Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

WHO Team Will Begin Investigating Virus Origins in Wuhan; China Cracks Down on Citizen Journalists Who Reported on Virus; TikTok Generation Takes on Russian Leader; Oregon Republican Party Calls U.S. Capitol Riot a 'False Flag Operation'' At Least 150 People Charged by DOJ in Capitol Riot. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired January 27, 2021 - 00:00   ET

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

[00:00:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

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, and on the seventh day, Joe Biden promised COVID vaccines for all Americans but not for another eight months.

Impeachment repeat with Republican senators likely to give Donald Trump another pass, most on the record now declaring a potential trial unconstitutional.

And the viral videos ridiculing Russia's Vladimir Putin and his lavish lifestyle, while boosting support for his loudest critic, Alexei Navalny.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

VAUSE: With frustration growing nationwide over a shortage of vaccine supplies, the U.S. president has promised to speed up distribution as well as plans to vaccinate most Americans by mid September.

His administration will buy an additional 200 million doses of COVID vaccines, bringing the national stockpile to 600 million. The Biden administration says it will also ramp up vaccine allocation to the states by 16 percent starting next week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are going to get through this. We will defeat this pandemic. And to a nation waiting for action, let me be clearest on this point, help is on the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The U.S. is falling far behind in vaccinations, just 1 percent of the population have received a dose and fewer than 20 million people have received their first dose. We get more details now from CNN's Drew Griffin. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This mass vaccination center inside Atlanta's Mercedes Benz Stadium could be vaccinating up to 2,000 people a day, but on Monday it had just 150 appointments.

GRIFFIN: I am a bit surprised at the lack of business here.

SARAH APATOV, MEDICAL VOLUNTEER: Yes. Well, well we're reserving the appointments for how many doses we have available.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): There is just not enough vaccine. Fulton County health director Dr. Lynn Paxton says her team alone could handle 50,000 doses a week. She's lucky if they get 10,000.

LYNN PAXTON, DIRECTOR, FULTON COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH: We have to be very judicious and how we schedule our appointments. And the important thing I want everyone to know, is that we are in no way hoarding these vaccine doses.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Louisiana's governor decided not to have mass vaccination sites for now, there's just not enough vaccine.

In Florida, hospitals have canceled appointments because vaccines didn't show up.

In parts of Texas, people lined up for hours.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been in line since five o'clock this morning.

GRIFFIN: CNN interviewed more than a dozen health officials from across the country and the message is largely unanimous. For many states, local health department and hospitals it's not just the lack of vaccine doses causing the chaos, for weeks there was a lack of information from the federal government.

DR. AMY COMPTON-PHILLIPS, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think having a federal plan would absolutely stop the kind of hunger games approach to every individual state, every individual county scrambling for their own set of rules.

GRIFFIN: Without knowing how much vaccine is going to be shipped to them and when, it's nearly impossible to plan. And that means crashing websites, appointments impossible to get and a vaccine rollout that is looking a heck of a lot like that botched rollout for coronavirus testing.

This sounds almost like a repeat of where is the testing when COVID first happened.

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: It does feel a little too familiar. We're in that exact same position with vaccines right now. We're turning away people that we know are over 65 with heart disease and we're saying we're sorry, but we can't -- we don't have a vaccine for you today. GRIFFIN: Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, who helps run 51 hospitals in seven states, is dealing with another big problem, worrying about everyone getting the required second dose. A clinic in Seattle that was vaccinating more than 2,000 people a day is about to face a massive 90 percent cut.

COMPTON-PHILLIPS: So, what about all of those people who got dose one, now our allocation is cut back by 90 percent, how are we going to get everybody dose two?

GRIFFIN: That, too, is playing out across the U.S. Each state gets first doses and earmark second doses which are required for full immunity. Last week Colorado's governor ordered those second doses be used as first doses immediately.

GOV. JARED POLIS (D-CO): I sent a letter to all of our partners, the administrative vaccine directing them that all the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine they have, including the ones who were designated as second doses.

GRIFFIN: Most other states like New York are only using second doses on those who have already had a first shot.

[00:05:00]

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): The last thing you want on top of this chaos is people get a first dose and then they come back for their second dose and you say we ran out.

