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Switzerland Finds First Case Of "Double Mutant" Coronavirus Variant; India Breaks Global Daily Case Record Three Days Running; Armenians Cheer U.S. Designation Of 1915 Massacres A Genocide; U.S. Vaccinations Dip, Experts Fear Vaccine Hesitancy; Italy's Vaccine Program Under Fire As Deaths Continue; French Vineyards Hit By Worst Frost In 30 Years; Antarctic Ice Shelf Under Threat; Oscars Team Hoping To Beat Pandemic-Era Slump. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired April 25, 2021 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Welcome to all our viewers around the world. I'm Robyn Curnow. You're watching CNN.
Just ahead, coronavirus variants are wreaking havoc on many countries, specifically India. Look at what is being done to stop the spread.
Climate change is being blamed for a lot these days and now it's the reason why your favorite wine is not in the shelves. We have that story.
And Hollywood's biggest night is only 24 hours away. What to expect, we'll preview the Oscars.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.
CURNOW: We begin with this hour with ups and downs in the battle against COVID. The U.S. has now had more than 225 million vaccine doses. That's according to the CDC, who says that more than 93 million people are now fully vaccinated.
But the average daily number of vaccinations has fallen. A CDC official says that's partly due to the pause in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine which was lifted Friday.
Elsewhere, in Japan, a new state of emergency including in Tokyo is set to last through May 11th. And then in Switzerland, that country has identified its first cases of the so-called double mutant variant first identified in India.
And India is staggering under a surge of cases. Experts are saying that that increase could include correlate to a rise in variants, including the one we just mentioned. India has broken the global record for new daily infections three days in a row. Hospitals are overwhelmed and running low on everything, including oxygen. A Delhi doctor says that at least 20 critically ill patients at his
hospital died after the supply of oxygen was delayed. Let's go straight to Anna Coren, tracking all of these developments for us from Hong Kong.
Hi, Anna. What can you tell?
We're wearing the same jacket. Good to see you again. But certainly really concerning images and news coming out of India.
ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: It's absolutely terrifying what is taking place in India. The numbers, those official numbers from the health ministry, are feared to be just a fraction of what is actually happening on the ground.
You mentioned that India broke that global record for a 3rd consecutive day. We are waiting to get the latest numbers from the health ministry in the next few minutes. No doubt it will break another record. As of yesterday, more than 346,000 daily infections, more than 2,600 deaths.
But the people who are dying outside these hospitals, waiting to see a doctor, the number of bodies being taken to the crematorium, it doesn't add up. People on the ground are saying that the actual toll is so much higher.
You mentioned those 20 people, who died when the oxygen supply in a new Delhi hospital -- this is in the capital -- ran out of oxygen on Friday night. We heard from that doctor just a few moments ago. He said he received another tank of oxygen early this morning but only half the amount of oxygen that they had actually requested.
He said they have another 3 to 4 hours' worth of oxygen and that is it. That's not just this hospital, it's every single hospital across the country. They are facing this acute shortage of oxygen.
They don't have any beds. People are quite literally dying, waiting outside these hospitals to be admitted. The hospital chief is turning people away. He said go to hospitals where you might be able to get oxygen. We are struggling to supply the people who are in these beds with the oxygen that they have for the next few hours.
We are hearing that there are other countries around the world that are stopping flights from India. And you mentioned that variant that has been detected now in Switzerland, also in the U.K.
Half of the cases, Robyn, in New Delhi are believed to be these contagious variant. That is very alarming to the world if it is spreading across the globe.
CURNOW: Anna Coren, good to see you, thanks for the update, really appreciate it.
So I want to bring in now someone who is witnessing this firsthand in India. Dr. Lancelot Pinto is a consultant at a hospital in Mumbai.
Doctor, thank you very much for joining us.
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CURNOW: I know that you are very busy but I do want you to explain to us how you are coping and what is the situation at your hospital right now.
DR. LANCELOT PINTO, PULMONOLOGIST AND HOSPITAL CONSULTANT: I am in the city of Mumbai and we are stretched to our limits, too. Fortunately for us, we have not had to make any major clinical decisions where we had to triage or compromise on patient quality care because of the unavailability of oxygen.
Of course, we are nervous and anxious. We are listening to stories across the country. We are doing our best to be judicious about the use of oxygen. We are down titrating patient as soon as we can. We are switching over to electrical modes of oxygen concentrators rather than rely on piped oxygen.
So far we are coping quite well, I would say. But there is some anxiety because we are stretched to the limits right now.
CURNOW: What has been your worst day so far?
PINTO: So I think it's really heart-wrenching to see people trying to get admitted across hospitals because hospitals are full right now. Having to manage patients at home is challenging. All of us have been doing our bit. We've been doing what we call Kelly calls, handling over Skype and help them best at home.
