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Sri Lankan PM And President To Resign; Death Of Shinzo Abe; Highland Park Tries To Heal After Parade Massacre; Four Killed In Russian Attack On Donetsk, Missiles Hit Mykolaiv; Omicron BA.5 Now Dominant In U.S. COVID-19 Surge. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired July 10, 2022 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and welcome to all of you watching us all around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. Ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The greatest thing the people and the youth of this country has ever done is to chase this man away. He was expelled, chased away. He did not resign.
BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Calm after the storm in Sri Lanka. Protesters continue to occupy the presidential palace after forcing both the president and prime minister to resign. A live report on what triggered mass demonstrations.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Plus voting is underway in Japan while the country reels from the assassination of its longest serving leader.
And a brutal summer hot spell continues, with 39 million Americans on alert.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: The Sri Lankan president and prime minister say they will resign after tens of thousands of protesters stormed the residences of both leaders, as the country's seemingly endless economic crisis boils over. A short time ago, four cabinet members also resigned.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Demonstrators broke through police barricades to reach the presidential palace, calling for the president to leave office. They also set fire to the prime minister's private residence. His office says he was moved earlier to a secure location. Here is a look inside of the president's home as protesters pushed
their way in. Meanwhile, the prime minister endorsed the establishment of an all-party and the Sri Lankan speaker appealed for calm after speaking to the president.
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MAHINDA YAPA ABEYWARDENA, SRI LANKAN PARLIAMENTARY SPEAKER (through translator): He informed me to tell the country that he will resign on Wednesday to ensure a peaceful handover of power.
Therefore, there is no need to destabilize the country any longer. I respectfully request the cooperation of everyone on behalf of the country and for the country's future in order to maintain peace.
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BRUNHUBER: Will Ripley is with us now from Taipei.
The protesters got what they wanted in a sense. The two top leaders are gone.
What now?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What they want is to be able to live and eat and have enough fuel to get to work and have medicine if someone gets sick. Those are things that are missing, that are in dire shortage right now, because of the worst financial crisis since World War II.
These people, 100,000 of them, who stormed the president's house, blame the president. They blame his brother, who was a previous president and also prime minister. These ruling elite that analysts say made a lot of bad financial decisions while they themselves were living large.
One of the more striking images is when the protesters started swimming in the pool at the president's house. It is the perfect example of people living the high life at the top, while people at the bottom are really struggling just to get by.
That is what has fueled the anger. Protesters say if new leadership gets in place, they have to deliver. That would not be easy, when you think about the problems Sri Lanka is facing.
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RIPLEY (voice-over): Not enough fuel, food or medicine. But there is one thing in Sri Lanka that is not in short supply: anger. Crowds reached a boiling point Saturday in Colombo, after months of demonstrations and the country's worst economic and political crisis.
Throngs of protesters stormed the presidential residence, demanding president Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign.
FIONA SIRIMANA, PROTESTER: We demand the president and the prime minister to have a new regime for Sri Lanka. Also, I feel very, very sad that they didn't go earlier, because, had they gone earlier, they wouldn't have been any destruction.
RIPLEY (voice-over): Under pressure from the streets and by members of party leadership, the president informed Sri Lanka's speaker of parliament, he will step down on Wednesday. This speaker relayed that decision to the nation --
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RIPLEY (voice-over): -- asking protesters to return to their homes.
"There is no need to do to stabilize the country any longer," he says, adding that he respectfully requests the cooperation of everyone on behalf of the country and for the country's future in order to maintain peace.
A peace shattered by the biggest day of demonstrations yet that included the burning of the home of the country's prime minister. He, too, says he is willing to step down to make way for an all-party government.
Home to some 22 million people, Sri Lanka is witnessing its worst financial crisis in seven decades, a severe foreign exchange crunch, bringing the country to its knees.
There have been long winding queues for fuel, now limited to only essential services; power cuts, relentless. Analysts say the current crisis, a result of poor economic decisions over the years by Rajapaksa and his government.
Under the Sri Lankan constitution, if both president and prime minister resign, the speaker of parliament will serve as acting president for a maximum of 30 days, in which time, parliament will elect a new president from one of its members.
It would be a sweeping change for Sri Lanka, largely brought about by its own people, many who have nothing left to lose.
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RIPLEY: It is not just the current financial crisis, because necessarily of financial mismanagement. Sri Lanka has been hit by a series of events over the last couple of years.
