Tornadoes Ripped Through Southern U.S.; Prime Minister Boris Johnson Grateful for His Second Life; U.S. Tops COVID-19 Cases in the World; CNN Shows You One Day Inside a New York Hospital; Worldwide Coronavirus Case Count Now Approaching Two Million
ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church. Welcome to CNN Newsroom. Well, two big stories this hour. The death toll from the coronavirus nears 115,000 lives with much of the world still on lockdown. And even as the U.S. stay indoors this Easter weekend, deadly tornadoes are cutting apart the destruction across the south right now. Well, eight people are now confirmed dead in those tornadoes. You are looking at Alabama, one of the states hit very hard. Some of those areas are also dealing with flooding. Hundreds of houses just spleen to the part in the storms and the violent weather isn't over yet. In fact, those storms are in the Atlanta area right now. And our Pedram Javaheri joins me now to give us an update. Pedram, as if people don't have enough to deal with COVID-19 of course. How bad is this looking right now?</s>PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: They were in the height of it. Certainly, we've seen some incredible reports coming out of areas not just across portions of Mississippi and Alabama, as you noted now, into metro Atlanta. The cab county portions of Fulton County near the Atlanta Hartsfield?ackson Airport are report of a tornado, confirmed tornado on the ground across the region. The tornado warning across the area expected to be a lot to expire within the next minute or two. But certainly, enacted pattern across the region. I want to show you what's happening as we've had a wild night, and I often talk about. When you get overnight, tornadoes they are statistically two times more likely to be fatal than ones you get into the daytime hours. So, certainly it goes without saying, this is dangerous as it gets. We've had significant run-off tornadoes. The one in the Atlanta metro has been a lot to be expired. There is a little one, a smaller one farther to the south, they're near Forsyth, that is a town of Forsyth east of McDonough near Eatonton. That's an area where the tornado is on the ground at this hour, moving farther towards the east. But again, into the metro region where the population density far, far greater. The tornado warning that was in place, the tornado that was on the ground has retreated back up into the cloud. So certainly, better news coming out of that region. Heavy rainfall continues though throughout the overnight hours. And we think this is the height of it. Beyond the next couple of hours not much left for metro Atlanta but all that energy of course will migrate farther towards the east and then park itself off the eastern seaboard. We do have tornado watches through at least seven in the morning, not only through northern Georgia but portions of North Carolina, that includes the city of Charlotte, also the city of Greenville in South Carolina as well. Reports shipped out (Ph) as such with nearly 40 reports of tornadoes so far in the past several hours. You notice the vast majority of them related to straight- line damaging winds, almost 200 of those in the past couple of hours, and about 30 large-scale reports as well. But again, the energy shifts toward the east. We think the coastal region of the Carolinas, coastal Georgia, other parts of the mid- Atlantic states really going to be most impacted into the morning, and eventually afternoon hours. And climatologically, April into May is peak season for tornado activity. But of course, so much has been happening around the world the last several weeks, several months, this kind of let up on people without people realizing this is the time of year activity is heightened. And of course, at its highest within the next couple of weeks. But you notice, much of Alabama into Georgia probability of about 15 percent for tornados. And we know of course confirmed tornados in the region. And that, Rosemary, it looks as such here that Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, Raleigh and then up towards Richmond, Virginia as the cities we're watching carefully when it comes to severe weather from Monday morning, and eventually Monday afternoon about 55 million people in that area at risk.</s>CHURCH: Yes. And, Pedram, what's heartbreaking about this is that people are already on stay-at-home orders, trying to stay in their home to shelter. And of course, they've got this to deal with. And some people have lost their homes as a result of this. So, it's very important that we keep an eye on what is happening on the ground.</s>JAVAHERI: Absolutely.</s>CHURCH: And Pedram, we appreciate you keeping us up to date. Many thanks. We'll check back in with you very soon.</s>JAVAHERI: Thank you.</s>CHURCH: Meantime, the world is now dealing with close to two million confirmed cases of the coronavirus. As people pray for the worst to be over, on Easter Sunday, the U.S. reported nearly 1,500 more fatalities. And that brings the national death toll to more than 22,000. That is according to Johns Hopkins University, the highest in the world. And the head of the American Food and Drug Administration is offering a little bit of hope. He's saying models show the U.S. is very close to its peak and that he believes the worst may have passed. Meanwhile, the leading U.S. expert infectious disease tells CNN's Jake Tapper that earlier action could have saved lives. Take a listen.