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U.S. COVID-19 Hospitalizations Fall Below 100K; E.U. Withdraws Threats To Trigger Brexit Clause On Vaccines; Putin Tries To Discredit Navalny; Republicans In Turmoil Over Controversial Georgia Representative; Protests In Poland Over Abortion Law; Much Of Peru Enters Lockdown; Canadian Couple Charged With Violating COVID-19 Rules; COVID-19 Survivors In Care Home Celebrate Vaccinations. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired January 31, 2021 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Welcome to all of our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. Thanks so much for joining me live from Studio 7 here in Atlanta. This is CNN, I'm Robyn Curnow.
Coming up on the show, a dramatic new twist in the impeachment of Donald Trump just days before trial. His entire, his entire legal team, has deserted him.
What does this mean?
We'll talk about that.
This hour also, millions are bracing for a major winter storm. Where it's going and when. We're live at the CNN Weather Center.
Also meet the wealthy Canadian couple, who skipped the COVID vaccine line and incurred the wrath of their country.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.
CURNOW: With just more than a week before his second impeachment trial, Donald Trump is losing lawyers. Sources say five attorneys have cut ties with the former president over legal strategy.
We've learned Mr. Trump wanted them to argue there was a mass election fraud and that the election was stolen from him, not the legality of convicting a president after he's left office. Former U.S. attorney Harry Litman explains what this could mean for Trump's case.
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HARRY LITMAN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's a disaster for the defense. And five is all that there are. It's not simply that they open a week from Tuesday; he has briefs due with his basic legal position on Tuesday.
It's inconceivable to me that he could get any kind of halfway professional lawyer and get together his basic claim to submit by Tuesday, especially since he seems to be insisting on staying the course with the sort of Big Lie fraud claim that actually was the source of the problem in the first place.
It was his sort of insistence and, at all costs, clinging to that claim that's what led to the insurrection here. So if he were to go in it would be the ultimate leading with his chin.
But now that all his lawyers have deserted him, I don't know what any litigant, much less the former president of the United States in an impeachment trial, is going to do, when there are really 72 hours until he has to state his basic legal position.
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CURNOW: Legal briefs are due next week with the trial set to only begin days later.
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CURNOW: As the U.S. passes 26 million cases since the pandemic began, scientists are now in a race against time because of COVID mutations that make the virus easier to catch.
Global health experts are watching several of them, especially two variants identified in the U.K. and South Africa. Both are present here in the U.S. The South African variant was found in a second U.S. state on Saturday.
All this makes the need for vaccinations much more urgent. Nearly 30 million people have been vaccinated.
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CURNOW (voice-over): These are images of lines of people waiting at huge venues, like this one in Colorado, are now inoculation sites. Protesters are also trying to interfere with these efforts.
Take a look at the Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Saturday. These images there of protesters carrying signs calling the virus a scam. L.A. police said the site never shut down, despite the presence of marchers near the gates.
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CURNOW: January has certainly been the deadliest month of the pandemic so far. Here in the U.S. authorities are putting far more significant restrictions into place to try and curb the transmission of the virus, as Natasha Chen now reports. The COVID toll is certainly taking its toll on individual lives -- Natasha.
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NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The CDC says starting Monday night, everyone over two years old using any form of public transit must wear a mask, even if one has already had the COVID vaccine.
It's a mandate that comes a year after the first reported U.S. case of COVID-19, a virus that has killed more than 437,000 people in the U.S.
ZORA BRENGETTSY, BEREAVED FAMILY MEMBER: We didn't expect to lose any of them. To be honest, we all thought they were going to bounce back.
CHEN (voice-over): This family lost three loved ones.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To wake up and know that he's not there, I can't call him.
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CHEN: January was the deadliest month of this year-long pandemic, more than 90,000 people in the U.S. have died this month alone and to give you some perspective, that's about 20,000 more people that could fit in this entire NFL stadium.
CHEN (voice-over): The Mercedes Benz Stadium that hosted the Super Bowl just two years ago is now a vaccination site.
DR. LYNN PAXTON, DIRECTOR, FULTON COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH: We can actually get more vaccines out given the resources that we have or that are shortly coming to us. But if you don't have the vaccine, then we can't do it.
CHEN (voice-over): Johnson & Johnson is expected to apply for Emergency Use Authorization for its vaccine next week. Its global Phase III trial results showed the vaccine is 66 percent effective, but 85 percent effective specifically against severe disease.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: This is a single shot vaccine in which you start to see efficacy anywhere from seven to 10 days following the first and only shot. It is very, very good with regard to cold chain requirements, namely requiring only a refrigerator.
