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U.K. Travel Closures Leave Travelers, Freight Trucks Stranded; Fringe Group Advising U.S. President on Election Battle; Russia Denies U.S. Hack; Navalny Speaks Directly to Toxin Team that Tracked Him; South Korea Tightens Restrictions during Holidays; Kushner to Take Symbolic Flight from Tel Aviv to Rabat. Aired 2-2:45a ET

Aired December 22, 2020 - 02:00   ET

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

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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause.

Coming up this, hour a new, potentially more contagious coronavirus variant has dozens of countries opposing travel bans on the U.K. Drug makers are testing whether their vaccines are still effective against this mutation.

Nearly a year into the pandemic and millions of Americans are still unemployed and the U.S. Congress finally passes a second financial aid package. Many say it's too little and way too. Late

Later this hour a Russian agent sent to tail Alexei Navalny has mistakenly revealed all about the assassination pot targeting the Kremlin critic.

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VAUSE: We begin with growing concerns over the new variant of the coronavirus, which is spreading rapidly across the U.K. Pfizer and Moderna say they are now testing their COVID-19 vaccines to see if they are still effective against this mutation.

Despite the U.K. facing travel bans from many countries, the United States is still allowing flights. But top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci says the mutation may have already reached the U.S.

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Let's make an assumption that it is in fact making the virus more transmissible, even though it has not been proven yet. It does not seem at all to have any impact on the virulence or what we call the deadliness of the virus.

It doesn't make people more sick and it doesn't seem to have any impact on the protective nature of the vaccines that we are currently using.

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VAUSE: Meantime, France will begin COVID-19 vaccinations on Sunday. That's after the E.U. approved the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.

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URSULA VAN DER LEYEN, PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Today we add an important chapter in our fight against COVID-19. We took the decision to make available for European citizens the first COVID-19 vaccine.

We granted conditional market authorization to the vaccine produced by BioNTech and Pfizer. The European Medicines Agency assessed this vaccine thoroughly and it concluded that it is safe and effective against COVID-19.

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VAUSE: Joining me now Dr. Sian Griffiths, emeritus professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Professor, good to see. You thanks for being with us.

DR. SIAN GRIFFITHS, CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG: Nice to be with you.

VAUSE: OK, the thing we already know about the coronavirus, regardless of this mutation, is that small clusters can quickly become serious outbreaks. This mutation appears to be even more contagious.

Is it just a matter of time before the variant is detected in most countries if this also goes global?

GRIFFITHS: If other countries have experience of the U.K., that will be the case. We started to see, I think the variant was first in a couple of cases in September. In November it started to be an increasing proportion of the cases in London.

And now it is the predominant strain in London and across the southeast. Our figures doubled last week. They doubled up by 30,000 a day. And so we are facing a very rapid increase due to this variant.

VAUSE: That raises the question about how effective travel bans are, now that many countries have impose these bans on travelers from the U.K. The U.S. has not. Listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci. He has more on the situation in the U.S.

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FAUCI: Given the travel throughout the world, I would not be surprised if it's already here. When we start to look for it, we're going to find it. Certainly it's not yet the prevalent one, the way it seems to have assumed that prevalent nature in the U.K.

But we're going to be looking for it right now. and I'm sure sooner or later we are going to run into it and find it.

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VAUSE: Is Fauci essentially saying is that there is no point to a travel ban at this stage because it's already here?

GRIFFITHS: I would suggest that there isn't a point. I think it's been a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, because it's basically, have you been looking for this variant?

If you've been looking for this variant, you may well find it. Not every test that's done look for the variant and so it needs a special collaborative work across all sciences, not just in the U.K. or Europe but across the world.

So I would suspect that there will be many more cases. The main message here is that this virus needs us to remember to keep our social distance, to wash our hands to wear face masks.

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GRIFFITHS: To get tested if we feel sick and to isolate. Those are the key health public messages, which are the ones that are necessary, whether it's this variant or any other. That is why in the U.K. we have gone into tier 4 restrictions in the southeast.

