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CNN 10
The Pros And Cons Of Contact Tracing; The Significance Of China`s Latest Mission To The Moon; The History Of Germany`s Autobahn. Aired 4- 4:10a ET
Aired December 17, 2020 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: It`s our penultimate program of the year and we`re happy you`re taking time for CNN 10. I`m Carl Azuz. It is great to
have you watching.
United Airlines and Delta Airlines are planning to ask travelers for some extra information in the days ahead. They want people`s names, phone
numbers, email addresses, and the places where they`ll be staying after traveling (ph) on the plane. These are forms of contact-tracing, a method
of gathering as much data about people as they or the law allows, in an effort to track and prevent coronavirus.
America has not seen a major outbreak tied to a commercial flight, but there also haven`t been widespread tracing efforts of airline passengers.
Here`s how contact tracing works. It aims to identify people who`ve caught COVID-19, isolate them from others and then track down anyone else they`ve
come in contact with who else might become infected. But it`s a controversial process that critics say invades privacy.
If it`s based on your smartphone info, contact tracing can be used to follow you wherever you take it, how time you spend there, and who else
you`re there with. Then, the tracking system could also follow those other people wherever they go afterward based on their smartphone info.
Could this become a form of mass surveillance? Could it continue after the threat of COVID-19 has gone away? And could the information be abused if it
falls into the wrong hands? These are all concerns critics have.
Supporters of contact tracing, which include the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, say the process is fundamental for controlling
the spread of communicable diseases, like coronavirus. Some have praised the nation of South Korea for its use of technology in tracking down
coronavirus cases.
And in the capital of Seoul, you can see how many different elements are at work in doing that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The lunchtime rush at a Seoul restaurant, with almost every table taken. One
diner tests positive for coronavirus. The search begins for who else may have been affected.
It starts with the phone call confirming the patient`s ID from the health official, to an epidemiologist investigator, mobile phone and credit card
checks follow.
Lee Young-Wook, a contact tracer, and her colleagues physically retrace the footsteps. The restaurant owner shows where the customer was sitting and
shares the CCTV footage.
Lee checks who was close by and needs to be warned. The owner and staff have already tested negative.
Lee makes at least 10 of this visit today, rarely finishing work before 9:00 p.m.
She tells me the person having lunch with the confirmed case is not wearing a mask and is a close contact. He has been contacted, tested and
quarantined for 14 days. With hundreds of new cases every day, this work is becoming harder, with many cases now termed as untraceable.
If the mobile phone and credit card usage isn`t quite enough to gain a full picture, then contact tracers can track at individual`s movements here at
this CCTV center. They can find out exactly where a confirmed case went, who they met, and crucially, they say whether they were wearing a mask.
More than 3,000 cameras cover just this one Seoul district of Seocho, normally used for crime prevention, but now a key element in the fight
against the coronavirus.
The mayor of Seocho says the reason this (INAUDIBLE) is so difficult to contain is because infections are happening in all cities and districts
simultaneously.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AZUZ: Up next, could we be at the dawn of the new space race?
China just completed another unnamed mission to the moon. It`s had several this century.
The United States wants to send people there again in 2024. Private companies like SpaceX want to send humans to Mars and others like Planetary
Resources are looking toward asteroids as a possible source of income. They believe that the value of precious metals and other materials on space
rocks could far exceed the cost of sending equipment there and back.
But we`re getting ahead of ourselves. China recently followed in the footsteps of missions carried out by the United States and the former
Soviet Union. And for the Asian country, this is more than a technological accomplishment.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After blasting off from the moon on Sunday, China`s probe now returns to earth
after a 23 day mission, bringing with it the first lunar samples collected in nearly half a century.
Landing in Inner Mongolia, the Chang`e 5 will become a piece of China`s history. It is only the third country to bring home such precious cargo.
Scientists will soon be analyzing the structure, physical properties, and material composition of the soil and rock samples hoping to answer long
held questions about our nearest celestial body.
