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India Planning to Vaccinate 300 Million by August; U.K. First to Provide Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine; Iran Seizes South Korean- Flagged Tanker; FDA: Idea of Administering Half Doses of Vaccine 'Premature'. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired January 05, 2021 - 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: Hello and welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.
Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, the president went down to Georgia in a bind and out of time and looking to find 11,000 thousands of votes or so, to overturn November's election.
He also made fleeting mention of the two Republicans in a run-off race which will determine control of Congress.
A third national lockdown for England.
Will the old tactics work for the faster spreading variant of the coronavirus?
And the U.S. is 15 million doses short of its vaccination goal, as COVID claims a life every 33 seconds.
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VAUSE: Well, the final coda (ph) in what has been a U.S. election season like no other will play out on Tuesday, with Georgia heading back to the polls for a special runoff election for the state's two Senate seats.
The outcome will decide not only control of the upper house of Congress but ultimately the future of the United States. Both sides have flooded the state with campaign ads and get out the vote efforts and for the past week, it seems everyone except the devil went down to Georgia.
On the last day of campaigning that included the president for the next 15 days, Donald Trump, and the President-Elect Joe Biden. And just as many within the Republican Party had feared, Donald Trump barely mentioned the two Republicans in the race.
Instead, it was sane wall of witch's brew conspiracy theories, nonexistent voter fraud, all delivered with the whining of a sore loser.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This could be the most important vote you will ever cast for the rest of your life. It really could be. This is so important.
If you don't go and vote the socialists, the Marxists will be in charge of our country. If you don't fight to save your country with everything you have, you're not going to have a country left.
The crime that was committed in this state is immeasurable. An immediate forensic audit of an appropriate sampling of Dominion's voting machines and related equipment is critical to determine the level of illegal fraudulent ballots improperly counted in Georgia during the 2020 general election and during tomorrow's race.
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VAUSE: Yes, none of that was true. Quick note, the voting machines that Trump claimed were faulty in November also being used for this runoff election. For a few fleeting moments, Trump did focus on that election, evil Democrats that hate America, same old-same old. But he could not resist a segue into the nonexistent stolen election.
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TRUMP: They hate our country and they despise Georgia values. And I think a lot of you despise them. As you know, there's nothing the radical Democrats will not do to get power that they so desperately crave, even the outright stealing of elections, like they're trying to do with us. We are not going to let it happen. Over the past -- and I hope Mike Pence comes through for us, I have to tell you. I hope that our great vice president, our great vice president comes through for us. He's a great guy. Of course, if he doesn't come through, I won't like him quite as much.
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VAUSE: In the meantime, in what seems to be a return to everyday normal, President-Elect Joe Biden was campaigning on a message of optimism.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: The power is literally in your hands. Unlike any time in my career, one state, one state can chart the course, not just of the next four years but for the next generation by electing Jon and the reverend.
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VAUSE: Well, the final vote in the Senate runoff could actually hinge on how voters react to Trump's weekend phone call, where he pressured Georgia's secretary of state to "find" 11,000 votes and overturn Biden's victory. We have details now from CNN's Kyung Lah.
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KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On this final full day of the Georgia senate runoff campaign, the two Democratic challengers are on the attack, using President Trump against his own party.
JON OSSOFF (D-GA), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: The president of the United States on the phone, trying to intimidate Georgia's election officials to throw out your votes. Let's send a message.
RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: He is being aided and abetted by two United States senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
LAH (voice-over): On the Republican side, Senator Loeffler dodged direct questions about Trump's recorded phone call while Senator David Perdue turned his fire on the recipient of Trump's phone call, Georgia's Republican secretary of state.
SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R-GA): To have a statewide elected official, regardless of party, taped unknowing -- to tape without disclosing a private conversation with the president of the United States and then leaking it to the press now is disgusting.
LAH (voice-over): Even as Senator Perdue defends a sitting president attempting to undermine an election, there is little sign it matters to the GOP faithful, at least among those who came to see vice president Mike Pence in Milner, Georgia. They claimed they haven't heard anything about this call.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I have not.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I have not.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know there was election fraud. Have a good day.
