Vaccine Trials In Brazil; U.S. National Security Adviser Tests Positive For Coronavirus; Phase Three Vaccine Trial Underway In U.S.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: As the United States battles to get over its first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Europe seems to already be heading for its second. Plus.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This past March. I was really, really anxious and I cry a lot.</s>ANDERSON: One of the worst hit countries in the world finds itself on another COVID frontline. The global race to find a vaccine. We're live in Brazil up next. And North Korea's leader declaring a national nationwide emergency. We tell you why later this hour. It's 6:00 p.m. here in Abu Dhabi. It's 4:00 p.m. in Paris, 10:00 a.m. in D.C. This hour infecting Trump's inner circle. U.S. National Security Advisor testing positive for the coronavirus. I'm Becky Anderson. Welcome to CONNECT THE WORLD from our Middle East broadcasting hub. Well COVID-19 is sparing almost no place on a earth it appears. It isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Some countries still riding out their first wave while others are already being slammed by a second wave. In Asia where it was thought things were under control. Millions are being impacted by fresh lockdowns. India has reported almost 50,000 new cases in a single day, its highest number in a 24-hour period. China reported its highest number of locally transmitted cases since early March. China has also agreed to help Hong Kong build a temporary Wuhan style hospital after it saw a record number of new daily cases. Hong Kong has now made it mandatory to wear masks even outdoors. It's also temporarily banning dining in restaurants and at food stalls. Singapore's government says it is seeing new cases coming from foreign workers living in dormitories. And in Europe, many British tourists are angry over the U.K. sudden decision to impose a two-week quarantine on travelers returning from Spain as fears of a second wave rattle economies across the continent. More on this situation in Europe in a moment. But first, as the United States fights and accelerating situation. There is some positive news on the vaccine front there. A large phase three vaccine trial is now underway. A private public partnership It is to be conducted at nearly 100 research sites across the country. The WHO says it's one of 25 potential COVID-19 vaccines currently in clinical trials around the world. That there is hope for the future. Right now the United States is in the grips of a major crisis. It remains the number one hotspot for COVID-19. Rosa Flores reports.</s>ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Florida's coronavirus crisis is showing no signs of slowing down. The Sunshine State now has the second highest number of positive cases, surpassing New York. Miami-Dade County's hospital ICU beds are at 146 percent capacity. And on Saturday, the county had a daily positivity rate of 18 percent, meaning nearly one out of five people tested here have the coronavirus.</s>MAYOR FRANCIS SUAREZ (R), MIAMI, FL: Our base line is way too high. The growth rate has shown flattening since we implemented the mask in public rule, and we're following, you know, the advice of our healthcare professionals.</s>FLORES: With the higher demand for testing across the state of Florida, some are experiencing an extremely slow turnaround time. It's a problem happening nationwide, including in California, which added nearly 8,300 additional cases to its total Sunday.</s>DR. ANISH MAHAJAN, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, HARBOR-UCLA: Wearing a mask is essential. Social distancing is essential. What we have to do differently now is we have to have more testing. And we have to have contact tracing. Without these steps, we will be in this perpetual cycle of, as we reopen, we'll again see a resurgence of infections.</s>FLORES: In Louisiana, there's a significant backlog, too. And the health department says 94 percent of the 3,840 cases reported Sunday coming from community spread. President Trump repeatedly made this claim throughout the pandemic.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If somebody wants to be tested right now, they'll be able to be tested.</s>FLORES: But now, the Trump administration official overseeing testing admits it's taking too long for people to receive their results.</s>ADMIRAL BRETT GIROIR, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: We are never going to be happy with testing until we get turnaround times within 24 hours, and I would be happy with point-of-care testing everywhere. We are not there yet. We are doing everything we can to do that.</s>FLORES: Health experts fear that delays in states experiencing high levels of transmission, like Texas, could be damaging.</s>DR. PETER HOTEZ, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: What happens is people give up even trying to get testing. The lines are really long, and the lines themselves not even safe, so people are not getting testing.</s>ANDERSON: Rosa Flores reporting there and she joins me now live from Miami with more including, Rosa, the story of a little girl with no underlying health conditions who has tragically become the state's youngest victim.