GRIFFIN: It could all be solved with more vaccine. A problem the Biden administration announced it will tackle with more than a million additional doses per week. It can't happen fast enough.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Dr. William Schaffner is a professor in the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He joins us now this hour.

Dr. Schaffner, good to see you.

DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PROFESSOR, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER: Good to be with you, John.

VAUSE: Just quickly, off the top, very quickly. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being a total disaster, 10 being things just couldn't be better. Where is the U.S. right now in terms of a nationwide vaccination program?

SCHAFFNER: I think we may be at six. We're off to a good start but we still have a long way to go and there's still some bumps in the road we have to iron out.

VAUSE: OK. Well, now for something completely different, listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: And we believe that we'll soon be able to confirm the purchase of an additional 100 million doses for each of the two FDA authorized vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna.

That's 100 million more doses of Pfizer and 100 million more doses of Moderna; 200 million more doses than the federal government had previously secured. Not in hand yet but ordered.

We expect these additional 200 million doses to be delivered this summer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: OK. Completely different in a sense compared to the last 12 months because that was Joe Biden, the new president, essentially announcing what is a national plan to deal with this pandemic.

And to be perfectly honest, it doesn't seem that complicated, is it?

SCHAFFNER: Well, it is and it isn't. We're trying to vaccine more people than we ever have before in a short period of time with a new vaccine that takes two doses to administer. And the vaccines are a little bit difficult to handle because they have to be kept really quite cold, particularly the Pfizer vaccine.

And then some of the localities really have been strapped for resources and so they haven't been yet able to move the vaccine that they have into the arms of people who want the vaccine. So we still have some work to do.

But nonetheless, we're on the right track and I'm really quite optimistic.

VAUSE: It just seems, very quickly, that it's been a question of hardware rather than anything else, rather than finding the magic cure. It's getting enough syringes, enough doses, enough vaccine to where they need to be.

And now that there's some sort of coordination there, it does seem to be that it is on the right track.

SCHAFFNER: Oh, I think we are on the right track, there isn't any doubt. And I think, as I say, those issues in different localities will be worked out. I'm really quite convinced.

And one other thing, namely there'll be another vaccine manufacturer who's presenting their data to the Food and Drug Administration and we anticipate that they also will get an emergency use authorization -- that's the Johnson & Johnson product. And that's only a single dose vaccine.

And with a new manufacturer also producing millions of doses, a single dose vaccine, one that can be handled in a normal refrigerator, ha, that opens up the possibility to vaccinate many more people much more quickly.

VAUSE: Yes. The Johnson & Johnson is real old-school vaccination stuff. It could be a real breakthrough when it hits.

But what we're looking at Biden's plan -- there should be enough vaccine or enough supplies to vaccinate most Americans towards the end of September. That's the northern summer.

Now assuming that very little changes, that there's no changes for the better, no changes for the worse, there's 237 days between now and the end of summer in the U.S.

So with an average of 3,000 people dying every day, doing the math -- and I know this is very broad and not very nuanced -- but we're looking at another 700,000 people dead in this country.

Which, in many ways it just spells out that every day here is a question of life or death for a lot of people when it comes to vaccinations.

SCHAFFNER: Well, that's why it's absolutely number one on the Biden Presidency to-do list. And that's why he's given so much attention to it and given it federal direction and really oomph, real purpose. And we like that.

We also like that he's putting the scientists and the public health people upfront, trying to remove the politics from this. Which will lead to greater acceptance, I trust, of all those people who really do need to be vaccinated.

VAUSE: Would you expect the death toll to be approaching that 700,000 mark?

And if you combine it with the number of people already dead, we're looking at well over a million?

SCHAFFNER: Well, as we start to vaccinate people, I think we'll start to reduce the transmission of this virus. So I'm hoping that those numbers are not as severe as you've just mentioned.

VAUSE: The shortages of the vaccine in some states is fueling this debate about whether it's better to use all the vaccine supply as a one dose to double the number of people vaccinated.

[00:10:00]

VAUSE: That's sparked some concern.

Here's the governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): It's better to get more people dosages as long as you're sure you can get them the second dose.

The last thing you want on top of this chaos is people get a first dose and then they come back for their second dose and you say, we ran out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: The WHO now says that second shot of Moderna can wait for up to 48 days, still be effective.

