Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Ground Rules Still To Be Set For Trump's Senate Impeachment Trial; Capitol Rioter Says He Was Following Trump's Directions; U.S. Democrats Pave Way For COVID-19 Relief Bill; U.S. Vaccination Ramps Up Ahead Of Super Bowl; European Countries Ease Restrictions As COVID-19 Cases Fall; Thousands Protesting In Myanmar; Russian Protesters Detained By Police Describe Abuse; Super Bowl LV Set To Kick Off. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired February 07, 2021 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): With former U.S. President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial just days away, newly discovered videos have emerged that could play an important role.
The makers of one of the major coronavirus vaccines warns that it has limited protection against one of the new variants of the disease.
And how do you put together one of the biggest sporting events in the world in the age of COVID?
I will ask a sports marketing consultant about this weekend's socially distanced Super Bowl.
Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to all of you watching here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
BRUNHUBER: Today is Super Bowl Sunday, one of the biggest entertainment events in America. And I guess you could say it kicks off an event -- an even more eventful week in politics.
Super Bowl LV between Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be unlike any other. The stadium will only be about one-third full because of the pandemic. People watching at home are urged to avoid parties that might spread the virus. The traditional post-game parade at Disney World has been canceled.
In Washington, meanwhile, the historic second impeachment trial of former president Trump begins on Tuesday. And there's startling new video that shows how closely those who stormed the Capitol were listening to Trump and what they believed he wanted them to do.
Listen to what this man called the QAnon shaman said about Trump after the riot. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did you get out?
JACOB CHANSLEY, CAPITOL RIOTER: Get out of what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did you get out?
CHANSLEY: The Senate?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
CHANSLEY: Cops walked out with me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They just let you go?
CHANSLEY: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's your message now?
CHANSLEY: Oh, Donald Trump asked everybody to go home. He just said it. He just put out a tweet. It's a minute long. He asked everybody to go home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why do you think so?
CHANSLEY: Because, dude, (INAUDIBLE) day (INAUDIBLE) won.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did we win?
(CROSSTALK)
CHANSLEY: -- by sending a message to the senators and the congressman. We won by sending a message to Pence, OK, that if they don't do as their oath to do, if they don't uphold the Constitution, then we will remove them from office one way or another.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This guy is recording (INAUDIBLE)?
CHANSLEY: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
CHANSLEY: I'm fine with being recorded. All I can say is we won the (INAUDIBLE) day. Donald Trump is still out president.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have another question. There's a lot of people that doubt that you would be able to go in and come out.
What do you say to them?
CHANSLEY: Well, a lot of people doubted a lot of prophets, sages. A lot of people doubted Christ.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Donald Trump has torn some deep divisions within the Republican Party. CNN's Jessica Dean has the latest on that and a look ahead to his fast approaching second impeachment trial.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Wyoming Republican Party voted to censure congresswoman Liz Cheney in response to her vote to impeach former president Donald Trump.
That resolution had a number of inaccuracies in it. Congresswoman Cheney did respond, saying that she was compelled by the oath I swore to the Constitution when she took that vote to impeach former president Trump.
Now all of this, of course, coming on the eve of former president Trump's second impeachment trial, which is scheduled to start on Tuesday. There's still a number of unknowns surrounding that trial, namely how long it will take.
We don't know exactly at this point how long this will go on and also if witnesses will be called.
In this case, it's a very unique situation in that the 100 senators who will be serving as jurors were also witnesses in this case. They experienced the insurrection here on January 6th.
House impeachment managers have also requested former president Trump to testify. He said he will not be doing that. And right now there's just not an appetite for a subpoena to compel him to testify.
