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COVID Numbers Decrease In 41 States, Variants Loom Large; Taylor Greene Recants But Is Removed From Committees; Pan-Health Organization: South Americans Will Not Be Fully Vaccinated By End Of 2021; Biden's Foreign Policy, More Of The Same With Nuances; J&J Vaccine's FDA Approval Possible In Three Weeks. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired February 05, 2021 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[01:00:00]
JOHN VAUSE, ANCHOR, CNN NEWSROOM: Hello, everyone. I'm John Vause, you are watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from studio 7 at CNN's world headquarters, and Atlanta.
At this hour.
Back the future as President Joe Biden announces a reset of U.S. foreign policy. Strikingly predictable and stunningly unremarkable.
The Republican Party refused to act so Democrats did. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has called for violence against lawmakers and harasses children who survived school shootings has been removed from her committee assignments.
And the mysterious and sudden death of Alexei Navalny's doctor. Details this hour.
It's Joe Biden's world now. And on Thursday during a major foreign policy address he reassured old allies and friends, put rivals on notice and told the men and women of the U.S. diplomatic corps that they matter and he cares.
But most of all, the U.S. president made it clear that the days of "America First" were done.
It would be back to a future with a committee -- with a commitment, rather, to diplomacy and coalition building. As well and support for global institutions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: America is back, America is back. Diplomacy is back, at the center of our foreign policy.
As I said in my inaugural address, we will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again. Not to meet yesterday's challenges but today's and tomorrow's.
(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: Now the question becomes can Joe Biden undo the damage of the past four years of Donald Trump?
CNN's international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, reports now from London.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: President Biden said he's putting diplomacy first.
He pledged support to all those at the state department where he was giving this speech. And he said America doesn't use diplomacy just because it's good for the world, it's to help get peace and prosperity for the people of the United States out of naked self-interest, a real repudiation of the position President Trump had taken on diplomacy.
Biden really making it clear diplomacy the centerpiece of how the United States will try to exert its will and influence around the world.
He said he'd been reaching out to United States' allies and partners.
BIDEN: Over the past few weeks, I've spoken with the leaders of many of our closest friends; Canada, Mexico, the U.K., Germany, France, NATO, Japan, South Korea, Australia -- to be reforming the habits of cooperation and rebuilding the muscle of democratic alliances that have atrophied over the past few years of neglect and I would argue, abuse.
ROBERTSON: But Biden also said that he'd be engaging with the United States' adversaries. He said he'd be confronting China's economic abuses. He also described a phone call he'd recently had with President Putin telling him how things had changed now.
BIDEN: At the same time, I made it clear to President Putin, in a manner very different for my predecessor, that the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia's aggressive actions, interfering with our elections, cyberattacks, poisoning its citizens -- are over.
We will not hesitate to raise the cost on Russia and to defend our vital interest and our people.
ROBERTSON: Many of the points that Biden raised are things that we've heard before, how he hopes to earn the trust of the United States in the world by rejoining global institutions like the World Health Organization and re-signing the United States to the global climate change agreement.
But he did have new details about Saudi Arabia, for example. He said that the United States would no longer support the war in Yemen that's led by a Saudi-led coalition.
But he did say -- and this was part of his sort of nuanced lay out here --that Saudi Arabia is being attacked by enemies, some of them backed by Iran, being attacked by drones and missiles but he said the United States would stay in support of Saudi Arabia there. So there's a nuanced message.
But very clear. President Biden putting diplomacy first as he begins to work through a mountain of foreign policy issues.
ROBERTSON (On Camera): Nic Robertson, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: For more , now we head to Beijing live with CNN's Steven Jiang standing by.
Steven, Biden described China as the most serious competitor to the United States.
[01:05:00]
He promised not only would he confront Beijing on issues like human rights, intellectual property, economics.
And also before he delivered the speech, it was the Wednesday that the U.S. sent the destroyer, the USS John McCain through the Taiwan Strait, the Navy saying it -- "demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific." It also demonstrates U.S. commitment to defending Taiwan.
Overall, though, if you look at everything Biden said and everything which just happened over the last 48 hours, it is surprisingly, I guess, normal. Especially coming from Joe Biden.
STEVEN JIANG, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: That's right. Because he and his team have made many of the same points throughout the campaign and after they took office.
Now even though he only spoke of China generally, as you heard from Nic Robertson, many of the overall themes in that speech are also aimed at China.
He talks about the need to counter advancing authoritarianism with the health of the U.S. allies and partners and also this focus on values- led engagements. So I think this is not going to be lost on the Beijing leadership here.
A lot of people have pointed out that the Biden White House want to have a clean break from the past four years but China may be one of the exceptions here. Because even the Chinese leadership here realized this is one of these rare bipartisan consensus issues in D.C.
So that's you mentioned the Taiwan Strait and the U.S. warship going through the Taiwan (inaudible) strait but it also looks like they are going to keep the genocide designation on China's policy in Xinjiang.
And then, of course, Biden did leave the door open in terms of some potential cooperation when it comes to certain issues like climate change and fighting the pandemic. So the key question right now is what are the Chinese going to do? It
seems like they're going to stick to their hardline positions and stances and expanding or even normalizing this so-called wolf-warrior approach against the U.S. and around the world.
The latest indication of that came from a speech by Xi Jinping's top foreign policy aide just a few days ago.
