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U.K. Surpasses Italy's Death Toll; European Countries Easing Restrictions; Russian Police Investigate How Doctors Fell from Windows; Kevin Rudd, Former Prime Minister of Australia Warns of Politicizing COVID- 19 Investigations; New Evidence About Virus In France; Trump Reverses Aim to Get Rid of Coronavirus Task Force; Trump Visits Arizona Without a Mask; Unemployment Claims Spike among Asian Americans; Researchers Clone Antibodies to Develop Drugs; Mask Debate Devolves into Violence in U.S. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired May 06, 2020 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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HALA GORANI, CNN HOST (voice-over): Welcome, everybody. I'm Hala Gorani. This is CONNECT THE WORLD.
A warning from the E.U.: the continent is facing a recession of historic proportions. As Germany lays out how it will ease its lockdown, Angela
Merkel is speaking now.
Meanwhile, the U.K. now has the highest death toll in all of Europe. What Boris Johnson had to say in Parliament about that.
And less than 24 hours after President Trump suggests he'll wind down his Coronavirus Task Force, he now says it will in fact be kept open
indefinitely and shift focus. We'll be -- we'll have those stories and more.
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GORANI: So we will be looking at those stories. And we start with Europe, a recession of historic proportions for the continent. It is a grim
warning, coming today from the E.U.'s economy commissioner.
Paolo Gentiloni says the 27-nation bloc is now forecast to contract 7.5 percent this year. Now according to him, no country on the continent will
be spared from recession. If you're watching us from one of the E.U. countries, you will be impacted.
The strength of the recovery will vary greatly. That's important to note. One country potentially in a better position for a rebound is Germany. We
have seen throughout this pandemic how Germany has kept the coronavirus death rate lower than most anywhere else.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has been speaking to map out a strategy to reopen. She is coming under some pressure to loosen restrictions. Fred Pleitgen has
been listening to the chancellor speak and joins me now live from Berlin.
What is Angela Merkel saying about this phased reopening of the German economy?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think you make an absolutely excellent point, which is correct. Angela Merkel has
come under some pressure from the state prime ministers and also from the giant Germany economy over the past couple of years -- days, is that united
front we have seen from the start of this pandemic, with all of Germany pushing in one direction, crumbling a little bit.
Some states saying they want to open up a little quicker, others saying that's too fast. You saw that crumble a little bit as this is taking a
bigger and bigger economic toll. So Angela Merkel came out today after speaking to the state governors and did announce some of the measures would
be taken back or loosened to a certain degree.
First of all, this is probably one of the most important things she said, right now Germany is past the first phase of this pandemic, which means
that they are able to open up to a certain degree.
Some things that will happen is that now larger shops are also allowed to open, before this it was 800 square meters and smaller. Now any shop can
open its doors again. Of course the social physical distancing measures and face masks are going to remain in place. Restaurants and bars and cafes
will be allowed to open. Those physical distancing measures also in place.
And for many Germans, of course, extremely important as well, soccer is coming back to Germany. They can start playing in the middle of May.
Unclear whether the 15th or 22nd of May when that is going to happen.
But also under severe hygienic restrictions there are some talking about having games take place without any spectators in the stands just to make
sure that you don't have people infecting each other there.
You do have some loosening measures; the chancellor has been very careful as far as loosening. She said today, she does in the want another spike in
infections but she is getting a lot more pressure than she has in the past, from the German economy, some of which -- some economic leaders have been
saying that she needs to watch out that there is not irreparable damage to Germany's economy.
This might also be one of the reasons we're seeing them gradually but quicker than some might have thought reopen the economy.
GORANI: Yes. There is a lot of anger from Southern European countries, those that were hit very hard in the beginning of the European phase of
this pandemic, Italy, Spain, Greece has been angry at Germany for a long time because of how they believe the E.U. didn't treat them as fairly as
they could, a little bit too harshly on their debt, for instance.
Germany, how are they reacting?
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GORANI: Because could it be that, for instance, as some have said the union survived Brexit but this pandemic has really, you know, brought into
focus incredible divisions, where Germany was seen as not coming to the aid of some of its most vulnerable members of the E.U.
PLEITGEN: Well, I think that you're absolutely right. I think that's something even one of Angela Merkel's biggest allies, Ursula van der Leyen,
the head of the European Commission, said at some point.
