a situation where people are prepared to say, if there's a new lockdown coming, I'm going to try to continue with my plans.

I mean, it has to be said. I can give you -- I can give you a handful of cases that are -- that are known to me personally, of people whose -- people whose relatives have either told them, don't leave London, don't come home. Stay in London, have Christmas at home. Or other people who have said, I'm not going to go and visit that early -- that elderly relative. Or -- or that I cannot come and see that elderly relative now because they're in tier 4, but I'm not. Tier 4 being the new high tier that the government announced over the weekend.

So a lot of people, yes, are trying to escape and get out of the way of this. A lot of others, and the government's statistics seem to back this up at the moment, are trying to follow what the government has said. But this is -- this is -- I mean, we should not underestimate the amount of anger, deep, deep anger, that -- the growing frustrations that have been growing through the year. I mean, look at the teaching sector. Look at the teaching sector, who have become incredibly frustrated with the government over this.

COREN: Yes, it really has been misstep after misstep in the government's handling of the pandemic.

Nic Robinson, as always, great to see you, joining us from London. Many thanks.

Well, the travel chaos caused by these new restrictions in the U.K. is far-reaching. As soon as the news was announced, as Nic said, many in London flocked to the airports and train stations, hoping to beat any travel bans before they kicked in.

It's a nightmare, as well, for international travelers, for anyone wanting to head home to the U.K. for the holidays or those trying to leave Britain for their home countries. So many people are simply left in limbo just days before Christmas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I was really scared, because I had a flight on Tuesday. But I don't know when they're going to cancel all of them in the end. So I bought the last seat on this flight to Manchester right now. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's just a shame that happened over Christmas, you

know. It's such a shame that -- that we can't go and see family, especially over Christmas time. If -- if you're -- if you're in an unfortunate situation like even living in London. So it is unfortunate.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Yesterday, some relatives warned us the flights from London and all the south were being canceled. And we were worried that it might affect our trip.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COREN: Well, it's not just an issue of people trying to get out of the U.K., but a question of how to ensure that essential supplies can get in.

CNN European affairs commentator Dominic Thomas joins us now from Los Angeles. Dominic, Britain is effectively being cut off from the world as more and more countries suspend travel. What will be the impact?

DOMINIC THOMAS, CNN EUROPEAN AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Well, at this stage, you know, Anna, we're just seeing, you know, complete chaos. I mean, the irony of all of this is that, in the discussions around Brexit, so many of the scenarios look like this, where the drawbridge had essentially been lifted to the rest of the world. And the narrative of this global Britain that was somehow going to trade everywhere and -- has somehow, now, disappeared.

The short-term impact, you know, we know that President Macron has talked about an emergency meeting of E.U. ambassadors on Monday to determine what sort of possible reopenings may happen just for the Euro tunnel that crosses over from the U.K. to France. And he's advised French nationals wanting to return to France over the holidays to get COVID tests, in case they do -- they do reopen.

But clearly, the response has been devastating to those wishing to sort of circulate out of the country at this particular time. And when it comes to goods and services, there is a complete halt, at the moment, at airports and all ports leaving the U.K.

COREN: Dominic, are there concerns this could affect the delivery of the COVID-19 vaccines to the U.K.?

THOMAS: Yes, and I think delivering in a number of ways. First of all, I think that the sort of inconsistent messaging from the government at a time when it's trying to deliver the vaccine to British nationals is an issue.

But they have already been talking about having airlifts coming into the -- into the U.K., carrying the vaccine. But of course, the whole infrastructure is looking to close down right now. The cases of COVID are out of control in the country.

And as Nic Robertson was pointing out earlier, this mass exodus from the area of the U.K. in which the levels of COVID are the highest are extremely disconcerting, as we start the process of making the vaccine more available to people in the U.K.

[00:10:06]

And I think that that's the radical distinction between, let's say, mainland Europe and the situation in the U.K. where, yet again, we see the British government unable to respond to the situation, especially since they knew earlier in the week what the circumstances were concerning the rising numbers.

And yet, Boris Johnson failed to act early on by moving to these kind of restrictions, thus creating the kind of mass exodus that we've witnessed over the past day.