In that speech, Yang Jiechi again basically blamed the U.S., especially the Trump White House, for causing this relationship between the two countries plunging to its lowest point in four decades.
He threw in all these buzzwords you have heard before denouncing "cold war mentality," "attempts (ph) at a decoupling." But also offering a very cliched path forward in terms of mutual respect, win-win cooperation.
The underlying message from Beijing? It's all the U.S. fault for causing this relationship to become so contentious.
The Chinese Communist Party loves so called self-criticism sessions so for a party so in love with that term, they don't seem to be doing a lot of that when it comes to its U.S. policy.
John.
VAUSE: A bit of self criticism never hurt anyone, Steven. Thank you. Steven Jiang live for us in Beijing.
Donald Trump's second impeachment trial is set for next week. And the former president has turned down an invitation to testify.
A Trump aide described the trial as unconstitutional; it's not. And his lawyers say the request was a public relations stunt.
House impeachment managers wanted Trump on the record and under oath about what he did just prior to the Capitol riot. Even though Trump has refused the invitation to appear, Democrats could try and subpoena the former one-term president.
One of Trump's biggest supporters in congress has been stripped of her committee assignments.
Eleven Republicans broke ranks and voted with Democrats to remove GOP congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene, from the education and budget committees.
That means 190 members of the GOP are OK with her calls to kill speaker Nancy Pelosi. They're onboard with her belief that school shootings are staged by gun control advocates and they're OK with what she says -- that Jewish space lasers starting wildfires.
There is no end to the crazy.
For more now, here's CNN's Ryan Nobles. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can we have order in the house.
RYAN NOBLES, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. House voting today to remove freshman representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene, from her committee assignments.
REP. TED DEUTCH, (D-FLA): Conspiracy theories and hate are malignant, they do not fade away. We must stand up to them and say, enough.
KEVIN MCCARTHY, U.S. HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER: Never before in the history of this house has the majority abused its power in this way.
The debate including a last-ditch effort by the Georgia congresswoman to save her spot on two house committees.
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, (R-GA): I was allowed to believe things that weren't true and I would ask questions about them and talk about them. And that is, absolutely, what I regret.
NOBLES: In a more than 10-minute speech amid a debate about her future, Greene attempted to put distance between herself and the vile conspiracy theories she said she once believed.
School shootings are absolutely real. And every child that is lost, those families mourn it. I also want to tell you, 9/11 absolutely happened.
NOBLES: In the past, Greene promoted conspiracies such as there not being evidence a plane hit the pentagon on 9/11 and that the 2018 shooting at a Florida high school was fake or staged. She's also promoted the QAnon conspiracy.
GREENE: I never said any of these things since I have been elected for congress. These were words of the past and these things do not represent me.
[01:10:00]
NOBLES: But as recently as last December, Greene defended QAnon believers in an interview with CNN.
GREENE: I think it's unfair to criticize regular American people that just are looking things up on the Internet.
NOBLES: During her remarks, Greene spent as much time attacking her detractors, as she did trying to clean up her past comments.
Democrats said Greene's remarks were too little too late.
REP. JIM MCGOVERN, (D-MASS): I didn't hear anyone apologize or retract the anti-Semitic and Islamophobic remarks that had been made, that had been posted over and over again.
NOBLES: And the final vote to remove Greene from the committees wasn't close; 230 to 199. Eleven Republicans voting with the Democrats.
Now Greene is still going to be a member of congress, she's not expected to go anywhere, she's already raised a lot of money around this controversy.
She's scheduled to hold a press conference on Capitol Hill on Friday.
NOBLES (On Camera): Ryan Nobles, CNN, on Capitol Hill.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Ron Brownstein is CNN's senior political analyst and senior editor of "The Atlantic." He is with us from Los Angeles.
Ron, good to have you with us.
RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SNR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi, John.
VAUSE: OK. Here's this QAnon lady in congress, trying to explain her past.
Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREENE: These were words of the past, and these things do not represent me. They do not represent my district and they do not represent my values.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Oh, really? Here's part of a video message the QAnon lady posted on social media after congress voted to remove her from two committees.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREENE: Here's why I have great concern. The house of representatives, led by Nancy Pelosi, has yet to pass a resolution condemning Communist Antifa and Marxist BLM who have, literally, burned our cities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: And it goes on. Apart from an extreme case of whataboutism which is completely and totally out of context here --
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
VAUSE: -- there's not a lot of contrition there. Doesn't seem she's entirely apologetic for what she's said and done.
BROWNSTEIN: No. What we have seen under the Trump presidency is him systematically obliterate whatever barriers have remained between the GOP coalition and the most extreme voices of white nationalism and sort of paranoid conspiracy theories. She is certainly out there, as you have documented night after night,
she is out there. But she is at the far end of a continuum that includes a lot of voters in the Republican coalition who are, perhaps not in as extravagant terms, unnerved by the way America is changing; demographically, culturally, economically.
And you see in the party a kind of party-wide reluctance, given by the fact that only 11 members voted to strip her of committees, to draw a bright line against this kind of extremism which only ends up giving it more oxygen in the end.
VAUSE: Yes, that's a problem. Republican leader in the lower house, Kevin McCarthy, he knows nothing about this QAnon stuff.
Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCARTHY: I think it would be helpful if you could hear exactly what she told all of us, denouncing Q-on (ph) -- I don't know if I say it right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: He doesn't even know how to pronounce it. So let's get a pronunciation check from Kevin McCarthy.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes.
VAUSE: Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCARTHY: Let me be very clear. There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: OK. It's absurd in the extreme for McCarthy and other Republicans to plead this Sergeant Schulz defense, I know nothing, I see nothing.
Why is McCarthy trying to have a bet each way here? He's trying to back both the extreme members of the party also supporting the more traditional old-school Republicans as well. This cannot end well for him.
BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Well, look that strategy -- well, the strategy goes all the way back to Donald Trump on STATE OF THE UNION with Jake Tapper the Sunday before the Louisiana primary caucus in 2016, saying that he didn't know enough about David Duke to have an opinion on him.
And so it's the convenient dodge, the way of drawing that bright line. Kevin McCarthy is dealing with a couple of realities.
As I said, there is a substantial minority of the Republican coalition that is not that far in their beliefs from Marjorie Taylor Greene. There's been polling where a quarter to 40 percent of Republicans say they believe kind of the absurd and vile and dangerous QAnon conspiracy.
But more importantly, she is operating under the umbrella of Donald Trump, she regularly touts her support from him.
He brought her onstage the night before the Georgia runoffs in his final rally there. And I am forever kind of struck by the image of David Perdue and Kelli Loeffler, two multi-millionaire business executives who in an earlier generation would have been the classic country club Republican having a gin and tonic at five o'clock -- found themselves on stage with a QAnon supporter the night before the election that ended their career.
So he is operating within a constraint. But facing reality on the other side, it is exactly this kind of extremism that is causing the erosion for the party in the white-collar suburbs where they used to be much, much stronger.
[01:15:00]
VAUSE: Is the reason why McConnell and McCarthy and all the rest of the leadership knowing how bad and how toxic all of this is, are they not acting because they simply do not know what influence Trump will have two years from now when it comes to mid-terms?
BROWNSTEIN: It's a great question. I think -- I believe that they are afraid of Trump and him coming out against them. But they are also -- as I said to you before, they are all addicted at this point to the same drug that he is pushing.
And by that I mean that it's not only Donald Trump who is declining in those white collar suburbs, it's almost all Republican candidates are facing erosion in the Trump era among those voters.
And because of that erosion, they need the massive turnout among the hard-core Trump supporters which include people at the far end of the spectrum, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, to win. And so the entire party is dependent on the voters who respond to these kind of messages or maybe slightly more diluted versions of these kinds of messages.
And, as a result, it is very difficult for them to muster the courage to say we will not stand for this kind of extremism in the party. As I wrote today, even in the 1960s with the John Birch Society which was not entirely a profile in courage for the Republican Party, there was much more organized pushback than there is today against the infiltration of these kind of extremist voices into the party.
VAUSE: We're out of time, Ron. But it does seem to just spiral to the bottom. The more they chase these QAnon folks, the more they repel the suburbs, the more they chase the QAnon folks. But we're out of time and --
BROWNSTEIN: That's exactly right.
VAUSE: -- (inaudible).
BROWNSTEIN: That's the treadmill they're caught on.
VAUSE: OK. Thank you. Thank you, Ron Brownstein there in Los Angeles. Appreciate it. Take care.
Well, the U.S. could have a third vaccine in the coming weeks that's said to be less effective than the others but does two things very well -- we'll tell you what they are in a moment.
Also, how Burmese civilians are responding to the military coup this weekend. They have been keeping quiet about it -- for a while.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
0405
VAUSE: A growing number of European countries are advising anyone 65 or older to avoid the Oxford AstraZeneca's COVID vaccine.
Denmark Sweden, Norway all (ph) the latest to say there's just not enough data to recommend it.
Meantime, in the U.S., Johnson & Johnson could be available with their vaccine by March. The pharmaceutical giant has applied for emergency use authorization.
The U.S. Food & Drug Administration's advisory committee will hold a meeting on the vaccine three weeks from now.
The candidate was shown to be about 30 percent less effective at preventing symptoms than the other vaccines already approved in the U.S. but it only requires one dose and the senior U.S. disease expert says it will save lives.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Although it wasn't the 94 and 95 percent that we've seen with Moderna and Pfizer, in the critical area of keeping people out of hospital and making sure they don't die, it did very, very well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[01:20:00]
VAUSE: The Pan-American Health Organization says a massive vaccination effort is needed to inoculate the Americas and it won't be finished this year. But dozens of countries will get their first vaccine doses later this month.
CNN's Patrick Oppmann has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Last week, the Americas registered 1.8 million new cases of the coronavirus Last week the Americas registered 1.8 million new cases of the coronavirus, and 75,000 new COVID-related deaths, according to a press conference given by the Pan-American Health Organization on Wednesday.
The region, which includes the United States, will need to vaccinate nearly 500 million people, according to the organization's director, Dr. Carissa Etienne.
About 280 million vaccine doses are expected to arrive in the Americas, by the end of 2021, she said. The COVAX initiative to share the vaccine is expected to supply participating countries with 35 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
So far, three variants of the coronavirus have appeared in 20 countries around the region, Etienne said. While there's been a decrease in cases in North America, in Mexico the Pan-American Health Organization says they've seen an increase in cases in nearly every country in South America. So a rise in cases in the last week.
