China Launches Mars Probe Amid Space Race With The U.S.
ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): I'm Robyn Curnow, you're watching CNN live from CNN's world news headquarters here in Atlanta. Just ahead this hour, more encouraging news in the race for a coronavirus vaccine just as the world crosses a grim milestone. Also tensions between the U.S. and China go from bad to worse following what's been described as an unprecedented escalation between the 2 countries. Donald Trump so-called surge: the U.S. president threatens to deploy federal officers to some of the country's largest cities whether there mayors like it or not.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.</s>CURNOW: A growing number of American states are seeing record numbers of new confirmed cases of the coronavirus. For the second day in a row, the virus claimed more than 1,000 American lives. Nationwide nearly 4 million infections have been confirmed, about a quarter of the 15 million cases reported worldwide. The U.S. has reached a nearly $2 billion deal with Pfizer to produce and deliver 100 million doses of its experimental vaccine. And despite the record number of cases, the U.S. president continues to defense his response to the pandemic, pointing to more than 50 million tests. However, many people are waiting days or even weeks to get results. In his latest briefing, the president again tried to paint a rosy picture of the crisis.</s>TRUMP: We're working with very talented people, very brilliant people, and it's all going to work out and it is working out.</s>CURNOW: More on the deal between the U.S. and Pfizer. CNN's Athena Jones has this report.</s>ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the nation battles to get coronavirus under control, signs of progress on the vaccine front, the federal government reaching what's being called a historic deal to buy tens of millions of vaccines from pharmaceutical company Pfizer, if it's approved.</s>ALEX AZAR, U.S. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: We can acquire 100 million doses of this vaccine as early as December of 2019 -- of 2020 and have the option to buy an additional 500 million doses.</s>JONES: Pfizer, in partnership with German firm BioNTech, just the latest vaccine maker in recent days to issue a promising report.</s>JOHN BURKHARDT, PFIZER: Preliminary data from the study shows a good immune response from patients vaccinated and we plan to start the large-scale clinical trial before the end of July involving 20,000 to 30,000 patients.</s>JONES: Calls for volunteers to try out vaccine candidates from Pfizer and others have been met with an overwhelming response.</s>FAUCI: We have well over 100,000 people that have already signed up as volunteers.</s>JONES: Meanwhile, at the rate the virus is spreading, officials say, if you don't already know someone who's been infected, that's likely to change in the coming weeks. California now surpassing New York in total confirmed cases, many in hard hit-Los Angeles county driven by young people, infection and hospitalization rates painting a bleak picture in the South. With hospitals overwhelmed in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott now backing a curfew in the Rio Grande Valley, while stopping short of support a shelter-in-place order issued by a county judge.</s>JUDGE RICHARD CORTEZ, HIDALGO COUNTY, TEXAS: What I have told him and others, if I can even simply get 10 percent of our people to follow it, I'm 10 percent better than I am today.</s>JONES: Hospitals also under pressure in Florida, where more than 50 ICUs have reached capacity and health officials say just 15 percent of ICU beds remain available statewide. ICU capacity in the state's hot spot, Miami-Dade County, now tops 132 percent. Still, the governor projecting optimism.</s>GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I think we are on the right -- right course. I think we will continue to see improvements.</s>JONES: Even as experts warn of a long road ahead for the</s>U.S. DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: I think we ultimately will get control of it. I don't really see us eradicating it.</s>JONES: But officials say getting it under control will require people to follow basic public health guidelines.</s>DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, CDC DIRECTOR: We're not defenseless. We have powerful tools. Probably the most powerful tool that we have is a simple face mask.</s>JONES: One more thing about the simple face masks Dr. Redfield was speaking about there, the University of Washington's influential model is now projecting 5,000 fewer deaths in the U.S. by November 1st. That's in part because more and more cities and states have issued mask mandates and also because more people are wearing face masks and keeping their distance from others, even without mandates. According to this model, deaths would fall by another 34,000 if the U.S. universally adopted mask wearing -- Athena Jones, CNN, New York.</s>CURNOW: The Brazilian health ministry says the country's coronavirus outbreak seems under control despite breaking the daily record for new infections. Brazil reported nearly 68,000 new cases on Wednesday, more than 16,000 just in Sao Paulo, and more than 1,800 new COVID-19 deaths. President Jair Bolsonaro met with supporters after testing positive for the third time within two weeks. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says multiple tests on someone who already has tested positive are now worthwhile. The Australian state of Victoria has been trying to stem an outbreak for weeks but the situation is not improving. More than 400 cases were confirmed Wednesday, the third highest since the pandemic began. Masks there are now mandatory in public in Melbourne. Anna Coren is following this from Hong Kong. You're an Aussie and you've been no doubt getting reports from home. But why is Melbourne back in control, even with borders closed?</s>ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are struggling and it seems the reason for the rise in numbers is due to complacency. This is basically a public health crisis and people not self-isolating is seen as the reason. Today 403 cases were reported, down slightly from the record of 484. Daniel Andrews said this lockdown could be extended if the numbers don't drop and if people don't take this seriously. He gave some data, showing that 9 out of 100 people getting coronavirus, between testing and showing symptoms, were not self-isolating. Those who were tested and were found positive were also not self- isolating. It seems that Victorians are happy to get tested but then continue about their normal lives. People can still go out, can exercise, it's not as strict as in other place. But people are being complacent and that's why the numbers are rising.