I think a lot of that is working. We are doing our best to keep people out of hospitals. But it causes a lot of anxiety, both to the patient as well as to doctors, to be handling patients at home.
CURNOW: Where do you feel India is?
Are you reaching the peak?
And, of course, if that is the case, is there still going to be a delay in deaths by a week or two, where do you think you are?
PINTO: At least, in the city of Mumbai, there are reports that we are reaching our peak. The past 2 or 3 days have been better than the last week. But that's the peak in infections. As you pointed out, deaths usually lag behind infections by a couple of weeks.
So we are expecting the peak mortality in the next couple of weeks, unfortunately, which means high dependency units, ICU beds are going to be stretched to the limits. I do hope and think that bed availability in the noncritical care setting would ease out over the next couple of weeks but we are expecting a lot of beds, unfortunately.
CURNOW: So you're saying it could get worse. I see there are a number of reports of many people saying that deaths are potentially being undercounted here, that the real rate of fatalities could be 2-5 times higher than it currently is being reported at.
What would you say anecdotally?
PINTO: I think that has been a problem the world over, particularly when people come in at a very late stage and they arrive when they are critical, there's not enough time to test sometimes. Some of them die at home, unfortunately.
I think it would be fair to assume that the number is higher than what is being reported. But it's difficult to say what the factor is.
CURNOW: What are you feeling this way?
Are you concerned about the potential for this new variant?
PINTO: So I think this new variant, which has been named a variant of interest, it's not yet a variant of concern, clearly seems to be more transmissible that we saw last. Year last year we would very often treat people at home and they would be their only individual in their home who was infected.
But now we see entire families, work spaces, entire groups of people getting infected simultaneously, which does suggest that this is more transmissible. Now whether it is more lethal and where it seems to be a more virulent form of the virus is not known.
Based on the numbers, there's the feeling that it's not more lethal but by virtue of being so transmissible, the numbers have translated into a lot of people falling sick and requiring hospitalization.
CURNOW: Who is coming to the hospitals?
I know in Brazil a lot of much younger people are presenting.
Are you having the same problem in India?
PINTO: India is a young country. The median age of the population is 27. So that means a half of the population is under 27 years of age. When you have a virus that is spreading with this velocity and affecting people across the country, there are bound to be a lot of young people coming to the hospital.
I think that's, yes, that is the general trend we are experiencing this time around. Whether it's related to the virus or is just epidemiologically because it's a young country, is difficult to speculate on.
CURNOW: And very quickly before you go, how are you doing, how are your colleagues doing?
Do you have the stamina and strength to get through the next few weeks?
PINTO: I think we are pretty resilient.
[00:10:00] PINTO: And we're trying to be as resilient as we can. I think we're all mentally exhausted, I think that's true all over the world. We all need some reprieve, some sort of break from this so we can live lives as best as we can, the way it was before.
But I think that hopefully we get through this, I feel very optimistic that one month down the road, things will be a lot different.
CURNOW: We hope so, too. Dr. Lancelot Pinto in Mumbai, thanks so much, thank you for talking us and thank you for all the work doing out there.
PINTO: Thank you.
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CURNOW: So at least 90 people are dead and many more injured after a fire in Baghdad at a hospital treating COVID patients. Authorities say oxygen tanks exploded causing this massive blaze.
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CURNOW: Pictures shown on social media showing chaotic scenes, firefighters scrambling to get the fire under control. Health care workers fervently trying to evacuate patients from the building.
The Iraq prime minister is ordering an immediate investigation into this tragic accident.
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CURNOW: And the search for an Indonesian submarine shifts from rescue to recovery after the navy announced that the vessel had sunk. Debris was found at a depth much deeper that where the crew could survive. Blake Essig joins us from Tokyo with the story.
This is not the outcome that many people wanted to hear.
BLAKE ESSIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, Robyn, the mood on the ground in Indonesia is a mixture of heartbreak and fading optimism. After four days of searching, the hopes of finding the missing Indonesian submarine and its 53 member crew appear to be gone.
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ESSIG (voice-over): Some of the debris displayed by the Indonesian Navy leading them to a bleak status change for a missing submarine carrying 53 crew members.
YUDO MARGONO, NAVY CHIEF, INDONESIA (through translator): With authentic evidence believed to be from KRI Nanggala, at the moment, we have raised the status from missing to sunk.
ESSIG: The submarine went missing Wednesday morning during a torpedo drill in the Bali Strait. It's been a race against time to locate the vessel with oxygen expected to have run out by early Saturday. Officials believe the submarine likely cracked under intense pressure in deep water, allowing debris to escape. They say based on the findings, an explosion was unlikely.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The items would not have come outside the submarine if there was no external pressure or without damage to its torpedo launcher.
ESSIG: Warships have been deployed to the area to search for the vessel using metal and magnetic detectors. The debris was found floating at a location where the ocean is 850 meters deep, which would make any possible evacuation difficult.
