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Virus Mutations "of Concern" in U.K.; Outrage over Navalny's Conviction; Democrats May Use "Reconciliation" to Fast-Track Aid; Trump's Impeachment Trial; Dubai Opened to Tourists and Cases Surged; IOC to Share "Playbooks"; Jeff Bezos Steps Down as Amazon CEO. Aired 2-2:45a ET
Aired February 03, 2021 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): As the coronavirus continues to turn into more deadly and contagious variants, we go inside the world's largest biodetection center.
With Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny heading to prison, new protests up in Russia.
And Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announcing he is stepping back from daily operations.
That is all ahead right here on CNN NEWSROOM.
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VAUSE: John Vause here. This is the third hour of me and CNN NEWSROOM. Right now, it's 2 am in Atlanta, Georgia, home of the CDC, 7 am in the U.K. That's where we start this hour.
A new development on the COVID vaccine front. Researchers at Oxford University say the AstraZeneca vaccine may not only reduce or prevent symptoms. It can also slow transmission of the virus.
Other Oxford research shows that while 2 doses of the vaccine are required, just one shot can still offer substantial protection. A single dose can be effective for 3 months.
Meantime, officials say virus mutations have been found in a number of parts of the U.K. One such part was already part of the variant in South Africa. This could allow the virus to avoid immune protection from antibodies and vaccines.
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DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, CENTER FOR DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY INSTITUTE: Up until now, the particular strain you are talking about called B117 has only had the ability and I say only, to cause more infection and likely more severe disease. For the first time, British officials have found it's also acquired
the mutation we've been talking about, with the South African strain and the Brazilian strain, that could possibly help it avoid the immune protection we get from vaccines for disease.
This is not a good development as this B117 has actually shown how well it's able to be transmitted around the world.
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VAUSE: A British government advisor warns the South African variant, the cases identified in the U.K., are just the tip of the iceberg. They may have underestimated the number of infections across the country.
Overall, case numbers are falling. U.K. researchers are leading the way understanding how the virus mutates. Scott McLean takes us inside the government's massive variant detection operation.
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SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If there is a secret weapon in the global fight against the mutating coronavirus, you might find it here. A cluster of buildings just off the highway near Cambridge.
Every day vans arrive at the Sanger Institute carrying thousands of COVID swabs from across the country. They are stored in industrial freezers.
MCLEAN: It's all just waiting to be sequenced?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, a mixture of (INAUDIBLE) to propose at some place at the moment.
MCLEAN (voice-over): A robot picks up the positive samples from the negative ones and puts them on a separate tray which is sealed. In another lab, hundreds of samples get mixed into a single vial.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, in this single sequencing room there'll be over 700 SARS COVID-2 samples.
MCLEAN: You guys are pretty efficient?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is an industrial sequencing, yes.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Special chemicals are added, the tubes are shaken up, pressed between two pieces of glass and then put into giant computers to be genetically sequenced. Fifteen hours later, they spit out so much genetic data, entire server farms have been built to house it.
After that, scientists on site and at a network of universities across the U.K. start searching through the data.
EWAN HARRISON, PROJECT MANAGER, COVID-19 GENOMICS CONSORTIUM: We're looking for mutations that may allow the virus to either be more transmissible or to cause more severe disease and for mutations that we think might affect the ability of the vaccines to protect people.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Less than two months ago, that data was used to identify a faster spreading variant of the virus called B117.
That variant was first spotted in an unlikely place. Here in Kent in Southeast England, famous for its white cliffs, rolling countryside and a lot of people who make the daily commute to London, it wasn't long before the variant was detected in the capital and eventually throughout the four nations of the U.K. and in dozens of other countries. The CDC says it could become the dominant coronavirus strain in the U.S. by March.
RAVINDRA GUPTA, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE: That is the U.K. variant, B117.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Professor Ravi Gupta had been studying an immunocompromised person who couldn't shake the virus for more than three months.
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MCLEAN (voice-over): Giving new mutations time to multiply inside the body that couldn't fight back.
When Gupta checked that sequencing database, he found a COVID-19 variant that shared a key mutation with the one his patient was fighting.
