U.S. Lawmakers to Question Tech Leaders on Competition; Russia Claims First Coronavirus Vaccine Within Two Weeks; Five U.S. States Break Records for Most Deaths in One Day; Mexicans Travel to U.S. for Coronavirus Treatment
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello, I'm John Vause. Ahead this hour, Russia claims to have fast-tracked a coronavirus vaccine, which should be approved within 2 weeks despite cutting corners on human trials. The pandemic death toll surges in five U.S. states with warnings others will soon follow. And this.</s>REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA), MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE AND JUDICIARY COMMITTEES: Mr. Barr, are you investigating Donald Trump for commuting the prison sentence of his long-time friend, political adviser Roger Stone?</s>WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: No.</s>SWALWELL: Why not?</s>BARR: Why should I?</s>VAUSE (voice-over): A smug, defiant U.S. attorney general stonewalls Democrats on Capitol Hill.</s>VAUSE: We have a busy 3 hours ahead of us here, thanks for being with us and we will begin with a CNN exclusive. Mark the date, August 10th; that's when officials in Moscow say a vaccine for the coronavirus should receive approval, less than 2 weeks away. This would be a world first, what has been described as a modern-day Sputnik moment. But the pace of development and the decision to cut corners on human trials raising serious safety concerns. CNN's senior international correspondent Matthew Chance reports now from Moscow.</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Russian officials are calling it a Sputnik moment, a technological leap like the unexpected launch into space of the first satellite back in the 1950s. Now Russian officials say it's the coronavirus vaccine that is being launched into the global pandemic to highlight Russian scientific achievement. This is the clearest indication we've had yet as to when that Russian vaccine will be approved for us. Russian officials telling CNN they're working towards a date of August the 10th, perhaps even earlier, extraordinarily quick, party according to Russian officials, because of the technology they are using. They've used it successfully in the past on other vaccines but also, undeniably, because human trials would still be incomplete when the vaccine is approved. Russian officials tell CNN that third phase human trials will be conducted only in parallel with the vaccination of frontline medical workers. Risky, of course, but given the acute coronavirus problem in Russia, which has reported the fourth highest number of infections in the world, it's apparently a risk that the authorities here are willing to take. There is enormous skepticism around the world about the effectiveness and the safety of this Russian vaccine. Critics say Russia's push for it comes amid political pressure from the Kremlin and allegations that Russian spies hacked U.S., Canadian and British labs for vaccine secrets. Also, no test data has been released by Russia so far. The Russian officials now tell me that that data will be made available for publication and peer review early next month, which will undoubtedly attract a great deal of international scrutiny -- Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.</s>VAUSE: As for other promising vaccines, which are following standard safety protocols as well as testing, there's the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, which began advanced trials for one of their candidates. The first 4 volunteers were injected in the U.S. on Monday. The combined phase 2-3 trial will eventually include up to 30,000 participants. If it works, Pfizer and BioNTech say they could supply up to 100 million doses by the end of the year and 1.3 billion by the end of next year. Here is biotech company Moderna, also entering phase 3 with its candidate. These potential vaccines are among 25 in clinical trials around the world, according to the WHO. Brazil expects distribution of 15 million doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine by the end of December, assuming it is proven safe. The government and the vaccine makers have not signed purchase agreement yet but thousands of Brazilian volunteers have been taking part in phase 3 trials. Brazil reported nearly 41,000 new cases of the coronavirus on Tuesday, bringing its total number of infections to just shy of 2.5 million, the second highest in the world. Here in the U.S., five states are reporting a record number of deaths in the past 24 hours.</s>VAUSE: California, Florida, Arkansas, Montana and Oregon. Johns Hopkins University reported about 1,200 fatalities in the U.S. on Tuesday, putting the country closer to 150,000 dead. Dr. Anthony Fauci says the surge could be peaking in the South and West, while other states, including Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky may be on the cusp of a new outbreak. Meantime, Donald Trump once again touting the unproven drug hydroxychloroquine as an effective treatment. Almost every major study has found it to be ineffective for COVID-19, potentially harmful, even fateful (sic).