Authorities said earlier that the submarine could not survive at depths below 500 meters.
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ESSIG: The exact location of the sub still hasn't been found. Today, Indonesia has 20 ships and five aircraft, including one from the United States, searching an area of about 40 kilometers north of Bali. Singapore, Malaysia and Australia and India have also sent ships.
But again, Robyn, it seems our worst fears have been realized, as debris from the missing sub with 53 souls on board has been recovered.
CURNOW: OK, Blake, thank you for that update.
So the mass killings of Armenians during World War I has now been officially labeled genocide by the U.S. government, which the people of Armenia have been waiting more than a century to hear. Just ahead, the significance of this historic decision.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).
CURNOW: Thousands in Armenia, cheering upon hearing that an American president finally recognized the massacres of their people during World War I as a genocide. The exact death toll is in dispute but many historians believe 600,000 to 1.5 million Armenians were killed in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.
Saturday's statement from the White House, fulfilling a campaign promise by the president. It also signaled a renewed emphasis on the U.S. and human rights.
President Biden's statement reads, in part, "Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all of those who died in the Ottoman era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever occurring again."
Soon after that statement was released, a prominent Armenian politician praised the long-awaited declaration.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Firstly, I would like to thank the president, President Joe Biden, for keeping his promise. We've had many provinces in the past with candidates but those were broken once the person became the President of the United States.
We are thankful that Joe Biden, in his first year of the presidency, has already acknowledged the genocide, used the correct term and shared our sorrow, also making an appeal to the world that such hate crimes, such crimes against humanity shouldn't be forgotten.
I would like to thank the myriad of supporters of the high-tech (ph) committees, of the ANCs (ph) throughout the United states and especially the NCA (ph) Washington office for the tremendous work that they've done and also for all the volunteers and all of the supporters that have made this possible.
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CURNOW: The Turkish government, immediately, rejected President Biden's statement and summoned the U.S. ambassador to make a formal complaint. Turkey does not deny that there were atrocities but the Turkish president marked the anniversary with a message of condolence as he has in the past.
But the government insist the mass killings were due to World War I, not genocide. Arwa Damon is in Istanbul, with more reaction -- Arwa.
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ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: President Joe Biden decided which side of history the U.S. will stand on on Saturday in a written statement, calling it, the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, a genocide.
This is something that previous U.S. presidents have shied away from, not wanting to risk their relationship with NATO ally, Turkey. Turkey has consistently maintained that the killings that took place do not fall under the definition of a genocide and has said that, alongside the Armenians that were killed, there were also hundreds of thousands of other individuals who were killed as well.
Turkey coming out very quickly with a response of its own. The foreign minister tweeting, "We are not going to take lessons about our history from anyone," calling this statement by President Biden, "political opportunism and a vulgar distortion of history."
Turkey's president Erdogan had a statement of his own on this day, one that was made before we heard from President Biden, one that echoes statements he has been making for years right now, acknowledging that killings took place, expressing condolences but also saying the politicization of debates which historians ought to engage in, by third parties and their use, as a tool of meddling, has not served anyone's interests.
He also went on to state, Turks and Armenians must finally demonstrate that we have reached the kind of maturity to overcome all obstacles together.
Many analysts have said that this does, potentially, risk even further fracturing the relationship between the United States and Turkey, one that is already, at this stage, incredibly tenuous. The relationship between Presidents Biden and Erdogan is not exactly on solid ground at this stage.
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DAMON: It is going to be very interesting to see how the countries move forward, given where all of their interests do align, especially when it comes to the arena of security. But once again, we have a situation where the plight and pain of a population has been significantly politicized and polarized -- Arwa Damon, CNN, Istanbul.
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CURNOW: Joining me now is James Jeffrey, a former U.S. envoy for Syria, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and the current Middle East chair at the Wilson Center.
Ambassador, thank you for joining us this hour. Great to have you on the show.
What does this declaration signal?
JAMES JEFFREY, FORMER U.S. ENVOY TO SYRIA: Thank you for having me, Robyn.
Firstly, President Biden is living up to a commitment that he gave to Armenian Americans, to take this step. The step is to call the horrific events that occurred to the Ottoman Empire, the Armenians in 1915, a genocide specifically. That is what he promised, that is what he did today.
The issue is how it impacts Turkey as a successor state to the Ottoman Empire.
CURNOW: Do you agree with this situation?
Would you have advised the president for or against this decision?
JEFFREY: The last time it came up in 2009, I was the ambassador in Ankara and I advised President Obama and Vice President Biden not to do it. It wasn't a question of the facts, which people argue back and forth; none of us were there in 1915. It is a question of the geopolitical and importance of Turkey and the
sensitivity of the Turks not to the events; most understand and accept the Ottoman Empire committed terrible crimes. But the use of the word genocide, which is associated with one country only, which is Nazi Germany.
