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Biden: Darkest Days in COVID Battle Are Ahead of U.S.; Texas Hospital Pushed to Brink as Admissions Soar; California Hospitals Struggling with Surge; Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) Interviewed on Trump Pardons of Associates Charged by Mueller; Private Bankers to Trump, Kushner Resigns from Deutsche Bank; Michigan's Attorney General is Interviewed about Requesting Sanctions on Former Trump Campaign Lawyer. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired December 23, 2020 - 00:00 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 and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, France reopens its border with the U.K. but with conditions. Only those testing negative to COVID-19 will be allowed to cross, which means it could still be days before those long lines of trucks are moving once again.
He played no role in negotiations, had shown little interest back and forth between Republicans and Democrats but now, just in time for Christmas, Donald Trump has slammed the pandemic relief package Congress just passed, complaining of wasteful spending.
Overwhelmed then understaffed, almost one in five hospitals across the U.S., reporting a critical shortage of staff, as the number of COVID patients grows higher by the day.
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VAUSE: In just a few hours, France will reopen its border with the U.K. allowing freight and some travelers to cross after a 48-hour long closure left thousands of truck drivers on the British stranded on roads, leaving to ports the decision to reopen, comes with conditions.
Everyone, including truck drivers, will need proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken with in 72. Hours and those traveling for urgent reasons will be allowed into France, no others, and that includes truck drivers, French citizens and British citizens with French residency.
The border shutdown was triggered by the discovery of a variant of the coronavirus pathogen. That caused panic buying at grocery stores in the U.K. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: More chaos and confusion here, truck drivers and their goods have been stranded now for -- since Sunday, since the border closed. Many of them have been instructed to come here, to a disused airport, an empty airstrip, an airfield that is now being used as essentially a massive parking lot.
Now we do understand that there's also a coronavirus testing site here authorities will not confirm to us that these drivers are here to get tested. The drivers themselves, many are from all over the world, they are not sure of the instructions.
But this is the next step, the next reiteration of this confusion, truly a logistical nightmare and people caught in the middle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) the port.
ABDELAZIZ: The port told you to come here but you don't know why?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know why.
(CROSSTALK)
ABDELAZIZ: OK.
Where are you from?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Romania.
ABDELAZIZ: I hope you get home for Christmas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I'm not getting home.
ABDELAZIZ: You will not get home for Christmas?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even if I tried, in 24 hours.
ABDELAZIZ: I'm sorry. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the life (ph).
ABDELAZIZ: Will you make it home for Christmas, do you think?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. I hope to be home for Christmas, yes.
ABDELAZIZ: Were you sleeping in your vehicle these last few days?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
ABDELAZIZ: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know when the border gets open.
ABDELAZIZ: This is a logistical nightmare, you have hundreds of truck drivers from all over the world, with all types of goods. Each of them needs to be tested. Where do you do that?
How do you do that?
What type of test will be used?
That's also a matter of controversy.
If someone tests positive, where will they self isolate?
Yet another question. All the meanwhile borders are closed, vital goods -- because this is not just about these drivers, it's about was in their vehicles, vital goods that this country needs, for them to come in, Food, medicine, all of these supplies now could potentially be cut right at the holiday season -- Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, Dover.
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VAUSE: CNN's European affairs commentator Dominic Thomas is with us now from Los Angeles.
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VAUSE: Dominic, good to see you. While Britain, seems to be bracing for just this type of crisis, with store shelves empty and warnings of shortages and medicine because of delays in the freight and border crossings. The only surprise it seems, it is in the coronavirus and not Brexit, which is the cause here. Either way seems to be a glimpse of a future with no trade deal, with the E.U.
DOMINIC THOMAS, CNN EUROPEAN AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Yes, John, sorry; had a bit of a technical issue at the beginning. It's absolutely amazing.
We've had so many discussions where we've talked about the simulations, right, of what it would look like at Dover with a no deal and so on and so forth.
And what we're seeing here unfolding before our eyes, as millions of British people are as well at home in lockdown, is that this is being televised live. It's right there in front of them and playing out.
And I think at the same time they're seeing this huge disconnect between all the promises made by the Conservative Party and by Prime Minister Johnson as to what the post-Brexit era could look like.