</s>ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. But you're right. I mean, obviously, if we had right from the very beginning shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of push back about shutting things down back then.</s>CHURCH: And CNN's Jeremy Diamond brings us the latest on the coronavirus response from the White House.</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Trump on Friday said that it could be the biggest decision of his presidency. That is the decision on when to reopen the Unites States economy. It's a question that has been on President Trump's mind this past weekend, this Easter weekend when President Trump initially said he wanted to see the United States economy back open again. That of course, was before the president decided to extend those social distancing guidelines for the entire month of April. But now the president is once again mulling whether or not to extend those guidelines and whether there's a way that next month he can already begin to reopen the economy. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the government's top public health experts, he said on Sunday on CNN's State of the Union that while he does see the possibility of reopening part of the economy next month, it can't happen in one fail switch (Ph).</s>FAUCI: It is not going to be a light switch that we say OK, it is now June, July, or whatever, click, the light switch goes back on. It's going to be depending where you are in the country, the nature of the outbreak that you've already experienced, and the threat of an outbreak that you may not have experienced. So, it's going having to look at the situation in different parts of the country. I think it's going to have to be something that is not one-size-fits-all.</s>DIAMOND: Dr. Fauci though will be just one of the voices weighing in as President Trump mulls this decision. The president is also hearing from other aides inside the administration and advisers outside of the White House who are urging the president to put a date on the calendar for when he can begin to reopen the country. Some of those advisers pushing the president to reopen the economy by May 1st. That is something that no public health expert so far is willing to endorse. That's not a date that they are willing to endorse. One thing is clear though from the public health experts perspective is that the United States really needs to continue to ramp up testing capacity, not only to test to be able to detect if individuals have the coronavirus but also that serology testing that is designed to detect if an individual has the antibodies, meaning that they've had the virus in the past and they've built up some immunity. So, that is the question that the president has been pondering. Again, we know from his public comments, even as the president faces some of the grimmest realities of this virus, he continues to talk about wanting to get the economy open as soon as possible. Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.</s>CHURCH: And on that point, the U.S. president has again been insisting that it's up to states to take the lead in the fight against the virus. Donald Trump addressed state governors directly in a terse tweet, saying there are, quote, "no excuses for them not to have their systems sorted out." Mr. Trump claims it's the federal government's role to support them and not necessarily take the lead. Meantime, some good news from one COVID-19 hotspot. New York remains the worst hit state in the U.S. with hundreds of new deaths every day and nearly 200,000 reported infections. But Governor Andrew Cuomo says hospitalizations are dropping and the curve is flattening.</s>GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Let's start with the good news because we deserve some good news, lord knows. Change in total number of hospitalizations is down again. This is the number that we have been watching because the great fear for us is always overwhelming. The hospital system, the capacity of the hospital system, you're not seeing a great decline in the numbers, but you're seeing a flattening. And you're also seeing a recurrence of the terrible news which is the number of lives lost which is 758.</s>CHURCH: And the Democratic challenger set to take on Donald Trump in this year's presidential election is laying out his own plan for how to safely reopen America. In an op-ed in the New York Times, Joe Biden insists that people need to keep social distancing and that much more testing needs to happen on a much wider scale. The former vice president wrote this and I'm quoting. "This isn't rocket science. It's about investment and execution. We are now several months into this crisis and still this administration has not squarely faced up to the original sin in its failed response. The failure to test." Meanwhile, a stock warning from the British health secretary.