COREN: Interestingly, the United States has yet to impose a travel ban to the U.K., despite pleas from the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, who said that the variant was on its way to JFK.

When the United States last imposed a travel ban back in the spring with the U.K., it got rather tense. Do you think that Trump is trying to avoid this, or perhaps he just doesn't care?

THOMAS: Well, I think he doesn't care, but I also think that he would try to avoid this. We saw him earlier on, tweeting and criticizing Boris Johnson's actions at closing down businesses. Much of this was re-tweeted by Brexiteers, and far right politicians in the U.K.

And I think here, once again, President Trump will end up on the wrong side of this particular decision when it comes to protecting the American people from -- from areas like the U.K. where the COVID numbers are out of control, and where this new strain is a huge source of concern.

COREN: Dominic, as you mentioned, this is like a COVID-inspired Brexit taking place. I mean, where does this leave talks? The Brexit transition period is due to expire at the end of the year, and the E.U. and the U.K. are still negotiating a trade deal.

THOMAS: You're absolutely right. And I think that, once again, it points to the negligence and the -- sort of the incompetence of the Boris Johnson government.

But at the same time, the two are linked. The Brexit situation and the COVID situation are connected. Because I think Boris Johnson has been partially paralyzed in these negotiations by the far-right elements of this party that are pushing up against this.

And if anything, this provides a kind of distraction to the -- to the Brexit talks by dealing with this health crisis. But you could also read into it that the response from the European Union, especially, is sending a message to Boris Johnson that we're not the same E.U. that you were dealing with before, and that you would be well-advised to compromise and have a deal going so that the sort of circumstances you're looking at right now won't be those that define the U.K.'s relationship with the E.U. on the 1st of January, 2021.

COREN: Dominic Thomas, always good to get your insights. Many thanks for joining us.

THOMAS: Good-bye.

COREN: Well, the variant has shown up in some other countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands, and Australia.

For some perspective on the medical aspect of all this, I'm joined by Eric Topol, cardiologist and professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research.

Great to have you with us. Viral mutations are not uncommon. However, so much is not known about this variant. What's the latest information that you have on this mutation?

ERIC TOPOL, CARDIOLOGIST/PROFESSOR OF MOLECULAR MEDICINE, SCRIPPS RESEARCH: Well, good to be with you.

And I think wherever there's a variant in the pathogen of a virus like this, we always conclude that it's innocent until proven guilty. And at this point, we know that the mutations, or many of them, these variants in the length of the -- of the virus, they are implicated. The biology and the spike protein, there's two that are very important; that they could make it more transmissible.

We don't see any good evidence yet that it will make it resistant to vaccines or make illness worse.

So right now, that hasn't been nailed down. It's still tentative. It looks that way because one of those mutations has been in South Africa. And it's also seen with a considerable increase in spread. So it's very possible. We just don't know the magnitude of the increase in infectiousness, or transmission of this new strain.

COREN: Doctor, the variant, as we say, has been detected in a handful of other countries, but the alarm bells have really gone off in the U.K. as to the highly infectious nature of the mutation. Why the level of frenzy in the U.K., as opposed to South Africa, the Netherlands, Denmark, or Australia, where it's also been detected?

TOPOL: Right. Well, it's probably in other countries. They just don't do as much sequencing.

I think the U.K. has always been out in front with genomics of the pathogen. So here they have an edge. Also, it has spread, for sure. We just don't know if that's partly due to behavior or really, the essence of this virus's enhanced ability to get into cells.

So that has to be nailed down. It hasn't been yet. And there's still lots of tentative aspects of this that have to be sorted out. Hopefully, they will be quite soon.

COREN: I guess it's also important to note that scientists don't know if this is just a variant or a new strain, which, obviously, would mean a different version of the virus.

[00:15:03] What sort of problems would that pose? And could that be resistant to -- to the current vaccines?

TOPOL: Right, Anna. Well, throughout the entire pandemic, which is now a year plus, the virus has evolved very slowly. There's only been one dominant mutation that's occurred, which causes a modest increase in transmissibility.

So this would be the second type of change of the virus, which is potentially linked with a more marked increase in transmission -- transmissibility.

