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Italy Imposes New Restrictions, Including Easter Lockdown; Several Countries Pause Use of AstraZeneca Vaccine; Hong Kong Tests More People Amid Fears of Fifth Wave; ICRC: Civil War Taking Heavy Toll on Syria's Youth; Colorado Hit by Heavy Snow, Blizzard Conditions; Beyonce Breaks Record with 28 All-Time Wins. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired March 15, 2021 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Well, now to the fight against COVID-19 in Europe. Earlier today new restrictions went into effect across most of Italy in an effort to curb a recent uptick in cases. Now this includes limiting travel between towns and a national lockdown over Easter weekend.

Meantime, the Netherlands and Ireland are joining a growing list of countries pausing the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine after reports of blood clots in some adults. AstraZeneca said the analysis shows no evidence of increased risk in vaccine recipients.

Well CNN's Melissa Bell joins us from Rome with more on Italy's new restrictions and Cyril Vanier is in London where the growing concerns over AstraZeneca's vaccine. So let's start with Cyril. So Cyril, the Netherlands is the latest country to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine over blood clot concerns. But what more are you learning about these?

CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rosemary, there have been concerns mounting over the AstraZeneca vaccine across the European Union for a week now. And we're now in a position where six European member states have paused the rollout of AstraZeneca in their countries altogether, and sixes have just banned certain batches of AstraZeneca.

All of this coming after multiple adverse health events were reported among vaccine recipients, especially due to clotting. And there were two deaths reported among vaccine recipients, one in Austria, one in Denmark. And this has caused some countries to put everything on pause while European Medicines Agency reviews these events.

Now it is important to stress that at this point, no country is saying there is casualty, right. That is what the whole question is. Are these events happening as a coincidence after people took the vaccine? Or are these events happening because of the vaccine? There's no evidence to prove these events are occurring because of the vaccine. But because they've been reported, and while several countries have decided to put things on pause.

Now AstraZeneca has responded to this. They say, look, we have data from 17 million people who have received the vaccine, and this data shows there is no higher incidence of blood clotting -- because that's what we're talking about -- among our vaccine recipients than there is in the general population. And the European Medicine Agency, by the way, agrees with this. Saying for the moment keep vaccinating. The benefits outweigh the risk. And as of now, there is no reason to believe the vaccines are causing this -- Rosemary.

CHURCH: I appreciate the clarification, Cyril.

And Melissa, new lockdowns across Italy due in response to spikes in cases. What is going on here?

[04:35:00]

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well perhaps the easiest way to understand it, just over a year after the first Italian lockdown, you'll remember that it was here, Rosemary, that the European outbreak began. No one imagined what a European Western democracy going into lockdown would look like. One year on, no one had imagined that we'd be here again.

Let me show you a quick map of Italy just to give you an idea. It is more than half of Italy's regions, but that includes some of its populace regions through the area around Rome, Venice, and Milan. Those parts and therefore the vast majority of Italy's population from this Monday morning under the sort of strict lockdown that we saw introduced here just over a year ago. That means essentially that you can only leave your home for essential reasons.

And, perhaps, most importantly, between those red zones and orange zones where it was left up to the region to decide whether kids went back to school. Many of them have decided to keep them closed as well. The effect, the consequence of that is that all of Italy's 8.3 million school children, 7 million are back at home and home learning. And of course, that, for the economy is yet another hit.

With all kinds of questions now whether Italy will manage to break those soaring COVID-19 figures, soaring as a result as elsewhere in Europe, by the way, Rosemary, of the spread of the new variants and in particular the one first identified in the United Kingdom. They surged the figures by 15 percent last week, on the week before. And the question is whether these fresh restrictions will bring them down fast enough.

What the Italian health ministry said yesterday to the Italian press, was that he believes that by the second half of the spring, after April 6th, when these restrictions are due to be lifted, they hope that their vaccination campaign will be making a difference. The aim of the Italian government is ambitious one, Rosemary. They want 500,000 injections being given every day. To give you an idea, at the moment it is just over 3 percent of the Italian population that's been fully vaccinated.

CHURCH: They have a long way to go. Many thanks to Cyril Vanier in London and Melissa Bell in Rome.

I want to turn to Hong Kong now and fears that a fifth wave of the pandemic could be descending on the city. Authorities just wrapped up a mandatory COVID-19 testing and inspection operation of 11 residential buildings on Hong Kong island. It is part of a massive effort to contain a coronavirus outbreak that began at a local gym.

And for more on this one, I want to bring in CNN's Will Ripley in Hong Kong. always good to see you, Will. So talk to us about these mass testings. I mean, they have wrapped up now but what was the situation for people? How surprised were they in the apartment buildings?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was certainly a big surprise for people here in central Hong Kong, Rosemary. In fact, several buildings in the area where I am now were part of this ambush lockdown operation over the weekend. In fact, the building across the street from where I live. And while these have happened here in Hong Kong before, the first beginning in late January, they tended to be in higher density, lower income areas.