And I think this is not just about what a no deal looks like, this is a potential reality for what life looks like when you are no longer in the European Union.
And the key thing about supply chains is the word "supply." It's not working, there are issues here and they are likely to carry on into the future.
VAUSE: You know there are some reports, some suggestion, that maybe a trade deal could be reached sometime on Wednesday. Here is the E.U. chief negotiator, Michel Barnier.
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MICHEL BARNIER, E.U. CHIEF BREXIT NEGOTIATOR: We are really in a crucial moment and we are giving it a final push. In ten days, the U.K. will leave the single market and I will continue to work in total transparency with the member states right now and with the parliament.
QUESTION: And (INAUDIBLE).
BARNIER: Thank you. Thank you very much.
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VAUSE: Right now it seems that there's agreement on almost everything but the sticking point is fish and access to U.K. waters for E.U. fishermen.
The fishing industry in 2016 was over 0.1 percent of Britain's economic output, around 1.8 billion U.S. dollars. Harrods took in a billion dollars more in revenue last year than in 2019.
As a sticking point to a trade deal which is of such consequence, this smells fishier than the dumpster outside Red Lobster. What's really going on here?
THOMAS: Yes. Well, John, maybe. And I would say that Boris Johnson, to carry on that line, has bigger fish to fry.
The fishing issue has been a huge nationalist destruction which they have exploited from the very beginning of this particular process.
Boris Johnson insisted along with the Brexiteers that this transition period would last 11 months which was never going to be enough to hammer out the specifics of the deal over this long time relationship that they had had with the European Union.
And I think we're seeing on the side of the European Union patience because they see how important it is.
But what Boris Johnson should be focusing on are the terms of the deal with the largest customs union and single market in the world and an economic space in which almost 50 percent of all exports and imports have been done over the years. That's a far bigger issue that he should be concentrating.
But I think he's running in here to this clash between the kind of -- the nationalist imperatives and the realities of trying to negotiate leaving the European Union.
The headline for an opinion piece in the left-leaning Guardian newspaper declared, "It's Boris Johnson's worst week."
That's quite the claim, given that he bungled the early response to the pandemic, the death toll, the infection rate in Britain is among the worst in Europe. He canceled Christmas after a U-turn on the seriousness of the mutation of the coronavirus.
If he fails to make a trade deal with the E.U., that, though, it seems would have far greater consequences and impact for the U.K. economy, much more long term than the pandemic.
THOMAS: Absolutely. No deal, we know worst-case scenario. But the nature of the other deal is, at the end of the day, this has never really been about the quality of the deal. It is a nationalist argument that has driven, in the name of sovereignty, the U.K. out of the European Union. And it's hard to think of any deal that could match the existing deal.
The question is how much of a deal is it going to be and what will it look like on paper.
And the bigger issue that I think he's going to have as well, even if there is a deal, is to actually convince countries outside of the European Union, let alone that particular space, that doing business with the U.K. is advisable.
Because the experience of these truck drivers over the past few days is so absolutely devastating, it's such a nightmare scenario for business, that that's going to be an uphill struggle for them, if they even get some kind of deal out of the European Union.
VAUSE: You get what you vote for, don't you, at the end of the day, don't you?
Dominic, thank you. Dominic Thomas there, joining us from Los Angeles. Good to see you.
THOMAS: Thank you, John.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: The U.S. president has thrown into doubt the $900 billion COVID relief bill just passed by Congress, because of what he says is wasteful spending. He posted a video on Twitter, demanding financial aid payments be increased from $600 to $2,000 to American families.
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VAUSE: The president's own Treasury Secretary helped negotiate the, deal the White House issued a statement earlier today in support of the agreement.
And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted this, "Republicans repeatedly refused to say what amount the president wanted for direct checks. Democrats are ready to approve $2,000 payments this week," calling his bluff.
To show he's not total Scrooge, President Trump is doling out early Christmas gifts in the forms of pardons, a veritable who's who of lawbreakers on the list, including many who pleaded guilty in the Russia inquiry. Cropped from Republican congress man, military contractor convicted of killing Iraqi civilians. Here's CNN's Pamela Brown.
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PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump announced 20 pardons, including several of his allies and past associates.
And those include George Papadopoulos who pleaded guilty in the Mueller probe to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians He is the fourth person the president granted clemency to in the Russia probe so far.
