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Nation Rings in New Year As Pandemic Rages Across U.S.; Over 10,000 Americans Died in Final Three Days of 2020; Two House Republicans Tell CNN They Expect At Least 140 GOP Colleagues to Vote Against Counting Electoral Votes; Strong Early-Voting Numbers in Georgia Put GOP on Edge. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired January 01, 2020 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:48]

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Good Friday morning and happy New Year. I'm Ana Cabrera. Jim and Poppy are off today.

We begin 2021 sadly with more than 125,300 people hospitalized with the coronavirus, that's a record high. The U.S. is set to surpass 20 million confirmed cases today. That benchmark is really just a sobering indication that despite turning a page to this New Year, the U.S. has not quite turned over a new leaf.

Listen to this, more than 10,000 deaths were reported in just the final three days of the year. Health officials are warning the worst of the pandemic is still ahead of us.

More than 6.5 million people boarded airplanes over the last six days as experts identify evidence that the new COVID-19 strain, the one that originated in the U.K., is beginning to spread here in the United States.

America is suffering as President Trump prepares to send -- spend his final 20 days in office pushing his effort to overturn the election results. CNN has now learned that at least 140 House Republicans will back him up by objecting to Congress' certification of president-elect Joe Biden's victory.

More on that, but first let's go to CNN's Nick Valencia who joins us from a convention center turned field hospital in Atlanta that is planning to start taking patients today.

Nick, fill us in.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, good morning, Ana, and happy New Year.

2020 has come and gone but unfortunately, we can't say the same thing for the coronavirus pandemic. In just the last three days of 2020, new figures this morning from Johns Hopkins University shows over 10,000 Americans died as a result of the coronavirus in the last three days and the surges that we're seeing here in Georgia are troublesome. So much so, Ana, that the governor here, Brian Kemp, as you mentioned, is opening the Georgia World Congress Center behind me to act as a make shift field hospital of sorts.

Sixty beds will be available for overflow. The health systems are overwhelmed by the surges we have seen in the winter.

Here is what the governor had to say about the field hospital behind me yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. BRIAN KEMP (R-GA): This is to help alleviate strains on our hospitals in the metro area as well as across the state. That facility will begin accepting patients at the end of this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: And I did speak to the governor's office just a short time ago. They said today they are going to start accepting people inside that facility. Hospitalizations here also are hitting records, more than 5,000 Georgians waking up in a hospital.

And just one last note here about this field hospital, the third time it is going to be put to use, it was opened at the start of the pandemic, again in the summer during the spike and again now as we're seeing another surge here in the winter.

CABRERA: All right. Nick, thank you.

VALENCIA: And as this surge is taking place more states are reporting cases of this new more contagious COVID strain first detected in the U.K.

Let's go to CNN senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen.

Elizabeth, three new cases reported in San Diego, that's on top of the case, possibly two in Colorado and now another possible case in Florida.

How worried should we be about this?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Ana, what this is showing us is that these variants no matter where they start in the world, the world is small and we are going to see them spread pretty quickly here in the United States.

We know that these variants seem to spread more quickly than other kinds of COVID. You asked, should we be scared? What we should do is we should take action.

There is so much COVID all around us, these strains spread even more quickly, it's even more reason to do the right thing. Social distance as much as you possibly can, wear masks because if you get sick or if you get someone sick, all you're doing is putting a burden on hospitals that are already horribly burdened. So, let's take a look at what happened in San Diego. So there were two

men in their 40s, one in their 50s who have this -- who were found to have this U.K. variant and two had no travel history and one they still have to interview to see if he had a travel history. None of them seemed to have had any interaction with each other.

And that is why county health officials are saying that they feel that this is widespread in the community.

[10:05:01]

When you have people getting it with no interaction with each other, no known travel history, that means that it is likely widespread.

