Incoming First Lady Jill Biden will receive their vaccines on monday. When the outgoing President Trump receives his vaccination is a question. The cdc will still need to give its authorization to Moderna Vaccine before vaccinations can happen possibly on monday. This is a landmark moment in the fight against the virus. The fight is nowhere near over. This week alone 1 in 216 americans tested positive for coronavirus. Just this week, 1 in 216. The 12th day in a row a Record Number of americans are the in hospital with coronavirus, more than 114,000 and on thursday, for the third day in a row, the u. S. Had more than 3,000 deaths from covid, an average of more than 2600 deaths a day over the last week. In total, more than 312,000 people in the u. S. Have lost their lives to this virus. Despite this all there remains a steady flow of disinformation about the virus and mask wearing and the vaccine, including from the president. Various republican elected officials, and maga media and continue to ignore the health guidelines. It is projected more than 5 0 r 560,000 americans will have died from coronavirus by april 1st. A projection we hope will prove wrong. As cnns randy kaye reports this is bad and especially brutal in one particular state. Reporter the United States, now in far worse shape than any point during the pandemic. Deaths reported on thursday 312,000 and predicted 560,000 u. S. Deaths in april. We are 100 icu capacity. More than 233,000 on thursday, about 1 in every 216 americans has been infected this week alone. Hospitalizations also mounting nationwide. More than 114,000 americans hospitalized as of thursday. All eyes are on california which seems to be offering a grim preview of what the rest of the country can expect. There is so much coming in so regardless of how much staffing, how good the staffing is, its still not enough. Reporter the States HealthDepartment Says two people are dying from covid every hour. Its so bad there are now zero icu beds left in california and forcing some hospitals to set up tents in parking lots. We are drowning in covid19 patients right now and up to our neck. Our concern if we cant people to do better we could go under. Reporter the director of the l. A. County Health Department say their hospitals are under siege though more help is likely on the way. The fda Advisory Board voted thursday to use emergency use authorization of modernas vaccine and the fda could author that authorization any moment. We likely will see shots in the arm by the very early part of next week. I would hope monday or tuesday. Reporter cnns dr. Sanjay gupta, a practicing neurosurgeon, and the dean of the Morehouse School of medicine, got their shots in the arm earlier this morning live on cnn. Its done reporter Vice President m e pence and Surgeon General jerome adams doing their part. The Surgeon General urging people of color to get vaccinated. As a u. S. Surgeon general and a black man, i am equally aware of t of this. Cv and walgreens are to help vaccinate millions of people in Nursing Homes and longterm care facilities. I think everyone should be willing to take it after all the billions they have spent to make us well. Reporter meanwhile, one note about our story. Its actually l. A. County that is seeing, on average, two people die every hour from covid19. Jake, in michigan, things are looking better. So much so that Governor Gretchen Whitmer is expected to lift restrictions there. Starting next week, she says in high schools they will start to have inperson learning once again and also some indoor ve e venues like movie theaters can reopen and allow indoor fitness because the states numbers are proofing. It seems their sevenday average for Positivity Rate is 10. 8 and 17 of all the states hospital beds are being used for covid19 patients and this governor likes what she sees and is willing to open the state up just a bit. Thank you, randi kaye. Chief medical correspondent drmpdr. Sanjay gupta joins us live. You received your vaccine about nine hours ago on cnn. How do you feel . I feel really good. Maybe a little bit of a soreness in the arm but, you know, i would describe it even less than when i get a flu shot. Really, nothing. I waited about 15 minutes after the shot, just to see if there would be any sort of allergic reaction or anything. Basically, you know, been fine. I dont feel anything different right now. There are a lot of americans disproportionately people of color anxious skeptical of taking the vaccine for reasons. You took your vaccine live on tv and so did the Surgeon General. What does that message send do you think . Its a good question and one ive been thinking about quite a bit. I think its tough to measure the impact of these sorts of things doing Something Like this live on tv, does it lead to people being more willing to take the vaccine. I dont know. But i think so, perhaps. I think we know there is lots of reasons why people are hesitant. Its not one main reason. Sometimes its a distrust in government and people may have thought the process was too rushed, people are worried about side effects. For me, it was a collision of my worlds. As a Health Care Workers, it was my