CHEN (voice-over): Meanwhile, a new study suggests children are safer from the virus in schools than out of them. The author of the first detailed study of two K-12 schools said in order to reopen schools safely, they need Federal centralized guidelines and better access to testing.
Health experts are also eyeing new variants of the virus including the first domestic cases of the variant first identified in South Africa and more than 400 cases of the variant first identified in the U.K. Experts believe these variants will be more dominant by the end of March.
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CDC DIRECTOR: I believe that we should be treating every case as if it's a variant during this pandemic right now.
CHEN (voice-over): A pandemic that's far from over. The virus killed nine nuns in a retirement home in Michigan, all within a few weeks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is numbing. And we have -- I do -- a much deeper appreciation for all the other families who have gone through this, the hundreds of thousands of families and until it personally touches you, I don't care how much we can have a sympathetic heart, it is different when you've already been there.
CHEN (voice-over): Natasha Chen, CNN. Atlanta.
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CURNOW: British Conservative MP and cabinet member Michael Gove says he's confident coronavirus vaccines from Pfizer and AstraZeneca will be supplied to the U.K. as planned.
That statement follows a brief conflict between the U.K. and the E.U., which had planned to restrict exports of COVID vaccines from crossing the Irish border into Britain. The E.U. backed down after London, Belfast and Dublin criticized that move. Saturday, Gove commented how the governments have been blindsided by the threat.
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MICHAEL GOVE, BRITISH MINISTER FOR THE CABINET OFFICE: I think the European Union recognize now that they made a mistake yesterday. The commission made a mistake.
They didn't consult us, they didn't consult our friends in Dublin and the united parties in Northern Ireland, from Sinn Fein on one side to the DUP on the other, in condemnation. And people in Northern Ireland were bewildered by this step.
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CURNOW: For more on all of this I want to go to Melissa Bell in Paris.
What more can you tell us?
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Robyn, I think that brief, I think it was a brief moment on Friday night, when we understood the European Commission had intended to trigger that article of the Northern Ireland protocol, which would have reintroduced that hard border, was yet another example of how seriously the European Union is taking this issue.
It's suspicion that's at the heart of all this, that AstraZeneca is prioritizing the United Kingdom over the E.U. What the E.U. wants to make sure is that, through this vaccine export mechanism, is to make sure that any companies that it is unclear of, whether they are giving them the right doses, the doses they'd promised the E.U. as part of their contract, they're going to prevent them from exporting their vaccines to places like the United Kingdom. We saw a series of moves last week from the E.U., from the
announcement of an inspection of the site at which the AstraZeneca vaccines are produced in Brussels, to the publication of its contract with AstraZeneca, again, going so far as to reintroduce briefly, until it backed down, that hard border between Ireland and the United Kingdom.
All examples of just the difficult situation the European Union is in. It had wanted to prioritize coordination, unity of the E.U. with regard to vaccine procurement. That made the process much slower than it was for the United Kingdom or for the United States in terms of vaccine procurement.
Then the approval had to come through, hence the delays. That's why AstraZeneca explains it's going to be able to provide fewer vaccines to the E.U. than to the U.K. That is not an argument E.U. is accepting.
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BELL: And it intends to push very hard to make sure, henceforth, it keeps a close eye on what's leaving the E.U. in order to make sure its own citizens can get those much-needed vaccinations.
This also takes place in the context of the World Health Organization warning vaccine nationalism could mean this pandemic lasts longer than it needs to. The United Kingdom has said it is too early to look at whether it will donate some of its vaccines to other places including the European Union.
But clearly a great deal of tension over this question of vaccine delivery.
CURNOW: Thanks for the update, live in Paris, Melissa Bell.
Keith Neal is an infectious disease physician and professor emeritus at University of Nottingham and joins us from Derby in England.
Good to see you again. You heard Melissa talk about vaccine nationalism. There's certainly increased competition, as across Europe there are varying degrees of infections, slow rollouts, even pace of lifting lockdowns.
It feels like this is going to go on for much of the year.
DR. KEITH NEAL, PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM: I think quite right. I think one of the big issues people have underestimated is the issue of vaccine supply.
Even without COVID vaccines, the vaccine supply chain is pretty precarious. Occasionally, a factory or a batch fails production standards and we have a vaccine shortage. Throughout my working career, we've invariably had some vaccine shortage or not every year.