But this is the high rent district. This is where foreigners, expats live. And people who kind of thought that they would be immune from being on the frontlines of the pandemic. So when hundreds of health care workers and police showed up in this area, essentially closed off the streets, told everybody that they had to stay inside their homes and receive mandatory COVID tests, and weren't allowed to leave until the testing was complete, that came as a big shock to people here. And a big wakeup call, that even though we're more than a year into the pandemic, the fight is far from over in terms of keeping case numbers down.

This latest super spreading cluster happened, as you mentioned, at a very popular fitness center just a short distance from where I am right now. More than 100 cases are tied to this fitness center, which is primarily frequented by foreigners. And close contacts of those 100 plus cases nearly 800 people so far have been forced into mandatory government managed quarantine camps.

Some of them were young children, which is raising concerns about these psychological impact on youngsters of being taken from their homes with maybe even just one parent an having to sit for 14 days in a room by themselves.

Now many in Hong Kong, Rosemary, are hoping to get vaccinated and the city just announced that starting tomorrow, most people over the age of 30 will be eligible to get that shot. But it will be many months before the majority of Hong Kongers get those shots in their arms, which potentially means more outbreaks and more ambush-style lockdowns like the ones over the weekend.

CHURCH: Yes, that it's spot on. Will Ripley, many thanks joining us live from Hong Kong. Appreciate it. Well Syria marks 10 years of a vicious civil war. Just ahead, we will

show you what it's like for a generation of children raised in conflict.

[04:40:00]

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CHURCH: Well Syria has now been enduring 10 years of civil war. And according to the international committee of the Red Cross, hundreds of young Syrians say the war has caused immense economic hardships and, quote, "profound psychological toll." The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees says more than 6 million Syrians have been displaced inside the country since the conflict began, and more than 5 million have fled Syria.

CNN's Arwa Damon is on the ground in Idlib, Syria, the last rebel held area in the country. She joins us now live. So, Arwa, 10 years on and Syria's civil war has left both physical and emotional scars on so many. And you spoke to a young boy and others about the challenges being faced. What did they tell you?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, these are the sort of changes that many of us cannot even begin to comprehend. Because what they have actually been through there is so unimaginable. They themselves even struggled to put it into words. Adults struggle while trying to actually express the depth of the horror, the sheer scale of the death that took place. How is a child supposed to even be able to come to terms with that? They can't.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAMON (voice-over): "What do I do? Use a bucket of water, a blanket? I tried using my hands like this to put out the flames. I couldn't. And my son's body was a ball of fire."

Sultan was playing on his bike when a rocket blew up fuel cannisters nearby.

SULTAN, VICTIM OF ROCKET EXPLOSION: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

TEXT: My belly was on fire. My belly looked like all the flesh came out of it. My belly and my back.

DAMON (voice-over): An ambulance brought Sultan to Turkey. He and his mother have been there ever since. This is the last photo of Sultan before the airstrike.

"Now you are not ugly. You are beautiful," Amar constantly tells him.

Sultan has an utterly disarming smile with eyes that fluctuate between sparkling like a 10-year-old's should but at times darkened as his past sets in.

[04:45:00]

SULTAN: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

DAMON: He has these nightmares where he's on fire. His whole body's on fire. Even his eyes are on fire. He wakes up screaming, screaming for his mother to put out the flames.

DAMON (voice-over): Sultan is as old as Syria's war itself, a life that carries the emotional and physical scars of a nation. When he was 5, his baby brother was killed in a bombing.

AMAR, MOTHER OF WOUNDED CHILD: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

TEXT: The neighbors removed the glass. They pulled him out. His neck was slit.

DAMON (voice-over): When Sultan was 6, his father died in a strike on the market.

AMAR: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

TEXT: I saw so many children die in front of me. I couldn't save even one.

DAMON (voice-over): This is where sultan was born into unimaginable violence, where he lost so much. A gray, dusty town of smothered childhood laughter stolen by war.

Renad's family did not know that mines were daisy-chained along the wall of their home. Her grandfather shows us where the first one went off.

DAMON: She was standing at the door with her siblings and then, all of a sudden, there was an explosion from a mine right there.

DAMON (voice-over): She lost her left leg under the knee.

DAMON: She has a prosthetic now.

DAMON (voice-over): She says her father disappeared a decade ago at the start of Syria's war. She tells us he was blindfolded, and she was thrown to the ground in a forest.

RENAD, SURVIVED MINE EXPLOSION: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

TEXT: There were people passing by who heard me crying.

DAMON (voice-over): It's the longest sentence she speaks. Mostly, she gives one- word answers or falls silent. Her grandfather says she feels like she's just gone blank. She doesn't dream of a life without war because she can't even imagine it.