Now, let's take a look at a tweet from folks in Florida. They say Florida has evidence of the first identified case of the U.K. COVID-19 variant in Martin County, the individual is a male in his 20 with no history of travel. The department is working with the CDC on this investigation. We encourage all to continue practicing COVID-19 mitigation. In other words, what I just said. Now, let's take a look, if there's any doubt about how widespread these are, the U.K. variant is in 29 countries.

It's just overwhelming. Just 29 countries already that we know of have this variant, in addition the South African variant which is another variant which also seems to spread very quickly is already in eight countries and counting, new countries are popping up every day unfortunately -- Ana.

CABRERA: And eventually, it is going to reach those people who are most vulnerable even if it's not necessarily more severe strain, it could result in some pretty grim outcomes.

Elizabeth Cohen, I appreciate it. Thank you.

To the nation's capitol now, to House Republicans telling CNN they expect at least 140 of their GOP colleagues to vote against certifying electoral votes next week. On the Senate side, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is standing by his pledge to object to certifying Joe Biden's victory as well.

CNN's Boris Sanchez is at the White House.

Boris, a couple of GOP senators have publicly criticized this move by Hawley but he is also getting praise from the president.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Ana. Good morning and happy New Year.

President Trump setting up this loyalty test for Republicans that ultimately may become a fork in the road for the party. Senator Ben Sasse yesterday calling Republicans who are supporting this move to object to the certification of the Electoral College results institutional arsonists saying they're playing with fire and there is no evidence of widespread election fraud. Privately, Mitch McConnell has been lobbying these same Republicans to

avoid this scenario, it presents a headache for the party because Republicans will have to go on the record and either side with reality, the fact that there is no evidence of election fraud or with the president who continues propagating nonsense about election rigging on Twitter.

Meantime, the president, though, did thank Hawley for his support, the president had been campaigning publicly for Republicans to do this for some time and Hawley is not alone. He is the only senator, but on the House side already a lot more games.

Take a look. You have Alabama Representative Mo Brooks, a couple incoming freshmen Congress people in Marjorie Taylor Green, Madison Cawthorn as well.

Overall, though, this has the potential to have enormous ramifications for Republicans and the president does not seem to care. Again, he sees this as a loyalty test and he will continue to push these fraud claims likely all the way until January 20th -- Ana.

CABRERA: Okay. Boris Sanchez, keep us posted. We know that this is a dynamic situation.

Joining us is Ben Ginsberg, a longtime Republican election lawyer and CNN contributor.

Ben, first of all, happy New Year.

BEN GINSBERG, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Happy New Year.

CABRERA: Thanks for waking up early. Is there any foreseeable path for Republicans to actually stop certification of the vote?

GINSBERG: No, there's not.

What happens is if there is an objection to the electors from a state and both a representative and a senator agree to it, then the bodies straight, so the Senate meets and the House meets. The House is controlled by Democrats, the Republicans currently have a narrow majority but enough Republican senators have said they are opposed to this.

CABRERA: I mean, it's so rare for us to even be discussing and focusing on this because typically it's just sort of a procedural repetitive thing that happens, we don't give much attention. Why does Congress even have this role? What are the laws around Congress certifying the election?

GINSBERG: Well, the law is because there needs to be a central counting place for the Electoral College and it's always been a ministerial duty. This opening of the electoral slates from the states has been done in as little as 23 minutes in the past by the joint session of Congress.

What's especially got a number of Republican senators mad is that the rules of the actual debate, if they have to go off in their separate chambers and look at an individual state, then the debate is limited to two hours and the rules clearly state that no senator can speak for more than five minutes, no representative can speak for five minutes.

So there is not any ability to lay out a case. And plus what evidence is Josh Hawley going to present that hasn't already been rejected by a court of law, often by Trump-appointed judges?

[10:10:00]

CABRERA: Exactly. So you have to wonder, what is the point?

And yet, are you surprised that likely at least 140 Republican members of the House are going along with it? And what do you think is the impact of numbers like that? Is there power in those numbers?