CURNOW: Then how does -- how do countries deal with this? In particular, when you're dealing with vaccines and then this natural mutation that we're seeing for the virus, of different variants that might or might not be less or more effective against -- within some of these vaccines, does that worry you?
NEAL: I think the answer is we need sufficient production facilities. It might be there has to be a slightly greater benefit to people making vaccines at the financial end.
In Britain, we started manufacturing the Oxford vaccine almost as soon as it was beginning after phase I trials. Essentially, we took a gamble, which is why we're three to four months ahead in production than E.U.
The variants are always a potential risk. But we see this annually with the flu virus. Flu viruses mutate slower than coronaviruses.
We also have a new technology in these vaccines, which with the RNA, using RNA, which is able to be tweaked much quicker than trying to grow out cells. In fact, the head of Pfizer has suggested he can change the vaccine in six weeks.
It won't necessarily be quite as quick as that because we'll need to actually make sure the vaccine works. But any significant variant, we can match.
Also, in the Northern Hemisphere, we're going into the summer months, which gives us plenty -- and we know the disease began to fall away, because, during last summer -- and there's no reason to believe that it won't this summer -- which gives us until September-October to have ramped up vaccination and production and, if necessary, change the vaccine.
CURNOW: While all this is going on, what do you make also -- I think there was a small study, showing pretty some positive results for pregnant women and getting the vaccine.
What do you make of that?
NEAL: I think there's been a lot worry about pregnancy, although most people who are pregnant are young and female and they're at much lower risk of severe disease. It's only those with underlying conditions we need to worry about, particularly heart disease.
I think it bodes well for being able to essentially bring the vaccination age right down to 18 or lower and we'll be able to control the spread of COVID even more. I think we're going to see this might become more important, because, the less circulating virus, the less chances of a mutation occurring that could cause us difficulties.
CURNOW: That was going to be my next question. Dr. Fauci, in the last few days, suggested children would be vaccinated here in the U.S. this year.
Do you see authorization being given for children?
Again, how does that impact not just vaccine rollout but this issue of herd immunity or whatever you want to call it?
NEAL: I think we don't have sufficient evidence on how efficient children are at spreading it. If we talk about 16-, 17-, 18-year-olds, they're really more young adults than children.
And how far -- particularly in this country, we're not seeing big problems in children in primary school up to the age of 11. It may be that we will need to consider vaccinating them to interrupt transmission completely. But I think we're a little way away from that, because we need to do those at most risk of serious disease first.
CURNOW: Great to speak to you. Thanks so much, Professor Keith Neal, University of Nottingham, thank you for your time.
NEAL: Thank you, Robyn.
CURNOW: So a wave of opposition rallies is now rolling across Russia for the second weekend. We are watching these images.
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CURNOW: And the man inspiring this movement is currently in a Moscow jail. Coming up, we'll take you live to the Russian capital for the very latest.
Also, more headaches for Republicans as new video emerges of a controversial U.S. congresswoman making disturbing claims, really disturbing claims, about the deadly Las Vegas shooting. We'll have that for you as well.
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CURNOW: And another of Marjorie Taylor Greene's controversial social media posts has surfaced, a Twitter user posting it Thursday. It shows Greene discussing the mass shooting in Las Vegas back in 2017.
Steven Paddock opened fire on a huge crowd gathered for a music festival; 58 people were killed and hundreds wounded in the attack. Paddock later found dead in his hotel room from a self-inflicted wound.
But Greene suggested the massacre was staged to discourage support for gun ownership rights under the U.S. Constitution, take a look.
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REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Maybe you accomplish that by performing a mass shooting into a crowd that is very likely to be conservative, very likely to vote Republican, very likely to be Trump supporters, very likely to be pro-Second Amendment and very likely to own guns.
Are they trying to terrorize our mindset and change our minds on the Second Amendment?
Is that what's going on here?
I have a lot of questions about that. I don't believe Stephen Paddock was a lone wolf. I don't believe that he pulled this off all by himself. And I know most of you don't, either.
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CURNOW: CNN has reached out to congresswoman Greene for comment on that post and we are still waiting for a reply. Democrats are calling for Greene to be kicked out of Congress. While some Republicans have criticized the freshman representative, many others are conspicuously silent.
Meanwhile, she is staunchly declaring her allegiance to the former president, as Joe Johns explains.
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JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to do her thing up here on Capitol Hill. She tweeted out on Saturday that she had a great conversation with former president Donald Trump, that she was grateful for what she referred to as his support and said Democrats are now coming after her the way they used to go after him.