She went out and apologized to the Italians and said, look, at the beginning of the pandemic, the European Union was not there for you. That
means the rich countries, the strong countries, countries like Germany, other wealthy countries, did not do enough to support some of these
countries being hit very hard, not just as far as the medical side of this is concerned but also as far as the economic side of all of this is
concerned as well.
Then you have some of the divisions that continue to remain. Right now, the countries of the European Union are trying to come together and negotiated
how they're going to move forward, trying to deal with this economically.
But you look at the so-called corona bonds, common European debt, that's something that the richer nations from the European nations continue to say
simply not going to happen. They don't want to collectivize the debt, be on the hook for potential debt of other countries.
That's something not viewed very favorably in places like Italy and Greece and France and Spain as well. So I think that there is a feeling here in
Berlin that the European Union has been damaged because of all of that.
I think that was noticed by the European Union and by the Germans as well. They're trying to move back to that and show some solidarity. But certainly
we have to look very closely at the recovery to see whether or not we might have a situation like we did in 2010, where you had a crisis.
And then move powerful countries in the European Union, like Germany, came out even more powerful than before, while the countries of Southern Europe
became even weaker than they were before.
GORANI: Right. We are going to see, especially with this dire warning that the region will see a recession of historic proportions, 7.5 percent
contraction for the zone.
Here in the U.K., a very grim milestone. The country has now overtaken Italy with the highest COVID-19 death toll in all of Europe, according to
Johns Hopkins University. More than 29,000 fatalities have been reported.
During his first prime minister's questions since March, Boris Johnson said it is not the time to make comparisons among the many nations affected by
the pandemic.
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BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: At this stage, I don't think that international comparisons and the data is yet there to draw the conclusions
that we want. What I can tell you is that at every stage, as we took the decisions that we did, we were governed by one overriding principle and end
and that was to save lives and to protect our own NHS.
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GORANI: Well, Britain's leading epidemiologist has resigned, a very embarrassing affair for him, after breaking his own lockdown rules, the
ones he helped create. Professor Neil Ferguson stepped down from his government post yesterday. After "The Telegraph" newspaper reported that he
ignored safety measures to meet with his mistress in his own home.
The U.K. health secretary says it is extraordinary that Ferguson broke his own rules. Our chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward is live here
in London.
You would expect the prime minister to say this is not the time to make comparisons, because they are not favorable to the U.K. They knew it was
coming and here we are with almost 30,000 dead in the country.
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Hala. I think you saw prime minister Boris Johnson really visibly flustered at
times during the prime minister's questions.
Certainly the leader of the opposition wasn't pulling any punches and it was the first time we have seen the prime minister face that kind of
probing questions into the government's handling of the coronavirus crisis, which, so far clearly, has been less than stellar, as you mentioned.
More deaths now than Italy, the largest number of deaths in the whole European continent. And while the prime minister can argue about the sort
of -- whether it makes sense to compare different countries, the reality is the country has been hit particularly hard.
And the government has been pretty slow to meet some of the criteria that experts say are essential to getting that number down, to getting the rate
of infection down. Particularly, I'm thinking, once again, of issues pertaining to testing.
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WARD: The government now saying they want to go for 200,000 a day, currently they have the capacity for about 800 -- sorry, 80,000 a day. But
still they don't have all the logistics in place to ensure people can get testing easily.
The other issue which has become so salient as we meet this grim milestone that you refer to, Hala, is the issue of care homes, nursing homes.
These places essentially, with all the focus being on the NHS and hospitals and protecting the healthcare system, those were essentially neglected. And
that's why we have seen a huge spike in the death toll as government tallies have finally started to take into account all those who have died
in those care homes, Hala.
GORANI: And despite those numbers, there is a lot of pressure on the government to at least communicate an exit strategy. As we have seen in
other countries, these lockdowns all over the world are causing huge economic pain.
What is the latest on that?
WARD: So Boris Johnson said basically on Sunday now he's going to present a sort of outline of what the easing of restrictions will look like. The
easing of restrictions will begin on Monday.
But reading between the lines, talking to sources, listening to an interview that Matt Hancock, the health secretary, did recently, it seems
clear that the government really wants people to measure their expectations.
This isn't going to be a scenario like you just heard Fred Pleitgen outline as to what is happening in Germany, where stores are reopening, where cafes
and bars and restaurants, albeit with strict social distancing measures, are beginning to reopen.
On the subject of schools reopening, again, the sense is hold your expectations. It is not going to happen overnight. Some classes maybe would
be able to go back toward the end of this -- the end of the summer term.