</s>CURNOW: Thanks, Anna. Here in the U.S., the Trump administration has ordered China to shut its consulate in Houston, Texas, after being accused of years of illegal spying. Local media are sharing this video of what appears to be officials burning documents after the eviction order. The U.S. State Department said growing disputes between the countries led to the decision to shut down the consulate. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo declined to offer details but said this.</s>MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We're setting clear expectations for how the Chinese Communist Party is going to behave. And when they don't, we're going to take actions to protect the American people, protect our security, our national security.</s>CURNOW: Kristie Lu Stout joins us now in Hong Kong with this. What more can you tell us?</s>KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN ANCHOR: The diplomatic relationship between U.S. and China are under threat and China is vowing to retaliate. We're following developments at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco. U.S. prosecutors are seeking a Chinese researcher who they accuse of visa fraud. They say she lied about her links to the Chinese military and is currently hiding out in the consulate there. On Wednesday Beijing vowed to retaliate after the closure by the U.S. Chinese state media have pointed to the possibility of China ordering a shutdown of one of America's consulates in China.</s>STOUT: Listen to the spokesperson for the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs.</s>WANG WENBIN, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON (through translator): The U.S. side is deliberately sabotaging U.S.-China relations which is unreasonable. China strongly condemns the decision and urges the U.S. side to immediately recall the wrong decision, otherwise China will take legitimate and necessary counter measures.</s>STOUT: The State Department says it acted to close the Houston consulate in order to protect American intellectual property and private Americans' private information, this come days after the indictment was sealed, charging 2 Chinese hackers with espionage and a cyber crime campaign. They say it was ordered by Beijing, aimed at stealing COVID-19 research. It's not clear whether these two events are linked but tension is ratcheting up and we're waiting to see how China will respond, how it will strike back.</s>CURNOW: OK, thanks so much, Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. Let's go to Beijing. David Rennie is the Beijing bureau chief for "The Economist." David, good to see you. This is an abrupt order, another example of the sharply escalating tensions.</s>DAVID RENNIE, "THE ECONOMIST": That's right. And I think if viewers have watched the last couple of years of sharp rhetoric and trade war disputes, the next months are going to be much bumpier as we near the American presidential election.</s>CURNOW: That's what many are asking, Trump's poll numbers are down. Does a tough anti-China message play into his campaign rather than a serious look at China's behavior? What are Beijing's options?</s>RENNIE: Here in Beijing, talking to senior officials on the record, they have a clear view of what's going on, a cynical view. They distinguish between Trump's tough anti-China comments, which they think are aimed at scapegoating China for his own failures with the COVID-19 pandemic, and people who are sincere anti-Communist China hawks, like Mike Pompeo and members of Congress. They don't think Trump really cares much about Chinese human rights or the disputes over democracy in Hong Kong. They think he's focused on his own reelection. The phrase they often use is "he'll be kidnapped" by the real hawks around him. If those hawks think this is their last few months in office because they see his poll numbers, I guess Beijing is braced for those hawks to show some real conscience (ph).</s>CURNOW: You talk about this being a rocky road. What do you expect, what are the options?</s>RENNIE: There's a lot that could be coming. We've already seen rounds of tit-for-tat, expulsions of American and Chinese journalists. We're braced for more of that. We've seen China's foreign ministry ratcheting up its rhetoric, not just toward America but toward U.S. allies. We've seen trade boycotts of countries like Canada or Australia, who've sided with America, the disputes over Huawei. Not only is the spiral of tit-for-tat likely to get worse, but everything is framed now by the looming presidential election. China will be a real issue. China hawks want to throw punches and Trump likes to play a China hawk on TV. All that is incredibly combustible.</s>CURNOW: Do you see a severing of diplomatic relations?</s>RENNIE: There are other American companies that make a lot of money in China, General Motors and Apple.</s>RENNIE: So there are voices behind the scenes trying to reach Trump, saying we can't afford a cold war. We hardly traded with the Soviet Union during the real Cold War. China is a very different relationship. We're in uncharted territory because we're in a very sharp ideological and security confrontation with a country that's also the West's major trading partner. We've never tried that before so we don't really know how that works. But all of those forces are tugging policy in different directions.</s>CURNOW: Finally, looking at Houston, the issue of Chinese spying has been brewing for a while. Some might say the administration needs to be tough, the scale of the problem is too big and it's genuinely state sanctioned.</s>RENNIE: You are right, this was a big issue in President Obama's time. He changed an agreement with the Chinese. Everyone knows countries spy on one another but the deal was that countries shouldn't steal commercial secrets and hand them to their favorite company to make money. That was a deal that President Obama thought he had reached with Xi Jinping. The Americans are very clear they think on a massive, industrial scale, China is breaking that promise and is stealing American secrets, including potential vaccine research. So you're right; there will be retaliation so we are kind of waiting to see what's next, which American consulate here in China is potentially closed down in retaliation. There's a long of way to go in this part of-for-tat.</s>CURNOW: It's good to have you perspective, thanks so much, David Rennie there, live in Beijing. Still ahead here on CNN, President Trump is deploying federal agents into more Democratic-led cities as he ramps up his law and order campaign promise. Reaction from local leaders is next plus. Police in Zimbabwe have arrested critics of the president ahead of planned protests next week and now a nationwide curfew is in place.