[05:05:00]
DEAN: We're told that House impeachment managers instead intend to say his refusal to testify here for the Senate impeachment trial underscores his guilt as being singularly responsible for the insurrection on January 6th -- Jessica Dean, CNN, the Capitol.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: The impeachment trial comes as President Joe Biden is trying to get lawmakers to pass his nearly $2 trillion coronavirus relief plan. Democrats are prepared to forge ahead without Republican support. But the president is admitting he will have to make some big concessions. Arlette Saenz has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As the push to get his COVID relief package passed continues, President Biden is acknowledging that one element of that proposal may not ultimately make it into the final deal. That is the $15 minimum wage.
That is something President Biden promoted during the presidential campaign and something he wanted to include in this COVID relief package. In an interview with CBS, the president said it may not survive due to the Senate rules process.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS NEWS HOST: You also want to raise the minimum wage to $15.
Is that something you would be willing to negotiation on in order to get Republican support?
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, apparently that's not going to occur because of the rules in the United States Senate.
O'DONNELL: So you're saying the minimum wage will not be in this.
BIDEN: My guess is it won't but I do think we should have a minimum wage, stand by itself, $15 an hour and work your way up. It doesn't have to be boom and all the economics show, if you do that, the whole economy rises.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAENZ: Now if that proposal does not make it into the final package, the president indicated he does want to pursue the $15 minimum wage as a stand-alone measure down the road.
He's spending the weekend at home in Delaware, where he visited the doctor's office to receive an X-ray on his foot, which he fractured in November. Dr. Kevin O'Connor says those fractures have completely healed -- Arlette Saenz, CNN, Wilmington, Delaware.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Let's bring in Natasha Lindstaedt, who teaches government at the University of Essex in England.
Thank you very much for joining us. I want to start with the COVID relief bill. It will go ahead without any bipartisan support, it seems.
What difference would that make if they got one or two Republicans to go ahead?
Does that actually matter?
And who does this hurt more, Democrats or Republicans?
NATASHA LINDSTAEDT, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: Honestly, I think at this point, it doesn't matter because the proposal that some of the Republicans had put forward was so far away from what Biden's original proposal was that it just didn't look like they were going to find any common ground here.
From Biden's perspective, he needs to do something pretty immediately, he needs to do something that's very massive because the economy is in disarray. And it's just been such a massive crisis here, with so many people unemployed, people being plunged into poverty.
And the Democrats believe this is going to be very popular. In fact, early polling shows that the bill will be popular if it gets implemented fully. And so they feel they need to forge ahead because, if they don't forge ahead, then Biden is going to be accused of having done nothing.
And though he's trying to encourage bipartisan support, in this instance, it simply doesn't look like it's possible.
BRUNHUBER: There is a limited time window there. Of course, a couple of days away from impeachment, we know Donald Trump won't be there to testify.
So should Democrats call witnesses or should they, you know, just try to get this over with as quickly as they can, since, you know, the facts are known and so is the result probably, right?
LINDSTAEDT: Right. I think the result is a foregone conclusion. The Republicans are not going to convict. At the moment, impeachment isn't super popular. About 47 percent of the public supports it, 84 percent of Democrats on average, only 9 percent of Republicans.
And the facts are really all out there. There's not really much to dispute. It's all on video. So it's not going to require months and months of acquiring information and investigation.
People feel very strongly about it. You either feel that what he did, Donald Trump did, by inciting the insurrection in an impeachable offense or you don't. I don't think there's much to talk about.
I think that the Republicans' main talking point is going to be that Democrats were distracted by this impeachment trial, this was taking away time when the Senate and the House should be focused on passing laws to help benefit the American public.
So while I believe the Democrats have to pursue impeachment, just because what Donald Trump did was so egregious, I think it's going to go quite quickly.
BRUNHUBER: All right. So President Biden, he's done many fewer interviews than president Trump at this point. But he has relaunched the weekly presidential address; very different in format; informal, on-camera conversation between him and a voter.
[05:10:00]
BRUNHUBER: You know, a far cry from the old FDR fireside chats.
Will that kind of thing help?
And more broadly how is the president doing so far in terms of popularity?
