Fauci Issues A Warning To The World; Coronavirus Cases In U.S. Rising To Record Levels; Brazilian President Touting Controversial Drug
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Surging cases of coronavirus from coast to coast. The uptick in the U.S. comes as we learn more people may be asymptomatic than we originally thought. People around the world have been doing it for months. Donald Trump finally wears a mask in public. Also, blindsided and in limbo. We look at the plight of international students here in the United States. Coming to you live from CNN World Headquarters here in Atlanta. I'm Natalie Allen. This is CNN NEWSROOM.</s>ALLEN: And thank you for joining us. The numbers are a bit overwhelming but consider this to get a sense of how many people in the U.S. right now are infected with the coronavirus. According to Johns Hopkins University, the total stands at more than 3.2 million. That is more than the individual populations of 21 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The number of new cases and hospitalizations just keeps going up. Only a handful of states are seeing decreases. The states there in green, they're mostly in the Northeast. More than half are seeing numbers climb. One of those states, Florida, where more than 7,000 people are in hospitals because of this virus. Also, Texas, Wisconsin, North Carolina all broke single day case records Saturday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at least 40 percent of those infected do not show any symptoms. The concern there is that asymptomatic people may not take precautions but can still pass the virus to others. Concern about the unchecked spread of the virus prompted the nation's top infectious disease expert to issue a warning. Our Polo Sandoval has more.</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: People are infecting other people.</s>POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, telling the world that the U.S. is at a historic point in the COVID pandemic.</s>FAUCI: As you can see from the slide here, my own country , the United States, as I'm sure we will be able to discuss a little bit more, is in the middle right now even as we speak in a very serious problem.</s>SANDOVAL (voice-over): The doctor issued the blunt new warning during this year's international AIDS conference that the coronavirus crisis rages on amid ongoing reopenings. Florida continues to grapple with skyrocketing daily COVID numbers and hospitalizations. In hot zone Miami-Dade County, the test positivity rate surpassed 33 percent this week.</s>MAYOR DAN GELBER (D-FL), MIAMI BEACH: We have, 1800 people, COVID patients now, that is the highest by many multiples. We have almost 400 people in intensive care and we're about to hit an all-time high in ventilators.</s>SANDOVAL (voice-over): Despite the apparent height in Florida's pandemic...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We look forward to seeing you soon.</s>SANDOVAL (voice-over): -- two Disneyland parks are open again this weekend amid criticism from one employee union. Aggressive testing happening in parts of Texas, some regions working with the military to keep up with demand. In another sign that the pandemic is tightening its grip on the Lone Star State, some hospitals are turning to tents and other spaces to treat the overflow of COVID patients.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Conference rooms, cell spaces, currently we have ICU patients that patients that are on medical surgical floors. Honestly, we really need closer monitoring. We need equipment. But those are things we simply do not have at this time. Everyone is exhausted and the patients here are very sick.</s>SANDOVAL (voice-over): California also taking steps to relieve the pressure from record COVID-19 numbers. The state's Department of Corrections plans to release at least 8000 prisoners from across the state. The movement to allow for more social distancing behind bars. As death tolls climb, a troubling new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about how COVID is disproportionately killing black and brown Americans. The fresh CDC data showing on average those minority groups are dying from the virus at a younger age when compared to white patients. One likely factor, many of them filling essential and service jobs allowing little room for social distancing or for staying at home.</s>DR. UCHE BLACKSTOCK, CEO, ADVANCING HEALTH EQUITY: What we need right now in the short term are an equitable allocation of resources to black and brown communities.</s>BLACKSTOCK: So targeting, testing, contact tracing, PPE and ensuring that the health care institutions in those communities are adequately resourced.</s>SANDOVAL (voice-over): Staying fully stocked has been a big challenge for some hospitals across the country with the virus showing no signs of slowing down -- Polo Sandoval, CNN, New York.</s>ALLEN: For months U.S. president Trump has refused to wear a mask despite medical guidance that say they prevent spread of the virus. But on Saturday Mr. Trump was seen in public with a mask for the first time. He wore it while meeting with wounded military members. Mr. Trump said he never opposed wearing a mask.</s>TRUMP: Well, I will probably have a mask if you must know. I mean, I'll probably have a mask. I think when you're in a hospital especially in that particular setting, where you're talking to a lot of soldiers and people that in some cases just got off the operating tables, I think it's a great thing to wear a mask. I've never been against masks but I do believe they have a time and a place.</s>ALLEN: Masks have become a political flashpoint in the United States. Opponents say the requirement or suggestion to wear them infringes on their civil liberties. Let's talk about the latest developments with Sterghios Moschos, a virologist joining me from England. Thank you for coming on.</s>STERGHIOS MOSCHOS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY: Good morning, Natalie.</s>ALLEN: First up, it is hopefully a good sign the president has donned a mask as far as masks go. Do you think part of this enormous surge we're seeing in the U.S. was due to people not wearing them and congregating in close quarters after states reopened, many of them, earlier than guidelines suggested?</s>MOSCHOS: Yes. Many in the epidemiology world could almost see the virus dancing, so to speak, between the people in various pieces of footage that came from the United States. I distinctly recall seeing -- I believe it was the opening of casinos, showing people milling around. These people are in such close proximity in such an enclosed environment, if there is somebody who is infected among them, they will get the virus. Here we are.</s>ALLEN: Here we are. Here's an example of here we are from a health expert, warning that if the U.S. continues on its current path it will reach, quote, "one of the most unstable times in the history of our country," meaning hospitals can be overrun and there wouldn't be enough manpower to care for the sick. How challenging will it be now for the U.S. to pull out of this?