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Pediatric Hospitalizations Up Nearly 50 Percent In A Week; U.S. Hits Record Average 265,000 Plus New COVID Cases A Day; Legendary NFL Coach And Broadcaster John Madden Dead At 85; Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Dead At 82; China Tightens Xi'an Lockdown Amid Local Outbreak; China Complains SpaceX Satellites Endangered Astronauts; Top 10 Health Stories of 2021. Aired 12-1a ET
Aired December 29, 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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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM, a resurgent pandemic fueled by Omicron, setting daily records for new infections around the world, and the peak could still be weeks away.
He was described as charismatically challenged but one of the best political dealmakers to ever lead the U.S. Senate. A look back at the life of Harry Reid.
And mourning a legend from the world of football John Madden revered broadcaster, video game icon and beloved NFL coach.
ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with John Vause.
VAUSE: Hello, welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Thank you for joining us.
We begin with a resurgent coronavirus pandemic, with many countries including the U.S. now setting new infection records each day.
Right now, the United States is averaging more than 265,000 daily cases over the past week. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Omicron variant accounts for nearly 60 percent of all new cases.
The number of children admitted to hospitals with COVID is nearing a new record with the CDC reporting in almost 50 percent jump in just the past week.
And the Food and Drug Administration is taking a closer look of the effectiveness of at-home antigen tests, which may be not as effective as detecting the Omicron variant compared to the Delta variant.
Dr. Anthony Fauci though says these tests are still beneficial.
Our reporters are covering all of these developments from London to Beijing, but CNN's Alexandra Field has our lead story reporting from New York. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A new surge in COVID cases is bringing with it another spike in pediatric hospitalizations up nearly 50 percent in a week nationwide. Children still make up an extremely small percentage of people hospitalized for COVID and are still far less likely to become severely ill than adults, but hospitals have seen it before. Just last summer during the Delta surge.
DR. ADRIENNE RANDOLPH, PEDIATRIC CRITICAL CARE PHYSICIAN, BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: We had very high rates of hospitalization, very high rates of very severe illness. Children going on to Heartland bypass machines, a lot of teenagers especially. Most of these children had underlying conditions. But it also affected healthy children.
FIELD: In New York City, pediatric hospitalizations have gone up fivefold in three weeks. A hospital in Chicago reports a fourfold rise. It doesn't appear the Omicron variant is more dangerous for children, but it is highly transmissible and holiday gatherings could further fuel the surge in cases including among children, the age groups with the lowest vaccination rates in the country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would say we have not seen the worst of it yet.
FIELD: With cases climbing, staffing shortages are still crippling industries. Airlines canceling thousands of flights this holiday season. Maryland's federal courts scaling back operations. Team USA Hockey forced to forfeit the World Junior's tournament.
The CDC's latest guidance aims to put people back to work more quickly. But the recommendation to isolate for five days instead of 10 if infected but not symptomatic, comes also with criticism.
DR. MEGAN RANNEY, ACADEMIC DEAN OF PUBLIC HEALTH, BROWN UNIVERSITY: The trouble is for the unvaccinated, the data doesn't really back up that they become noninfectious at five days.
FIELD: Testing lines across the country are still intolerably long in too many places. And frustration is mounting over failures to make more at-home tests available more quickly.
DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: I hope we fix it in January and February, but we're going to have to have a real effort to make sure there's plentiful, cheap, ubiquitous testing everywhere in the country. That's where we should be in this pandemic right now.
FIELD: Alexandra Field, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Dr. Peter Chin-Hong is an infectious disease specialist at the University of California. He joins us this hour from San Francisco. Thank you for being with us.
DR. PETER CHIN-HONG, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: My pleasure, John, thanks for having me on.
VAUSE: OK, so the one thing we can say with any certainty here is that with Omicron, a lot more people will be infected.
And I want you to listen to Dr. Ashish Jha. He's from a Brown University School of Public Health. This is what he expects. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JHA: People should just brace themselves for a month where lots of people are going to get infected. Unfortunately, a lot of vaccinate -- unvaccinated people, people who have not gotten the vaccine are going to end up getting pretty sick. And it's going to be pretty disruptive.
My hope is as we get into February and certainly by the time we get into March, infection numbers will come way down, and it will also start hitting spring, the weather will start getting better and that will also help. That combination means to me late winter, early spring should be much, much better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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VAUSE: But the here and now is it seems that with this lower sort of hospitalization rate because of Omicron compared to Delta, we're in the calm before the storm, right? So, what are you expecting?
