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Powerful Storm Hits Central U.S.; South African Scientist Says "No Red Flags" Yet on Omicron Severity; South Africa Divided over Vaccine Mandates; Majority Polled Say Boris Johnson Should Resign over Party Scandal; Threat of Russian Invasion to Dominate G7; Unvaccinated Staff Adds to High Toll in U.S. Nursing Homes; Michael Nesmith of The Monkees Dies at 78. Aired 2-2:45a ET
Aired December 11, 2021 - 02:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello everyone. I am Michael Holmes.
Millions in the path of a dangerous storm system, leading to more than a dozen reported tornadoes.
Vaccines versus Omicron: a new study warns two doses of the COVID shot are insufficient against the latest fast-moving variant.
And that bromance between Trump and Netanyahu appears to be over after the former U.S. president curses out the ex-Israeli leader.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Michael Holmes.
HOLMES: Welcome, everyone.
A dangerous night across the U.S., millions at risk from a powerful storm system with more than 20 tornadoes reported across five different states.
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HOLMES (voice-over): In the darkness, a tornado, the darkness making it even more dangerous. In Arkansas, one person was killed and 20 trapped in a nursing home hit by the storm.
In Illinois, emergency crews are responding to damage at an Amazon warehouse.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We lost power for about two hours and then my phone died. I have no idea what's going on. We just want to know if he is OK.
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HOLMES: Officials in Kentucky say they are expecting the storm to cause loss of life. The governor has just declared a state of emergency there. More than 150,000 customers in six states are without power.
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HOLMES: Now Arkansas emergency management spokesperson LaTresha Woodruff joins me now.
I know it has been a frantic night.
What more do we know about the nursing home situation, which must have been utterly terrifying?
LATRESHA WOODRUFF, ARKANSAS EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SPOKESPERSON: You are right. It has been a very, very busy severe weather outbreak here in the state of Arkansas.
That nursing home, as they stated near the Jonesboro, Arkansas, area, it was reported there the nursing home was damaged during the tornado. It is in Monett. There were multiple injuries. We have learned that at least one person has passed away. And then, there were multiple injuries.
We have first responders on the ground there trying to clean up the situation and making sure that everyone there is safe.
We have had three declarations of state of emergency here in Arkansas, in Mississippi, Craighead and Poinsett Counties. Trumann, Arkansas, is in Poinsett County. There was a nursing home there that had damage.
There was an EMS center and a fire department in Trumann that received damage as well. We are continuing throughout the night to monitor the situation. Our state emergency operations center, with the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management is active at this point.
We have people in the emergency operations center, monitoring the situation. And we will continue to do that throughout the night.
HOLMES: We are looking at images of the video of the scene at the nursing home, utter devastation.
What else are you facing in terms of damage or casualties or challenges elsewhere around the state?
WOODRUFF: You are right. Elsewhere around the state we had some damages. In Truman, Arkansas, as I mentioned earlier, they were impacted by this storm as well. At one point they had the Highway 55 closed down due to overturned vehicles. At this point we've had only one fatality but numerous injuries. We
are just trying to assess the situation so that we can get the necessary personnel there and whatever they need to help clean up this situation.
HOLMES: Yes, and, of course, we are going around the world. In the United States, it is the middle of the night and it won't be until daylight that you will be able to assess the damage.
LaTresha Woodruff, we will leave it there. I really appreciate your time. I know you are busy. Thank you so much.
WOODRUFF: No problem. Thank you.
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HOLMES: New studies are shedding light on the impact of the Omicron variant. The U.K. Health Security Agency says vaccines are significantly less effective against the new strain. But it says protection can be restored with a booster shot.
While the study is yet to be peer reviewed, it found a third dose of Pfizer vaccine increased protection to 70 percent. Officials are urging the public to roll up their sleeves as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly across the country.
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DR. SUSAN HOPKINS, CHIEF MEDICAL ADVISER, U.K. HEALTH SECURITY AGENCY: Now after two doses of vaccines, particularly more than three months after your second dose, there is a much reduced vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic mild infection in the community.
What that means is that people who've had two doses more than three months ago are likely to get infection and transmit infection.
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HOLMES: New evidence is emerging from South Africa, where one epidemiologist said there are no red flags yet about Omicron's severity and on the whole, cases have been milder. However, he says new data suggests the variant does spread more easily.