</s>MOSCHOS: We know exactly what we need to do. It's a simple, straightforward thing people can do on their own. It's not difficult. It's not infringing on anyone's civil liberties. It's what you need to do. Just wear a mask or facial covering. That is something that you have at least three layers in front of your face when you're in an enclosed environment. If you're exercising, it's a good idea you wear one as well. We've known this since 1919, since the first flu pandemic happened. Respiratory viruses will escape through breath. Do it for the good of the people, for our own good.</s>ALLEN: Absolutely. Someone pointed out recently, a common sign at restaurants in the United States is no shirt, no shoes, no service. People don't have a problem following along with that one. But suddenly masks becomes political. I want to talk to you about Florida specifically. In Miami-Dade County, the use of ventilators is now soaring by 123 percent. It's not just hospitals overwhelmed; testing is too. There are six states hit with a surge of deaths by 50 percent. What does this say to you about how out of control this is especially in this one area?</s>MOSCHOS: To me it says that Florida, at least, possibly Texas as well, in a matter of days will be like Italy, where the hospitals were totally overwhelmed and people were dying at home without any help.</s>MOSCHOS: It means that conditions of COVID-19 will be impossible to treat. People that need chemotherapy won't be able to get it. It means quite likely you will end up needing to go into lockdown in the middle of the summer. Everybody was saying in the beginning of the year, oh, yes, hopefully the sun will turn out and the virus will go away. Here we are.</s>ALLEN: Absolutely. Even in South Carolina they're calling in the National Guard to help support hospitals, that's how bad it is there. We've had this new development from the CDC. which estimates 40 percent of people who are infected do not have symptoms. How does that complicate the situation?</s>MOSCHOS: When they don't feel ill, it means they think they are invincible. In this particular instance, it reinforces what we need is to be thinking about others in society, not about ourselves. It shows if you're well, put a piece of cloth in front of your face so that you look after those that you think the civil liberties could be compromised.</s>ALLEN: If it doesn't happen, we'll be months and months into this thing. Researchers have said this is not just a respiratory disease. A substantial number are facing kidney, heart, brain damage. So physicians need to think of COVID-19 as a multi-system disease?</s>MOSCHOS: So for those people that end up in hospital, what appears to be happening is that the virus ends up circulating around the body. There's enough evidence to suggest it's a blood vessel thing. Because they're not working well, we see the COVID toe and things like kidney failure, strokes, heart failure. It's got nothing to do with the background. Obviously if you have kidney disease, heart disease exacerbated over the years, suddenly with this spike of damage, the system gives up.</s>ALLEN: Then they're in it for weeks if not longer.</s>MOSCHOS: Yes.</s>ALLEN: And in very critical condition.</s>MOSCHOS: There are many, many cases of patients that are in hospital two or three months in some instances. Even those who come out early, they find themselves they have weakened significantly, significantly, not just because of the sedation of being on a ventilator but because the virus has damaged the body so much, they can't get about and do their normal daily activities. When clinicians say somebody's made a full recovery, that doesn't mean they've gotten 100 percent to where they were before. It doesn't mean you're able to stand. That's how damaging the virus can be. You are left recovering for months. Those of us -- fortunately I'm not one of them. But those of us in society that have suffered this virus, there's a large proportion known as long haulers. So people are getting research into the symptoms because the damage is so diverse, it takes a long time to recover, if you can recover.</s>ALLEN: Certainly sobering news there. Sterghios Moschos, virologist, joining us now from England. Thank you so much. We really appreciate your expertise and your time.</s>MOSCHOS: You're very welcome.</s>ALLEN: Of course, the coronavirus also raging through Latin America and the Caribbean. Brazil is the second worst affected country in the world after the United States. It reported more than 39,000 new cases Saturday, bringing the total past 1.8 million. And the country's most high profile patient, president Jair Bolsonaro, is touting a controversial drug. CNN's Bill Weir is in Brazil.</s>BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Here in Brazil, that COVID-19 curve continues to go completely in the wrong direction, averaging over 1,000 deaths a day, now over 1.8 million confirmed cases but with a lack of testing all across this vast country. A lot of experts believe that number is off by at least a factor of 5- 10. Meanwhile president Jair Bolsonaro, the most favorite COVID-19 patient in Brazil, continues to promote his prescription of chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, the anti malarial drugs that he is so fond of.</s>WEIR: And I'm in the center of Brazil today, in the geographic center, a big agricultural region where I met a doctor who spent 10 days in intensive care. Now his, boss the supervisor it is, hospital is in intensive care. I asked him about Bolsonaro's prescription. He said he took those antimalarial drugs and they did not work at all for, him and yet he prescribes them because he has no other choice, they are cheap, they are available, he says, otherwise, what do I give my patients, water? He also says that for a lot of the patients in this rural agricultural area, the other choice to infection is poverty or starvation. And so it does not take much encouragement from the man in charge for people to get back to work, for people to heed that call. So that comes down to the only way to protect themselves and to try to flatten this curve here is mask wearing, social distancing, quarantines. We know the president is not fond of that and the president, even though he was ordered to wear a mask by a judge back in June, defied that time and time again through the other states. Would wade into crowds with hugs and handshakes. We have seen him wear the mask although he took it off the day he announced he had it. It will be interesting to see if he comes through, hopefully he comes through this, whether it will change his mind about those other precautions. His wife and daughters tested negative for COVID-19, the Bolsonaros. But right now it is just places are bracing for what may be another wave that never really went down as more and more cases become evident all around this country -- I'm Bill Weir, CNN, Brazil.</s>ALLEN: Serbia pushed ahead with elections despite the pandemic and that move could have a major fallout for its president. We'll have the latest on the violent protests there that are not abating. Also, the head of the Russia investigation makes a rare public statement about President Trump commuting the sentence of his close friend, Roger Stone. Former special counsel Robert Mueller speaks out next.