CHIN-HONG: Well, John, some people think we're already in the middle of the storm. The question is how long the storm will last and will the winds pick up? It's like you're in the middle of a hurricane and you're trying to fix the roof.
In some parts of the country like the East Coast, the roof is already leaking. In the West Coast where hospitalization is relatively lower, so far, we're trying to brace ourselves.
I think the anxiety that I have is not necessarily about lots of sick people going to the hospital, and certainly we'll see that, but probably more for the workforce that are going to get infected.
And even with a shortened isolation time of five days, we're looking at places like Quebec, where they're already saying if you're positive as a healthcare worker, you should show up under certain circumstances. So, I think all of that is possible in the United States.
VAUSE: And your main concern with sending healthcare workers back even if they're positive?
CHIN-HONG: I'm concerned. You know, there's several reasons why I'm concerned. I'm concerned, obviously, for potential infection risk of vulnerable patients, even though your masked. I'm concerned mainly as well for the morale. I mean, the healthcare workforce has been decimated with moral injury
for the last 20 months. And this could be the end, you know, 40 percent of nurses already declared that they're going to leave the job. 20 percent of M.D.s say that they'll leave the job within a year, that's really unprecedented.
VAUSE: The medical team in South Africa, which first identified the Omicron variant, now reporting that, you know, a study of a small number of patients infected with Omicron, not only had an immune response against Omicron. But according to a tweet, we also saw that same people, especially those who were vaccinated, develop enhance immunity to the Delta variant.
In their research paper, they say this is consistent with Omicron displacing the Delta variant, they go on to reach this conclusion. If so, then the incidence of COVID-19 severe disease will be reduced, and the infection may shift to become less disruptive to individuals and society.
It sounds to me like they're saying, you know, this is increasingly looking like how the pandemic might come to an end.
CHIN-HONG: Possibly, John, and that's certainly an optimistic end to the story. But, you know, I think there's a lot of biological plausibility from that finding that if you develop antibodies to Omicron, you could fend yourself and protect yourself well against, you know, the more dastardly Delta.
But that's really speaking about the now. I think what's not really clear is whether or not the next variant, which by natural selection, you will expect to be more evasive to Omicron antibodies would also, you know, be milder as well.
If you look at the 1918 influenza pandemic, it ended because of two reasons. Increasing immunity in a population with waves and infection, but also a milder variants or a milder flu. So, that's what we can hope for and I'm crossing my fingers.
At the end of the day, I think maybe we may be faced with a situation where you get a variant seasonally once a year, some people get infected, some people have some antibodies, the next year you got another variant. We will see this over and over again until enough of the world is immunized.
Right now, there's so many inequities and immunization, which protects so well against serious disease, hospitalization and death, regardless of the variants that you know, I'm pessimistic that it will come to an end that quickly.
VAUSE: I just want to have some -- hear from these comments from Sir John Bell. He's a professor of medicine at Oxford University. He's the U.K. government's Life Science Advisor.
And the Guardian newspaper is reporting that this is not the same disease we were seeing a year ago. He was talking in terms of death and hospitalization, but that seems to apply to symptoms as well. Omicron symptoms are more like a cold or flu. Here's how it's described by one patient who recently tested positive, listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HUGH JACKMAN, ACTOR: Hi, good morning. So, I just wanted you to hear for me that I tested positive this morning for COVID. My symptoms are like a cold. I have a scratchy throat and a bit of a runny nose. But I'm fine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: If you couldn't guess, that was actor Hugh Jackman. But all of this, you know, the similar symptoms to cold and flu. It's like adding to another layer of confusion. And this is coming at a time when there's a shortage of the one thing, which could end much of the confusion, those home testing kits.
CHIN-HONG: Exactly. I think even though President Biden has promised half a billion home testing kits for free, you think that sounds like a lot, but certainly it's not here and right now.
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CHIN-HONG: And also, the U.S. has 330 million people. So, you know, 1- 1/2 tests per person isn't enough if we expect somebody to do testing as frequently as brushing your teeth once a day.
I think that, you know, a shortage of tests is not only going to help or mitigate, you know, events and possibly prevent more of a surge happening, but they also keep kids in schools.