I think back to 2019, just as that tourism industry was stabilizing, you had horrific bombings that specifically targeted hotels. That took a huge bite out of tourism.
Just as they were rebounding, the COVID-19 pandemic happens. Just as they are starting to normalize from COVID-19, they have a cargo ship catch fire that spews plastic pellets all over their beaches.
It has been a tough go for the fishing industry, the tourism industry and now even the country itself could run out of money, not to mention fuel and food if something is not done. Step one, at least, a new government seems to be taking shape.
BRUNHUBER: Will Ripley, thank you so much for your analysis.
Last hour, I spoke with a journalist who has covered Sri Lanka for decades. She told me the country is grappling with its worst financial crisis in years and she fears it will grow even more dire.
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PADMA RAO SUNDARJI, FORMER BUREAU CHIEF, "DER SPIEGEL": It is terrible. I was there in May, I was reporting live for many channels out of there. And it was bad already. People waiting in lines (INAUDIBLE) rickshaw drivers, who had to earn to maintain their families.
And there was no gasoline, no cooking gas. So there were people, really elderly people, waiting in long lines that sometimes to 3-4 kilometers. On average, people waited for about two days then. And now people are waiting for five days and six days.
Schools have been shut for the past two weeks. There's no (INAUDIBLE) reopening. So kids are just sitting around, waiting for school buses that will never arrive, because there is no gasoline.
And the anger has just spilled out over, onto the streets and the protests, which were relatively peaceful up to now, have now turned -- now you are seeing what you are seeing. They're not very -- it's no longer called entirely peaceful.
There is an element of aggression there. And I'm afraid, if that aggression continues, Sri Lanka is likely to see great repercussions, like the armed forces, perhaps, coming out on the streets, just to control the crowds.
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BRUNHUBER: Parliamentary elections are underway in Japan two days after former prime minister Shinzo Abe was really gunned down in broad daylight. At stake are 125 seats in the upper house of parliament. Abe was killed while campaigning on Friday.
The U.S. secretary of state will travel to Tokyo on Monday to pay his respects. We are getting details about the suspect's statements to police. Blake Essig joins me live from Tokyo.
Let's start with what we are learning about Abe's accused killer.
BLAKE ESSIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Earlier today, we caught a glimpse of the man suspected of murdering former prime minister Shinzo Abe, when he was moved from a police station, where the assassination took place, to a district prosecutor's office.
It is important to note at this point, even though he has admitted to the shooting at this point, he has not been formally charged. Meanwhile, Kyoto News has spoken to a former colleague of the suspect.
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ESSIG: He described him as totally normal and that he seemed mild- mannered, not exactly the characteristics of a man determined to assassinate the former prime minister.
According to NHK, the 41-year old considered carrying out the crime a day earlier at a campaign event but decided against it because he was looking for a space that was less guarded.
Also reporting the suspect told police he originally planned to kill Abe using explosives before deciding to use that homemade gun. In the end, Shinzo Abe shot twice from several feet away while delivering a speech ahead of today's upper house election.
BRUNHUBER: Obviously in the wake of all of this, the security situation has been called into question.
What has been the fallout?
ESSIG: In the days to follow, many questions have been raised about the former prime minister's security. And the chief of police says he cannot deny that there were problems and that he takes responsibility for the failures that led to the killing.
According to NHK, a plan was put in place, involving many plainclothes officers and security personnel onsite at the time. But they did not identify anyone suspicious, only reacting after two shots were fired, those two fatal shots.
At this point, the national police agency will review the security arrangements for the former prime minister to prevent a similar situation from ever happening again.
BRUNHUBER: Blake Essig, thank you so much.
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BRUNHUBER: We want to tell you about news just coming in to CNN. At least 14 people have been killed in a mass shooting in Soweto, South Africa's biggest township. Another 11 injured and rushed to a nearby hospital.
Police say gunmen stormed into a bar Sunday and started firing. The investigation has only just begun.
We are getting stunning new details about the danger to the U.S. Capitol on January 6. What far right extremists brought with them and how they allegedly planned for violence.
Plus, survivors of the 4th of July shooting in Illinois are trying to heal. We are learning new disturbing details about the gunman. That story ahead, stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: The Justice Department has released troubling new details about the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the extensive planning by a right wing extremist group, the Oath Keepers.
At least three chapters held training camps, focused on military tactics. One member allegedly had a handwritten document, headlined "Death List," that included a Georgia election official and their family member.