Now the real upshot of this isn't so much that it's going to pose an issue over the next year with respect to vaccine resistance. But rather, it may portend that the booster shots of vaccines will be necessary over the years ahead. Because it shows us this virus is not as slow in changing over time as we had hoped. Which was actually one of the silver linings of this -- of this virus, all along.

COREN: Well, Dr. Eric Topol, always great to get the take on this pandemic, certainly, from the medical profession. Wonderful of you to join us. Many thanks for your time.

TOPOL: Sure, happy to do it. Thank you.

COREN: Well, after many weeks of wrangling, U.S. lawmakers have finally struck a deal on a massive coronavirus relief package, a bipartisan effort applauded by U.S. President-elect Joe Biden.

Congress is expected to vote on it in the coming hours, and if passed, the bill would provide 900 billion dollars in aid to unemployed Americans, small businesses, healthcare and other services.

CNN's Manu Raju has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Congressional leaders, after months of division and stalemate finally reached a deal that could give relief to Americans who are struggling in the middle of this pandemic.

Nine hundred billion dollars, a package, one of the biggest in American history, reached after the four top leaders in Congress spent days in tough negotiations, ultimately cutting a deal. And they really have only been discussing this for a matter of days because for months, they were at loggerheads and they weren't talking for a period of time, even as this crisis continued to rip through the United States.

But nevertheless, the moment we expect this proposal to pass, possibly both chambers as soon as Monday, and then the president would have a decision to make about whether to sign this proposal into law.

Well, this -- this plan includes more than $300 billion for small businesses to apply for emergency loans. It provides relief for farmers and others who have been hit hard through this pandemic. Also people who are unemployed and getting jobless benefits and seeing those jobless benefits expire. It would extend those jobless benefits. It will include $300 a week for people starting on December 27.

There would also be a one-time direct payment for individuals up to $600, assuming they make less than $75,000 a year, and a family of four could get up to $2,400 because there would be $600 given for each person in that family, assuming they're under the income threshold detailed in the legislation.

This proposal also is important for vaccine distribution. This comes at a critical time. States and cities have been asking for more funds to help ensure that the American public in this -- the voters in their state, constituents in their state are inoculated. We expect that to include billions more to help with that.

Now this, of course, came after both sides had to drop some key sticking points. One of the provision points that they were pushing for that had emerged as sticking points: one, state and local aid. Democrats have wanted hundreds of billions of dollars to help states and cities. They dropped that because Republicans dropped that. They viewed it as wasteful spending in a lot of ways.

Republicans asked for a big liability shield for businesses and others that opened up during the pandemic. Democrats view that as the way to protect corporations who could be sued. That was put aside.

Those fights will be punched (ph) into the new year. And already, Democrats are talking about having to do a new package when Joe Biden becomes president on January 20. So that fight -- this fight will be delayed until then.

But this was a hard-fought battle. Ultimately, a deal has been reached. We expect it to get approved in a matter of days here, get into -- money getting into the pockets of Americans. We'll see if it's enough.

Mena Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COREN: Well, more good news for Americans. At this hour, doses of the Moderna vaccine are making their way to states around the U.S. How soon we can expect to start seeing shots in arms.

But that doesn't mean the crisis is over. Far from it. Doctors and nurses in California tell us about the tragedies they are seeing unfold right before their very eyes.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:23:41]

COREN: Great news in the fight against the coronavirus. Later Monday, we could start seeing Americans getting the Moderna vaccine shot in the arm. It's the second vaccine to get emergency use authorization in the U.S.

Right now, millions of doses are arriving in states around the country. CNN's Pete Muntean has more from Memphis, Tennessee.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Two truckfuls of the Moderna vaccine came here after leaving a vaccine distribution facility just over the state line in Mississippi.

Now the Moderna vaccine is going out to 3,000 locations across the country. Those are places like hospitals, pharmacies, CBS and Walgreens. The deliveries begin on Monday morning.

This rollout. About four times as large as the initial Pfizer rollout of last week. The Moderna vaccine has a bit of an advantage over the Pfizer vaccine in that it does not need to be stored at super-cold temperatures. In fact, a regular refrigerator will do just fine in this case. And that opens this up to many more rural communities without deep freezers.