So, the availability of rapid testing can't really be under emphasized. And I'm worried also about flu. You know, again, these symptoms could be influenza, it could be something else, it could be COVID. And some estimates of flu are in the order of 100,000 to 400,000 additional hospitalizations. We haven't even peak with influenza yet. And so, that confusion is really going to send us potentially into a tailspin.
But there is a silver lining, which is, you know, we are going to have oral agents for COVID soon. Molnupiravir is already here, Paxlovid. I think that could add together with, you know, Tamiflu for influenza. But keeping viral load in the community down and potentially helping people, even unvaccinated people avoid hospitalization.
VAUSE: Two steps forward, two steps back it seems. Peter, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.
CHIN-HONG: Thanks so much, John.
VAUSE: When we come back, we're looking at the lives of two renowned Americans, the legacy of Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid, and his huge impact on U.S. presidents.
Also, the sports world, mourning the loss of a much beloved and iconic NFL coach and broadcaster. Tributes to the late John Madden, that's also ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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VAUSE: Now to the world of American football and the surprising and sad news that legendary coach and iconic broadcaster John Madden has died. He was beloved for a boisterous style. His commentary made watching games fun for the lifelong fans and casual viewers alike.
Lend his name to video games becoming the namesake of the hugely successful Madden series. The National Football League announced his death on Tuesday, age 85.
The League's Commissioner Roger Goodell paid tribute to Madden saying "Nobody loved football more than coach. He was football. He was an incredible sounding board to me and so many others. There will never be another John Madden, and we will forever be indebted to him for all he did to make football and the NFL what it is today."
CNN's Andy Scholes has more on the life of John Madden.
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JOHN MADDEN, FORMER HEAD COACH, NFL OAKLAND RAIDERS: I have never worked a day in my life. I went from player to coach to a broadcaster and I am the luckiest guy in the world.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Super Bowl winning coach, pioneering broadcaster, video game icon, a larger than life personality John Madden was by any definition, a true original.
During his 30-year broadcasting career, Madden was widely considered the voice of the National Football League.
MADDEN: You have to attack them with the passion. You have to attack them deep with the past.
SCHOLES: His passionate way of calling games with unique catchphrases.
MADDEN: Packers came out, it went boom and they got 10 points.
SCHOLES: And a love for using a Telestrator helped explain the game to hardcore and casual fans across America.
He called NFL games for all four major networks announcing 11 Super Bowls and earning 16 Sports Emmys during his time in the broadcast booth.
Madden's NFL playing career was short lived. He was drafted in 1958 by the Philadelphia Eagles, but a knee injury cut it all short. That's when he decided to try his hand at coaching, eventually becoming the youngest head coach in professional football history at the age of 33.
In 1977, he led the Oakland Raiders to a Super Bowl victory and is still the franchise's all-time wins leader. Madden was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame for his coaching career in 2006. MADDEN: BOOM Tough Actin' Tinactin.
SCHOLES: Madden was a television advertiser's dream becoming the pitch man for numerous brands.
MADDEN: Let me tell you, Ace is the place for me.
SCHOLES: In 1988, Madden entered the video game world lending his voice and name to what's now call Madden NFL.
MADDEN: You know, anything that goes that far, that fast, want to have dinner in an in-flight movie.
SCHOLES: His video game is still the most popular football video game ever selling more than 100 million copies worldwide.
Whether it was his video game, his broadcasting career or as a Hall of Fame coach, his passion for the game is what will always be remembered.
MADDEN: Some of us think maybe we will be immortal, that we'll live forever. But when you really think about it, we're not going to be. But I say this through this bust with these guys in that hall, we will be forever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Thanks to Andy Scholes for that report. And now, he's been remembered as scrappy, the political street fighter, a champion of old school bare knuckle, Washington dealmaker. Nevada Democrat Harry Reid was one of the longest serving leaders of the U.S. Senate.
And on Tuesday, word came that he'd lost a four year long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Reid served as both majority and minority leader during his more than three decades in the Senate, played a key role in the rise of Barack Obama, encouraging him to run against John McCain in 2008.
On Tuesday, Obama shared a recent letter he sent to Reid, I wouldn't have not been -- I would not have been president had it not been for your encouragement and support. I would not have got most of what I got done without your skill and determination.
U.S. President Joe Biden wrote: If Harry gave you his word, you could bank on it. That's how he got things done for the good of the country for decades.
