[Berman:] As of this morning, there have been at least 2.6 million confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world, in more than 184,000 deaths. CNN has reporters across the globe to bring you the latest developments.
[Nic Robertson, Cnn International Diplomatic Editor:] I'm Nic Robertson in London. Today, the first human trials of a potential new vaccine begin, a study by Oxford University involving perhaps hundreds of people in the first phase which will be a safety phase, scaling up, if successful, by full this year. Also beginning today, 20,000 homes, the government says will be contacted across the country to learn more about the virus. And infection and antibody scheme here that could reach as many as 300,000 people, the government says.
[Scott Mclean, Cnn Correspondent:] I'm Scott McLean in Madrid where the last ice rink being used as a temporary morgue has now closed, and children will get their first taste of freedom this weekend after six weeks under lockdown. The rest of Spanish society, though, is coming to grips with the reality that things will not go back to normal anytime soon. The running of the bulls has been canceled, so has the annual tomato fight near Valencia. The Spanish parliament has approved an extension of the stay-at-home order for another two weeks, only then the Prime Minister says will Spain gradually enter the de-escalation phase, which will rely on personal responsibility to keep the virus at bay.
[Matt Rivers, Cnn Correspondent:] I'm Matt Rivers in Mexico City, where officials tell us they've recorded at least 44 attacks against healthcare workers since last month. These workers enduring everything from having bleach thrown on them to being punched in the face. Authorities say the motive here is misinformation, rumors that it's actually healthcare workers that are spreading this virus. It's not the majority opinion here in Mexico, most Mexicans will tell you they support healthcare workers, but doctors and nurses are afraid. One doctor told me that when she goes to work, she only wears street clothes, she doesn't put on her scrubs until she gets to the hospital because she fears she's a target.
[David Mckenzie, Cnn Correspondent:] I'm David McKenzie in South Africa. Noah Trevor is getting his test here with a swab for COVID-19. He looks pretty uncomfortable, but it's critical here because we're in a community where people just cannot self-isolate. We've been out with community health workers, they are trying to test for symptoms, we also hear where they're screening people for possible symptoms of this disease. In South Africa, they have one possible advantage. They've been battling HIVAIDS for years here, with a huge amount of U.S. government support. And those boots on the ground and that experience could give them the upper hand.
[Camerota:] Our thanks to all of our correspondents around the globe. So stay at home orders around the world have kept people from driving and flying for weeks now. And that appears to be having a positive impact on the climate crisis. Pollution levels are down dramatically in major cities. But will that have a lasting effect on the environment? Well, CNN's Bill Weir joins us now with more. So Bill, what's the answer to that?
[Bill Weir, Cnn Chief Climate Correspondent:] Well, Alisyn, you know, it's kind of hard to say happy Earth Day these days without some ironic dread and, yes, we're seeing more wild critters coming to the streets and, yes, city dwellers are noticing stars they didn't know were up there before. But this is far from a silver-lining when it comes to fixing the climate crisis.
[Weir:] On a golden anniversary of Earth Day, it's as if mother nature has sent us all to our rooms to think about what we've done and to give us a glimpse of life without us. The penguins of Cape Town had the streets to themselves, while wild pigs used sidewalks in Corsica. Kashmiri goats are helping themselves to the shrubbery in Wales and a sea turtle hatch in Thailand is reportedly setting modern records. A normally shy Puma ran a stop light in Santiago, with no visitors to Kruger National Park, a pride of South African lions can snooze in the road and with no wall of course to navigate, Yosemite Park rangers are seeing more bears than ever.
[Unidentified Female:] For the most part I think they're having a party.
[Weir:] And while they aren't unheard of in New York City, these days it's hard not to be shaken by vultures, circling over the Navy's floating hospital, the Comfort. [on camera]: Man, it will be a great day when the only big Naval ship docked in New York City is a museum, when the Comfort finally sets sail, surely those vultures will fly away and we can finally come out of our homes, surely all those wild critters will go back to what's left of theirs. But what about the effects that are harder to see? What is this pause in the industrial revolution doing to the chemistry of our sky? [voice-over]: Locals in northern India say they can see the Himalayas for the first time in decades. And before and after satellite imagery shows how nitrogen dioxide pollution over North America's big cities is down by as much as 30 percent. But the blanket of heat trapping gases around our planet is still thicker than ever. [on camera]: And there seems to be this perception that maybe the virus has helped humanity buy some time when it comes to global warming. What's wrong with that assumption?
[Jonathan Foley, Executive Director, Project Drawdown:] We would have to keep doing this even more, and do it for the next 30 years to really begin to bend the curve on the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It's kind of like having a really huge bathtub in the sky filled with pollution, and we have the faucet pouring more in. And all we've done is kind of turn down the faucet a little bit, but it's still filling up.
[Weir:] Thanks to the current oil crash, when the lockdown is lifted, we'll see the lowest gas prices in generations, and with Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency gutting dozens of regulations, experts say a spike in pollution seems inevitable. Both the EPA and Earth Day were born when the air and water got too foul for everyday Americans to ignore. Fifty years later, science is warning that the storms, floods and fires of the climate crisis are growing too frequent and too severe to ignore. Saving what's left will take everyday folk everywhere, deciding that their planet deserves more than one minor holiday like a dead president deciding that to save life as we know it, every day should be Earth Day. Virologists for years tried to warn us that an invisible enemy would come out of the jungles if we just kept cutting all of them down, and they were right. So, if any good can come of this, Alisyn, maybe it's an understanding that the climatologists who were warning about the invisible enemy up in our sky and in our seas, maybe we should take them seriously too.
[Camerota:] We hope more understanding is the silver-lining here. Bill Weir, thank you very much for that report. Well, the government's top vaccine researcher is speaking out, NEW DAY continues right now.
[Unidentified Female:] The director of a key federal agency says he's been pushed out of his job because he resisted efforts to widen the availability of a drug that was pushed by President Trump.
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] If a guy says he was pushed out of a job, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't.
[Robert Redfield, Virologist:] It's important to clarify this. I didn't say that this was going to be worse. I said it was going to be more difficult.
[Unidentified Male:] Dr. Redfield's concern is that there also might be flu at the same time. And the whole taskforce is concerned about the second wave.
[Trump:] It is estimated it might not come back at all. It may not come back at all.
[Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute Of Allergy & Infectious Diseases:] We will have coronavirus in the Fall. I am convinced of that.
[Berman:] All right, good morning, welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. This is NEW DAY. Coronavirus doesn't care about what drug you want to work. The virus doesn't care whether you don't want it. END