</s>FLORES: You know, Becky this story is very tragic. This nine-year-old, her name is Kimmy Lyneham. According to her family she had no underlying conditions, and she started feeling sick and so they took her to the hospital. The hospital actually sent her back home and it was after she got back home that she collapsed and then died. The family is still trying to grapple with this. They don't know exactly how she contracted the coronavirus. We understand that her mother tested for the -- for COVID-19 and she's still waiting for her results now. It's heartbreaking this family describes little Kimmy Lyneham as just a happy little girl who wanted to make everybody happy as an amazing young lady. And this comes as there is this debate, this battle here in the State of Florida to reopen schools for in person instruction. And all new this morning, Becky, we're learning that in eight days. The number of children who tested positive for COVID-19 in the State of Florida increased 34 percent. When you look at child hospitalizations, those increased in that same time period by 23 percent. So all of this, of course, must factor into the calculus of what the state is going to do. We've asked the governor's office, we've asked the Department of Education to see if this will change anything in the State of Florida for now, the legal battle about whether or not to reopen schools continues. Becky?</s>ANDERSON: Rosa Flores in Miami for us. We are often told by political leaders that kids are spared this virus tragically, clearly, that is not always the case. Well, America deep into its first wave but even places that "Successfully shut down" have found that as soon as they open back up, the virus runs rampant once again, Case in point Europe, Spain, Germany and France are all seeing new pockets of infection. Let me focus in on a second in -- on France for a second because they're -- the health ministry says a good chunk of the progress that the country has made has simply been raised. Health Minister Olivier Veran tells</s>CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Becky, right now we're by the on the banks of the River Seine. It's a popular summer's spot for Parisians. People flock here, you know, to get some fresh air, be by the river every summer but this year has been made COVID compatible. So I want to get some eyes on this for you and show you what's happening. This is a mobile testing lab, right? So people are coming here, and they're getting either the nose swabs to know if they currently have the coronavirus or those or the blood tests and know if they have had it and therefore have some level of immunity. So, a lot of people want to get tested right now because some people are going on holiday, because it's hard to get a test. It's just hard to have those answers. Many people want to know if they've had it. So the appointments for this lab all filled up within 30 minutes of the lab opening, they're over there, where they're doing the blood tests, they get the results within 15 days, they tell us the positivity rate, there's about eight percent. About eight percent of the people who come here have had the coronavirus. And here this is the nose swab, right? And they have a positivity rate of about one to two percent. So typically, on average, they have one person every afternoon who's had it that seems pretty low, but it is higher than where we were when the confinement ended 2-1/2 months ago, Becky. And as you said, The French government now concerned that much of the success that France saw in fighting the pandemic over the last two months has been erased.</s>ANDERSON: And Cyril, that story, it seems beginning to be reflected on a wider basis around Europe. Tell us what we know at this point.</s>VANIER: And, you know, Becky, to a large extent, this was expected. Governments expected it, here in France and also in the other countries that started to reopen their economies. And it's just the simple fact of this pandemic that as people resume their normal lives, the virus starts to spread faster. France had said this would be the case. That's what they're seeing now. In Spain, they saw the virus spread much faster in the Catalonia region. So they had to confine -- reconfine Barcelona, millions of people. In Germany, they found clusters, they had to reconfine on a local basis. I'll tell you. No government wants to go through what Europe -- most European countries went through in February, March, April. They do not want to shut down their countries and the French government here has all but ruled out a national re confinement. What they do want to do is they want to test aggressively with systems like the ones you see here so that they are able to catch clusters and areas of contamination before that gets out of hand. And that's what you're -- that's why you're seeing reconfinements in Spain, in Germany, and potentially at some point during the summer here in France, Becky.</s>ANDERSON: Cyril Vanier is by the banks of the Seine. Thank you, sir. A little later this hour I'll be looking at the backlash as the U.K. defends its abrupt Spanish quarantine move. Right now though South America remains the pandemics worst region in the world behind the U.S. Its worst state country is Brazil. Just past two million cases of the coronavirus. The country's president Jair Bolsonaro says that he is finally tested negative for the virus at the third time of asking. Meanwhile, a union representing more than a million healthcare workers accuses Mr. Bolsonaro of crimes against humanity for refusing to take the necessary measures to protect the people. Still, Brazil is offering some hope to the world as thousands of healthcare workers there volunteer in vaccine trials. Nick Paton Walsh is on that story. He joins us from the Brazilian capital of Brasilia. Nick?</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's extraordinary that so many of the frontline healthcare workers here in Brazil, particularly in Sao Paolo, the mega city, which may frankly be the worst hit city in the world, because the numbers in Brazil only tell part of the picture. One study saying actually, those cases may only be a sixth of those in the country. It's extraordinary that they too after weeks, months of bravery, fighting the disease in hospitals, are now taking on the extra task and sacrifice of being kind of the guinea pigs if you like of a number of vaccines that have come here. Most first was the Oxford University, one with AstraZeneca that's been put into a health workers systems their bloodstream for about a month or so. Now the Chinese Sinovac vaccine arrived last week. And it's possible that the Pfizer vaccine part of the Trump administration's operation warp speed may end up being tested here very soon as well. Extraordinary individuals. We caught up with the first one to be tested under the Oxford University scheme as she went about her remarkable daily risk work.