Also, on the list, two corrupt GOP allies who are early supporters of President Trump, Chris Collins, and Duncan Hunter. Hunter who was sentenced to 11 months earlier this year for misuse of more than $200,000 in campaign funds will now not serve any time behind bars with this pardon.
Collins was sent to prison in October of this year for insider trading, activity he engaged in while on White House grounds according to investigators.
And there are other controversial names on the list, such as four Blackwater guards involved in war crimes, the massacre of Iraqi civilians including one Nicholas Slatten, who have been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. So those are some of the key names.
And then there were also two former border control agents who were sentenced to prison in 2005 for shooting an unarmed undocumented immigrant, they were heralded as heroes on right wing media at the time.
And nearly half of the pardons are nonviolent drug offenders who had been advocated by Alice Johnson, who Trump pardoned earlier this year.
So, we have around -- we have 20 pardons on this latest list from President Trump before Christmas, and we expect a flurry of more pardons before the president's term ends -- Pamela Brown, CNN, Washington.
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VAUSE: Larry Sabato joins us now. He's the director for the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Always good to see you, Larry.
LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Thank you so much, John.
VAUSE: OK. Well, the pardon-palooza now seems to be underway. Donald Trump who's been -- hands off since losing the election, he's decided now is a good time to sow some doubt about the pandemic relief bill which just passed Congress after months of bitter negotiations.
Here he is.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000 or $4,000 for a couple.
I'm also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation and to send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package. And maybe that administration will be me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: No, it won't be you, Mr. President for 28 more days.
He's interested now in that financial aid package for families and businesses doing it tough (ph) in the pandemic. He wants to complain now about the spending of the 900 billion ?
But what can he do; it was passed with a veto proof majority, right?
SABATO: Yes. Of course, you never know. He could probably get enough Republicans in one house or the other to make sure that the veto was upheld.
But that's beside the point. First of all, the ending was hilarious, "It could be me." No, it's not going to be you under any circumstances.
He's been missing in action, he's MIA on just about everything and certainly this COVID relief bill.
But you know, I think he stepped in it a bit. Because Nancy Pelosi immediately took him up on the challenge. The Democrats are delighted. They would love to see two thousand and four thousand for a couple in here instead of 600 .
His problem's going to be his own party. Let him work it out, that's his job.
VAUSE: Yes. According to the news outlet, "Axios" --
"President Trump in his final days is turning bitterly on virtually every person around him, griping about anyone who refuses to indulge conspiracy theories or hopeless bids to overturn the election."
And the people he's now surrounded by are saying stuff like this.
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SIDNEY POWELL, PRO-TRUMP ATTORNEY (Voice Over): "Another benefit Dominion was created to reward is what I call election insurance, that's why Hugo Chavez had it created in the first place. But I also wonder where he got the technology, where it actually came from. Because I think it's Hammer and Scorecard from the CIA."
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RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY TO PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The company counting our vote, with control over our vote, is owned by two Venezuelans who were allies of Chavez, are present allies of Maduro.
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VAUSE: The whole thing is laughable but at the same doing incredible harm.
SABATO: It's Cuckoo Land. But you're right, it is doing some harm. What Trump has done is to try to delegitimize Joe Biden's presidency right from the beginning.
And here's the tragedy; he has exceeded with Republicans. Overwhelmingly, Republicans, activists, rank and file across the country, now say Biden is illegitimate.
No, Biden is completely legitimate. Biden won by a lot more than Donald Trump ever did.
But a president can have this impact, particularly when he's a Pied Piper and he has a cult.
VAUSE: Yes. And that cult is being fed conspiracy theories like the one we just heard from Team Trump.
It's been parroted and amplified by conservative media but now the reckoning is here.
Legal action has seen "Fox Business News" air a story essentially debunking its false claims about Smartmatic voting machines. While, meantime over at "Newsmax," they admitted on air they haven't been telling the truth.
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JOHN TABACCO, NEWSMAX HOST: "Newsmax" would like to clarify its news coverage and note that it has not reported as true certain claims made about these companies. There are several facts our readers and viewers should be aware of.
Newsmax has found no evidence that either Dominion or Smartmatic owns the other or has any business association with each other.
