U.S. in Freefall as Coronavirus Spirals out of Control; GOP Governors in Florida and Texas Split as Coronavirus Cases Surge; Australian Health Authorities Taking Drastic Moves to Contain COVID-19
KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST (voice-over): Hello. Welcome to CONNECT THE WORLD. I'm Kim Brunhuber in Atlanta. Ahead, Dr. Anthony Fauci sounds the alarm on the spike of cases in the United States and says it's still knee deep in first wave of the pandemic. Happening right now, Australia is closing the border between its two most populous states. And TikTok pulls out of Hong Kong after a new sweeping and controversial security law.</s>BRUNHUBER: We begin in the United States where the number of coronavirus cases has doubled in just the past 1.5 weeks. And now, a dire warning from the nation's top infectious disease expert. Dr. Anthony Fauci says the U.S. is still knee deep in the first wave of this pandemic. Meanwhile, at least 31 states are reporting higher rates of new cases this week compared to last week, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. is nearing 3 million infections. More than 130,000 people have died. Now officials in at least 24 states are rolling back or pausing reopenings. And one of those states is Florida, where ICU units have reached capacity. Dr. Fauci warns the rapid increase in infections must be addressed now. Rosa Flores has the latest.</s>ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A warning from the nation's top infectious disease expert, reminding Americans this is still just the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.</s>FAUCI: We are still knee-deep in the first wave of this. We went up, never came down to baseline and now we're surging back up. So, it's a serious situation that we have to address immediately.</s>FLORES: Dr. Anthony Fauci says the number of new daily infections nearly doubled over the past week and a half.</s>FAUCI: A series of circumstances associated with various states and cities trying to open up in the sense of getting back to some form of normality has led to a situation where we now have record-breaking cases.</s>FLORES: Some of Florida's reopening plan coming to a halt. In Miami- Dade County, by Wednesday, businesses like gyms and dine-in restaurants will be closed once again in an effort to slow the spread.</s>MAYOR DAN GELBER (D), MIAMI BEACH, FL: We're starting to roll the carpet back up. You know, it's pretty clear we have this real problem. Two weeks ago, there were 60 COVID patients on -- on ventilators. Today it's 160.</s>FLORES: Ventilator use is up 127 percent across Miami-Dade County and hospitalizations are up 90 percent. Forty-three intensive care units are already at capacity and an additional 32 show a bed availability of 10 percent or less. Doctors reminding young people just how dangerous the coronavirus could be, regardless of age.</s>DR. DAVID DE LA ZERDA, ICU MEDICAL DIRECTOR & PULMONOLOGIST, JACKSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL: We've seen everybody, from 34 to 45, dying in the ICU. So the message to young people is they can also get sick and they should also take care of themselves.</s>FLORES: In Miami-Dade, 26 percent of tests came back positive on Sunday, with a spike in cases involving 18- to 34-year-olds.</s>MAYOR CARLOS GIMENEZ (R), MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FL: We need to curtail the social activities of young people, because that's where our problem started. My concern is that we're going to reach the capacity, our medical capacity.</s>FLORES: Thirty-one states, including Florida, are experiencing a rise in new cases in the past week.</s>DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, CDC EXPERT: It's all over the country now. It's spreading widely. It now relies on us as individuals, if we don't have a national plan. We have to wear our masks, watch the social distancing, avoid large groups.</s>FLORES: In California, the state capital shutting down after five assembly members tested positive. Texas crossing 200,000 confirmed cases and Dallas reporting another high in hospitalizations. The military announcing it is sending 50-some medical and support personnel to the San Antonio area to help with the surge.</s>DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN, NATIONAL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: The cases are rising so rapidly that we cannot even do contact tracing anymore, I don't think. I don't see how it's possible to even do that.</s>BRUNHUBER: That was Rosa Flores. Now in California, showing no sign of flattening the curve with hospitalizations up and more than 11,000 cases reported over the weekend. CNN's Sara Sidner is live.</s>BRUNHUBER: There's some new hot spots as well, right?