But many probably won't be able to go back until September and even that, Hala, is not definite. This is a moment where people are holding their
breath, hoping for the best but likely are going to get some tough medicine on Sunday.
GORANI: All right, Clarissa, thank you very much.
Pressure is mounting on Russian president Vladimir Putin as well, as the number of infected in Russia continues to spike. The curve looks different
for Russia, compared to countries like France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The president held a virtual meeting with officials, where he said coronavirus restrictions need to be maintained or even stepped up in some
places. Confirmed cases have gone up in Russia more than 10,000 for four days in a row. There are now nearly 166,000 total cases across Russia,
according to Johns Hopkins University.
We're comparing apples to apples here when it comes to numbers. That's why we go to the same source and, from one day to the next, we don't give you
differently sourced figures. So international correspondent Matthew Chance is following Russia's virus response and he joins me now live with more on
that.
So again, here we are, in a country where you're seeing rapidly increasing numbers. And really gets -- get the sense somehow there is a bit of panic
now setting in.
How do we stop this train that is barreling down the tracks?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In Russia, it has been a particularly unusual turnaround as well. At the beginning of the
pandemic, Russia said it was in control of this. It had taken early steps to close its borders and to, you know, lock people down inside their homes.
But in the past several weeks or month or so, we have really seen the numbers of people who have been confirmed as infected in country start to
spike. They're not slowing like they are in other European countries.
They're getting higher and the rates of increase in Russia must be among the highest rates we're seeing anywhere in the world at this point. You
mentioned the figures in the past 24 hours, more than 10,500 confirmed as having virus.
It has been more than 10,000 for the past five or six days and, before that, there were record numbers of people being infected as well, 165,000
people, more than that, in fact, that the Russians say have confirmed as having the virus.
But everybody knows that that is just the tip of the iceberg. Even the mayor of Moscow said that he believes -- he's going to have access to the
kind of information that would lead him to draw the conclusions -- he believes that 2 percent of the Moscow population are infected with
coronavirus. And that would mean 250,000 people.
So there's an enormous sense in which there could be many, many more people infected and dying of coronavirus in Russia than the current official
figures make out. You mentioned that conference -- that video conference of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president engaged in, broadcast on television.
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CHANCE: I've been watching it, the end of the lockdown is meant to come on May 12th, a few days from now. But given those casualty figures, given
those figures we talked about, there's pretty little chance that that is going to -- that's going to happen.
I think the sense you got from that meeting is that those lockdown measures in Moscow, probably elsewhere as well, are going to persist for the
foreseeable future.
GORANI: Matthew Chance, thank you very much. Matthew reporting from London. He's, of course, usually based in Moscow.
So there have been calls, calls for China to open up to international investigators and inspectors, to try to figure out how this COVID-19
outbreak started and exactly where.
But China's representative to the United Nations is now saying that Beijing will not be inviting international experts to probe the origins of the
coronavirus yet. He says China's first priority is beating the pandemic and countering its, quote, "absurd and ridiculous politicization."
The World Health Organization had said it was waiting on an invitation and it is not forthcoming for now. Beijing calls Washington's allegations that
the pandemic originated in a Chinese lab "a Republican political strategy."
The WHO and the other Five Eyes nations also contradict that claim. But there are growing calls from the West, some Western countries, to find out
where this virus came from.
Joining me now is former prime minister of Australia and current Asia Society Policy Institute president Kevin Rudd.
Thank you, Mr. Rudd, for being with us. You warned in a new op-ed for "Time" magazine that an investigation could denigrate into, quote, "crudely
nationalist or a geopolitical exercise."
What did you mean by that?
KEVIN RUDD, ASIA SOCIETY POLICY INSTITUTE: Well, as your introduction just indicated, the problem is we've got accusations flying in every single
direction at the moment about the exact origin of the virus, both out of Beijing and out of Washington, China accusing the United States originally
of the virus, absurdly originating with the U.S. Army.
And, of course, we have President Trump and secretary of state Pompeo's claim that it comes out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and
counterclaims by the rest of the Western intelligence community.
But what the court -- what the people of the world want to see are the facts here, that's the bottom line.
How did the virus come about, how is it transmitted, what job did China do in the early notification to its own authorities, when was the information
provided to the World Trade Organization, what -- to the World Health Organization -- what did the WHO do about it and how did national
governments around the world respond to those WHO warnings when they did eventually come?
And so, therefore, we need to get to these facts and when I say push the nationalism and the geopolitics to one side, I think everyone simply wants
to understand how this comprehensive damage came about.