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SALIM ABDOOL KARIM, SOUTH AFRICAN COVID-19 ADVISORY COMMITTEE: We are now seeing clearer evidence -- we have about two weeks of data now -- that show that its doubling time faster than what we saw with the Delta variant or the Beta variant. So there is stronger evidence that it's highly transmissible. It's not definite but it's certainly a strong indication.
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HOLMES: Now let's go now to Eleni Giokos in Athens.
Let's talk about Europe, infections are rising significantly in France and Germany.
What is the latest in Europe in terms of infections and mandates and so on?
ELENI GIOKOS, CNNMONEY CORRESPONDENT: It is fascinating to hear that the doubling rate is a lot faster than we have seen from the previous variants that have emerged.
The U.K. health secretary has said by the end of the month they are anticipating that Omicron cases would have reached 1 million. We know the Omicron variant is found in various places across Europe. Now we are seeing cases, rising because people traveled into Europe but now infections are happening there in a very different way.
The U.K. has reintroduced masks in certain areas, started to put restrictions and measures in place.
In Germany, a different scenario is playing out. Delta is still dominant now. Germany had recorded the highest death rate seen since February of this year. So you are starting to see a very different issues in Germany. And also they are putting restrictions on the unvaccinated.
In Denmark the highest recorded positive cases coming through this week and also looking at lockdowns and various restrictions as one method, again, of putting a cap on the spread.
In France, Michael, the list goes on, record positive cases; hospitalizations on the rise; ICU issues coming through as well. But France is still not thinking about lockdown measures or restrictions. But they are talking about mandates. That is the conversation across Europe: how to mandate vaccines.
In Greece for example, they are mandating vaccines for over 60s by mid-January and they will get a fine for every month they are not vaccinated of 100 euros. So there is a clampdown and concern about the Omicron variant spreading very fast.
But as we also know from clinical data, perhaps it does not cause severe illness specifically among the vaccinated and that is encouraging data right now.
HOLMES: Yes. It is. Eleni Giokos, thanks so much.
Let's go now to Larry Madowo, who is in Johannesburg for us.
Despite cases doubling in a day, the vaccine hesitancy, which has been such a big problem, continues.
Why?
And what is the government doing about it? LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Michael, it is a mixture of issues, cultural, religious and some just because people have been consuming a lot of misinformation and conspiracy theories on social media, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter.
The government now is considering a vaccine mandate. You cannot go to work or a sporting event or any public establishment unless you are vaccinated. Some private companies have gone ahead to do so. And in January, many of the biggest companies will require staff to be fully vaccinated. This story begins in Johannesburg.
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MADOWO (voice-over): A procession of hearses drives through Soweto. No, it's not a funeral. They're just trying to scare people into getting vaccinated. Even death will not convince some South Africans to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think the government is trying to control us by using this vaccine.
MADOWO (voice-over): The South African government says it has enough vaccines. But vaccine hesitancy that has been bubbling under the surface has spilled into the open.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Young people, we won't take it, unless we have more information.
MADOWO (voice-over): As South Africa enters its fourth wave of the pandemic. The country is considering making vaccines mandatory.
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MADOWO (voice-over): More than 90,000 deaths and the fear of another hard lockdown has won some people over.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't be stuck like that. We are like locked in a cage. We can't do anything. Can't be living like this, man.
Why not?
Why not?
We're isolated today because you don't want to vaccinate.
MADOWO (voice-over): South Africa plans to fully vaccinate at least 70 percent of the adult population by the end of the year. But the current rate is only about 38 percent and time is running out.
MADOWO: There's spirited public debate in South Africa about getting vaccine mandates and vaccine passports and those have been some of the loud in the public sphere.
But whether they like them or not, they're popping up across the nation. MADOWO (voice-over): Some of South Africa's largest companies have
announced vaccine mandates for their staff: get vaccinated, face testing or risk getting fired. Influential members of the business, trade union and civil society community support restrictions on the unvaccinated.
LISA SEITEL, NATIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND LABOUR COUNCIL: There is now a much stronger call to strengthen our existing provisions in legislation and regulation for it to be mandatory in workplaces.
Entry into big events, like soccer matches, cultural events and so on, only vaccinated people should have entrance into that.
MADOWO (voice-over): The University of the Witwatersrand or Wits is among the growing list of institutions that will require students and staff to be fully vaccinated so it can restart some in-person classes in the first part of 2022 after nearly two years online.
PROF. ZEBLON VILAKAZI, UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND: Universities by themselves are going to get after young people and they're the potential superspreader. But there is broad support by the community that it was bold and took decisive leadership action in helping the country get to the next side of COVID.