</s>SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It really is dotted all over the state but some of the large population areas like Los Angeles County really experiencing dangerous spikes. Health officials are concerned about the spikes. Over the past three weeks they have seen hospitalizations rise about 40 percent. And they are very concerned that if it keeps going this way, the ICU beds they will be filled in Los Angeles County itself. But there are hot spots all over the place and we should mention there's an outbreak in prisons here that's causing quite a stir. The state medical -- the head of the state corrections medical examiner, he is basically been ousted, replaced because, at some point in one facility, where there were hundreds of people who had coronavirus, inmates, those inmates sent to another facility, San Quentin, where now a third of the inmate population there has coronavirus. Of course, some of those inmates also have to utilize the hospitals in the area and that's in Northern California as well. So a lot of concern there. And also we're hearing from the governor; there's a difference in who seems to be getting coronavirus. Now younger folks are coming out with it. And they're concerned that younger people aren't taking seriously all of the rules that are put in place before the reopening happened. Now the reopening is basically being put on hold. There are some changes to the reopenings here and they can't go forward with the next phase when they have such a spike here. So there's a lot of concern about the coronavirus spikes as well as the economy. And it's almost as if you can't have one without the other. You have to have safety, you have to have self-distancing, wearing masks. Those are the things that authorities and health officials are saying have to happen before we can get the reopening going and the way that people want to see it.</s>BRUNHUBER: Well, part of what you're saying comes down to individual responsibility. We heard from L.A. officials that about a third of restaurants, about half of bars aren't following social distancing protocols. Is that what you're seeing there?</s>SIDNER: Yes. There's that and there's also the testing, right? So people need to have constant testing to make sure that they are infected. There are a lot of asymptomatic people. don't even know they have it. There are people that just a few days before they actually started to get symptoms they are going to be spreading the virus. And when you're in enclosed quarters -- that's what they're worried about. Sort of when people are in enclosed quarters, even family gatherings. Those are the times when you're more susceptible to potentially getting it. So there's responsibility to be spread throughout, individual responsibility, the business community's responsibility, the government's responsibility. All those things have been to be in place in order to get a hold on this coronavirus outbreak -- Kim.</s>BRUNHUBER: Absolutely. All right, thank you so much, CNN's Sara Sidner. The White House has so far been reluctant to encourage mask wearing, which is one of the key recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control to help curb the spread of coronavirus. But CNN has learned White House officials are considering switching that stance and taking a more active role in encouraging masks for the public, even as Mr. Trump continues to go without one. Joe Johns joins me now from Washington, D.C. So we have seen many senior Republicans like Mitch McConnell touting masks. How much pressure has there been in the Republican Party for the president to change his stance?</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: There's clearly been some pressure from the Republican Party and it's evident because, over at the White House, you're starting to see a shift. And that shift is the people here trying to put together a strategy to encourage Americans to come to grips with the idea that the coronavirus could be around for a while and they'll have to live with it. In the process, they're also trying to fix the messaging that has been so mixed and confused over here at the White House, Kim, that messaging, on the one hand, the president of the United States resisting the idea of wearing masks in public. And he's done that almost all the way through the pandemic. Now on the other hand, his medical and health experts are saying, look, it's one of the very few ways we have to stop the spread of the virus. When you put that together with Republicans up on Capitol Hill, advocates of the president, including Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, all in support of this idea of wearing masks, that's certainly a potential for change. In the end of the day, though, the question is whether the president himself will sign off on this.</s>JOHNS: Because it's a change of direction which he sometimes doesn't like unless he's the one pushing the boat, if you will. But he said last week as a matter of fact, that there was nothing wrong with masks and he thought they were a good idea. But he did not telegraph that message to his supporters out in the country and people here are waiting to see if the president does that -- Kim.