GORANI: If China says right now we just want to focus on the pandemic, although they have said over the last few weeks their numbers are so
encouraging, they're reopening Wuhan and the whole province around Wuhan, when does this need to be done?
It is like any disaster. You need to open up and get answers as quickly as you can.
Do you get the sense China is being kind of a little bit too secretive and even obstructive in this case?
RUDD: Well, we know from China's own internal admissions there were significant problems in the way in which China handled this domestically in
the critical months of December and January. There was this critical three- week gap.
But the bottom line is, it is what it is now.
And so how do we establish the facts now?
What I write in this article in "Time" magazine today is that, look, as soon as the global curve has been flattened, the time then arises for us to
put together an international panel of scientists who can get to these facts.
The mechanism I suggest is not using the WHO itself, because it is part of the question, how did WHO perform?
You cannot have Caesar judging Caesar here. My suggestion is that instead we look at the U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres, convene his own
high-level panel, including Chinese scientists, European scientists and American scientists and those from other parts of the world, a panel of
experts to simply go through the facts across the sort of terms of reference I referred to before. I think that's best way forward.
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GORANI: Yes, what about this new Cold War between the U.S. and China, the difference between this Cold War and this war of words and the one between
the U.S. and the Soviet Union is these two countries desperately need each other, economically.
And in fact, China controls, which is interesting considering this is a medical emergency, a huge portion of the U.S. pharmaceutical market.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, China controls 97 percent of the U.S. market for antibiotics.
Trade between the two countries is, you know, vital to the economies of both countries. China owns trillions of dollars in U.S. debt. The impact of
this continuing sort of Cold War and this tension between the two countries is hurting the entire globe economically.
RUDD: Well, you're absolutely right. And the problem we have is that the intensification of what I call Cold War 1.5, not yet 2.0, this
intensification is becoming more rapid and sharper as each week passes.
The geopolitics, we understand, we discussed that many times before, the economics, the trade war, we saw how that unfolded in the last two years
and the partial resolution with the trade agreement in China in Washington.
But the bottom line is we now see further pressures for serious decoupling of the two economies. You just mentioned pharmaceuticals; the U.S.
administration indicated other branches of technology.
What I fear is that this begins to escalate. The one remaining bastion so far holding these two countries together is what you also touched on, which
is finance, this $5 trillion, as it were, bilateral business.
If that starts to shake, we start to become in -- we start to enter Cold War territory. That's what desperately concerns me. And therefore, the need
for these two giants in the global economic living room to find a way of economically accommodating each other for the period forward, for the sake
of the global economy and global recovery.
GORANI: Yes. Thank you very much, Kevin Rudd. It is late for you. It's almost half past midnight. Thank you for being with us, joining us live
from Australia.
And coming up, CNN speaks to the French doctor, whose discovery could change what we know about the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic --
after this.
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GORANI: We are learning more about the new evidence that shows -- that could reveal that coronavirus was in France, in fact weeks, earlier than we
initially thought. Doctors in Paris are going back to retest samples from patients treated between early December and early January.
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GORANI: It suggests that a patient had COVID-19 in December. Melissa Bell joins me now live, she spoke to one of the doctors researching this
evidence.
What did he tell you, Melissa?
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Hala, essentially what his finding tells us, that this COVID-19 patient treated for pneumonia in December, was
in fact ill with the sickness, is that the entire mapping and timeline that we had so far for the arrival of coronavirus in Europe is off.
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BELL (voice-over): These were some of the first pictures of the coronavirus crisis in Europe, Italy locking down a few northern villages
and towns around the epicenter of Codogno in late February.
But a group of doctors in Paris have rechecked old samples and found that one patient they treated in December for pneumonia was, in fact, sick with
COVID-19.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We weren't looking for it. We hadn't thought of that diagnosis at the time since really the epidemic was
declared in China in late December, early January. We didn't think there were cases here.
BELL (voice-over): But he had COVID-19.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): It was a dry cough. At first we thought it was a seasonal flu. At 5:00 in the morning I decided to go to
the emergency ward at the closest hospital. They said that maybe it was a lung infection but that was all. And they said it was very serious. I was
coughing blood.
BELL (voice-over): The World Health Organization is now asking countries to look back at much earlier suspicious flu-like cases. What the finding
means is that COVID-19 was in Paris in December, potentially spreading in a country, still going about its business unaware.