MCLEAN: How likely is it that patient zero was immunocompromised person?
GUPTA: I think it's very, very likely. We found very few, virtually no sequences, that are highly related, to the other variant. In other words, it popped out of nowhere.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Gupta's ongoing research has so far found that vaccines are still largely affective, even on the new variant but maybe not for long.
GUPTA: The viruses are already on their way to becoming more resistant to the immune system and to vaccines.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Variants have been found in Brazil and South Africa where scientists have the tools to sequence the virus' genome. Many other countries don't. So now the British government is volunteering to do it for them.
MCLEAN: How likely is it that there are dangerous variants of the virus in other countries that we don't even know about?
GUPTA: It is very likely there are undetected variants out there.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Scott McLean, CNN, Southeast England.
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VAUSE: Now to Russia, where a 2.5 year prison sentence for Alexei Navalny is bringing more protest, also a violent crackdown from police.
Supporters of the opposition leader were beaten with batons and herded into buses. One monitoring group says more than 1,000 people are being detained. In the court, Navalny drew a heart on the security glass between him and his wife. As the court ruled, he violated parole in a years old embezzlement case when he left Germany for treatment after being poisoned with Novichok, allegedly by Russian agents.
Navalny ridiculed the court's rationale, lashed out at Putin, calling him Putin the poisoner.
Let's check on global reaction with Nic Robertson in London for us.
When I hear global calls from Western nations for Navalny's immediate release, it seems like without hard action, those calls were unheeded by Putin and the Kremlin?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: You would think so.
What is the pain this for Putin?
It's just words and we have seen from his past actions that he doesn't seem to care. You had diplomats kicked out of the United States after the poisoning of a former Russian spy in England a couple of years ago.
One of the things from the statements we have heard so far, they all talk about Russia and occasionally refer to the Russian government, that Russia should release immediately and unconditionally Alexei Navalny. There is no personalization in the public statements we are seeing so far from these Western leaders.
The critics in the West are not following along with that. It's hard to see how at the moment Putin is going to take this kind of international verbiage to mean anything other than words he can just shrug off at the moment. Clearly, the possibility of protests on the streets and Russia is his main focus, it appears.
VAUSE: This is a problem the U.S. is having right now.
How do you deal with someone like Putin, who is like a stalker in the background, creating havoc?
ROBERTSON: What we heard from the Biden administration so far, from Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, they want to work with allies. The focus on that has been China. There is a lot of attention obviously on what's happening in Myanmar at the moment.
The Biden administration is going through a review of what they call all the malign acts Russia has been up to over the past few years, meaning under president Trump. They say they will not stand for that. They say they will work with their allies.
How to do that?
When will that happen?
What's going to look like?
They say they are not going to tolerate human rights abuses. They want the democratic rights of Russians to be upheld.
How do you achieve that?
You are already doing sanctions.
How do you deal with that?
How do you deal with President Putin who is an extreme authoritarian who manages the whole country by his own writ essentially?
If you remove the kingpin of all of, that what happens afterwards?
You have to calibrate response. But there's a lot of big issues piled up on the Russia file. My guess is the Biden administration is going to get to them.
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ROBERTSON: But for the moment, that matters not a jot to Putin because there's no real action.
VAUSE: When we look at the reaction, when we look at the reaction by Putin, where his popularity begins to fall, when there's problems at home, when there is a challenge to him, he goes to an anti American route, militarized patriotism, if you like.
That in itself is a challenge that the United States has not really had to deal with in a significant way, only with Putin.
ROBERTSON: They are, I guess, trying to figure out how to get around this particular response. It is exactly what you expect, as you say. You hear from the foreign ministry and others saying that the U.S. interference, internet, using platforms based in Washington, being manipulated against the Russian government, all these sorts of things, throwing all of this internal dissent to make it look like it's a play being manipulated from the outside.
How does the Biden administration deal with this?
They have to have known that this was coming. The indications are that Biden is sort of going back in some ways to the previous relationships; Hillary Clinton, secretary of state under Barack Obama, when Biden was vice president. That did not work and did not translate.