</s>BRUNHUBER: Well, that's exactly it. The president's notoriously loath to back down. But he did notably on the Juneteenth question. So you know, how likely is it that he does this? And, you know, especially for his followers, certainly not wearing a mask has kind of become the new MAGA hat. It's an identity question.</s>JOHNS: Very much so. I was out in South Dakota, Mt. Rushmore just last weekend, and really shocked by the number of people who did not wear a mask. And quite frankly, on the ground there, people would have been given a mask once they arrived if they didn't have one. And it didn't appear that people were asking for masks. So sure, at the MAGA rallies and other events where the purists, the loyalist supporters of the president are attending, we might not see as much mask wearing. On the other hand, when you look at the polling on the issue of masks and when you listen to the experts, it's pretty clear that most of the country has gone in one direction; that is, they understand what the experts say, what the science says and that there is a need to wear a mask to protect other people and to protect yourself at the end of the day.</s>BRUNHUBER: All right, Joe Johns, thank you so much. I appreciate it. A bit of good news from Beijing. Chinese health reports report no new coronavirus cases on Monday, the first time since the cluster of infections linked to a food market caused a partial shutdown last month. More than 11 million people in the capital have been tested since that outbreak. And across China eight new cases were reported on Monday. In just the last 15 minutes or so the border between Australia's two most populous states has been closed. The government shut down roads between Victoria and New South Wales at midnight local time. The aim is to stop the spread of coronavirus between two states. And that's also why the city of Melbourne is going back into lockdown. Starting at midnight Wednesday, residents can only leave for essential trips, like getting food and going to work or getting or giving care. Angus Watson joins us from the Victoria-New South Wales border. Explain where you are and the importance of what's happening there.</s>ANGUS WATSON, CNN BROADCAST JOURNALIST: That's right, Kim. So I'm here on the border between Victoria and New South Wales. And what you can see behind me is the beginnings of a massive police and military operation to try to keep coronavirus on one side of the border and not on the other. As you mentioned, coronavirus is spiking in Victoria, in the southern part of Australia. And over the border in New South Wales they're handling it very well. Seven cases here in New South Wales; 191 in Victoria. So that gives a sense of the difference between the two states. Now the Victorian government isn't shying away from that challenge. The premier Daniel Andrews was very stern about it. Take a listen to what he had to say.</s>DANIEL ANDREWS, VICTORIA PREMIER: Let's not see this simply as an inconvenience. It's much more than that. It's a pandemic. And it will kill thousands of people if it gets completely away from us. And that'll be more than inconvenient. That will be tragic. We don't want that. We can avoid that. But we have a part to play in that.</s>WATSON: So this all goes to show, Kim, just how seriously the country as a whole is taking this virus. The shutting down of Victoria, of the Victorian economy is set to cost $1 billion a week. That's according to the federal treasurer. A quarter shut down, lost, that's what Australia is willing to do to get on top of this thing, Kim.</s>BRUNHUBER: Wow, on that note, we were talking in the news meeting how striking it is that the state should declare this lockdown after a daily increase of 191 cases in a population of 6.5 million people. And in a state like South Carolina, about 5 million poor people, 1,500 new cases. So it shows how serious that Australia is taking this. But how hard, you know, with the police and everything that we're seeing behind you there, how hard is it to close a border like this?</s>BRUNHUBER: And are you seeing resistance to these extreme measures?</s>WATSON: Well, it is very hard and the town I'm in crosses that border. Half is over on the river and on the other side, it is in Victoria, where the coronavirus is ripping through. Right here we'll have a situation in which the community is cut in half and the residents are going to have to have to deal with that as they can.</s>BRUNHUBER: Thank you so much, Angus Watson in Australia. Ahead on the show, TikTok is leaving Hong Kong. Why the Beijing based video sharing app is pulling operations from the city and the pressures it is facing from other markets. And international students in the U.S. have to worry about the format of their classes. Why it will determine if they can stay stateside.