CURNOW: If you advised President Obama against doing this, why is this administration making this decision now?
Why is it now deemed to be in America's national interest to make this call?
JEFFREY: I think first of all, it's a domestic concern, living up to the commitments you've made for your voters. I don't think there is any particular geostrategic benefit of doing this.
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CURNOW: But there could be strategic implications, won't they?
JEFFREY: Absolutely and there is a downside with Turkey. Turkey is an extremely important ally of ours in Syria, Libya, the Ukraine and Afghanistan, the Caucasus and in NATO and in containing both Russia and Iran, which are both on the march throughout the Middle East and the region.
CURNOW: We understand Turkey, summoning the U.S. ambassador, is to be expected.
What other chips is Erdogan holding right now?
How could he make it difficult for the Biden administration?
JEFFREY: Firstly, it depends on whether he speaks out personally. But he hasn't yet. That may be a good sign. President Biden, sensibly, called Erdogan yesterday to give him an alert.
What he could do, Erdogan, is to limit American non-NATO military operations out of Turkey. They have significant forces and significant use of Turkey's bases there.
Secondly, he could make life more difficult for us, particularly in Syria but also in these other areas where we and Turkey are more or less on the same side but they are all complicated: Libya, Ukraine, so forth. We will have to wait and see what steps he will take, as well as the usual diplomatic demarches (ph) and possible temporary pulling of ambassadors or worse.
CURNOW: Is this also the Biden administration signaling, not necessarily to Turkey but to other countries, that this is the way they will do business?
What does this open the door toward?
JEFFREY: In general, other countries, again, those countries that are very important on the front lines of the global order against China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, will believe that their geopolitical cooperation with the United States may not be valued as highly as whether another human rights or related value. That is the concern I have with this decision.
CURNOW: Sir, what do you mean by that?
JEFFREY: What I mean is they may feel that it is not enough simply to have the same attitudes as the United States and the rest of NATO. You have to cooperate closely, continuously and with some pain and internal cost, to maintain a solid front on any issues, say, Syria.
There may be problems doing that with Turkey now, because the Turks will not want to have a say in communications for us. They will not trust us as much.
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JEFFREY: Other countries will look at that and will conclude, the United States does not have our back if there is some internal problem or some ghost from our past or some human rights issue that Washington is concerned about. That is what I am worried about.
CURNOW: Wouldn't the Biden administration, particularly many Americans after the Trump years, say that is exactly what we need?
We need to put out foot down and say, America is a bulwark of human rights.
JEFFREY: And America is. It is also bulwark against the march forward which President Biden's own national intelligence community just issued a report on threats. These countries are on the march. Again, Russia, China and Iran.
It is very important that we build up a alliance, which we have, but make sure it works, to block these people. That was a complaint against the Trump administration, that we didn't work closely enough with our allies. Unfortunately, many of our allies have things that concern us or do things today that concern us.
CURNOW: You are saying this does this damage with the alliance with Turkey and what are the political implications of that long term.
Ambassador James Jeffrey, always great to have your perspective, your expertise, you worked so long in that region, thank you very much for joining us.
JEFFREY: Thank you for having me.
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CURNOW: Saturday turned into another night of protests and clashes in Jerusalem. The Palestinian Red Crescent says that 14 Palestinians were injured. The clashes were around Jerusalem's Old City, protesters throwing rocks and bottles. Israeli police responding with stun grenades and rubber bullets. Tensions have been high, near the Old City, after police set up
barriers to prevent people from congregating there during Ramadan. Meanwhile, militants in Gaza, firing at least three rockets towards Israel, the country's military says, a significant drop off compared to the dozens of rocket launched the night before, the most in more than one year.
Israel responded with airstrikes on a number of Hamas targets.
Coming up on CNN, after initially struggling to keep up with demand for COVID vaccine, the U.S., soon, could have the opposite problem. We'll find out what's driving a recent drop in vaccinations.
Plus, Italy's messy vaccine rollout, one woman blames people who jumped the line for her husband's death. We have that ahead as well.
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CURNOW: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM, I'm Robyn Curnow live from Atlanta.
Now the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 225 million vaccines have been done in the States.
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CURNOW: Despite those encouraging numbers, medical experts fear that supply may soon outstrip demand. Over the past few weeks, daily vaccination rates have started to fall. Polo Sandoval says what might be behind the drop.
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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine is cleared to go into arms again, a slight but ongoing drop in overall shots being administered a day, that average number, according to the CDC, dipped below 3 million this week.
The Biden administration attributing it to vaccine hesitancy. It is a trend that the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has been closely watching even before J&J's pause.
DR. CHRIS MURRAY, DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH METRICS AND EVALUATION, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: Facebook runs a survey every day and we look at that data on a daily basis and that has shown that vaccine confidence in the U.S. has been slowly, but steadily going down since February.