The revelations come hours after the testimony before the January 6 committee, former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone. A spokesman says he provided a great deal of new information and, quote, "critical testimony." Marshall Cohen has details.
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MARSHALL COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump's White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, spent more than seven hours testifying to the January 6th select committee. Now that in its own right was a real breakthrough for the panel, because Cipollone had resisted doing a formal deposition for more than a year.
But he finally agreed to testify recently after a series of damaging revelations at previous public hearings. Now throughout his tenure as White House counsel, Cipollone often found himself pushing back against the more extreme members of Donald Trump's orbit.
And he was a first-hand witness to several of the make-or-break moments, where American democracy was on the line.
For instance, Cipollone was there when some of Trump's outside advisers raised the idea of declaring martial law. He was there when some of Trump's advisers encouraged him to use the military to seize voting machines.
And Cipollone was there when Trump nearly appointed a well-known conspiracy theorist to look for unhinged voter fraud theories. Perhaps most importantly, Cipollone was in the White House on January 6th.
And previous witnesses have testified about his desperate efforts to stop Trump from marching to the Capitol. He also warned others inside the White House they would have blood on their hands if Trump did not intervene during the violent insurrection.
Now Cipollone's deposition was videotaped. And the committee will get its first chance on Tuesday to publicly release some of the footage. Tuesday's hearing is expected to focus on the far right extremist groups that were a huge part of Trump's efforts to overturn the election: the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters.
Many of their members stormed the Capitol on January 6th. Some have even been charged with sedition, an extremely serious crime. The hearing on Tuesday will delve into the connections between these militants and some of the key players in Donald Trump's orbit -- Marshall Cohen, CNN, Washington.
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BRUNHUBER: Abortion rights advocates gathered Saturday in Washington to make their voices heard. They want protection after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Protesters marched to the White House, some briefly tied themselves to the gates.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): The protests come one day after President Biden signed an executive order, aimed at protecting abortion rights. House Democrats plan to introduce two measures this week.
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BRUNHUBER: We are learning new details about the Highland Park shooter, who killed seven people and injured dozens at a July 4th parade.
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BRUNHUBER: Police made frequent visits to the shooter's home in recent years over domestic disputes.
During a visit in 2019, police confiscated a collection of knives after the then 18-year old threatened to, quote, "kill everyone." Just three months later, the shooter's father signed his son's application for a firearm owner's ID card, enabling his son to get a permit to purchase multiple guns before turning 21.
Officials are calling on their community to come together. CNN's Camila Bernal spoke to some of the residents trying to recover as they face extreme trauma and grief.
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CAMILA BERNAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As a way to heal, Steve Tilken visits this makeshift memorial, takes pictures and talks.
STEVE TILKEN, HIGHLAND PARK SHOOTING WITNESS: I just want to confront this demon of carnage, if you want to call it that. And for me to do it, I have to come here.
BERNAL: He has lived in Highland Park for 26 years and on July Fourth went to the parade with his wife and grandchildren.
TILKEN: We were 50 feet from the shooter and the easiest targets possible. And why we weren't shot I can't figure out.
BERNAL: He heard the shots and ran. Then saw the injuries and one of the dead. Here he is on surveillance video. TILKEN: I just cannot wrap my head around what had just happened and I kept trying to figure it out and I guess I'm still trying to figure out what makes somebody this evil.
BERNAL: It's the question this entire community is trying to answer.
ALY PEDOWITZ, HIGHLAND PARK BUSINESS OWNER: For the first two days I would say, am I still sleeping?
Is this a nightmare?
Wake me up, because it cannot feel real. And you go through these waves where you are numb for a little bit and then you get angry and then you feel guilty and then overwhelming sadness and then you go back to feeling numb and like, this isn't what happened.
BERNAL: Aly Pedowitz co-owned seven businesses in the middle of the crime scene. All her stores are closed.
PEDOWITZ: Before this all happened, our street was meant to be a place that provided a safe and fun-loving space for families, for kids.
BERNAL: Healing for her, she says, will come and she is allowed to reopen.
PEDOWITZ: We will be able to reclaim it is this place where we can be together and be happy and heal together and just support one another.
BERNAL: And little by little, in a business, in a neighborhood and in a makeshift memorial, members of this community showing their strength.
TILKEN: I will heal. I will absolutely heal.
