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U.K. Breaks Daily Case Record for a Third Day; Omicron Poses Global Health Threat during Holiday Season; Fighting Politicized Vaccine Hesitancy; Moscow Offers to End Ukraine Crisis; U.N. Human Rights Council to Investigate Alleged Abuses in Ethiopia. Aired 3- 3:30a ET
Aired December 18, 2021 - 03:00 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 and welcome to CNN NEWSROOM, everyone. Coming up here on the program, Omicron spreading fast as scientists race to understand more and all of this as the world braces for a winter wave of infections.
And a clear message from health experts: get vaccinated, get boosted. We hear from one expert in just a bit.
Plus, Russia wants what Russia cannot have, at least according to NATO. A live report from Moscow on Russia's demands regarding Ukraine.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Michael Holmes.
HOLMES: A new study out of the U.K. indicates the Omicron variant may not be as mild as many once thought. Researchers at Imperial College London found no evidence the Omicron variant is any less severe than the Delta variant and found the risk of getting infected again was more than five times greater with Omicron than with Delta.
Data shows Omicron is spreading faster in the U.K. than in South Africa, with infections doubling in under 2.5 days. The U.K. reported over 93,000 on Friday, the third record-breaking day in a row.
And the Irish government is trying to stem its own Omicron surge; in addition to other measures, restaurants and bars will have to shut their doors at 8:00 pm starting on Sunday. For more on all of this, I am joined by Al Goodman in Madrid and Scott McLean in London.
Let's start with you, Scott.
The current restrictions, are they even working?
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's the million-dollar question here, Michael. There's some pretty eye-watering predictions as how bad it will be if the variant is left unchecked. And right now, we are talking about COVID passports for large events,
large gatherings and also for night clubs and also the return of an indoor mask mandate. I, for one, noticed, on the London Underground, plenty more people wearing masks.
The Scottish government is asking people to minimize social contacts. And the Welsh are shutting down night clubs altogether.
The good news is, alongside the record-high case counts that we have seen for the last three days, we have been breaking records when it comes to single-day vaccinations. Almost a million people vaccinated on Thursday alone -- and that's a record high in the U.K.
More than 1 percent of the population getting the shot every single day as of late and that's now added up to about half of the adult population -- Michael.
HOLMES: You went even inside a high containment lab in Scotland, working on Omicron. Tell us what you found there.
MCLEAN: This is one of the few labs in the U.K. working with the live virus and they are trying to find how the virus responds to antibodies from the vaccine, why it spreads quicker and how severe a disease it might actually cause.
There was a potentially promising signal that I saw while I was there, though scientists say it's far too soon to draw any firm conclusions. Watch.
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MCLEAN (voice-over): With the Omicron variant surging across the U.K., scientists at the University of Glasgow are racing to confirm in the lab what real-world data is already suggesting.
MASSIMO PALMARINI, DIRECTOR, CENTRE FOR VIRUS RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW: Omicron is able to escape far better immune induced by the vaccination than any other variant.
MCLEAN (voice-over): It also appears to spread much more easily but some indications say it causes less severe symptoms.
TONI HO, CLINICIAN, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW: We will possibly have a million people a day infected in the U.K. Even if it is a tiny proportion of that large number, that will result in quite a few hospitalizations.
MCLEAN: Because the lab we are about to enter contains live samples of the Omicron variant, we have to be decked out head to toe and sealed off with this respirator from any potential danger.
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MCLEAN (voice-over): When the virus sample arrived here, it came in a very small vial. It has been left to grow and multiply in this incubator since then. Now they have enough to experiment with. Omicron doesn't multiple as quickly as Delta. Under the microscope the
dark spots are cells Delta infected in 24 hours. But after 48 hours, the Omicron variant hasn't spread as far, a potential encouraging sign.
AGNIESZKA SZEMIEL, VIROLOGIST, UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW: It is slower in the lab and it does not seem to be killing the cells as the other variants. But this is all in the lab. So question is, now how does it translate into the actual patient?
MCLEAN: And sometimes things behave differently in a lab than they would in real life?
SZEMIEL: Yes.