MADOWO (voice-over): But student leaders oppose the school's vaccine mandate.
CEBOLENKOSI KHUMALO, WITS STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE COUNCIL PRESIDENT: Our responsibilities as leaders of society is to make sure our students, our people, are well informed in terms of rights. In fact, they have the right to choose to say can they be vaccinated or not.
MADOWO (voice-over): A recent study found support for COVID-19 mandates.
PROF. CARIN RUNCIMAN, UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG CENTRE FOR SOCIAL CHANGE: What we found is half of the public support for vaccine mandates at workplaces and the introduction of vaccine passports, so vaccine passports to enter public spaces.
MADOWO (voice-over): So far from herd immunity, South Africa's vaccination rate is among the highest in Africa. The government and the private sector think they can do even better.
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MADOWO: The White House recently said South Africa had turned down more vaccines until it used up what it has. But here, you hear people talk about rights and liberties. Legal experts here say that this does past legal muster. So the argument it is against the South African constitution or the bill of rights is dishonest.
Then we have a dark history of apartheid in this country. People say I don't want the government or my employer telling me what to do. This is about my liberties being infringed upon -- Michael.
HOLMES: Quite a battle. Thanks, Larry.
Still to come here on the program, a British court gives the green light to Julian Assange's extradition to the U.S. But he's not done fighting back.
Also more fallout from the U.K. Christmas party scandal, hitting Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party in the polls.
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HOLMES: Authorities in southern Lebanon are investigating an explosion at a Palestinian refugee camp.
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HOLMES (voice-over): This happened on Friday in Tyre. Local media and sources on the ground report nobody killed and no serious injuries. The details surrounding the blast are still unclear.
The explosion happened when oxygen cylinders, stored to treat COVID-19 patients, ignited. Lebanese state media reported it took place at a Hamas warehouse, filled with ammunition.
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HOLMES: Boris Johnson is taking a hit in the polls after reports his staff held multiple parties when London was in lockdown; 54 percent says Johnson should resign. One official already has.
Downing Street continues to insist there was no party and coronavirus rules were followed. CNN's Nada Bashir joins me now from London.
The scandal costing the prime minister dearly in the popularity polls.
NADA BASHIR, CNN PRODUCER: Absolutely. In addition for the calls for the prime minister to resign, there is a serious knock on public confidence in both Boris Johnson and his party.
Recent polling data showing that 71 percent of people in Britain believe that the Christmas party did take place in Downing Street, despite the prime minister's denial of the allegations.
But there has been a serious concern growing over the allegations and over what the prime minister is telling us, in terms of whether or not he is telling the truth. We have just seen heard from ITV, a CNN affiliate, revealing that actually the prime minister's press chief, Jack Doyle, was alleged to have given a speech at the party at Downing Street and handing out mock awards.
This comes after the video revealed of the prime minister's former press chief making light of the party alleged to have taken place in Downing Street. There are serious concerns, many calling for the prime minister to resign.
After the allegations revealed by ITV, there are serious questions as to whether or not the prime minister is telling the truth. He continues to deny these allegations. There have been calls even for a legal investigation, for the Metropolitan Police to launch an investigation.
These calls coming from the London mayor Sadiq Khan, although the Metropolitan Police have said at this state there is not enough evidence to suggest that the party did actually take place.
But as the prime minister brings in new COVID regulations to stem the spread of the Omicron variant, there are concerns, if he can't convince his own lawmakers not to break the social distancing rules, he will struggle to convince the members of the public to adhere to these rules.
There will be a serious sense of frustration. The previous lockdowns, the police took a stringent approach to shutting down social gatherings, handing out penalties and fines.
And there were serious calls from justice groups and human rights organizations, saying the fines were disproportionately impacting members of the Black and ethnic communities across the U.K.
So there are calls for the prime minister to really take action now and bring light to the truth here, Michael.
HOLMES: Yes. Not over yet. Nada, thanks.
The looming threat of a Russian invasion in Ukraine is expected to dominate the G7 foreign ministers' meeting this weekend in Liverpool, England. On Friday, Russia's foreign ministry issued an ultimatum to the Western alliance, demanding that NATO rescind their 2008 commitment of membership to Ukraine and Georgia.
NATO immediately rejecting that.
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JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: Any sovereign independent nation of course has the right to choose its own path, including what kind of security arrangements it wants to be part of. So NATO's relationship with Ukraine will be decided by the 30 NATO allies and Ukraine, no one else.