turn to get a vaccine. There was going to be some 8,000 people vaccinated in our hospital system. But as a journalist, ive been covering this story a year, alongside you. I saw the beginnings of this vaccine. I saw the early data. I talked to the vaccine makers. I talked to the fda. I reviewed the data myself. In some ways, it was a more informed decision because i was a journalist covering this than even if i was just a health care worker. I say that and i decided to get it. Perhaps that makes a difference in terms of people who are thinking about this themselves. I went through the whole merit metric of thought on this. Valley did it alongside me of morehouse and i asked her specifically about black americans and what the hess tanteds tantsy could it be addressed. There are black scientists in the room where the decisions are being made so we clearly will not go against ourselves, right . Because we understand how critical this is for black america and latin america who have been disproportionately affected by the virus. I would not recommend anything if i did not believe it was safe. One thing she really reinforced to me, jake, was that black americans have been part of this vaccine process all along, including as part of the trials. We show you the trial participation from black americans and youll remember, jake, in the beginning, it was not clear that they were getting enough people recruited in these trials that made up different demographics and now you can look and see how many black africanamericans were in these trials. Does this allay some of those fears . I dont know. Going back to the original point, i think it might make a difference. We are on the cusp of a second vaccine from moderna getting emergency use authorization and expected that process to go faster than with pfizer. Is that still the case . It could. We have kind of gone through this at this point. You had Many Committee members part of the Fda Advisory Committee also doing moderna so i think they are through this process and able to short cut a little bit. The calendar we put together we can show it to you was similar what we saw with pfizer which did move quickly, get an authorization potentially and over this weekend youll probably have meetings from the cdc that are going to look specifically who should be getting the vaccine first. We know Health Care Workers and longterm care facility residents but how about next . Essential workers, which essential workers . People over a certain age . How will they fall in line. When you put it altogether, jake, you know, next week, again, like we saw with pfizer, it is quite likely we will see the Moderna Vaccine being utilized in this country again before christmas. Sanjay, the situation in california has particularly spiralled out of control. The Los Angeles Mayor says there are no icu beds available in california and morgues are out of space because so many have died. President is retweeting to questions the efficacy of masks and Public Health restrictions. Its unbelievable. But beyond that, why are things so bad in california . I mean, the governor and the mayor there, people have been pretty officials have been pretty aggressive in terms of pushing health regulations. Well, one thing that it isnt, jake i just want to make this point clear is i think it isnt that the virus is different. Obviously, that is an obvious point. You understand that. The reason i say it that way because i think people find these situations and they say, well, here is an example where, obviously, masked dont work or the virus isnt spreading. The virus doesnt care where it is. And it doesnt care who its possibly in fact, i possibly infecting. It is a virus that is out there and its contagious. If there is a policy in place and in those places the virus youre still running into Critical Situations like this, its because, you know, there is clearly situations where the virus is being allowed to spread, gatherings of people, for example, in california at the end of the summer, you had these spikes at that point as well. It was unclear why and then you realized that there were so many inhome private gatherings that were going on that were likely fueling the spread at that point. So i dont know what exactly sometimes is fueling it, but it is clear that people are coming together in unprotected situations and the virus is finding lots of homes as a result. We know how to prevent that from happening. Staying home as much as possible and wearing a mask. On a new health subject the centers for Disease Control an prevention today reported the largest number of dug overdoses for a 12month period ever recorded, more than 81,000 drug overdoses in the 12 months leading up to may 2020. So before the pandemic began, although including it as well. The cdc blames this largely on deaths involving synthetic opioids. What is going on . Opioid crisis numbers seemed to be going in the right direction and now they seem to be going in the wrong direction. I think that the, in part, if there was any sort of signs of hope with regard to the Opioid Epidemic the opioids were placed by the synthetics. A couple of years ago we saw the significant spikes so