What's the outcome? Putin has essentially got himself in office until 2036. He plans to stay. The U.S. has got to decide if it's in their interest to deal with him.
Or is it better to really put such pressure on him economically that would cause in pain at home and perhaps a change?
VAUSE: If U.S. president Joe Biden thought he could spend his early days of the presidency focusing on domestic policy, he was mistaken by the looks of it. Thank, you Nic Robertson in London.
Earlier, I spoke with Steve Hall. I asked him how effective Navalny can be in challenging the Kremlin now that he is in prison.
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STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Had he gone the route of somebody like Mikhail Khodorkovsky who decided after his prison term to spend the rest of his time outside of Russia. I think Navalny made the assessment that can not be as effective as if he were inside of Russia, knowing he stood a very good chance of being incarcerated again.
Yet nevertheless having this amplifying effect, even though he's in jail. So Putin is betting that people will forget, they go back to their normal lives and he has to look next door to Belarus, to see that the protests there continue.
Nevertheless, he can afford to be patient and hope that the Russian people will not keep doing and keep protesting as they are now. We'll see who plays the better chess match.
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VAUSE: Thanks to Steve Hall for that in Arizona.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is stepping down from his role as CEO, handing over daily operations to Andy Jassy, a long time member of the company leadership team. He started Amazon in his garage more than 3 decades, turning it in to a retail and logistics giant with more than $1.7 trillion.
We will take a short break. When we come, back Trump's legal team preparing a defense for next week's Senate impeachment trial. It turns out the legal brief is lacking it crucial element, a reason to acquit Donald Trump.
And tourists have given Dubai's economy a much-needed bump but is it enough to save the city that has to close its doors over rising cases?
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VAUSE: The U.S. President Joe Biden has been talking bipartisanship. Democrats are making plans to pass a $2 trillion COVID relief bill without Republican support. Joe Biden told Senate Republicans the $600 billion counter offer falls way short.
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JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president's bottom line is that this is a package. The risk here is not going too big, it is going to be too small.
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VAUSE: Republicans are suddenly all concerned about the budget deficit and national debt. The Democrats are laying the groundwork to fast-track the bill by using a legislative shortcut called reconciliation. It requires a simple majority to pass.
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SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MAJORITY LEADER: Joe Biden is totally on board with using reconciliation. I've been talking to him every day. Our staffs have been talking multiple times a day. We are not going to dilute this so it doesn't help the American people get out of this crisis quickly.
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VAUSE: Trump's second Senate impeachment trial is less than a week away. We are getting a first look at the arguments from both sides. House Democrats say Trump is singularly responsible for the insurrection that left five people dead. Jim Acosta explains the former president's defense -- or lack thereof.
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JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump's impeachment lawyers are trying to build a wall of their own, separating the bloody siege at the Capitol on January 6th and the then president's words before the riot.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We will stop the steal.
ACOSTA (voice-over): In its response to the impeachment allegations brought by House Democrats, the Trump defense team writes, "It is denied that the 45th president engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States," adding, "The 45th president exercised his First Amendment right under the Constitution to express his belief that the election results were suspect."
DAVID SCHOEN, TRUMP IMPEACHMENT ATTORNEY: This is a very, very dangerous road to take, with respect to the First Amendment, Putting at risk any passionate political speaker, which is really against everything we believe in this country. ACOSTA (voice-over): As for Trump's instructions to the crowd, to, quote, "fight like hell" ...
TRUMP: And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
ACOSTA (voice-over): -- his lawyers stated, "It is denied that the phrase, 'If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore,' had anything to do with the action at the Capitol, as it was clearly about the need to fight for election security in general."
In their filing, which misspells United States on the first page, Trump's attorneys insist he never tried to subvert the certification of the election results.
But that's not true and he pressured state election officials...
TRUMP: Now what are we going to do here?
I only need 11,000 votes, fellows, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break.
ACOSTA (voice-over): -- even his vice president to do his bidding.
TRUMP: And if you're not I'm going to be very disappointed in you.
ACOSTA (voice-over): House Democrats plan to use clips of Trump's speech...