GINSBERG: Well, look, it's a pretty shameful vote but I think they also see it as a freebie vote because in all honesty, the Democratic House and the Senate also is going to reject it. So in their short- term view, there are no consequences for this, but of course, long term there are consequences for Republicans and especially for Republicans in Congress because this is a great gift to Joe Biden and his administration because it guarantees contentious split Republican conferences in both the House and the Senate.

And if you are trying to object to the Biden agenda, you need a unified conference, as opposed to one where there's this suspicion that a number of senators are more interested in their own personal agendas than the overall good of the philosophy of conservatism.

CABRERA: Well, I also wonder if the impact or the consequences would be that, you know, the public at large questioning the integrity of America's democratic process of electing a president of the U.S.?

GINSBERG: Yeah, it -- to challenge the electoral slates in this way absolutely corrodes the foundations of the government. Remember that the actual slates of electors that Mike Pence as president of the Senate will open up on January 6 are ones that have contained the official counts and the approval of the relevant state officials. So that is the official count. And while there may be some renegade slates that have been submitted, they have no force of law at all.

CABRERA: You mention the vice president who has to oversee all of this. There was this lawsuit from Congressman Louie Gohmert and it was aimed at Vice President Pence which seemed odd because you think they're both Republicans, aren't they on the same team. It was basically suing him trying to force him to ignore the electoral votes of several key states when Congress certifies the Electoral College votes on Tuesday.

Lawyers representing the vice president asked a federal judge to dismiss this lawsuit saying they have the wrong defendant.

Can you explain?

GINSBERG: Sure. Well, first of all, they were lawyers from the Trump Justice Department is that filed that brief on behalf of the vice president and their point was pretty simple and I think correct, to have a lawsuit you need to have what lawyers call a case or controversy, which means a disagreement among the parties.

Here Gohmert sued, wanted to give Mike Pence more -- in fact, unilateral power to throw out a popular vote and decide an election and what Gohmert wanted to do was get rid of the Electoral Count Act, a law from 1887 that's currently in place to govern this situation. And what the Justice Department lawyers on behalf of the vice president said was you don't have a case against Mike Pence. There is no disagreement there. If you want to sue somebody, you need to sue Congress.

CABRERA: Does Pence actually have any power in this process?

GINSBERG: Well, you know, it is a ministerial function but as the chair of a joint session he does have some powers. For example, when the slates are open, he can either recognize just the official slate from the states or he can recognize the renegade slates that have also been submitted.

So, procedurally, it depends who has to make the objections. If he only recognizes the official slates, then the renegade Republicans need to file the objections. If he recognizes both slates, then that's going to force Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell to raise the objections on the floor.

So the way the issue gets postured on January 6th is up to the vice president.

CABRERA: There's so much nuance there, we're learning so much about this process. Thank you for educating us.

Ben Ginsberg, good to have you here.

GINSBERG: Thanks, Ana.

CABRERA: Georgia on your mind? Just days ahead of that state's crucial runoffs Republican Senator David Perdue has to quarantine after possible exposure to the discuss. Ahead, what impacts this could have on an already tight race.

And the state of California is dealing with just a crippling number of patients because of the coronavirus. One L.A. County health official says hospitals are on the brink of catastrophe. We'll take you there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:19:33]

CABRERA: Experts say it will be months before enough vaccine doses are given to change the course of this pandemic. This as the CDC says fewer than 3 million Americans so far have received a COVID-19 vaccine. That is far less than 20 million shots the Trump administration initially promised by the end of 2020.

I want to bring in CNN's Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, we're hearing states are having some serious vaccine issues, clearly, there's a delay in administering these vaccines.

[10:20:00]

Why? What exactly is going on?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's start with the baseline here that this is a huge undertaking for these states that are already stretched incredibly thin as health professionals are working with actual coronavirus cases. They have to decide who gets the vaccine and when and they're also in charge of transporting and scoring a very complicated drug, one that many states did not have the infrastructure for.

