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Putin Tries To Discredit Navalny; Scientists Worry About Fast- Spreading COVID-19 Mutations; Republicans In Turmoil Over Controversial Georgia Representative; California Ends Regional Stay- At-Home Order; Much Of Peru Enters Lockdown; Biden Administration Inherits Numerous Middle East Crises. Aired 4-5a ET

Aired January 31, 2021 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): This is CNN breaking news.

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): And we begin with large, anti- government demonstrations now getting underway across Russia. People began gathering several hours ago in cities in the eastern part of the country. More than 100 cities are bracing for scenes like we've seen throughout day here.

I think we are going to play some pictures but we have Matthew Chance live there. There are the pictures now. We've seen lots of activity by security forces and we expect these protests to ramp up throughout the day.

Matthew, let's go to you now.

First of all, what can you tell us about the situation right now where you are and across the country?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, where I am right now in Moscow, the protest hasn't really properly gotten underway yet, although there is a big security operation under way in the center of the Russian capital, with riot police being deployed in the city center, where the protest was going to be held.

I understand it may have moved locations so there is some confusion about where this unsanctioned protest in the Russian capital will actually take place. We have a team on the ground right where the protest is happening so obviously we will be able to bring you more information directly from that protest in the hours ahead.

Elsewhere in the country, though, there have been yet another wave of protests sweeping across these vast countries in towns and cities across Russia, starting in the far east, where thousands of people have been taking to the streets in protest at the government's detention of Alexei Navalny, that anti-corruption campaigner, who suffered that horrific poisoning with a suspected nerve agent last year, recovered in a clinic in Berlin. He was detained as soon as he came back to Russia earlier this month.

It brought protesters out onto the streets. As I say, there have been big crowds, gathering in places across Russia so far today, with more than 500 people so far that have been arrested.

That compares -- just to give you a sense of proportion -- last week when these protests -- first wave of protests took place after the detention of Alexei Navalny, when he returned from Germany to Russia, more than 4,000 people were arrested by the end of the whole protest across the country.

So far today, there's been over 500 and we haven't even got to Moscow and St. Petersburg yet, where the protests are expected to take place in the hours ahead.

BRUNHUBER: All right, thank you so much. We may come back to you a little bit later.

We want to go now to Fred Pleitgen, who is live with us, I understand.

Are you there?

Yes, there you are. So I understand you had some difficulties yourself. Tell us exactly what's going on down there.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so I'm about two kilometers away from where the protests were originally supposed to be. But that's completely cordoned off. There are a lot of riot cops already here on the square.

And you're absolutely right, I was briefly detained by Russian riot police as well until I showed them my accreditation. They were taking me to a police van and then they let me go.

But there have already been on the square here, even though there are not many protesters here, there have been a bunch of detentions going on. It seems like the police, riot police, military police showed up here very quickly.

And it really seemed -- you can see that they really are going after a very, very hard line. We've been seeing this basically since -- since the cops got here, that they have just been detaining a lot of people. It seems like a zero tolerance policy.

Here is another detention right here. They are out in force and they are detaining a lot of people and also, by the way, a lot of journalists.

So I did see a couple other journalists not just myself who were filing reports and, while they were filing reports, were taken into detention. And as we have it right here, another detention taking place right now.

So you can see that the police certainly going with a very, very hard line here immediately, coming up to people, immediately detaining a lot of people. They seem to not even want this protest to be able to get together.

[04:05:00]

PLEITGEN: Because the pro Navalny crowd, what they did is they announced this very late, to try to be able to actually meet up. And so once they started gathering -- here the cops -- we can actually follow this -- here is another detention going on right here, we can follow a little bit.

You can see that anybody basically, who comes here -- sorry -- they immediately, many of them, get taken in by the police. Just to give you an idea what happens then, they get taken to these buses here, you can look through the bus here, another detention, there's sort of like a cell in those buses.

That's where these people get taken to. You can see this guy getting -- this man here getting searched right now, getting taken to another police bus.