OPPMANN (On Camera): Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: An influential model now projects the U.S. COVID death toll will pass 630,000 by June 1st.
But the University of Washington team behind the forecast says 44,000 lives could be saved if 95 percent of Americans actually wore a face mask.
The Biden Administration is now considering sending face masks to every American.
CNN's Lucy Kafanov reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As fears grow of another looming COVID-19 surge, sources familiar with the Biden Administration's coronavirus response say the White House may be looking at coordinating mask shipments directly to Americans.
JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No decision has been made to do that so I don't have a cost assessment. Obviously it would depend on how many people would be sent to mask.
KAFANOV: Curbing the spread is a race against the clock. With questions about the faster-spreading variant first identified in the U.K.. Is it more deadly?
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, U.S. CDC DIRECTOR: There's increasing data that suggest some of the variants, the B117 variant may actually be -- lead to increased mortality. And the jury's still out with regard to how these vaccines are going to work with regard -- against these variants.
KAFANOV: And could it become the dominant variant in hotspots like Florida and California? Now is not the time to ditch your mask.
DR. RICARDO FRANCO, CENTER FOR AIDS RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM: I think this game is at halftime. We got off of the deficit, we tied the game at halftime and we need to keep pushing. And not give this virus in a given the chance to play well the second half.
KAFANOV: After months of darkness, finally a glimmer of light. New cases continuing to decline across the nation, 41 states showing downward trends, eight holding steady.
The pace of vaccinations on the rise since mid-January, the U.S. now administering an average of 1.32 million vaccine doses a day, but that still might not be fast enough.
DR. MARK MCCLELLAN, DIRECTOR, DUKE-MARGOLIS CENTER: We do need to make it go faster though, to stay ahead of those variant strains and to really help contain the pandemic.
KAFANOV: The pandemic remains as deadly as ever, the U.S. averaging more than 3,000 deaths a day.
The CDC predicting more than half a million could die of COVID-19 be the end of the month. That would amount to one death for every minute of the pandemic.
CROWD: Schools are safe, schools are safe.
KAFANOV: Meanwhile, the fight over reopening schools continues.
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CALIF.): What we believe is exactly what the CDC, Dr. Fauci, what the Biden Administration believes -- that we can safely reopen schools.
KAFANOV: California's governor pushing for students to return to in- person learning before all teachers are vaccinated.
CROWD: Open schools now.
KAFANOV: The City of San Francisco suing its school district and board to force schools to reopen.
LORI LIGHTFOOT, MAYOR OF CHICAGO: The ball is in the CTU's court.
KAFANOV: Chicago forced to delay re-opening again as the school district and teachers union failed to meet a deadline for a deal.
LIGHTFOOT: We do not have a deal to report this morning but we will remain at the table in an effort to get a deal done.
KAFANOV: While the new study found that weekly rapid tests for teachers, students and staff could cut infection rates by 50 percent. DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It doesn't matter how much
the data suggests that they can be made safe, they don't feel safe. We have the ability to vaccinate them so let's just vaccinate them.
KAFANOV (Voice Over): Lucy Kafanov, CNN, Denver, Colorado.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: CNN's medical analyst, Dr. Jorge Rodriguez, joins us now from Los Angeles. It's good to see you again.
DR. JORGE RODRIGUEZ, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST, INTERNAL MEDICINE AND VIRAL SPECIALIST: You too, John.
VAUSE: OK. the White House medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says it's possible the new variant could become dominant in the United States but he goes on to say it's not yet a done deal.
Here he is.
[01:25:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The best way to prevent viruses from mutating and developing the kinds of mutations that make them more efficient or more dangerous, is to prevent them from spreading from person to person.
Because viruses will not mutate if they don't replicate. So if you put the lid on them and prevent them from going from person to person, you will blunt their capability of mutating.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Essentially, he's saying if we all do the right thing, if we mask up, if we practice social distancing, this virus doesn't necessarily -- or the variant doesn't necessarily have to take over or become dominant. In theory, he's absolutely right but in reality it seems to be a very different story. We're not very good at following that advice.
RODRIGUEZ: No, we're not. I think the first thing is people need to wrap their head around what happens.
A virus cannot make more viruses just floating around the atmosphere. It actually has to get into a human, use that human as its host and use our genetic material to make more viruses. The virus only replicates in people that are infected.
And people get infected when they don't wear masks, when they don't follow social distancing.
So it's a big myth that just because someone is young and had a mild case that they're not contributing to everything that's going on. They are. Because they could very likely be the cause of a mutation that then spreads into the general community.
VAUSE: Yes. And these new variants we're seeing now -- which never had to develop if we had been more effective in the earlier stages of trying to control this pandemic -- but nonetheless, we are here now --
RODRIGUEZ: Yes.
VAUSE: -- and they are more contagious. Which, by extrapolation, means more people will die because more will be infected. The variant itself is potentially more deadly.
This is coming just as new infections, new hospitalizations -- the death rate was starting to fall. How long do we have until those numbers go up again --
RODRIGUEZ: Well, John --
VAUSE: -- and what should we be doing in that time? Sorry.
RODRIGUEZ: The predictions are that by early March, middle of March, the variants are going to be the predominant virus, at least in California and Florida. And if that happens then seriously all other states are going to follow like dominoes.