We have no confirmation of that telephone call but no reason to doubt it. If that call did occur, it tells a little bit about how the president is operating in the background, making telephone calls, even though he doesn't have the Twitter megaphone, while Republicans continue with their identity crisis.
There was a back and forth on Saturday on Twitter between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Republican Utah senator Mitt Romney. Romney tweeted about her lies; she tweeted back that he needed to "grow a pair" or get a spine.
Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to be unapologetic about everything that Democrats are coming after her for. Democrats have suggested she ought to be ousted from the United States Congress because she has supported the idea of assassinating Democrats, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi -- Joe Johns, CNN, the Capitol.
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CURNOW: Large anti-government demonstrations are taking shape across Russia right now. People began gathering several hours ago in cities in the eastern part of the country.
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CURNOW (voice-over): More than 100 cities are bracing for scenes like this throughout the day. These protests could rival or even exceed last weekend's massive rallies, that resulted in thousands of arrests. There are individual grievances against the Putin regime.
But they've found a voice in one man, Alexei Navalny, currently in Moscow jail awaiting a court appearance.
The anti-corruption organization is appealing to Biden to impose sanctions on about 3 dozen Russians with ties to the Kremlin.
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CURNOW: I want to go to Moscow, Matthew Chance standing by with more.
It's obviously a chilly day in Moscow where you are. Certainly a lot of emotions flying across the country, 11 time zones.
What's happening now where you are?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Here in Moscow, the protest hasn't actually gotten underway. It's going to be another 45 minutes, an hour, before the formal protest gets underway.
But there's a big security presence in the center of the Russian capital. Riot police have been deployed. Metro stations have been sealed off to try and prevent protesters getting to the area where the protest is going to be held.
It's an unsanctioned protest, as all these protests are across the country. And the authorities have advised people in Russia not to attend.
We're expecting to see, here in Moscow, people detained, as they were last week, when they attempt to protest. Indeed, we've been seeing those scenes rolled out across the country already. It is a country of 11 time zones and the protests have been sweeping from east to west like a wave.
We've been seeing big crowds from Vladivostok in the far east, other cities in Siberia as well. Over 260 arrests have been reported so far across the country. But as those protests gather pace, as they come to the capital and other big cities here in western Russia, we're expecting to see that number increase dramatically.
CURNOW: Thanks so much, Matthew Chance, live in Moscow. We'll be checking in throughout the coming hours.
It's Sunday morning in Poland, a deeply Catholic country, now divided over a near-total ban on abortions. The restrictions are driving mass protests there, as Phil Black now reports.
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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. [03:25:00]
BLACK (voice-over): 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 Jaroslaw Kaczynski describes the protesters as "criminals," saying their actions in the middle of a pandemic will cost lives.
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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CURNOW: The coronavirus has hit Peru hard, with hospitals running out of beds and health care workers at the point of exhaustion.
What steps are being taken to curb the virus there?
We'll talk about that.
Also, a Canadian couple allegedly skips the line for COVID inoculations. We'll tell you how people are reacting there.
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(MUSIC PLAYING) CURNOW: Great to have you along. Welcome back to our viewers here in
the United States and all around the world. I'm Robyn Curnow. This is CNN.
Peru expects to receive its first batch of COVID vaccines from China on February the 9th. It can't get there soon enough. Infections are on the rise. Beginning today, nearly half the country is on lockdown. This includes the capital, Lima.
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CURNOW (voice-over): These images show people sleeping outside, waiting to get oxygen for their loved ones stricken with the virus. Health care workers are stretched thin; hospitals are running out of ICU beds. Some don't have any beds at all. To talk about this is Isa Soares from London.
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CURNOW: It certainly seems desperate in Peru.
ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is desperate. Good morning to you. There's really no other way to put it, as you've clearly outlined there. Peru is being battered by the second wave of the pandemic. More than 40,000 people have died, over 1 million have been infected.
With these new lockdowns you mentioned, President Sagasti, who has faced immense criticism for not only his handling of the pandemic but in delaying trying to find a vaccine, what he's trying to do is contain the spread of the virus and stop the arrival of the new variants, the South African, the Brazilian variants.
That might be hard to do, given the last 24 hours we've heard the Brazilian variant has unfortunately been seen, a new case in Colombia. But he's also trying to give the health care service there in Peru some breathing space, because, as I'm about to show you, the health care service is at breaking point, have a look.
