Global COVID Cases Top 10 Million; Growing List Of Companies Pull Facebook Ads
HALA GORANI, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome everybody. You're watching CNN. I'm Hala Gorani in London. This hour the world hits 10 million coronavirus cases. 31 U.S. states are on the rise and half way around the world 400,000 people go back under lockdown in China. We have live coverage from around the globe. Then, more and more companies are pulling advertising off of Facebook. Will they pressure the social media giants to handle hate speech differently? And later the White House in damage control mode after President Trump retweets a video of a man chanting white power. The number of global coronavirus cases has topped 10 million and more than half a million people have died of COVID-19. One out of every four of those deaths has been in the United States. And these maps show how much of the U.S. is going in the wrong direction. On the right the level of increases or decreases in cases in the 50 states from just after the Memorial Day holiday in late May. On the left the numbers from this past week. You can see all the red. 31 states are now reporting and an increase in new cases from the week before. Randi Kaye looks at this disturbing trend which experts warn will only get worse.</s>RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A dire warning from one Trump cabinet member.</s>ALEX AZAR, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: The window is closing for us to take action and get this under control.</s>KAYE: As 31 states report an increase in new coronavirus cases over the last week, like here in Florida. The state reporting more than 8,500 new cases Sunday, after reporting a record high Saturday of more than 9,500 cases. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blaming recent increases on a, "Test dump," a backlog of tests that all came through at the same time. A former CDC director discounted testing as the source of most increases.</s>THOMAS FRIEDEN, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that in most states, where you're seeing an increase, it is a real increase. It is not more tests. It is more spread of the virus.</s>KAYE: DeSantis conceding that there is reason for concern, particularly in the demographics of the uptick of confirmed cases.</s>GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): That positivity increase is really being driven by a big increase over the last three weeks in individuals testing positive throughout the State of Florida in younger age groups, particularly 18 to 44.</s>KAYE: The numbers forcing DeSantis to hit pause on the state's reopening plan, closing bars throughout the state. And even with no state order, Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties planning to have all beaches closed for the July 4th holiday weekend.</s>MAYOR DAVE KERNER (D), PALM BEACH COUNTY: It is an unfortunate result, but public health remains focus of the elected leaders of Palm Beach County. And, you know, unfortunately, this fourth of July will not be spent at the beach.</s>KAYE: In Texas, cases are still surging, with a positivity rate increasing to more than 13 percent in recent days, according to John Hopkins University. Vice President Mike Pence now urging people to wear face masks after weeks of saying concerns over the sudden surge were overblown.</s>MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Wear a mask wherever it's indicated or wherever you're not able to practice the kind of social distancing that would prevent the spread of the coronavirus.</s>KAYE: At a church event in Texas with more than 2,000 people attending, Pence watched with a mask on, as a 100-person choir sang with no face coverings, only putting on masks when they were seated. The CDC has warned choir singing could be a super spreader event, highlighting a march choir practice in Washington, where just one symptomatic person led to 87 percent of the singers getting infected. Republican Senator Lamar Alexander stressing the importance of masks, arguing President Trump could be the key to convincing more people to wear them.</s>SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER (R-TN): I wish the president would wear a mask when it's appropriate. Because millions of Americans admire him. And they would follow his lead.</s>KAYE: Again, you heard there, the vice president urging Texans to wear face masks that is a markedly different tone. And then he took on Friday when he said pretty much that the country has flattened the curve.</s>KAYE: Still in the coming days the vice president will be visiting more states who are seeing surges in in cases including Arizona, and here in Florida. Hala, back to you.