So, yes, I mean, police out in full force, police not -- there you go, I'm getting pushed around now -- police obviously with a really, really heavy hand here, trying to stop these protests at almost all costs -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Fred, can you give us a sense of -- compare it to last time. I know there were many early detentions and they were trying to sort of stop the momentum of the protests.

Do you feel that there's more police presence now, to prevent this from happening?

Or do you think that in a little while as the crowds get there, they will just be overwhelmed and won't be able to pick people off like this?

PLEITGEN: First of all, the whole concept that the police are using, the authorities here are using, is a lot tougher than it was and a lot bigger also than it was last week.

Last week they allowed a little bit of crowd to gather and made a few detentions. What they did now, Kim, just to give you an idea, they basically sealed off the entire city center of Moscow, the entire area around the Kremlin. We were out there earlier today. People are not allowed to be on the streets there.

There is a very big police presence there as well. It seems as though here, they moved in very quickly and are certainly now -- they're trying to stop these protests from even starting because, essentially, what the pro Navalny crowd did is, very late in the game, just a couple minutes ago, they texted, said we're going to meet here, try to walk through Lubyanka Square, and then try to start the protest that way.

They're trying to squelch that before it even starts and that's probably one of the reasons why you're seeing these many arrests taking place so early. Looks like they're trying to stop the crowd from even trying to, if you will, become a larger crowd that could then try to march towards Lubyanka Square.

The other thing that they did is they shut down -- I think it was seven or eight metro stations here around the Kremlin area as well. So public life in that area simply isn't happening.

Of course, then they did some other things. They detained a bunch of people who are close to Navalny; they detained some journalists ahead of time to try to make sure they don't come here.

You can really feel -- and we can walk over here again -- how they are trying to prevent this from even taking hold and they're moving in very quickly, they're moving in very hard. And they've certainly already taken a lot of people into custody in the very early going as this -- as this protest is starting.

BRUNHUBER: Fred, can you give me a sense of who the protesters are? I remember last time they had done some informal surveys. A lot of the people were very young, you know. Some 40 percent were apparently first-time protesters.

So from what you see who are the people who are showing up here?

PLEITGEN: Yes. They're starting to show up. There aren't that many yet and they're already being detained. I would say it's people of many age groups. We have seen older people here as well.

But you are right, I do think that it's more of a younger crowd, sort of in their 20s, in their mid-30s. We can walk around here, you can see another person getting detained. It's amazing because, just in the time that we've been on air here, I think we've seen six or seven detentions already taking place. This is an ongoing process.

Here is the next guy, already being detained. But to your question again, yes, I do think it's sort of a younger crowd. And if you look at the folks that are being reeled in here, they are all fairly young. They sort of seem to be in their 20s. There's some folks who might be in their 30s or 40s. The crowd seems to be of all ages.

But you do notice today -- and also the last time -- that more and more younger people do seem to be turning out. And, of course, one of the things that we've seen from Alexei Navalny's group is that they are very strong using social media, using apps like TikTok, using, of course, also Twitter and Telegram, the Russian messaging service as well, to try to get the message and get people out.

Of course those are all apps that are mostly used by younger people and so you have seen a lot of younger people come out. Of course, a lot of them not necessarily only coming out because of support Alexei Navalny. A lot of them told us they are generally unhappy with the situation in this country.

[04:10:00]

PLEITGEN: And they want change for this country and a lot are saying, look, they believe that now is their time, where they need to stand up. You can certainly see that the authorities are doing everything they can to stop that before it takes hold -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Excellent reporting out there. Stay safe, my friend. Appreciate it.

And we will be back with Fred and Matthew in the hours ahead, as we cover that breaking story in Russia.

As Americans line up for COVID-19 shots, anti-vaxers target one of the country's largest inoculation sites. We will have details on that and the latest on the spread of new, more contagious variants. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: More than 26 million coronavirus cases and counting in the U.S., more than any other nation in the world. January was the deadliest month of the pandemic so far. But there is a bright spot.