GABRIEL STERLING, GEORGIA ELECTION OFFICIAL: It's rock and roll again. It is Groundhog Day again.
LAH (voice-over): Georgia is split into two worlds, claim versus facts, say exasperated Georgia state election officials. The secretary of state's office displayed this poster-sized message at its first press conference since Saturday's controversial phone call.
TRUMP: A lot of people are not going out to vote. And a lot of Republicans are going to vote negative because they hate what you did to the president, OK? They hate it. And they're going to vote.
And if you would be respected, really respected, if this thing could be straightened out before the election.
LAH (voice-over): Democratic voters who say they all heard the Trump phone call -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I have heard them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I've heard about the tapes, most certainly.
LAH (voice-over): -- admit they don't know if it will change Tuesday's election.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's incredibly disappointing. And I hope it galvanizes people to turn out for the Democratic candidates but I'm not optimistic it will make that much of a difference.
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VAUSE: Ron Brownstein is CNN's senior political analyst and the senior editor for "The Atlantic." He is with us this hour from Los Angeles.
It's always good to have you with us, Ron, so let's get to it.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. You're in the center of the political world, John.
VAUSE: It feels like it, it's like everyone's here, including Donald Trump. And it seems like his last act in office is not only to overturn the democratic election result but also try to destroy the Republican Party.
He's putting those who support the rule of law and democracy against those who want to back this certain to fail bid to overturn the Electoral College vote on Wednesday.
The latest to take sides in this GOP Civil War, Georgia senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Here's Loeffler from tonight.
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SEN. KELLY LOEFFLER (R-IL): I have an announcement, Georgia. On January 6th, I will object to the Electoral College vote. That's right, that's right. Thank you. We're going to get this done.
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VAUSE: That crowd, the cheering, the clapping, the enthusiasm. Is it that simple, it's do whatever it takes to win, don't worry about the consequences?
BROWNSTEIN: Well, a big chunk of the Republican base is moving in that direction. And Kelly Loeffler is closing her campaign -- and David Perdue ended up in the same place tonight as well.
Basically, by saying elect me or I will disenfranchise you, they are calling to throw out the votes from their own state, which is quite a position to be taking. Look, there is a division in the Republican Party at this point but they have only themselves to blame for getting into this situation. You don't get to the place we are in now overnight and you don't get there alone.
The only way that Donald Trump could undertake a campaign as extended as this -- an anti-democratic campaign to subvert an election as we have seen -- is because week after week, month after month, year after year Republicans in congress have abetted and defended him as he has barreled through the rule of law.
On everything from trying to weaponize the postal service to trying to tilt the census to the advantage of one party for the first time in our history to, of course, the phone call trying to extort the government of Ukraine to manufacture dirt on his opponent.
Susan Collins famously said that he learned a lesson. And I think we can all agree, if that lesson was based on these last two months, that, no matter how far he goes, there will be a core of Republicans that are willing to defend him.
And so we are in this unprecedented, ominous and pretty dangerous situation that we find ourselves in now.
VAUSE: Yes. And much like that phone call with the president of Ukraine, this phone call with the Georgia secretary of state, Donald Trump seems to want to try and bully or threaten or try and sweet-talk -- whatever word -- at different moments during this hour-long telephone call, it was everything.
Have a listen to this segment.
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TRUMP (from captions): You're not reporting it. That's the thing. You know that's a criminal, that's a criminal offense. And you know, you can't let that happen. That's a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer. That's a big risk and you can't let it happen.
And you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, I'm notifying you that you're letting it happen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
TRUMP: So look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state.
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VAUSE: And David Perdue says he has an issue with that call, not what the president said but the fact that it was recorded and then leaked?
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Well, look we've heard differing views from various attorneys today and legal experts on whether this is criminal behavior. But listening in particular to that excerpt, you have to say if that's not criminal behavior, if that's not an attempt to solicit election fraud, to extort election fraud, what is?
And the fact that so few Republicans are condemning this call is really an indication, as I said, of a larger movement we have seen.
I think you can go back a decade now, starting with all of the state voter suppression laws that were passed after 2010 to make it harder to vote in red states, the decision by the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act in 2013.