FedEx is handing a lot of these packages, and it says that difference does not change how it will handle this.

JOE STEPHENS, FEDEX: It doesn't matter whether you have to be ultra- cold or you have to be -- whether you're minus 90 or minus 20, it doesn't matter. Our job is to get the package from point A to point B as expeditiously and as safely as we possibly can and to deliver it to those that are going to administer it.

[00:25:06]

MUNTEAN: Six million Moderna doses are going out right now. And the Department of Health and Human Services says that means about 20 million people could be vaccinated by the end of this month.

You have to remember, this is a remarkable achievement. We are seeing the rollout of two coronavirus vaccines in roughly the span of a week.

Pete Muntean, CNN, Memphis, Tennessee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COREN: U.S. lawmakers are set to vote on a massive COVID relief bill in the coming hours, while some say it's still not enough.

Plus, the Trump administration is blasted for its response to the suspected Russian cyberattack. Ahead, a security analyst and former hacker weighs in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): This is a first step, and then, again, more needs to be done. We're so excited that that will be happening under the Biden-Harris administration, about 700 hours from now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COREN: Well, that's U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with her thoughts on the $900 billion COVID relief package Congress has agreed upon. We don't know anything that's in it just yet, but it is expected to offer direct payments of up to $600 per adult and child; boost unemployment payments by $300 a week; offer billions of dollars for small businesses; extend a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions; and provide billions in funding for coronavirus vaccine distribution, testing, contact tracing, and healthcare workers.

[00:30:02]

The House and Senate are expected to vote on it Monday, and the White House says President Trump will sign it when it reaches his desk.

For more on this, let's turn to Jessica Levinson. She's a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Jessica, good to have you with us. It obviously comes down to the wire, but desperately-needed stimulus aid has finally been approved. Tell us the significance of this.

JESSICA LEVINSON, LAW PROFESSOR, LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL: Well, I think it's hugely significant in the sense that there is some help on the way. But what's also significant is how long it took.

What's also significant is how we look in comparison to the rest of the world. You know, a number of people are posting on social media these comparison charts: $600 in a major metropolitan area, in at least Southern California, where I am, that's maybe going to be about a third of one month of rent.

A lot of other, for instance, western European countries, they're allowing people to subsist. They're not allowing for the kind of lines outside of food pantries that we have. So it is a step that comparatively puts us behind the rest of the world in terms of providing relief.

COREN: I mean, while it's half the size of the 2.2 trillion stimulus law enacted back in March, it's still one of the largest relief packages in -- in modern history. But it's only going to go so far in helping with the economic devastation of this pandemic.

LEVINSON: Yes, absolutely. So it's half of what the federal government provided in March, but remember that, for a lot of people, or I should say, remembers the viewers for a lot of people, that things are much worse. That they now have not been getting paychecks for much longer, for maybe 10 months, instead of just a few weeks. That unemployment insurance has run out, that the states are not backfilling the way they used to. That the long-term outlook is now looking more terrifying and bleaker.

So I don't mean to say that the federal government didn't act. They certainly did, but they certainly waited until almost the last moment. There are certainly statistics indicate one in five families, or one in six families in America that are struggling with food instability, which is a polite way of saying that somebody in their house is hungry.

COREN: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this emergency relief bill is an important initial step. And we've heard from President-elect Biden refer to it as a down payment. I mean, we know it's nearly not enough to meet the nation's needs. But tell us about the challenges facing the incoming Biden administration as he takes charge of the nation's economic recovery.

LEVINSON: Huge challenges. I mean, there's a reason that it took so long. Because it's not easy to get this sort of massive relief, particularly when -- let's be honest -- we're facing horrible deficits. It's not like we're spending money that we have. We're spending money that we need to spend, but it's not necessarily sitting there in a bank account.

Now, in terms of the kind of political hurdles here, a lot of it's going to come down to Georgia. There's a Senate runoff race on January 5, and if both Democrats who are up for election win, the Senate will be divided 50/50, and then the tiebreaker will be then vice president, Kamala Harris.