Now we're starting to see these incidents that show just how complicated a rollout like this is and we will start with what happened in West Virginia. Forty-two people went into a clinic, thought they were getting the Moderna vaccine and it turns out instead they were getting the COVID-19 antibodies. Now, officials say they don't believe there is any risk of harm, but they couldn't or wouldn't tell us how a mix up like that could occur. So that's one thing we're seeing.

Another thing is human interference and sometimes human error. In D.C. we learned that two doses were thrown out at a Safeway, they had separated 28 people, there was remainder of the vaccine in vials, they were tossed out. Now Safeway is working with the Department of Health to figure out how to handle remaining doses.

Perhaps the most heart breaking episode we have seen so far is out of Wisconsin where a pharmacist purposely took out more than 50 vials of the Moderna vaccine from a refrigerator knowing that it would render them useless because of the temperature there, that was about 500 doses. He has since been arrested, he has been charged with three felonies.

But all of this goes to show you how much things can really go sideways in something like this, a major process like this.

But I want to end on one positive note which is, yes, that 3 million is far below the 20 million but still in America, 3 million people have gotten the vaccine and on top of that medical experts say that a lot of these kinks in the system they believe will be worked out in the next couple of weeks.

CABRERA: Okay. We will be watching. We will be continuing to follow it.

Kristen Holmes, thank you and happy New Year.

Joining us now to talk about all of this is public health physician and American College of Preventative Medicine fellow, Dr. Chris Pernell. Dr. Pernell also, by the way, participated in the Moderna vaccine trial. So, thank you for joining us. Happy New Year, good morning to you.

The administration was saying 20 million people would be vaccinated by the end of 2020. Doctor, less than 3 million have received shots so far. Why isn't this going according to plan?

DR. CHRIS PERNELL, PUBLIC HEALTH PHYSICIAN: Lots of infrastructure support. This is a very ambitious undertaking and states and localities need resources, they need funding. One of these vaccines, the Pfizer vaccine in particular, is pretty challenging when it comes to storage and it comes to transportation.

So I expected that we would see bumps in the road but I didn't expect that we would see this lack of consistency across the states.

CABRERA: Right. And to add some perspective to this conversation, we know the U.S. is lagging behind a number of other countries in the COVID-19 vaccinations. For example, per capita Israel's average daily number of vaccine doses is more than ten times that of the U.S.

What are other countries like Israel, like Bahrain which is also far surpassing the U.S., even the U.K. is ahead of the U.S., what are other countries doing differently that the U.S. can take note of and learn from?

PERNELL: You see a more strategic distribution and allocation process. You see every level of government aligned. That's what has been lacking in this pandemic response since the beginning. We have had states resorting to different scenarios, different plans and sometimes even their own science.

Unfortunately, when you don't have that top down and bottom up approach together you see these mishaps, you see uneven performance and what we're seeing across the globe all hands on deck, but we don't have all hands on deck at least not in the same direction here.

CABRERA: You were part of the Moderna trial and you just found out you were among those participants who received the vaccine versus the placebo. How did you learn about this?

PERNELL: So, Ana, you know, I enrolled to be a part of this trial back in August, I lost my dad, my sister is a long hauler, I saw black and brown communities devastated, and I was very, very eager to be a part of the solution. So I had received two injections, one at the end of August, one in October and then as Moderna went through the emergency authorization use process, we started to hear from the study team that there would be a possibility that those who participated could be unblinded because if health care workers had access to the vaccine, they did not want to deny those of us who may have been placebo that opportunity.

And I found out last Tuesday, and I couldn't be happier. It was a peace overcame me. I was always very assured that this was the right choice and the right decision for me, and to learn that I am a data point in what allowed us to now roll out this vaccine to millions of Americans is just a life come full circle moment especially because of the tragedy that I faced personally.

[10:25:01]

CABRERA: No doubt. And I am so sorry you have had to endure that type of tragedy like so many other Americans right now. I am kind of curious, if you had received the placebo, would you have opted to get out of the trial at this point so that you could get vaccinated?