</s>TRUMP: I happen to think it works in the early stages. Many front line medical people believe that, too, some, many. And so we'll take a look at it. But the one thing we know, it's been out for a long time. It doesn't cause problems. I had no problem. I had absolutely no problem, felt no different, didn't feel good, bad or indifferent. I -- and I tested, as you know, it didn't -- it didn't get me and it's not going to hopefully hurt anybody.</s>VAUSE: Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips is the chief medical officer at Providence Health System, a CNN medical analyst and she is with us from Seattle in the state of Washington. Doctor, thanks for being with us.</s>DR. AMY COMPTON-PHILLIPS, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Thanks for having me.</s>VAUSE: To back up his faith in chloroquine, the president re-tweeted a clip from a speech given by Dr. Stella Immanuel. Facebook removed the video because it was showing false information. But regardless of that, the president seem quite impressed, here he is.</s>TRUMP: I thought she was very impressive in the sense that, from where she came, I don't know which country she comes from. But she said that she's had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients. And I thought her voice was an important voice but I know nothing about her.</s>KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Last week you said masks -- last week --</s>TRUMP: Thank you very much everybody.</s>VAUSE: OK, so apart from the doctor's claims that chloroquine curing COVID-19 and saying that masks do not work, Dr. Immanuel has also claimed that gynecological problems like cysts are caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches, alien DNA is being used in medical treatments and the government is run by reptilians and other aliens. That could be true. There must be some kind of responsibility here for the president of the United States not to use the loudest megaphone in the world to promote a bizarre claim being about demon dream sex or chloroquine.</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Well, fortunately he only focused on the latter, not the former but even that is not good. What we really have to do is be coherent and consistent in talking about the science behind what we use to treat COVID. And we now have multiple, really high quality studies that look at hydroxychloroquine. Even though, theoretically, it could be good, which is why people started investigating it back early in the spring, all the studies that have come out have been consistent and saying it doesn't matter when you take it, whether it's early or in the middle or late, hydroxychloroquine does not work to help battle</s>COVID. VAUSE: In case anyone was in any doubt, here is Dr. Fauci saying exactly the same thing you did. Here he is.</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The overwhelming, prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.</s>VAUSE: How much time and energy are we going to waste on this asinine discussion about chloroquine when people are dying in record numbers?</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Unfortunately, too much. Even the fact that we are still talking about this when it has been proven not to be the case is an issue. And part of the issue is that we learn from our own experience. So think about all those times when you grew up and did not wear a seatbelt in the car because people did not realize how important it was, right? But your experience was, well, I did not have an accident or die without wearing my seat belt. So some people take hydroxychloroquine, it's an antimalarial drug, people take it for malaria. So if they travel to a country where they need to have it for malaria, they might have taken it and been OK. That doesn't mean that it's OK for everyone all the time. Not taking a drug that is risky is preferred to taking a drug that is risky. It's like riding in a car with a seatbelt is better than riding without one. What can we do to optimize the risk?</s>VAUSE: We're hearing from the White House, recommendations for five states to shut down bars and reimpose restrictions on movement. The governor of Kentucky, a Democrat, said he would follow this advice, while the governor of Tennessee, a Republican, said no. I don't know if there's a huge difference between Kentucky and Tennessee. But it doesn't seem to be. And is it possible to see these decisions in any other way than through the lens of partisan politics?</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Unfortunately, something as simple as being able to follow CDC recommendations and guidelines has gotten politicized.</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: And so now there is this intrinsic belief that if you are probing, careful and pro wearing a mask, you are anti- business. And that's not the case at all. It's about saying how do we do both? How do we keep people safe and open up the economy? The one thing we can do is, if we do have these two very similar states with politicized differences on how to go about opening up the economy in a way that protects people, is we can at least study it and lets learn from it so that we can make sure we do it right next time.