And many think those will extend across the whole country just to try to curb the spread of the virus until people have been vaccinated, because, in the U.K., we started vaccinating a few weeks ago. Half a million people have received the first shot.

And so as we increase immunity in the population, we will be able to beat this virus. But it does take all of us to watch out for it. And if you get it, you really need to take those public health measures very seriously.

VAUSE: To borrow a line from the former defense secretary, Rumsfeld, when it comes to this variant, there are things we know we know, there are known unknowns and also unknown unknowns.

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GRIFFITHS: That will only become apparent over time, which is why we have to be cautious. And I think that's our main message from the public health community, just carry on taking care.

VAUSE: Here's the U.S. assistant secretary for health who has more on what we know and I guess what we don't. know here he is.

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ADMIRAL BRETT GIROIR, M.D., HHS ASSISTANT SECRETARY: It is not any more lethal or any more dangerous than the normal coronavirus. No evidence to suggest. That no reason to believe it. There is also no evidence to suggest nor reason to believe that it

would evade our vaccines that we have right now. Remember, our vaccines develop antibodies against multiple parts of that spike protein, not just one that is the mutated one.

So we are very encouraged about, that but of course, we have a lot of work to do to understand this more fully.

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VAUSE: With that in mind, when it comes to this mutation, what is your biggest concern, your unknown unknowns, if you like?

GRIFFITHS: One of the unknown unknowns is about the spread of infection in children. It has been suggested that this particular variant infects children as well as adults. So, of course, we have always, with the previous variant in Europe, we have been saying that children, it is less infectious for children and that has allowed some of the policies on schools to be developed the way they have.

So one of the unknown unknowns is how this affects children, not that it's going to be more serious, not that this vaccine won't work.

But what does having that increased pool of infection in your community, what does that actually mean for controlling the epidemic across the population?

VAUSE: Also a lot of information for schools and families.

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GRIFFITHS: Absolutely. So if that's an unknown, many people are working on it. Now

And what's very cheering is how the world scientists come together on COVID and how everybody shares research and findings very quickly. We should not be too pessimistic about this.

It's just that viruses mutate all the time and this particular virus happens to have gotten away, happens to have found a way of being more effective. We'll probably see this in the future. We see it with the flu and it is just one of those stages of viral development that we need to get on top of.

VAUSE: Good point to finish our conversation. Professor, thank you for being with us.

As many in Europe now wait to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, a growing number of countries have placed travel bans on the U.K. to prevent the new variant of COVID-19 from crossing their borders.

Right now, there's an epic backlog of freight after France closed its border to trucks and this was the scene across the U.K. on Monday. Long lines and empty shelves as many stockpiled food.

Prime minister Boris Johnson is urging calm and carry on. He says supply lines for food and medicine will not break down. CNN's Nic Robertson joins me live from London.

We should note that border closure to France is pretty much for everything, passengers and freight.

But at this point, will Boris Johnson go down in history as the prime minister who canceled Christmas?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, because he has already done that. I think a lot of people, we have heard a lot of talk from psychologists and such like over the last nine months.

But really the psychological impact of people dealing with the coronavirus, whether they lost somebody, whether they lost their job, whether their lives have been proscribed in such a way that they feel limited and not as enjoyable.

So Boris Johnson announced that Saturday, that he was going to put London and the southeast into tier 4 and tell the country that no longer -- what he said a few days earlier, three family groups could get together in one household for five days over Christmas, he said, you can be in your house, it's only your family in your house.

If you are bubbling, the term, if there is one individual that you have been meeting with, one specific person who is bubbling with your family, then they can obviously join you.

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ROBERTSON: But essentially a lot of people in this country took that as canceling Christmas. I know people who weren't able to leave to go home to see family, people who weren't able to travel across the country to see family.

It has affected everyone and people are frustrated. Take the teachers, for example, in the U.K., deeply frustrated about the way that they have been treated through the pandemic, essentially frontline workers.

And then over the Christmas period, teachers and schools across much of the country told that you will need to test your pupils when you come back. You've got two weeks over Christmas to figure that out. There aren't great additional resources to help them do. That

So there are professions feel that they have been put upon and, as you say, this canceling Christmas, yes, this has come to a real blow to a lot of people.