If either one of those Democrats loses, the Senate will remain controlled by Republicans, and that will make whatever kind of relief Joe Biden wants to help fashion even harder for him.

COREN: Jessica, I want to ask you about the travel ban that is being imposed by most countries on the U.K. The president, Donald Trump, has yet to ban those flights. Is this yet another example of him going AWOL on leadership?

LEVINSON: Yes. And frankly, personally, I'm really torn, because on the one hand, I think the less he does, in a way, the safer we are. Because the actions he's taken, in many ways, have been an existential crisis for America.

On the other hand, this isn't the moment where anybody can abdicate leadership or responsibility. So you know, he just wanted to play golf, and we weren't in a pandemic, we weren't in a terrible financial, potentially on the precipice of a crisis, OK.

But somebody needs to act at this point, and it's very hard to tell a nation that's having a surge on top of a surge, that has an exponential part of the surge that is disproportionately seeing people, thousands of the people, die every day, just hold on, because somebody else will take over.

COREN: Jessica Levinson joining us from Los Angeles. Great to see you. Many thanks.

Next here on CNN NEWSROOM, not even COVID can keep Santa Claus from doing his job. How his helpers are using a bit of technology to keep spreading the Christmas cheer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:37:58]

COREN: We already know this Christmas will look and feel much different than most years. But that doesn't mean it's all doom and gloom. Some of Santa's helpers in the U.K. are using technology to bring Christmas cheer to anyone, anywhere.

CNN's Anna Stewart shows us how.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do have my merry Chris-mask. So when I'm out and about, I can mask up then make everybody else feel safe, as well.

ANNA STEWART, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He's been ice-olating in the North Pole for 11 months. Now Santa's ready to get back to business with a little bit help from his friends.

This year, many of Santa's grottos are closed due to COVID-19.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we are now. We're through, we're through.

STEWART: Which means Santa's helpers, who kindly step in when he's busy, are having to learn some new skills.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to a slightly different, but still wonderful, Santa school.

STEWART: Santa H.Q. is an app allowing for Zoom chats with Santa.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very good indeed. Now, what we need to do is just scale it down slightly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!

STEWART: It's run by the Ministry of Fun, one of the biggest Santa recruitment firms in the U.K., who see plenty of benefits.

MATT GRIST, MANAGING DIRECTOR, MINISTRY OF FUN: You get to see Santa in his home. You get longer with him, because normally there's a queue, and there's lot of people that want to see the great man. And it's much more personal.

STEWART: One of Santa's helpers on this project, although you may not recognize him here, is Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

JIMMY WALES, FOUNDER, WIKIPEDIA: Children really shouldn't visit Santa in Santa Grotto this year. They should do it on Zoom. And so I came across these guys here at the Ministry of Fun. I'm basically helping them think about digital strategy, think about going international.

STEWART: Of course, there may be concerns for Santa on the big night itself. An elderly man, carrying a little extra mince pie weight, wouldn't be advised to travel the world and enter millions of homes. At least not this year.

[00:40:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've always said, I'm always wearing gloves no matter what happens. So I don't have to touch any surfaces, which is a really good thing to do. The gloves. And I'm Santa-tized at all times.

STEWART (on camera): Christmas is going to be different this year. It's been a really tough year for people over the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It certainly has It certainly has.

STEWART: What's your message to everyone?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, more than ever before, we must show that the Christmas love and warmth is there for everyone to take part in. Everyone can be part of it. And though it will be slightly different, but by using videos, and all this technology, we can see our family, no matter where they are in the world.

STEWART: And you can see Santa, too. Now he's Zoom ready.

Anna Stewart, CNN, reporting from Santa's London office in the U.K.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ho, ho, ho, ho!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ho, ho, ho, ho!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ho, ho, ho, ho!

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COREN: They certainly are going to have their work cut out for them.

Well, thanks so much for watching CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Anna Coren, live in Hong Kong.

For our international viewers, WORLD SPORT is next. For everyone else, the news continues after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[TRANSCRIPT OF CNN FOLLOWS]

[00:45:22]

COREN: Welcome back. Americans hit hard by the pandemic will soon receive two forms of relief to ease their struggles.