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VAUSE: OK. How does this all square up with the amount of oxygen and credibility they've given Trump's lies about voter fraud?
SABATO: That's quite a clarification. It's like saying earlier we reported that the sun set; in fact, the sun rose.
Look, what can you say?
It was all bunk, they were simply trying to support Trump's ridiculous claims about vote fraud. But they smelled a lawsuit coming and they can get very expensive.
VAUSE: Yes. And when there's money on the line, I guess, that's when they ran the other way.
But that will have a limited impact, I guess, on Trump's solid base.
But maybe Trump fever could start breaking with this. Listen to televangelist and Trump supporter, Pat Robertson.
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PAT ROBERTSON, TELEVANGELIST: I had prayed and hope that there might be some better solution but I don't think it's -- I think it's all over. I think the Electoral College has spoken.
He is very erratic and he's fired people and he's fought people and he's insulted people and he keeps going down the line. So it's a mixed bag.
And I think it would be well to say you've had your day and it's time to move on.
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VAUSE: How significant is that statement from Robertson especially considering congressional Republicans, at least most of them, haven't even come close to saying anything like that?
SABATO: Well, I've known Pat over the years, he's been in Virginia Beach for a long time. And he can be very blunt and very honest and he was in this particular case.
He's trying to talk sense to Donald Trump. But Donald Trump is not receiving sense. He's in a very unusual mood even for him. It's said that he's throwing a tantrum in the White House. I think we've all seen spoiled children who behave a lot better than Donald Trump has been behaving.
VAUSE: Trump has a big support base amongst evangelicals though. Will that have an influence on that part of his base?
SABATO: It might. I've come to the conclusion that absolutely nothing will shake the hardcore base of Donald Trump and that base is between 30 and 35 percent.
And it isn't the 46 percent he got in two elections because there are a lot of Republicans in there that don't care for him all that much but they prefer him to the Democratic alternative.
But that Trump base is going to stay with him, in all probability, unless there's some legal action and conclusion in court that may change their minds. But we'll have to see whether that happens.
VAUSE: Larry, thank you. Good to see you. Appreciate it.
SABATO: Thank you, John.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Israelis will be voting again in their fourth parliamentary election in two years coming up in March. The coalition government led by Netanyahu collapsed Tuesday after failing to agree on a budget.
The unity government lasted seven months, the result of a power sharing arrangement between Netanyahu and his major political rival, Benny Gantz.
Now they are blaming each other for the coalition collapse. The election comes with Netanyahu facing a corruption trial and public anger over his handling of the pandemic.
We have new information about the coronavirus variant sweeping across U.K. and what the drugmakers are saying about their vaccines' effectiveness against this new mutation.
Also new COVID-19 clusters in Asia leading to tougher restrictions for the holidays. Details in a live report when we come back.
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VAUSE: The new variant of the coronavirus in Britain will be the focus of a World Health Organization in a few hours and drugmaker AstraZeneca says its vaccine should be effective against the variant, which could be more than 70 percent more contagious. Three other companies are also saying their vaccines will work against the new variant.
CNN's Fred Pleitgen spoke with the head of German drugmaker BioNTech.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Pfizer and BioNTech are currently evaluating whether their vaccine is effective against the new variant of the novel coronavirus. The CEO of BioNTech told me that while tests are still ongoing, that the vaccine is still effective.
UGUR SAHIN, CEO, BIONTECH: I think there's a high likelihood that the vaccine response will be able to inactivate this virus, because you have to consider that even though nine immunized that changed (ph) in this protein, 99 percent of the protein has not changed.
And we know that our vaccine induces immune responses against multiple regions of this protein, multiple T cell responses and multiple antibody binding reagents, so that there is a scientific confidence that the virus will not just be able to escape.
But let's wait for the validation, to get the data and we will, of course, update once we get the data
PLEITGEN: And how long is that validation going to take?
And is there anything sort of early that you can maybe share with us, as to how that's going?
SAHIN: The testing will take about two weeks because we have to synthesize (INAUDIBLE) but what we already did is we evaluated and the sites where we have observed T cell responses against the spike protein and we see that almost all sites where we have seen T cell responses are still conserved. So that is a good message.
That means at least one component of the immune system will not be affected by this mutations.