LINDSTAEDT: Well, right now on average his popularity is at 61 percent so it's much higher than Donald Trump's ever was. And his level of unpopularity is at 38 percent, so basically exactly Trump's base.
He's just trying to -- Biden is just trying to maintain his support over the Democrats and over those that are more moderate voters. And he's trying to connect with voters in a very different way.
As we know Trump was a social media president. He tried to connect very frequently using Twitter and various means of social media, going on FOX News and so forth. And that's because that's what he knew. He is an entrepreneur and he is a social media star and media star and that's how he connected with people.
But Biden has had years and years of experience in the Senate, as vice president and now president. He wants to pursue a more traditional way of connecting with the American public and keeping in touch and also trying to communicate the policies that he is busy enacting and focusing on.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, speaking of those policies, we heard this week more on his foreign policy agenda. So I want to get your take on how Biden is diverging from his predecessor, both in the specifics and the general tone he's setting here.
LINDSTAEDT: Well, almost in every way, Biden's foreign policy is going to look different than Trump's. He made it clear to his European allies, to other allies, that the U.S. is back, it's going to be focused on multilateral cooperation.
And one of the more specific things is that Biden is also going to change -- both change in tone and action in dealing with Russia. He made it clear to the Russian government that the U.S. would not tolerate electoral interference, where Trump didn't seem to want to do that.
There's big changes also in the Middle East because he announced that he wasn't going to be supporting offensive operations for the Saudis in the war in Yemen. Now this war has been very unpopular.
And so this is something that there are -- there would be some bipartisan support for this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: That was Natasha Lindstaedt at the University of Essex. Our thanks for her analysis.
Vaccination numbers are ramping up across the U.S. while new cases and hospitalizations are going down. Health officials hope to keep those trends going. More on that after the break. Stay with us.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:15:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING) BRUNHUBER: Well, it's good news. Far more Americans are getting
vaccinated against the coronavirus than are getting the virus itself. CDC data shows vaccinations in the U.S. now outnumber new infections 10:1. More than 9 million doses have been given in the past week alone.
And as you can see here case numbers are falling across the country. You will see not one single state is in the red there. But experts warn Super Bowl viewing parties could set the country back. Officials are begging the public to skip the tradition this year to reduce opportunities for the virus to spread.
The Biden administration plans to push messages on coronavirus safety to the huge Super Bowl audience. Natasha Chen has more on that and the improving COVID numbers in the U.S.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the past week, more than 9 million COVID vaccines were administered in the U.S. That outpaced the number of new cases 10 to 1.
In the last two days the number of people hospitalized came under 90,000 for the first time since November. Despite the trends health officials are warning us not to let our guard down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're at halftime and things seem quiet in the locker room. But when we come out, the team we're facing is going to be a lot tougher than the team we faced in the first half of the outbreak.
CHEN (voice-over): As both the pandemic and the Super Bowl are on people's minds this weekend, a source tells CNN Joe Biden will take advantage of a large national audience Sunday to thank health care workers.
An administration official says the White House also hopes to combat vaccine hesitancy and speak to the African American and Latino and white rural non-mask wearing communities in particular.
Meanwhile, Americans are being discouraged from doing what so many people do this weekend, attending Super Bowl parties.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's the Super Bowl, not the stupid bowl. Let's try and keep everyone safe. Don't drink, don't drive, don't bring multiple households together and create a superspreader event in your own home because, I guarantee you, it's going to be your own family who's the ones going to be jeopardized.
CHEN (voice-over): Speaking of the NFL, the league this week offered the Biden administration every one of its 32 team stadiums as mass vaccination sites. Seven are already in operation and the 49ers Levi Stadium is about to become California's largest vaccination site.
The Yankee Stadium's vaccination site opened Friday but only for people in the Bronx, an effort to reach underserved communities. MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: This is about equity, fairness, protecting people that need the most protection, because the Bronx is one of the places that bore the brunt of this crisis.
