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CNN 10
Challenging Call For American Medical Advisors; Use Of Facial Recognition Technology For Humans And Bears; Mysterious Monolith. Aired 4- 4:10a ET
Aired December 02, 2020 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Welcome to your mid-week edition of CNN 10. My name is Carl Azuz broadcasting from a remote location outside the CNN
Center. We`re thankful as always to have you watching.
A group of American medial advisors met on Tuesday to make a challenging call. Once a coronavirus vaccine gets approved and becomes available, what
groups will be the first to have access to it? Vaccines are already available in Russia.
China is getting close to distributing as you`re about to hear and in the United States two pharmaceutical companies have applied to the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration to get its authorization for their vaccines.
The Trump Administration has a program called Operation Warp Speed. Its goal is to rapidly produce and distribute hundreds and millions of vaccines
once they`re approved. But though that approval is expected to come in the middle of this month, the number of shots that are actually available will
likely be limited until next spring.
And some of those who may want the vaccine may not be able to get it until then. So the advisors who met Tuesday were trying to help the Centers of
Disease Control prioritize who`d have access to the shot first with this being healthcare workers and residents of nursing homes. Would it be
essential workers like police officers and firefighters or people with underlying medical conditions?
Medical experts say that cancer, diabetes, heart conditions, obesity and kidney or liver disease can make coronavirus symptoms more dangerous.
That`s part of the reason why it`s such a challenge to decide who gets access to the vaccine.
Officials say as many as 40 percent of people who contract coronavirus have not symptoms at all and more than 99 percent of those who catch it are
estimated to survive. Still, the race to develop a vaccine extends far beyond the United States and the challenges of distributing one extend to
every part of the world.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re looking at one of the cargo jets that will soon be taking vaccines that are approved here in China, made by Chinese biotech
companies to the rest of the world. This one is a charter, Ethiopian Cargo. It`s their pharma wing. Look over here.
You can see they`re already loading up some of the PPE, some of the facemasks, some of the hazmat like suits. Inside however, they have built
an infrastructure that is temperature and climate controlled. Why does that matter?
Well as soon as the vaccines are approved, they have to be kept at a certain temperature setting and that is the only thing they can be
transferred from start here in Xinjiang in southern China to finish. For this aircraft, it continues on to the Middle East.
One thing that`s important to note is the logo on the side, (inaudible). That is a part of Ali-Baba. It`s their logistic and distribution part.
Normally they`re doing goods that people are buying online. Think of Amazon but on a massive scale. That is a company that here in China is
helping with the distribution of vaccines as soon as they`re given the go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are ready to move the vaccines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cainiao CEO, Wan Lin, says the company is now adding more routes for greater global reach.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We must (ph) (inaudible) about the exact demand on them but we`re definitely (inaudible) ability to be prepared for that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While China`s yet to approve a vaccine for public use, Cainiao says their end-to-end climate control infrastructure is in place
and ready. The required temperature which differs depending on the vaccine, must be maintained throughout transport from leaving the
production facility to airport storage and finally to global cargo distribution.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For example, the Xinjiang Airport terminal, they have already set up a cold chain warehouse mainly for the medicine suppliers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: CNN got an exclusive look inside that cold chain facility which will soon store the approved vaccines. Now these chambers
can be specified and even customized based on the required temperature for each vaccine and they can put them in different chambers within so as to
accommodate that.
Cainiao then works with different airlines to ensure the cargo temperature is sustained throughout the flight. In this case, Ethiopian Airlines,
since the start of the pandemic they`ve flown more than 3,000 tons of supplies to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South America.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we do the same (inaudible) for the vaccine to distribute to all destinations around the globe and then we can cure a lot
of human beings.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: 10 Second Trivia. The shoulder hump of a grizzly bear consists of what? Bone, muscle, fat or cartilage. Though the hump of a camel is made
of fat. It`s muscle that gives grizzly bears the rise in their shoulders.
Facial recognition technology and its related controversies aren`t just for humans anymore. A biologists and two technology workers have teamed up to
create Bear ID. It uses facial recognition software to monitor grizzly bears. How? By comparing the measurements of their different facial
features. Why?
To track them without having to attach a collar or an electronic tag. How accurate is it? Bear ID says it`s 84 percent accurate but only for the
bears that are already in its relatively small data base. Why is this controversial? If poachers get access to this info, they could use it to
hunt down the animals illegally.
These obviously aren`t the same kinds of concerns as there are for human facial recognition software like Clearview AI. It`s one company that
collects pictures from Facebook, Instagram and You Tube and saves them even after accounts have been deleted.
Critics call this an invasion of privacy. The company says it can help police identify crime suspects though some departments have pulled away
from Clearview in favor of their own databases.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow. Oh my gosh. That photo is me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Doesn`t look like you. That`s when you were younger?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s my face. A photo I haven`t seen in years found in seconds by the facial recognition app Clearview AI.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So it works. Right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This "New York Times" investigation woke us all up. A realization, privacy may be a thing of the past and that`s because of this
guy, Hoan Ton-That the creator of Clearview AI.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well quite simply, Clearview is basically a search engine for faces.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Think about the photos you`ve posted online or photos that others have posted of you. There`s a good chance he`s collected them.
His app has scraped billions of images from sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google to use in a facial recognition system.
He claims more than 600 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Canada are using it though it`s unclear how many have actually paid for it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that`s a photo of you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So this is a photo of me from CNN.com.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re seeing pictures of me that are not from that original image. This is from medium. Tech giants aren`t happy about this.
They say it violates their terms of service and have sent cease and desist letters. This technology is looking at --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unique features. So it learns to ignore things a little bit like the beard and be focused on the features that stay the same
across, you know, ages.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You do understand why people find this creepy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can understand people having concerns around privacy. So the first part to remember, it`s only publicly available information not
just making technology for its own sake. The reason and the purpose we found is to really help law enforcement solve crime.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was deeply disturbed. I was concerned about how Clearview had a massive data base of images. I was concerned about its
data privacy and I was concerned that it was tracking law enforcement searches.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you concerned about it taking a tool like that out of the hands of law enforcement?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Facial recognition tool can be used properly if we understand how the database is created.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clearview claims its app is 99 percent accurate. A claim that CNN hasn`t verified. So you think this is an area that should
be regulated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, absolutely. I don`t think regulation is a bad thing and we want to work with the government to create something that is
safe and understandable and keeps the whole public at ease.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AZUZ: For 10 out of 10, the mystery of the missing monolith. November 18th, a Department of Public Safety helicopter crew is counting big horned
sheep in southeastern Utah. They discover a mysterious object standing about 10 to 12 feet high.
No one know who put it there or why? The crew leave it as they find it and though they don`t share its location some intrepid explorers make their way
out to the desert to see it for themselves.
Then, the night of November 27th, the monolith is mysteriously removed and replaced by rocks. But that same weekend a similar looking monolith
appears in eastern Romania. Hey, it`s 2020. Add that to the "monolist" of things that no one saw coming or going.
Figuring this one out is going to be a "monumental" task. We`ll have to put it in the unsolved mysteries column. Sure some "pillary" that idea but
what is the "statue" of limitations on a "monoliftery"? It`s not like it`s set in stone. All right.
Hey, we are going to Bordentown, New Jersey today. That`s where the students and staff of Bordentown Regional High School are watching. They
are also subscribing and commenting on our You Tube channel and that is the only place where our staff looks for shout out requests. I`m Carl Azuz for
CNN.
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