Does that go towards the one dose now and maybe hope for more later on argument?

SCHAFFNER: Oh, I think we're moving in that direction very, very rapidly. Most locations are now accepting that notion; let's get that first dose in, we seem to have the assurance that more vaccine will come and we don't have to do it in quite as timely a manner.

That said, these are two-dose vaccines. And there's an old adage: the vaccine dose delayed is often the vaccine dose never received.

So we have to make sure that people don't forget and do come in for that second dose because 95 percent effectiveness depends on receiving both doses.

VAUSE: Good advice to end on. Dr. Schaffner, thank you so much. Good to see you.

SCHAFFNER: My pleasure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: The COVID death toll in the U.K. has now passed 100,000, the fifth country to record such a grim milestone. But notably, the per capita death rate in the U.K. is the highest among those five countries.

It's a long way from last March, when the British government was hoping to keep the death toll below 20,000. Here's British prime minister Boris Johnson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I'm deeply sorry for every life that has been lost and, of course, as prime minister, I take full responsibility for everything that the government has done.

What I can tell you is that we truly did everything we could and continue to do everything that we can to minimize loss of life and to minimize suffering in what has been a very, very difficult stage and a very difficult crisis for our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Meantime, ICU workers in Britain say they've been forced to dilute patient care after a surge in cases back in December. But as Salma Abdelaziz reports, the vaccination program is bringing hope.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER (voice-over): This is not what you expect to see inside a British nursing home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cheers. Cheers to freedom.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Places once devastated by COVID-19. But this is a day of celebration.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pleased, delighted.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Today is vaccine day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get my sleeve rolled up, misses.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Forty-five residents and dozens of staff got the first dose.

SANDRA STEPHENS, CARE HOME RESIDENT: I hope it's going to be over, the whole COVID business.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): This care home suffered deeply. An outbreak here at the start of the pandemic left half the residents sick. Four died of the virus. Now these survivors have some wisdom to share.

STEPHENS: The secret is to begin to realize that you are in control of yourself and, therefore, it's up to you to make something of the something that is difficult.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Like so many, Sandra Stephens suffered from depression during lockdown.

STEPHENS: That was the deepest feeling of all, actually, the feeling of being all on my own.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): So the 86-year-old made changes and she said she moved into this nursing home to be closer to her daughter.

NATALIE WHITE, CARE HOME MANAGER: That -- we go this way.

It's very emotional. It's a big day.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): The care home manager, Natalie Wright, says she found strength by leaning on those around her.

WHITE: We've got vulnerable people that needed us and you just have to be brave and do -- you know, we all just did everything that we could.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Joan Curtis recovered from COVID last year. She says, on the tough days, do the best you can.

JOAN CURTIS, CARE HOME RESIDENT: Just try and stick it out and be as cheerful as possible.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Bernard Morton lost his wife of 68 years just before the pandemic. He says has not seen his three children since the funeral. BERNARD MORTON, CARE HOME RESIDENT: We could exercise no control.

It's really in life that you haven't got a bit of input. But that input wasn't needed at all or taken.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): His advice? Really try and stay positive.

MORTON: You're always hoping for the best, that's what it really boils down to. Otherwise, you could be very, very unhappy.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): There are many more difficult months ahead but those who suffered most want us to keep hope alive -- Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, Peterborough.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[00:15:00]

VAUSE: Japan's prime minister has apologized for his government's response to the latest surge of the pandemic. Yoshihide Suga says COVID-19 patients have not received appropriate medical care.

As of Sunday, 18,000 people in the hardest hit areas were either waiting for a hospital bed or a place in an isolation facility. Officials say a growing number are now dying at home after testing positive.

Please join us for a CNN global town hall, "Coronavirus: Facts and Fears," with a number of experts from President Biden's COVID team. That's happening at 1 am Thursday in London and 9 am in Hong Kong, you will see that only here on CNN.

We'll take a short break. When we come back on CNN NEWSROOM, the acting police chief says her department failed in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. One lawmaker calls it "dumb luck" more people were not killed.

