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Johnson & Johnson: Vaccine 66 Percent Effective, 85 Percent for Severe Disease; Fast-Spreading Variants Challenge Vaccine Effort; E.U. Regulator Recommends Approval for AstraZeneca Vaccine; GameStop Soaring Again After Trading App Eases Controversial Ban. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired January 29, 2021 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:00:21]
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST: Tonight, don't let your guard down. It is far from over. Hello and welcome to the program. I'm Becky Anderson. And we
are, this hour, connecting a world of vaccines and variants for you.
We have brand-new breaking information on immunization today and the viral variants that are threatening to undermine them.
First up, Johnson & Johnson just putting out brand-new phase three trial data for its single shot vaccine. You can see the numbers on the screen, 85
percent effective against severe disease. That is what the company is keen on touting because it is only 66 percent effective against preventing
moderate cases of COVID-19, numbers much lower than we've seen from, for example, Pfizer, BioNTech and the Moderna vaccine.
Still, it has inherent advantages over the others. Only one shot is needed. And it doesn't need super cold storage and that is really important.
Especially as we are now seeing new strains spread around the world.
In some ways, they could be evading the protections that vaccines offer. Both the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the one from Novavax show reduced
effectiveness in South Africa where a new highly contagious strain of the virus is now taking hold and spread to 30 other nations. You see the
numbers here, evidence that these new strains are more contagious and possibly more lethal.
For South Africa, the apex of variants and vaccines, connecting us through all of this, CNN's David McKenzie is in Soweto this hour at a Johnson &
Johnson vaccine trial site in South Africa.
What are you learning there?
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Becky, we were inside this trial earlier today seeing the volunteers being monitored by nurses and doctors
who have been part of more than 200 people just at this site that were part of this Johnson & Johnson trial. You know, it's fascinating because the
head of the researcher came up to us and asked what the results were. They were so closely held up until the very last moment.
And the results broadly are good. They're not as effective as some other vaccines in these preliminary studies but it does show the Johnson &
Johnson vaccine and others are slightly less effective against the strain that's dominating in South Africa. We've just passed the peak of an
extremely dramatic second wave of the virus here in South Africa. There is a sense that it is potentially re-infecting people and that poses a very
difficult public health conundrum for the rest of the world as this strain spreads to other countries -- Becky.
ANDERSON: David is in Soweto in South Africa for you.
So I want to take you through why variants really matter a lot and what's really important to focus on. And bear with me on this because the math
isn't easy but it's definitely worth getting your head around. I'm going to go through it now carefully because it is important that we all understand
this to keep ourselves safe.
Infections by mutant coronavirus strain that's 50 percent more lethal can, over the course of a month, lead to 1.5 times more deaths. That's 50
percent more lethal, 1.5 times more deaths.
The far bigger driver to a higher death toll is, it is more contagious. If the virus is 50 percent more contagious, nearly 11.5 times more deaths
could happen as it spreads much further and wider through the population in that same period of time. And, of course, can reach more vulnerable
members.
I know I had to talk myself through these numbers twice in order to get my own head around them. So let's try and help us all out here.
Let's bring in CNN's medical analyst, Dr. Leana Wen. She's a former Baltimore health commissioner, a good friend of this show. She knows her
stuff, and I know that she'll be able to help us all as sort of taking what we are learning here.
Variants of this virus, what do we know?
[10:05:00]
How many -- let's start with this. How many variants are currently known of at this point, and which is of greater concern, doctor?
LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, we should first level set and say that these are RNA viruses. All viruses mutate but RNA viruses are
particularly known to do this. So the fact that they are variants is not at all surprising. That's what we would expect.
The three variants that we are the most concerned about right now, variants that originated from the U.K., South Africa and Brazil. All of them appear
to be more contagious. And as you outlined really well, the contagious level is exponential. If something is 50 percent more contagious, it
doesn't mean that we'll get 50 percent more infections. We're going to get far more infections which means we're going to get far more deaths.
The South African variant is of particular concern right now because some preliminary results also show that the vaccines that we have developed so
far may be less effective against this particular variant. We need to keep a close eye on that.
But I think the most important takeaway for people is these mutations will continue to occur. And that's actually why getting the vaccine out and also
continuing with masking, physical distancing in the meantime is so important because the more replication occurs, the more mutations there are
going to be and we could develop even more variants over time that become even harder to control.
ANDERSON: This South African variant that we're talking about, this is, of course, a variation of the virus that has been sequenced in South Africa.
