Hong Kong Tightens Measures After Record Number Of Cases
CURNOW: Welcome back. I'm Robyn Curnow here in Atlanta. So, U.S. President Donald Trump is once again downplaying the severity of the pandemic even as states continue to record infection numbers and hospitals are being stretched to the limit. According to Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. has confirmed nearly 3.8 million cases so far. Still, Mr. Trump insists the crisis has been blown out of proportion and falsely suggests the U.S. has the lowest mortality rate in the world. During an interview with Fox News, he again blamed the high infection numbers on increased in testing.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But we have more tests by far than any country in the world.</s>CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: But sir, testing is up 37 percent?</s>TRUMP: Well, that's good.</s>WALLACE: I understand. Cases are up 194 percent. It isn't just the testing has gone up, it's that the virus has spread. The positivity rate has increased. The virus is worse than it was.</s>TRUMP: Many of those cases -- many of those cases young people that would heal in a day. Cases are up because we have the best testing in the world.</s>CURNOW: In New York, once the epicenter of virus in the U.S., COVID-19 hospitalization in the state continues to go down. New York City is starting its final phase of reopening on Monday, but it is doing so with caution. Here's Polo Sandoval with more from New York.</s>POLO SANDOVAL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: New York City will be reaching this major milestone this week with its face four reopening. It will be the latest in a series of reopening phases that we've seen started since the beginning of summer here. This will be a fairly limited reopening, which means some of the indoor spaces that were supposed to initially be open to the public again will remain closed, places like museums, malls, movie theaters, gyms as well. Indoor dining in the city, that's also still banned. What you can expect, however, are some of those low risk outdoor spaces to reopen like botanical gardens, zoos with limited capacity, and also indoor exhibits still closed, professional sports without fans, as well as movie and T.V. production also expect to resume. So you'll see New York City look a little bit more like New York. Also, schools would potentially be given the go-ahead to reopen though a final decision, according to the governor, won't be made until August. The reason why the face for New York City looks very different from face four from other parts of the state is because it's a much more densely populated area. So the concern by health officials is that if you open some of these spaces, then that would allow this virus to potentially spread. Polo Sandoval, CNN, New York.</s>CURNOW: And Hong Kong says it will further tighten its Coronavirus restrictions as the outbreak there keeps on getting worse. Officials on Sunday reported 108 new infections, the most in a single day. Chief Executive If Carrie Lam says the government will now expand the mandatory use of face masks and will require all non-essential civil servants to work from home. For more on that, let's go to Will Ripley. Will joins me from Hong Kong live. Well, hi, good to see you. So, talk us through these new measures.</s>WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Robin. These are the most significant social distancing measures that Hong Kong has seen in this pandemic. You have civil servants, as you mentioned, who are working from home, at least this week, it could be extended further. That also means a reduction in the services that are available for Hong Kong residents. A number of offices are starting to reduce their hours, some are encouraging their employees to work from home, and you have to wear a mask when you step outside of your home. Walking through most businesses, apartment buildings, certainly on public transportation and any indoor public space where you're going to be around other people, you're expected to wear a mask. And you could be fined in some instances if you don't. Hong Kong taking this very seriously even though the numbers which just over the weekend, for the first time in the pandemic cracked over 100 cases per day, they're still, you know, great numbers when you compare it to most other places around the world. But here in Hong Kong, this is not good news and the chief executive Carrie Lam explained why earlier.</s>CARRIE LAM, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, HONG KONG (through translator): The situation is really critical, and there's no sign the situation is being brought under control. That's why this morning, I've called a high meeting level to consider our response. And we know that later on today with these latest figures, we've announced by the Center for Health Protection there would be more than 100 confirmed cases. That is a single day high since the start of the epidemic, and we believe the public will be very much concerned and worried.