PERNELL: Yes, I would have because I think it's very important to get vaccinated. We waited for this moment, the science moved quite quickly because that was built upon actually a legacy of research in the lab that allowed us to be able to be so agile in creating a competitive, efficacious and safe solution. So if I had been in placebo I was ready to get vaccinated, but to hear that I had already received the vaccine and to be able to then go out into community and to share my experience, to share my story, it felt quite empowering.

CABRERA: The Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine both require two doses, the U.K. just modified their guidance that people can get a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine anywhere from 3 to 12 weeks after that first dose. What are your thoughts on that?

PERNELL: I really think we should stay away from that. I understand the need to consider how do you get more first dose injections in arms, but here in the United States where we have behemoth skepticism, especially in black and brown communities where you are historical legacy of mistrust and a lack of trustworthiness demonstrated by the academic medical complex I think we should do what the science laid the ground work for, two injections, those injections separated by 21 or 28 days. I don't want to in any way unsettle the American public.

CABRERA: Dr. Chris Pernell, so great to have you with us. Thank you for doing your part and then some in helping us all through this crisis. Best to you in the New Year.

PERNELL: Thank you.

CABRERA: In the Georgia runoffs, better than expected early voting turnout by registered Democrats is putting pressure on the GOP. Ten Republicans turn out the pace on Election Day despite President Trump's baseless voter fraud allegations? We'll discuss, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:31:46]

CABRERA: With the Georgia Senate runoffs in four days, GOP Senator David Perdue will have to quarantine after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. Now, this comes as Republicans face growing pressure to turn out their base next Tuesday as Democrats are turning out in larger numbers for early voting.

CNN correspondent Ryan Nobles has more details for us.

Ryan, what are you learning about the momentum on the ground right now? RYAN NOBLES, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, there is no

doubt that Democrats are very encouraged by their performance here in the two weeks of the early voting stage of the Georgia runoff. It does have some Republicans nervous.

I talked to quite a few GOP operative yesterday that believe from what they're been able to tell about the numbers that have come in at this point, that the Democrats are actually outperforming their early vote totals when you compare to it to how they performed in the general election. And, of course, remember that the Democrats won the general election at least in the presidential level and were close enough to force this runoff happening right now.

Now, Democrats also feel pretty positive about how well they've done up until this point and I caught up yesterday with Stacey Abrams. She is, of course, the former gubernatorial nominee on the Democratic side here in 2018. She has been very involved in this Senate runoff. I asked her if she was encouraged by the Democratic performance.

Listen to what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STACEY ABRAMS (D), FORMER GEORGIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I wouldn't say that it's better, I would say that it's incredibly gratifying to see so many turning out. We are pleased with the level of energy and excitement especially given how often pundits were discounting the likelihood of Democrats performing in a runoff.

According to current analysis, we are running at or ahead of where we were in 2020 November election, but we know that this is just the beginning. We still have to get to Election Day and I don't count anything until it's done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NOBLES: Now, there's no doubt that Republicans are concerned by how well the Democrats have performed in early voting, but it is also important to point out that they anticipated that the bulk of their voters would show up on Election Day. That's been the plan from the very beginning for the Republicans just because of the culture of Republican voters, they feel more comfortable voting in person on Election Day, but it's going to mean that they have to truly turn out their operation on election day itself, January 5th.

They're hoping that President Trump coming here the night before the election helps to kind of spur on his supporters to get to the polls, but, Ana, the wild card in all of this is we don't know what President Trump is going to say on Monday night.

The last time here stumping for the Republican candidates he spent a heck of a lot more time talking about his baseless allegations of election fraud than he did David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, and there is still a real concern among Republicans that if Trump focuses for on this election fraud as opposed to the voting at hand, that it could discourage some of his supporters. I mean, it is a difficult argument to make, listen, I think the

election system is filled with fraud but you should still come out and vote -- Ana.

CABRERA: Ryan Nobles, thank you. Happy New Year.