PLEITGEN: But you're still confident that basically life --
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PLEITGEN: -- some form of normalcy in the latter half of 2020?
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SAHIN: -- and evolution of this virus is still relatively limited. They are just still 1 percent of the spike protein. And we should not forget that there is still the opportunity is a big fire (ph) to adjust the vaccine (INAUDIBLE) to this -- for this new virus variant, if this is needed.
I don't think that this is needed but if anything is needed, there's a technical possibility to do. That
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PLEITGEN: But what Ugur Sahin believes, that the vaccine is effective against the new strain of the novel coronavirus, he also says that, if the virus itself becomes more effective at infecting people, so it becomes more contagious, that it could take longer to achieve herd immunity -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Moscow.
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VAUSE: We have this just in to CNN. Several Asian countries have announced new travel restrictions on the U.K. to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus mutation. South Korea says it they suspend all U.K. flights until the end of the year. [00:25:00]
VAUSE: Japan imposing new rules for travelers from Britain. This comes as cases are rising at an alarming rate across Europe. CNN's Paula Hancocks live for us this hour in Seoul.
I guess these travel bans, some are more severe than others, what are the details?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. South Korea, to start with, is going to ban all flights to and from the U.K. until December 31st, until the end of the year.
They just announced this quite recently. They said that they are also suspending quarantine exemptions from the U.K. There were certain exemptions that business travelers, for example, could have applied for.
Within the 14 days quarantine -- because everybody who comes in without an exemption to the country has to do 14 days quarantine and have a test at the beginning of that -- if you're coming from the U.K., you also have to have a test before you leave quarantine.
Also anybody who does test positive from the U.K., they'll test to see if it this the new virus variant, to see where they stand. When it comes to Japan, they haven't announced an outright ban of travelers coming from the U.K.
But they are certainly putting stricter measures into place. Now at this point, all non-Japanese residents of Japan, if they are business travelers, they were able to have some sort of business exemption, so did not have to do the 14-day quarantine. That is now changed.
So no matter who you are, coming from the U.K., you will have to do that 14-day quarantine. This is really now starting to pick up across Asia. Different countries starting to put more restrictions on those travelers from the U.K.
VAUSE: Paula Hancocks, thank you, live from Seoul.
Well, the worst is yet to come with hospitals across the United States filling up fast with COVID patients.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The next weeks are going to be the worst weeks in modern American medical history.
VAUSE (voice-over): Coming up, we will be inside one hospital pushed to its limits.
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VAUSE: With the holidays almost here and the pandemic surging out of control, the U.S. president-elect is pleading with Americans to remain cautious and vigilant. Joe Biden warned this crisis is about to get a lot worse, before it gets better.
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BIDEN: Our darkest days in the battle against COVID are ahead of us, not behind us.
So we need to prepare ourselves, to steel our spines. As frustrating as it is to hear, it's going to take patience, persistence and determination to beat this virus.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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VAUSE: The nation's leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, received his first dose of the Moderna vaccine on Tuesday.
Fauci warned if Americans ignore safety guidelines over the holidays, the country would face another infection surge on top of the one it's already seeing now, the results of the Thanksgiving day's holidays.
Of the 18 million cases confirmed in the U.S. so far, more than half have been reported in the last two months alone. Now researchers believe hundreds of Americans could already be infected with this new virus mutation strain from the U.K.
As cases surge, hospitals nationwide are being flooded with new COVID patients. Right now, nearly 118,000 Americans are being treated in hospitals for the COVID virus, a record high. Many doctors are feeling the stress.
CNN's Miguel Marquez went to one Texas hospital struggling to keep up.
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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Houston's United Memorial Medical Center, patient after patient on a ventilator, their lungs devastated by COVID-19.
DR. JOSEPH VARON, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, UNITED MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER: This is trouble you have, is from deep inside the lung.
MARQUEZ: Is this your test?
VARON: This is COVID. This is COVID. This is what COVID looks inside the lung. If you see that in the light, you can see a lot of mucous and some cells.
MARQUEZ: The lungs swollen and red in this elderly patient. The sample will be sent to a lab to find out what else might be happening in their lungs.
VARON: The question is are they not healthy just because of COVID, or is there a secondary infection, which is common?