Named after the mythical Chinese goddess of the moon, the Chang`e 5 mission could help explain the moon`s origins, how long it was volcanically active,
and when its magnetic field which protects life from the sun`s radiation disappeared.
But its objective was twofold, one part discovery, the other to advance China`s ambitions in space exploration, one of the most complicated and
challenging missions in the country`s aerospace history.
The four part Chang`e 5 probe blasted off from an island off of China southern coast on November 24th. It touched down seven days later on a part
of a moon that has never been visited before, a massive lava plane known as Ocean of Storms. There, the lander began collecting samples with the drill
and robotic arm before loading it onto an ascent vehicle.
Now sealed in a reentered capsule, about 2 kilograms of the moon, returned to earth for the first time since the 1970s, possibly holding clues to
ancient mysteries of the moon.
Kristie Lu Stout, CNN, Hong Kong.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ (voice-over): Ten-second trivia:
Which U.S. President signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act?
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, or Richard M. Nixon?
When the act passed in 1956, it was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: Staying to buckle up and a go for a ride in our last two stories today, earlier this year when lockdowns were first being put in place in
response to the coronavirus pandemic, we took you on a series of virtual vacations, visiting venues that for a while were inaccessible to everyone
and giving a glimpse of life in other parts of the world in more normal times.
In keeping with that spirit, we`re going for a spin on historic German road network today, a relic of the past that helped inspired future highways
around the world, including the Eisenhower interstate we just asked you about.
CNN 10 contributor Chris James explores the Autobahn, past and present.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS JAMES, CNN 10 CONTRIBUTOR: Hey, Carl, there is nothing quite like the freedom of sitting in the driver seat, give me an open road, a tank
full of gas and my favorite music on the radio, and I will happily drive anywhere.
But today, I want to tell you about the one roadway I`ve always dreamt of driving on, the Autobahn.
It`s arguably the most famous highway in the entire world. The Autobahn, which is German for car runway, connects the entire country of Germany, but
it`s much more than just your average interstate highway. The Autobahn has become something of a cultural icon, spanning artwork, movie plot lines and
merchandise around the globe.
It`s been made famous because there are certain stretches of the Autobahn that had no speed limit whatsoever, with millions of drivers putting the
pedal to the metal for nearly a century. It was after World War I when the idea to connect Germany`s expanding cities initially took shape. The first
public road of its kind was completed in 1931, linking Cologne and Bonn. But years later, once Hitler rose to power, he tried to falsely take credit
for creating the Autobahn, even using it as a source of Nazi propaganda.
But this is the real father of the Autobahn, Konrad Adenauer, the mayor of the city of Cologne, and later the first chancellor of post-war Germany, an
expansion program on the highways began in the 1950s, and during the Cold War, some stretches of it were designed to function as makeshift airfields
for Allied troops, in case of a Soviet invasion.
Today, the Autobahn stretches over 8,000 miles, ranking it among the longest and most dense road systems in the entire world, pretty amazing to
think about the ways in which this one highway influenced the future of transportation as we know it.
Back to you, Carl
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC)
AZUZ: Definitely a 21st century idea. You call a taxi and this thing shows up without a driver. There are several companies working on electric self-
driving vehicles. Google is one of them. Amazon owns the one you see here. It has airbags, cameras and radar designed to keep people safe and can
travel up to 75 miles per hour.
But though it`s being tested, it`s not actually in operation yet, and several questions remain, could it kill jobs for taxi, Uber and Lyft
drivers? What if you`re in a hurry or you don`t like the route it`s chosen?
The technology is just hitting the road. There are a lot of different directions it can go. And while some introverts might like the idea getting
driverless, it can drive some extroverts crazy. So, we`ll see if and when it gets in gear, if it`s a signal of real change or if it`s a long turn
that never get seated in shifting opinions, even though it`s meant to be out of gas, y`all.
I`m Carl Azuz for CNN 10.
Lakota, North Dakota, is our last stop today. It`s the home of Lakota High School. It`s great to see you, guys.
We have one more show to go in 2020 and we hope to see everyone right back here tomorrow.
END