</s>MATT HANCOCK, BRITISH HEALTH SECRETARY: Today marks a somber day in the impact of this disease as we join the list of countries who have seen more than 10,000 deaths related to coronavirus. The fact that over 10,000 people have now lost their lives to this invisible killer demonstrates just how serious coronavirus is and why the national effort that everyone is engaged in is so important.</s>CHURCH: Now despite this, he says Britain's health service has not been overwhelmed and still has more than 2,000 spare critical care beds. Other health experts say the worst for the U.K. is yet to come and the country could be one of the worst affected in Europe. Well, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now out of the hospital and recovering from the coronavirus at home. Mr. Johnson was hospitalized last week when his symptoms suddenly and dramatically worsened. He spent days in intensive care and he's thanking the people who helped him pull through.</s>BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I hope they wouldn't mind if I mention in particular two nurses who stood by my bedside for 48 hours when things could have gone either way. That Jenny from New Zealand Invercargill on the South Island to be exact, and Luis from Portugal near Porto. And the reason in the end my body didn't stop to get enough oxygen was because for every second of the night they were watching and they were thinking and they were caring and making the interventions I needed.</s>CHURCH: And CNN's Max Foster joins us now live from London. Good to see you, Max. And of course, the hospitalization of Prime Minister Boris Johnson was clearly more serious than the people of Britain were initially told. What more are you learning about that, and of course the grim milestone just reached in terms of deaths across the</s>U.K. MAX FOSTER, CNN LONDON CORRESPONDENT: Well, that 10,000 figure is a grim milestone as you say. Only five countries have reached it. So, you know, sort of achievement you don't want to come up with during this crisis in any country. And also, there is this pressure also in the U.K. to perhaps loosen some of its lockdown measures in the same way as Italy and Spain as such, still. But we're behind the curve in that sense. As far as Boris Johnson is concerned, he is recuperating at his country, Rosie, outside London while his government is run from here. You're right to point out there's sense in the U.K. that perhaps Brits weren't fully informed about how serious the case was for Boris Johnson. Certainly, he talks there about pretty much coming close to death within that 48-hour period but he bounced back from that because of the NHS staff around him. He named them individually and he also uses it as a reason to emphasize to the nation that you need to stick by this lockdown. He describes the lockdown as a shield against around our treasured National Health Service in the United Kingdom. So that's what his message was really about. But as you say, Rosemary, many people struck by how well he looked in it considering how critical he was just a few days ago.</s>CHURCH: Yes, it is extraordinary. And Max, I wanted to ask you because the prime minister is clearly very appreciative of the care he received while in the hospital. Could his experience change the level of help the medical professionals across the U.K. have been receiving in terms of personal protective equipment and ventilators like so many other countries there's not a lot of it around.</s>FOSTER: Now ventilators have been an issue because U.K. companies haven't been able to come up with the ventilators required in the same way that other countries have been able to. So, Britain is actually been going to other countries like Germany asking for ventilators. So that's a big issue. You have seen communities coming together though, to try to support the health service. So, lots of small communities sewing these masks that health service workers need, and also other items that can help them in their work for lack of this PPE that should have been coming through. They've been sewing masks. You can put the professional filters into to try to support the health workers as well. Prince William stepping into the fold as well, very much supporting other key workers. So, he's working with charities to try to support them as they support vulnerable members of the community. For example, this farmer in Wales who he is speaking to, these farmers delivering food to people living in isolation.</s>PRINCE WILLIAM, DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE: I think Britain is at its best weirdly when we're at crises.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, absolutely.</s>WILLIAM: That community spirit, that community feel comes rushing back quicker than anything else.</s>FOSTER: So, the next big question for the U.K. due on Thursday is whether or not the lockdown is ease. Nothing we're hearing here in Westminster suggests that that is the case, I think all the scientist is suggesting we need to know when we're at the peak before you can even start talking about easing the lockdown, Rosemary.</s>CHURCH: Yes, very true. Max Foster, many thangs to you bringing us that live report from London. I appreciate it. We'll take a very short break here. Still to come, are Spain and France starting to turn a corner. The latest from two of the world's hardest countries. That is next.