much so that life xantsy in the United States was coming down. Top three reasons opioid. The deaths of despair as they have been called. And that is a trend that has continued. You do see different drugs that are being used and we dont, obviously, have the data for this most recent time period. But its been a concern for a while. My guess it will continue to be for sometime. Dr. Sanjay gupta, thank you so much. Vice president mike pence got the Coronavirus Vaccine today while President Trump did well, its not really clear. The president has been awol as coronavirus is spiraling out of control. Time running out for congress to reach an agreement to help the americans desperate for financial aid. What will it take for lawmakers to strike a deal . Stay with us. Come on over here heres to the duers. To all the people who realize they can du more with less asthma thanks to dupixent, the addon treatment for specific types of moderatetosevere asthma. Dupixent isnt for sudden breathing problems. It can improve lung function for better breathing in as little as 2 weeks and help prevent severe asthma attacks. Its not a steroid but can help reduce or eliminate oral steroids. Dupixent can cause serious allergic reactions including anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have rash, shortness of breath, chest pain, tingling or numbness in your limbs. Tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection and dont change or stop your asthma treatments, including steroids, without talking to your doctor. Are you ready to du more with less asthma . Talk to your asthma specialist about dupixent. If your financial situation has changed, we may be able to help. If your financial situation has changed, new projects means you need to hire. Gers. I need indeed. Indeed you do. The moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. Claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed. Com home. Turning to our politics lead. Vice president pence led the parade of top government leaders trying to build confidence in the Coronavirus Vaccine by getting it. President trump was on twitter spreading lies about both the pandemic and the election as the nation faces several emergencies. Cnns Kaitlan Collins reports, the president s latest desperate attempt to undermine the will of the people seems focused on pressuring republican senators to help him attack democracy. Reporter with the stick of a needle in his left shoulder, Vice President mike pence became the most high profile member of the Trump Administration to receive a Coronavirus Vaccine today. I didnt feel a thing. Well done. Reporter President Trump hasnt gotten the vaccine yet and was noticeably absent as his vp did. Minutes before pence received his injection, trump was tweeting about the russia hoax on the oneyear anniversary of his impeachment. Article 2 is adopted. Reporter instead of taking a major role in his own administrations campaign to build confidence and reduce skepticism in the vaccine, trump, instead, has been almost entirely consumed by his election loss. He praised Tommy Tuberville after he refused to rule out objecting to the Election Results when Congress Needs to ratify them next month. We have got to fight for this country and our kids reporter trump hailed the republican and former auburn football coach as a great champion and man of courage and said more republican senators should follow his lead but that is the opposite of what Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell is telling his party after warning them in a private call this week, not to object on january 6th. Trump tweeted that mcconnell should get tougher or you wont have a Republican Party any more. One thing the president hasnt tweeted about is the suspected russian hack of the u. S. Government and private companies. Even though a white house official told cnn he was briefed on it yesterday. The president is not just not leading on this, but he is actually creating barriers and standing in the way of dealing with this in the way that a commander in chief should. Reporter they said afterwards they did not get sufficient answers after a telephone call. No. I think quite frankly, the level of specificity i find in new york city and the Washington Post or the journal is much better than what they brought this morning. Very disappointing. Reporter jake, there has been confusion at the pentagon after those transition meetings with the incoming biden team were called off today. The defense secretary chris miller said in a statement that that was because there was a mutually agreed upon twoweek delay because of the holidays and they picked those meetings back up in january, but the Biden Transition Team said that is not the case and they never agreed to that and actually think its important to continue those meetings right now given there was such a delay to the transition after the president held it up. Then a defense official told my colleague ryan brown that it was an formal agreement to pause two weeks but they were slowing down the number of meetings and briefings they were having. A lot of qugs whconfusion there. The biden team believes right now they are more critical