You know, not by huge amounts like a percentage point a week, but that starts to add up.
SANDOVAL (voice-over): Some of that hesitancy being felt more among Republicans. A Monmouth poll recently showed 43 percent of GOP voters said they will likely never get a COVID vaccine compared to five percent of Democrats.
The head of the CDC said Friday that the government must perform quote, "extraordinary outreach" when it comes to educating clinicians and patients.
DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: All right, I am getting the injection now.
SANDOVAL (voice-over): Baltimore's former Health Commissioner, Dr. Leana Wen received a J&J dose before the pause. If given the option, she encourages certain women avoid it given the fresh findings about extremely rare blood clots.
WEN: Since there are two other vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna that do not carry this very small risk, I don't think I would have chosen to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine myself knowing that risk.
And I wish that the CDC and the FDA had gone further in their discussions yesterday to explicitly put a warning for women under the age of 50 to say, if it is available to you, consider choosing one of the other vaccines that do not carry this particular risk.
SANDOVAL (voice-over): The consensus remains the same among health experts, all COVID vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. remains safe and effective.
DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: If you look at the tradeoff here, this is still far better -- it is far better to choose to take the Johnson & Johnson vaccine than to go unvaccinated given what we know about the risks of COVID.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One thousand shots.
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SANDOVAL (voice-over): A local Canadian pharmacy in Toronto celebrated administering its 1,000th vaccination this week, as here in the U.S., efforts at a much larger scale continue amid vaccine hesitancy.
SANDOVAL: Well, here in New York state, about 31 percent of the population already considered fully vaccinated in an effort to try to keep increasing that number, multiple locations and vaccination sites continue to open up, including here in New York City, where the American Natural History Museum is now serving as a mass vaccination site, even offering free admission to the museum as an added incentive -- Polo Sandoval, CNN, New York.
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CURNOW (voice-over): And this is what it looks like inside New York's American Natural History Museum as things kicked off in the famous Blue Whale Room. Officials are hoping their efforts will help bolster vaccination numbers. So far for New Yorkers, who hate getting shots, there's plenty to see to distract them.
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CURNOW: And COVID has claimed the lives of more than 119,000 people in Italy. That's the highest number of deaths in the E.U. Hundreds of people continue to die from the virus each day, even though the government started vaccinating people back in December.
Critics say there are serious issues with the country's vaccine program. Delia Gallagher explains.
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DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Months into Italy's vaccination program, authorities realized something had gone terribly wrong. Despite government recommendations to vaccinate front line health care workers, the elderly in the most vulnerable, some regions in Italy were allowing other people to get their shots first.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The regions proved sensitive to the lobbies, as we must say, the vaccinated, the magistrates, the lawyers.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): Prime minister Mario Draghi admitted the problem earlier this month and reprimanded the queue jumpers, asking Italians with what conscience could they skip in front of older, more vulnerable people at risk of death.
A researcher for an Italian think tank estimates 6,200 more lives could have been saved from mid January to now if those shots had gone to the elderly. Another complicating factor is that the AstraZeneca vaccine was initially only recommended for people under 55.
It was the perfect storm that left some of Italy's over 60 population stranded, a group that accounts for 95 percent of the deaths, according to Italy's health minister.
Like 63 year-old teacher Roberto Nania (ph), who died of COVID on April 3rd in Tuscany.
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OLGA NANIA, ROBERTO'S WIDOW: Then when they started the vaccination for the people of his age, it was over.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): His wife blames Italy's delayed and disorderly vaccination rollout for her husband's death.
NANIA: They killed him, everybody of them, they killed him.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): By the first week of March, the region of Tuscany had only vaccinated about 8 percent of people over 80, prompting a letter of protest from its residents.
NANIA: The organization of all of this, the decision of the government to open the schools without vaccinating. Then the way how they started to vaccinate, for me, they had to start with the elder people, not with the younger ones.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): In March, Prime Minister Draghi brought in a military general to head his COVID 19 commission and clean up the mess. The general issued an ordinance to regions that they must toe the line.
Tuscany has since increased vaccinations for the elderly but the governor of the region of Campania in southern Italy has said he's not going to obey the general orders to vaccinate by age.
NANIA: Do something.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): In the meantime, Olga wants justice for mistakes that she thinks could have been avoided.
NANIA: He was brought here.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): For 2 weeks Roberto's (ph) body has lain here in a cement block awaiting cremation, another agonizing delay for an already grieving heart -- Delia Gallagher, CNN, Pistoia, Italy.
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CURNOW: Thanks to Delia for that.