It's now been detected where you are in the United States. Let's just hear from a senior adviser, a White House senior adviser on COVID response.
Have a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDY SLAVITT, SENIOR ADVISER, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE TEAM: These variants are more transmissible and maybe slightly more lethal. Nothing
about this news means we can't defeat it. We just need more tools and need to be united in doing it. Science has to create an adaptive approach
meaning we'll have to stay one step ahead of these mutations. We're going to need processes to keep developing tests, therapies and vaccines.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Yeah. Tests, therapies and vaccines. These are the tools that we have available to us at this point, correct?
WEN: I would add one more. The other major tool we have at our disposal is mitigation measures. The same public health measures we've been talking
about all along because these variants, they're still spread the same way as the normal variants we're used to. It's not that suddenly it's a new
class of a virus. They are still spread through the respiratory root and through close contact and aerosols. And that's why it's still the masking,
avoiding indoor gatherings, keeping the physical distancing. That's going to keep the variants at bay.
I know there are a lot of people worried about the variants. It's the same measures, and I think the more we can prevent spread, the more we can
prevent these particular variants from becoming dominant and even for our societies to develop even more variants that may be somehow have more
contagiousness or more virulence overtime.
ANDERSON: So, there will be people who will be concerned about getting access to a vaccine at this point and then getting access to a vaccine that
is going to be effective against COVID-19 and its mutations. Novavax, an American biotech firm have said their vaccine is not as effective for the
South African variant.
Let's have a listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci on the matter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Early indications from a trial that literally just came out from
a company called Novavax indicates that a vaccine that looks really good against what we're dealing with now doesn't look that good in the sense of
not 90 percent, 95 percent. It's somewhere down around 60 percent for non- HIV infected individuals.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: So this does beg the question, and I know I've been asked this personally and so I want your take on this.
Can you alter a vaccine to make it more effective against a variant? And is that what the drug companies will be doing now?
WEN: The answer is yes. There 24 things s are two things manufacturers are going to be doing. One is developing a booster shot. For Moderna and
Pfizer, they are developing a booster third shot so people who already got the first two shots can get this booster that also covers this variant and
may also cover other variants that arise, too.
And then, at the same time, they're probably also going to be looking at vaccines that are effective, that are more effective against these variants
as well.
[10:10:05]
But here's what I want people to understand. I don't want people who are watching to say, well, in that case, I'm just going to wait until we have
this perfect vaccine. That's really the wrong takeaway here. If you have access to be able to get vaccinated now, you should get vaccinated because
these vaccinates that we have are so effective against all the strains, including of the variant. And you want to get as much protection as you can
get right now. If we have a booster shot that develops or a better vaccine that develops, get that then, but don't wait. Don't let perfect be the
enemy of the good when we're in the middle of a pandemic. And every amount of immune protection really counts for the individual as well as for the
population.
ANDERSON: Yeah, no, you make a very, very good point. Thank you for raising that one. Israel, along with the UAE, where I am based here in the
Middle East, is our -- are leading the world with inoculations. New data suggesting that the Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna vaccines may be even more
effective than previously thought. The data which as I understand it looked at more than 700,000 fully vaccinated people in Israel found that only 0.04
percent of people who contracted -- had contracted the virus. That's surely comforting news, isn't it, at this point?
WEN: Absolutely. That is fantastic news. And I think this again speaks to why it's so important for us to get the vaccines out and also what happens
in the real world because when you do clinical trials, you are testing it on tens of thousands of people. And we always hope that when you start
giving the vaccine to millions of people that you get these same types of results. So if there are even better results, when you put it out to
population of millions of people, that's fantastic news.
ANDERSON: Finally, you argue that the messenger is often as important as the message when it comes to public health. We know there's a lot of
vaccine hesitation out there. We have certainly in the U.S. seen a new tone, a new message, a new attitude out of this current administration, the
Biden administration. Are you expecting there to be a shift in public attitude towards vaccinations as a result of that?
WEN: I do. I think that having a national consistent messaging so that it's not what the previous administration often it was that the public
health officials seemed to be at odds with political leaders and that adds to a lot of confusion and confusion leads to lack of trust. Once that trust
is broken and eroded it's much harder to get back. So, I think consistent messaging is really important.
And I think also, as you said, we know in public health the messenger is almost as important or more important than the message. So enlisting
trusted community partners, doing active outreach to church leaders and pastors, to business leaders and others who can also carry forward the
message about safety and efficacy of these vaccines will be important, and finally, just the fact that we are seeing now millions of people getting
vaccinated. That in itself will do a lot of good.