Also in response to the demand for justice, President Biden launches his push towards racial equality.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: We have never fully lived up to the founding principles of this nation, to state the obvious, that all people are created equal and have a right to be treated equally throughout their lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Those eight minutes and 46 seconds that took George Floyd's life opened the eyes of millions of Americans and millions of people around all over the world. It was the knee on the neck of justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: In the first week of his first term, U.S. President Joe Biden addressed racial injustice, in particular making mention of George Floyd's death, a turning point, he said, in the country's racial reckoning.

Tuesday, he signed four executive orders to promote racial equality. The Justice Department has been directed to end contracts with privately run prisons. He ordered increased enforcement of a law designed to fight housing discrimination. He committed to strengthen relations with Native American tribes, made it government policy to condemn anti-Asian bias, specifically in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Myisha T. Hill is the host of "The Synergy Podcast" and joins us now from Oakland, California.

Thank you for being with us.

MYISHA T. HILL, "THE SYNERGY PODCAST": Thank you for having me. Great to be here.

VAUSE: Earlier in the day, President Biden set the tone on Twitter with this.

"America has never lived up to its founding promise of equality for all but we've never stopped trying."

He repeated those words again during that signing ceremony, the executive orders. Those have been called a down payment on the promises he made during the campaign. Many say it's a good start but let's wait and see.

How do you see it?

HILL: Absolutely. I agree. I think this is a great start in the right direction but we also have to remember that there is not a set of executive orders that will revoke structural oppression. It was a great start but there is more work to be done.

VAUSE: Susan Rice, in charge of domestic policy, says real change will come with the administration's economic policy. Here is what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN RICE, WHITE HOUSE DOMESTIC POLICY COUNCIL: These are not feel- good policies. The evidence is clear.

[00:20:00]

RICE: Investing in equity is good for economic growth and it creates jobs for all Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: There are two things here, for those that don't support racial justice and equality on pure moral and ethical grounds, can they be won over with this economic argument?

If nothing else, budgets are statements of values and priorities, right?

HILL: Right, but we have to remember that capitalism begets more capitalism. If we don't deconstruct capitalism, we can have all the economic policy we want. For example, white women are the number one beneficiary of affirmative action. You can have an equitable policy.

But equity does not guarantee representation and equal pay. So again, it's a good step in the right direction and yet we can say that if the economics (INAUDIBLE) can get this bolstered.

But again, structural racism and oppression make that quite difficult. So it's great we have all of these ideas.

But what does the action plan look like and when are they going to show it to us?

VAUSE: Yes, there is a need for detail, for sure. But I don't know if you remember back in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was running for president. She had a very blunt conversation with Black Lives Matter activists. Here is a reminder.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Look, I don't believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate. You are not going to change every heart. You are not.

But, at the end of the day, we can do a whole lot to change some hearts and change some systems and create more opportunities for people who deserve to have them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: That hasn't really changed, has it?

Is that good advice now to the Biden Harris administration?

You cannot change hearts but you can change policy.

HILL: From a political standpoint, absolutely. There is this notion that you can't hearts but you can change policy.

But isn't that how bias works?

You can change all the policy you want but if you're not doing this work on an individual (ph) level, for example, we have not heard Joe Biden talk about his individual anti racism journey, right. Like policy is amazing but what is that personal transformation that is required?

(INAUDIBLE) striving to become a voice of change.

VAUSE: Joe Biden actually did mention his own experience in part and his fight for racial justice. Here is a little bit of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: You know, I have been in this fight for a long time. It goes not just to voting rights but goes to the criminal justice system. I have not always been right. I know we haven't always gotten things right. But I've always tried.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: To be fair, that was a couple years ago.

(CROSSTALK)

VAUSE: It was 2019.

But do you agree with the assessment that he has always tried, that he was not always right but he tried?

HILL: Oh, absolutely. You can keep trying and you can keep failing because failure is the opportunity to grow. Right?

And I get that from 2019. But we have to keep -- specifically white folks need to keep hearing that reminder over and over again. I failed but I kept trying. Absolutely.

VAUSE: So why is that so important in the grand scheme of things?

HILL: Because we all struggle with this notion of perfectionism, which is -- which upholds white supremacy where there is no room to fail, to get anything wrong.

And we cannot break up the interlocking systems of domination if we don't fail our way forward to make things right.

We spent so much time worried about policy change and we don't necessarily look at the personal journey that's required, the personal work.