So police in London say eight officers were injured trying to disperse anti lockdown protesters. Several thousand people marched through central London Saturday, calling the coronavirus a hoax and a myth. Most were wearing masks. One woman explained why she's not getting the vaccine.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm definitely against the vaccine. I'm not an anti-vaxer, I've been vaccinated before, some of my children. But this one is not a vaccine. I'm not having it and it's not going to my children, either.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No one knows what's in. It hasn't even been tested on animals. (INAUDIBLE). We're just basically an experiment.
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CURNOW: To be clear, none of that is true. The coronavirus vaccines have been tested in clinical trials and health agencies and independent experts say they are safe and they are effective.
Well, English football leagues are tackling online racism by launching a three-day boycott for social media in its response to ongoing racist attacks aimed at players and others online. Premier League clubs as well as the EFL and the WSL teams will turn off their social media accounts on Friday.
As part of the boycott, the leagues are urging the British government to hold social media companies more accountable for what happens on their platforms.
Protesters took to the streets for a fourth straight day in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. They're demanding answers after police shot and killed a Black man, Andrew Brown Jr., on Wednesday.
Police were serving an arrest warrant at the time. Witnesses say police shot into his car but no shots came from his car. Radio traffic from emergency responders referred to a gunshot wound in the back. Brown's family want the police to release the body cam footage.
On Friday, the sheriff released a video on social media, saying that's what he wanted, too.
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SHERIFF TOMMY WOOTEN, PASQUOTANK COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA: Because we want transparency, we want the body camera footage made public. Some people have falsely claimed that my office has the power to do so.
That is not true. Only a judge can release the video. That's why I've asked the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation to confirm for me that the releasing of the video will not undermine their investigation.
Once I get that confirmation, our county will file a motion in court hopefully Monday to have the footage released.
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CURNOW: Seven deputies were placed on administrative leave following the shooting and three others left the department entirely.
So coming up on CNN, volcanic eruptions are turning St. Vincent's and the Grenadines into a humanitarian disaster. We hear from the prime minister next.
And why this year's Academy Awards show will be an experience unlike anything in Oscars history.
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CURNOW: The news in France has been hit by the worst frost in decades and it will certainly lose to a huge loss in crops. That's on top of the country reeling from the effects of the pandemic. Here's a report from Jim Bittermann.
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JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a sunny afternoon in Meursault, France. And in the nearby Burgundy vineyards, this would normally be the time of year when winemakers here would be doing some last minute clipping of their vines and looking forward to a great vintage.
Not this year and not for Thiebault Huber.
THIEBAULT HUBER, MEURSAULT WINEMAKER: The impact is huge.
BITTERMANN: Like so many other wine producers here, Hubert expects that only 30 percent of his vines will produce grape bunches this year, after a warm in March brought out the tiny buds but subfreezing temperatures killed many of them off right after Easter.
HUBER: On the plants like these, we could have 10, between eight and 12 little bunches. We will probably have only two or three bunches per vine. The buds just break, just open a little bit and then we have this kind of frost, a little bit of snow. And so actually, it's the disaster.
BITTERMANN: There is no doubt in Huber's mind that the early flowering, following days of freezing temperatures are the result of climate change.
HUBER: We have more period, like, frost like this. We have a huge period with very high temperature and there is a lot of dry periods.
BITTERMANN: In the high value vineyards around here, the nights have been lit up with fires, as the vintners tried everything they could think of to overcome the freeze -- smoke pots, to even helicopters -- to increase the flow of air around the vines.
About the only thing that works somewhat, seemed counterintuitive. If the vines were sprayed with water early enough, before the buds flowered, they became encapsulated in ice, which ironically, can protect them later.
Nonetheless, the losses are expected to be huge, in the billions of euros. The French agricultural minister called it the greatest agricultural catastrophe in the 21st century.
What's made this situation so catastrophic for France is that this climate accident, as some people are calling it, has affected not just the vineyards of Burgundy but grape-growing areas right across the country.
What's more, it's also had a devastating effect on fruit production.
Not far away from Huber's vineyards, Alain Duruz looks over his cherry trees in dismay. He estimates the warm spell, followed by the freeze, took out 98 percent of his harvest this year.
ALAIN DURUZ, MEURSAULT FRUIT PRODUCER (through translator): Are you counting?
There are just two trees in all the orchard that escaped.
BITTERMANN: And when Duruz gives his nearby plum trees a shake, it's the same story. The dead blossoms, which were meant to be fruit, fall like snow.
The government has promised more than a billion euros in aid to the fruit and wine producers but like Duruz and Huber, many here are skeptical that it will be enough when losses have been estimated as high as 3.5 billion euros.
What's more, there could be more losses to come.
Back in the Burgundy vineyards, Huber knows there could be freezing temperatures right up until mid-May.
BITTERMANN: What happens if you get another freeze?
HUBER: We don't want to hear this but we know that we could have frost until middle of May, unfortunately.