President Biden also listed Reid's legislative accomplishments, everything from the Recovery Act of 2009 to the bailout of the U.S. auto industry, the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, and the New Start Treaty.
We have more now from CNN's Dana Bash.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: He led Democrats in the Senate for a decade, but Harry Reid called one of his proudest accomplishments the impact he had on presidential history, encouraging Barack Obama to run.
HARRY REID, FORMER LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF NEVADA: I did call him into my office and tell him we should take a look at it. And he was stunned that -- he says I was the first one that ever suggested that to him.
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REID: When he was reelected, that was one of the most moving phone calls I've ever received because he said, you're the reason I'm here.
BASH: He spearheaded epic legislative battles like Obamacare with a scrappy style he learned during his impoverished childhood.
Reid was born, shaped and scarred in Searchlight, Nevada. Essentially a truck stop outside Las Vegas. He grew up in a shack with no running water where this trailer now sits. He took us there in 2006.
His mother did laundry for the local brothels. His dad always looking for work as a minor, both drank heavily.
During that 2006 visit to Searchlight, he casually pointed out where his father took his own life at 58 years old.
REID: This house right here, that last room is a bedroom, that's where he killed himself.
BASH: He fought his way out of poverty as a boxer. As a politician, he was never afraid to punch below the belt. He even took on the mob as a young politician in Las Vegas.
BASH: A wide variety of adjectives have been written about you.
REID: Some good, some bad.
BASH: Some good, some bad. Let me just read a few, scrappy, tough, blunt, canny behind the scenes mastermind, ruthless. Are all those fair?
REID: Well, that's what people think, if that's what they think, they're entitled to their opinion.
BASH: As Senate Democratic leader, Reid was a polarizing figure. Republicans argued a lot of congressional gridlock stemmed from his hardball tactics.
REID: Seeing the turning of the tide.
BASH: But he reveled in playing the political bad guy calling then President George W. Bush a loser and a liar well before politicians use those L words.
REID: I don't really care. I don't want to be somebody I'm not. BASH: During the Trump presidency, however, Reid changed his tune about Bush.
REID: In hindsight, I wish every day for a George Bush again. I think that he and I had our differences. But no one ever questioned his patriotism.
There's no question in my mind that George Bush would be Babe Ruth in this league that he's in with Donald Trump. Donald Trump wouldn't make the team.
BASH: In 2012, he used the Senate floor to accuse Mitt Romney of not paying his taxes. Even though he had no evidence.
REID: He's refused to release his tax returns as we know but approved that he has paid taxes because he hasn't.
No, I don't regret that at all.
BASH: Some people even called it McCarthyite.
REID: Well, they call it whatever they want. Romney didn't win, did he?
BASH: Years later, Reid did ask to meet with Romney to make amends.
REID: We shook hands and put stuff behind us.
BASH: Why was it so important for you to tie up that loose end?
REID: I try to do that with everybody.
BASH: Reid also inspired fierce loyalty from many of his longtime aides as well as fellow senators. Not all out of fear, but affection. He often told colleagues, he loved them, even in public.
REID: I love you, John Kerry.
BASH: He had a storybook romance with wife Landra, his high school sweetheart. The two converted to Mormonism together when they married.
REID: She had a pair of Levi's yesterday, and I said, man, she just looks so good.
BASH: That's amazing.
REID: That is true.
BASH: In January 2015, Reid a workout addict who ran numerous marathons had a brutal exercise accident that left him severely bruised and blind in one eye. It cemented his decision to retire.
A few years later, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The effects of chemo made it hard for him to walk. We went to see him in Las Vegas.
REID: That's one of my keepsakes from Donald Trump.
BASH: Never any complaints.
REID: I'm doing fine. I'm busy. I work quite hard.
BASH: Reid was an unlikely political leader in today's media age, soft spoken and gaffe prone. But he played the inside game like no one could.
REID: I didn't make it in life because of my athletic prowess. I didn't make it because of my good looks. I didn't make it because I'm a genius. I made it because I worked hard.
One of the things that I hope that people look back at me and say, if Harry Reid could make it, I can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Larry Sabato is the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. He joins us out from Charlottesville in Virginia.
Larry, thanks for staying up.
LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Sure, John.
VAUSE: One thing which always seems quite striking to me about Harry Reid, you know, he's described as this charismatically challenged person, had a little presence on T.V. or before a crowd.