</s>VAUSE: Our lead story this hour is a report from CNN's Matthew Chance from Moscow that Russia plans to approve a fast-tracked vaccine within 2 weeks. At this point, phase 2 trials still have not finished. Developers plan to complete that phase by August 3rd and then conduct a third phase of testing in parallel with the vaccination of medical workers. How concerned are you about the cutting of the corners here, the risks are being taken and, if this all goes badly, how could that impact public confidence on other vaccines, which are currently being developed?</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: It's a huge risk. So we talk about phase, 1 2 and 3 trials. One is abut are they promising and are they safe? Phase 2 is what's the right dose and are they promising and safe? And phase 3 is about, let's make sure they actually work and what are the side effects. In phase one is with tens of people, 2 is with hundreds, phase 3 is with thousands of people. If we don't have that thousands of people data behind us, we're not going to know what the downsides are. We're not going to look patients eye to eye and say this is safe and this is why I think it should work for you, right and be able to tell our patients with verified data what is the best thing for them. So without that, we are putting significant people at risk without good information for them. So it could really subvert our goal of ensuring we don't just have vaccines but we have vaccinations because vaccines don't work if they're still in a tube. We have to have people willing to get the jab in the arm.</s>VAUSE: Yes, that confidence in the safety of the vaccine is crucial and it could backfire. Dr. Amy Compton Phillips, thank you. Good to see you.</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Thank you so much.</s>VAUSE: Mexico is the latest country to confirmed more than 400,000 cases of coronavirus. The outbreak there is one of the worst in the world but not nearly as bad as the crisis in the U.S. right next door. Still, a rising number of Mexicans are traveling to the U.S. because they believe its health care system is better equipped. CNN's Matt Rivers has our report.</s>MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Among those waiting outside public hospitals in Tijuana, Mexico, death is a constant companion.</s>RIVERS: Tijuana sits just across that border there from the U.S. state of California and though it's closed to all nonessential travel, if you are legally allowed to be in the U.S., be it as a citizen, permanent resident or otherwise, you can still cross and, if you want to, seek treatment at a U.S. hospital.</s>RIVERS (voice-over): Which is exactly what Dr. Patricio Gonzalez Zuniga did when her husband got the virus. The couple are dual U.S.- Mexico citizens but live in Tijuana, where Dr. Gonzales Zuniga has worked for decades, treating the city's poor. She says the public health system is broken. So when her husband got really sick, going to the U.S. for care was an easy choice.</s>DR. PATRICIO GONZALEZ ZUNIGA, DUAL U.S.-MEXICAN CITIZEN: It's like a decision of stay and maybe, you know, 50 percent chance that you will die or just go and get services.</s>RIVERS (voice-over): At nearby Scripps Mercy Hospital in Chula Vista, California, we learn her story is not unique. The hospital has been at or near capacity for months, in part because of patients from across the border. In July alone, it has admitted more than 50 COVID patients who recently came from Mexico. The hospital says the vast majority of patients who traveled from Mexico test positive.</s>DR. JUAN MANUEL TOVAR, SCRIPPS MERCY HOSPITAL CHULA VISTA: It does create stress in the system and we have to deal with it. Dr. Jose (sic) Manuel Tovar says, at its peak 50 percent of all COVID patients at the hospital had been south of the border. But the number has gone down as new cases in Baja, California, have slowed. But cases in California have spiked recently so his fear is if the same happens in Mexico, a tough situation could get even worse but he says this is the border and everything is shared, culture, commerce and COVID care.</s>TOVAR: This is one region. I have no qualms about seeing patients from Mexico.</s>RIVERS (voice-over): Dr. Gonzales Zuniga, for one, is extremely grateful for that fact. Her husband spent 14 days in a California ICU, nearly intubated several times. But he lived.</s>RIVERS: What do you think would have happened if he was in a public hospital in Mexico?</s>GONZALES ZUNIGA: He would not be with me now. He would be dead.</s>RIVERS (voice-over): She calls herself lucky and, compared to the Lopez family, she is. They couldn't get care in the U.S. "Maybe we could have gotten him better care over there, more opportunity." But now, after the death of her father in law, that is nothing more than a hypothetical question -- Matt Rivers, CNN, Tijuana, Mexico.</s>VAUSE: It just keeps coming back, the coronavirus in China. Once again spreading fast at a rate not seen in months. Also ahead, same for Europe. The virus is spreading once again, sparking fears of a possible second wave.