Barack Obama Slams Trump Administration's Response to Coronavirus; Georgia Businesses Picking Up Three Works after Opening; Using Technology to Stop COVID-19 Spread; Italy Reports Lowest Daily Death Toll Since Early March; U.S. Democrats to Investigate Trump's Latest Firing
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): In an open attack on the Trump administration, former president Barack Obama says the U.S. lacks leadership on the pandemic. This as U.S. states slowly reopen, some more cautiously than others. We'll ask if authorities are doing enough to protect against a second wave. Also this hour --</s>DR. ZHONG NANSHAN, RESPIRATORY EXPERT: The local authorities didn't like to tell the truth at that time.</s>ALLEN (voice-over): A CNN exclusive with China's go-to man on the coronavirus. His take on how the outbreak unfolded, the future and comparisons to America's Dr. Fauci. We're live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. 5:00 am Eastern here. I'm Natalie Allen and CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.</s>ALLEN: Thank you for joining us. Our top story, one of the harshest criticisms to date of President Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic is coming from the man he replaced. Barack Obama has been mostly silent since leaving office, despite frequent attacks by Mr. Trump. There's a long tradition of U.S. presidents not speaking ill of one another but that was before nearly 1.5 million Americans were stricken with COVID-19, killing 88,000 of them in just a few months; an alarming number of them, people of color. The former U.S. president would stay silent no longer.</s>BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Doing what feels good, what's convenient, what's easy, that's how little kids think. Unfortunately, a lot of so-called grownups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs, still think that way, which is why things are so screwed up.</s>ALLEN: To be fair, President Trump publicly attacks Mr. Obama on a regular basis and the former president rarely, if ever, rises to take the bait. So it is noteworthy Mr. Obama would choose this moment to speak out. We get more about it from CNN's Jeremy Diamond at the White House.</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, for the second time in two weeks, former president Barack Obama is speaking out against the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic, this time speaking out publicly.</s>BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: More than anything, this pandemic has fully finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they are doing. A lot of them aren't even pretending to be in charge.</s>DIAMOND: That criticism came just after a week after President Obama criticized the Trump administration's response, calling it an absolute chaotic disaster and anemic and spotty. This time we are hearing from the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. She said this in response. "President Trump's unprecedented coronavirus response has saved lives. His early travel restrictions and quarantines protected the American public while his paycheck protection program and direct payments to Americans got needed economic relief to our country. "Moreover, President Trump directed the greatest mobilization of the private sector since World War II to fill the stockpile left depleted by his predecessor." Now the last line about a depleted stockpile is something that President Trump and his aides have been repeatedly bringing up as they have defended their handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The truth of the matter is that, while certain items in the national stockpile had not been restocked by the previous administration, it certainly was by no means completely depleted. Of course President Trump had been in office for three years before the coronavirus arrived in the United States. President Trump, while he has not directly responded to his predecessor's criticism, he has been leveling other allegations, something he has been calling Obamagate, essentially making evidence- free claims against his predecessor, suggesting he has been trying to undermine his presidency. In fact, over this weekend, President Trump has been in Camp David with some conservative firebrands on Capitol Hill, some of his loyal allies, trying to find a way to advance that latest conspiracy theory -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.</s>ALLEN: Let's look now at what states are doing opening up across the United States. Georgia was at the forefront of states pushing to reopen when it began easing restrictions more than three weeks ago. The surge in new cases, some predicted, though, hasn't happened at least so far.</s>ALLEN: But there hasn't been a major drop-off, either. CNN's Natasha Chen reports on businesses trying to get back on their feet.</s>NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here in Atlanta, Georgia, a lot of people are starting to come back out to businesses that have been reopening over the past three weeks. What we're seeing is the good news. There hasn't been a major spike in daily new cases. But the bad news is there also hasn't been a major decrease in new daily cases, either. What we're seeing is there are some places taking advantage of being allowed to reopen their dining rooms. The governor of Georgia relaxed some of the rules for restaurants this past week. Now 10 people can gather at a table instead of just six. But not everyone is taking advantage of opening their dining rooms. For example, this restaurant is doing takeout only at the window with people being able to take their food to a table. So some restaurant owners are taking this very carefully. And there are people who have been observing this over the past three weeks, also being cautious with their families. We met one family who came out today for the first time in almost three weeks. Here's what they said.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's actually like really scary because it's not like coronavirus is over. And, like, everybody is saying like, I wash my hands. I have hand sanitizer, I'm going to be OK. But you're still going to be around people that cough and touch everything. And like you and you're actually very vulnerable. And it's actually very scary. But it's kind of exciting and happy that you get to go outside to some places that you enjoy again. But you also have to be very careful.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I agree with that.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When is the last time you got ice cream?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 2019.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Really?</s>CHEN (voice-over): Georgia governor Brian Kemp has touted lower hospitalizations and increased testing while some officials in the Metro Atlanta area still caution people to stay home if at all possible, despite the fact that many things are reopening. We're talking to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce as well. Their president says it's really a mixed bag who is opening and who isn't. This is a long-term change that a lot of businesses have to make. It's not just having the resources and masks and gloves for the next two to three weeks. This is really for the long term. He said no matter what industry they're in, they're now in the business of health and wellness -- Natasha Chen, CNN, Atlanta.</s>ALLEN: Since the start of the pandemic, health officials have been asking patients who they came into contact with to try to track the disease. But now as CNN's Tom Foreman tells us there's a push on to use new technology, including cellphones and other tools, to make contact tracing even better.