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Coronavirus Concerns as Holiday Travel Surges; California's Health System In Crisis Mode; President Trump's Controversial Pardons. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired December 23, 2020 - 10:30   ET

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

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We know the Thanksgiving holiday led to a surge in the virus and Dr. Anthony Fauci says these new numbers are concerning.

[10:30:00]

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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR OF NIAID: This type of travel is risky, particularly if people start congregating when they get to their destination in larger crowds in indoor settings. I'm afraid that if in fact we see this happen, we will have a surge that superimposed upon the difficult situation we are already in. So it could be a very difficult January coming up if these things happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: Now, remember a lot of these are people leaving for the holiday, but there's a concern they could be coming back all at once. November 29th still holds the TSA pandemic record, the Sunday after Thanksgiving when more than 1.1 million people flew. Pamela?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Pete Muntean, thank you so much.

In the meantime, California's health system is in crisis mode according to one health care executive there. Coronavirus cases have climbed to nearly two million.

Dan Simon is in San Francisco. So what are you hearing there, Dan?

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi Pamela. California about to hit two million cases -- excuse me. What's especially noteworthy about that is that it took about 10 months to reach the first million and only six weeks to reach the second million, and it's because of all of these disturbing trend lines that Governor Newsom announced that the stay-at-home order which was set to be lifted in Los Angeles will likely be extended.

ICU capacity in Southern California remains at 0 percent and hospitalizations over the past couple of weeks have risen about 63 percent. In L.A. County, one out of every 64 people is said to have the infection and actively spreading it. County hospitals are full.

Now here in San Francisco, it's not quite as bleak, cases rising about 2 percent each day as opposed to 8 percent a few weeks ago.

Nonetheless, these trends do remain disturbing and, of course, officials, as Pete said, are warning folks not to travel, not do any unnecessary travel or have any family gatherings over the holiday. That said, they are bracing for a post holiday surge, much like what we saw after Thanksgiving. Pamela?

BROWN: All right, Dan Simon, thank you very much. Now let's bring in Dr. Seema Yasmin, a CNN medical analyst and a former CDC disease detective. She's also the Author of the new book "Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them." If you would, just put this in perspective for us.

OK, you know that the U.S. reported just over 3,400 coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, the second highest in a single day since the start of the pandemic. That timeline, what we're seeing in hospitals and the death rate, lines up with people who were infected around the Thanksgiving holiday. What goes through your mind as we continue to see Americans ignore travel warnings around Christmas? What is the risk to them and their loved ones?

SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: What goes through my mind, Pamela, is horror that now we're seeing the bump from Thanksgiving travel but actually we're still seeing millions of people pass through TSA checkpoints per day over the past five days, and so what are we going to see in January?

And I just worry so much that health care workers are at their breaking point. We've got ICUs here in Southern California, also in the San Joaquin Valley that are nearing capacity. And because the hot spots are so widespread, like everywhere is a hot spot, it makes it that much harder for ICUs in one region to say to a neighboring area, hey, can we send our patients to you, because those hospitals are also struggling.

And here in California especially, we keep setting national records for COVID-19 and then we keep breaking them. And in fact it's so bad here that if our state was its own country, we'd be ahead of the UK, India and Germany in terms of the number of new infections.

So this situation is dire, and I'm concerned that this increasing number of people traveling over the holidays is going to make it so much worse in January, and we just won't be able to cope.

BROWN: I mean, what do you do at this point to get through to people? You were sounding the alarm around the Thanksgiving holiday. People went anyway. And now we're seeing that reflect in the numbers. What more should health experts like you be doing to get through to people?

YASMIN: It's really frustrating, but I do think there's value to reminding people over and over again. Just yesterday on "New Day," we saw that nurse almost crying on TV saying that she's been in this profession for 40 years and never seen something as bad as this. I think for some people, those kinds of messages, those kinds of images from folks on the frontlines can start to get the message across. Of course, there are psychologists who are saying that we kind of

become numb to the numbers at some point. We're talking about tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands infected and then thousands dying every day. Those numbers just start to go over people's heads, so I think reminding people these are grandparents, these are siblings, these are partners that we are losing every day.

We cannot lose sight of that and we have to hunker down over the holidays. Even though that sucks, we want human contact more than ever, this is not your ordinary Christmas and New Year's. We are in the middle of a historic generation-defining public health crisis. Things have got to look different now so that they can -- we can heal and things can look better in the New Year.

[10:35:00]

BROWN: And you want to be able to look forward to more Christmases with your loved ones.

YASMIN: Right, absolutely.