All of the things that have happened in the Trump Presidency; Ukraine, census, USPS, the effort to subvert the election since Election Day, the two-thirds of House Republicans who signed on to that litigation to invalidate the votes in four states, two-thirds of Republican state attorneys general -- in all of these ways, the Republican Party is morphing out of the Western, small D democratic tradition into something else.
We don't really have a language for it in American politics. It seems more akin to what you would see in Turkey or Hungary, where a political party achieves power and then tries to use the instruments of the state to prevent the other side from ever dislodging them.
We don't really have a vocabulary in America or a precedent in America, maybe the antebellum South in the 1850s. But this is an ominous moment, not only because of what Donald Trump is doing, but because of how many Republicans have been willing to be part of it.
VAUSE: And one of those Republicans is the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, who did go on the FOX News channel to explain what's in the president's heart, what his motivation is.
Here it is.
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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The president's always been concerned about the integrity of the election. And the president believes that there are things that happened in Georgia and he wants to see the accountability for it.
But look, does anybody in America think the last election was done well?
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VAUSE: I would think at least 80 million Americans are OK with it.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. No, look, the charges that the president has brought and his allies have brought have been looked at in courts over the country and the quote-unquote, "evidence," had been laughed out of the courtroom.
Today, we saw again a senior election official in Georgia just kind of methodically deconstruct and dismantle these spurious arguments, these fantasies, the president was again peddling tonight as if none of that happened.
And, John, overturning Georgia does the president no good, right?
It will still leave him way short of the Electoral College votes he needs to win.
You have to ask yourself, what is happening in the other states that he would need?
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, what is he doing there?
And if the evidence in those states is as flimsy as it is in Georgia -- and I think that everything you are seeing from Raffensperger and the other officials in Georgia really just underscores how egregious it is that this many Republicans are signing on to reject the certification of the Electoral College based on -- you can't even put the word "evidence" to it. Just outright fantasies and distortions.
VAUSE: Yes. Ron, obviously an interesting day for everyone coming up as we'll watch this.
And thank you for being with us. Ron Brownstein in Los Angeles.
BROWNSTEIN: Big day in Georgia tomorrow.
VAUSE: Big one.
And CNN is covering this all-important election in Georgia all day on Tuesday. Tune in for our special coverage right here on CNN, "Election Night in America." Do not miss it.
To the coronavirus now. England entering a third national lockdown as the U.K. records its highest-ever number of daily coronavirus cases. Nearly 59,000 infections added on Monday as well as more than 400 deaths.
The British prime minister blames the surge of the new COVID variant and ordered these tougher restrictions for England for roughly the next six weeks. Here is what that will mean.
Everyone must stay indoors with only limited exceptions and work at home unless impossible. Now closed, schools for most students, nonessential shops and services, gyms and sporting venues.
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VAUSE: The hospitality sector is open for takeaway and deliveries only. Churches and playgrounds will be open.
These new measures came just hours after Britain became the first country to begin administering the Oxford AstraZeneca. CNN's Phil Black picks up the story from here, reporting in from London.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Boris Johnson focused on one issue in particular for much of his address: education, because some three- quarters of England are already in restrictions that very much resemble lockdown.
The one key difference going forward for all of England is that schools will stay closed and students will learn remotely.
This was something that Boris Johnson said he desperately did not want to do but scientists including those advising him had been saying it was been necessary for some weeks because, although it may be true these students are at very little risk of seriously developing COVID- 19, they still catch the virus.
They still take it home to their families. They still drive its transmission. It's likely Johnson's critics will say he has accepted this fact far too late, at a point where the nation's health system is at risk of being overrun.
BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: And because we now have to do everything we possibly can to stop the spread of the disease, primary schools, secondary schools and colleges across England must move to remote provision from tomorrow except for vulnerable children and the children of key workers.
BLACK: Boris Johnson says the existing measures would have worked if not for the new, more highly transmissible variant of the virus which has been detected here and is thought to have spread widely. Hospital admissions he says are now 40 percent higher than they were back in April during the first wave.
For much of England, however, the message effectively stays the same, stay at home.
And through this new enforced lockdown across the nation, it is going to stay that way it seems for the better part of winter. Until transmission is driven down and the U.K.'s vaccination program is rolled out more widely -- Phil Black, CNN, London.