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BELL: What the professor explained is that it is essential that countries undertake this sort of research because it is crucial to understanding how
the coronavirus arrived in Europe in order to combat it now.
It is important, he said, that people look back, although he didn't think people would find cases here in Europe that went back much before that
simply because they had gone back to the beginning of December in their research. The idea is to get to the bottom of exactly how the virus got
here and what countries may have been infected before Italy began declaring its outbreak -- Hala.
GORANI: And economically speaking, we're hearing from the E.U., the contraction for the whole E.U. zone will be 7.5 percent.
What are the projections for France?
France, compared to countries like Germany has higher unemployment and unemployment was actually, you know, sort of going down slightly before all
of this.
And what is going on now?
BELL: Well, the prognostics are dire, these were the considerations that led the French government to work out this plan, whereby the country will
partially reopen from Monday, with all of the questions still about how it is going to happen.
And what doctors are saying is that it may be too soon. That economic imperative, getting people back to work, getting the country back to
something like it was before, may have taken precedence over what hospitals are prepared to cope with should that second wave emerge.
GORANI: All right, thank you, Melissa Bell, live in Paris.
Well, it is a very different picture in the United States. We have seen a lot of Donald Trump's Coronavirus Task Force since the pandemic began.
First, it was said that it would be phased out; now it is coming back and another form.
What is the latest on this confusing message?
And one Trump administration official has a bleak outlook for jobless numbers this week. We'll look at how people are coping as unemployment in
America skyrockets.
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GORANI: The American president Donald Trump appears to have reversed course on his Coronavirus Task Force in less than 24 hours. On Tuesday, he
told reporters he would wind down the task force by the end of May.
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TRUMP: I think that as far as the task force, Mike Pence and the task force have done a great job but we're now looking at a little bit of a
different form and that form is safety and opening. And we'll have a different group probably set up for that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GORANI: Well, but in a new tweet, Trump writes that the task force will continue indefinitely but its focus will be on safety and opening up the
country again. He adds the task force will also focus on vaccines and, quote, "therapeutics." Joe Johns joins us now from the White House with
more.
So this is a bit confusing. We had in our show up until an hour ago the fact that the president would be winding down the task force; we have to
change our copy.
So what is this new incarnation of the task force going to do exactly?
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, just shows -- goes to show you, Hala, that covering this White House can be very difficult.
And things can change.
But I can tell you that the talk of winding up the task force that we heard just yesterday never sounded completely conclusive. It always had the feel
of a trial balloon, if you will, for example, the vice president of the United States telling reporters in an off-camera briefing that discussions,
he said, were underway to start winding up the task force.
Well, at the same time there was reporting that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is probably the best known individual on that task force, also the person in
the United States who is essentially the person who handles infectious diseases, said he didn't know anything about winding up the task force.
So a bit of confusion, sounded like a trial balloon and, substantively, as well, though, this was a difficult time for the president to make such a
decision simply because the pandemic is still raging in the United States and people look to this task force, most especially Dr. Anthony Fauci as
well as Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the task force, for information, substantive information and science about the coronavirus, the
things they need to know, a bad time to do away with it.
So the president indicating in a tweet just a couple of hours ago that, yes, they're going to keep this thing going but he also said members may
come on and members may come off of the task force, along with saying that the task force will focus on vaccines and such.
GORANI: And the president was in Arizona yesterday, visiting a Honeywell mask factory, the portion of the factory making masks, wasn't wearing a
mask in an area that required him to do so. It is not a hospital like the Mayo Clinic, where the vice president was not wearing a mask when everyone
else around him was.
What is the president trying to achieve with these visits?
JOHNS: He always said he didn't want to wear a mask and he didn't want to wear a mask because he would have to deal with, you know, kings, diplomats
and heads of state and such and would feel uncomfortable doing so.
But this was a very difficult and different situation. He was out at the Honeywell plant in Arizona. And the cover he got came from the people at
the plant themselves, who said -- told staff here at the White House, the president did not have to wear the mask.
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JOHNS: So the big problem with that, if there is one, is the people here at the White House, especially the president, are sort of looked to, to set
an example during this very difficult time.
And if the president were to wear a mask, people could take a message away from that. The president doesn't wear a mask, people can take a message
away from that, too. So it is an issue of setting an example, as the president of the United States, Hala.
GORANI: Thanks very much, Joe Johns.
Let's bring in Dr. Ali Khan, who has written the book about the pandemic, called "The Next Pandemic," published in 2016. He was with the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention for more than two decades. And is now dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center's College of Public
Health.