MCLEAN (voice-over): In the real world, new infections of Omicron are doubling in as little as two days in some parts of the U.K.
BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: There is a tidal wave of Omicron coming.
MCLEAN (voice-over): The government thinks every infected person infects 3-5 others. One not yet peer reviewed model suggests, in the worst case scenario, more than half of the English population could be infected with the Omicron variant over the winter months.
JENNY HARRIES, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, U.K. HEALTH SECURITY AGENCY: It is probably the most significant threat we've had since the start of the pandemic.
MCLEAN (voice-over): In response, prime minister Boris Johnson is resorting to plan B, reviving the indoor mask mandate and introducing a COVID passport for night clubs and large events.
But a vote this week to confirm the measure provoked a mutiny from within Johnson's own Conservative Party, passing only thanks to votes from the oppositions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So The ayes have it, the ayes have it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are segregating society based on an unacceptable thing. We are not a "papers, please" society.
MCLEAN (voice-over): But they are in mainland Europe. COVID passports are making life difficult for the unjabbed in places like Italy, France, Germany and Austria. They're now required for restaurants, public transit, going to work or even leaving your house.
Austria is making adult vaccinations mandatory. The new German chancellor is pushing for the same.
But when Johnson suggested even a conversation about that in the future, it was publicly shot down by his own health secretary.
SAJID JAVID, BRITISH HEALTH SECRETARY: Although we've seen plans for university mandatory vaccination in some countries in Europe, I will never support them in this country.
MCLEAN (voice-over): Instead, the government is reverting to a familiar approach: personal responsibility.
DR. CHRISTOPHER WHITTY, BRITISH CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER: I think people should prioritize what really matters to them and cut down on the things that don't.
MCLEAN (voice-over): But with another record high of new infections on Friday and the threat of rising hospitalizations, Johnson may soon need to convince a weary public to go along with even more restrictions, unless some good news is discovered inside labs like this one.
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MCLEAN: And Omicron is so severe in the U.K. right now that, overnight, the French border officially closed to British tourists and business travelers, even the vaccinated ones.
HOLMES: Scott McLean in London, thank you for that.
Let's go to Al Goodman in Madrid, Spain, on how more countries in Europe are surging to these cases.
Frightening case numbers right across the continent, Al.
AL GOODMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Michael. As the Omicron variant is spreading across Europe, just in the recent days, France and Germany have been notching up about 50,000 new coronavirus cases per day.
And here in Spain, about 17,000 cases per day. And France has instituted restrictions on British tourists come into France because Britain has its own Omicron problem. There are some exceptions but they will need a compelling reason to come into France. And with that they will need a negative test within 24 hours of their departure.
In Germany, the government is looking at measures to target the unvaccinated. That has caused protests in some parts of the country. There was a protest midweek, where police arrested 30 people in Munich.
Here in Spain there's a much higher vaccination rate in other countries in Europe; about 80 percent of the general population is vaccinated. But the Spanish government at this time, just a week before Christmas, has not announced any nationwide new restrictions.
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GOODMAN: And some of the regions in Spain have tried to get restrictions in. In hospitals, like this one in Madrid, the ICU rate is up to 14 percent and it was down to single digits just a couple weeks ago.
HOLMES: Al Goodman, appreciate it there, in Spain for us. One expert warns a COVID viral blizzard is likely to hit the U.S. in
the coming weeks. I will speak with an epidemiologist after the break.
Also the U.S. says Russian troops continue to mass in Ukraine as the Kremlin demands NATO stay out of Eastern Europe. We'll have a live report coming up from Moscow.
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DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF COVID-19 MEDICAL ADVISER: We can't give in. We will win this war with this virus.
HOLMES (voice-over): The top infectious disease expert in the U.S., Dr. Anthony Fauci, there urging Americans to hang on a little longer in the fight against the coronavirus. He said it's frustrating to see so many Americans unvaccinated, adding the war could be won with vaccinations, boosting and masking up.
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HOLMES: His message comes as some hospitals are once again filling up with COVID patients and deaths ratcheting up in several states. An expert warns of a viral blizzard of COVID-19 cases in the coming week.