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VAUSE: Joining us this hour is Dr. Erin Bromage, a biology professor specializing immunology at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth.
Professor, thank you for being with us.
DR. ERIN BROMAGE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Great to be here, John.
VAUSE: It's quite stark how quickly the virus is now spreading in the U.K. You look at the numbers, the highest number of confirmed cases since the pandemic began. That has been hitting over the last couple days, leading to a surging death toll, again, almost at record highs, but will be approaching those levels fairly soon, I would imagine.
Seems U.K. officials are now imposing these strict new measures, like a nationwide lockdown. It was very effective a couple months ago, earlier in the year but now is it going to be enough when they're facing this new variant?
They've been like the generals fighting the last war instead of the one they're facing.
BROMAGE: The good thing about the new variant is it's still the same virus essentially. It is still a respiratory pathogen. So all the things we know are important -- masks, distance, ventilation, duration -- those types of things will all still work on this variant.
It just means we need to be a little better about what we do now; if this virus is truly more transmissible, as they're saying, the old things won't be good enough. We need to up each of them just a little bit, to knock it back down to where it's not spreading as fast.
VAUSE: Yes, we've been kind, of those measures work but we just haven't been great at implementing them in many places around the world.
We also heard the U.K. prime minister stressing that this variant of COVID is unlikely to severely affect children. But at the same, time London's Imperial College has gathered evidence, which seems to indicate a shift in the age composition of reported cases, with a larger share of under 20-year olds among the reported variant of concern, the U.K. variant, compared to non-variant of concern cases. That's the old COVID-19, if you like.
It goes on to say it could be just circumstantial and there's need for further research.
At this point how concerned should parents be?
Isn't it simply a numbers game: the more people to catch the virus, the more people will die?
BROMAGE: Yes, I don't think should be really focusing on the variant per se. As I said, it's still the same virus that it was. It just spreads a little bit more effectively. What we might find is, part of the reason we're seeing it move through the younger population at a higher rate may not be to do with the virus but how younger people move around.
You know, as we're seeing infection rates going up, people that are older are going to withdraw a little bit from society and drop their infection rates down; whereas the younger people feel a little more resilient to it and still move around.
That doesn't mean that we should just ignore what it's doing; it's clearly there and spreading very fast and at a faster rate.
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BROMAGE: But there may be other mechanisms that are not necessarily the virus that are responsible for the disproportionate rate we're seeing in young people. VAUSE: OK, well, the announcement of these new strict measures within
the U.K. came on the same day that AstraZeneca started vaccinations. Here is Boris Johnson, the prime minister, on the overall timeline.
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BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: By the middle of February, if things go well and with a fair wind in our sails, we expect to have offered the first vaccine dose to everyone in the four top priority groups, identified by the Joint Committee on Vaccination Immunization.
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VAUSE: That timeline will not mean a whole lot if that vaccine isn't effective. Here's another question about the variant, the one that was detected in South Africa, it appears to have additional mutations, which scientists say include more extensive alterations to a key part of the virus known as the spike protein, which this virus uses to infect human cells and may make the virus less susceptible to the immune response triggered by the vaccines.
Drugmakers are now working to find the efficacy of the vaccines against the new variant.
But do you have a suspicion that COVID-19 can be like the seasonal flu, you need to get an annual immunization?
BROMAGE: It's an RNA virus and they mutate and mutate fairly fast. But this one does not mutate as fast as influenza. There's a proofreading (ph) enzyme in its replication status that allows it to be more or less error-prone as it goes through.
Will we have to update the vaccine occasionally?
Possibly; yearly, I don't think so. You know it maybe every 2 or 3 years. But at the moment, when we look at it, especially the variant that we're seeing in the U.K., the N501Y variant, it's the equivalent of -- the spike protein has a site called the receptor binding domain, which is like my hand.
At the moment, just the thumb has changed. So the protection that I've had against my other fingers is still there and will still be there with the old vaccine. It's only the thumb has changed.
When more changes happen, so more of my hand looks different, then we need to update. So for the moment, the vaccine looks great and it looks like it's going to protect us, certainly against the U.K. variant.