BITTERMANN: Jim Bittermann, CNN, Meursault, France.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: So from the vineyards of France to the South Pole, the climate crisis is being felt around the world. A study released this month warns a third of the Antarctic's ice shelf could collapse into the sea if global temperatures rise by 4 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels.
[00:45:00]
CURNOW: Now the research was led by the University of Reading in the U.K. Climate scientist Dr. Ella Gilbert was one of the authors and she says the impact of collapsing ice shelves could be catastrophic.
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DR. ELLA GILBERT, UNIVERSITY OF READING: Ice shelves are important because they hold back glaciers that transport ice from the Antarctic continent toward the ocean. When they collapse, it's like pulling the plug in the sink, allowing those glaciers to float, unrestricted, into the ocean, where they contribute to sea level rise.
Crucially, it is important to know to what we can do. And at 2 degrees, the area of ice shelves that are susceptible to collapse is half that at 4 degrees. So it really underlines the importance of limiting warming as much as possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CURNOW: The prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines tells CNN he fears that the worst could still be to come, as volcanic eruptions blanket St. Vincent in ash. There are reports of COVID cases spiking in refuse shelters and hurricane season approaching, as Patrick Oppmann reports.
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PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For over two weeks, the La Soufriere volcano on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent has exploded and laid waste to small communities. The usually lush and verdant area has been transformed into a disaster zone, the prime minister tells me.
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RALPH GONSALVES, PRIME MINISTER, ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES: More but not east and not west. It's like a desert that is desolate. It's apocalyptic. The whole place is covered in ash.
OPPMANN: You don't recognize it.
GONSALVES: No, you wouldn't recognize it and you would be amazed to see the number of (INAUDIBLE) which have also come down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OPPMANN (voice-over): It's 42 years since the last eruption. The volcano is making up for lost time, destroying nearby homes and blanking others with ash. The eruptions are visible from space. Ash and debris have landed in neighboring islands. The volcanic activity could go on for months. The aid is appreciated but it's not enough.
GONSALVES: We are not able to do the humanitarian effort and not able to do the recovery without substantial assistance from the region and the global community. I mean, we are really at the midnight hour of need. And we need that help.
OPPMANN (voice-over): In 1902, the volcano erupted and killed an estimated 1,600 people. This time, early evacuations paid off and there have been no reported deaths but the eruptions inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars in damage on homes, infrastructure and farmlands, according to government estimates.
With the Atlantic hurricane season beginning June 1st, the worst may be yet to come.
GONSALVES: There's a lot of materials covered in ash and the rest are muddy. When you have the rains, the rains lubricate and add to the weight and you have mudslides coming down very fast pace.
OPPMANN: Thousands are in tents or shelters or staying with friends and family and increasing the risk for coronavirus.
OPPMANN (voice-over): The volcano continues to erupt without a clear end in sight. Residents say they will recover and will rebuild. They also know that this may be just the beginning -- Patrick Oppmann, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: Coming up on CNN, the film industry is preparing for its favorite night of the year, the glitzy Academy Awards. and while the excitement builds, one front-runner for an Oscar is sparking major controversy in China. That's next.
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[00:50:00]
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CURNOW: Hollywood's biggest night of the year is 19 hours away and the producers of this year's Academy Awards say it will be a cinematic experience unlike anything in Oscars history. But as Stephanie Elam reports, that may not be enough to attract the big audience the industry craves.
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STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From struggle --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am a revolutionary.
ELAM (voice-over): To desperation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need work, I like work.
ELAM (voice-over): The times are felt in this year's Oscar nominees.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you concerned about an overreaction from the cops?
ELAM (voice-over): But so is the silence, including from viewers whose lack of interest made most award shows this year a bomb.
MATTHEW BELLONI, FORMER EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: If the ratings continue to decline, you're going to see some changes. I think some awards shows might go away.
ELAM (voice-over): The Oscars want to reverse the trend. Gone is the internet remote access feel that hindered shows like the Golden Globes.
BELLONI: It ended up being like a bad version of an office meeting and the Oscars don't want that.
ELAM (voice-over): Enter Steven Soderbergh and Stacy Sher, the team ironically behind the film "Contagion." The pandemic will be a big theme, they say, but Soderbergh wants a show unlike any others.
BELLONI: And he has said that he wants the Oscars to feel like a movie. There're going to have shots from behind shoulders of people, moving cameras.
ELAM: To pull it off, the show is moving to a smaller venue, here to L.A.'s iconic Union Station, itself a star in Hollywood films, like "Catch Me If You Can" and "The Dark Knight Rises."
ELAM (voice-over): And with vaccines out and fewer restrictions the biggest challenge may not be the pandemic but the movies themselves. Absent of any theatrical hits like year's past, this year the best films come mostly from streaming platforms.