than ever. Yeah. Im starting to get the impression the Trump Administration doesnt always tell the truth. Kaitlan collins, thank you. In the money lead both democrats and republicans on capitol hill say they are very close on a stimulus deal but close does not mean final, of course. No deal could mean no 600 stimulus checks for american. No extra funding for covid testing and no federal loans to help keep Small Businesses open. Cnns Suzanne Malveaux is live on capitol hill. You tell me we could have some breaking news in the next hour or so. What do you anticipate . We are just looking at less than eight hours away from a potential government shutdown. House m they could announce there is some sort of breakthrough in the covid relief package and this 900 billion dollar plan to go through but that is not the case that is the announcement. He said potentially he could say the need more time. We snow pelosi and mcconnell as well as their staff have been horse trading and trying to negotiate and have gone talking to each other throughout the day. Perhaps it will give them a little bit more time this evening. But then the third likely possibility is that they will introduce this continuing resolution, keep the government open for another 24 to 48 hours, keep it funding so they can continue talking. Jake, what we understand now is that even that looks like that is an uphill battle. The number two republican senator john thune saying he does not think that is likely. We know Senate Majority leader mcconnell is sending around to all of the senators will you sign on for this quick pass cr this continuing resolution. If there are any obligations to that, that will not go through and mean there will be a government shutdown. Suzanne malveaux, thank you. One member of Congress Called it a modern day pearl harbor. The enormous cyber attack by a Russian Group targeting multiple Government Agencies that use microsoft. We will talk to the president of microsoft next. Stay with us. This year we got it done. And with free Curbside Pickup at walmart. You can get the perfect gift up until the last minute. Lets end the year nailing it. Leto use your vision benefits. Before the years up. This is us making sure you dont. Use em before you lose em, backed by our 100day guarantee visionworks. See the difference. Fighting cancer doesnt start here. Not in tubes or bags. Not in scans or scribbles. Fighting cancer doesnt even start in a lab. The truth is, fighting cancer starts with you. Covid has devastated our funding for lifesaving research. Help us help patients. Donate today. But with walmarts low prices, you still know how to do it up. And keep costs down. Lets end the year enjoying more. You are all i need baby baby to get by people are saving hundreds on the most reliable lets end the year in a land not so far away, network with xfinity mobile. They can choose from the latest phones or bring their own. And choose the data option thats right for them. They even get nationwide 5g at no extra cost. And since they are on the carrier rated 1 in customer satisfation, they live happily ever after. Again, again xfinity mobile. Your wireless. Your rules. Your way to stay closer together. Click, call, or visit an xfinity store today. In our world lead, the scope of the suspected russian cyberhack on the United States is getting wider by the day. Congressman jason crow, a democrat from colorado, said that our nation is under assault and he said the hack is the modern day cyberequivalent of pearl harbor. Microsoft has joined the growing list of victims identifying 40 or more organizations compromised and comes after hundreds of private firms and agencies confirmed they were attacked in this hack. Joining me now, is the president of microsoft brad smith. Mr. Smith, thanks for joining us. Do you see this the way congressman crow does, a modern day pearl harbor . Does this need to be a response once its clear who was behind it . Well, i do think that those kinds of words are appropriate. This was really an attack of extraordinarily broad cale scale. I think it was a reckless attack because it impacted ultimately around 18,000 institutions around the world. At microsoft, we were fortunate it didnt impact any of our products or services. Our products and services werent used to stage the attack, but we see data from all of these organizations around the world and we have now identified more than 40, 80 of them in the United States where the attacker then unleashed a second wave, if you will, and then penetrated these organizations and inflicted further harm. So it is a wakeup call, it is a moment of reckoning and we should treat it that way. If you see this as a modern day pearl harbor, i dont need to tell you after pearl harbor, fdr gave a speech in which he talked about the day date that will live in infamy. We havent heard President Trump say one word about this . Does he need to say or do something about this . I think as we look to the future, we will all going to need to come together. We are not going to solve this problem in the three or four or five weeks. It is going to be an issue that requires strong president ial leadership. I think it is an issue