The first is a long-awaited stimulus package for families and businesses in need. Congress has finally struck a last-minute deal on the $900 billion measure. President Trump has signed a one-day government funding bill, giving lawmakers time to finalize the bill. A vote could come as soon as Monday.

Also in the day ahead, some Americans are expected to receive the first shots of Moderna's COVID vaccine. Thousands of doses were shipped to medical centers over the weekend after the vaccine became the second to receive emergency use authorization.

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, called the coronavirus relief deal the bipartisan break-through that the country has needed. The final details are not known, but the bill is expected to include direct payments to Americans of up to $600 per adult and child.

It will also boost unemployment benefits by $300 a week until mid- March; offer billions of dollars in small business loans; extend a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions; and provide funding for vaccine distribution, testing, contact tracing and healthcare workers.

We're told President Trump will sign this bill if passed, but Democratic leaders say it's merely a start.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Tonight is a good night, but it is not the end of the story. It is not the end of the job. Anyone who thinks this bill is enough does not know what's going on in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COREN: Well, so far, the U.S. has administered more than 556,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. That's according to the CDC, which also says more than 2.8 million doses are being distributed across the country. And the Moderna vaccine will add to those numbers.

It could not come soon enough. Cases are still rising exponentially across the United States. So far Johns Hopkins has recorded 184,000 new cases Sunday. And we're expecting to see more surges as the holiday season continues.

The governor of Tennessee says that cannot happen. He's begging people in the state to stay home, wear a mask and work from home if possible, saying the state simply cannot sustain a surge of infections over Christmas and New Year's.

Well, things are not getting better in California. Tens of thousands of people are getting infected each day, and hospitals are under massive strain. The COVID tracking project counts more than 17,000 coronavirus patients in California hospitals right now. More than 3,700 are in intensive care units. The heartbreak is unending.

Paul Vercammen reports.

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PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The COVID-19 disaster continuing in California: 46,000 new cases. A hundred and sixty-one deaths, that's lower. But the hospitalizations are just terrible. About 17,000 hospitalized and 3.6 thousand hospitalized in the intensive care units, including several dozen here at Harvard UCLA Medical Center. They have morphed an operating room, the E.R. area, expanded that into the ICU units. And when you talk to the nurses who face this daily, they're astounded

by what's happening to these patients. One of them, a 39-year-old nurse, says it's just getting to him.

CLIFF RESURRECCION, NURSE: People your age that have no comorbidities, have no health issues, all of a sudden are in renal failure, heart failure, having blood clotting issues, unable to breathe, intubated. And, you know, you don't know what's going to happen or the usually mortality is that they'll pass away. What's so devastating about this -- this virus.

VERCAMMEN: And another just sad story. A father comes in. Then his son. They're next to each other at one point. They both wind up dying of COVID-19. Just one of the many stories being unfurled in California as the pandemic rages on.

I'm Paul Vercammen reporting from Harvard UCLA Medical Center. Now back to you.

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COREN: Well, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden plans to get vaccinated Monday, according to his transition spokesman. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is in line, too, but they won't be getting the shots at the same time. Jessica Dean explains why.

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JESSICA DEAN, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is scheduled to get her vaccine, as well as her husband, Doug Emhoff, the following week. So they're staggering when they will be getting their vaccines.

[00:50:08]

Now, the transition would only say they're doing this on the advice of their medical and health experts and really wouldn't elaborate anything beyond that.

But it could very well possibly be because if either of them have side effects, any of the anticipated side effects from this vaccine, that they wouldn't have to endure that at the same time. So that could be what's going on.

But what we know is the president-elect and his wife, Jill Biden, will get their first round of that Pfizer vaccine here in Delaware. And again, he wants to show that this is a safe vaccine. He wants to encourage all Americans to get that vaccine. And it's part of what his promise has been to Americans, as well, is he wants 100 million vaccines in his first 100 days.

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COREN: Jessica Dean reporting there.

Of course, we saw current Vice President Mike Pence on Friday getting his vaccine publicly. The assistant U.S. health secretary is urging President Trump to get vaccinated to help build public confidence.