MARQUEZ: We visited the same hospital in late June. Then, two wings of the hospital had been transformed into COVID-19 wards. Today, prepping for what's the come, there are three.
VARON: The next six weeks are going to be the darkest weeks in modern American medical history.
MARQUEZ: Even though the vaccine is being rolled out?
VARON: Absolutely, because think about it. The vaccine is going to take you between six and eight weeks to get immunity. I mean, right now, during Christmas, where people are not listening.
MARQUEZ: About 40 percent of patients at this Houston hospital are from other parts of the state, reeling from overwhelming illness.
Across the Lone Star State, cases exploding. The seven-day average of positive cases hitting records far above where they were in June.
Walter Cuellar was transferred here from West Texas, about 500 miles away. He thinks he and his wife picked up the virus at the supermarket. She had mild symptoms. Today, he's on the mend, but when he arrived, he was nearly put on a ventilator.
WALTER CUELLAR, TRUCK DRIVER: Once I went to the store with my wife, and actually, she's -- her and I, the only ones there wearing the mask, and the rest of the people, they're not wearing their mask at all.
MARQUEZ: Bri Smith works with foreign exchange students and recently moved to Columbus, Texas, west of Houston.
BRI SMITH, COVID-19 PATIENT: It is the worst I've ever felt in my life.
MARQUEZ: She, too, thinks she got the virus while shopping. She has a husband and three kids. She wasn't sure she'd see him again.
SMITH: I love you very much, and I just miss you so much. I can't wait to come home.
MARQUEZ: The staff here, from Dr. Varon, to nurses, to those who clean up, are tired and stressed.
What has 2020 been like for you?
TANNA INGRAHAM, ICU NURSE WHO GOT COVID-19: It's like hell and back. It's -- it's hard. And it's -- I'm stressed.
MARQUEZ: We met ICU nurse Tanna Ingraham in June. Then, she was a patient, having picked up COVID-19, she thinks, while performing CPR on a patient. She got COVID a second time. She's not sure how. After nine months of dealing with sickness and death, she's back at work, with a message.
INGRAHAM: It's like we're nonexistent. And it's like, you do realize that we're still here, taking care of these people. Putting my life at risk, putting my kid's life at risk, my mom's life. I think we've -- we've been forgotten, truly.
MARQUEZ: Something else new from June, says Dr. Varon. Patients are coming in sicker, having waited longer before seeking medical care.
VARON: Our average patient has spent about 20 days with symptoms before they come to us. So I mean, even if I give them holy water after 20 days of symptoms, it's going to be difficult for them to -- to get better.
MARQUEZ: Richard Gonzales has a wife and five kids. He works two jobs and isn't sure how he got it. He thought he could tough it out.
RICHARD GONZALES, COVID-19 PATIENT: I kind of, like, messed up. From the symptoms that I got when I got it, I should have went to the E.R. room or the hospital right away, but I didn't. I laid in bed, thinking it was going to go away.
MARQUEZ: For how long?
GONZALES: For about a week.
MARQUEZ: Luis Martinez's father, uncle, and cousin died of COVID-19. The last thing he wanted to do was go to a hospital.
LUIS MARTINEZ, LOST THREE FAMILY MEMBERS TO COVID-19: Because I don't want to do it, because you know how it is. When they put you in a hospital, they tell you you'll never make it.
[00:35:09]
MARQUEZ: To listen to Juana Corona (ph) trying to breathe --
JUANA CORONA (ph): (BREATHING HEAVILY)
MARQUEZ: -- is to understand everything one needs to know about COVID- 19. She's pretty certain she got from her daughter at a birthday party. Several other family members got it. Her 26-year-old niece died.
(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
She says she's scared. Like everyone we spoke to, those who could speak, they all hope for one thing: to be home for Christmas. Margaret Evans says 10 members of her family got COVID-19, she thinks at a birthday party.
How tough is it to be away from family right now?
MARGARET EVANS-RANGE, 10 FAMILY MEMBERS GOT COVID-19: It's hard, it's hard. It's very, very, very, very hard.
MARQUEZ: She has nine grandchildren she'd really like to see.
Miguel Marquez, CNN, Houston, Texas.