Studies show there's a significant proportion of people who are not actually vaccine hesitant. They just didn't want to be the first to get the
vaccine. Well, at this point, they'll not be the first to get the vaccine. And at some point the demand will catch up with the supply and I'm hopeful
that we'll be able to get a lot of vaccines out and for us to truly get to the point of herd immunity for us to see the end of this pandemic.
ANDERSON: Thank you very much indeed for joining us. Your analysis and insight is so important as we continue to report on the very latest news
when it comes to everything COVID related. Thank you.
Well, in the last few minutes, the European Union announcing that it will regulate exports of the COVID-19 vaccine. Now this announcement comes as
the E.U. continues its disagreement with AstraZeneca, a British/Swedish company headquartered in Cambridge in the U.K. over the distribution of its
vaccine. The E.U. says regulations will be in place until March, and we will be live in Brussels in a few minutes with more on that.
Well, there's been a lot so far on this show. A lot of information. Frankly, it can seem like there are an awful lot of caveats.
Coronavirus has taken over our lives now for a year. And while vaccines are rolling out, the situation -- well, it is really bad. It's just as bad as
it's been throughout the pandemic. And we just need to hang in there for a little while longer. So, please, there are simple guidelines we can all
follow to help.
If you are a regular viewer or you're guest as well on this show, you will have heard me talk about these.
[10:15:05]
You'll have heard from those I speak to on this show. And these are just so important. They are so simple. First, wear a mask to protect yourself and
others. It goes a long way to preventing the transmission of COVID-19.
In fact, there's an emerging sense that two masks are now better than one. And that is common sense.
Next, keep your distance. Stay at least six feet away. That's about two arms length from people who don't live with you.
Avoid crowds anywhere, period. And avoid poorly ventilated spaces. If you are indoors, bringing in fresh air by opening windows and doors if possible
and always cover your mouth and your nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze or use the inside of your elbow in a pinch.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces.
And last, but not least, wash your hands often for at least 20 seconds with soap and water.
I know it's boring. But it's so important.
A coronavirus hot spot, the pandemic takes a tough toll on medical workers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I don't even have words to say it. The difficult part is really working too many hours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Still ahead, we'll go inside a hospital in Portugal to show crow you the front line in the battle against this virus.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
ANDERSON: We are just getting some major news out of Brussels.
First, the E.U. regulator has just recommended approval for the AstraZeneca vaccine. And the European Commission says it will impose new rules
requiring vaccine exporters to get their national governments' approval for any vaccine shipments outside of the European Union. European Commission's
health commissioner calling it an insurance policy.
There's an awful lot going on. Melissa Bell is in Brussels connecting us to the facts.
Where do you want to start?
MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Becky, just how keen everyone is to get this vaccine. I think this is what this entire episode has told us, how
desperate Europeans tor get their vaccines. Look at the shortages already on the European continent. Germany, France, Spain, all announcing they'll
slow or stop in certain regions their vaccination campaigns because they don't have enough of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. Those are the two
that have been approved.
As you say, we just heard from the European Medicines Agency that it's approved without restrictions, even those beyond 65, which is very
different from what Germany announced yesterday, it's approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for marketing within the European Union. Now comes the
questions of those supplies.
[10:20:00]
And, of course, the European Union has heard, it says far -- in far too short notice that it was going to get a 60 percent cut in its first quarter
deliveries of that AstraZeneca vaccine, that it was desperately needing. You've seen that row escalate, that inspection at the site here in Belgium
that produces the AstraZeneca vaccines to make sure essentially the company was telling the truth about the problem being one of production speed at
that particular site.
And now, of course, these export restrictions that will mean that some vaccines, not an export ban that the European Union has been clear. It's
more that it will need authorization in order to make sure essentially that its citizens are not being deprived and vaccines aren't being exported to
places like the United Kingdom when the European Union desperately needs them.
To give you an idea Becky of the scale of the challenge facing them, and of the weight on the shoulder of European officials at this stage and in their
row with AstraZeneca, they are hoping to get 70 percent of the European Union's population vaccinated by the summer. At the moment, we're at about
2 percent, Becky.
ANDERSON: Yeah, remarkable. I mean, you can see where the, you know, why these things are escalating because the pressure that European Union is
under by Europeans themselves and these national governments is intense.
Look, the E.U. has published their contract with AstraZeneca. A member of my team had a look through the document, and he told me that he feels he
knows less now about what is going on than before he actually read it. I know you've been through this. What does it reveal?