Thank you very much, Dr. Khan, for being with us. First, a question on the overall death toll in the United States. It is high, given the amount of
warning the United States had. It knew the pandemic was coming to its shores.
Why are we witnessing such high numbers in the U.S.?
DR. ALI KHAN, UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA: Good morning, Hala. Thank you for the opportunity to chat this morning. So there is a number of reasons why
the death toll is high in the United States. A lot of it has to do with the large cities we had and the large outbreak that we had within the New York-
New Jersey area.
We have seen that play out in other cities in Europe, for example. And some of the choices we made early about how we responded to this outbreak, the
number one choice being that we failed to have testing available nationwide early in a large scale-up of testing early.
And that's playing out even today, where we are testing, I think, approximately 250,000 people a day when we should be testing 350,000 to
700,000 people a day to make sure we're decreasing community transmission.
GORANI: At the CDC, you were essentially tasked with imagining what a pandemic could look like, how destructive it could be, how to stop it, how
to contain it.
In 2003 when SARS was an issue, you said that we were lucky, that the world -- we dodged a bullet with SARS. We're not dodging a bullet now with COVID-
19.
What went wrong between those two pandemics?
Why didn't we plan better?
KHAN: So South Korea would be a great example to bring up here. South Korea had worked very hard with the MERS outbreak. They had an outbreak of
a similar virus of MERS. When they saw this new coronavirus emerge in China and they had their first case of this COVID-19 a day before ours.
And they scaled up nationwide testing and they were very aggressive at finding their cases, isolating them and quarantine contacts. The United
States just took a different strategy.
And South Korea was able to get ahead of their outbreak, had very few deaths, comparatively speaking. The United States, unfortunately, did not
get ahead of their outbreak and relatively speaking had more deaths.
GORANI: What do you make of these states reopening in America?
Some of them?
Is it too soon?
KHAN: So I try very hard not to double guess local and state public health officials and the governors and leadership. So as long as they have good
strong public health systems in place, to make sure that you decrease community transmission and that's about finding the cases and isolating
them, finding contacts and quarantining them.
So you do that, because, remember, you may be opening up your state but you have not canceled the pandemic, right?
Because 90 percent of Americans are still at risk. We're still seeing 25,000 to 30,000 cases a day for the last month. So we have not canceled
the pandemic.
So if you are going to open up, what can we do to make sure we open up safely?
And that's all about continuing to decrease community risk and that's all about public health.
GORANI: Without double guessing the officials, if states reopen, without putting in place these safeguards, what will happen?
KHAN: If you don't have good safeguards in place to continue to decrease community transmission, we know what is going to happen, because we see it
now, despite good shelter in place and other health directives across the country.
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KHAN: We know that any place where you have a high density of people -- prisons, cruise ships, meatpacking plants -- you have outbreaks. We already
know that. Any place you put a large number of people together, you'll get an outbreak.
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GORANI: It will get much worse in the sense that now we're not at 100,000 deaths.
Could we then end up seeing, you know, the worst case scenario develop, I guess?
If you look at -- if you look at just a large number of states and even some countries outside of the U.S. and other parts of the world reopening,
when their curve hasn't fully flattened.
KHAN: Oh, yes. The exact same point, which is that, if you're not paying attention to continuing to decrease community transmission and community
risk, as you get more and more people together, you are likely to get increased cases.
GORANI: Yes.
And the big question now out there as people -- countries are pointing fingers at each other, especially China and the U.S., is where did this
virus come from?
How do we get to the bottom of this question?
KHAN: So there is no doubt that the virus came from China. And we've had examples, numerous examples of how these viruses originate.
In this case, the virus is a bat-borne virus like all the other coronaviruses that we worry about, so the original SARS or the MERS virus
and there is still some debate about what the intermediate host is.
And in this case it looks like it was a pangolin, in the original SARS it looks like it was a civet cat that emerged October, identified by December
by Chinese and the outbreak unfolded as we have seen it.
But there is nothing to suggest it is anything more than a natural transmission that occurred. Probably somewhere a human came in contact with
this pangolin or whatever. And that one person led to this massive outbreak that we have seen since then.
GORANI: Last question, what would you -- and we're seeing all around the world here and this is such a global story of such global concern -- what
message would you send to people watching all around the world about what they should do in order to try to mitigate the effect of this pandemic on
them and their families?
KHAN: So two messages. The first is the personal message. The personal message is please wear masks, please watch your hands and please respect
social distancing while you're out and about. That's a personal message to protect yourself and your family.