that will require that we build on some of the successes of 2020. Frankly, one of the great successes of 2020 was the work that cisa did to protect our elections and work with the private sector but then it will require a number of new steps and i think we shouldnt just analogize to pearl harbor but think about kni9 11. The 9 11 commission had an important finding and it said at the heart of the problem was insufficient sharing of intelligence. I think that should speak to us today. Not just sharing of intelligence across the federal government, but with the private sector as well. We need to change the way we work if we are going to better protect the country. You say at least 40 of your clients were hacked, 80 in the United States. Can you tell us which ones and was there a Common Thread among them . Well, interestingly, i think the only thing you could say in common is they were likely to have information that would be of interest to say for an intelligence agency. Some are in the government. We have identified a number of parts of the federal government that we contacted and shared this information once we saw what was happening to them. It spanned from health and finance to telecommunications and National Security. But we have also seen attacks on government contractors, especially in the defense and National Security space, as well as on technology firms, especially in the security space. So, yeah, its fairly wide ranging in terms of the actors interest and inflicting greater damage. We are told this was a very advanced hack and the hackers used previously unknown tactics. Are the hackers still lurking in the servers . Well, these attacks are ongoing. I think that is the first assumption that we should take to heart. I do think that, in some ways, the tactics were new but not entirely new. In some ways, the fundamental methods here is exactly what we saw play out in ukraine. Its what the russian government did to the ukrainian economy and an attack called not petua. What it effectively did was inject now into software that many different organizations use and in ukraine, it was accounting software. In this case, it was Network Management software. What the world has said since is that this needs to be off limits. It puts at risk the entire economy. It is not something that we should tolerate in this day and age in terms of appropriate efforts by a foreign intelligence agency. Former cybersecurity czar Richard Clark was on the show yesterday. He said that sanctions will not be effective to combat this, that whoever did this, assuming its a government, the United States needs to stage a cyber attack in response. A, do you agree . And, b, are the opponents that we are facing here more advanced when it comes to cyberwarfare than the United States is . I dont know that they are more advanced in terms of cyber warfare. I think its a lot harder to play defense than it is to play offense. When you play offense you can pick your methods and you can choose your target. When you play defense, you have to protect everyone every day. So it requires a massively more sophisticated effort that, in this day and age, really brings together the government and the tech sector. That is a big difference from, say, 9 11. To answer your other question, i think what we need is government policy that gives the government multiple tools. I think it always needs to start by publicly holding a bad actor accountable, by attributing the attack to them, and doing it in collaboration with the nations allies. And then there are a variety of steps the government can take to respond. In some cases, it may include economic sanctions. Other cases it may need to go farther. Those are the decisions we need the president of the United States to make as a tech company, i think its our role, most importantly, to ensure that we have the right defense of the country in place. All right. Brad smith, president of microsoft, thank you so much for your time today. We hope youll come back and discuss this more as we learn more about this cyber attack. Thank you. We now know when president elect joe biden and Vice President elect Kamala Harris will get the Coronavirus Vaccine. That news is next. Whoo. Im gonna grow big and strong. Yes, you are. Im gonna get this place all clean. Ill give you a hand. And im gonna put lisa on crutches wait, what . Said shes gonna need crutches. She fell pretty hard. You might want to clean that up, girl. Excuse us. When owning a Small Business gets real, progressive helps protect what you built with customizable coverage. And im gonna eh, eh, eh. Donny, no. Oh. And im gonna eh, eh, eh. 