BELL: It is -- it is worth having a look through. It's 40-odd pages. Very unusual it should have been published, heavily redacted as you say for any
of those crucial discussions on precise amounts and costs, for instance.
What the European Union wanted to show by publishing it, and it's a measure of its determination to ensure that, as it sees it, AstraZeneca lives up to
his contractual obligations with it which show when it was signed, the idea of the contract was vaccines that were produced within the European Union
and, of course, at that stage, the United Kingdom was part of the European Union. We were in that transition phase leading up to January 1st.
So, the two sites in the U.K., and the two sites here on the continent where that AstraZeneca vaccine is produced could be the locations from
which the vaccines were then delivered to the European Union. That's what they wanted to show.
So a heavily redacted contract, but that does show what the European Union believes that it is owed these vaccines. It says it will not let this go.
Ursula von der Leyen, again, the European Commission president very forthright on German radio this morning explaining the contract was crystal
clear and that the European Union was not going to back down on this one, continuing to put pressure on the company so that it gets those vaccines
once again that are so desperately needed at the front line. So many people in desperate needed of getting this particular vaccine, again, given those
shortages of the other ones being felt all too keenly here in Europe.
ANDERSON: Yeah, and, of course, these governments in the European Union will be well aware as we see the emergence of these variants, so we have
concerns about just how effective these vaccines that the European Union doesn't even have at the moment might be going forward.
All of this is stuff that we are discussing and that we are reporting on and your input, Melissa, valuable as ever. Thank you.
As the fight against and over vaccines rages in the E.U., one of its members is nearing the breaking point in its battle with COVID. We're
talking about Portugal. You can see the problem here. New cases have been skyrocketing since Christmas.
So much so that Portugal now has the world's highest infection and death rates per million people. As a result, hospitals struggling to keep up with
the caseload. Portugal now closing its borers for two weeks to curb the virus.
Its nationwide lockdown has been extended until February 14th. And officials say that hospitals don't have much space left for new patients.
CNN went to a medical facility near Lisbon that is inundated with patients. And Lisa Soares has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A silent chaos fills this ICU ward on the outskirts of Lisbon in Portugal.
Here as patient after patient battle for breath, for life itself, only their heart monitors echo through these walls.
For a country that mastered the first wave of COVID-19, this is an alarming sight. An epidemic so ferocious the ICU wards are overwhelmed and nearing
capacity.
[10:25:00]
But what's most in need now is medical staff.
DULCE GONCALVES, HEAD NURSE, CASCAIS HOSPITAL (through translator): I would love to always have one nurse for six patients, but most times, I
have one tending to eight.
SOARES: And they, Dulce Goncalves tell us, are as worked and beyond exhausted.
GONCALVES: I don't even have words to say it. The difficult part is really working too many hours.
SOARES: But there's no respite for them yet as hospital hospitals feel the immense weight of this latest wave.
DR. NUNO CORTE-REAL, CLINICAL DIRECTOR, CASCAIS HOSPITAL (through translator): The hospitals are all overwhelmed, and the Cascais Hospital
is no exception. We're nearing our limit if we're not there already and what we're seeing is that the services that exist in Portugal are starting
to be overrun by the tsunami.
SOARES: Across the country, hospitals are struggling to cope with the rapid surge in new cases, with doctors telling CNN they estimate 25 percent
of all cases have been caused by the variant discovered in the U.K. So it's all hands on deck here with large military health units being set up in
Lisbon and Porto. Even cafeterias are being turned into wards.
All in a bid to avoid scenes like this. Patients being triaged in lines of ambulances waiting outside over crowded hospitals in Lisbon.
But as the admissions grow throughout the country, so do the scars they carry.
Dr. Gustavo Carona tells me.
DR. GUSTAVO CARONA, INTENSIVE CARE PHYSICIAN: We are dealing with the patients suffering in a way that we have never seen before. And it's a very
slow disease. It's not like they arrive in the hospital and then they die. They are there for hours, for days.
SOARES: Dr. Carona has been on the front lines of wars in the Middle East and Africa. But this, he tells me, isn't a war.
CARONA: It's quite complex to deal with intensive care patients. So you cannot find specialists in a vending machine. And the problem is that
people don't understand that there is a limit to our capacity.
SOARES: Doctors say the messaging out of Portugal has been clear. Many have criticized the government for relaxing measures at Christmas,
including allowing families to gather and for going ahead with presidential elections just days ago.
A debate staff at this hospital simply have no time for. Here, there's only a spirit of mission. But the fear is that this will soon fade away as
exhaustion and anxiety begin to set in.
