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Ban on U.K. Travel Widens by the Hours; Older American, Essential Workers Next to Receive Vaccine; Americans Expected to Start Getting Moderna Vaccine Soon; Lawmakers Strike Deal on $900 Billion Package; California Hospitals Under Pressure as Cases Rise. Aired 4- 4:30a ET

Aired December 21, 2020 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching CNN Newsroom. I am Rosemary Church.

Just ahead, the United Kingdom increasingly isolated as more countries ban flights amid reports of a COVID-19 variant spreading fast in parts of England.

And in the US, the Moderna vaccine is shipping out. It is the second vaccine rising to the rescue after being authorized for emergency use.

Plus, Democrats and Republicans finally strike a deal on coronavirus relief, which means $900 billion takes one big step closer to helping shore up the U.S. economy.

Good to have you with us, and we begin with several fast moving developments in the against COVID-19. A growing number of countries are banning travel with the United Kingdom, based on the revelation of a new COVID strain there. In the past few hours we've learned, the Czech Republic, Kuwait and Canada have closed their doors to the United Kingdom. And just minutes ago, Hong Kong slapped a ban on travel from the U.K. starting Tuesday.

It may be too little too late for France. The country's health minister says it is possible the new variant is already there. Meanwhile, the British transport minister is trying to calm fears of food shortages inside the U.K. as Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds and emergency meeting on the subject. Which is coming to a head because of pandemic pressures and Brexit negotiations.

And in the U.S. the Moderna vaccine is shipping out. It is the second vaccine to get Emergency Use Authorization from the federal government. And states should be receiving their first shipments today.

Also ahead today, President-elect Joe Biden and his wife are set to receive their COVID-19 vaccines on live television.

Well, CNN is covering all the new development out of the U.K. Salma Abdelaziz is at Heathrow Airport for us. But let's start first with CNN international diplomatic editor, Nic Roberson, joining me from Downing Street in London. Good to see you Nic. So what's expected to come out this emergency cobra meeting on the international travel ban and of course, the flow of food supplies into and out of the U.K. And why did it take the government so long to respond to all of this?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, the government says that this new variant that it first announced at a press conference early last week on Monday. They still didn't have adequate data about the impact and implications of this particular variant even towards the end of the week. It was only towards the weekend when they got the data that suggested to them, and they're still being analyzed, that this variant could potentially increase the rate of infections about to 70 percent.

That they took some of the fundamental decisions that they have taken, which then triggered this wave of as you say isolations and in particular the most concerning thing would be the closing of transport and port facilities at Dover to France for the next 48 hours. And I think what we can expect to hear from the cobra meeting, publicly announced afterwards, would be the expectations. Would be something along the lines that we have heard from the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, this morning.

Saying look, only 20 percent of the goods in and out of the country come through the ports around Dover. That much of the goods coming in and out of the country come in unaccompanied containers, and it is only accompanied containers and trucks and vehicles across to the European continent that are being affected.

So I think we're going to start to hear them try to roll out why the country shouldn't panic about this current situation. To try to head off any concerns of the public that they might feel that they would need to go out and buy additional food supplies.

But obviously, a very serious job for the government here to analyze precisely what would happen if France extends beyond this 48 hour period and into the coming days, and precisely what goods are being affected coming into the country. We've heard overnight that, you know, Scottish fishery companies who have truckloads of goods on the way to the continent now concerned that they among as many as 6,000 other truck drivers will be stuck on the highways in Kent on the way to Dover, unable to get their goods to market in France. These will be perishable goods at a huge cost to the company. So the government will be looking at all of this.

CHURCH: Yes, and of course at this point, it's 48 hours that we're talking about. But there seems to be more panic at the moment, and that's what they're going to have to need to deal with at this juncture.

So let's go to Salma Abdelaziz now at London's Heathrow Airport where travel plans have been thrown into disarray for so many people. And it was so sudden, wasn't it? What are people saying to you about this? SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: Well, you just heard of course from my

colleague Nic there that the trains have stopped, the boats have stopped. We now hear just this hour the motorways into Kent are also being shut down.