So we have probably two to four weeks to really step it up and do the right thing.
VAUSE: So when you say step it up, we're talking about just trying to get as many people vaccinated, one shot whatever, one and done -- just try and get the vaccination into as many people as we can --
RODRIGUEZ: (Inaudible).
VAUSE: -- but what else can be done?
RODRIGUEZ: Well, I'm saying not only vaccinations. I don't think people need to that vaccinations are the holy grail. Harvard epidemiologists have said that if we all wear an N95 mask or double mask and for a month, that we could stop the spread of this virus in the United States.
We cannot forget the most simple things that we can do which is to mask up, to distance and to wash our hands.
VAUSE: It's incredible to think that if everyone did it for a month we'd be in so much better shape.
RODRIGUEZ: Right.
VAUSE: But clearly, and sadly, that won't happen. In the meantime, though, Johnson & Johnson has applied for emergency use authorization.
What is striking about their findings is that the vaccine --
-- "was 85 percent effective in preventing severe disease ... 28 days after vaccination in all adults 18 years and older." And the vaccine --
"Demonstrated complete vaccination against COVID-related hospitalization and death 28 days post-vaccination."
And keep in mind, part of the trials were done in South Africa where that South African variant was dominant.
RODRIGUEZ: Right.
VAUSE: Here's the rub though. The FDA advisory panel won't be meeting for another three weeks to consider this request. That seems a lifetime way.
RODRIGUEZ: It really is. There's no reason that they can't hold an emergency meeting; we are under emergency circumstances. And I think that is something that should be stepped up.
A one-dose vaccine could really be a game-changer -- that doesn't need to be refrigerated to those extreme temperatures, it really could change the whole complexion of what's going on.
VAUSE: Because if you go through the numbers here. We just said two to four weeks before this variant becomes dominant, three weeks until they actually sit to actually consider whether to have this vaccine out there.
With vaccines time is lives, right --
RODRIGUEZ: Absolutely.
VAUSE: -- so by waiting three weeks, people will die.
RODRIGUEZ: Yes. It just doesn't make sense that we don't go and work weekends or work nights and have extra meetings just to make this happen. Seriously. We are at war.
By the end of February, it is predicted that we're going to have half a million Americans dead from this virus. That is astounding. And we need to put all thrusters on.
VAUSE: Yes. We don't have three weeks.
Doctor Jorge Rodriguez, thank you so much. Good to see you.
RODRIGUEZ: Thank you, John.
VAUSE: Coming up. The doctor who treated Alexei Navalny in the days after he was poisoned has died. And Navalny's aides are, not surprisingly, suspicious.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[01:32:25]
VAUSE: Welcome back everybody. Thanks for staying with us. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause.
Alexei Navalny will be back in a Moscow court next hour, this time on a charge of slander. Russia's most outspoken Kremlin critic was sentenced to nearly three years behind bars on Tuesday for violating parole.
Navalny did fail to report to prison authorities as required but that's he was in Germany at the time being treated for poisoning by a military-grade nerve agent. Meanwhile one of the doctors who first treated Navalny during that poisoning has actually died.
CNN's Matthew Chance picks the story up from there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): This is a potentially disturbing development because a senior doctor at a hospital in Siberia where opposition leader Alexei Navalny was first treated after being poisoned with a nerve agent has died suddenly according to a statement issued by local health officials.
Sergey Maximishin who was 55 years old was a deputy chief physician at the Omsk Emergency Hospital Number 1 and, according to Navalny aides, was in charge of the treatment of Navalny specifically the medically- induced coma that was used to stabilize him. And Navalny was later evacuated to Germany, of course, where he recovered. He was then arrested and jailed when he returned to Russia last month.
Speaking to CNN, Navalny's chief of staff Leonid Volkov has said that foul play could not be ruled out. And that the doctor knew more than anyone else about the actual condition of the opposition figure early on.
Well, there's been no cause of death given by any official statements so far. But of course, any link with the suspected nerve agent poisoning of Russia's most prominent opposition leader is being closely scrutinized.
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN -- Moscow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: In Myanmar many are gathering in the street with a unique way to protest the military coup. Residents of Yangon protested with pots and pans for a third straight night. Many say they're hoping to drive out the junta that took power on Monday. They're demanding the elected civilian government be restored.
Military leaders are blocking access to Facebook and other social media sites, that's where dissent has been growing and a roundup of government officials continues.
CNN's Paula Hancocks joins us now live for the very latest. She is following the story from Seoul. It's interesting that this is the way these protests are playing out. And the question will be how much longer will the military allow these people on to the streets to have these protests before they say enough?
[01:34:55]
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well John, clearly the fact that the military shut down Facebook, shut down social media sites, could well have been their way of trying to prevent the communication between different groups, the galvanizing of people onto the streets.
But clearly that is happening anyway. Now it's very difficult to get an overwhelming -- an overall view of just how significant these protests are, how widespread they are. We did see some a couple of days ago in the second largest city of Mandalay.
We're seeing them in Yangon. We're seeing them also in neighboring Bangkok and other countries around Asia. But it's very difficult to know just how large they are.
And of course, what we did see, back in the late eighties, was a bloody crackdown from the military itself trying to quash pro- democracy -- the pro-democracy movement and the protests that were gathered then.