Isa Soares, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON: Simply terrifying, isn't it? So a reminder, should you need it, please wear a mask. It's not a political statement. It's just a simple way
to help save lives. And help those doing that critical work that you saw in Isa's report there.
We'll be back right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:30:20]
ANDERSON: Welcome back.
Two words, game on, because GameStop just won't stop because -- okay, get rid of the puns for now and play out the very latest.
So I checked the stock of the video game retailer about two minutes ago, which means I now have absolutely no idea where it is. Let's just have a
look. It is that fast moving. It's that volatile.
It's here on the screen for us as we speak at $312 and change. It was hovering around 200 bucks less than an hour ago.
Our regular viewers will remember the game we played yesterday, taking you through the Reddit revolution around this stock that's forcing a rethink of
the integrity of the entire financial system because ordinary traders are going at it with hedge funds over it. That's big enough, right? But now,
not the game but the platform is coming into question. Player one, player two. Player two meet Robinhood.
Okay, guys, kill the music. Thanks. Now a lot of traders use it because it is free. The platform, that being Robinhood. Robinhood itself put the
brakes on trading the stock on Thursday.
Roll cue, accusations it was only doing it to help billionaires. Not a good look. Particularly when this company says it is there to democratize the
trading of stocks. It is for the little fella, hence the name Robinhood, right, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, blah, blah.
But within hours, Robinhood went on to raise a billion dollars from investors. You don't have to be a marketing genius to work out all of that
wouldn't go down super well on the optics front but its chief exec told CNN, straight up not the case. Here's his reasoning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VLAD TENEV, CEO, ROBINHOOD: I want to be 100 percent clear, this decision was not made on the direction of any market-maker or other market
participants. We haven't seen anything like this before. And to prudently manage the risk and the deposit requirements, we had to restrict buying in
these 13 stocks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: CNN's Julia Chatterley is up on this story for us from New York. And while you and I are speaking, we'll keep the stock price up because
it's on a wild ride.
Julia, why is it that so many people are not buying what the CEO of Robinhood just said there?
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: Because a lot of people --
ANERSON: Or selling, as it were.
CHATTERLEY: Hang on a second. The moment that the little guys start getting rich, that the trade starts working for them, someone like
Robinhood that's allowing people to do this comes in and goes, sorry, guys, you are no longer able to buy this stock. You can only sell it.
So, that artificially creates selling pressure in the market which also helps the positions that the hedge funds that originally started this has,
because they make money when the share price goes down. You can imagine, irrespective of Robinhood's reasons for doing this everyone is like, you're
not Robinhood. You're the sheriff of Nottingham and not playing fairly here.
Now, Robinhood said, look, we have to shore up their own positions. And your point about the $1 billion is important. They clearly got caught off
guard I think by what happened here, too, and they had to raise money in order to make sure that they can buy all these stocks and that they can
short their own financial position.
They just manhandled this. They are a relatively new company and I think we are all bamboozled by what we're seeing here. Robinhood included.
ANDERSON: I think the problem is that, you know, the company has come out and said they didn't have a liquidity issue at any point. Then the question
started coming, right, well, then why are you doing this?
Let's move this on and take it wider because I'm hearing people now talking about, this is the end of the financial system as we know it. This is the
new sort of -- somebody called it yesterday, the boomer world of finance. I mean, you know, is this really a sort of pivotal moment? Is this a moment
in time when it comes to how we trade stocks, make money. What's the deal here?
CHATTERLEY: This is a great question. We were talking about yesterday, this is a confluence of a number of factors. The power of social media
amplifying a message, free access to trading, whole loads of retail investors sitting at home trading.
[10:35:03]
This is a whole new group.
So to answer your question, yes, I do think there's a fundamental shift and some of this is good. It is democratizing access to financial markets. It's
a whole new wave of investors. But it feels very out of control here when you've got a situation and I actually talked it through with someone who
has become a champion defender of the underserved and forgotten in this community, a guy called Dave Portnoy.
And I asked him what he saw and what he thought was most wrong about what we're seeing. Just listen to this a second.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE PORTNOY, FOUNDER, BARSTOOLS SPORTS: The people who invest in this stock weren't doing it with their eyes shut. They know there's risk, and
I've asked this a lot. You know, how many times when the hedge funds are making millions of dollars, billions of dollars -- there's an article I
saw, Citadel made $6.7 billion on volatility in the stock market, how often do they stop it and say, hold on?