Let's bring in somebody who has unique insight into the voters there in Georgia. He is former Georgia state majority whip, former Georgia state majority whip and state representative, Edward Lindsey.

Great to have you with us. Again, happy New Year to you.

You heard Ryan's reporting about these early voting numbers.

[10:35:01]

EDWARD LINDSEY (R), FORMER GEORGIA HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP: Yeah.

CABRERA: Do you think there is a ground swell of Democratic momentum right now?

LINDSEY: Well, there's no question but that the Democrats have done what they needed to do in the early voting. As a matter of fact, they are running a few points ahead in terms of some of their base of supporters turning out over what they did in November. For instance, in early voting in November African-American voters turned out at a rate of just under 28 percent. This year -- this runoff election, African-American voters are making up just over 30 percent.

So they are slightly outperforming in terms of the overall percentage of turnout over what they did in November, which is what they need to do. While President-elect Biden did win early here in Georgia, down ballot Republicans did very well in Georgia. The Democrats need to do better in the runoff than they did in the general election if they expect to win these two races and right now they are slightly.

CABRERA: What do you think is behind that?

LINDSEY: Well, two things are behind that, number one is that the Democrats are united, you know, they came out of this November election united and are focused entirely on the runoff election. Republicans -- there is a certain segment of the Republican base that's divided, that have still focused more on the grievances over the past election rather than focusing on this election.

And what I've been telling folks is that while Democrats may not be able to win based on their past performance, Republicans can certainly lose this race if they don't focus on the runoff rather than on their grievances over what happened in November.

CABRERA: What impact does Senator David Perdue having to quarantine have on the race do you think?

LINDSEY: Well, you always want your candidate out front all the way to 7:00 p.m. on election night. So anytime that your candidate is off the stage, you know, it sort of dampens some of the momentum. However, this race is going to be decided largely not on persuasion but on turning out your base. Folks have already made a decision in terms of who they're going to be supporting. So the question here is whether or not Republicans can turn out their base and that's what they're going to be focused on in the next few days.

CABRERA: So, you know, I have to ask you about the president's visit to Georgia come Monday. It will be his last political rally as president and also, of course, just the day before this election.

In recent days, the president is still calling, you know, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp names, asking him to resign, he's spent months attacking the electoral system as fraudulent in Georgia, even though it's really controlled by Republicans.

How do all these attacks play on the minds of independent voters and maybe some GOP voters?

LINDSEY: Not helpful to be candid with you. You know, very much appreciate the fact that the president is encouraging people to vote, but it's kind of -- his actions are kind of like someone who puts their foot on both the gas and the brake pedal at the same time, it leads to some really kind of questionable results. And that's what we're having right now.

We have a certain segment of the Republican base that are questioning whether or not they should turn out because of the president's claims of fraud. So that's certainly not helpful. Also, while it's a small number of independents out there who are undecided, very small number, in a tight election, they are key and having the president question the results, you know, it's not -- it's simply not helpful in terms of trying to persuade them to come on back to the Republican Party.

CABRERA: Well, all eyes the center of the political universe turns to Georgia this week. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Edward Lindsey, appreciate your time. Thank you.

LINDSEY: Thank you for having me. Happy New Year.

CABRERA: Be sure to watch. Happy New Year to you.

We have our special live coverage kicking up again of the Georgia Senate runoff, "Election Night in America Continues," it all starts Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:45:04]

CABRERA: California reeling right now from the effects of this pandemic. In L.A. County, officials are warning hospitals are, quote, on the brink of catastrophe. As it witnesses its worst day of deaths and officials believe this latest surge is driven by thanksgiving gatherings, they fear what could come now after Christmas and New Year's. Let's go to CNN's Paul Vercammen in L.A.

Paul, the situation, it just keeps getting worse and worse there.

PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It does, Ana.

And when you talk to doctors and nurses on the ground as I do every week, they are just petrified. Let's look at the numbers that have them so scared. The deaths -- 290 in the very last count in L.A. County, that is a record.