</s>GORANI: All right. Thanks very much, Randi Kaye. You can see in the U.S. wearing a mask or not wearing a mask has become a political issue less so in Europe. But there are still so many open questions. E.U. representatives have been meeting in Brussels to discuss lifting coronavirus travel restrictions. Very important to get parts of the economy going. They are crafting a list of approved countries for travel into the European Union. The United States is expected to be excluded so you'd have a U.S. passport. Most likely if this go through -- goes through you will not be able temporarily to travel to the E.U. Once the final list is approved by member states it will be formally presented. CNN has learned there are 15 countries on the list. Nothing is official yet, we're still waiting. People from countries that made the cut will be allowed in starting Wednesday. People from countries that have not made the cut will have to sit it out for a while if they want to come to the E.U. Fred PLeitgen is standing by in Brussels, Belgium just outside the E.U. ambassador's meeting. So that is, you know, the -- well, the big one would be the U.S., right? If U.S. citizens are excluded, what form might that take if there's a temporary exclusion against U.S. citizens coming into the E.U.?</s>FRED PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, it would simply mean that the U.S. wouldn't be on that list of 15 countries that is now being talked about. As you said, in the member states on a ministerial level. So in other words, the European Council has decided, yes, we're OK with this list of 15 countries. Again, we don't know which countries are on that list. And now every member state for itself is going to decide whether or not they are OK with that list. You're talking about different ministries in these countries. The health ministry, of course, will be part of that, the foreign ministry is the interior ministries as well because one of the things, Hala, we always have to point out is that The European Union cannot make a decision for all these member states. They each decide as citizens of which countries they would let in a to their own country. But of course, the E.U. wants to have a common approach to this. So, all these member states are going to be looking at this list and then most probably, we believe signing off on it. But of course, this this could have very big repercussions if indeed the U.S. is not on that list. And that's exactly what it's looking like right now. And the European Union has always said that all of this comes down to science. All of this comes down to the coronavirus situation in the countries of origin of people who want to travel to the European Union. And they say by and large, essentially, it's the amount of people who have coronavirus per 100,000 residents of these countries, but they say the situation has to be either better or the same as the average of the European Union. Of course, what we're seeing from the U.S., that's simply is what's happening there right now, Hala.</s>GORANI: All right. Fred Pleitgen, thanks very much live in Brussels. We'll wait to hear official word so many people watching us around the world very eager to learn whether or not they can fly into the E.U., what countries are on that list. Now as far as China is concerned, the government there has told 400,000 people near Beijing to stay in their homes and it comes after a cluster of coronavirus cases was discovered in Hebei province. The area is sparsely populated but health officials say the situation is serious nonetheless. David Culver joins us live from Beijing with the details. Tell us more about this lockdown in this new lockdown in China, David.</s>DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And Hala, this is really reminiscent of what we saw now more than five months ago take effect in Wuhan. And we were there with the original epicenter went on lockdown and folks eventually were sealed inside their homes. A similar scenario playing out here about 90 miles from where we are here in Beijing, the capital city. And this is -- and as you point out a more sparsely populated area. It's kind of a rural setting. It's Yanshan County, it's within Hebei province. It's got 400,000 people and all villages, all communities shut down. The perimeter is not to be breached by any outside vehicles. So those that are not locally registered, if you will, they are letting people once a day choose one person from the household to leave to go to basic grocery shopping in necessity purchases. But aside from that, this is what we saw just several months ago in Wuhan and what also took effect in other parts of the country over the past few months as these hotspots and cluster outbreaks would come into fruition. And so what they're now hoping is that this will be in place for as long as necessary and that they can then put this one out and then resume life again. But it's something similar to what we saw even compartmentalized here in Beijing over the past couple of weeks as we saw that, yet again, another wholesale food market be the source of what they believe to have been that most recent outbreak here in the capital city, Hala.</s>GORANI: And how long will this all last? Because the impact on the Chinese economy is brutal right now.</s>GORANI: I mean, we're looking at potentially one percent growth for China, which is unheard of in many decades.