This is coming as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Omicron is increasing rapidly and will likely become the dominant strain in the U.S. soon. President Biden says vaccinations and boosters are vital to keeping holiday gatherings safe and warns the unvaccinated could face a winter of severe illness and death.
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HOLMES: Let's talk now with Anne Rimoin, an infectious disease expert and epidemiology professor at UCLA.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said we are just about to experience what he called a viral blizzard.
In the next three to eight weeks in the U.S., millions of Americans will be infected -- and that is on top of Delta.
Do you share those thoughts and fears?
DR. ANNE RIMOIN, EPIDEMIOLOGY PROFESSOR, UCLA FIELDING SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: I absolutely agree. We are literally looking at a viral storm on our horizons. We are not only dealing with an ongoing Delta surge, killing more than 1,000 people a day causing more than 100,000 cases per day in the United States but we're now seeing the influx of Omicron. The Omicron cases are happening faster. The doubling time is
terrifying when you think about how quickly the virus will spread. So Michael Osterholm is right on. We're in for a very difficult time.
HOLMES: Yes. There is evidence that, having had COVID-19, gives a measure of protection. But British researchers found the risk of those that had had COVID getting reinfected is five times higher with Omicron than it was with Delta.
How at risk are unvaccinated people versus the vaccinated?
RIMOIN: It's very clear, across the board, if you are vaccinated, you are much less likely to get infected with COVID. If you do get infected, you are less likely to have a severe case of disease and less likely to be hospitalized or die. The data bears out with every variant.
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RIMOIN: However, when it comes to Omicron we see it is evading the immune response generated by vaccines and previous infection. While you may have some protection against the virus and will be less likely to get very sick and die, you are still likely to get the virus if exposed.
HOLMES: Yes. The political aspect of vaccinations, particularly in the U.S., still looms large. "The New York Times" made a pretty depressing point that if Democratic voters made up their own country, it would be one of the world's most vaccinated, more than 91 percent of adults with at least one shot. Only 60 percent of Republican adults are in that position.
What is the answer, given the firm political ideological positions?
RIMOIN: I think it's a complicated answer but what we can do right now, in the short-term, we have to get immunity up.
We have a very contagious variant circulating and another one that starting to co-circulate and will eventually take over. So we need to get the people willing to get vaccinated, vaccinated and those that need to get boosted, boosted.
The message should be very quickly, to people that have the opportunity to get the shots in arms, get them.
We are going to need a much longer-term strategy about vaccination in general. But we can't solve it in the short term to avoid what will be coming in the next couple of weeks.
HOLMES: You touched on that British study that suggested evidence of what the researchers called "to a very substantial extent" which Omicron can evade prior immunity given by both infection and vaccination. In other words, efficacy wanes.
They said that the level of evasion means that Omicron poses -- and just quoting here -- "a major imminent threat to public health." What does it say about the need for boosters and eventually variant-
specific ones?
RIMOIN: In the short term, we need to get as many people vaccinated as we can and get them boosted. That is what will help our hospitals from getting overwhelmed. That's really critical.
In the medium term we need better vaccines available. That means we need to work on the vaccines. We need vaccines that are effective against multiple variants and that can be improved over time.
In the long term, we need to do a much better job getting the vaccines into people's arms. We need to get them manufactured globally and we have better ways of distributing them so that we do better.
HOLMES: Yes. We literally only have a few seconds left. You have done and continue to do amazing work in Africa. Everytime I speak to you, I say we need vaccine equity.
RIMOIN: We absolutely do if we are going to get in front of this virus and get back to normal. We have to make sure that, globally, we have vaccination in arms. The more the virus spreads and the more it mutates, the more likely we are to end up with a more dangerous variant. We know this story and what we need to do.
HOLMES: Well put, as always. Dr. Anne Rimoin, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
RIMOIN: It is my pleasure.
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HOLMES: Quick break here on the program. When we come back, Moscow tells the West what it will take to defuse tensions on Ukraine's border, demands the U.S. and NATO have already rejected. We will have a live report from Moscow, coming up.