VAUSE: I think that is a very good point and, unfortunately, we are out of time. But it is a good point to end on. But, Myisha, it was great to have you with us. We really appreciate it.

HILL: Thank you. Glad to be here.

VAUSE: Take care.

HILL: You, too.

VAUSE: House Democrats have another two weeks to prepare their case for the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Senators were sworn in Tuesday, promising to serve as fair and impartial jurors.

The former president has already been impeached for inciting an insurrection ahead of the Capitol riots earlier this month. Republican senator Rand Paul forced a vote on the constitutionality of the trial since Trump is no longer an office. It was rejected 55 to 45.

Republican leader Mitch McConnell says he is going into the trial with an open mind but did vote in favor of Paul's motion, suggesting he believes the trial is unconstitutional.

House impeachment managers are scouring video of the attack on the Capitol to use as evidence against Donald Trump. Meantime, lawmakers say they are stunned by how unprepared Capitol police and federal law enforcement actually were. One calls it "dumb luck" that more people did not die. Jessica Schneider has this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRANDON STRAKA, FOUNDER, WALKAWAY CAMPAIGN: Welcome to the revolution!

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Brandon Straka took center stage on January fifth, one day before prosecutors say he stormed the Capitol. Straka spoke out at a Stop the Steal rally.

[00:25:00]

SCHNEIDER (voice-over): Warning that calls to stop Joe Biden from taking office would only amplify.

STRAKA: We are a problem for the RINOs who wanted to lay down and hand over this election to Joe Biden and the Democrats. Help me tell them right now we're not going away, we're not going away.

SCHNEIDER: The next day prosecutors say Straka recorded himself and other rioters attacking the Capitol. In one of the videos, court filings claim Straka directed people to storm inside and told fellow rioters to take the shield away from a Capitol police officer.

And prosecutors say he wrote on Twitter that he was confused why the Capitol attack was being condemned.

"For 6-8 weeks everybody on the right has been saying '1776!' & that if congress moves forward it will mean a revolution! So congress moves forward. Patriots storm the Capitol -- now everybody is virtual signaling their embarrassment that this happened."

Straka even posted pictures of him posing with the president from December 2018 on his Instagram. Writing, tonight was a long-awaited thrill. I finally met and spoke with at real Donald Trump. He offered tremendous praise and even went around to several tables nearby and lauded me and WalkAway.

WalkAway is the group Straka founded which encourages liberals to abandon their beliefs. DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We are going to walk down and I'll be there with you. We're going to walk down to the Capitol.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take the Capitol right now!

SCHNEIDER: This new video compiled by Just Security shows how many closely many in Washington on January 6 were parroting the president. Hundreds of those who attended the rally on the Ellipse marched to the Capitol to commit violence. One hundred fifty people have been charged federally so far and prosecutors say the charges will be getting a lot more serious. They are building towards charging some rioters with seditious conspiracy which carries a hefty penalty of 20 years in prison.

And now the acting chief of the Capitol police is revealing the major missteps by the department and that officials at the Capitol were not prepared for what they knew was coming.

Acting chief Yogananda D. Pittman telling the House committee, "We knew that militia groups and white supremacists organizations would be attending. We also knew that some of these participants were intending to bring firearms and other weapons to the event.

"We knew that there was a strong potential for violence and that Congress was the target. The department prepared in order to meet these challenges but we did not do enough."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER (on camera): Acting chief Pittman was operations manager the day of the insurrection and we've learned that Capitol police officers are discussing holding a no confidence vote targeting Pittman and four additional chiefs who were on duty that day.

In fact, one source telling us Pittman never took control of the radio or instructed officers how to respond in any form.

The union president saying no vote is currently underway but that officers are definitely pushing for one -- Jessica Schneider, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: More than a year after the world's first pandemic lockdown in Wuhan, China, the WHO is trying to find out how the virus jumped from animals to humans. A live report in a moment.

Also, a citizen journalist in China who risked it all to expose the truth about the virus in the early days of the outbreak now firmly in the sights of Beijing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VAUSE: It's just about half past the hour. Welcome back, everybody.

[00:30:42]

A long-awaited investigation into where the coronavirus came from will soon begin in Wuhan, China. It's been more than a year since the first case was detected there.

CNN's Kristie Lu Stout is live in Hong Kong.