BELLONI: It's very different than choosing to go to a movie theater, buy your popcorn, sit in the theater and watch a movie. People just become attached to those movies in a way that they don't when they are on streaming.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please, call me Mank.
ELAM (voice-over): "Mank" leads with 10 nominations. But "Nomadland" is the front-runner for best picture.
CHADWICK BOSEMAN, ACTOR: Yes. I know what I'm doing.
ELAM (voice-over): Chadwick Boseman is expected to win a posthumous award for Best Actor, but the biggest thing may just be on the Oscar themselves.
BELLONI: Will they be able to get that audience back, when there are movies in theatres or is this just accelerating a trend that already existed and those audience members are not coming back?
ELAM (voice-over): In Hollywood, I'm Stephanie Elam.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: As Stephanie reported there, "Nomadland" is considered a front-runner but facing major backlash in China, the world's biggest film market. David Culver explains why.
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DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A few months back, you may not have known the name Chloe Zhao. But now, the Chinese movie director is gaining worldwide fame and her film, "Nomadland," is ranking in the most prestigious film awards.
CHLOE ZHAO, FILM DIRECTOR: I love what I do. I want to tell stories for a living. I don't want to do anything else.
CULVER (voice-over): Earlier this year, she made history, becoming the first Asian woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Director. Then, she was named Best Director at the British Academy Film Awards. There is growing expectations that she will take home another couple of statues this weekend.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's continue with the nominations. Chloe Zhao, "Nomadland."
CULVER (voice-over): If she wins the Academy Award, she will make history once again, becoming the first Asian woman winning Best Director at the Oscars.
Her moving "Nomadland" is a poetic portrayal of the life of America's marginalized nomadic community in the Wild West. But her journey began in the Far East. CULVER: It's here where she was born and raised. She lived here until
she was in her early teens, before moving on to boarding school in London and then ultimately, to the U.S. There, she pursued her dream in filmmaking.
CULVER (voice-over): But in China, it is her stepmother who is a bigger celebrity, Song Dandan is a famous comedy actress. On the night Zhao won the Golden Globe, Song proudly shared the news on Chinese social media.
"You are a legend in our family," she wrote, adding, "I believe your story will inspire countless Chinese kids."
Song's 21 billion followers rapidly spread the news. State media was quick to call Zhao the pride of China and "Nomadland" was slated to be released in Chinese theaters on April 23rd.
But the hype and praise was quickly overshadowed by a nationalistic backlash, comments Zhao reportedly made during a 2013 interview with filmmaker Magazine Surface, and sparked controversy. She was quoted saying that, China is "a place where there are lies everywhere."
[00:55:00]
CULVER (voice-over): In another interview with an Australian website in December, she was misquoted as saying, "America is now my country."
The site later corrected her quote to say, "America is not her country."
But the damage was done. Chinese nationalists piled on, accusing her of insulting China. One saying, "She is anti China and anti the Communist Party," another calling for China to boycott "Nomadland."
Back on the streets of Beijing, folks are a bit more accepting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I don't think the director's film should be tied to what she says or does. I want to watch her work. But she should probably be careful of what she says.
CULVER (voice-over): Others, happy to see a Chinese movie director become so successful.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We should find time to go and watch the movie.
CULVER (voice-over): But it is now unlikely they will be able to watch the film in a Chinese movie theater. The online controversy has led it to be pulled from cinemas across China. Neither Zhao nor Searchlight Pictures have commented.
MICHAEL BERRY, UCLA CENTER FOR CHINESE STUDIES: There certainly has been a real wellspring of this new, highly nationalistic and patriotic sentiment that has come up. This is really one of the unfortunate aftereffects of this kind of troll culture. And it also shows us that it's not just regulated (sic) to Weibo or to other Chinese social media platforms.
But it really does have real world impact when those in power actually pick up on the same discourse and start to endorse it.
CULVER (voice-over): In a matter of days, Zhao went from beloved to having her film banned in what is now the world's biggest movie market. But as the online criticism stack up in China, the accolades continue to roll in from the rest of the world -- David Culver, CNN, Shanghai.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CURNOW: It has been a monumental week for space exploration.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is the first to ingress onto the International Space Station.
CURNOW (voice-over): The crew in a SpaceX capsule arrived to hugs and smiles, as you can see here on Saturday at the International Space Station. For the next six months, they will work on research that NASA hopes will help in the development of drugs and vaccines.
They now have 11 astronauts and cosmonauts, the largest crew the orbiting station has ever hosted.
Also, this week, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, successfully flew a second time on Mars, going higher and further than it did before. And the Perseverance rover on Mars converted carbon dioxide into oxygen, enough to sustain the national for about 10 minutes. This technology is key if humans ever want to set foot on the Red Planet.
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CURNOW: On that note, thank you for watching, I am Robyn Curnow, "QUEST'S WORLD OF WONDER" starts after the break.