[04:05:00]

You heard my colleague explaining that that's one of the key transit points to Dover. So essentially trying to keep those roadways clear so that truck drivers, lories, and trucks aren't simply sitting on the motorway here at Heathrow Airport. The question is, will the planes keep going? I've been standing here for a couple of hours. Yes, planes are still taking off. But this is supposed to be one of the busiest airports in the world, and we're barely hearing flights leaving.

Inside the airport is not chaotic just now, because of course, these restrictions are coming into place last night. So people had the heads up beforehand, but people are trying to find loop hopes. I have a friend in the airport who's telling me people are lining up at the counters to try to book flights to the United States. To use the U.S. essentially as a corridor to get back into Europe. That's how desperate people are to get out of here.

But the key thing here to remember is that this is in defiance of the restrictions that have been put in place by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The rules are clear, do not leave tier four areas. Do not leave these affected areas. But many Londoners feel frustrated that these decisions were made last minute by government that they believe should have put these restrictions into place sooner. So the question now is will people heed these orders, will they cancel their travel plans, will they turn back around or is this variant already on planes already going around the world. Already going to be seen and spotted in places like France as we've heard and Italy as well reporting that yesterday has this variant gone global, Rosemary. That's the question.

CHURCH: That appears to be the case. Well, there's certainly a few instances. Salma Abdelaziz joining us there bring us up to date, and of course earlier talking to Nic Robertson. Many thanks to both of you.

Well, European stocks are sharply lower, amid the growing travel ban on the U.K. and fears over a new variant on COVID-19. Right no markets in London and Paris as well as the German DAX are all down and considerable there down 2.39 percent there in France. And then the futures in the United States, you can see the Dow futures down 3.7 percent. The S&P 500 futures down more than half a percent there.

Well, the U.S. isn't calling for a U.K. travel ban. But CNN has learned U.S. army scientists are examining the new coronavirus variant to see if it might be resistant to vaccines. That's a critical question of course, and this comes as the U.S. now has two COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use. You will recall, of course, health care workers and those in long-term care facilities were first on the list when the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine rolled out, and CNN's Natasha Chen has the latest on who's next in line.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): A CDC advisory committee voted Sunday, 13 to 1, on the next two phases of people who should be prioritized for the COVID-19 vaccine. Already we've seen in the very first phase, health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities start to be vaccinated.

Now, the next group that's been voted on now include people 75 and up, as well as frontline essential workers, people like first responders, grocery store workers, and teachers. The phase after that will includes people 65 and up, younger people with high-risk medical conditions and other essential workers.

Now, that last phase involved a bit more debate among the committee members, especially what is considered a high-risk condition. Right now, that list includes issues like diabetes, obesity, cancer. The committee did say that these are issues that with sufficient evidence of being associated with sever COVID-19, but it's not an exhaustive list and they did say that will be updated on the CDC website.

Already, we are seeing more than half a million people vaccinated now with the Pfizer vaccine. The Moderna vaccine is now being shipped out as we speak with the first shots expected to happen on Monday.

Natasha Chen, CNN, Atlanta, Georgia.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

CHURCH: Joining me now is Dr. Carlos del Rio. He is executive associate dean at Emory University School of Medicine. He also serves as a special adviser for infectious diseases with Delta Air Lines. Thank you, doctor, for being with us and for all that you do.

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE DEAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: It is an honor to be with you.

CHURCH: And I do want to make the point, too, because you just received the Pfizer vaccine, the shot in the arm, one of 500,000 plus Americans to get it so far. How are you feeling right now? What is your message to those fearing the side effects after two people had allergic reactions?

DEL RIO: You know, I think I did fine. I took it 24 hours ago and I am feeling just fine. I basically have no symptoms, no side effects. I have a little bit of pain in my arm, but that's about it. You know, we are going to see allergic reactions, but they are going to be rare. You know, not very common. And none of them has been, you know, very serious. So, it's OK. Just go ahead when you get your chance. Take the vaccine. That's the best thing I can tell you.

CHURCH: Right, really nothing to be frightened about. And of course, millions of doses of the second vaccine are to receive authorization, Moderna. Those shipments are now going across the United States. How much smoother do you expect this rollout to be and when can we expect everyone in the country who wants to get a vaccine to get it?