They will be testing the South African variant to be sure, that, again, as long as the changes aren't too much, there should be enough similarity between them in the important sites to lead to neutralization and lowering the severity of disease.
VAUSE: That's a good point to end on. Thank you, Professor Bromage, it's good to see you. BROMAGE: Thank you, John.
VAUSE: With more COVID-19 patients than ever before, hospitals in Southern California are facing dire shortages of oxygen and ICU beds. And death, it seems, is almost everywhere.
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GAYANA CHUKLANSEV, SURGICAL INTENSIVE CARE NURSE: Patients are dying like flies. We're full, we're at maximum capacity. We have no resources, we have no staff. Our doctors can't even intubate because they have 40 patients each.
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VAUSE: What was warned of weeks ago is now a reality in the U.S., a post-holiday coronavirus surge, with more than 200,000 new cases on average each day.
With the passing of 33 seconds, another death from COVID. Hospitals nationwide are treating a record number of COVID patients. Experts fear many will be pushed beyond capacity as the country's vaccine rollout moves at a sluggish pace.
More than 15 million doses have been ship so far but only 4.5 million have actually been administered. To make shots more available, officials have actually considered cutting Moderna's vaccine doses in half for certain people. But the Food and Drug Administration has rejected the idea, saying everyone must get both doses.
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DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: There are some suggestions that one dose might be, at least, moderately effective. We don't know how long that will last.
Look, if we think going forward, vaccine availability is going to be a problem, then we should do the study now, using one dose. But we don't have the data and right now that's not the problem.
We need to work on logistics. We need to develop a fierce urgency to vaccinate people and then come back. And we'll talk about that, if now vaccine availability becomes a problem.
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VAUSE: The crisis in L.A. County is so severe, ambulance crews have been told not to transport patients to hospitals if they have little chance of survival.
Right now hospitals in California are treating more than 23,000 patients and, on Monday, hospitals confirmed six cases of the new variant, which was first detected in the U.K. CNN's Brian Todd explains why California's crisis is spiraling out of control.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A grim view from California's front lines.
CHUKLANSEV: Patients are dying like flies. We're full, we're at maximum capacity. We have no resources, we have no staff. Our doctors can't even intubate because they have 40 patients each. It's like a war zone.
TODD (voice-over): The number of people hospitalized in California has reached alarming new levels, straining hospital capacity and the number of deaths per day has spiked. In L.A. County, the new epicenter of the virus in the United States, hospitals are so overwhelmed. They're looking at rationing care.
SCOTT BYINGTON, NURSE, ST. FRANCIS MEDICAL CENTER: So we're able to get the equipment because somebody else you know had died. And that sounds gruesome at heart horrific but that's where we are today.
TODD (voice-over): In L.A. County, one person dies of coronavirus as often as every 10 minutes. As for the rates of infection --
MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI (D-CA), LOS ANGELES: We're seeing a person every six seconds contract COVID-19 here in Los Angeles County, the nation's largest county 10 million people.
TODD (voice-over): The L.A. County Health Services Director who warned that hospitals in her county are being pushed to, quote, the brink of catastrophe said the density of population is one reason for the spikes in the Los Angeles area. She also cited the work patterns of many county residents.
DR. CHRISTINA GHALY, DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES COUNTY DEPT. OF HEALTH SERVICES: We have a lot out of low income workers, a lot of essential workers who are working outside of their homes.
TODD (voice-over): Experts say in California often, more people are living inside a given home and one expert points to the dynamics of family living among many groups in the state.
DR. JORGE RODRIGUEZ, INTERNAL MEDICINE AND VIRAL SPECIALIST: The Hispanic people have multigenerational living, you know and what we've seen is that the huge inequity in both healthcare and living in bias is coming to roost. There are people that are having to work multiple jobs.
TODD (voice-over): Early in the pandemic, California's leaders received praise for attacking the surge with stay-at-home orders, closures of bars and restaurants in the biggest cities. Florida, by contrast, allowed many businesses to stay open. Why is California's unraveling now worse than Florida's? One expert points to the ratio of hospital beds per person.
PROF. ANNE RIMOIN, EPIDEMIOLOGIST, UCLA FIELDING SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: California really does have one of the lower rates of hospital beds. That is a good reason why we're seeing our hospitals overwhelmed more quickly than hospitals and other states that have more hospital beds per capita.