Clearly this military, there's been a generational change within the military itself. But there has been pressure from outside of the country. there has been many comments made by the U.S. President Joe Biden, by the United Nations Security Council, by the U.K. foreign minister, by many different leaders around the country saying that they are watching very closely calling on those that were detained to be released. And in the U.S. case looking to Congress to see if they can get together some kind of sanctions package.
So certainly there is an effort to make the military know that the international light is shining on them. And that leaders around the world are watching.
But within the country itself, we are seeing it does appear more people coming out on the streets. Let's listen to some of those people.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIN THWIN, YANGON RESIDENT (through translator): The pot banging is conducted by the majority of people in the whole country, to drive out the military coup, who unlawfully seized power.
We will keep driving out these evils, as long as the power is not returned to our government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANCOCKS: So support for the NLD, the National League for Democracy, this party of Aung San Suu Kyi herself is still extremely strong in the country itself, even if Aung San Suu Kyi's international glosses (ph) has worn off.
But certainly there is a lot of support on the streets. It's unclear at this point, John, just exactly how big these protests might become. And then of course, what the military's response might be.
VAUSE: Oh yes. We should note that, you know, Aung San Suu Kyi and her party were overwhelming elected during those elections that the military said was rife with voter fraud.
So if those people turn out, it could be quite big. We'll wait and see.
Paula, thank you. Paula Hancocks in Seoul.
Just ahead on CNN NEWSROOM, America's job crisis and why it may be around for sometime to come.
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[01:39:51]
VAUSE: Now to the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. And in the United States the crisis is forcing many to use food stamps and turn to other government-assisted programs for the first time.
CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VERONICA BEDICO, SNAP RECIPIENT: It was, you know, life or death. We were either going to starve or we were lucky enough to qualify for SNAP benefits.
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's that black and white for Veronica Bedico -- unemployed with three children at home, the government's food stamps program is her lifeline.
BEDICO: You (INAUDIBLE) all the way around..
YURKEVICH: Many families are facing hunger for the first time. The number of Americans on food stamps or SNAP, has grown by more than 20 percent during the pandemic and spending skyrocketed to 90 billions.
BEDICO: SNAP benefits came in, you know, perfectly to help me subsidize the meals that we are going to increase, because everybody was at home for every meal and every snack.
YURKEVICH: SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is just that, designed to boost food budgets for families who live below the poverty line.
Historic unemployment forced the government to increase benefits by 15 percent in December.
STACY DEAN, USDA: It is supposed to be enough, but many experts and more fundamentally, the families who use it are worried that it just isn't enough. So we are actually taking a look at that now to see if adjustments are needed to make it so that families can afford the basic diet with our benefits.
YURKEVICH: That's why these Americans find themselves here in this single food line at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. Those on SNAP say they need more food.
KATHALEEN WALLA, SNAP RECIPIENT: I'm homeless, so I'm staying with my sister. So, you know it is hard to be able to go to the market, and she will go to the market with me and stuff, but it's definitely not enough.
MANUEL ZARAGOZA, SNAP RECIPIENT: Not enough, you know I lost my job.
KENYA EDWARDS, SNAP RECIPIENT: I get like $200, and you know, I can make it stretch but, you know, once it's gone it's gone.
YURKEVICH: The L.A. Regional food bank serves 900,000 residents a month, one-tenth of the L.A. population. In Georgia one in seven adults and one in five children are now food insecure.
In New York, Public Health Solution says, Snap sign ups are up fivefold.
LISA DAVID, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PUBLIC HEALTH SOLUTION: This is a bit of a stopgap. It's better than nothing, it's great. But it is not helping people feel confident that they can put food on the table for their families every day.
YURKEVICH: Bedico doesn't know when she'll be back at work, a sign the recovery has a ways to go.
President Biden's proposed relief plan hopes to extend the SNAP benefits increase through September.
BEDICO: I would like for the administration to remember that we're real people, and that we're not, you know, welfare queens that are just taking advantage of the system.
I am a real person who had a real job, and now I need help so that I can provide for my children during this hard time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Our thanks to CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich for that report.
Well, the U.S. jobless rate for January is expected to remain at 6.6 percent for the third consecutive month.
Let's bring in CNN emerging markets editor, John Defterios who is live this hour in Abu Dhabi. Certainly appears to have stalled. What are we expecting now from this point.
JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNN EMERGING MARKETS EDITOR: I have to say, John, after that report it's just quite shocking to see the number one economy with people in such dire situations. And you know every month we watch very closely in the financial markets, about how the job numbers are going to look.
But this is of particular interest this month, because we had such an atrocious December. We lost 140,000 jobs going into the holiday season. So there is nowhere to but up if you will when it comes to hiring.
Let's take a look at the numbers. What's quite shocking here is we should hover around 6.6 -- 6.7 percent and that has been pretty steady. And the job hiring is only at 50,000 -- that is extremely low, when we're supposed to be recovering from the pandemic.
We also have 10 million people without a job, or have lost jobs in the last 11 months of the pandemic. And if you dick a little bit deeper, John, in terms of expectations of what is out there today, 18 millions of Americans are still on benefits, that's about 10 percent of the workforce.