And the second message is please work with your community and your elected officials to decrease transmission within the community. And that's about
supporting your state and local and federal public health officials to make sure that, as you do go out and about, there is less and less risk every
day about you getting infected.
GORANI: Dr. Ali Khan, thank you very much for joining us, really appreciate your time, author of "The Next Pandemic" and formerly of the
Centers for Disease Control. Thank you so much.
So those are the medical effects and the effects on the health of billions around the world. But there are also the economic effects. People are out
of jobs.
In the U.S., millions filed for unemployment benefits during the pandemic, a number that could reach up to 20 percent this week, according to Kevin
Hassett, senior economic adviser to the U.S. president. But in some states, one demographic seems to be taking the hit harder than others. CNN's
Vanessa Yurkevich reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 100 years, Nom Wah Tea Parlor has been serving up dim sum as the oldest
restaurant in New York City's Chinatown, but today it's staring down a different reality.
WILSON TANG, OWNER, NOM WAH TEA PARLOR: The future looks bleak.
YURKEVICH: That's because hundreds of restaurants in Chinatown have closed due to COVID-19, leading to thousands of laid-off or furloughed workers,
including 40 from Wilson Tang's restaurant.
TANG: The main hub of Chinatown were all pretty empty.
YURKEVICH: The service industry has been one of the hardest hit by COVID- 19.
ED CHAN, GIG WORKER: This weekend it's the fifth weekend since my last paycheck.
YURKEVICH: Ed Chan works several jobs in the industry, as a school lunch caterer, wine vendor, guest service employee at sports arenas and does
marketing for trade shows. In March, he lost all four jobs and is still waiting for unemployment.
CHAN: Day after day, it's like Groundhog Day. You go on to the system. It's still pending.
YURKEVICH: He's one of more than 30 million Americans who filed for unemployment since mid-March and one of nearly 150,000 Asian Americans who
filed in New York state in the past four weeks.
[10:45:00]
YURKEVICH: It's a staggering 6,900 percent increase from one year ago, the largest among any one racial group in the state.
WELLINGTON CHEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHINATOWN PARTNERSHIP: This particular virus affects severely our frontline workers, basically the
retail and restaurant workers and the service industry. And so, when this thing hit, we were the first one to go down.
YURKEVICH: Tang closed Nom Wah Tea Parlor before the state's stay-at- home order was announced mid-March and told his employees to file for
unemployment, a move he says goes against a proud Asian American culture.
TANG: It takes really a pandemic for Chinese people to really go seek out additional help.
YURKEVICH: Racial discrimination against Asian Americans has also forced some workers to make a tough choice -- staying at home to avoid potential
racism or fear confrontation going to work.
CHAN: There was that brief reference, you know, about the Chinese virus or the Wuhan virus, that term, for at least a short period of time. They have
since, of course, corrected that. The damage has been done.
YURKEVICH: Meanwhile, Wilson Tang is preparing for an uncertain future.
TANG: I'm going to continue to be a voice for my community and a voice for my staff. I'm going to do my best to keep them safe.
YURKEVICH (on camera): Now, that dramatic increase in unemployment amongst Asian Americans here in New York may not even tell the full story and
that's because there are some 250,000 undocumented Asian immigrants here in New York, many of them working in the service industry.
And they are not eligible to file for unemployment and that means they're not counted. So that unemployment rate amongst Asians here in New York
could actually be much, much higher because of that -- Vanessa Yurkevich, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: And ahead, on this show, the hunt for a cure for COVID-19 is bringing out some of the most innovative research we have seen. We'll learn
how researchers are focusing on antibodies to develop new drugs.
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GORANI: There is almost nothing people want more right now than the end to this pandemic and a cure for the virus for those people who are ill. The
hunt has brought out some of the most cutting edge research. Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen tells us about an older technology that's
being used in a new way.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: The key to making a brand-new drug for COVID-19 could be in this vial of blood. It comes from
this man, Eli Epstein, who has recovered from coronavirus.
Now, doctors at the Rockefeller University in New York City are searching his blood for just the right antibodies.
DR. MICHEL NUSSENZWEIG, THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY: You really want something very potent. Potent means can neutralize, kill the virus.
[10:50:00]
COHEN: It's a twist on the use of convalescent plasma where someone who has recovered from COVID gives blood directly to someone who is sick. That
can work, but it's old technology. Dr. Emil von Behring won a Nobel Prize for his research on convalescent plasma in 1901. The new approach uses
monoclonal antibodies and it's cutting edge.