And then the hospitalizations, 7,500 people hospitalized in L.A. county with COVID-related symptoms. This is taxing the hospital system -- everything from ambulances to a ripple effect on clinics, an exhausted front-line workers wanted to reach out and talk to the public.

Let's listen to what they had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. NICOLE VAN GRONINGEN, CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER: I can tell you that we really are at a breaking point. We are also worried that at some point soon, we are going to have a really tough time finding the space and the staff to take care of all the sick patients coming in with COVID-19 who really need our help.

SCOTT BRICKNER, REGISTERED NURSE, CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER: The best way to describe it that I could tell a friend recently is it's like treading water from 100 feet below the surface. You are already drowning but you have to keep trying because that's what you can do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VERCAMMEN: And to the south in San Diego County, we now have four cases of the U.K. variant of COVID-19, two men in their 40s, another in their 50s found to have this U.K. variant. That in addition to a man in his 30s.

Also we should note that San Francisco is extending it's stay-at-home orders. Most of California is under some sort of stay-at-home orders.

Back to you now, Ana.

CABRERA: And we all know what we need to do, wearing masks. It's social distancing. It's doubling down on hand washing, all of those things.

Paul Vercammen, thank you.

Check out these scenes now out of Wuhan, China, where New Year's revelers released balloons when the clock struck midnight. That city had a special reason to celebrate the arrival of 2021. As you will recall, this city was Ground Zero for the start of the coronavirus pandemic that has killed thousands, forced that city into a tight three-month lockdown. Well, this month a team of experts from the World Health Organization

are scheduled to arrive in China to investigate further the origins of this pandemic.

New intelligence shows Iranian maritime forces have raised their readiness levels in the Persian Gulf. This as tensions rise between the U.S. and Iran.

Stay with us. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:52:23]

CABRERA: Welcome back.

From peanut farmer to rocking the White House, the new CNN film "Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President" shows how America's 39th president used his passion for music to win the 1976 election.

CNN's Bill Weir now takes a closer look at how several presidents showed their love of music.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WEIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Is popular music downstream of politics?

JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT: I used to know all big Bob Dylan's records before I was governor.

WEIR: Or is it the other way around?

BOB DYLAN, SINGER/SONGWRITER: When I first met Jimmy, the first thing he did was quote my songs back to me. It was the first time that I realized my songs had reached into -- basically into the establishment.

WEIR: Or maybe music is just a soul detector for any leader of the moment.

Friends of Lincoln say he held equal love for "The Blue Tail Fly" and opera, that certain songs would mist his eyes and throw him into melancholy.

In the modern era, Nixon played classical piano and Kennedy played along with Frank Sinatra.

But it wasn't until Jimmy Carter that the White House held a true fan of country, rock, blues and soul.

CARTER: There were some people who didn't like my being deeply involved with Willie Nelson, and Bob Dylan and disreputable, you know, rock 'n' rollers, but I didn't care about that because I was doing what I really believed. And the response I think, from the followers of those musicians was much more influential. WEIR: Since then, Bill Clinton blew some Elvis sax and reunited

Fleetwood Mac, briefly.

George Bush filled his iPod with George Jones and John Fogerty.

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT: I'm pretty sure I'm the only president to listen to Jay-Z's music in the Oval Office.

WEIR: And Barack Obama showed his cool dad range from Jay-Z to James Taylor.

JAMES TAYLOR, SINGER: This is my favorite president, bar none.

WEIR: As for the latest, well --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Front man Steven Tyler is now asking President Trump to stop using the band's songs at political rallies.

WEIR: The Trump years brought more cease-and-desist letters from musicians than memorable White House performances.

But as Bob says --

DYLAN (singing): For the time they are a-changin.

[10:55:03]

WEIR: Bill Weir, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: "Jimmy Carter: Roll & Roll President" airs Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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We did it, we made it. We trudged through 2020 and made it out on the other side.