TRUMP: You'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.
ACOSTA (voice-over): -- as well as comments made by his violent supporters...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's F-ing millions of us out there and we are listening to Trump -- your boss.
ACOSTA: -- to prove the former president instigated the riot, writing, "If provoking an insurrectionary riot against a joint session of Congress after losing an election is not an impeachable offense, it is hard to imagine what would be."
As for the claim made by Trump's lawyers that he cannot be tried after leaving office, the Democrats counter, there was no January exception to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution. Still, some Democrats worry this Trump trial will end like the last one.
SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): I'm very worried about going through this trial and having the punchline at the end being Trump acquitted again.
ACOSTA: Trump clearly won the battle with his own lawyers over whether to include the ex-president's bogus claims that the election was stolen from him. Trump advisers say the former president remains obsessed with that big lie -- Jim Acosta, CNN, Washington. (END VIDEOTAPE)
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VAUSE: Earlier, I spoke to Ron Brownstein about the impeachment trial.
I asked him, even though Trump maybe the defendant in an open and shut case, could it be Republican senators who are otherwise on trial?
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RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: More Republicans, including the outgoing Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, appear ready to grapple with the full implications of what Trump has done to their party over four years. The way he has essentially opened the door and erased any last distinctions between the Republican coalition and far-right white nationalist extremism, the way he has overrun the rule of law. And so forth.
But over the course of the month, that has significantly eroded. You have 45 Republican senators, essentially signaling that they will take the dodge of, hiding behind the fig leaf of what is clearly a very flimsy argument, that you cannot hold an impeachment trial for someone after they left office.
In fact there is prcedent for doing so in the 19th century. Above all, they want to avoid grappling with the substance of the charges that he faces.
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VAUSE: Our thanks to Ron Brownstein there in Los Angeles.
More than 100,000 people in the United States have died from COVID-19 since the beginning of this year. It's February. Put another way, 32 days, an average of 3,125 dead each day.
A year ago, the country took nearly 3 months to record the first hundred thousand. Investigators led by the World Health Organization have now visited a top research center in Wuhan, China, trying to find the origins of the pandemic.
This site came under a lot of scrutiny last year when the Trump administration claimed the virus emerged from one of its labs, claim China has deied and the Trump administration offered no evidence.
Investigators left the institute moments ago after inspecting facilities and questioning staff about their research. This comes after the WHO released new numbers showing a 13 percent drop in new COVID cases worldwide, the third week of declining infections.
Canada is planning to make its own COVID vaccines, signing a tentative deal with Novavax. With details, here is Paula Newton.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With the vaccine shortage, it is a familiar refrain, the issue here is Canada says it has purchased 4 to 5 times the amount of doses that it actually needs for their population.
The problem here is the delivery schedule. It has been essentially shut out by allies, no exports coming from the United States. Europe now manufacturing delays. Europe will move doses to make sure its population gets vaccinated before others.
So the problem has been that Canada has now fallen behind the U.S., U.K. and some European allies in terms of the speed at which it can vaccinate even its most vulnerable populations.
To that end, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau said he will do what he can to try to repatriate that vaccine production. Take a listen.
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JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: What we are very clear on is Canada will be developing domestic manufacturing. Regardless of what could happen in the future, we will have domestic production on top of all our partnerships and contracts signed with companies around the world.
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NEWTON: The problem with those vaccine doses still remain. Canadian prime minister saying he has inked a deal with Novavax to try to get the production here on Canadian soil by perhaps the earliest of the fall.
Novavax has not even been approved as a vaccine yet. The problem here in Canada, even as you can see, in a very rich nation that's gone out of its way to try to procure these vaccines, the very vulnerable may still remain unvaccinated for months -- Paula Newton, CNN, Ottawa.
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VAUSE: Dubai has received its first shipment of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine from India, adding to supplies already in use. At the same time, tourism in the Emirates is slowly returning to something like normal. But the government has to balance keeping people safe and the economy alive. John Defterios has the report.
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JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR (voice-over): The winter sun on Cove Beach in Dubai. For those suffering from severe lockdowns in Europe and beyond, settings like this trigger a mixture of envy and anger.