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Find out more, call aag for your free information kit im proud to be a part of aag. I trust em. I think you can too. Call now we are back. The biden transition announced the president elect and soon to be First Lady Jill Biden will each receive their first doses of the Pfizer Vaccine on monday. Cnns jessica dean is live for us now. Tell us more about what youre learning about the vaccinations. Reporter we learned today they will take the first round of the Pfizer Vaccine on monday in delaware. As promised, they will do so publicly for all to see. We also learned that Vice President elect Kamala Harris and her husband will receive vaccines the week following. They are staggering it is vaccines on the health of their experts. If either of them suffer any sort of side effect they wont be going through that at the same time. As for today, it was a very quiet day. President elect biden marking the anniversary, 48th anniversary of the horrific crash and death of his wife, first wife and baby daughter. He did so by attending mass with his family earlier today, but as is typically, he spent most of the day, all of the day really privately without any Public Events to mark this very solemn and sad occasion for him and his family. Tomorrow he goes back to work. He will be introducing key members of his climate team at an event in wilmington, delaware. He had said previously, jake, he was planning to have his full cabinet announced by christmas. That is a week from today. So far, he has got six major slots left to fill, including attorney general. We are told to expect more announcements next week. When we asked the transition about that today they started to allow wiggle room for the president elect saying it may not be just by christmas, there may be some announcements later after that. But we will see what unfolds next weaning. Next week. Thank you. Lets start with President Trump with my panel. Nia, incoming republican senator Tommy Tuberville suggested he would challenge the Election Results when they come to the senate on january 6th. Now President Trump is calling him a great champion and man of courage. More republican senators should follow his lead. In another tweet the president says Senate Majority leader and republican senators have to get tougher or you wont have any Republican Party any more. Fight for it and dont let them take it away. Obviously that is all false. President trump is lying or, in some sort of psychological state of denial. But he is trying to get republican senators to buck mcconnell to overturn the results of a free and fair election. I get he has been doing this for several weeks but still stunning. Do you think republicans, either one or two of them, will followup and do what he is asking . That is the big question. People like ron johnson come to mind and ted cruz and, obviously, rand paul. The folks who have wanted to show their loyalty to this outgoing president. We know that over in the house side, mo brooks might have a collection of conservative house members that want to challenge the results there. That, of course, will go nowhere because the house has the majority there. But, you know, it would make sense for them. It would be better for them if they had senators to join them and tuberville, incoming senator from alabama. I think he was one a little bit unclear to the three branches of government so he might need something of an education on democracy and elections more generally. But listen. I think we are going to have maybe some of those senators fall in line with this president. I think its just a matter of how many. Ultimately, we know its going to happen on january 20th. President trump will no longer be the president and President Biden will be sworn in. The real reason we should point out the real reason Mitchell Mcconnell doesnt want this to happen it would force a vote and the majority of republican senators would then be forced into the position of voting against donald trump because donald trump lost the election yeah, he told them this in a private call. He said, look. Why would you do this . On the record, it will look like youre opposing a very popular president within the Republican Party. And its just curious to me that a new senator would say, i might do this and challenge his leader. Now he may decide that loyalty to trump is much more important in his life than loyalty to Mitch Mcconnell. But Mitch Mcconnell has a way to getting back to people who step out of line too much and im wondering what that would do to that relationship. Its a good way to end up with some bad Committee Assignments and the worst office on capitol hill. Just in case you didnt think that was crazy enough, let me tell you about this. Former general Michael Flynn, trumps former National Security adviser, said this on fringe conservative media. Its sheer lunasy. Take a listen. He could order the within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. I mean, its so ridiculous and insane. But this is the world we are in and now the secretary of the army and the army chief of staff released a statement saying, quote, there is no role for the u. S. Military in determining the outcome of an american election. I mean, i dont even know what to say any more about this Michael Flynn, this is a america. Its not russia. Donald trump is not a dictator. He is not all powerful as that statement suggests, this idea that somehow he can deploy the military to select swing states to its absurd. No words for this. It does make you think its a good thing that Michael Flynn was fired in the early days of Donald Trumps presidency because his ideas about america, his ideas about democracy are just abhorrent and