BERNAL: And that's exactly what many of the residents of Highland Park were doing here at this rally, coming together to honor and remember the victims but also to demand action, specifically legislative action, because they say that is what comes next -- Camila Bernal, CNN, Highland Park, Illinois.
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BRUNHUBER: Emergency crews are scrambling to reach the victims trapped under a collapsed building in Ukraine. A live report on rescue efforts after a Russian rocket strike hits a five-story apartment building in Donetsk.
Plus, Ukraine's second-largest city also takes a hit from a Russian missile. We will give you a first-hand look at the devastation in Kharkiv, stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us around the world. I am Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
Ukraine says rescue efforts are underway after a deadly Russian rocket attack. It says 10 bodies have been recovered from a building struck by a Russian rocket. Officials say more people are believed to be trapped in the rubble. Scott McLean is monitoring developments and joins us now from Kyiv.
The death toll seems to be growing.
What more can you tell us?
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And it may grow yet still. The latest word that we have is from the local governor, who says he believes there were two or three missiles fired in the direction of that building and that at least two were a direct hit on the building itself.
They say they have pulled out 10 bodies from the rubble. There are at least 10 people confirmed killed. They also say they have managed to pull five people out alive with varied levels of injury.
The new pictures that we have from the scene, provided to us by the local authorities, are pretty grim. You can see part of the building looks like it has been entirely leveled, just reduced to a pile of rubble.
It is difficult to get a sense of how big the original building was. That is how much has been destroyed. You can also see rescuers are trying to get underneath the debris pile to reach anyone who might be under there.
In this video, there is a soldier that explains they have been hearing voices from underneath the pile of rubble. Based on their assessment of how many voices there are, they figure there are about 30 people still trapped.
Looking at the pictures, it is difficult to imagine that anyone could've possibly survived. The soldier says the force was so intense it blew out the windows of the neighboring building. And one witness also provided an explanation for why part of the building seemed to collapse.
That is, she says that the missiles or one of the rockets hit the lower part of the building, perhaps destabilizing the upper floors.
I should give you a bit of context. This is a town where the Russians have really been focusing efforts over the last couple of days, even before this strike on this apartment building. They claim to have hit earlier in the day a hangar. These are U.S. artillery systems.
They also say they hit an area where there were 30 Ukrainian soldiers who had been firing toward the Russian side amongst the civilian areas. The Russian explanation very likely is going to be that there were soldiers in that area, that this was a military target.
The Ukrainians said this was not a hangar or warehouse. They said that it was a train station that they hit.
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BRUNHUBER: Turning to the wider situation across the country, what areas are you keeping your eye on?
MCLEAN: The battle for Donetsk is the Russians' big target right now and that is why we've seen this strike. The movement along the front lines isn't very much. So the Russians are resorting to this familiar tactic of bombing and shelling the towns and villages on the other side in hopes of flattening what ever they can, to be able to eventually move forward.
Similarly in the northern part of the country around Kharkiv, there has not been hardly any movement on the front lines. The Ukrainians claim the Russians are in defensive mode, trying to prevent them from retaking land.
Instead, what they are dealing with is constant shelling, the missile attack yesterday inside of the actual city. But there are no signs the front lines will move anytime soon.
In the southern part of the country, this is where the Ukrainians actually believe they can make progress. The city of Mykolaiv has been officially a brick wall for the Russians. They have not been able to get even close to taking the city and moving beyond it toward Odessa.
So the Ukrainians are taking advantage of the fact that is a real stronghold for them. They are trying to launch their own offensive to take back more land toward the Russian occupied city of Kherson. That is where we are starting to see fighting really intensified in recent days.
BRUNHUBER: Thank you so much, Scott. Appreciate that.
As Scott just mentioned, six missiles hit the city of Mykolaiv earlier on Saturday, striking residential homes and businesses. We wanted to show you this huge crater, where one missile apparently fell, tearing the building to pieces.
As we just reported, Ukrainians are hitting back at a military target about 50 miles to the southeast. Ukraine says it blew up Russian military stockpiles in the airport near Kherson while in the northeast.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): As you heard Scott mention, Ukraine says that was the moment Russian missiles slammed in to Kharkiv Saturday, injuring at least four people. Ukrainians have pushed Russians away but Russian artillery attacks have increased. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: A CNN crew was at the scene right after that missile strike. Alex Marquardt saw the damage firsthand.