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HOLMES: Moscow presented the U.S. and NATO with a list of demands to defuse the crisis at the Ukrainian border. And even though the West has already rejected the core demands, the Kremlin is calling for immediate talks.
The U.S. says Russia's massive troop buildup near the border is still ongoing and, in fact, increasing. And among Moscow's proposals is a guarantee that Ukraine never joins NATO. They also want a pledge from NATO to halt its military activities in countries once aligned with the Soviet Union.
CNN's Melissa Bell joins me now.
That's a lot of demands, most of which have been rejected.
What is going on?
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Michael. What we are seeing, really, is this military push, according to sources speaking to CNN. That buildup along the border continues even as Moscow engages in this aggressive diplomatic push to try and get NATO and the United States to sit down and discuss a series of proposals that, as you say, are nonstarters from the Western point of view.
What we have been learning is Moscow appears to be diverting commercial air and train services toward that buildup. And the battalion tactical groups, as they are called, which are essentially groups of diversified and highly autonomous military, hardware, personnel, troops, heavy artillery and antitank weaponry, about 50 of them, up to 900 men, already amassed along the border and six more on the way.
So far from de-escalating, which is what Joe Biden called for in his call with Vladimir Putin, that escalation militarily continues. There's also a determined push to put Moscow's demands out there to the West and to make them the basis for conversations that it insists are urgent.
Have a listen to what the deputy foreign minister had to say to journalists yesterday.
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SERGEI RYABKOV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): We urge the American side to take the Russian initiative as seriously as possible. On our part, we are ready to fly out for negotiations with the United States and a third country immediately, as early as tomorrow, literally tomorrow.
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BELL: Sergei Ryabkov suggesting Geneva is a possible location. And that seems highly unlikely when you look at the nature of the demands. And much more was made clear during the press conference yesterday.
For a start, Moscow wants NATO to promise not to expand eastward. And that's a nonstarter. They say it's not for Moscow to decide who should join NATO or who NATO accepts to join them.
HOLMES: Yes, indeed, you have to wonder. Melissa Bell in Moscow, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Let's take a look at some other top stories making headlines around the world.
The U.N. Human Rights Council has voted to establish an international investigation on the, quote, "grave human rights situation" in Ethiopia; 15 nations voted against the resolution, including Ethiopia, which called the measure "politically motivated."
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HOLMES: Meanwhile, the United States said it is gravely concerned by new reports of abuses in Western Tigray, including mass detentions, killings and forced expulsions of ethnic Tigrayans by Amhara forces.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch released a report on Thursday, finding many of those expelled still remain unaccounted for.
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DAVID TROYER, GENERAL DIRECTOR, CHRISTIAN AID MINISTRIES: It's with great joy and deep thankfulness to God that I confirm all 17 staff members of Christian Aid Ministries, who were held hostage by the Mawozo gang, are now free.
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HOLMES: That is the word from the group itself after the former hostages flew back to the U.S. on Thursday.
They were held by one of Haiti's most powerful criminal gangs for weeks until the last hostages were released earlier that day. The group said they're doing reasonably well.
At least 14 people are dead and several others missing after a powerful typhoon swept across the Philippines.
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HOLMES (voice-over): Typhoon Rai devastated communities across this region, tearing houses to pieces, downing power lines and it flooded entire villages. Some 330,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.
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HOLMES: Google and Facebook's parent company, Meta, have been given the green light to collaborate on a massive project, an 8,000-mile undersea data cable connecting the U.S., Taiwan and the Philippines, called the Pacific Light Cable Network.
Hong Kong was excluded due to U.S. security concerns about possible Chinese surveillance. The tech giants say they will work with various government agencies to protect Americans' personal data.
The Red Planet seems to be a wetter place than we thought until now. A Russian and European orbiter discovered what scientists call significant amounts of water in a giant canyon on Mars, far larger than the Grand Canyon in the United States.
Scientists say it is emitting a high level of hydrogen, a sign of possible water. And that suggests up to 40 percent of material just below the ground is likely water ice.
I am Michael Holmes. Appreciate you spending part of your day with me. "AFRICAN VOICES: CHANGEMAKERS" is coming up next.