VAUSE: It seems it's a sudden reversal of what was said and then taken back and the changes, which has so many people on edge. Nic Robertson, thank you so much.

After months of haggling and partisan bickering, Democrats and Republicans have agreed on a financial relief package for the pandemic. The U.S. House and Senate passed a $900 billion dollar COVID aid package. Democrats, including President-Elect Joe Biden, say this is just the first step. More financial aid will be needed. Meantime, health care workers across the U.S. have started

administering the second approved COVID-19 vaccine, this one from Moderna. The number of Americans now admitted to hospital remains at a record high. More than 18 million people in the U.S. have been infected with the virus; 319,000 have died.

President-Elect Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, got the first doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine on Monday. They received it live on TV, saying while the vaccine gives Americans hope, it's just the beginning of a long road to recovery.

He also said the Trump administration deserves some credit for Operation Warp Speed. He also thanked health care workers who've been on the frontlines.

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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because we owe these folks an awful lot. The scientists and the people who put this together, the frontline workers, the people who were the ones who actually did the clinical work, it's just amazing.

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VAUSE: Details from U.S. officials about the suspected Russian cyberattack. Now it seems the Treasury Department was among the agencies targeted. How Russia is responding.

Also opposition leader Alexei Navalny tricks a Russian agent into revealing details about the poisoning plot to kill. Him details when we come back.

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VAUSE: All indications are that Donald Trump has decided to walk away from his day job. That's the one running the country. He's keeping busy, though, considering some increasingly fringe ideas to subvert the election, which he clearly lost last month.

And the advice he is getting now has alarmed even the most loyal of White House staffers. Here is CNN's Jeremy Diamond.

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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump's brazen and delusional pushed to overturn the 2020 election is alarming some senior officials and people close to the president, who say they are concerned about how he is handling his final weeks in office. One official telling CNN, no one is sure where this is heading. He is still the president for another month. Now, as Trump considers an executive order to seize voting machines, naming a special counsel to investigate voter fraud and even imposing martial law in key battleground states. Even his most loyal allies are pushing back.

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WILLIAM BARR, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL: I see no basis now for seizing machines by the federal government. You know, wholesale seizure of machines by the federal government.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe there is enough evidence to warrant appointing a special counsel?

BARR: If I thought a special counsel at this stage was the right tool and was appropriate, I would do -- I would name one, but I haven't.

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DIAMOND: The attorney general isn't alone. Sources telling CNN that White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also push back on the outlandish ideas raised during a heated Oval Office meeting on Friday. Trump denied considering martial law but he is increasingly turning to the fringes of his political orbit.

Chief among them, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell who was removed from her position on Trump's legal team after baselessly accusing the CIA and the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez of rigging the 2020 election.

The pair were at the center of a heated Oval Office meeting on Friday, which sources said turned into a shouting match. Powell when Trump is considering named as a special counsel was spotted again leaving the White House residence late Sunday night. Also now backing the president here, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

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STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: As I strongly recommended to the president, we need a special counsel named immediately. A special person just an election fraud and voter fraud, the two different things. Election fraud and voter fraud. You need to do that immediately.

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DIAMOND: Bannon who was charged with counts of wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy last summer may also be seeking a presidential pardon. Meanwhile, the president is missing in action on the coronavirus pandemic. And downplaying one of the worst cyberattacks on U.S. government systems. Calling it, quote, "far greater in the fake news media than in actuality. And suggesting China was the culprit, even though top U.S. officials say all signs point to Russia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: This was a very significant effort and I think it's the case that now we can say pretty clearly, that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity.

BARR: From that information I have, you know, I agree with Secretary Pompeo's assessment. It certainly appears to be the Russians.

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DIAMOND: And President Trump on Monday spent several hours meeting with some of the most pro-Trump members of Congress who were plotting his long shot attempt to object and try and overturn the results of the Electoral College. That's on January 6th when members of Congress are supposed to certify the vote from the Electoral College to approve Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.