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ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): This is what it looks and feels like these days to live in Ukraine's second biggest city. It was a beautiful Saturday morning here in Kharkiv until 10:00 when the sound of a huge explosion just tore across this city.
And this is where that Russian strike happened. Just look at the size of this missile strike. It left a huge crater in one of the most central areas of the city. This is one of the most central strikes in recent weeks.
We are in the inside courtyard of a two-story residential building. The force of the blast taking down the two floors of that house right there. We're told by a neighbor that the family that lives there, thankfully, had left.
They now live in Germany. And the authorities are saying that no one was killed in the strike. There are, however, several wounded. One of them who was a woman who lived right over there, she was caught under the rubble.
And she actually called her daughter from under that rubble before she was taken away by rescuers to the hospital.
We met her daughter when we got here to the scene. She was understandably very troubled. She was on the phone with her mother. She was picking up things for her mother to take to the hospital, her wheelchair, some clothes and her pet bird.
This is really just one example of what is the kinds of attacks that are falling all across Ukraine. We have seen a significant spike in the shelling in the southern city of Mykolaiv, where there's heavy fighting between the Russian and Ukrainian sides.
And then just south of us, in Donetsk, where we're expecting the Russians to make a major push in the future, there's been an uptick in the Russian attacks there. We're told by local authorities in Donetsk at least five people were killed today in those Russian strikes in the eastern province of Donetsk -- Alex Marquardt, CNN, Kharkiv.
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BRUNHUBER: The world might be done with COVID-19 but it is certainly not done with us. The COVID variants driving an increase in cases here in the U.S. and Europe and how Canadian researchers say they've identified a potential key culprit that causes some people to get long COVID-19. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: There are growing concerns over a surge of COVID infections spreading across much of the U.S. this summer. The BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant form of COVID-19 in the U.S. CNN's Jacqueline Howard has details.
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JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH CORRESPONDENT: As the coronavirus spreads, we can expect to see more variants and subvariants like BA.5 emerge. According to the latest CDC data, BA.5 is causing more than half, 53.6 percent, of infections in the United States.
And other Omicron subvariants circulating right now, BA.2.12.1, causing 27.2 percent of infections, BA.4 causing 16.5 percent, and BA.2 causing 2.8 percent. And these subvariants are circulating at a time when nearly a third of the U.S. population lives in a county with COVID-19 community levels that the CDC considers to be high.
Those counties with a high level are spread across many major U.S. regions, like New York City, Houston's Harris County, Miami-Dade County and Las Vegas' Clark County. So even though our lives are returning to normal, this is just a reminder that the virus is still out there.
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BRUNHUBER: With so many Americans living in high COVID-19 counties, the CDC says people in those areas should be wearing a mask indoors. The agency is also warning official case counts no longer represent the true level of community transmission. Polo Sandoval has more.
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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is shaping up to be the summer of subvariants, particularly Omicron's BA.4 and BA.5, which researchers have recently said seems to be escaping antibody responses, even among those fully vaccinated and boosted and those who have recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection.
Though health officials continue to reiterate that getting vaccinated and boosted remains the best way of protecting yourself though it hasn't really slowed those infections.
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About 32 percent of Americans living with high COVID-19 levels right now, that is the same as what we saw just last week. At the same time, it is higher than the 23 percent we have seen a couple of weeks ago.
Here in New York City, test positivity around 14 percent. That is also a significant increase that has worried officials to the point that, on Friday, they issued a recommendation for people, not a mandate, just a recommendation, that they once again continue to use those high grade masks, especially in indoor, public spaces, as well as crowded, outdoor spaces, as well.
Here's New York City mayor Eric Adams recently.
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MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D-NY), NEW YORK CITY: Our goal is to make sure that whatever we put in place is going to stem the infections, keep down our hospitalization and most importantly keep down those who die from COVID.
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SANDOVAL: Mayor Adams added that, in spite of the recent increase, the city is currently in a good and stable place when it comes to continuing on that road to reestablishing the prepandemic norm.
In terms of hospitalizations, which is also a key statistic that used to gauge exactly where we are, it is still not overwhelming hospitals across the country, although there are many states that have noted a slight increase in the last couple of weeks -- Polo Sandoval, CNN, New York.
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BRUNHUBER: Canadian researchers at Western University say they have identified for the first time the cause of some long COVID symptoms. The use of MRI technology, combined with inhaled xenon gas, allowed researchers to see some long COVID-19 symptoms are related to microscopic abnormalities that affect how oxygen is exchanged from the lungs to red blood cells.