CHEN (voice-over): Mayor de Blasio and other officials say the problem continues to be supply.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Other than me just running up there and sitting on somebody, I -- we are doing everything. It's coming from all fronts.
CHEN (voice-over): A third vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson could help increase supply. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory committee isn't scheduled to discuss it until February 26th.
CHEN: The event behind me was targeted for employees of local school districts. Vaccinations for educators being an important part of conversations to bring kids back into classrooms safely, especially in Chicago, where there's no agreement. The mayor Lori Lightfoot says those who don't show up could be locked out of the online system, which could trigger a strike by the union -- back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[05:20:00]
BRUNHUBER: We're learning more about how new coronavirus variants could impact vaccinations. AstraZeneca says its coronavirus shot seems less effective against the variant first spotted in South Africa, when it's a case of mild disease. But it still believes the vaccine could protect against severe disease.
In Europe, Italian health officials are authorizing the use of monoclonal antibodies to treat coronavirus. The country has cleared the therapies developed by U.S. drugmakers, Eli Lilly and Regeneron.
And a top British doctor says, despite the vaccine rollout, intensive care units in the U.K. are full. He told British radio, while numbers were starting to plateau, he believes, for now, the U.K. would remain, in his words, "in the thick of it" a little while longer.
Let's bring in CNN's Melissa Bell in Paris and Salma Abdelaziz in London.
Melissa, to you first. The COVID numbers are dropping here in the U.S. and broadly in Europe as well.
So does that mean restrictions will drop as well?
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, there are signs encouraging and figures when it comes to infection rates in so many European countries. You're seeing a slight easing of restrictions.
It happened in Italy, we expect Angela Markle to look with German federal and state premiers whether it's time to start lifting restrictions in Germany. Those are the countries that have opted for fairly strict lockdowns the last few weeks. France has bucked that trend. What we've seen is a country that
decided to leave in place its curfews to see if that would stabilize figures. There are many in France warning further restrictions might need to be tightened because they haven't opted earlier for that tight lockdown.
At the moment we're seeing in France new infections of around more than 20,000 a day, ICUs, just as in the U.K. as you mentioned a moment ago, are full and the question was whether that delicate balance could see the country through.
Now the worry here in France, as with other countries, even those looking at easing their restrictions, is, even if the figures are now stable, there is this problem of the new variant and specifically here in the E.U., the one first identified in the United Kingdom.
To give you a can example, Kim, early January represented 3 percent of new cases, end of January that's (INAUDIBLE) become dominant by the first of March and then, of course, all bets are off.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, things could change very quickly. All right. Let's go to Salma now in the U.K.
So you know, those warnings about the ICUs there being full, notwithstanding health officials say the country is now past the peak of this wave. But it still could be weeks before restrictions are eased.
So why is that?
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: There are some really promising signs, Kim. The key indicators do look much better. You have the number of hospitalizations has gone down. The number of people testing positive for the virus has gone down.
But you still have more patients with coronavirus currently in hospitals than you did during the first wave of this pandemic. So simply not out of the woods yet.
Even if the numbers did come down in the hospitals, the concern is, as you just heard from my colleague, Melissa, is this new variant that is up to 70 percent more transmissible. That could potentially be more deadly, according to British officials. So you simply cannot ease up.
You cannot open up and put this variant at risk of spreading again. Really your only protection here is that vaccine. The vaccine is the way forward. It is the shield. That's why you see the authorities moving as fast as they can, as quickly as they can, to vaccinate people.
Already over 11 million people have received the first dose of their vaccine. That's about one in five adults in this country. Just a short time ago, the vaccine minister was on air just about an hour ago, going through the details of the program and how far they've gotten.
Here is what he told us, there's the key target, the first targets, the government believes that they are on track to hit that, February 15th, 15 million people, key vulnerable groups all should be vaccinated. That's what the vaccine minister said.