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HOLMES: The G7 meeting followed President Biden's video call this week with the Russian leader. Mr. Biden warning Putin of severe economic repercussions if Ukraine is indeed invaded. And WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is one step closer to being
extradited to the U.S. A British appeals court overturning an earlier decision that blocked his handover to Washington. But the court fight, though, is not over yet, as Nina dos Santos reports. Assange's supporters are pushing back against the ruling.
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NINA DOS SANTOS, CNNMONEY EUROPE EDITOR (voice-over): Julian Assange's supporters were in a defiant mood outside the U.K.'s high court where two senior judges ruled the WikiLeaks founder can be extradited to the United States.
STELLA MORIS, JULIAN ASSANGE'S FIANCEE: They are imprisoning Julian on behalf of a foreign power, which is taking an abusive, vindictive prosecution against a journalist and this is what it is about.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): He's facing 18 charges, most from the Espionage Act, related to his role in the dissemination of classified U.S. military documents more than a decade ago. If convicted, he could be handed a sentence of up to 175 years.
JULIAN ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS FOUNDER: It is a disgrace and a threat to journalists.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Central to the case: whether Assange is a journalist or more of a hacker. The U.S. initially charged him in 2019 with helping his source, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning, to crack into government computers.
Since then, he has been held in a maximum security prison in London.
Before that, he sought diplomatic asylum in Ecuador's tiny embassy in the capital since 2012, avoiding questioning and extradition by Swedish authorities for sexual misconduct allegations there, ones that were eventually dropped but that he claims were politically motivated.
He even made his way into the Trump story.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: The Hillary Clinton documents released today by WikiLeaks.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): For his fiance, the mother of two of his children, an extradition would set a chilling precedent for freedom of speech and she's vowed to appeal.
MORIS: Julian represents the fundamentals of what it means to live in a free society, of what it means to have press freedom and what it means for journalists to do their jobs without being afraid of spending the rest of their lives in prison.
DOS SANTOS: In currency their decision, judges here cited U.S. assurances that Assange's mental health would be protected in America and an offer for him to serve out a portion of any sentence in his native Australia. In doing this, they reversed an earlier decision made by a lower court to block the extradition on the grounds that Assange may be at a greater risk of suicide if held in U.S. custody.
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): What happens now?
The case will go back to the courts for more legal wrangling. After that, Britain's home secretary will have the final say. All this means while Assange's case will continue to divide opinion and question the international boundaries of free speech, his many years of confinement will continue for now -- Nina dos Santos, CNN, London.
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HOLMES: Voters in New Caledonia will decide this weekend if they want to break away from France. France's decision to hold the referendum is sparking anger among pro-independence parties who oppose holding the vote amid the pandemic.
Thousands of police have been sent to the South Pacific territory to maintain order. The pro-independence campaign has failed to win a simple majority in two previous polls.
U.S. nursing homes have been hit hard by the pandemic. Now a study shows unvaccinated workers of those homes contribute to the outbreaks affecting the most vulnerable residents. That is coming up.
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HOLMES: You're watching CNN. I'm Michael Holmes.
A new study in the U.S. suggests unvaccinated employees are adding to the high death toll from COVID-19 in nursing homes. About 80 percent of workers there are vaccinated.
But the study in "The New England Journal of Medicine" estimates, if all nursing homes had staff vaccinated at the national average, thousands of COVID cases could have been prevented as well as more than 700 deaths among elderly residents.
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Michael Barnett is an assistant professor at Harvard School of Public Health and joins me now from Newton, Massachusetts.
The numbers in the research are sobering. Give people a sense of the life and death impact of unvaccinated workers in nursing homes on the residents that lived there.
DR. MICHAEL BARNETT, HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Yes. It was sobering, a great word to describe it. We were really surprised by how huge of a difference that we saw. We compared nursing homes with 80 percent vaccinated versus 30 percent. We found in homes with the lowest vaccination rate, there were three times as many resident deaths in those compared to those with the highest coverage.
HOLMES: You actually tweeted and did a great tweet thread on this.
One of them is, "Over one eight-week period, if all nursing homes were magically raised to the highest staff vaccination levels nationally, we would have had 703 fewer resident deaths."
How many more lives could be saved if all nursing home staff were fully vaccinated?
BARNETT: I don't have an exact answer. But we know that those 703 fewer resident deaths was half of all the nursing home deaths in that period. That was just if we hypothetically raised all nursing homes to the 80 percent staff vaccination level.
