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Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Could Be Third Cleared in U.S.; Canada Announces Hotel Quarantine for Most Travelers; Third Night of Protests in Poland over Abortion Law. Aired 12-12:15a ET
Aired January 30, 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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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, everyone, and welcome to Studio 7 here at CNN Center in Atlanta. I am Michael Holmes.
We want to get into the top story right now. Another player about to jump into the vaccine arena. Johnson & Johnson says the latest trial data shows its vaccine candidate is safe and effective and it plans to apply for emergency use authorization in the U.S. next week.
If cleared, it will be the third authorized in the U.S. But there are new concerns as well, even though cases are slowly declining, there is growing evidence that vaccines are less effective against one of the new strains spreading in the U.S.
Dr. Anthony Fauci warns that the variant first seen in the U.K. could become the dominant strain in the U.S. by spring. CNN's Nick Watt reports on the latest dose of hope in the fight against COVID-19 and how the virus is trying to defy the vaccine.
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NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Global trial data is in: Johnson & Johnson says its vaccine is safe and 66 percent effective at preventing moderate and severe illness, 85 percent effective against severe disease.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: There were essentially no hospitalizations or deaths in the vaccine group.
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WATT (voice-over): Some context: the flu vaccine reduces the risk of illness by between 40 percent and 60 percent.
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DR. MATHIA MAMMEN, GLOBAL HEAD OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, JANSSEN DIVISION OF JOHNSON & JOHNSON: Our topline result is that we have 85 percent protection against disease that matters --
WATT (voice-over): Johnson & Johnson will apply for FDA emergency use authorization mid- to late next week. Their commitment is 100 million doses for Americans by June.
MAMMEN: -- which we're very much on track to deliver. Our plan is to have supplies immediately upon launch.
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WATT (voice-over): Yes, this vaccine was less effective than Pfizer and Moderna in trials but...
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DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH & POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: For many clinics out there, this is going to be the ideal vaccine to have. One dose, stable vaccine; use it.
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WATT (voice-over): Meanwhile Dr. Fauci says those more contagious coronavirus variants might be dominant in the U.S. by late March.
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FAUCI: This is a wake-up call to all of us. We will continue to see the evolution of mutants.
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WATT (voice-over): The strain first found in South Africa now found in South Carolina, assumed to be spreading in the country.
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DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: By the time someone has symptoms, gets a test, has a positive result and we get the sequence, our opportunity for doing real case control and contact tracing is largely gone.
And so I think -- I believe that we should be treating every case as if it's a variant during this pandemic right now.
WATT (voice-over): They're working on getting that data in real time.
Meanwhile, those University of Washington modelers project, these variants might add up to an additional 85,000 deaths in America by May.
WATT: And, of course, something else on many people's minds, when can more kids get back into school safely?
This was interesting from Dr. Fauci today: he said that tests are underway on the safety and efficacy of these vaccines for younger people.
And he said, hopefully, late spring or early summer, some children will at least be authorized to get a vaccine. Of course, whether there's enough supply is a whole different story -- Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
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HOLMES: AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine has gotten the green light from the European Union. But it's already turning out to be quite a headache for local officials. It, too, is being affected by massive delays, as CNN's Melissa Bell explains.
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MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The European Medicines Agency has approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for use here in the European Union, making it the third vaccine to get European approval.
It is now at the heart of a worsening row between the E.U. and AstraZeneca. This after the company announced there would be serious shortfalls in the amount of vaccines it would be delivering to the European Union.
On the side of the use, huge pressure as a result of the slow vaccination campaigns made even slower the last few weeks by shortage of supplies, the vaccine already available, both Pfizer and Moderna, meaning in countries like France, Spain and Germany, so desperately in need a vaccinations, there will be either shortages, slowness or, in some parts, entire stoppage of campaign.
That's how badly the E.U. needs the vaccine. Ursula van der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has said there is perfect clarity within that contract with AstraZeneca it has now taken the trouble to publish. It wants the company to live up to its contractual obligations and has said it will not stop until it does.
This, of course, when you consider the E.U. has said it wants to vaccinate 70 percent of its population by the summer, where, for the time being, only 2 percent have received a vaccination -- Melissa Bell, CNN, Brussels.
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HOLMES: Canada is introducing new COVID travel rules.
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HOLMES: The Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau revealing that travelers entering the country will soon have to quarantine for three days upon arrival until they get their coronavirus test results. They'll have to stay in hotels approved by the government at their own expense.
In Wuhan, China, the city that reported the first cluster of COVID-19 cases, a team of scientists led by the World Health Organization has visited a hospital that treated some of the first coronavirus patients a year ago. The team now trying to pin down exactly how the virus came to be.