Just look at this dip at the end of that graphic there. Hospitalizations have fallen below 100,000 for the first time in two months, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project. But scientists are sounding the alarm about a series of COVID mutations that are much more contagious than the original strain.

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BRUNHUBER: A variant from South Africa was found Saturday in a second U.S. state and the Centers for Disease Control warns the U.K. variant could be more dominant here by March.

But protesters calling COVID a scam targeted an inoculation center in California Saturday. Police say the site at Dodger Stadium never shut down and vaccinations continued all day.

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 United Kingdom 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 the move. On Saturday, Gove commented on how the governments have been blindsided by 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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BRUNHUBER: So for more on this let's turn to CNN's Melissa Bell joining us from Paris.

An embarrassing climbdown by the E.U. here but there will be vaccine controls. But I'm a bit confused by exactly how they will be applied.

What can you tell us here?

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, of course, this was all borne of that raising of temperatures that we saw last week culminating in that moment when the E.U. had announced that it would be reestablishing that hard border between Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Of course, it rowed back fairly quickly under pressure as you say from London but also from Dublin. Still, though, the export mechanism remains in place.

Now it was outlined by the European Union on Friday and essentially the idea is that it gives the European Union, Kim, the ability to check to see, to get transparency on all exports of vaccines from the European Union that would be heading elsewhere; for instance, to the United Kingdom.

What the E.U. says is that, if a company, if a pharma group, is not fulfilling its obligations, living up to its contractual obligations with the E.U., then it has the power to block vaccines from leaving the European Union.

So yes, the climbdown has happened over the reestablishment of the hard border between the Irish Republic and United Kingdom. But there is now this mechanism, although Dominic Raab says he has had assurances from the E.U. that they have no desire to block vaccine supply.

The fact is they have the ability to do it.

BRUNHUBER: Thank you, Melissa Bell, in Paris.

Now I want to bring in Sterghios Moschos, an associate professor of molecular virology, who joins me now from Newcastle in England.

Thank you so much for joining us. I want to start with the growing concern about the new variants. Vaccine makers are adjusting their formulas, trying to keep up. But a doctor I was just speaking with, she tweeted this, I want to read it out.

Quote, "Is it feasible to create a new booster every three to four months? "We must take a step back and evaluate before entering an endless cycle of this cat and mouse game."

What do you think?

Are we destined to be playing this forever game of catch-up here?

STERGHIOS MOSCHOS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MOLECULAR VIROLOGY, NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY: Well, if we take flu as an example of another virus that mutates pretty quickly, possibly, yes. I would join my colleague in saying that the COVID zero strategy is actually the best strategy.

There is a paper in "The Lancet" that I had nothing to do with, that reaffirms exactly how the data from Asian countries shows that, if you aim to eliminate transmission, then you reduce the risk of mutation or escape these variants, pushing you into the cat and mouse game. And you get to reopen the economy.

And Hubei province had seven months of full operation once we were batting around the lockdowns. In that respect, I think it's very important that we actually try to focus on eliminating transmission and, at the same time, getting the vaccines out.

I would urge everybody to focus on getting the system to work as efficiently as possible, waiting their place in the queue and turning up there to get the vaccine as soon as possible and waiting those critical three weeks before we have some kind of a immune response in our body to protect us from the original variant of the virus.

BRUNHUBER: So looking ahead now, I want to bring up a map. There are 10 vaccines being used right now across the world and dozens of vaccines being tested in labs across the world. So with so many vaccines being used in so many places, often more than one vaccine in one country, like here in the U.S.

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BRUNHUBER: How hard will it be to trace the efficacy of each of these individual vaccines?

MOSCHOS: Well, that depends on how good the database is that collects the information about who receives what vaccine and whether or not that ties up with the database that tells you who got infected, plus with what strain.

We know that the United States are not particularly up there with Britain, if you like, and Denmark, on trying to understand which particular strain is infecting individuals. But I think that game is being upped as we speak right now so that challenge can be met.