But behind the scenes, he was this master of hand to hand political combat, there was two really distinctive personalities going on there.
SABATO: Yes, and that you're absolutely correct about that. The public, Harry Reid really wasn't that different from the private Harry Reid in terms of how he came across.
[00:25:09]
SABATO: The difference is, in the Senate, it actually is an advantage to be low key, someone who doesn't take the spotlight and doesn't overshadow other senators, and gets things done.
And Harry Reid was perfect for that. You know, we had for most of his tenure as majority leader, six of the eight years, we had a very charismatic President Barack Obama.
So, the charisma was taken care of by Obama. Obama simply needed Reid to get the Senate to work, which as we all know, is not easy.
VAUSE: There was some criticism, and notably, it is from the conservative side of politics that, you know, it was this move by Harry Reid as (INAUDIBLE) away from the collegial consensus building, the sort of more combative approach, which sort of started the slide to where we are today. How do you see it? SABATO: All I think you can say that it was a long time in coming and many people participated in it. But I find that rather amusing given the Republican leaders that we've had in the Senate in recent times, not people like Bob Dole so much, but -- and not really Trent Lott either. But some of the other Republicans who served and I think we can all name some of them, have been very, very partisan. And they've been very partisan, because they felt they needed to be in order to get their party in the position to win, particularly in presidential years, but also to win Supreme Court seats.
Unfortunately, this has led the Senate as an institution to the most polarized era, certainly in my lifetime. It's very difficult to get any kind of bipartisanship in the Senate.
And yes, that was a problem when Harry Reid was majority leader too, but it certainly wasn't as severe as it is today.
VAUSE: He had 60 senators, and it was still a struggle to get the Affordable Care Act through but that was part of history, I guess.
So, Larry, thank you for staying up. We appreciate your time.
SABATO: Thank you, John.
VAUSE: Still ahead, coming New Year will likely bring old pandemic restrictions for many parts of Europe, our last line of defense against the Omicron variant.
Also, 13 million people under a stay at home order for almost a week now. They may soon lose what little freedom they have, as officials in China ramp up efforts to contain a local outbreak.
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VAUSE: Welcome back to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
[00:30:57]
The very latest now on our lead story this hour. COVID infections once again soaring across most of the U.S., fueled by the highly-contagious Omicron variant, with a national average of more than 265,000 new cases a day, a record-breaking high.
The CDC estimates Omicron accounts for nearly 60 percent of those new infections.
More children in the U.S. are being hospitalized with COVID. Admissions were up almost 50 percent in the past week.
Meantime, the FDA taking a closer look at the effectiveness of at-home antigen tests, which could be less sensitive to picking up the Omicron variant. Experts say that should not discourage anyone from actually using them.
Similar story in parts of Europe. Spain reporting nearly 100,000 new cases on Tuesday alone. That's the highest one-day total since the pandemic began and double the previous record set just last week. Not just Spain. The countries in dark red on this map have case increases by 50 percent or more in the past week, compared to a week earlier.
And to China now, where authorities may soon tighten restrictions on day six of an already brutal lockdown in the city of Xi'an, with 13 million people under a stay-at-home order.
CNN's Steven Jiang joins us now, live from Beijing. So Steven, it seems not just are they losing what freedom they may have had, but access to basic supplies is becoming a point of anger for many.
STEVEN JIANG, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT/BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: That's right, John. It certainly feels like a deja vu of what we saw in Wuhan some two years ago, with a growing amount of frustration and even anger being vented online by social media users in the city, who say they are facing increasing difficulties accessing to groceries, and that's their biggest complaint.
The biggest complaint, despite the official and the state media portrayal of orderly and smooth delivery of daily necessity items throughout a city since the lockdown began last week.
Now, the situation has been made worse by the tightened regulations you referred to, because last week, each household was still being allowed to send out one representative every other day to buy groceries, but that, quote unquote, "privilege" has been suspended, starting this week, as the authorities there try to further curb the movement of people in order to stop the community spread of the virus.
All of this because of the leadership's insistence on sticking to this zero COVID policy, especially ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics, which is less than 40 days away.
That's why authorities in Xi'an are really doubling down on their strategy, not just mass testing and mass quarantine, but harsher lockdown measures, as well.
Now, the numbers from the city still look quite grim by Chinese standards. 151 local cases recorded on Tuesday. But authorities say, with the lockdown firmly in place, these numbers will stabilize soon and start decreasing, and the whole outbreak could be over in a month or so.