Long COVID-19 is characterized by the feeling of brain fog, breathlessness, fatigue and limited capacity to do normal day-to-day things. Symptoms can last weeks or months following initial infection.
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BRUNHUBER: Joining me now is Dr. Michael Nicholson, a respirologist and professor at Western University, who contributed to the study.
Thank you for being here. Your study is the first to show a potential cause of these long COVID symptoms.
How did you get the idea to use the techniques that you did to isolate the cause?
DR. MICHAEL NICHOLSON, RESPIROLOGIST: That is a good question. We've seen this technology used in other lung disease. We were hitting a bit of a brick wall with regular testing therapeutics.
So we got together with our research team and actually suggested this as an option to have a better look and a different look at the areas of the lung that might be missed on regular scans available to us.
BRUNHUBER: Explain to us what is going on physically?
NICHOLSON: At the very smallest part of the lung where the oxygen crosses over from the airway into the blood vessel, we are seeing some abnormalities around the blood vessel that might be the true issue that is coming up with people having shortness of breath and obviously feeling the inability to do something as simple as walking or exercising.
We are not exactly sure what the mechanism is. But we see the abnormality. I think that is the nice part, to finally identify something that is abnormal that will allow us to continue to look for the actual underlying cause.
BRUNHUBER: That is important, right?
The study was small but it suggests there is a way to maybe, in the future, treat the symptoms that are affecting a growing number of people.
NICHOLSON: That is it. We are seeing this happening in other organ systems. I think that is important to note, that there is something identified. We are finally seeing something turn up. Now we can focus on the underlying mechanism and potentially therapeutic options.
BRUNHUBER: How much of a relief was it to the patients, to hear that there was a physical cause, that it wasn't just all in their head?
NICHOLSON: I think that was the largest thing, to really give some satisfaction and some reassurance to the patients that this was not just a mental thing. There was some physiological and physical abnormalities that I think will speak volumes.
It will again potentially allow the next step of scientific research into what is causing it and other organ systems -- maybe the brain, the bowels -- that is really important going forward.
BRUNHUBER: All of this could not come at a better time because of two things. As I outlined before, we are seeing a huge rise in cases in many places, including states here in the U.S. Secondly, because of these new subvariants, people seem to be getting reinfected.
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BRUNHUBER: A new study suggests, if you get COVID multiple times, you have a greater chance of suffering long COVID symptoms. Earlier this morning, we spoke to the lead researcher of the study. Here he is, listen in.
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DR. ZIYAD AL ALI, CLINICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY CENTER, VETERANS AFFAIRS ST. LOUIS HEALTH CARE SYSTEM: It is compellingly clear that it also contributes to long COVID. What worries me about that is that some of the manifestations of long COVID are really chronic conditions that will last with people for a lifetime.
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BRUNHUBER: All of this underscores the importance of finding treatments for long COVID-19 if more people are going to suffer from it but also, prevention at a time when all but a few restrictions have been dropped.
NICHOLSON: Yes, that is just it, I think really figure out the cause and then trying to prevent it will be essentially monumental. But the concern is, are we going to see more of this because we are seeing more and more infections?
BRUNHUBER: Thank you so much for being with us. Best of luck as you continue to find hopefully more information on this condition that is affecting so many people around the world. Dr. Michael Nicholson, thank you so much.
NICHOLSON: Thank you for having me.
BRUNHUBER: Parts of the U.S. are sweltering in excessive heat this weekend. We will have details after the break. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): A fast-moving wildfire has burned hundreds of acres in central Utah. The Halfway Hill fire started on Friday and officials say it was one of several that erupted in the county on the same day.
The cause is still under investigation. Officials ordered evacuations as firefighters made aerial flights to combat the flames.
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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): This is a historic hotel on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, victim of a massive blaze on Saturday. The Veranda House bed and breakfast dates back to the 17th century.
Despite crews responding to the call, an off duty fire captain and bystanders reportedly ran inside to help get guests and staff out. The blaze spread to several homes nearby. The fire department believes all staff and guests were able to evacuate. But much of the hotel collapsed in the fire and the cause of the blaze is still under investigation.
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BRUNHUBER: That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I am Kim Brunhuber. "NEW DAY" is next. For the rest of the world, "MARKETPLACE ASIA."