If we can bring that basis -- those pieces of information together, then we can start putting together a better picture of whether or not the vaccine we have will remain adequate or not.

Now a word of caution: most of the vaccines out there are targeting one protein in the virus, this spike protein. The data we've seen so far, at least from a couple of studies, indicate that the variant 2, which came out of South Africa, was detected in South Africa originally, rather, this one is about half as protected against with these new vaccines.

What this tells us is that we really need to stop transmission, especially in those two states, where you've got this variant coming in, in the United States. We need to quash this variant from going out further because then the vaccine is not going to be working.

But if we stop the transmission, then we just need the original vaccine to work and that's it. We can actually get out of this. So actually we need to batten down the hatches for another two months.

You wouldn't come out of -- in the middle of a hurricane out of the house because you are at the center of the hurricane and it's got a bit quiet. You would stay in your shelter. That's what we need to be doing right now.

BRUNHUBER: Absolutely. And the message worth saying again and again, vaccines won't solve everything. Sterghios Moschos, we always appreciate it. Thank you so much.

MOSCHOS: You're very welcome.

BRUNHUBER: 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 Trump wanted them to argue that there was mass election fraud and the election was stolen from him instead of arguing the legality of convicting a president after he has left office. One legal expert called it a disaster for Trump's defense.

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HARRY LITMAN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: 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.

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BRUNHUBER: Coming up, we will take a look at how this is resonating in Washington as Republicans try to handle a growing internal rift.

Now congressional Republicans are dealing with several crises within their party, one of them a lawmaker seemingly aligned with fringe groups like QAnon; the other, how much power former president Donald Trump still wields over the party.

It appears the two of them have teamed up. Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Twitter Saturday she had a, quote, "great call with Trump." This comes as Democrats criticize her demanding she be kicked out of the House. One congressional Democrat says Republicans need to act now.

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REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): Congresswoman Greene is an embarrassment to us all but, more importantly, is in this era of domestic terrorism, the riot we just had in the Capitol on the 6th of January, this is not a good statement.

The Republican leadership has to step up at this point and discipline this person, who is a member of Congress, who obviously is operating not with a full deck.

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BRUNHUBER: And now another social media video featuring Greene surfaced earlier this week, although it's unclear when it was shot. In it, she suggested a massacre in 2017, in which a gunman killed dozens of people, was staged to discourage support for gun ownership rights under the U.S. Constitution.

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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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[04:25:00]

BRUNHUBER: CNN has reached out to congresswoman Greene for comment on this post and we are still waiting for a reply.

Greene is set to meet with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy next week. But as CNN's Joe Johns reports, both of them are turning to Trump for cover.

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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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BRUNHUBER: California is seeing surging deaths but declining new infections. Why state officials say they're ready to ease some restrictions on bars and restaurants.

And Peru is beginning a new lockdown but will it be enough to alleviate a health care system under intense strain?

Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber and you're watching CNN NEWSROOM.

All right. We want to take you back to the Russian capital now. For the second weekend in a row, people are protesting the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Our own reporter, Fred Pleitgen, says he was among several journalists briefly detained by riot police.

He was let go once he produced his credentials but says this shows how serious they are taking the protests. They've arrested so many they've practically cleared the square where he is right now.

These protests have been deemed unauthorized. Russian authorities announced in the days before these protests they're closing streets in the center of Moscow, along with seven metro stations. And please do stay with us for updates in the hours ahead.

The U.S. now has more than 26 million known coronavirus cases, far more than any other country. Numbers keep ticking up but the pace is starting to slow amid a decline in new infections.

Vaccination efforts are ramping up. The CDC says nearly 30 million doses have been administered and that's well more than half of the nearly 50 million doses distributed so far.

But some are getting vocal about their opposition to vaccines. A group of protesters briefly disrupted operations at a mass vaccination site in Los Angeles Saturday. An official tells CNN things went back to normal once they eventually gave up and walked away.

Black and Latino Americans are receiving the vaccine at significantly lower rates than white people. Health care advocates blame the disparity on the government's failure to provide equal access. Health experts are also fighting back against misinformation about vaccines. It's an issue Dr. Sheila Young knows all too well.