[04:10:00]

DEL RIO: The rollout will continue to happen, but the reality is I don't think before July or August we will have everybody immunized. I think most people will start seeing the vaccine getting to them sometime in April.

CHURCH: Right, and I wanted to talk to you, too, about what's happening in the United Kingdom where the Pfizer vaccine was first rolled out. We're now hearing about this new variant of the coronavirus. It's proving to be more infectious. We don't know if that is more or less lethal at this stage. But how concerned are you about this and will the vaccine still work on this mutated virus?

DEL RIO: I'm not too concerned. Viruses mutate all the time. Coronavirus's have had -- this coronavirus has had already multiple mutations. This mutation appears to be the predominant mutation right now in the UK. It's an N501Y mutation in the spike protein.

It makes the spike protein of the virus more capable of attaching to respiratory cells, to the receptors in the respiratory cells. It's easier to attach and that's why maybe the predominant one is being more transmissible. We don't think it's more lethal and it should not impact the effect of vaccine.

CHURCH: Yes, that must set a lot of people's nerves at rest because it has gotten a lot of people concerned. I know you're saying all viruses mutate, people shouldn't worry about this, but we still need to address this so that people can have those concerns looked at.

And I do want to ask you this because some European countries and Canada have now banned flights coming from the United Kingdom as a result of this new variant of the virus. Is this what needs to be done and should the U.S. also be thinking about this, banning those flights to prevent the movement of this new mutation version of the virus?

DEL RIO: You know there are very few flights from the U.K. to the U.S. and quite frankly, banning flights doesn't really help much. We showed that from the beginning of this pandemic. By the time flights were banned, the virus was already all over the place.

CHURCH: Right, so you don't see that as a necessary thing to necessarily --

DEL RIO: No.

CHURCH: -- stop the virus?

DEL RIO: No, let's focus on what's important, which is, you know, wear mask, watch your distance, wash your hands, get the vaccine out.

CHURCH: Dr. Carlos del Rio, thank you so much for talking with us.

DEL RIO: Delighted to be with you.

CHURCH: Well moving now to the relief so many American's have been waiting for, for months. Congress has finally reached a $900 billion stimulus deal to help unemployed Americans, small businesses and so many more impacted by this pandemic. President-elect Joe Biden praised the deal, and said in part, I am heartened to see members of Congress reach across the aisle and work together. This is a model for the challenging work ahead for our nation. CNN's Manu Raju has more on how the deal was reached and what it includes.

(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. $900 billion, a package, one of the biggest in American history, reached after 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. 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 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 and include $300 a week for people, starting December 27th. There would also be a one-time direct payment for individuals of up to $600, assuming they make less than $75,000 a year. And a family of four could get up to $2,400 because of the $600 given for each person in that family, assuming they are 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, 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 where key provisions 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 pushed back. They viewed it as wasteful spending in a lot of ways.

[04:15:00]

Republicans asked for a big liability shield for businesses and others that opened up during the pandemic. Democrats viewed that as a way to protect corporations who could be sued. That was put aside. Those fights will be punted to the New Year. And already, Democrats are talking about having to do a big package when Joe Biden becomes president on January 20th. So, this fight will be delayed until then, but this was a hard-fought battle. Ultimately, a deal has been reached. We expect it to go get approved in a matter of days here, get into -- money getting into the pockets of Americans. We'll see if it's enough.

Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Joining me now is CNN economics commentator Catherine Rampell. Good to have you with us.

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS COMMENTATOR: Great to be here.

CHURCH: So, Congress has reached the deal for $900 billion relief package, now of course it needs to be voted on in the House and the Senate, and then President Trump will need to sign off on it. How likely is it that he will do that and how long will this process take?

RAMPELL: Well, right now, the bill is still being written as we speak, in fact. There was a very last-minute agreement on the broad contours of the bill, but the language hasn't been produced yet. And then of course the bill will probably -- the bill over the COVID relief, rather, which is separate initially from that stopgap funding bill just to keep the government, you know, open, that will probably get a vote in the House tomorrow and then sometime after that in the Senate, as what I have heard, but all of this is up in the air. It's a very fluid situation.