For Danish tourist Emma Mathilde, the backlash is not so surprising.
EMMA MATHILDE, DANISH TOURIST: Everyone is going here and it's sunny and they can go out to eat. And then they start to post on social media. And then that's why people get furious of why we have to stay at home when other people are enjoying their lives.
DEFTERIOS (voice-over): Beach bars and A-list celebrities pumped out by social media influencers gave the impression that Dubai swung open its doors to the outside world.
DEFTERIOS: Not surprisingly, those seeking warmer climes and some fun in the sun joined in.
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DEFTERIOS: Hotels, which suffered for nearly a year, saw bookings skyrocket. So, too, did COVID-19 cases, quadrupling over levels we saw last November.
ADEL GHAZZAWI, CO-FOUNDER, COVE BEACH: All right, cool.
DEFTERIOS (voice-over): That surge happened, despite the co-founder of Cove Beach saying that visitor numbers to his venue were only one- third of what they were pre-pandemic, in line with the Emirate overall.
GHAZZAWI: When Europe is shut down, unfortunately, and the U.S. is shut down and Asia, anything you do could look out of line.
DEFTERIOS (voice-over): The response in Britain's press, where the United Arab Emirates was placed on a travel ban red list, has been, in a word, fierce. Headlines dished out equal blame to visitors for being too cavalier and the Emirate going too far.
Dubai, known for pushing the envelope with its glitzy offering of entertainment and architecture, is stepping up its response based on the data it's collecting, not the global fury.
DEFTERIOS (voice-over): Helal Al Marri is director general of Dubai's tourism authority.
AL MARRI: We do look at this carefully, sector by sector and subsector, to see, where do we need to tighten and where do we need to lift the restrictions. And that will continue. It's nothing to do with what anybody else tells us because there's a very clear plan.
DEFTERIOS (voice-over): As of Tuesday, beach clubs, hotels and malls will be limited to 70 percent capacity and cinemas cut to 50 percent. Bars and pubs have been temporarily shut down, with stiffer penalties for rule violators.
The government points out that the UAE has already vaccinated, free of charge, nearly one-fifth of its population with the plan to inoculate half of all residents by the end of March.
With that pace, the idea of going back to a full lockdown witnessed 10 months ago, is not being considered.
DEFTERIOS: Is there complete buy-in within the government, even the health authority, which is under strain, that you can go with this methodology?
AL MARRI: All of the decisions related to public health is led by our health authority and our scientists sitting there. Whatever they recommend, we work with the private sector to make sure it's implemented in the best possible way.
DEFTERIOS: The economic reality is, with the oil wealth sitting in neighboring Abu Dhabi and a world expo to host later this year, Dubai needs to keep tourism, trade and services rolling.
DEFTERIOS (voice-over): This view is shared by business owners and others who call Dubai home.
GHAZZAWI: I think they've already sent the message to the world that, if things get out of hand, we know that we're not shy to shut down and adjust immediately and not wait.
DEFTERIOS (voice-over): Now the government needs to convince the rest of the world that it has the right balance between safety and openness, with a few months left in its peak travel season -- John Defterios, CNN, Dubai.
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VAUSE: Still to come on CNN, how will Japan have the Olympics during a pandemic?
We will soon have answers straight from the Olympic Committee. More on that when we come back.
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VAUSE: Supporters of Alexei Navalny are planning more widespread demonstrations after the Russian opposition leader was sentenced to 2 years in a prison. Navalny was flown from Russia to Germany for medical treatment last year after he was poisoned allegedly by Russian agents.
Still, the court ruled that was a parole violation from an earlier embezzlement case, which required him to regularly check in with prison authorities. He was defiant in court, blaming the Russian president. His legal team is planning an appeal.
The U.S., U.K., France, Germany and other countries all demanding his release. A monitoring group says more than 1,000 protesters were arrested across Russia on Tuesday alone. Matthew Chance has details, reporting in from Moscow.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Anger is pouring out onto the streets of the Russian capital, protesters furious at the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny, making their voices heard.