Here is how it works. When someone is sick with COVID, antibodies inside their blood fight off the virus. After the person recovers, they donate
blood. Scientists select the most powerful antibodies and clone them and turn it into a drug. It's one of the hottest areas in COVID research.
Companies in New York and San Francisco, Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, even the Department of Defense and many more are
involved in monoclonal antibody research.
We caught the team at Vanderbilt as they picked their favorite antibodies. The treatment could possibly prevent infection or treat those already sick.
Vanderbilt's lead researcher on the project, Dr. James Crowe, specializes in vaccines, but he said his monoclonal antibody research will be faster.
DR. JAMES CROWE, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: I think antibodies will be finished first and will be the bridge toward longer immunity, which will be
conferred by vaccines.
COHEN: So fast that the pharmaceutical company, Regeneron, says they might be able to have their monoclonal antibody drug on the market by the end of
the summer. Their technology is already used to treat cancer, arthritis and asthma.
DR. GEORGE YANCOPOULOS, REGENERON: We can clone out the best of antibodies from recovered humans. We selected the best ones to create an antibody
cocktail, as we call it.
COHEN: With so much work on this --
CROWE: I think the more groups we have working on it, all the better and the more shots on goal we have for getting an effective prevention or
treatment.
COHEN: The hope is high for this old therapy turned new -- Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: Coming up, masks and social distancing policies are causing outrage, even violence, as some places attempt to reopen. We'll take a look
at that next.
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GORANI: U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is recovering in the hospital from treatment for a gall bladder problem. The condition is
not cancerous. And the Supreme Court justice is expected to leave the hospital in the next day or two.
A court spokeswoman says she'll participate in Wednesday's oral arguments, so just in a few days. The justices are conducting sessions by phone
because of COVID-19.
In the death and sadness of the coronavirus pandemic, most people have responded to that with, we'll get through this, a we'll get through this
attitude. But for others, it triggered surprising behavior like this, inspiring a new word, coronajerks and, in some cases turning violent, as
Tom Foreman reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TINA JAMES, CALVIN MUNERLYN'S COUSIN: It's just -- this is senseless. Over a mask. Over a mask. I don't understand it.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The family of security guard Calvin Munerlyn is in shock after he was killed working at a store in
Michigan.
Why?
Prosecutors say he had asked a customer to put on a face mask, as required by the state.
[10:55:00]
FOREMAN: But two family members got angry.
DAVID LEYTON, GENESEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN, PROSECUTOR: One of the black males started yelling at Munerlyn about disrespecting his wife. The other black
male then walks up to Munerlyn and shoots Munerlyn.
FOREMAN: In Texas, a park ranger is pushed into the water after asking people to socially distance. In Ohio, the governor quickly reverses a new
rule requiring masks after howls of outrage. GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): It became clear to me that this was just something that was a bridge too far.
People were just not going to accept a mandate from the government.
FOREMAN: Same in Oklahoma.
A town passes an ordinance requiring masks in stores and restaurants and?
NORMAN MCNICKLE, CITY MANAGER, STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA: The next morning, when businesses opened, they began receiving verbal abuse and threats of
physical violence for being -- from patrons being asked to put on a face mask.
FOREMAN: The ordinance is quickly pulled back.
People who aggressively reject travel restrictions, social distancing, masks and more are becoming so common, the Dutch even have a name for them:
corona jerks. And some who take the rules more seriously are pushing back, shaming the most militant violators of health codes and reporting others to
authorities.
In South Carolina, police say a woman was coughing and licking her fingers while handling food in a grocery store. She was arrested. And the distance
between the two sides in this battle over how to handle the virus is growing ever less social.
JAMES: This is not the way to do things right now!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is not the way.
JAMES: We need to come together.
FOREMAN: They say they're fighting for their freedom, to go where they want, with whom they want, even if that freedom makes someone else very
sick -- Tom Foreman, CNN, Bethesda, Maryland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: We'll be right back a lot more after a quick break. Stay with CNN.
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GORANI: Welcome to our continuing coverage. Europe is facing a recession of historic proportions according to the E.U. itself.
Also this hour, Britain hits a milestone it never wanted to get to. It now has the highest COVID death toll in Europe.
And another Trump turnaround. Less than 24 hours after President Trump suggested he will wind down his Coronavirus Task Force, he now says it will
be kept open indefinitely but shift focus.
[11:00:00]
END