BROWN: So you're saying it's worth giving up this one to do that. And then meantime, American researchers studying the new U.K. strain of the coronavirus believe that the new variant likely arrived in the U.S. in mid-November and that hundreds of people here in the states could already be infected with it.

Since this new strain is believed to be more contagious, does that mean children are more vulnerable to contract it?

YASMIN: So we have seen some different dynamics in kids with this new variant, and I should actually say, we keep calling it the new variant. Actually, it's been around since at least September in the U.K. where it was first detected. But even then, the U.K.'s been doing about half of the world share of coronavirus sequencing.

So if there were going to be variants, which inevitably there are when a virus is spreading so out of control, they were going to be found in the U.K., but we should emphasize that this strain, this variant, has also been found in Australia now, Denmark, Italy, in Iceland and the Netherlands, so it's in many places.

We do think it might be spreading among children quicker in a different way compared to the earlier variants of the coronavirus. So I don't think the travel restrictions actually make sense in terms of trying to stop this variant spreading.

I think that's happened. It's been around months, it's not brand new. But definitely reiterating that people should not be travel right now, kids might be more at risk. We're still figuring it out; it's still early days in terms of our scientific understanding of the new variant. Even more reason to wear your mask, do physical distancing and limit your gatherings over the holidays.

BROWN: All right Dr. Seema Yasmin, thank you.

YASMIN: Thank you.

BROWN: Well President Trump's controversial pardons include four military contractors involved in a massacre in Iraq that killed more than a dozen civilians. And this morning, new reaction of the survivor of the mass shooting.

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[10:41:45]

BROWN: An Iraqi victim who survived an attack by four Blackwater guards involved in a massacre in Baghdad has called President Trump's decision to pardon the men involved unjust. CNN's Senior International Correspondent Arwa Damon is following these developments. So what more are you learning, Arwa?

ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look, I mean, this news of this pardon has just rippled through Iraq and been especially painful for those families who lost loved ones in this 2007 massacre and for those who managed to survive it.

This happened in 2007 at a Baghdad intersection that's known as the Nisour Square, where these Blackwater security guards opened fire. There was a hail of bullets that was so intense, followed by the use of grenades, that cars exploded into balls of flame. That is how fiercely this security convoy opened fire on Iraqi civilians in their vehicles.

It took until 2014 for these victims and survivors to even begin to see justice with this initial court appearance that then saw one of the guards sentenced to life in prison and the other three to 30 years.

Now those men are going to walk free. I mean, just imagine if you have lost someone you love to that. There's one doctor CNN spoke to fairly frequently in the initial years after the attack took place, who had to scrape his son's brains off the sidewalk. We also just spoke to another survivor, who was injured in the head, who not only called this pardon unjust for the victims, the wounded and the families of the victims, but he also said that they were terrorists.

Back in the day, this attack severely strained relations between Iraqis and Americans and there has been, pretty much since the onset of the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq back in 2003, this sense among Iraqis that their lives are cheap and worthless. What this pardon does is just once again re-emphasize that.

BROWN: Arwa Damon, thank you. We'll be right back.

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[10:48:50]

BROWN: Maybe we (ph) can all agree that 2020 was a year like no other, including in the world of sports. From coronavirus' impact to the untimely death of Basketball Superstar Kobe Bryant, it was an unprecedented time.

CNNs Andy Scholes takes a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A big part of sports is the emotional ups and downs and in 2020, the highs were high, but the lows were as low as we've seen in a long time.

From Kobe's death to big-time event cancellations to the coronavirus leaving stadiums empty, sports had a tough go of it this year. The 2020 started off like any other year in sports.

UNKNOWN: And the tigers of LSU, a team of destiny and a team for ages, capturing the national title.

SCHOLES (voice-over): LSU won their first College Football National Championship since 2007, but then the sports world was dealt a devastating blow.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We're following very tragic, very sad breaking news. The NBA Legend Kobe Bryant has died in a helicopter crash. He was only 41 years old.

SCHOLES: The sports world mourning the loss of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others for weeks.

[10:50:00]

VANESSA BRYANT, WIFE OF KOBE BRYANT: God knew they couldn't be on this earth without each other. He had to bring them home to have them together.

MICHAEL JORDAN, NBA LEGEND: When Kobe Bryant died, a piece of me died. Now he's got me, I'll have to look at another crying meme for the next.

SCHOLES: When the Lakers eventually took the court, they held an emotional tribute. In February, Patrick Mahomes would lead the Kansas City Chiefs on a comeback to win super bowl LIV over the 49ers. Andy Reid finally had his super bowl title and the Chiefs their first in 50 years.