The second target, the next target they're going to try to hit, is to get all people over 50 by May. So massive progress happening there. Just to give you an idea of how fast this is happening, Kim, the vaccine minister said on Saturday there was one point in which 1,000 people were being vaccinated per minute.
BRUNHUBER: All right. Salma Abdelaziz, braving the weather there in London, and Melissa Bell in Paris, thank you very much both.
Now earlier I spoke to Sian Griffiths, an emeritus professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and she also led the Hong Kong government's inquiry into the 2003 SARS outbreak. I asked her how worried she was about those new variants.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SIAN GRIFFITHS, EMERITUS PROFESSOR, CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG: Basically the idea is, if we can get the level of transmissions as low as possible in the community, the variants will not cause any issues.
Although they are worrying and we saw in the U.K., we saw in November- December, we saw the sudden rise of the U.K. Kent variant, which is much more transmissible.
[05:25:00]
GRIFFITHS: That alerted us to the need for genomic sequencing.
Then we've seen 100 cases of the South African variant in the U.K. and the public health response has been to really clamp down on this, to stop this more transmissible disease from increasing because we're already had experience with one variant that sort of got away, so to speak.
So the South African variant, wherever there is a case in the U.K., then the local authorities will do -- in England, they're doing mass surge testing. They're testing the local community to see if there are any other cases there. And they're using the PCR test, which gives you the genomic sequencing.
And everybody is being advised to take extra precautions about staying home. So we are anxious but at the same time the vaccine manufacturers are telling us that the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine appears to be as effective against the Kent U.K. variant.
There's some question yet about the science of the South African variant. The small study today suggests that the vaccine isn't as effective but there's also larger studies ongoing. So this is a matter of continual research.
But the more optimistic note from the vaccine scientists is they can tweak the vaccines, look at the variant and tweak the genome sequencing so they can produce new vaccines, which are effective against the variants.
BRUNHUBER: Yes, but, as you note, I mean, it is spreading faster and faster here in the U.S. Dr. Osterholm from President Biden's COVID-19 task force said this week that we have some 6-14 weeks before the variants take over.
Does this mean we need a different strategy, to prioritize vaccinating more people now rather than, let's say, making sure they all get the second dose on time?
GRIFFITHS: Well, as you know, that's the approach that's been taken in the U.K. We now have a first dose and then whether it's the Pfizer BioNTech or the Oxford AstraZeneca, you wait 12 weeks for the second dose because that increases the overall immunity, the number of people who have some immunity.
And they've also found that the Oxford AstraZeneca virus is more effective if you wait 12 weeks. The booster is more effective than if you give it earlier.
So for many reasons our joint committee on vaccination and immunization and our regulators have agreed a 12-week schedule. And that's been adopted here in the U.K. since the beginning of the vaccine program.
We're also then finding that some of the newer vaccines that are emerging are also -- because they've been created during the time the numbers have been increasing -- they are effective against the variants.
So I think it's a matter of getting as many people, particularly those in vulnerable groups, immunized as quickly as possible.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: And that was Sian Griffiths, at the Chinese university in Hong Kong.
Thousands of demonstrators are making their voices heard in Myanmar. Coming up, the latest on protests against Monday's military coup. Stay with us.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:30:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you here in the United States, Canada and around the world, I'm Kim Brunhuber.
Protests in Myanmar are demanding a return to civilian rule. Thousands have taken to the streets of Yangon. They've come out in force again to denounce Monday's military coup. Selina Wang is following this from Tokyo.
We're seeing people are still protesting in even more numbers, despite the crackdowns.
What's the latest?
SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Kim. Well, witnesses tell CNN that there are substantially more protesters than yesterday and they are more organized as well.
In fact, Reuters estimating that there are tens of thousands of protesters in the streets. We are seeing large crowds and mostly young people. They are chanting for democracy, for the fall of the military dictatorship, holding banners, many of them with Aung San Suu Kyi's image, saying, "We want our leader."