Now the U.S. President Joe Biden is ramping up his efforts to sell lawmakers on an ambitious COVID relief package. While he's looking to gain bipartisan support for the $1.9 trillion bill, he says time is of the essence and he won't rule out Democrats working alone to get it done.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I support passing COVID relief with support from Republicans if we can get it. But the COVID relief has to pass. There's no ifs, ands or buts. Thank you.
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HOLMES: The FBI says pipe bombs found in Washington D.C., on the day of the Capitol insurrection were planted the night before the attack. Investigators say the suspect, seen in this surveillance video, placed the bombs near the Democratic and Republican Party headquarters on the evening on January 5th and that it might have been part of a plan to divert resources as the rioting began.
The suspect wore a gray hooded sweatshirt and notably yellow, black and gray Nike sneakers. The actual bombs could also offer important clues.
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ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: So those bombs are now a cornucopia of potential evidence for investigators. Those bumps have been taken back, I'm sure, to the FBI lab at Quantico, Virginia.
They will be completely disassembled and evaluated, literally, microscopically for any sort of trace elements that the bomb may have left behind, be it fingerprints, hair and fibers, genetic material they may have left behind.
They are also a great source of information about the components themselves. So once you identify those components -- the steel pipe, the egg timer, the materials used to hold it all together -- you then trace back where those things could possibly be sold.
And then you start to sort through the hundreds, maybe thousands of purchases that could ultimately lead you to the individual that procured all of these components.
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HOLMES: The reward for information leading to the location, arrest and conviction of the suspect now stands at up to $100,000.
Protests erupted across Poland for a third night in a row after the government-imposed a near total ban on abortions. Under the new rules, abortion is legal only in the case of rape or incest or where the mother's health or life are at risk. Phil Black with the details.
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PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A culture war is raging in Poland; the most fiercely contested battleground: women's bodies. Vast crowds swarmed through Central Warsaw Friday night, furious over the government's decision to implement an almost total ban on abortions.
The ruling Law and Justice Party has long sought to make it almost impossible to legally access the procedure in a country where it was already very difficult. Last October, the country's highest court ruled it is unconstitutional to end pregnancies because of fetal abnormalities, the reason behind almost all legal abortions in Poland at the time.
That decision inspired hundreds of thousands of angry people to fill streets and squares in the capital and beyond. The government signaled it was open to dialogue. But this week, it suddenly published the law enforcing the court's ruling.
The reaction on the street was immediate. But it's not just women protesting; further restricting abortion is seen by many as the latest attack on social freedoms by a right-wing government openly disdaining Western liberal values.
Gay pride flags are a common sight in the crowd. Here, a police officer tries to tear one from the hands of a protester.
The passionate demonstrations are overwhelmingly peaceful. But they can be provocative. In this deeply Catholic country, some protesters storm churches, disrupting mass and prayer.
To those in the protest movement, the Catholic Church and the Law and Justice Party form a powerful bloc, determined to impose an intolerant, ultraconservative agenda, while the ruling party's leader describes the protesters as "criminals," saying their actions in the middle of a pandemic will cost lives.
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BLACK (voice-over): There is much at stake. A prosperous European country that once defeated Communism through unity is now traumatically split over its moral and political future -- Phil Black, CNN, London.
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HOLMES: It has been a crazy week on Wall Street, to say the least, the Dow closing down 2 percent on Friday. The SNP down about the same, both logging their first monthly losses since October.
But one stock that is not listed on these is seeing a windfall. GameStop closed nearly 70 percent higher on Friday, its value soaring, thanks to amateur investors, who are putting the squeeze on hedge funds and short sellers. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says it will closely
review trading restrictions. That's after the RobinHood app blocked people from buying GameStop and other volatile stocks this week.
The SEC also warned that extreme volatility puts the whole market at risk. Lawmakers calling for investigations into RobinHood's behavior in a rare moment of bipartisan consensus. The White House not pushing anything, though. They say the SEC has it under control.
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JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I know the SEC issued a new statement earlier this morning or just before I came out here. And I'd certainly point to that and others to that.
And we, of course, respect the role of regulatory agencies. They are closely monitoring the situation but it's under their purview at this point in time.
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HOLMES: RobinHood has since lifted its ban on buying the shares. Users were outraged.
One of the coldest places in Europe is making a bid to host the 2032 Summer Olympic Games.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Speaking foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) coming soon.
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HOLMES: The tongue-in-cheek video from Salla in Finland's Lapland region carries a serious message, it's designed to draw attention to climate change. Salla's mayor says rising temperatures are putting the town's traditional way of life under threat.
A dozen or so cities are actually interested in hosting the 2032 Games, but the International Olympic Committee has not decided when they will choose the host.
I'm Michael Holmes, thanks for sharing part of your day with me. I'm going to hand you over to "MARKETPLACE AFRICA." I will see you a bit later.