But this kind of assessment, obviously, cold comfort for millions of residents trying to survive under this brutal lockdown -- John.
VAUSE: Steven, thank you. Steven Jiang, live in Beijing.
Well, still to come, China's close encounter with Elon Musk. Beijing making an official complaint after Musk's SpaceX satellites apparently came too close to China's space station. Details when we come back.
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[00:37:18] VAUSE: Hong Kong police have arrested at least six staff and associates of the pro-democracy outlet Stand News. Officials say they're suspected in conspiracy to publish seditious material, a blanket charge which has been used to cut down on press freedom in the city.
Police also visited the home of a seventh employee, who was led away by officers, according to the Hong Kong Journalists Association, although the Stand confirms he was not arrested.
The company's offices have been raided by police, who say they've collected at least 30 boxes filled with evidence.
China has filed an official complaint with the United Nations, claiming two close encounters with satellites launched by Elon Musk's SpaceX endangered astronauts on board their space station. So far, SpaceX has not responded to a CNN request for comment on this.
Miles O'Brien is a CNN aviation analyst and the guy we turn to for all things space. He is with us this hour from Verona Beach in Florida, about an hour or so drive from Cape Canaveral.
Miles, good to see you.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Greetings, John.
VAUSE: OK, so, let's start with the complaint from China. Twice in October, to avoid a collision, they say the crew onboard their space station took evasive maneuvers during what they say were dangerously close encounters with satellites launched by Musk's company, which China says "constituted dangers to the life or health of astronauts aboard the China Space Station."
So, how serious were these two incidents in and of themselves, and with Musk given approval to launch, what, another 12,000 private satellites, should they get used to taking evasive maneuvers?
O'BRIEN: Yes, there's a lot to unpack here, isn't there, John?
First of all, let's talk about one thing. We're talking about low- Earth orbit, on the order of 300 kilometers in altitude above us. Things that are in low-Earth orbit and not falling down are traveling in excess of 20,000 kilometers per hour.
So, you can imagine, if two objects are coming at each other in opposite directions, we're talking in excess of 40, close to 50,000 kilometers in closing Delta velocity. So, that -- that can cause real problems, and that's why you want to be very careful about this.
Now, how close those Starlink satellites came, which are the Elon Musk SpaceX fleet to provide Internet access to remote parts of the world, how close they actually came to the Chinese Space Station, it's not really laid out very clearly.
We do know this. Musk is very sensitive to this idea. He's already got 1,700 of these satellites in orbit. He wants to put upwards of 40,000, eventually, so the whole world can get Internet by this means. And one of the things he claims is that the satellites have their own autonomous ability to avoid collisions and, at the end of their life, have the ability to be steered into the ocean.
So, it's getting crowded, however, in low-Earth orbit, and that concerns a lot of people.
[00:40:05]
VAUSE: Yes, and what we had back in May, when we talk about, you know, coming back into, you know, re-entry, that kind of stuff, NASA's administrator, Bill Nelson, called out Beijing after part of the Long March rocket which was used to put the space station into orbit, was allowed to fall back to Earth in what they call an uncontrolled re- entry.
Here's part of the statement from NASA. "Spacefaring nations must minimize the risk to people and property on Earth of reentries of space objects and maximize transparency regarding those operations. It is clear that China is failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris."
Not the first time. Earlier this year, a similar scenario after the launch of a prototype capsule for their space station. And then, in 2018, that's the year we played "spot the falling Chinese space lab." I don't know if you remember that.
O'BRIEN: I do.
VAUSE: And then in 2007, China tested that anti-satellite missile, leaving about 3,000 pieces of debris in orbit.
So, is this complaint from Beijing, you know, is it just a chance to criticize the U.S.? You criticized me; I'll criticize you? And do they have a bit of a credibility problem on all of this?
O'BRIEN: Oh, yes, they do. You know, as Shakespeare might say, methinks they doth protest too much. Right?
That 2007 ASAT, anti-satellite launch that they did, created -- it blew a dead satellite to smithereens, causing all kinds of problems. Of course, the Russians just did that back in November. The U.S. has done that, too. So they're all kind of going at each other in low- Earth orbit.