Kristie there's a team of world health experts there on the ground about to end their time in quarantine, and that's when this investigation gets underway in earnest. How much cooperation are they expecting from authorities in Beijing?

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And that's the big question, especially as Xi Jinping touts that China will cooperate with the world in terms of finding an answer in terms of managing the pandemic.

Now we know what's happening today. It's a group of 13 experts, scientists from the World Health Organization, are emerging from the two-week quarantine in China. Some today, some tomorrow. Very soon, they're going to go in the field, in Wuhan, to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, more than a year after the virus first emerged.

A detailed itinerary has yet to be released, but the original scope of the mission remains the same. They're going to try to find where the virus first emerged and how it spilled over to humans.

CNN has been speaking to a member who has been in quarantine of this WHO team. She is a Dutch virologist. Her name is Mary Kutmans (ph), and she says in the last two weeks, she and her fellow WHO scientists have been working and collaborating with Chinese scientists over video chat, looking over and poring over data sets.

She says, among the WHO members, spirit is high and that they're also aware of the magnitude of this moment. They are fully that the eyes of the world are on them.

Now, this team of scientists are also going to have to navigate a political quagmire. As you know, China has been roundly criticized, especially in the west, for its initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak and pandemic.

Both China and the WHO have been criticized for not acting fast enough. And both the U.S. and China have been pushing forward rival conspiracy theories about the origins of the pandemic. With the united states, under Donald Trump, saying it originated from a lab in Wuhan, China. That has been roundly disputed. And in China, pushing forward a theory that it originated from a U.S. Army lab. And that it originated from outside China, coming into China through cold storage or frozen food packaging. All that widely disputed by experts outside China.

Now, given the political environment, realistically, what can this team of WHO scientists achieve? Well, I posed that question to an analyst. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YANZHONG HUANG, SENIOR FELLOW FOR GLOBAL HEALTH: Well, I think if you look at the itinerary of the investigation team, that being about to emerge from the two-week quarantine, they have another two week to do these side visits. We don't know where they're going to visit, you know, who they're going to talk to, and what kind of information, you know, they're going to obtain from their Chinese counterparts. So this is still pretty much all unknowns to us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STOUT: Now, according to the team of WHO scientists in China, their objective is to follow the science, to follow the data. But they are also urging patience. They know that the entire world is waiting for answers to figure out what caused this pandemic to take the lives of over two million people around the world.

As that Dutch scientist who is part of the team and emerging from quarantine today, Mary Kutmans (ph), told CNN, she said, quote, "Previous origin investigations have taken years to complete." It's going to take a while -- John.

VAUSE: Kristie, thank you.

Yes, it will be crucial tonight. We appreciate that. Kristie Lu Stout there, live in Hong Kong.

Well, the citizen journalists in Wuhan who risked their freedom to expose the truth about the coronavirus outbreak are now being targeted by Beijing's communist government.

CNN's David Culver has that report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nearly 5,000 miles from his home in China, Chen Kun is now finding his way in a new life in exile. He fled to Paris after his younger brother was arrested last year, caught up at a crackdown on citizen journalists who reported on the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan.

His brother, Chen Mei, used his online project, Terminus 2049, to archive published stories about the virus, preserving them in case they were deleted by government censors.

CHEN KUN, BROTHER OF DETAINED CITIZEN JOURNALIST: At the beginning of the pandemic, the Chinese authorities, they covered up the real information about COVID. I think the information my brother collected and the reposting will make the Chinese government feel ashamed.

CULVER: In the early chaotic days of the outbreak, people used social media and live streaming to provide vital information to the public on the epidemic during a moment of national crisis. It also forced government officials to acknowledge the rapidly spreading threat.

(on camera): At the time here in Wuhan, there seemed to be a window of opportunity for journalists to do this kind of reporting. A lifting of China's usual censorship on media coverage that was seen as a positive sign of things to come. But soon, that window slammed shut.

(voice-over): Chen Mei was arrested in April, along with his friends and the website's cofounder, Cai Wei, accused of picking quarrels and provoking trouble.

Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, was sentenced to four years last month for the same crime, after she livestreamed on-the-ground reports about the outbreak in Wuhan.