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SOARES (voice-over): Every morning Dr. Rosa Luz Lopez looks at this list of COVID-19 patients --
DR. ROSA LUZ LOPEZ, ICU HEAD: (Speaking Spanish).
SOARES (voice-over): -- and wishes she didn't have to make this difficult decision.
LOPEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
SOARES (voice-over): It's overwhelming.
LOPEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
SOARES (voice-over): Hospital Nacional Guillermo Almenara EsSalud in Lima, Peru, is one of the largest in the capital. Here, ICU beds have almost quadrupled. But that simply isn't enough.
LOPEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
SOARES (voice-over): With no space inside the main hospital, these patients are now being seen in the temporary room in the patio.
Dr. Lopez, who is the head of the intensive care unit here, shows us around.
LOPEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
SOARES (voice-over): Back inside the ICU ward, medical staff work around the clock to meet the surge in cases, more than 100,000 in the last month alone.
LOPEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
SOARES (voice-over): Understandably, they're beyond exhausted.
DR. JESUS VALVERDE, HOSPITAL NACIONAL DOS DE MAYO: (Speaking Spanish).
SOARES (voice-over): Not far away from here, in Hospital Nacional Dos de Mayo --
VALVERDE: (Speaking Spanish).
SOARES (voice-over): Dr. Jesus Valverde says they only have 50 ICU beds and they're all full. But even if they had ICU beds they wouldn't have the staff, he says.
VALVERDE: (Speaking Spanish).
FRANCISCO SAGASTI, PERUVIAN PRESIDENT: (Speaking Spanish).
SOARES (voice-over): Amid mounting criticism, president Francisco Sagasti is promising there will be more ICU beds.
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SOARES (voice-over): No word, though, on the medical staff needed to run them.
SAGASTI: (Speaking Spanish).
SOARES (voice-over): And while the promise of more beds will be a relief to many, hope may be distant and fading. No vaccine has yet arrived in Peru.
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SOARES: And the first batch, Robyn, of the Sinopharm vaccine is expected to arrive on February 9th. No word as of yet on when vaccinations will begin.
But in that report, you saw and heard the desperation in the doctors' voices there. To give you a sense of the frustration and the exhaustion, there are 600 doctors in the whole of Peru for over 1,800 ICU beds, COVID or non-COVID.
Many of them are working two to three shifts and more than 260 doctors have died of COVID-19 in Peru so far.
CURNOW: Goodness, that certainly does tell a story. Isa, thank you for that report.
So far in the U.S., about 30 million vaccine doses have now been administered. That's well more than half the nearly 50 million doses distributed so far. As wealthy nations try to protect themselves, the COVAX program, backed by the World Health Organization, will soon be delivering vaccines to some of the poorest countries.
Ivan Watson was able to get an exclusive interview with the managing director of the COVAX facility. And she struck an optimistic tone about their mission.
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AURELIA NGUYEN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, COVAX: So the COVAX facility is on track on its primary goal, which is making sure that we have access to supply. We need about 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021. But it's not going to be a straightforward pathway throughout the whole year, that's for sure.
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The European Union was just slamming Pfizer and AstraZeneca for delays in production and in supply of vaccines.
Are you seeing the agreements that are being made, are you seeing slowdowns because of not only demand but about unforeseen problems in production?
NGUYEN: Manufacturers are scaling up at a speed that's unprecedented. So I think we can expect that it's not going to be all smooth sailing as the vaccine manufacturing is scaled up and distribution happens.
I think it's important for everyone to be able to be accountable to the commitments that they've made.
WATSON: The head of the WHO has been quite critical about wealthier countries doing advance orders and setting back supply of vaccines to poorer countries; to COVAX, for example.
How much of a problem is that for you?
NGUYEN: In 2021 we are in a situation where demand is going to outstrip supply. This is exactly the reason why COVAX was created, to avoid a bidding war for vaccines. Without concerted effort, lower- income countries will be left behind because of the restrictions on their financial capabilities to be able to buy vaccines.
WATSON: What is the budget like to provide and distribute hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine essentially for free to the world's poorest countries? NGUYEN: We've had very, very strong endorsements by donors. We've been able so far to secure pledges of $6 billion from over 2020. But we do need at least another $2 billion in 2021 to carry on being able to procure and also to be delivering doses.
WATSON: The new Biden administration announced that it wanted to join the COVAX facility.
What kind of an impact will that have?
NGUYEN: I think it's a very strong endorsement of the COVAX facility, of the aim to have a global and multilateral approach to fair and equitable access for COVID-19 vaccines.