And I think that the big picture here is that we're seeing an ascendant China really flexing its muscles in space. It now does have a, you know, a piloted space station. It has great aspirations to do more in space. And it's flexing its muscles.
And I'm afraid what's happening is, slowly but surely, we're seeing what all of us have feared for a long time, which is the militarization of the final frontier, and we don't want to see that happen.
VAUSE: And when it comes to this call for a sort of code of conduct in space, a 2017 report by the "U.S.-China Economic and Security Review" found that "China appears to be uninterested in agreeing to a code of conduct for behavior in space. Instead, while exploring ways to put its own weapons in space, Beijing has proposed a treaty that, should the United States accede to it, would prevent the U.S. from responding in kind."
Has their position changed since then in any significant way?
O'BRIEN: No, no, and you really can't have it both ways. Can you? I mean, do you want rules which make it more difficult for Elon Musk to put 40,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit, because you're worried about your space station? Or do you not? I mean, you got -- you can't have it both ways.
So I do think low-Earth orbit is becoming more populated. I think there's a lot of controversy around the Elon Musk satellites, when you're talking about that many satellites. Astronomers are absolutely -- really, really upset about this, because it is blocking their ability to view the stars in the way they've gotten used to.
And it eventually becomes a bit of a traffic jam there. Throw in all the space debris, tens of thousands of pieces that the space stations have to jockey around as it is, and we really do need to come up with some guardrails, some rules of the road up there.
And if the Chinese are going to complain about this, they might want to participate in that effort.
VAUSE: Not enough that we polluted Earth, we just have to pollute everything around Earth now, with all the space stuff.
Miles, thank you. Good to see you.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
VAUSE: Well, there's no question COVID-19 dominated headlines this year, but it wasn't the only major medical news. Our top health stories for 2021 in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:47:37]
VAUSE: Welcome back, everyone. Thirteen minutes until the top of the hour.
Now, the coronavirus pandemic dominated news coverage for most of the year. Trust me. Still, it's worth noting there were other stories of note. And CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks back now at 2021's top health stories.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: While the coronavirus pandemic did demand most of our attention, another epidemic continued to surge. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, America's drug epidemic now deadlier
than it has ever been.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Record death toll.
S. GUPTA: For the first time on record, more than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in a 12-month period, between May 2020 and April 2021, much of it from illicit fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.
Now, President Biden's new drug czar, Dr. Rahul Gupta, no relation to me, told me that we need to more strongly employ harm reduction, making drug use safer, with things like no lock zone (ph), clean syringes and testing drugs for the presence of fentanyl.
People will say, Look, you're enabling drug use. That's -- that's the provocation.
DR. RAHUL GUPTA, U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY: As an evidence-based physician that has spent his career dealing with science and moving data around, we just do not have that evidence.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, for the first time in almost 20 years, there's a new drug just approved to treat people in the early phases of Alzheimer's disease.
S. GUPTA: In June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration greenlit Aduhelm, the first new drug approved to treat Alzheimer's disease since 2003.
Now, according to the FDA, the drug can reduce Alzheimer's signature tangles and plaques of amyloid proteins that block the neural pathways in people with mild disease.
But the approval was controversial, with many researchers, including the FDA's own independent advisory committee, saying the evidence simply wasn't there to show it slows down cognitive decline.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Effectiveness is something that we don't fully understand just yet.
BLITZER: There's a growing concern about a surge of COVID-19 cases in Tokyo.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Instead of a medal count, we're already tracking the COVID count.
S. GUPTA: It had already been postponed the previous year, but this summer, the Tokyo Olympic Games took place in the midst of a pandemic. Strict testing and masking protocols were put into place, and attempts were made to keep athletes in a bubble, with very limited interaction with anyone outside.
[00:50:06]
I reported first-hand about how the Olympics pandemic playbook was being put to the test. Is there a criteria by which you would start to become concerned?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mostly what we look at is is changes in patterns. So if we started to see infection in people who weren't part of a close contact group; if we started to see a rising number; if we started to see the cases doubling more rapidly than we thought.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Today, the Department of Health and Human Services announcing sweeping changes to its vaccine rollout to get more people vaccinated.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: They're now saying that the vaccine should be made available to anyone over age 65.
S. GUPTA (voice-over): The first COVID shots went to the most vulnerable: nursing home residents, frontline healthcare workers. And then eligible was expanded to those with underlying conditions and those 65 and older.