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DR. SHEILA YOUNG, COVID-19 TESTING SITE: As a physician who has worked extensively on the ground in underserved communities that have been seriously impacted by the pandemic, actually, I want to emphasize that historically Black and Latino individuals haven't been anti-vaxers.

And so this is something that, as far as vaccine hesitancy, was never really an issue before. So I think that, again, there is a lot of misinformation that's happening right now in the community.

And, of course, social media can be one of the forms that people get information from.

One of the questions were, does this vaccine have a microchip in it?

Does this vaccine -- another question, does this vaccine affect my DNA?

Or will this vaccine actually give me the virus?

So these are -- these are very basic questions that we can answer. And the answer to those are no.

And then we go through actually videos of how the virus works and we provide individuals with information. I believe that knowledge is power. So the more that we're able to educate folks and let them know about what the vaccines are made of, then I think that we are actually able to move forward greatly.

And I will actually say that now more people want to get the vaccine; however, the issue now is access.

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BRUNHUBER: And we're going to hear much more from Dr. Sheila Young, coming up in the next hour.

California's regional stay-at-home order has come to an end, even though the state has been reporting a staggering number of COVID-19 deaths each day. CNN's Paul Vercammen shows us what the situation is there now.

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PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So 638 deaths in California. That pushes the death toll in the state to more than 40,000. But officials are saying that other numbers are going down and they are projecting that way more intensive care unit beds will open up in the future.

And that's why they are relaxing a lot of the stay-at-home orders. That includes restaurants here in L.A. County. They open today with new restrictions, tough rules. Among them, tables have to be eight feet apart. No more than six people at a table.

And a rule that is really bothering some of the restaurateurs, they say they want to be allowed to have televisions, especially for the Super Bowl. But right now they can't.

[04:35:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you put people out of safe spaces for Super Bowl, you are putting them literally in danger. You are putting them into homes and house parties, which will take place.

So please, have some common sense. Let us use the TVs. Give us the chance to keep people safe and give them a little bit of community because that's what people need right now. And I don't know what else to do, other than get on my knees and just pray or beg, you know?

Like let's use some common sense here.

VERCAMMEN: There are 1,830,000 food services worker jobs in California, according to restaurant.org. So a lot of celebration.

Down the street, one restaurateur actually started the Macarena.

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VERCAMMEN: That's from Casa Vega, a tradition-rich restaurant in Los Angeles. But the owner, Christie (ph), says she's not going to open until February 22nd, National Margarita Day. She says she's just not ready to implement all of the new rules and restrictions that have just been handed out by L.A. County -- reporting from Los Angeles, I'm Paul Vercammen -- now back to you.

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BRUNHUBER: Peru expects to receive its first batch of COVID vaccines from China's Sinopharm on February 9th. The vaccine can't get there soon enough. Starting today, nearly half of the country is under lockdown. Hospitals and health care workers are overwhelmed and overworked. CNN's Isa Soares joins me from London.

What can you tell us about the situation there?

ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kim. Well, there's really no other way to put it. Peru is really being battered by this latest wave of COVID-19. More than 40,000 people have died, more than a million infected.

So with these lockdowns that you were just mentioning there, what the president is trying to do, the president who has, by the way, faced immense criticism over his handling of the pandemic but also delay in trying to get a vaccine, he's trying to really stop the spread of COVID-19 but also the arrival of the variants, the South African and Brazilian variants.

But it's more than just that, Kim. He's also trying to give the health service some breathing space because, as I'm about to show you, health care workers are really at breaking point now.

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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.

[04:40:00]

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.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SOARES: And, Kim, you heard the desperation in Dr. Lopez's voice there, they are beyond exhausted. Just to give you really a sense and our viewers a sense of how much they have had to take on, how overwhelmed they are, there are roughly, according to the doctor you heard in my report, 600 doctors in the whole of Peru for 1,800 ICU beds, COVID or non-COVID.