And this meeting is just one of several that the president was holding on Monday focused on this effort to overturn the results of a democratic election that he lost. The conspiracy theorist and attorney Sidney Powell, she was also at the White House on Monday, it was the third time in just four days that she's been meeting with the president -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.

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VAUSE: Moscow has denied any involvement in the massive cyberattack on U.S. government agencies and private companies. New details emerge about the extent of the hack. According to a U.S. senator, dozens of email accounts from the Department of Treasury were compromised.

So far we know at least two major cybersecurity firms were targeted as well as Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft. U.S. State and Energy Departments were also confirmed they were hit, as well as the agencies responsible for cybersecurity and infrastructure security. Fred Pleitgen has more now from Moscow.

Fred, what is this denial worth, if anything?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a kind of denial that we have heard from the Russians in the past, when you have had similar things happen in the United States and elsewhere as well, where they categorically deny that they were part of it and then they go on the offensive and say, look, this is all anti Russian feeling that's behind all this.

One of the things I will say is that you do notice that they are very closely monitoring some of the things coming out of the U.S., specifically people like secretary of state Mike Pompeo saying he believes the Russians are behind this but the president saying they are not.

That is certainly something the Russians are very well aware, that there are those disagreements within the U.S. government. So we got yesterday, we asked the spokesman for the Kremlin, to comment on all of, this and he said, and this is a quote we got from him.

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PLEITGEN: He said, quote, "Russia has nothing to do with such attacks and this attack in particular. We say that officially and decisively. Any accusations against Russia in this regard are baseless and probably the continuation of this blind Russophobia, which is being engaged in, in relation to any incidents."

So very typical there of the kind of announcements we've heard from the Kremlin. In similar situations in the past, you heard that word that he said, Russophobia, where he is essentially saying that there is a campaign against Russia going on, not just in Washington, D.C., but in other Western capitals as well.

That seems to be what the spokesman from the Kremlin is insinuating. One other interesting thing that we got from him, from Dmitry Peskov, is that we asked him whether or not he believes there is going to be any retaliation coming from the U.S. because of all, this. . And he said he simply did not know. He believed that right now the White House is unpredictable. Of course one of the other things the Russians are looking toward right now -- and I think many in the U.S. are looking toward right now -- is how all of this, obviously a pretty big attack, how this could play out for the incoming Biden administration.

How that could affect relations between the U.S. and Russia going forward under a new administration.

VAUSE: Fred Pleitgen, our man in Moscow, good to see you.

A Russian agent, part of an elite team assigned to follow Alexei Navalny, has mistakenly revealed details of the plan to poison the outspoken Kremlin critic. The agent admitted that the internationally banned nerve agent, Novichok, was planted in Navalny's underwear.

Last week a CNN and Bellingcat investigation revealed that the unit trailed Navalny for ore than three years. We get details now from CNN's Clarissa Ward.

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CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is an extraordinary scene. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on the phone with one of the FSB units he believes poisoned him in August. Navalny is pretending to be a senior figure from Russia's National Security Council investigating the attempted assassination.

The operative, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, is hesitant at first but then reveals the poison was placed on Navalny's underpants.

ALEXEI NAVALNY, RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER (through translator): Well, imagine underpants and in what place.

KONSTANTIN KUDRYAVTSEV, RUSSIAN AGENT (through translator): The insides, the groin.

NAVALNY (through translator): The crotch on the underpants?

KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): Well, the so-called flap. There are some seams there, so across the seams.

WARD (voice-over): The explosive admission punches a gaping hole in the Kremlin's repeated denials that the Russian government played any role in Navalny's poisoning. Kudryavtsev was one of an elite team who trailed Navalny for years, as CNN and online investigative outlet Bellingcat reported last week.

The unit was headquartered in this unassuming building in a Moscow suburb. Most of its members were doctors or scientists. Kudryavtsev graduated from the Russian Academy of Chemical Defense.

When Navalny was poisoned back in August, his flight was suddenly diverted to Tomsk. Flight records show that just five days later, Kudryavtsev flew to that same city, taking possession of Navalny's clothes. On the 45-minute call with Navalny, he offers an assurance that no trace of Novichok would be found on them.

KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): Yes, all is clean.

NAVALNY (through translator): Visually, it will not be visible? They did not remove? There are no stains on them -- nothing?

KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): No, no -- nothing. They are in good condition and clean.

NAVALNY (through translator): Pants?

KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): There is the same inside area. Perhaps something was left on it, too. We washed it off there also. But this is presumably because there was contact with the pants. Perhaps there was something on there, too.

WARD (voice-over): The FSB toxins team trailed Navalny on more than 30 trips around Russia. Five of its members flew to Siberia around the same time as Navalny during the fateful August trip when he was poisoned.

Toxicologists have told CNN that Navalny is lucky to be alive and that the intention was almost certainly to kill him, a point Kudryavtsev himself appears to acknowledge.

KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): If he had flown a little longer and perhaps would not have landed so quickly and all, perhaps it would have all gone differently. That is, had it not been for the prompt assistance of doctors or ambulances on the landing strip and so on.

NAVALNY (through translator): The plane landed after 40 minutes. Basically, this should have been taken into account while planning the operation. It wasn't that the plane landed instantly.

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NAVALNY (through translator): They calculated the wrong dose, the probability? Why?

KUDRYAVTSEV (through translator): Well, I can't say why. As I understand it, we added a bit extra, so --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did you do this? How did you do this?

WARD (voice-over): At the end of the call, Navalny and his team are elated that their sting operation has worked. And despite everything he's discovered, he's still determined to return to Russia as soon as possible.

WARD (on camera): CNN has reached out to the Kremlin for comment. So far, we have not heard back.

But, Russia's state security services, the FSB, has called the conversation a fake. They said it was designed to make the state security services look bad and that it could only have been done with the help of foreign special services. This is something they often accuse Navalny of doing -- of working with Western intelligence services.

But one has the suspicion that this story is not going away for them. There will be more questions asked -- Clarissa Ward, CNN, London.

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VAUSE: CNN intelligence and security analyst Bob Baer outlined all the way these Russian agents managed to botch this attempted assassination.

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BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: I have never seen worse spycraft in my entire life.

From the flights not using alias passports, they could've covered this up. And then getting on an open line and confessing to attempted murder, it's just quite astounding. You have to wonder what happened to the FSB.

I understand this guy's a chemist. But if that's the best planning they can do, you really have to wonder how bad things are there.

VAUSE: This seems to be the equivalent of the Howard Stern method of punking an unsuspected politician with a phone call, claiming to be someone else.

But Navalny managed to get a confession that the plan was, firstly, to kill him and, secondly, to use an internationally banned chemical weapon, Novichok.

Surely that does clear the way now for some kind of sanctions against Russia as well as Putin?

BAER: Well, absolutely. If we didn't have a pro-Russian president -- they should be immediately put on sanctions like this. And don't -- let's not forget Salisbury a couple years ago. They used a weapon of mass destruction in Britain, a NATO ally, and we basically did nothing. A few expulsions and that was it.

But clearly, if we don't do something at this point, Putin is going to feel -- he's going to be -- an open-ended hunting season on anybody he wants to kill.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Thanks again to, Bob Baer.

Coming up, a new variant of the coronavirus is hitting the U.K. Now South Africa also battling a new variant of COVID.

Are they connected?

The answer when we come back.

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VAUSE: Thanks for staying with us. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I am John Vause.

France joined a long list of countries banning traveling from the U.K. after a new, possibly faster spreading variant of the coronavirus was detected in Britain. Flights have been canceled around the world. France also restricting transport across the English Channel.

The move potentially disturbing food and other vital supply chains and could also be a sign of what is yet to come. If British and E.U. leaders fail to reach a post Brexit trade. Deal

Meantime, the World Health Organization says a new variant of the virus in South Africa is a distinct mutation different from the one reported by the U.K. CNN's Eleni Giokos joins us now live from Johannesburg.

This may be a different separate mutation but it seems to have a similar outcome in terms of rate of spread and transmission.