</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A viral hot spot erupts in a South Korean nightclub district. Dozens come down with COVID-19 and quickly authorities trace the origin to one man. How did they find him? They analyzed the GPS signal of his phone and so everyone he'd been near. In China, millions are being watched in a similar fashion and now in the U.S., too, vigorous efforts are underway to expand contact tracing. In New Orleans, anyone eating in a restaurant will be required to hand over their information.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Restaurants should retain a name and contact number for over 21 days.</s>FOREMAN (voice-over): Contact tracing, through electronic apps or interviews with patients, consists of sorting out the physical social network of an infected person and then asking or maybe even compelling exposed people to quarantine. Health officials say it certainly works. In this Japanese experiment, a group of diners was unaware one of them had an invisible paint on his hands. When a special light was turned on, it was clear how many had been symbolically infected. Real world studies found the same thing with COVID-19. This professor notes one diner in a restaurant infecting nine others nearby. An outbreak in a call center, jumping from one worker to the next, to the next.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to strongly encourage you to participate in the contact tracing program.</s>FOREMAN (voice-over): So many government officials argue contact tracing is essential.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is the next major step in our effort to defeat the COVID virus.</s>FOREMAN (voice-over): But privacy advocates say the same tool for tracking the virus could be used to discover political activity, religious affiliations, private relationships. A "Washington Post" poll found nearly three in five Americans say they're either unable or unwilling to use the infection alert system under development by Google and Apple.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Trust really matters in combating a pandemic and people won't feel trusting of the system if it's not based on a public health need and there is -- are not very robust privacy and security protections built into any tool that we might use.</s>FOREMAN: Still, while we wait on electronic devices, several states are pushing forward with ambitious plans to recruit tens of thousands of people to be contact tracers.</s>FOREMAN: In one case, even drawing in members of the National Guard -- Tom Foreman, CNN, Bethesda, Maryland.</s>ALLEN: Let's talk about these developments with Dr. Peter Drobac, a global health expert at the University of Oxford in England. Thanks for coming on, Peter.</s>DR. PETER DROBAC, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Good morning.</s>ALLEN: We just heard the next essential step is contact tracing. Along with hygiene and social distancing to control the spread, Peter, how important is contact tracing?</s>DROBAC: It's incredibly important and it goes hand in hand with testing, right? Once everybody who needs a test can get a test, we're able to identify a positive case, trace all of their contacts and then get everyone who needs it either isolated or quarantined. That's how we can break chains of transmission and have really smart surveillance. That allows us to be much smarter in opening up and prevent that dreaded second surge.</s>ALLEN: I was going to ask you that, if it's accomplished in a major way, it could, you think, prevent a second wave?</s>DROBAC: I think so. It's certainly the best shot we've got. If you look at the places that have done a good job, first in crushing the curve and, for the most part, keeping it down. Of course we've seen blips here or there in places like China, in places like Korea and Singapore. But Australia, New Zealand, et cetera, all of them have something in common, which is widespread testing, widespread contact tracing and then measures for isolation and quarantine. I think that has to be at the forefront of all of our efforts right now.</s>ALLEN: Meantime, we know 48 states are reopening and there were warnings that states were reopening too soon, like right here in Georgia, that we were going to see these massive spikes. We haven't seen that yet. Instead in Georgia, the number of deaths and hospitalizations are actually going down. What do you make of that, Peter?</s>DROBAC: Well, those of us who predicted that cases would go up would love to be proven wrong. But it's a mixed picture. So in places like Georgia where cases haven't gone up, you see other places like Texas, Arizona, Minnesota, where in parts you do see the numbers of cases rising as we expected. Something to keep in mind, in a lot of places we're not doing enough testing, we have to wait for people to become sicker and hospitalized before those cases are detected. That means there's a three- or four- week lag from the time we make a change until we actually see a change. It may be that we're just too early and we'll have to see what happens over the next couple of weeks. It's a very critical period right now.</s>ALLEN: Right. The next couple of weeks, the predictions are that some 10,000 more Americans could die. Meantime, bigger picture here, President Trump launched Operation Warp Speed this week, promising that millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines, that's the goal, they hope will be available by the end of this year. There certainly is merit in working to act fast right now. Is the president's timeline realistic?</s>DROBAC: It's an incredibly optimistic timeline. I think that most estimates that I've seen from the scientific community, who are working in the race to develop a vaccine, would give it a longer timeline, even in a best-case scenario. We have to remember there's never been an effective vaccine against the coronavirus. The timeline for developing a new vaccine normally is years, often a decade or more. We think it's going to be substantially less. If all of the stars align, everything goes perfectly, they work, there's no speed bumps, possibly early 2021. But I think that's the most optimistic scenario. And we have to also be prepared for scenarios, in which it takes much longer to find a vaccine that's going to be effective. That's why, while this development is important, these investments in the scientific race are important, we need an Operation Warp Speed to make sure that every American can get a test who needs a test. We need an Operation Warp Speed to make sure we have armies of contact tracers along with technology in every part of the country because that's what would allow us to save lives and save the economy until that vaccine is ready.</s>ALLEN: Good point there you make. We'll end on that. Thanks so much, Peter.</s>DROBAC: Thank you, Natalie. We are tracking a developing story out of the Middle East. China's ambassador to Israel Du Wei has been found dead at his residence north of Tel Aviv. Police have been at the scene. But we're still waiting on an official statement. Du Wei has been the ambassador to Israel for only about three months. We'll continue to track this story and bring you more information as we get it. Some call him China's Dr. Fauci.</s>ALLEN: The doctor who raised the alarm about coronavirus in China even as some local officials downplayed it. CNN's exclusive interview with him coming next. Also, Italy will slowly try to get things back to normal next week. We'll bring in our reporter to talk about how Italy plans to minimize the risks.