</s>WALSH: There's an extra bit of bravery here you can't see. Denise is a dentist, doing for five months of coronavirus in Sao Paulo, the not too pretty job of cleaning infected mouths. Like everyone here, living away from her family, death around her daily. But she's a first. The first Brazilian to be given a trial vaccine from Oxford University, carrying the hopes of pretty much all of us, that this front-runner vaccine works. Being a volunteer is an act of love, she says, donating a little bit of yourself. All the staff here have been offered if they want to take part in the Oxford vaccine trial, putting them on another frontline, the world's urgent hunt for immunity from this disease. Denise was subject one and her boss, Flavia, was roughly subject 1,000. In their hearts, the memory of a fellow doctor.</s>FLAVIA MACHADO, PROFESSOR OF INTENSIVE CARE MEDICINE, UNIFIES: I lost my friend for 23 years. He works -- he worked here for 23 years.</s>WALSH: I'm so sorry for that.</s>MACHADO: Yes, it was -- it was quite bad.</s>WALSH: Their eyes betray exhaustion, yet here, they still give what they have left. The vaccine trial needs more people like us at high risk of contamination. Being away from the people you love is very difficult.</s>WALSH: Across Sao Paolo, there's a race between powers raging in one of the worst-hit cities on earth over who can prove first that their vaccine works. China, last week, sent its Sinovac vaccine for trial here among the city's frontline workers, but its rollout was met by an angry fringe, railing on what they call, "The Chinese virus," and so also railing at the China vaccine. Are there concerns amongst your staff here for the safety of people who participate in this because of that right-wing rhetoric?</s>ESPIER KALLUS, HEAD OF SINOVAC VACCINE TRIAL IN BRAZIL: This is the number one concern. Some people may react oddly in these days to a volunteer who participated in a -- in a vaccine that was conceptualized in a Chinese company.</s>WALSH: Dr. Stephanie Texieira Porto is the only Chinese trial subject to go public yet, and this is the easy bit of her painful pandemic.</s>STEPHANIE TEXIEIRA PORTO, DOCTOR AND VACCINE TRIAL VOLUNTEER: I was really, really anxious. I cry a lot.</s>WALSH: While she's not had any threats since she had the jab here, she says she'd been warned by the trial to be careful.</s>PORTO: They told me to not expose it too much and to try -- not to tell everybody how this study is going to be.</s>WALSH: Yes. Isn't that strange that --</s>PORTO: Yes, it's a -- it's very strange. All of -- all of that. I don't understand why they hate China.</s>WALSH: As if this wasn't enough, the Americans are coming. Pharma giant Pfizer looking to test its vaccine, which the U.S. has paid $1.9 billion for in Brazil's mega-city hot spot, too. All hoping to be first, all finding Brazil wants access to their vaccine in return, and all feeling the heat and anguish of the months ahead. You can be sure as the world increases demands immunity from disease through these vaccines that the pressure, possibly sadly some of the xenophobia here in Brazil will mount as well the demands for benefits for the Brazilian people. The Oxford trial says it will produce here. The Chinese say that they will share their technology. The U.S. Pfizer vaccine, have they've asked -- been asked by the Brazilian health ministry to produce doses here. Still, I think waiting for a response, as far as we know. But also to the continuing political drama here something of a distraction from the ghastly case numbers. 50,000 new cases reported pretty much every day last week. 24,000 yesterday, the last count on Sunday off on the drop because of the weekend. The key case that everyone's been talking about, the president Jair Bolsonaro, Saturday he was brandishing the medication unproven, possibly dangerous hydroxychloroquine that he says brought him from three positive tests to the negative one he got on Saturday. He's also been talking about despite first saying that he could feel a slight fever when he had the disease. But now, in fact, he says, oh, I wouldn't even have known that I had it. Had I not had a positive test, focusing a lot of his rhetoric to now an ongoing battle about social media, and free speech in the courts. Oddly, Supreme Court Justice here, in fact, has just tested positive for the disease. So even the hierarchy here, the elite, not immune in a city like this Brasilia, spacious and verdant from the disease itself. It's very prolific in the south, it seems spreading fast down there too. And the numbers frankly, quite terrifying. That hope, though, that may be amongst this sort of continuing infection in the key cities, they might find some kind of hope through the vaccine trial. I think very clear in many Brazilians hearts now. But I have to remind you, Becky, the startling bravery of these frontline health care workers. They've endured months of loneliness and risk fighting the disease. And now frankly, put their bodies on the frontline again, to try and give us all a bit of hope here.</s>ANDERSON: Yes, it's an absolutely remarkable story. Nick, Thank you. Nick Paton Walsh is in Brasilia for you. Will the pandemics economic knock on effects. Will long outlive the health crisis. So what will that mean for a country like Lebanon, already in crippling debt. We'll be connecting you to Beirut. Up next. Plus, later in the show, we take a look at the protests in Portland, Oregon. As the mayor that demands Federal agents leave his city calling their presence unconstitutional. And there was more than pride on the line is the Premier League wrapped up play. We're going to tell you how one English team turned a victory into a $19 million payday.