No, it never happens that way. This is the first time I can ever remember where you could only sell a stock, you couldn't buy it. If they were that
concerned, they should have froze it and you can't sell or buy and people want to liquidate at the price they had the stock, that's fair.
But to crater it and, again, I in the history of the stock market don't ever hear the rich guys, the institutional firms, the hedge funds saying,
hold on. We're making too much money. You better protect us in case it goes the other way. This seemed like it was just the little guy was winning and
the rules changed on the fly.
(EDN VIDEO CLIP)
CHATTERLEY: It's a lightning rod moment, Becky. We've got people adopting the stop the steal, the anti-elitist message we saw during the U.S.
presidential election and tying it now to this. So we can take it outside of financial market terms and this is just another representation, I think,
of a backlash from those that feel forgotten, left behind, underserved. And it's simply playing out in financial markets.
And the regulators are behind the curve. Lawmakers are behind the curve and they're all recognizing that whatever their politics. And now the
regulators, too, are saying we have to look at what happened here and work out whether laws were broken.
ANDERSON: Yeah, and that's the most important thing here, isn't it? If laws were broken, then things had to change. If laws weren't broken, then
this begs the question, you know, is this the little guy getting, you know, screwed over, as it was -- excuse my phrasing there -- and is there some
sort of malice aforethought behind the scenes or something going on behind the scenes with these bigger guys? I guess it really begs the question, is
this a movement or are we seeing madness here? Which one?
CHATTERLEY: Both. Both. But I would like to see the reaction if Robinhood would have done this if the share price was going down, and actually people
were losing money.
ANDERSON: Yeah.
CHATTERLEY: Smaller guys were losing money, because there were many things here. Again, what about the volatility? That needs checking. What about the
short-sellers that created this in the beginning and the behavior of the individual investors?
All this needs checking.
ANDERSON: Yeah.
CHATTERLEY: That's what the regulators are doing now. The SEC said they're investigating. Oh, boy, they're going to have a busy weekend.
ANDERSON: Oh, good. Good. We'll leave them to it. Back on Monday. We'll see how they do. Thank you. Always a pleasure, Julia. Thank you. Julia
Chatterley in the House for you from New York.
CHATTERLEY: Well, to a frankly remarkable tale that ties in the idea of out of touch financial elites, as we were discussing, with out lead story -
- getting vaccines out to the world. A millionaire couple in Canada accused of posing as workers in order to get the coronavirus vaccine.
Canadian authorities say Rodney and Ekaterina Baker flew to a remote village in the Yukon earlier this month. Instead of isolating for two
weeks, which is required by law, the pair showed up at a mobile clinic and said they were local workers, jumping the line to get a vaccine they were
not eligible for. In that region, the vaccine was reserved for indigenous and vulnerable populations. The Bakers were charged with breaking
quarantine, not forgetting vaccinated. If convicted, they could face up to six months in prison.
CNN has reached out to them for comment, but there has been no response. If we get one, we will be sure to let you to know what it is.
It's time for a quick break. Take a read of this, a reminder on how to stay safe. We will be back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:41:39]
ANDERSON: Australia's tough and unrelenting travel restrictions mean the country is pretty much living a largely COVID-free life. Health officials
now reporting 12 consecutive days of no local infections.
Here's the result: some 4,000 fans getting a preview of the upcoming Australian Open in a very pre-pandemic fashion. No social distancing and
few masks.
Don Riddell in the house.
Don, that is a rare sight these days.
DON RIDDELL, WORLD SPORT: Yeah, I guess I'll use a sports phrase for you - - no pain, no gain.
I mean, we've been hearing all about these --
ANDERSON: Yeah.
RIDDELL: -- tennis players stuck in their hotel rooms for very strict 14- day quarantine period. Well, this is what happens when you play that game. You are able to go out and do this.
It's quite remarkable. Just 24 hours ago, Becky, you and I were talking about the Brazilian soccer fans seeing off their team in a country that is
still reeling from the pandemic, putting themselves at a great deal of risk. But everybody obviously feels pretty comfortable here with, you know.
It remains to be seen quite what it's going to look like at the Australian Open in ten days' time. I don't think we'll see packed stands like that.
Only about 25 percent capacity, but still, there will be a significant amount of fans at the Australian Open which will be great to see.
ANDERSON: Yeah. And one just hopes they all stay safe and that we can treat this as an opportunity to look forward once again.
And good stuff. I'm going to see you at the top of the next hour, viewers. Do enjoy "World Sport" with Mr. Don Riddell.
(WORLD SPORT)
[11:00:00]
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