And while we have a U.S. Treasury Secretary, who is considered a budget hawk and a former head of the Federal Reserve saying we have to think very big when it comes to the stimulus. Let's take a listen to Janet Yellen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANET YELLEN, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: Seeing long lines of people waiting to get food around the country, is something we should never see in the United States. Too many people have to worry about whether they'll have a roof over their heads, and he wants to address that.
This is really is an urgent need. And we need to act big.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEFTERIOS: Again I was suggesting that a person who ran the Federal Reserve for a number of years, now the U.S. Treasury saying this has to be a very focused package on women and minorities who are getting hit the hardest at this stage.
[01:45:03]
VAUSE: What is interesting is that, you know, everyone knows that something needs to be done, something big needs to be done. Republicans know that. The Democrats know that. But yet, they can't agree on this.
And I guess, wo when we look at the bigger picture here, and the vaccines kick in the pandemic starts to recede and these jobs not coming back, how -- I mean, exactly what will it look like? How long will it take if we have like -- give us two scenarios. A big size stimulus and a small size stimulus?
DEFTERIOS: Well, that's a good way of putting it, John. You know, I don't know if we've seen the number of the studies saying the lingering effects, particularly for college grads, or those who are coming out of high school, could last a decade, in terms of their earnings and even getting hiring (ph) done for them. Then the Congressional Budget Office put out a medium term outlook to 2024 and they said we won't get out to the kind of normal level of job hiring and recoup those lost jobs of 10 million for the next three years.
So the growth numbers look good, at the headline numbers, to you point John, 4.6 percent looks pretty promising, right. But it's not creating the jobs fast enough. We could get a spurt this year, but the next two years, even with the pandemic in the system it could be a struggle.
Joe Biden, by the way, is going to sit down with his Republican counterparts on Capitol Hill, his former colleagues. There's a huge gap, $1.9 trillion, some Republicans are suggesting $600 billion.
The Congressional Budget Office, by the way, was saying that $1.9 is dear (ph) because it will take the total bailout to almost $6 trillion and we will have a debt hangover for sure, John.
VAUSE: Yes, it's a lot of money, $6 trillion. John, thank you. John Defterios in Abu Dhabi.
Well, after Donald Trump lost the U.S. presidential election in November, some leaders of the anti-vaccine movement joined the Stop the Steal campaign, bringing two conspiracy theories together on the day of the Capitol siege.
CNN senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you all for being here. This is incredible.
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): On January 6th, on a separate stage yet very much part of the election protest, this micro rally had a different focus. These are the anti- vaxxers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The forced COVID vaccine is such a scam.
DEL BIGREE, SPEAKER AT HEALTH FREEDOM RALLY: Innocent people are being lined up, walking to their potential death.
GRIFFIN: Their event, part pandemic denial, part Stop the Steal, part prayer service for those who were participating in the Capitol storm.
CHARLENE BOLLINGER, PLANNED ANTI-VACCINE RALLY ON JANUARY 6: We pray for the patriots that are there ow, inside. They're trying to get inside that Capitol. Lord, use these people to eradicate this evil. These swamp creatures, the cesspool of filth and waste.
GRIFFIN: A CNN review finds the people involved in this micro rally are linking the anti government Stop the Steal messaging, to there anti-vaccine alternative health industry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Roger Stone. GRIFFIN: Some are directly connected to the disinformation network of Roger Stone. They name drop Stop the Steal organizer, Ali Alexander and are peddling the same type of conspiracy linked health products as Alex Jones, essentially, turning conspiracy into business.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a war between good and evil.
GRIFFIN: Anti vaccine advocate, Charlene Bollinger, who planned the rally, along with her husband, Thai, introduced speaker after speaker. Stopping occasionally to gleefully report what was happening in the Capitol about a block away. Her husband, left the rally to join in.
BOLLINTER: I asked him, are you at the Capitol, he said outside it. The Capitol has been stormed by patriots. We are here for this reason. We are winning.
GRIFFIN: Also speaking, Mickey Willis, whose discredited video, plandemic (ph) was viewed millions of times before being removed from YouTube.
MICKEY WILLIS: This is psychological warfare.
GRIFFIN: Invited to speak, Dr. Simone Gold, the anti-vaxxer who seeks donations to push her conspiracies. She became infamous with a stunt news conference at the Supreme Court last summer. Appearing with other doctors, including one who's claimed alien DNA is being put in medicine.
This is what Gold said at a MAGA rally, January 5th.
GOLD: If you don't want to take an experimental biological agent deceptively named a vaccine, you must not allow yourself to be coerced.
GRIFFIN: The next day, gold went inside the capitol, and was later arrested. Through her organization, Gold tells CNN, she didn't participate in any violence or vandalism, and rebuked such activity.
Conspiracism (ph) is the special sauce that links them all together according to extremism expert, Imran Ahmed who co-wrote a study about the anti-vaxx movement and says making money is at the heart of it all.
IMRAN AHMED, CENTER FOR COUNTERING DIGITAL HATE: These are snake oil salesmen. They're the oldest kind of liar and seller of deceit of misinformation.
GRIFFIN: And let's just be very clear, for the money, for the profit.
AHMED: Snake oil salesman needs to turn a profit.
[01:49:57]
GRIFFIN: That is apparent in the politics and business empire of rally organizers, Ty and Charlene Bollinger.
BOLLINGER: Hello again. It's Ty and Charlene.
GRIFFIN: They have their own political action committee and run two businesses centered on conspiracies about cancer and vaccines. Their social media pages, altogether, have more than a million followers.