(on camera): By April, everyone 16 years and older in the United States was eligible for a shot.
In May, 12- to 15-year-olds were authorized for Pfizer shots. And in August, Pfizer's vaccine became the first fully-FDA-approved COVID vaccine in the United States.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: The Biden White House calling out the misinformation machine, accusing Facebook of killing people by letting anti-vaccine lies linger on the platform.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Their outrageous, offensive posts that compare vaccines to the Holocaust and Nazi Germany.
S. GUPTA: It has become so significant an issue that the surgeon general called it a serious threat to public health.
DR. VIVEK MURTHY, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: We are still seeing misinformation spread like wildfire on social media sites, in particular.
S. GUPTA (voice-over): What's resulted is a persistent pandemic, with more than 100,000 new infections daily and tens of thousands of COVID patients in the hospital, most of them unvaccinated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In some of these heavily red districts that voted overwhelmingly for the former president, Donald Trump, the vaccines remain unpopular. Not just hesitancy here. There are people that truly believe the vaccine is a big problem.
S. GUPTA: With more than 1 in 10 Americans saying they have no plans on getting a shot --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We live in a free country, and the right to make our own healthcare decisions is the core of it.
S. GUPTA (on camera): -- school districts, businesses, states, even the federal government are starting to implement vaccine mandates in an effort to return to normal.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is not about freedom or personal choice. It's about protecting yourself and those around you.
S. GUPTA: It is one of the clearest examples of public health colliding with politics.
VAUSE (voice-over): Health officials in China are trying to identify a mysterious strain of pneumonia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A mysterious new cluster of pneumonia cases.
S. GUPTA: When we first learned of this virus nearly two years ago, we had no idea the destruction it would leave in its wake.
By September, we lost more lives to COVID than the estimated 675,000 people who perished in the 1918 flu pandemic. Now, granted, the population in the United States was one-third of what it is now, but there were no vaccines available 100 years ago, either.
It is difficult to fathom that we have now lost more than 800,000 lives to the coronavirus, sadly, much of it preventable, as Dr. Deborah Birx told me.
DR. DEBORAH BIRX, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: There were about 100,000 deaths that came from that original surge. All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.
S. GUPTA (voice-over): After most kids spent the first year of the pandemic online, getting kids back into the classroom this year was a priority for everyone. But how to do it? Well, that was up for debate.
(on camera): Vaccination requirements, mask mandates, testing, quarantines. It all erupted into clashes at local school board meetings across the country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No more masks!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No more masks!
S. GUPTA: While children are less likely to be hospitalized from COVID-19, the number of infections among children has been steadily rising since this summer.
In October, the FDA authorized a smaller dose of the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 through 11. But that group does remain the least vaccinated.
Vaccination is an important tool to controlling this pandemic. But we are still learning just how long that protection can last. Studies are finding that antibody levels can start to fall after a few months, making people more susceptible to infection, while protection against severe disease does remain high. The CDC has now expanded the recommendation for all adults over 18 to
get a booster shot six months after the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines and two months after the Johnson & Johnson one.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We know they're safe, and we know they're highly effective in bringing very, very high up the optimization of your protection.
S. GUPTA: Over the last two years, there have been thousands of variants, with a handful of them becoming variants of concern.
Still, vaccination, masking, testing can help limit the spread of the virus.
This past spring, we saw the rise of Delta, a variant two to three times as infectious as the original coronavirus. It overwhelmed India and then Europe. And this summer, it swept through the southern United States, where vaccination rates were among the lowest in the country.
And now, Omicron cases are growing all over the world.
FAUCI: This is really something to be reckoned with. It is -- it is really rapidly spreading, literally throughout the world, and certainly, in our own country.
S. GUPTA: As the weather gets cooler and we move indoors, remember to get your shots, to mask up. Despite all the fear, we do have the tools to stay healthy and protected.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. Please stay with us. I will be back with another hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a very short break. Please stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Coming up this hour on CNN NEWSROOM, the Omicron variant turbocharging the global pandemic. Many countries now setting records for new infections, and the peak of this outbreak could still be weeks away.
Thirteen million people under a brutal COVID lockdown for almost a week, with no end in sight. And now anger and frustration is growing in the Chinese city of Xi'an as many struggle to get basic supplies.
And mourning a legend from the world of football. John Madden, revered broadcaster, video game icon, and beloved NFL coach.
ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with John Vause.