TODD (voice-over): And one analyst says Californians living with stay at home orders longer than most of the country have been simply burned out with all the restrictions.
DR. SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think COVID fatigue is a real factor here, where we are 10 months, 11 months into the pandemic, and folks haven't had the support to stay at home because they live paycheck to paycheck.
TODD: Two experts we spoke to also point to the problems of homelessness in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, cities where the homeless populations have spiked in recent years. People living in shelters, in tighter spaces, they say, have contributed to the surge in California -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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VAUSE: India has approved the use of two COVID-19 vaccines. Next, how to immunize more than 1.3 billion people, more than 2 billion injections. Details on that in a moment.
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And Britain's government says the new vaccine rollout is a real pivotal moment, but many not feeling the optimism.
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VAUSE: India's governor is facing an incredible logistical challenge. On Sunday, regulators approved two vaccines, and officials say 300 million frontline workers, the elderly and vulnerable, will receive that vaccine by August.
But, what about the other billion or so people in the country? Live now from New Delhi, CNN's Vedika Sud has the very latest.
I think -- this is incredible. We're talking about a couple billion needles, couple billion syringes, to say nothing about the swabs, the globes. Just the basic logistics in getting it out to all the people in the country. How are they going to do this?
VEDIKA SUD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good to be with you, John.
That's a good question. And we have to wait for the first phase of inoculation of this massive vaccination program, to take place, really, get to the real answer is that. That will be testing times for the Indian government. The first phase includes health workers as well as frontline workers and people above the age of 50, with co-morbidities. We're looking at 300 million people in the first phase of this vaccination drive, which is at least the size of America's population, well, almost. So you can imagine how huge this challenge is going to be.
The second challenge, of course, will be to make sure that a significant percentage of India's 1.3 billion population get inoculated so that herd immunity, as a lot of experts talk about, can be reached.
Now yes, syringes, as you mentioned, there have been large companies here in India, especially the top three, that have been manufacturing them at a huge pace. I even spoke to one of the heads of the syringe companies, who said that he's doubled his production over the last few months and will be looking forward to producing even more in the coming days.
That's also with the Serum Institute of India, which is the sole manufacturer of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine here in India. When I spoke with Adar Poonawalla, who's the CEO of Serum Institute of India, he said that they're ready with 50 million doses, as of now, to inoculate 50 million people by the end of January. That's staggering numbers, really.
So let's look forward to the first phase. Yes, there will be hiccups. There have been also dry runs that have been carried out by the Indian government all of last week, to ensure that they can smooth in any kind of an obstruction or roadblocks that they see in the way.
So all eyes will be on when the rollout happens. That's the biggest question we're asking the Indian government as of now. Because it's only been that we can get to know how successful his drive is going to be.
The biggest challenge, like I mentioned earlier, it's going to be inoculating the second most populated country in the world, a significant percentage of it, John.
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VAUSE: Vedika, thank you. Vedika Sud there, live for us in New Delhi.
SUD: Thank you.
VAUSE: Well, with the COVID variant fueling a surge in cases across the U.K., England and Scotland are now facing strict new lockdowns. This comes just as the COVID vaccine from AstraZeneca begins distribution.
CNN's Salma Abdelaziz has more now, reporting from London.
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SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A moment of national pride. A vaccine created by Britain's very own Oxford University goes into the arms of those who need it most.
The rollout of the inoculation, developed alongside AstraZeneca, started with 82-year-old Brian Pinker, who can soon safely celebrate his 48th wedding anniversary.
The third recipient was Professor Andrew Pollard, one of the chief scientists behind the revolutionary vaccine.
ANDREW POLLARD, HEAD OF OXFORD VACCINE GROUP AND NHS PEDIATRICIAN: I think this is a really critical moment. We are at the point of being overwhelmed by this disease.
ABDELAZIZ: The U.K.'s health secretary calling this a pivotal moment in the nation's bitter battle to defeat COVID-19.
MATT HANCOCK, BRITISH HEALTH SECRETARY: I'm incredibly proud of the British science that's got us to this place. We've been working for a year to get this vaccine ready.