More beds are being added and many of them are working two to three shifts in various hospitals so they are exhausted. And not just exhausted, many of them are dying. More than 260 doctors have died in Peru so far -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Unbelievably desperate situation there. Thanks for bringing us that, Isa Soares in London.

Of the American foreign policy challenges facing the Biden administration, perhaps none are as daunting as the Middle East. We will take you live to Beirut, Lebanon, for a closer look at what lies ahead for the new U.S. president. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: While U.S. President Joe Biden has made tackling the pandemic at home his top priority, numerous foreign policy crises also demand his attention. Just about every corner of the Middle East presents its own unique challenges for the new administration.

To get a sense of just how daunting some of these challenges are, let's bring in CNN's Ben Wedeman in Beirut.

Ben, the Trump administration was able to achieve a few things, which even his opponents would term a success.

[04:45:00]

BRUNHUBER: But he also left a laundry list of problems for the Biden administration.

Where do you want to begin?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, with the exception of a few of those successes, really, when you look at this administration, it's no different from so many others that I can recall, that came into power with a sea of headaches, waiting for them. And the Biden administration will be no exception.

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CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Congratulations, Mr. President.

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WEDEMAN (voice-over): The new resident of the White House faces a Middle East deep in a confusion of crises.

Yemen remains the world's worst humanitarian emergency, followed closely by Syria, where millions are struggling through a brutal winter as their country's agony goes on.

Blood still flows in Iraq, even though the scourge of ISIS appears for now to have been diminished.

Four chaotic years of Donald Trump saw the U.S. cozy up to the region's autocrats, careening close to the brink of war with Iran. Already the new administration is showing it will do some things differently.

TONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We will end our support for the military campaign led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen.

WEDEMAN (voice-over): Tensions could recede as the Biden administration tries to revive the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA, says the Carnegie Institute's Mohanad Hage Ali in Beirut.

MOHANAD HAGE ALI, CARNEGIE MIDDLE EAST CENTER: Iranians can't continue to bomb and help their allies or support their allies, bomb the U.S. embassy in Iraq or the -- Riyadh's airport or any of these important facilities while they negotiate the JCPOA and as the JCPOA is (INAUDIBLE). WEDEMAN (voice-over): Have knock-on effects in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and

Lebanon, where Iran is a major player.

The Trump administration did manage to orchestrate the establishment of ties between Israel and several Arab states, a move praised by its successor.

Washington also recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, opened an embassy there and generally sided with Israel as never before, all but killing the two-state solution, which means Washington now needs to come up with new ways to address the conflict, as do the Palestinians themselves.

ALI: Perhaps the one-state solution has a more viable option, calling, asking for their rights as full citizens in the state rather than calling for a second state, which has no now basis on the ground.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WEDEMAN: And gone are Trump's grandiose schemes, like the "deal of the century" to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and his policy of maximum pressure on Iraq -- or rather, Iran -- that was intended to bring Iran to the negotiating table.

In their place, will be more traditional policies of the United States which, frankly, Kim, weren't very successful, either.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, good point there. Ben Wedeman in Beirut, thanks so much.

A powerful winter storm is affecting millions of Americans, we will speak to our meteorologist for the latest developments after the break. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Nearly 100 million people are under some form of a winter weather alert in the U.S. The forecast is expected to spread to the Northeast, where at least 60 million people are already under a storm warning. And that includes New York City, which could get up to a foot of snow in the next couple of hours.

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BRUNHUBER: We want to take you back to the Russian capital, Moscow, right now. We are going to have some live pictures up here from Moscow. For the second weekend in a row, people are gathering to protest the

detention of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. These protests are expected in more than 100 cities; you see people being detained and taken to those buses. That's been happening since this began maybe an hour or two ago.

Russian authorities announced, in the days before these protests, it's closing certain streets in the center of Moscow, along with seven metro stations, trying to stop people from protesting. Stay with CNN for a live update from Moscow in just a few minutes.

That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Kim Brunhuber and I will be back in a moment.