Upcoming Election Amplifies Dark Side of Social Media; Europe Seeing a Second Wave of COVID-19 Cases; Israel Tightens Restrictions as COVID-19 Cases Soar
BRUNHUBER: A second wave of coronavirus cases is sweeping across Europe. Now death rates aren't approaching those seen earlier this year. But several European countries are reporting record numbers of new cases. The U.K. on Thursday reported its highest daily increase in cases since the pandemic began. More than 6,600 in 24 hours. France reported more than 16,000 new cases. The highest number confirmed in a 24 hour period since it began keeping records in March. And Austria's ski season will go forward but the pandemic means after parties have been banned. Masks and social distancing will be required. And ski schools will be limited to 10 students per group. All new report in the "Lancet Medical Journal" says countries should meet five prerequisites before easing COVID-19 lockdowns. These are knowledge of infection status. So country should have high quality data that infections are being suppressed. Community engagement, meaning people follow policies for social distancing and mask wearing, adequate public health capacity for testing, tracing, and isolating. Adequate health system capacity, that means treatment facilities, medical equipment and healthcare workforce and border controls for restricting in bound travel. Now in Europe many countries are seeing soaring infections, and health officials say that in some member states the situation is now even worse than during the peak in March. So let's get more details from Melissa Bell who is reporting in Paris for us. The situation there, of course, very dire. What can you tell us?</s>MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT: Kim, the situation here continues to deteriorate, not simply in terms of those record new number of cases you mentioned a moment ago that was announced yesterday, but also in terms of people entering ICU. We're also coming up to flu season. This is a concern for health professionals, and in particular in cities like Paris and Marseille that have been particularly hard hit. Already the ICUs, the intensive care units, those parts of the hospital are beginning to feel the strain. Hence these new measures that are going to come into effect on Monday in Paris and Marseille. Not only will social gatherings be further limited but the bars and restaurants will close at 10 p.m. and there was of course, the expected push back. Local mayors of those cities saying that they were against these measures because of the difficulty economically for these cities in facing up. And yet, here we are again with a situation much like we saw during the first wave. Where that fear for the breakdown of the health system is such that those measures have to be taken. One other thing that I think is of interest right now in the way, Kim, that authorities here in France are handling the second wave that are slightly different. A new map has been set out for the country which lists the zones according to the severity, the infection rates, how badly the disease is progressing there. What we have is a new category for lockdowns. So, if things get bad enough essentially, what we understand is that rather like what we've seen in Spain, where Madrid had a city wide lockdown, you might if things continue to worsen see individual cities lockdown once again.</s>BRUNHUBER: All right. I appreciate the update. CNN's Melissa Bell for us in Paris. Thank you very much. Well, new, tough restrictions are set to take effect in Israel just as the country reports a new daily case record from Thursday. Israel went into a second lockdown a week ago but new infections have continued to soar. CNN's Oren Liebermann is in Jerusalem for us. Oren, Israel has one of the world's worth outbreaks. The Prime Minister almost using, you know, apocalyptic language to drive home the importance of these measures which I'm sure aren't popular at all.</s>OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They're certainly not popular right now especially because of the frustration, the confusion and the anger about the way their introduced and changed at the last second. And simply the confusion about what exactly the regulations are and what the exceptions to those regulations are. It is because of those exceptions and the loopholes that existed in the sort of first iteration of the second general lockdown that the government here decided it needed to tighten and make the rules stricter for this lockdown to try to get a handle on the coronavirus infection rate which remains incredibly high. 7,527 new cases yesterday, according to the ministry of health data. That is a new record. And it continues this pattern we've seen over the last few weeks. Every few days we've seen a new record as the number of new cases trends upward as does the number of serious cases and the number of patients on ventilators. So in about two and one half hours or two hours and 15 minutes, the new tighter regulations will kick in. Which do more to restrict movement, restrict prayer gatherings, public protests, as well as closing down more sectors of the economy in order to try to get a hold on the rising coronavirus numbers here. They are set to last two weeks. Afterwards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there will be another two weeks of lockdown but if the numbers are better at that point, they'll be less strict than this form of lockdown. It all at this point depends on the numbers right now, Kim. And if we look at the numbers now, they are simply not good.</s>BRUNHUBER: What do you think the political consequences of going back into lockdown will be for the Prime Minister?</s>LIEBERMANN: Well, public trust in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is down and is down severely. According to survey from Israel Democracy Institute, it's at 27 percent and that's from a high of some 58 percent back in April. And we see it in the polls. It's Netanyahu is losing in the polls if a theoretical election were held today. Meanwhile, one of his right-wing challengers is gaining in the polls, not because he's right wing, but because he's simply putting forward what appeared to be common steps and a plan to how to deal with this coronavirus infection. And he does it from the opposition. He gains, Netanyahu loses at this point. It's simply difficult to see a situation right now where the public will trust Netanyahu to lead the country out of the coronavirus crisis in big numbers.</s>BRUNHUBER: All right, thank you so much for that update. Correspondent Oren Liebermann in Jerusalem, appreciate it. Well, one of London's busiest train stations has recruited robots to help fight the pandemic. At St. Pancras station the devices automatically map the area and calculate the quickest cleaning route. They use ultraviolet light to sterilize surfaces and the surrounding air. Now this type of light has been shown to rapidly inactivate the coronavirus even at low intensities. A railway official says the robots are meant to make passengers feel safe again.</s>JAY NEWTON, HEAD OF STATIONS ENGINEERING AND OPERATIONS: The main thing for us is to get the confidence of customers. We are the first train station to bring this type of technology in because we want to allow people to use our train station with confidence. Use our retail units with confidence and slowly get back to a normal way.</s>BRUNHUBER: All right, coming up, the pandemic hurt the airline industry this year. But now United Airlines has a way to give nervous passengers some peace of mind. If you want to find out what that is, stay with us.