These protests are largely peaceful. We've seen these crowds change course to try to avoid roadblocks, to try to avoid any direct confrontation with the police. According to NetBlocks there has been a restoration, a partial restoration, of internet access.
But earlier because of the internet blackout, we had learned that many of the protesters were relying on SMS, on phone calls and word-of- mouth to organize.
Now for more than 50 years, Myanmar had been ruled by military regimes, brutally cracking down on dissent as well as plunging the country into poverty. Many still have physical and mental scars from the past. Take a listen to what this 18-year-old student who was protesting had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YE KYAW, STUDENT (through translator): We have decided we will fight until the end with our lives for our generation. We have to work for the next generation to get democracy for them. We want to end this military dictatorship.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WANG: Kim, six years ago, there was hope for real and lasting change Aung San Suu Kyi won the election by a landslide, when the first civilian government was formed. But now that hope is being dashed. Residents are worried that history is repeating itself.
Even though Aung San Suu Kyi has fallen from grace internationally over her failure to condemn the Rohingya crisis, to recognize the genocide, at home, domestically, she is still extremely popular.
BRUNHUBER: We will keep following this story. Thank you, Selina Wang in Tokyo.
This just in to CNN. Disaster response teams are being deployed in parts of northern India following a Himalayan glacial burst. A local official says 157 people are missing and two people have been found dead. The glacial break happened near the Indian border with Tibet. India's
northern districts are on high alert and the government is urging people living close to nearby rivers to evacuate. We will bring you more information on this developing story as we get it.
In Russia, demonstrators backing opposition figure Alexei Navalny have been jailed by the thousands. Now some are speaking out, describing police abuse and squalid jail conditions. Fred Pleitgen reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): The images of Russian riot cops cracking down on protesters have sparked outrage around the world.
[05:35:00]
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Thousands have been detained and some say they were mistreated by police in custody.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I was alone in the room with these four policemen and one said, "What, do you want a plastic bag over your head?"
On the shelf they already had a plastic bag as if it was prepared for this. So they put it over my head and started choking me a little bit. I tried to resist but he kept putting my head down and shaking me.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): A Kremlin spokesperson said that if what she described really happened, then she should have filed a lawsuit, even though she's currently in jail.
Moscow police did not respond to CNN's request for comment. Security forces detained so many people at recent demos, Moscow even ran out of space to keep them in.
Images have emerged of people crammed into police buses waiting for hours and even days to be processed with no chance to physically distance during times of pandemic.
Alexander Golovach is a lawyer for opposition leader Alexei Navalny's organization. He was detained at a protest last weekend.
ALEXANDER GOLOVACH, ANTI-CORRUPTION LAWYER (through translator): I was taken to a police station with 25 other people. I was spent there three days. In the first day, we had no food, no water and they didn't let us use the toilet.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): This is Saherova (ph), a former migrant camp now used as a detention center. People locked up here shared these videos with CNN showing cramped cells.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Everything is bad. There aren't mattresses and people have been sitting like this for 1.5 days.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Among them, a prominent journalist jailed for retweeting a joke which the court said incited participation in an unauthorized rally.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We spent many hours in a tiny cell, 28 people in a cell meant for eight. These are harsh conditions.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): While he says he has been moved to a better cell, others claim little has changed for them.
Meanwhile, pro Kremlin media is blaring out videos like this one of factory workers enthusiastically showing their support for Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Putin's spokesman acknowledged the overcrowded facilities but said the response of the riot police was justified and claim there were, quote, "no repressions in Russia."
Outside the makeshift jail, friends and relative bring food, drinks and cigarettes for those inside, some venting their anger.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Our job is to show the detainees they have support and we are all together in this. That's the only way to build society.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Alexei Navalny's movement has refrained from calling for new protesters for now, saying they want to regroup and give their supporters time to get out of jail -- Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Russia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: It turns out even a global pandemic can't stop the Super Bowl. Up next, the challenges of keeping everyone safe while striking just the right tone. Stay with us.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:40:00]
(MUSIC PLAYING)
BRUNHUBER: Well, whatever happens today at the Super Bowl, the NFL has reason to celebrate. It finished a full season in the midst of a pandemic.