ABDELAZIZ (on camera): The vaccinations happening behind me here are not the only first. The U.K. will also be the first country to try a delayed dosing strategy. Patients will get the first injection and wait up to three months for the second one.
Health officials here say that initial dose should protect against significant illness and keep people from ending up in hospital. But it's a controversial plan that's divided the medical community.
(voice-over): The policy will allow up to twice as many people to get vaccinated. Prime Minister Boris Johnson says tens of millions could be shielded from the worst of the illness by spring.
BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We've got a new variant that is requiring extra special vigilance, and we will do everything we can to keep the virus under control.
ABDELAZIZ: That variant has caused an unprecedented wave of COVID-19 cases, worse than at any point during this pandemic. And hospital chiefs are ringing the alarm. They say the healthcare system may soon reach a breaking point.
It is an ambitious and some say risky approach to vaccinations. But a bold battle plan may be the only way to win.
Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, London.
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VAUSE: A British judge has denied a U.S. request to extradite Julian Assange, and now Mexico is offering him political asylum.
Mexico's president defended the WikiLeaks founder, calling him a journalist who deserves a chance and protection.
Side note here: Mexico remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists, especially those investigating corruption. Assange is wanted on 18 counts of espionage and conspiracy in the U.S.
over the 2010 WikiLeaks release of hundreds of thousands of secret files. The U.K. court blocked the extradition request over concerns about his mental health. The U.S. Justice Department says it will challenge that decision.
Still to come here, Iran pushing back against sanctions by both flouting the 2015 nuclear deal and seizing a South Korean freight tanker. A live report with all the very latest in just a moment.
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VAUSE: Iran is in open breach of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement it made with major world powers, declaring a resumption of uranium enrichment to 20 percent. That's far above the cap imposed by that deal.
This move was widely expected. That's after Iran's parliament passed a law last month to boost enrichment, and that was in response to the killing of the country's top nuclear scientist.
The announcement also comes one year after a top Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, was assassinated by the U.S.
Iran has also seized a South Korean fleet chemical tanker off Oman, detained the crew, claiming the ship was polluting Gulf waters.
CNN's Paula Hancocks live this hour in Seoul, following this with the very latest.
And there's now a south Korean destroyer or warship which has arrived in the region. What are the latest details?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Yes, John.
This all happened on Monday afternoon, Iran time. And it was in the waters in the Straits of Hormuz. This one particular South Korean flagged chemical tanker was detained by Iranian authorities.
Now we heard from D.M. Shipping, the owner of this tanker, that -- that those on board had about 10 to 20 minutes' warning before armed soldiers actually boarded the ship and then detained the -- the crew itself.
Now, according to the Iranian state-run media and semi-official news agencies, they say that it was because they believe that this particular vessel was polluting waters. But certainly, there are concerns that this is far more political than that.
Tensions between Iran and south Korea have been increasing, shall we say, in recent months because of the -- the sanctions that the U.S. has installed on Iranian exports of oil around the world. Now, South Korea did import an awful lot of Iranian oil at one point.
It has found itself in the middle of the U.S. and Iran when it comes to this issue. And there are an estimated $7 billion of Iranian funds currently frozen in two South Korean banks because of these sanctions that the U.S. has imposed.
So certainly, there is a concern that this is more political than environmental.
Now, you did mention this anti-piracy unit, this South Korean tanker. This is a unit that was deployed to the area about a year ago to try and help safe passage for South Korean vessels through this particular region. And they have gone to the -- the vicinity, we understand, of the Strait of Hormuz, according to the defense ministry here, to try and help.
There's no details at this point. They declined to give any details as to what exactly they would be doing in the area, citing the safety of their own citizens.
But certainly, there is growing concern over what has happened. The foreign ministry here has called for the early release of both the tanker and the crew. Twenty sailors were on board, according to MOFA, five of them South Korean. And certainly, we would expect to be hearing from the ambassador to Iran here in South Korea, potentially being called in to -- to the foreign ministry, as well, John.
VAUSE: Paula, thank you.
Paula Hancocks live for us in Seoul.
Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Stay with us. WORLD SPORT is next. And I'll be back at the top of the hour.
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