BOLLINGER: Have you all heard about the truth about cancer or the truth about vaccines? Yes.
GRIFFIN: The Bollingers live on 13 acres in this 7,600 square foot, $1.5 million dollar mansion in rural Tennessee, once featured on a realtor Web site.
Their cancer and vaccine Websites are businesses, marketing their video series that cost up to $500. An air purifier that's more than $300. Body cleansers and other unproven health products.
Disclaimers warn, nothing presented is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. And anything purchased through their sites mean the Bollingers will be paid in some way.
While they're not camera shy --
BOLLINGER: Let me explain, this is Franken-science. We've got to stop it.
GRIFFIN: The Bollingers did not respond to multiple requests for comment from CNN.
All of these conspiracy theories can be dangerous, but public health officials are especially concerned about the made up conspiracies about vaccines, especially if it prevents people from getting potentially lifesaving medicine, at a time of a pandemic.
Drew Griffin, CNN -- Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Well, just one person tested positive for COVID-19, but that shut down the entire Australian Open. More than 500 tennis players, staff, officials -- all had to get tested. But now there is some good news. We'll tell you what it is when we come back.
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VAUSE: The Australian open is back on track. It had been put on hold after someone linked to the tennis tournament tested positive for COVID-19. More than 14,000 tests were carried out in the surrounding area, not a single new cases found.
Angus Watson has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANGUS WATSON, JOURNALIST (voice over): This is 2021 in Australia where community transmission is rare, and nobody is in intensive care with the coronavirus. Instead, nearly 400,000 fans were pack into Melbourne's tennis center over the next few weeks for the Australian open.
NOVAC DJOKOVIC, TENNIS PLAYER: I had to postpone coming in front of the fence again, after 12 months court, playing in front of the fans again, after 12 months.
WATSON (voice-over): Arriving in January, the players discovered just how tough Australia has had to be to get on top of the pandemic. All were forced into state-run quarantine for 14 days. 10 among the group of over 1,000 tested positive. Pushing 72 players into an even stricter quarantine. With no practice, not even any fresh air.
CRAIG TILEY, TENNIS AUSTRALIA: We are in a pandemic. This is not going away tomorrow. In fact, I think we're going to be doing this again next year, and potentially the year after. And we're going to have to manage through it.
WATSON (voice-over): But there have been last-minute hiccups. All warm up matches Thursday were canceled, after over half of the Australian Open players and staff were deemed to be contacts of a new case.
The first in Melbourne (ph) state of Victoria in 28 days. A worker, at a quarantine hotel where players stayed.
PROF. SHARON LEWIN, DOHERTY INSTITUTE FOR INFECTION AND IMMUNITY: We are continually getting importation's from travelers but we're quarantining those. We do need to push the envelope a little bit on what can be achieved. We are all learning from, this all the times. We are just in a different environment from the rest of the world, really.
[01:55:04]
WATSON (voice-over): It's immediately obvious just how different the environment here in Melbourne really is to many places around the world. But it took one of the world's longest and strictest lockdowns 111 days to get cases down here from the hundreds per day to zero.
LEWIN: I think we got to eradication by default. We always talked about aggressive suppression. But we actually got to eradication. And I can tell you, living with eradication, it's pretty nice.
WATSON (voice-over): As Australia has made strides in suppressing the coronavirus, hosting live competition has played an important part in healing this sports-crazed nation. Getting to a match has helped people put tough lockdowns behind them particularly here in Melbourne.
Fans turned out to as the Indian cricket team safely toured Australia earning a famous win while rugby matches have drawn tens of thousands.
Tennis Australia CEO, Craig Tiley believes that Australia's success, particularly here at the Aussie Open, can be a model for other competitions around the world.
WATSON: Should your success here with the tennis give hope to the organizers of the Tokyo Olympics? TILEY: I think would be very difficult to deliver on those kinds of
opportunities without a rigorous quarantine program for athletes. The Olympic Games are a whole different level and scale. And there's a lot of smart people planning on that, but they haven't done it yet.
And we have, and so you can take this small sample we have here which would probably be about 12 percent, 15 percent of what is over there. And you can just replicate it. And I believe if you do, it will be a success.
WATSON (voice over): Australia's success in suppressing COVID-19 will be on show to the world when the open begins next week.
Angus Watson in Melbourne, Australia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: The 55th Super Bowl will be played this coming Sunday and while many love the U.S. football showdown, viewers also tune in just for the commercials.
(MUSIC)
VAUSE: Yes, Dolly Parton there, flipping the lyrics of "9 to 5", to "5 to 9" in this adverts for SquareSpace referring to the many hours people now work to get their businesses up and running.
In another Super Bowl ad, John Travolta recreates a dance from the 1978 classic "Grease". He does it with a special partner.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dad, it's red one.
JOHN TRAVOLTA, ACTOR: I know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The other red one.
TRAVOLTA: I know.
MARTHA STEWART, TV HOST: He still got it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dad, it's the red one.
TRAVOLTA: I know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The other red one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: That's Travolta and his daughter actually doing "Born to Hand Jive" for Scott's Lawn Care. Different song though.
I'm John Vause. Stay with us. 100 percent more me next hour.
CNN NEWSROOM continues. We're just getting started. [01:57:50]
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