So how did they do it and what can we learn?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is a sport defined by close contact, an environment ripe for transmission.
GUPTA: There's other people who say it's absolutely ludicrous to even try this.
What do you say to them?
DR. ALLEN SILLS (PH), NFL CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER: I feel like it's the right thing to do to learn to live with this virus. I really do.
GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Allen Sills (ph) is the chief medical officer for the NFL. He was brought in as a neurosurgeon, who thought he would be dealing with concussions. And then the pandemic changed everything. I initially met up with him at the beginning of the season.
SILLS: We just have to recognize we're dealing with an unpredictable pandemic, so we have to adjust along the way.
GUPTA (voice-over): On September 10, the Kansas City Chiefs kicked off against the Houston Texans in the first game of the season. At the time, there were more than 6 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States.
GUPTA: Now right before the Super Bowl, how did things go?
SILLS: I think what we have tried to do at every step is to make the best and the safest decisions we can and we've tried to evolve and learn along the way.
GUPTA (voice-over): While cases around the country exploded, now, with more than 26 million confirmed, the NFL was relatively untouched with a positivity rate of 0.8 percent.
So what worked for the NFL?
And what can we all learn from it?
SILLS: We had an outbreak in Tennessee. When we went in and really dug into that and tried to understand, how did transmission occur, despite our protocols, we began to realize it wasn't just six feet in 15 minutes.
GUPTA (voice-over): Put simply, Dr. Sills said it wasn't the playing or practices that were the largest concerns but these three things -- eating, greeting and meeting.
SILLS: Meeting inside, even if you're more than six feet apart, if you're in a poorly ventilated room for a long time if someone is positive, there can be transmission inside those rooms.
Eating together is the other very high-risk activity. Most people don't have a mask on.
And the greeting part is the social interactions outside the facilities. When you interact in the community, if someone is positive and you get a haircut or have a massage at your house.
GUPTA (voice-over): How did the NFL know?
They tested daily and they contact traced and tracked the movements of more than 11,000 players and staff, even alerting them if they were too close to one another.
SILLS: If we move closer together than six feet, you'll start to see it blinking red.
GUPTA (voice-over): Keep in mind, the CDC defines close contact like this, being within six feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period.
But the league's data found transmission was occurring with less time and more distance. These are considerations for anyone, anywhere, to assess their risk.
Ventilation: are you indoors or outdoors?
Are you in a car with the windows up or in a large, open stadium?
The more air circulation the better.
Masks: what kind of masks are being used and do they fit correctly?
And finally, time and distance: the longer and closer you are around someone, the increased risk for transmission.
SILLS: If you're failing in two or more of those categories, that's what we consider a high-risk close contact. I think the biggest thing we learned, universal masking works. It's the most effective strategy we have.
[05:45:00]
GUPTA: How hard would it be to replicate what you were able to do in the NFL?
SILLS: It wasn't the fact that we tested every single day. It wasn't the fact that everyone wore a proximity fancy tracking device. What prevented transmission was mask usage, avoiding in-person meetings, staying in the open air environments, not eating together, prompt symptom reporting, isolation of anybody that's exposed.
GUPTA (voice-over): The same basic rules we have known since the beginning of this pandemic. With more evidence than ever that they actually work.
GUPTA: So who are you rooting for?
(LAUGHTER)
SILLS: We love all our children.
GUPTA: What is the deal with Tom Brady?
Just as a sports medicine guy, really?
And the Super Bowl again?
SILLS: I think his career has been amazing and outstanding and he's an inspiration to all of us. The closer he gets in age to me, I have thoughts maybe I still got a run at it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: All right. Joining me now to talk more about holding a Super Bowl during a pandemic is Patrick Nally, a British sports marketing consultant.