ELENI GIOKOS, CNNMONEY CORRESPONDENT: It's interesting to see these variants emerging around the world and the World Health Organization has said there is a distinction and a difference between what we are seeing in South Africa and other parts of the world.

But they do share some characteristics. The lead epidemiologist in South Africa says that they suspected the virus to evolve and there would be variants. And in fact they had seen many different types emerging, from the 5th of March, when we saw the first coronavirus case in the country. What is interesting about this variant, however, it seems to have

coincided with the start of the second wave. Whether they actually identified it as the Nelson Mandela Bay Region, which happens to be a hot spot right now, it is in the eastern Cape and, in fact, the big concern is now that one in every 10 cases -- nine in every 10 cases, is of this new variant.

So it's the dominant variant right now in South Africa. We have seen about 10,000 new cases on a daily basis in the country at this point in time. But what has been different in South Africa is that the death rate, despite the fact that we have had a high number of cases in the country, has been much lower than what we have seen around the world.

The big question is, is it more transmissible?

We are hearing that it may be. But they are still collecting data.

The other big question is, will result in higher death rates?

Again, a big unknown. But they are looking at lab tests. I want to take a listen to what the technical lead of the WHO Health Emergencies had to say.

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MARIA VAN KERKHOVE, WHO: South Africans are also working with us through our virus evolution working group and they are presenting to us some preliminary results from the studies that they are doing. They are currently growing the virus in South Africa so that more studies can be done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GIOKOS: And what they are doing is, these lab, tests they are now taking the virus. They are growing it and also adding convalescent plasma of recovered COVID-19 cases to see if it can again infect people that have recovered and also to check transmissibility and to check whether it is more deadly.

In the meantime, we know that there have been flight bans targeting the U.K. Right now Germany and Switzerland have banned flights from South Africa until more information is gathered and more data is collated to see how serious this new variant is.

VAUSE: Eleni Giokos there in Johannesburg, thank you, we appreciate the update.

Australia and Taiwan have said they will not improve impose travel restrictions on the U.K., claim existing restrictions are adequate. This comes as Taiwan is reporting its first locally transmitted infection in more than eight months.

Australia meantime has detected four cases of the new variant but insist there is no need for concern.

In Japan, doctors and nurses on the front lines of the pandemic are urging more action from their government to contain the latest outbreak. The country added 1,800 new cases on Monday, pushing its total past 200,000.

And South Korea now posing tighter COVID restrictions just in time for Christmas and New Year's, calling in a special quarantine period to try to control a recent surge of daily cases. CNN's Paula Hancocks in Seoul.

What are the details of these new restrictions?

What can people do and what can they not do?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is what officials are putting in place to stop yearend gatherings and to really curtail the Christmas celebrations that they may have had planned.

From December 24th to January 3rd, there are a number of more restrictions. All religious services will be 100 percent online. That is a crucial point, considering there have been numerous church outbreaks over recent months.

And then also the ski slopes, for example, and winter sport facilities, a big thing here in South Korea, they will be closed.

[02:35:00]

HANCOCKS: Hotels and resorts will be 50 percent occupancy. Yesterday they announced, from tomorrow, there will be a ban on gathering of five or more people in the greater Seoul area, indoors or outdoors. They will enforce that within restaurants as well and after 9 pm that has to be completely takeout anyway.

They are also saying that parks and tourist attractions will be closed, really trying to make sure that there is not much for people to do, so that they do stay home. The prime minister said that the message really is very clear, cancel your plans and stay at home.

We also heard from the acting Seoul mayor and he talked about his concerns that, if people don't adhere to, this or if numbers continue to rise in the area, we could see a situation that we saw in New York, in London earlier this year, in the deserted streets.

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SEO JEONG-HYUP, ACTING SEOUL MAYOR (through translator): We cannot overcome the current crisis without reducing cluster infections that are spreading through private gatherings with families, friends and colleagues. This is the last chance to break the spread of COVID 19.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANCOCKS: One of the reasons officials are so concerned, daily numbers have been over the 1,000 number, it was lower than that today, 169 for Monday. But the death rate is increasing here.