Whether or not the White House is on board also is an open question, but it seems like they have participated over the weekend in some of these discussions. So I think it would be unlikely for President Trump to throw a bomb in them at the last minute, but he loves doing that, so it's hard to say.

CHURCH: Yes, very unpredictable. And lawmakers have released a summary of the coronavirus aid package. What are the main elements of the stimulus bill that people need to know about, and how soon might they get their stimulus checks, because that's for most people, what they're waiting for?

RAMPELL: So, the main elements of the bill are an extension and sort of a revival of some of the unemployment insurance expansion programs. Some of which have been ongoing and were set to expire right after Christmas. One of which already expired this past summer. Topping up the value of those benefit checks.

And in terms of stimulus checks, I would expect that a second round of checks would come up more quickly. I don't know exactly what the timeline would be, but it took a couple of months, I think, for the last of the checks to get out in first rounds, probably it would be more expedited in that this time around.

CHURCH: Yes. So, we'll see what happens. I mean, certainly people are not going to get relief before Christmas.

RAMPELL: No.

CHURCH: Was there just too much politics involved on both sides while American suffered, lining up for food, and being evicted from their homes, and of course, all of this will still happen until this gets agreed upon and get signed on.

RAMPELL: Well, to be fair, Democrats actually passed another round of fiscal relief months and months ago. They did it several times. These were much bigger bills than the one that is in the works now, that looks like it's likely to pass. There was one that was about $2 trillion dollars, for example. This is more likely to be around $900 billion. So, it was a much more generous package. It was a nonstarter in the Republican held Senate.

So, you know, you can argue about whether that was really a messaging bill or if it was something that was intended to help American families and I think there were arguments for both sides of that debate there.

Republicans in the meantime have been holding up further progress in these stimulus negotiations. For example, just over the past several days, there was this somewhat unrelated debate that kind of got shoved into these negotiations about whether the fed should continue to have the same sort of emergency landing powers that it has had for decades in fact, although they were expanded in a sense through the CARES Act that was passed earlier this year.

So, this was issue that's a thorny issue, but one that's not entirely related to the fact that again something like 12 million people were about to lose their unemployment benefits this week, but it became, you know, this last-minute roadblock.

Similarly, there was this negotiation, as I understand, just over the weekend related to these business meals. Again, you can argue that, you know, this is a priority for Republicans but it's not addressing the most immediate time bomb that was about to go off, which is that the last of these other sorts of benefits around Christmas.

CHURCH: All right, we shall see if all of this is enough to keep a lot of people afloat who are really hurting right now. Catherine Rampell, thank you so much.

RAMPELL: Thank you.

CHURCH: Well as the coronavirus rages in California, doctors and nurses there tell us about the tragedies they are seeing unfold before their very eyes. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: The COVID crisis in the U.S. is still dire. There were more than 1,500 deaths and nearly 190,000 new cases reported on Sunday. That is according to Johns Hopkins University.

In California, the picture is stark. Tens of thousands of people are getting infected each day, and hospitals are under massive strain. The heartbreak is unending, and the numbers are terrifying. Our Paul Vercammen has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The COVID-19 disaster continues in California. 46,000 new cases, 161 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 Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

They have morphed an operating room, the ER 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 help.

[04:25:00]

CLIFF RESURRECCION, NURSE: People of your age that had comorbidities, had no health issues, all of a sudden are in renal failure, heart failure, having blood clotting issues, unable to breath, intubated and you know, you don't know what's going to happen or the usual mortality is that they will pass away. That's what's so devastating about 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 Harbor- UCLA Medical Center. Now back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: A tragic situation there.

Well, a fiery meeting in the Oval Office sparks talk of the U.S. president invoking martial law to overturn the election. More on this, and his team's other efforts to keep the White House when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: 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 later today, and if passed, the bill would provide $900 billion in aid to many, including unemployed Americans and small businesses. CNN's Wolf Blitzer spoke to House Democrat Adam Schiff about the deal.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: How soon will people who are suffering right now having trouble putting food on the table for their kids, paying their rent.