So the very welcome news from the Biden-Harris administration to join COVAX is also coupled with a very significant pledge of $4 billion, which covers the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines and delivery.
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CURNOW: Thanks to Ivan Watson there for that report.
So Canada has promised to support poorer countries' fight COVID financially and by securing vaccines as well. But it has also had its own shortages. So when a wealthy couple in western Canada allegedly went to great lengths to skip the line and get inoculated, people were outraged, as Paula Newton now explains.
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PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The alleged incident seems unthinkable in its deceit and officials say residents are still shaken.
Authorities in the Canadian territory of Yukon allege Rodney Baker, a former gaming executive and his wife, Ekaretina, from Vancouver, chartered a plane to a tiny community shortly after arriving in the Yukon. And allegedly, posing as local workers, received a vaccine they weren't entitled to.
MATTHEW CAMERON, SENIOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER: I think there's a lot of people who are really upset. There's a lot of outrage here, still, that people would selfishly come to the Yukon and put our communities at risk.
NEWTON (voice-over): It happened in the tiny outpost of Beaver Creek, close to the Alaskan border. Authorities say the couple flew to the city of White Horse in the Yukon earlier this month.
And instead of isolating for two weeks, as they were legally required, they chartered a plane to Beaver Creek, where they allegedly knew a mobile clinic was setting up to vaccinate everyone who lived and worked there. Home to indigenous communities, the Yukon is especially vulnerable to COVID-19, with few medical facilities. Canada has given indigenous and northern residents priority to the vaccines knowing lives are on the line.
CAMERON: They went to a small community. And I will tell you, Paula, that has sent a shock through our territory. I had two calls yesterday with all of the first nation chiefs from across the Yukon, discussing how we can be sure to keep everybody safe.
NEWTON: What has been so unnerving, say residents, is the fact that they broke quarantine, putting at risk thousands who have sacrificed so much to keep the virus from ravaging remote communities.
CNN has reached out several times to the Bakers for comment and have not heard back.
The Bakers were charged under the Civil Emergency Measures Act, not for getting the vaccine but for breaking quarantine. Fines can reach $500 Canadian and up to six months in prison or both.
The Bakers were each fined maximum and a surcharge. And the Royal Canadian Mounted Police tell CNN they are still being investigating.
While the couple has not been fined for actually getting the vaccine, the Canadian minister in charge of vaccination rollout in indigenous communities says the Bakers should do more.
MARC MILLER, INDIGENOUS SERVICES MINISTER: I'm disgusted. And I understand these people are wealthy and I won't tell them what to do with their money but perhaps reparations are due on some level.
NEWTON: Officials in the Yukon say they haven't received anything from the couple yet, not even an apology. And indigenous leaders say they want harsher punishments in place to make sure this can't happen again -- Paula Newton, CNN, Ottawa.
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CURNOW: We're going to take a quick break then talk about a winter storm that is affecting millions of Americans. Several states will see a blanket of snow in the coming hours.
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CURNOW (voice-over): You are watching enraged fans of the Olympique de Marseille, on a rampage, storming the team's training grounds on Saturday. According to a team statement, hundreds of spectators tried to
confront team officials about the club's recent performance hours before an important game. The nine-time Ligue 1 winners have suffered three straight defeats. The club said there were several hundred thousand dollars in damage and the match was postponed.
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CURNOW: Nearly 100 million people are under some form of a winter weather alert here in the U.S. That includes those in the nation's capital, which will see several inches of snow for the first time in almost two years.
Parts of the Midwest are already seeing heavy snow, with Chicago possibly getting almost 10 inches by Sunday night, that's around 25 centimeters. That same system is forecast to impact the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast.
(WEATHER REPORT)
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CURNOW: You're watching CNN.
Coming up, more vaccines are reaching British care homes and people are celebrating. CNN visits survivors in one community hard-hit by the virus. Their message of hope, that's next.
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CURNOW: The U.K. is fighting a surge in COVID cases, fueled in part by a new variant of the virus. Data from Johns Hopkins shows more than 1.3 million new confirmed infections just in the last month alone. But the U.K.'s vaccination program is bringing hope. Salma Abdelaziz shows us a care home that has experienced desolation, resignation and now jubilation.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Happy New Year.
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. [03:55:00]
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.
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CURNOW: Some beautiful words of wisdom there from the folks that know.
Thanks for watching. I'm Robyn Curnow. That's me for now. I'm going to hand you over to my colleague, Kim, as the news continues.