ZHANG ZHAN, ARRESTED FOR REPORTING ON VIRUS: (SPEAKING CHINESE)

GRAPHIC: After I took some pictures of some patients, I was warned by National Security officers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're still filming. I'm going to smash it.

CULVER: She has staged a hunger strike to protest her detention. Her lawyer she fears she may die in jail.

Others who spoke out include another lawyer, Chen Qiushi, and Fang Bin, who uploaded a video of body bags at a Wuhan hospital. Both have disappeared into China's shadowy legal system.

Police also reprimanded a Wuhan doctor, Dr. Li Wenliang, who had warned contacts on Chinese messaging app WeChat of the rapidly spreading SARS-like virus in his hospital. The doctor later died of the disease, leaving a pregnant wife. His bravery in speaking out made him a martyr in China and sparked national calls for freedom of speech.

To reclaim the narrative and control the public message, China's propaganda department deployed more than 300 journalists to Wuhan in early February. The Chinese government has since denied targeting people for their reporting, saying, "In China, no one gets punished or penalized simply because of making remarks."

In Europe, Chen Kun now becoming a whistleblower himself, protesting outside the World Health Organization and trying to tell the world what happened, despite the risks to his family.

(on camera): Are you worried that speaking out could impact them?

CHEN: Yes, I'm worried, but I don't have any choice. I just have one option to do. It is speak out. Maybe the Chinese government, they want to rewrite and temper the -- the history of the COVID in Wuhan.

He hopes his brother's attempt to preserve that history may help the world piece together the origins of the world's worst pandemic in a century.

David Culver, CNN, Wuhan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Well, it must have been quite the shock. Vladimir Putin received an earful from the new U.S. president.

Also a young generation of Russians raising their voices on TikTok, also against Vladimir Putin. That's next on CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:40:18]

VAUSE: Well, it's all so different now for Russia's Vladimir Putin. No more fawning praise. No free pass for election meddling, or for bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

Yes, there's a new commander-in-chief in Washington, and the two men spoke by phone on Tuesday.

According to the White House, Biden pressed Putin on recent cyberattacks, the election meddling, and also those bounties.

Meantime, Russian state media reports that President Putin wants Parliament to approve a five-year extension of the START nuclear treaty with the U.S. So the two men can still do business.

President Biden also wants answers from Moscow on the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who's now on a Moscow prison.

But the U.S. president isn't the only one putting pressure on Putin. CNN's Fred Pleitgen has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Supporters of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gearing up for more protests after coming out last Saturday, demanding his release from prison, confronted by scores of riot cops and a heavy- handed response.

"Russia without Putin," some yelled. Clearly noticeable, the many younger people in the crowd.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Generally, I'm happy about how things are going in Russia. And as well, I'm really -- I feel sad for Navalny, because he definitely does not deserve that.

PLEITGEN: Russian state media is trying to portray the protesters as radicals, but especially the younger ones, also as shallow and naive, brainwashed by content on social media.

But political science student and TikToker Mikhail Petrov says their grievances are real.

MIKHAIL PETROV, STUDENT, TIKTOKER: We don't want to be under Putin's regime anymore, because they've been living under this regime their whole life and they want something better.

PLEITGEN: Alexei Navalny called for the protests after being detained as he returned to Moscow, after five months recovering from poisoning by the chemical nerve agent Novichok.

Navalny's group also released an investigation into Vladimir Putin's alleged wealth, calling it quote, "Putin's Palace."

In a sign that the claims made in the investigation and the nationwide protests are becoming a problem for the Russian leader, Putin who won't even mention Navalny by name, used an event with handpicked youths to publicly deny and try to mock the allegations.

"It's boring girls," Putin said, but the joke might be on Putin himself. Social media already ridiculing his alleged extravagant taste, like this rap video taking aim at an aqua disco that Navalny's investigation claimed is installed inside the palace.

However, the anger many Russians feel over alleged government repression and corruption are very serious, the head of Navalny's organization in Russia tells me.

"At these rallies, people came out to support Alexei Navalny," he says, "but there are so many problems and grievances in their minds. A lot of anger that's been building up."

And Alexei Navalny's group doesn't plan to stop. They've called for the next major protests across all of Russia for this weekend.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Please stay with us. I'll be back with more news in about 15 minutes. But for now, here's WORLD SPORT with Patrick Snell.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)