It's been over a year since we were last here, covering Russia and the Syrian regimes most intense assault on what remained of rebel-held territory. There's been a ceasefire in place since then that has been, relatively speaking, holding.

COVID-19 peaked here late last year. Now ICU beds are mostly empty. DAMON: It's all sandbagged underneath here, just in case there's more bombing that resumes.

DAMON (voice-over): This is a pediatric hospital, one of the few that remains intact. Ziyad (ph) is two and a half months old and severely underweight.

DAMON: They've seen a three-fold increase in malnutrition cases in this clinic alone, for a number of reasons.

DAMON (voice-over): Years of bombings and displacement leading to greater poverty and then further fueled by COVID-19 border closures and humanitarian aid slowing down.

We pass ramshackle camps. With each bombardment, more of them blotted the countryside. A decade, for so many a lifetime of compounded trauma. The past permeates everything. For most, there's not a month, a week that goes by that isn't the anniversary of the death of someone they loved.

Perhaps all that is left to save are the shreds of innocence of a scarred generation.

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DAMON (on camera): Rosemary, you know, in the past, when we used to come and film those types of stories of what is happening inside Syria, quite often people would come up to us and repeatedly ask why is this happening to us? Why is the world watching? Why doesn't anybody care? They don't ask us those questions anymore. That is what Syria has taught them and that's what Syria has taught us as journalists.

It's arguably the most documented war of our time and yet despite the fact that red lines were crossed, chemical weapons were used, bombs were dropped targeting schools and marketplace and other areas where civilians were gathered, none of it mattered. And throughout all of this, Syria actually did have a voice. And that is what is perhaps the most painful part for so many of them who are still living like this or those who have been displaced, forced to live as refugees outside of the country. Is that they did have a voice. It just didn't matter because bigger geopolitical gains were at play.

CHURCH: It is horrifying and unacceptable. Arwa Damon, an incredible report from you there in Idlib, Syria, many thanks. And we'll be right back.

[04:50:00]

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CHURCH: At this hour millions of Americans remain under winter weather alerts and more than 100,000 people face blizzard warnings. Colorado saw extreme weather conditions on Sunday leaving more than 28,000 customers without power. And joining me now is meteorologist Tyler Mauldin. Good to see you,

Tyler. So what is the latest on this? And when might conditions improve?

TYLER MAULDIN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Rosemary, that powerful storm system is finally beginning to loosen its grips on the Rockies as another storm system comes in right behind it. And that's why it's playing pinball with it and pushing it out. The snow that it's left behind is historic. More than 4 feet of snow in parts of Wyoming. Denver International Airport picked up 2 feet. That makes it a top-five snow producer for Denver ever. And Cheyenne, Wyoming picked up 36 inches in 48 hours, that's also historic.

As this system pushes up to the East, we see an avalanche warning for the high elevations of the Colorado Rockies. So be aware of that if you're wanting to hit the slopes today. And then we have winter weather alerts up here across the Midwest where the heavy snow is now positioned. And we are looking at really, really heavy snowfall rates here. Extremely heavy rainfall pushing down to the south, too.

[04:55:00]

Snowfall left behind across the Midwest could top a foot in some areas. And then down here across the south, we are looking at the possibility of some flooding across the mid-south. Then across the deep south we are looking at the potential for severe weather. And be mindful that we are now encroaching on tornado season and as we go through time, we'll see the average number of tornados that we typically see only increase.

For today going into Tuesday, we have a level two out of five risk across the plains, which pushes east across the deep south where, Rosemary, we have a level three out of five threat. We could see multiple tornados come Tuesday on into Wednesday possibly lasting into Thursday.

CHURCH: Unbelievable situation. Tyler Mauldin, thanks for bringing us up to date on all of that. I appreciate it.

Well the 63rd Grammy Awards put women in the spotlight. Four female artists won in the top four categories and another super star made some history of her own. CNN Chloe Melas reports.

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CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: The Grammy Awards were all about Beyonce Sunday night. The singer broke the record for the most Grammy wins by a female artist. She is now the recipient of 28 Grammy awards. Earlier in the evening, Beyonce and rapper Megan Thee Stallion, also made history as the first pair of women to ever win best rap performance for Stallion's savage remix.

And Beyonce's 9-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, well she won her first Grammy award earlier in the night. Making her the second youngest to ever take home an award.

Taylor Swift also won the coveted album of year award. And record of the year went to singer Billie Eilish.

The show was hosted by Trevor Noah and did not disappoint with performances from some of music's biggest names, from Harry Styles, to Dua Lipa, to BTS.

Chloe Melas, CNN New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: The women shining brightly there.

Thank you so much for your company. I'm Rosemary Church, "EARLY START" is up next. You're watching CNN. Have a great day.

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