"Let him go," they chant.
Earlier, outside the Moscow port, police detained hundreds to make sure this hearing passed off undisturbed. The real drama unfolded inside. Alexei Navalny glanced towards his wife in the gallery, drawing a heart on the pane of his glass cage, as the judge read out the decision. Russia's most prominent Putin critic was being sent to jail.
"Somebody doesn't want me to set foot in Russia," he told the court earlier.
"The reason for this is the hatred and fear of one person who is hiding in a bunker. I've offended him so deeply by the fact that I survived," he said.
Outside, his lawyers told CNN Navalny took the court's decision bravely as usual but they said they will definitely appeal.
It was these images of the opposition leader groaning in agony after being poisoned by a suspected nerve agent in Siberia last year that shocked the world. His recovery and defined return to arrest in Russia has also struck a chord.
Last week, slamming his detention as blatantly illegal, telling the judge in his latest hearing that he was being persecuted because he survived assassination and that President Putin himself was behind it, something that Kremlin has denied.
"His main grievance against me," he told the court, "is that he'll go down in history as Putin the poisoner."
For the past two weeks, this country has been rocked by some of the biggest anti-Kremlin protests it's ever seen. Tens of thousands of turned out, demanding change and for Navalny to be set free. Critics say a heavy-handed response, with thousands detained nationwide, underlines how threatened the Kremlin really feels.
But the Kremlin tells CNN President Putin himself isn't even following the trials of his biggest critic. Instead, the Russian president was shown greeting teachers of the future generation.
But it's the generation of Russians now protesting on the streets outside inspired by Alexei Navalny that may yet prove Putin's most dangerous challenge.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHANCE: Well, John, right now, supporters of Alexei Navalny have urged the protesters to disperse and to go home. But they say a government that kills opponents and imprisons innocent people won't be tolerated.
VAUSE: Matthew, thank you, Matthew Chance in Moscow.
Calls are growing inside Myanmar for mass protests after the military seized power on Monday.
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VAUSE (voice-over): The first widespread protests was the sound of baging pots and pans. The information ministry is warning the public, as well as the media, not to incite unrest, urging cooperation with the new military government. And the military is trying to justify seizing power by claiming widespread election fraud last year, detaining leader Aung San Suu Kyi and others from the ruling party. About 400 members of parliament being held in a guest house in the capital.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: A short time from now, the International Olympic Committee will reveal guidelines for the delayed Tokyo games. The organizing committee president has already said they will go on. We go to Tokyo for more on this.
The show must go on. The Olympics will happen, regardless.
BLAKE ESSIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, you're we're going to find out a whole lot of information about how the Tokyo 2020 organizers plan to protect the health and safety of the athletes, the coaches and pretty much everybody participating in the Tokyo 2020 games.
Coming up in less than six months. They are planning on releasing a series of playbooks, outlining the rules and counter measures that will be put into place, to do just that.
[02:35:00]
ESSIG: We have a little insight into what that might look like, by IOC vice president. He talked about specifically referring to the athletes, that their movement will be limited. Their time spent here in the country will be limited. And they will be tested on a regular basis.
While there's still a lot of information yet for us to learn, one thing we do know is organizers, the IOC, Tokyo 2020 and the Japanese government, plan to push forward with these games as scheduled with no plan B in place, a sentiment we heard once again last night, from the president of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee.
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YOSHIRO MORI, TOKYO 2020 PRESIDENT (through translator): We'll certainly go ahead, however the coronavirus evolves. We must go beyond discussion about whether we will hold it or not. It's about how we will do it. Let's think about a new kind of Olympics on this occasion.
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ESSIG: That statement was made just a few hours before Japan's prime minister extended this state of emergency for 10 prefectures, including Tokyo, for another month, all in the effort to contain and prevent the spread of the coronavirus -- John.
VAUSE: Thank you, Blake Essig, in Tokyo with the very latest.
After changing the world, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wants a little more time to pursue other interests. Just ahead, the man who created Amazon, standing back and handing day-to-day operations over to a deputy.