Thanks so much for joining us. I want to ask you, when it comes to the handling of COVID, the U.S. has hardly been a beacon of light for other countries to follow. So the Super Bowl seems, you know, from what we just saw there, to be a rare success story.
Now major sporting events and propaganda, of course, often go hand in hand.
So with millions, you know, watching around the world, as a marketing expert, is this an opportunity to rebrand America?
PATRICK NALLY, SPORTS MARKETING CONSULTANT: Yes, it is. I think it's very important because of mental health issues that we've all been experiencing and seeing through COVID, having the Super Bowl and indeed having Olympics and other big events, I think, is extremely important.
The fact that they can respond to it in a positive way to minimize COVID and use the opportunity to present the right messages, I think it's very important. And good on the NFL to be taking the lead.
BRUNHUBER: But, you know, there has to be a careful balance struck here in tone, right?
You know, many health experts are warning that there could be consequences. You know, here in the States, if not in the stadium then elsewhere if the Super Bowl becomes yet another superspreader event.
NALLY: Yes, but I think, if it's presented in the right way, I think there's an opportunity in terms of the messaging. There's an opportunity for the sponsors and supporters not to disregard the fact that we are in a pandemic.
We should need to be responsive to that pandemic, communicate the right messages. But as I said, it's important that the show goes on. But the show needs to go on in the right manner and in the right tone. And I'm sure -- I'm listening to some of the things they've been planning -- this is going to be in the right manner and in the right tone.
BRUNHUBER: And then for the president, President Biden, he's set to deliver a message on vaccines. It's a chance to address, you know, the COVID issue and share a message on vaccines, which is something, frankly, I'm surprised we haven't seen more of, more messaging, public health messaging, urging people to go out and get the vaccine.
So is that the right place and is he the right person to deliver this message, do you think? NALLY: I think currently he is the right person. And as you said, perhaps the messages haven't been coming out of the U.S. as much as they are perhaps coming out of other countries. And I think having such a global sports event such as the Super Bowl or the Olympics, you know, is absolutely the right time for the right person to communicate those messages.
You know, we have to get through it, we have to respond to it. I think the Olympic challenge is going to be a lot greater because of the amount of countries and amount of sports and other things. But it's important the governing bodies do take it seriously and look at the best way to keep the momentum going.
BRUNHUBER: But then -- OK. So you know, many experts are saying, the idea of bringing all of these athletes and spectators together from around the world into a densely populated country like Japan, I mean, you know, in the middle of a pandemic is a recipe for disaster. But you're saying the show must go on.
Why is it worth the risk?
NALLY: I think the show has to go on in a different manner. The main obviously is television, television is the key thing for all of these sports events. I think the Olympics have got to decide to limit the people that will be invited to go into the audience. Maybe they will have to change some of the sports and scheduling. They will have to present the Olympics in a very different manner.
But rather than just cancel it and not have it happen, I think it is important that they do -- and they, the Japanese government -- support it. But it will be a very different Olympics. It won't be the mass invitation, mass spectators. It will be obviously staged in a very different way, as indeed the NFL have been doing over their own sport.
BRUNHUBER: All right. Well, thank you very much for all of this.
[05:50:00]
BRUNHUBER: Lots of food for thought there. We really appreciate it, Patrick Nally.
We will be right back.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
BRUNHUBER: Well, from here in Georgia to as far north as Maine, millions of Americans are waking up to some wintry weather.
(WEATHER REPORT)
[05:55:00] BRUNHUBER: Well, it's the perfect gift for anyone you might be over the moon for. Christie's auction house is auctioning off 75 meteorites this month that come from the moon and Mars. And some of them are even encrusted with gemstones.
This piece of stardust weighs 16 pounds and is estimated to sell for $50,000 to $80,000. The sale begins February 9th.
Well, I've got my wife's Valentine's Day present sorted out then.
That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Kim Brunhuber. "NEW DAY" is just ahead.