PATRICK MAHOMES, STARTING QUARTERBACK FOR THE KANSAS CITY CHIEFS: I followed my dreams and now I'm here winning the Super Bowl with all my teammates.

ANDY REID, HEAD COACH OF THE KANSAS CITY CHIEFS: I can coach another 20 years with this group.

SCHOLES: Soon after that, on March 11th, the entire sports world came to a stop.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: The NBA has just announced that the season is going to be suspended.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: The NCAA is indeed now canceling its men and women's basketball tournaments over coronavirus fears.

SCHOLES: The NBA, the first league to shut down. The NCAA tournament was canceled for the first time ever. Major League Baseball sent their players home from strain training. Sports everywhere was put on hold due to COVID-19 with no return in sight.

ADAM SILVER, NBA COMMISSIONER: Even if we're out for a month, even if we're out for six weeks, we can still restart the season.

SCHOLES: For more than three months, we had no sports to watch. Over the summer events did start to slowly come back, with NASCAR being the first to allow fans. The sport's only black driver successfully campaigned NASCAR to ban the confederate flag from its races, then Bubba Wallace became the suspected victim of a hate crime at Talladega Super Speedway.

UNKNOWN: NASCAR is investigating a noose found in the garage of driver Bubba Wallace. The entire sports world and Wallace's peers rallying around him.

BUBBA WALLACE, NASCAR DRIVER: Drivers wanted to do that, they wanted to show support of me.

SCHOLES: In the end, the FBI determined the noose was a garage door pull that had been in the garage before Wallace was assigned to it.

UNKNOWN: It looks increasingly like I'm going to be watching an unprecedented amount of sports on TV pretty soon.

SCHOLES: In July, the NBA returned, moving all operations to a bubble at Disney World. It was a great success with the league having zero positive COVID-19 tests for the nearly three months the teams were in the bubble, the NHL and WNBA following the NBA'S model, also completing their seasons without positive tests. But at one point, the NBA players nearly walked away from the successful restart in order to stand up for social justice.

BLITZER: NBA playoff games, all three of them tonight, have been postponed in protest of the shooting of Jacob Blake.

SCHOLES: In a show of solidarity with the NBA, teams across the WNBA, NHL and Major League Baseball also halting play. Athletes in 2020 more than ever using their voice to encourage change.

CROWD: We, the national football league --

MAHOMES: Believe Black Lives Matter.

NNEKA OGWUMIKE, WNBA PLAYER FOR THE LOS ANGELES SPARKS: We've always been about this fight. We're a league of 70 percent black women and we want to represent our communities as best as we can.

GEORGE HILL, POINT GUARD FOR THE OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER: It really woke the world up and let them know that we're serious. We need change. We need more love in the world.

SCHOLES: The NBA playoffs did eventually resume with Lebron James capturing his fourth NBA title and first for the Lakers since 2010.

LEBRON JAMES, NBA PLAYER FOR THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS: To be able to get to the finish line and then be able to cross it, this is just unbelievable film.

SCHOLES: The city of Los Angeles wasn't done celebrating in October after a rocky regular season dealing with outbreaks, the dodgers winning their first World Series in 32 years, beating the Rays at a neutral site in Arlington, Texas. About 11,000 fans were in attendance for the game. And while fans did return to sporting events in 2020, it looked much different.

UNKNOWN: It feels sad but we're going to make the best of it.

SCHOLES: College football saw conferences tackle the coronavirus in different ways. The big 12, SEC and ACC were determined to play and never wavered, while the Big Ten and PAC-12 postponed their seasons.

KEVIN WARREN, BIG-10 CONFERENCE COMMISSIONER: We just believe collectively there's too much uncertainty at this point in time in our country to encourage our student athletes to participate in fall sports.

SCHOLES: And nearly all conferences eventually decided to play in the fall but faced significant postponements and cancellations.

UNKNOWN: This week's slate of college football games is the hardest hit yet by the pandemic.

UNKNOWN: 18 games in all have been called off this week because of COVID.

SCHOLES: The NFL also struggling to the finish line of their season, dealing with cases on teams from week to week.

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: The fifth Tennessee Titans football player just testing positive for COVID-19, prompting the NFL to tweet "The Steelers/Titans game will be moved to later in this season."

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: The NFL is postponing tonight's game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers after the ravens confirmed multiple cases of COVID.

[10:55:00]

SCHOLES: No March madness, a Masters in November and big games played in empty stadiums, 2020 was a very different, challenging year. But with vaccines on the way, there's hope the sports world will return to normal in 2021.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, thanks for joining me today. I'm Pamela Brown. I'll be back here with you in the morning. "Newsroom" with Kate Bolduan starts after a quick break.