Well, the incoming White House chief of staff is blasting the Trump administration for its response to the cyber-attack on U.S. agencies. Ron Klain says the White House has sent mixed messages about who is responsible and claims the next president would do a better job at handling the crisis.

His criticism comes after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo initially blamed Russia for the hack and called it a very significant effort. The next day his message was contradicted by Trump, who downplayed the severity of the issue and suggested, without proof, that China may have been responsible.

Well, Kevin Mitnick is a security consultant and CEO of Mitnick Security. He joins us now live from Brisbane in Australia.

Kevin, thanks so much for joining us. I mean, this has been described by experts as the greatest cyberattack in U.S. history. Explain to us the scale and the sophistication of this attack.

KEVIN MITNICK, CEO, MITNICK SECURITY: Well, it's very substantial. A lot of -- you know, a lot of companies out there rely on using software from vendors. And in this particular case, these companies that were compromised used the SolarWinds Orion network monitoring product.

And what the threat actors did is they are able to modify an update to that product that's updated transparently and automatically. They were able to do this through sophisticated means, getting the signing keys. Because what happened is these company cryptograph when they sign the updates so they're known to be secure.

So the threat actors in this case stole the sign-in keys, signed this update, and then it got pushed out to all the businesses that ran the Orion product.

And it's very substantial in scale. You have the White House. You have the Department of Treasury, the National Security Agency. Just tons of United -- United States government agencies. You have, in other countries, government agency, as well. And then even in the private sector.

The sophistication is -- it's an extremely sophisticated attack. I've got to tell you, back in the 1980s, when I was on other side hacking, I was able to compromise a company called Digital Equipment Corporation. They don't exist today. And I had the access to actually push out new versions of their software with a back door.

But I thought about it, thought about doing it, because it would have given access to every VMS operating system in the world. But I decided against it, because the risk was way too high.

But for the threat actors in this case, that's exactly what they wanted. They wanted to be able to push out their malware onto these networks. And then they don't stop there. What they do is we call it lateral movement, where they'll move to different systems within that compromised network, install other back doors, steal information, gain access to e-mail. Pretty much compromise everything.

COREN: Yes, Kevin, you didn't want to get caught, and you didn't want to go to jail.

MITNICK: No.

COREN: I want to ask you, the president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, described this as a moment of reckoning. Would you agree?

MITNICK: Absolutely. You know, it's really, in my mind, nothing terribly new. You know, this type of attack vector is where a bad actor compromises a company where -- and their update process so, when the software is updated, the malicious software gets automatically installed. That's been around for quite some time.

This is the first time we've actually seen this done. And you have to think about it. Think about it as if you're a company owner and you're -- you have these various products that you purchase from all these vendors. Well, you have to think about you can't gain access to the source code to analyze the product. You don't get an opportunity, when they're updating the product transparently, to see what those updates are in plain language to really understand it.

So what that does is we have to trust it. Do we trust this process? Do we trust this vendor? And the bad actors know this. So they look for the vendors that all of us trust in the U.S. government, in the private sector. They compromise those vendors, and then at the end of the day, they're able to leverage that access to compromise us.

COREN: Kevin, is there any doubt in your mind that Russia's foreign intelligence agency was behind this attack?

MITNICK: Well, I don't have enough information. Attribution is extremely difficult. Nation states, in many cases that I've heard about, will simulate another nation state's trade craft.

So imagine China, for example, got hold of some malware that the Russian nation state uses in their attacks. What they'll do is they'll actually doctor up their back doors to include snippets of that, of that malware, so it looks like it's Russia. Or it could look like another country.

I don't have that information. I'm depending on our intelligence agencies in the United States that have access to the sources and methods. They might have even compromised certain assets in Russia. And they're able to get the ground truth of what really happened.

We're being told it's Russia. Trump is saying it's China. I don't really know. And I hope eventually the truth comes out to who actually did this attack.

COREN: Yes, we understand that 18,000 organizations have malicious code in their network, but 50 of them suffered major breeches.

Kevin, great to get your analysis on all of this. Thanks so much for joining us from Brisbane in Australia. MITNICK: Thank you.

COREN: Well, thank you so much for watching. I'll be back with another hour of CNN NEWSROOM after this short break. Stay with CNN.

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