If we take every nursing home and raise it up to 100 percent, it is plausible we could have saved over 1,000 resident deaths during that period, the vast majority of the deaths that occurred entirely.
HOLMES: That is incredible. It is undeniable, that the vast, vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths are among the unvaccinated.
Did you get any sense of why health professionals would be so reluctant to be vaccinated, given the facts?
BARNETT: It's a really tough question. I see this every day as a primary care doctor. I run into patients every single day who are hesitant to get vaccinated. I don't think health care workers are immune to the same trends affecting the country at large.
There are two major groups I think of. On the one hand, vaccination is a deeply political topic. We are more polarized than ever before. Then many others have heard of side effects. They are not sure if COVID is that serious or haven't gotten to it yet because they are busy.
And both of those can happen.
HOLMES: Of course, the Biden administration put out a mandate for health care workers to be vaccinated. That's been put on hold by the courts.
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HOLMES: But why on Earth would employers allow unvaccinated workers to work among the high-risk community?
It's confounding and literally deadly.
BARNETT: I agree, and it is hard to imagine. However, the nursing home industry has been plagued by horrible staff turnover for years. Going into the pandemic, it was actually almost certainly the highest stress that any nursing home director across the industry would have faced, finding good staff who would want to stay at a job that does not pay that well.
And you know, unfortunately, it's not very well rewarded. So, a lot of nursing home directors are worried, if they mandate a vaccine, actually they could even further overstretch their workforce and be in an even tougher situation providing care to their residents.
HOLMES: Yes.
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BARNETT: It is a very, very hard situation.
HOLMES: That says a lot about the industry.
We are out of time.
Have you found elsewhere any evidence of racial disparity in terms of this issue?
BARNETT: Yes, like everywhere, especially in the pandemic, there are racial disparities that came out in nursing homes. We found those with a higher proportion of minority residents or staff have lower vaccination rates and higher mortality. That was actually going into the pandemic before vaccination.
So we really have a double whammy for nursing homes that serve minorities.
HOLMES: It is valuable research. And I urge people to have a read of it because this is a massive deal, people dying in nursing homes who literally did not have to. Michael Barnett, Professor, appreciate it. Thank you so much.
BARNETT: Thank you so much for having me.
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HOLMES: Coming up on the program, friends no more: former president Trump calls out the former Israeli prime minister. How and why their relationship has turned south.
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BARAK RAVID, ISRAELI JOURNALIST: Until today, everybody thought they were best friends, no daylight between them. And from now on, it's clear that this was bullshit.
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(MUSIC PLAYING) HOLMES: Sad news for those of us of a certain age. Grammy award winning musician Michael Nesmith of The Monkees has passed away of heart failure at his home in California on Friday.
He was a successful songwriter before he shot to stardom in the 1960s hit TV show, "The Monkees," a campy sitcom about a quartet struggling to get noticed.
When the show's producers rejected his song, "Different Drum," it became Linda Ronstadt's breakthrough single. Nesmith and The Monkees soon evolved into a real band, with hits that turned them into pop idols for a time.
Nesmith and surviving band mate, Mickey Dolenz, performed together as The Monkees as recently as last month. Michael Nesmith was 78.
Very sad.
Well, there appears to be a falling out between former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former president Donald Trump. Interviews published by Axios on Friday reveal Trump felt betrayed when Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on winning the U.S. presidential election.
Trump said, "It was early, OK. Let's put it this way. He greeted him very early, earlier than most world leaders. I've not spoken to him since. Fuck him."
The interview was conducted by the Israeli journalist Barak Ravid in April for a new book. He appeared on CNN to talk about what those comments revealed.
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BARAK RAVID, ISRAELI JOURNALIST: As you were surprised in the U.S., just imagine what people here in Israel thought because, until today, everybody thought they were best friends, no daylight between them. And from now on, it's clear that this was bullshit.
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HOLMES: Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party has released a statement, saying "Former prime minister Netanyahu greatly appreciates president Trump's great contribution to the state of Israel and its security.
"He also greatly appreciated the importance of the strong alliance between Israel and the United States and, therefore, it was important for him to congratulate the incoming president."
If you have not received your holiday greeting from the House of Windsor, we have a preview. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge released this Christmas card of the family when they vacationed in Jordan. The palace said they were delighted to share this year's photo with the world.
Meanwhile, Prince Charles and Camilla made a point of wearing their masks in the photo they chose. It's from earlier this year at the Royal Ascot horse racing event.
Thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I am Michael Holmes. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram. See you in about 15 minutes.