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VAUSE: It started as an idea three decades ago and it has grown to be one of the most powerful countries in the world. The founder, Jeff Bezos, has announced he will step down as chief executive later this year.
Bezos will remain on the board as a chair. But longtime employee Andy Jassy will take over daily operations. Earlier I spoke to the senior executive editor of Bloomberg Tech to explain why Bezos is decision is like walking through a one-way door.
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BRAD STONE, BLOOMBERG TECH: Bezos has introduced a whole lexicon at Amazon he's. Got all sorts of sayings. One way doors are basically decisions that are not reversible. Two way doors you can make quickly and you can always go back if it doesn't work.
He likes to talk about acquisitions, for example as one-way doors. Of course he could always come back to being CEO. But it does seem like this is a permanent decision to elevate himself to executive chairman to spend more time with his philanthropy and his space company.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: CNN's Anna Stewart live for us in London.
This is a treat. Hi, Anna.
This Bezos story came out of nowhere, right?
We have this email from Bezos, explaining why he's leaving this all- consuming job that he's had in order to pursue other interests.
"As executive chair, I will stay engaged in important Amazon initiatives but also have the time and energy I need to focus on the Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, "The Washington Post" and my other passions." [02:40:00]
VAUSE: It says a lot, that he's willing to walk away from the control of the empire which he built, which allows him the luxury of those interests.
ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. He says he's not retiring, not even necessarily really stepping down. As much as he is stepping aside to be executive chairman. It's something we've seen in Silicon Valley before.
The Google founders both stepped down back in 2019. They stayed on the board though. This does allow these sort of genius founders of huge tech companies to focus their attensions on those things they really love.
You have to remember, Jeff Bezos started Amazon from a garage in 1995, an online bookstore. It is now a titan of e-commerce, of cloud data storage, of entertainment. But at the heart of it, he is a man with an absolute passion for business.
And one of the ones that we will be watching very closely is space exploration, Blue Origin is his company, vying for attention with Elon Musk's SpaceX. It's something of a space race for these billionaires.
It did come as a surprise, this announcement. We weren't expecting it this year necessarily. It came on a high, they released earnings yesterday. Absolute record revenue on the quarter, up 44 percent.
You consider how Amazon has performed over the pandemic, surge in e- commerce. Not sure about you, John, all Christmas shopping was online this year. Also great revenue from cloud computing services. That's actually its biggest profit driver and the head of that unit, he's going to be the new CEO of Amazon.
VAUSE: It's one of my few joys in life, buying absolute stuff I don't need and then waiting for it to be delivered. It's been the thrill of the pandemic for me. And I think for a lot of people as well.
What do we know about this guy taking over?
STEWART: So he has been at Amazon nearly as long as Jeff Bezos. He arrived about 2 years after it was founded. He is, as I said, head of their cloud computing service. Increasingly that seems to be a huge chunk of their profit. The vast majority of their profits come from this one unit.
They see this definitely as being one of the biggest growth engines of Amazon going forward, not least because the pandemic companies want to move all of their service over to the cloud, digital first. So you can see where that makes it appropriate as a replacement.
A couple years ago, there were suggestions there would be someone else. He was vying for someone else within the company but that person retired this year. So he was the perfect fit. It makes sense. That was the surprise. We just weren't expecting it so soon. We expect that transition to take place in the second half of the year -- John?
VAUSE: Something to look forward to maybe?
But something to watch to see how different the company changes with the new leadership, of sorts. Hey, how about that. So good to see this time of the day. Thanks.
STEWART: Lovely to see you too, John.
VAUSE: Cheers.
The U.K. is playing tribute now to Captain Sir Tom Moore, the famous World War II veteran, who raised almost $45 million for the U.K.'s National Health Service and the fight against COVID-19.
He died in hospital on Sunday after being diagnosed with the coronavirus. He showed the world that little gestures can grow into something significant and the power of optimism can always be there during the dark days.
Buckingham Palace said the queen sent a private message of condolence to his family. She knighted him last year to honor his fundraising efforts. Prime minister Boris Johnson called him "a beacon of hope for the world." He will be missed.
I'm John Vause, stay with us. "WORLD SPORT" is next.