We have seen a number of record deaths, 24 deaths on Monday. It doesn't seem very high compared to some of these countries we are talking about around the world. But it is high for South Korea.

And with a crunch on hospital beds, specifically ICU beds dedicated for coronavirus patients, the restrictions are to hope they can ease that crunch.

VAUSE: Paula Hancocks in Seoul with the latest. Thank. You

A maiden flight from Israel to Morocco as White House adviser Jared Kushner touts the latest U.S. brokered deal between Israel and an Arab country, details when we come back.

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VAUSE: White House senior advisor and presidential son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has joined an Israeli delegation on a symbolic flight from Tel Aviv to Morocco. This trip is meant to highlight progress in U.S. brokered talks normalizing relations between the two countries. For more, journalist Elliott Gotkine is live in Tel Aviv.

The first commercial flight as well as Kushner's first trip to Morocco, a lot of symbolism.

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Very much so, John, in fact we just heard from Jared Kushner. He and U.S. ambassador David Friedman are at the plane, as is prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's national security adviser, Meir Ben Shabbat, who is of Moroccan descent. They are all due to get on that flight, which could take off in the next hour. So

Kushner says the Abraham accords, which Morocco is joining, we've already got the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, now Morocco. So Kushner hailing these accords.

[02:40:00]

GOTKINE: He's saying it's a restoration of the normal of Jews and Muslims living together. He says that this trip is to pave the way for a warm peace between Israel and Morocco and saying that president Donald Trump has worked hard to create a national policy in the Middle East.

Kushner referenced the warmth of the peace there. Morocco has had Jewish community and has the largest Jewish community in North Africa going back more than 2,000 years, numbering about 3,000. There are some 700,000 Israelis who can trace their descent to Morocco as well.

So once these flights get going in earnest, you can bet there will be quite a lot of demand for that. Also, of course, once the skies are open, hopefully after the coronavirus is under control.

VAUSE: First things first, I guess, when it comes to national travel. All looking great on the foreign policy front for Israel but domestically not so great for the Israel government close to collapse.

What are the details there?

VAUSE: That's right. Barring a post Hanukkah or pre-Christmas miracle, this government is. Toast at midnight tonight it will dissolve. Midnight local time, unless something extremely surprising happens.

This is because the two main parts of the coalition government of prime minister Netanyahu Likud Party or his coalition, his allies and also Blue and Whites led by Benny Gantz, the defense minister, couldn't agree on a budget for 2020.

And this is the one and only way that the prime minister could avoid fulfilling his deal with Gantz to see the prime ministership halfway through this term. Had this budget passed, Gantz would have become prime minister even if the government had collapsed. He would've been the caretaker prime minister.

So this government looks like it's going to fall this evening and that we will be going towards our fourth elections in the space of two years, probably in March of next year.

One final thing, quip of the day belongs to the leader of the opposition. He said to the prime minister, "You don't care about the mutation of the coronavirus, you only care about the rotation" -- John.

VAUSE: Yes, interesting timing with the collapse of the government for that rotation of the prime minister's office. They've done that before successfully in Israel but not this time. Back to the election polls, hard to believe. Thank you, Elliott Gotkine there in Tel Aviv.

For the next few nights Jupiter and Saturn will align so closely together they will look like a double planet in the sky.

Could it be a bright shining star which the gospel Matthew says inspired three wise men to travel from the east to Bethlehem?

Technically, the event is called a conjunction and this is what it looked like from South Carolina just a short time ago. From our perspective, the two planets are moving toward each other and from now until Christmas Day they will be closer than they have been since the Middle Ages.

If you would like to catch a glimpse, astronomers suggest looking low in the western sky an hour each night just after sunset.

The Kilauea volcano has erupted in Hawaii, sending hot lava 50 meters into the. Officials say the eruption was likely caused by a series of earthquakes Sunday night. The volcano has not been this active in more than two years and residents living nearby have been told it's probably best to stay indoors right now.

Good advice. Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Please, stay with

us. "WORLD SPORT" is up next and a lot more news in 15 minutes on the top of the. hour you're watching CNN.