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VAUSE: California is now the epicenter of the current COVID surge. L.A. County hospitals reported last week they've maxed out their ICU capacity. And on the frontlines, healthcare workers are overwhelmed, exhausted and feeling the strain like never before.
Here's CNN's Sara Sidner.
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SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nurse Cliff Resurreccion is preparing for battle against the insidious invisible enemy he and his colleagues have been fighting for months.
COVID-19 is now sending so many people to the hospital in California, there are no more intensive care unit beds open here at Harbor UCLA Medical Center, so they've moved coronavirus patients into the emergency room.
Some are so sick they're hooked up to no less than eight IV's, pumping in vital medicines to save or soothe them.
CLIFF RESURRECCION, NURSE: It's very exhausting, you know. It's really like a never-ending struggle. It's really tough right now.
SIDNER: Before his shift started, Nurse Resurreccion learned one of his COVID-19 patients had died. The patient had no family visits and no breath left to say goodbye.
RESURRECCION: Unfortunately, he had no family and this person had no family to be able to come and see him. So you know, it's very -- it's very sad around the holidays for everyone involved.
SIDNER: Everyone here has been exposed to the trauma of loss over and over again, but the patients just keep coming.
What's it like right now, for yourself?
NANCY BLAKE, CHIEF NURSING OFFICER, HARBOR UCLA MEDICAL CENTER: It's a disaster right now for our staff. The patients are extremely sick. This is a horrible disease. I hope I won't cry, because it's been 10 months of this. And we are inundated.
SIDNER: They can't send patients out to other hospitals in Los Angeles County, because in the most populated county in America, there is not a single licensed ICU bed open. All 2,500 are full. At last count, all of Southern California had zero ICU capacity. Zero.
BLAKE: And there's no break. There's absolutely no break. And even during July, it wasn't so bad. But this time, we're seeing large numbers. SIDNER: Nancy Blake says this is so much worse than the first two
surges of the virus, because now they're getting their normal amount of emergency patients, plus a large number of coronavirus cases.
In the past two weeks, California has seen a 63 percent increase in hospitalizations. And in just one day, around 40,000 new infections were reported. This as 98 percent of the state is under a stay-at-home order. That is clearly not what is happening.
What effect does that have on your staff?
BLAKE: They're angry, because at the very beginning, it was people were, you know, saying nurses are heroes and great job. And now they're not listening to us. They're not wearing their masks. They're saying it's a hoax. And I have to say, I'm a glass half full kind of person. My glass is empty right now.
You'll remember New York at the beginning of the pandemic, when they had refrigerated trucks, because they need space for bodies? Well, now this hospital, they have the same thing, and this one has just been turned on.
But amidst the signs of suffering, there were signs of hope: healthcare workers lining up to get their first dose of the vaccine, each sending a message as to why they're getting inoculated.
The first day it arrived, the mood soared, but soured by the afternoon as more patients crashed into the emergency room.
Are you OK?
BLAKE: No, it's the worst I've ever seen. I've been a nurse for 40 years, and it's the worst I've ever seen. And some of the things these nurses are seeing, whether patients are dying, there's no family members, so they're holding that patient's hand, or they're on the other side of an iPad where the family is crying.
SIDNER: Her glass is empty, as she said, partly because of what this has done to her staff. She sees it every day. They used to be taking care of about 60 patients at the height of the coronavirus outbreak in the summer. Now, that number hovers at about 100 COVID-19 patients.
[00:40:13]
Sara Sidner, CNN, Los Angeles.
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VAUSE: Well as the world battles the coronavirus pandemic, there may be an even more menacing virus which we've yet to uncover.
CNN's Sam Kiley goes inside the Congo rainforest, where he finds early warning signs that unknown pathogens could threaten all of humanity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SAM KILEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This pristine wilderness in the Congo is under pressure. Farming and the trade in wildlife is being compounded by logging and industrialization, the ecology destroyed by the twin pressures of business and a population explosion.
The country's population has nearly doubled to around 90 million in just 20 years. And with every year that passes, people push further into the forest, closing the gap between humans and new diseases that could kill them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: "THE COMING CONTAGION" will begin airing on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in New York, 8:30 p.m. in London. You will see it only here on CNN.
Thank you for joining CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. I will be back with a lot more news about 15 minutes from now. In the meantime, WORLD SPORT is next.
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