</s>CULVER: Devastating for the economy. You're absolutely right. So with this, cannot linger more than it has to. And so that has been stressed by officials here. I mean, even going back to the original lockdown, I mean, that was something that President Xi Jinping himself said. He stressed two things, containing the virus and stabilizing the economy. So it is crucial that they do that. What's interesting is what you see in this most recent lockdown and entering county is not what happened here in Beijing over the past two weeks. There, they have locked down that entire region essentially, the 100,000 people. Here, you can out -- you really go on the outskirts of some of these compartmentalize lockdowns and life continues as mostly as normal as possible. And that's intentional, because even though there is a threat that some of these cases could have contact with individuals outside of those high risk areas, they still know that they need to keep the city up and going. They cannot do another massive lockdown because that would just crush the economy, Hala.</s>GORANI: Right. I think this is our future localized shutdowns. We're seeing localized shutdowns in parts of Europe and parts of the</s>U.K. CULVER: I guess you're right.</s>GORANI: Thanks very much for that. David Culver, yeah, live in Beijing. We'll speak soon. Now to the growing list of companies pulling ads from social media. Starbucks is one of the latest but it stopped short of joining the #StopHateForProfit campaign organized by civil rights groups. It's a campaign that urges companies to stop advertising on Facebook for the month of July. But as the sixth largest advertiser on Facebook, the move is still expected to make a dent. The amount of money that Starbucks spends on ad dollars on Facebook is a very high, almost $100 million. So what does Facebook stand to lose from this boycott? CNN's Richard Quest joins me now from New York with more. It's not just Starbucks, it's Unilever, Verizon, REI. What's the ad money here, total ad money that we're talking about?</s>RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: We're in the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, but Facebook's revenue is some 68, $69 billion. And most of that comes from small and medium-sized businesses, not the very large ones. And I think that's possibly one of the reasons we saw Facebook put out a long memo, in which they went through various details of their policies and their anti-hate policies. But underneath it all, there was a -- I don't want to use the word threat, but there was a reminder that from a senior executive that Facebook does not change its policies on the back of boycotts. They've been here before Facebook. Now, to be sure how this is marginally different in that the number of large companies is growing and the more of the Unilever's, Coca- Cola's, Verizon's, Bank of America's, you get, they create a very large umbrella for other people to shelter and join us well. But Facebook is saying somewhat arrogantly they would -- some would argue, look, we know we may have to do more. Zuckerberg said we're going to do more, but we are not going to buckle under the weight of money of boycotts, which we think won't really last anyway.</s>GORANI: So why is Twitter for instance, taking a different approach? Why is Facebook the holdout here?</s>QUEST: Well, Facebook's caught up on its own limb here. It's sort of taken the view. Zuckerberg has taken the view that there's a first amendment issue here, that the platform has to have a broad church of opinion. And that also involves pushing a boundary as to what is acceptable, if you're the, you know, his view is if you're the town square, there has to be people who object to what you're saying. However, that's not the view that Twitter has taken.</s>GORANI: But I guess, Richard, it's not -- it's not whether or not you have a different -- it's not just a different opinion. I mean, these are conspiracy theories, they're straight out lies, there is hate speech. You know, we're not here talking about having a civilized debate. Some of this stuff is by the standards of some people on unacceptable hate speech.</s>QUEST: And the problem Facebook has is managing that and they are constantly behind the curve in -- I mean, if you remember a few -- a few years ago, or few months ago they put in place tens of thousands of monitors.</s>QUEST: But that took them ages as a policy to get right and get in place. Now they've got to formulate their policy with this hate speech, whilst at the same time not alienating others, they are in exceptionally difficult waters here. But interestingly, Hala, probably economically until there's a boycott of users. And that has not happened in any significant sense, while the advertisers will eventually come back. I'm not being cynical. I'm being -- it's not being skeptical. I'm being realistic here. The advertisers will come back because that's where the people are by the billions.</s>GORANI: All right. We're going to talk more about this with Brian Stelter later as sort of the notion that Facebook is a content provider now and it's taken a clear position on what it plans to do or not to do with its content. We'll see you on "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" a little bit later, Richard. Thanks very much. And coming up, it may seem like a remnant of the Cold War but reports of surface that Russia has put a price on the head of American troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. president says he wasn't briefed on it. Plus, a deadly shooting in Karachi's financial hub. The latest from Pakistan. We are live, next.