</s>RIPLEY: And if you talk to people who live here in Hong Kong, particularly those who survive the SARS outbreak, they are worried because they remember those awful months when hundreds of people in Hong Kong died, a lot of them at one particular apartment complex. So when you have health authorities talking about clusters at various apartment complexes are amongst taxi drivers or bars and restaurants. People are adhering to the social distancing guidelines. But that hasn't been enough to slow the number of cases at least not yet. And even with the existing numbers as they are, about 75 percent of Hong Kong's COVID-19 hospital beds are in use right now. That doesn't leave a whole lot of wiggle room, if more people start to get sick and need hospitalization, which is why they're also upping the amount of tests per day. In recent days, the city's been averaging around 10,000 COVID tests every single day. That's including tests that they conduct when people fly in at the airport. But also, for example, today they're offering free COVID tests for taxi drivers. One of the clusters that was identified, Robyn, the hope is that they can find as many of the people who might have the virus as possible and get them out of circulation before they pass the virus to others in this densely populated city.</s>CURNOW: OK, Will Ripley there live in Hong Kong. Thanks, Will. Meanwhile, we're just learning that pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong says he's running for a seat on Hong Kong's Legislative Council in September. Wong told reporters on Monday, he hoped to send a message that Hong Kong residents will not surrender. His announcement comes after Beijing recently passed a sweeping national security law for the city. Wong has been banned from running in previous polls, but he won in primaries organized by the pro- democracy camp by more than 31,000 votes last week. Now, when Coronavirus erupted in Europe, Sweden went against the tide of shutdowns. The country opted to not impose restrictions and let life go on as usual. Well, as Phil Black now report, Sweden seems to be paying the price for its approach now.</s>PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is the image Sweden is recently famous for, living well while much of the world is locking down, but it's deceptive. Scratch the surface and you still find great economic pain. These boats would normally carry hundreds of people every day during summer.</s>HJALMAR LITZEN, DIRECTOR, FIORE RESTAURANTS: Enormous impact. Counting March, April, our turnover went down 93 percent, and it's still around the same.</s>BLACK: This restaurant opened just weeks before the virus surged here.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Looking at the numbers, of course, it's minus, minus, minus.</s>BLACK: And just like the hotels in heavily locked down cities around the world, those in Stockholm have sat mostly empty for months.</s>DAVID HALLDEN, CEO, ELITE HOTELS OF SWEDEN: We are actually bleeding and everyone in the hospitality industry in Sweden is bleeding heavily at the moment.</s>BLACK: And it's many other industries too. Nearly 50 percent of Sweden's economy is, like this designer shoe brand, largely built on selling stuff to people in other countries. So even when many Swedish businesses could stay open, the global crisis destroyed international demand for their products.</s>LEYLA PURSHARIFI, COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR, ATP ATELIER: The biggest hit was obviously export. And the biggest hurt is obviously U.S. The U.S. is our second largest market.</s>BLACK: And Swedish manufacturers were also cut off from international supply chains. Carmaker Volvo shut down its Swedish plants for three weeks because it ran low on parts. It all means Sweden's economy is predicted to contract this year by more than five percent with hundreds of thousands losing jobs.</s>IBRAHIM BAYLAN, MINISTER FOR ENTERPRISE, SWEDEN: We have never seen a crisis hitting this broadly within the economy or this deep within the economy.</s>BLACK: That's on top of a disturbing COVID-19 desktop, more than five and a half thousand in a small country of just 10 million. So, some Swedes are now asking, were staying open worth it.</s>LARS CALMFORS, PROFESSOR, STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY: I think the price paid in terms of life's loss has been too high. That's of course a valid judgment, but I think it's a rather sensible valid judgment.</s>BLACK: Swedish officials have always insisted their key goals are protecting lives and the health system with economic considerations further down the line.</s>BAYLAN: The very important part of our strategy to try to create an awareness within the population and to have it over a longer term because I think that's more viable than trying to shut down.</s>BLACK: Sweden's self-touch experiment pushing personal responsibility and social distancing is still being watched around the world as governments desperately try to find the right balance. But the early results suggest an obvious conclusion. There is no pain free solution to living with COVID-19. Phil Black, CNN London.</s>CURNOW: Thanks, Phil, for that. So just ahead here at CNN, America's top diplomat is heading to the U.K. and into the heart of controversy over one of China's biggest cell phone makers.