objectionable. Its insane. As you say, absolute lunacy. This is part of the diehard Conspiracy Theory caucus that trump has surrounded himself around and listens to and, in fact, forms part of that 70 million block of voters who voted for him. How many of those people believe such wild conspiracy theories and outlandish thoughts but donald trump, obviously, is doing everything he can to hold on to those people and convince them he actually won this election in a landslide which, again, is absurd. He did not. Yes, he lost. Once again, he lost. Gloria, president elect biden he is going to have to deal with a lot of these people. He is facing a very slim majority in the house. Likely republican control of the senate. Last night, Stephen Colbert asked how he plans to get anything done. Listen. I think once this president is no longer in office, i think youre going to see his impact on the body politic fade and a lot of these republicans are going to feel they have much more room to run and cooperate. Isnt it pretty to think so . Yeah. Well, i think the president elect is being very optimistic here because he would like it to work that way and he would like to be able to work across the aisle no matter who is in the majority, in the senate. Im not so sure he is right. You have donald trump raising over 200 million in a pact that is going to fund his political activity. He is going to want to figure out how to remain the king maker and i think he is making a list of people who were loyal to him, and i think he is going to remain very involved and because of those 74 million voters that nia is talking about, i think they are going to feel beholdent to him and he is going to be tweeting, this i can predict, on every single piece of legislation or deal that is going to come down the pike. Yeah. Its going to be interesting to cover. Thank you both. Tune in this sunday to cnn state of the union. My guest is dr. Moncef slaoui and chris krebs and joe bidens nominee for transportation secretary pete buttigieg. 9 00 a. M. And noon eastern on cnn on sunday. Millions of americans are in desperate need for basic food right now. A look at how you can help next. Light it up like dynamite this is ah light it up like dynamite so watch me light the fire and set the night alight alright shining through the city. In the National Lead today, the economic toll of this pandemic almost every day, somewhere in america looks like this. Long lines for food, stretched for blocks, so many families thankfully, desperate that charities are reaching out. Its actually going to make the burning of the holiday a little bit better for all of us. With covid and being out of work, you know, just depends on income wise whether they get the ebt and stuff like that. I think it helps a lot. That is from louisville, kentucky. This is going on on all over the country. According to the Hunger Relief Group feeding american 54 million americans will be soon food insecure meaning they will miss meals due to lack of access to food regularly. Lets bring in lori jones, ceo of fill abundance, a member of feeding america in the great region of philadelphia. Lori, how severe is the need for food in philly . Do your figures compare to what feeding america is seeing nationally, a significant introo increase to people needing food. We are seeing fill abundance in our nine county area in south pennsylvania and south jersey 50 increase. 40 of the people accessing a Charitable Food Network now are accessing it for the first time. These are brand new americans, our neighbors all of a sudden finding themselves unable to put food on the table. We often see the lines in news reports like this one but youre hearing the stories. Youre meeting the people. What are the most common types of cases that youre hearing from families every day . Ill share something someone shared with me confidentially. A Business Owner i patronized for years emailed me last year saying how do we find food. For years they contributed to the economy and now they have to ask for a handout. This week as we were waiting for snow expecting snow 32 degrees outside. I was in camden, new jersey. There was a line around the corner. The reality is so many people a meeting, a handout in this way. Camden new jersey is across the river from philadelphia. We are one week away from christmas. Do you have what you need to help all of the families coming to you needing help to make ends meet . The community has been incredibly supportive. Feeding america food banks, we have seen outpouring of support. More and more people than ever are donating. Kids are donating 5 from their piggy banks. We are encouraging people to give what they can and give a dollar if you or ten if you can so we help people put food on the table, especially this particular year and especially at the holidays. Will things get more desperate as we get deeper into winter . We are concerned that it will. We have distributed in the last year about 50 Million Pounds of food as a result of covid twice what we normally did and we believe we are on track to do the same this coming year. With unemployment the way it is, we are trying to see what is happening in congress to see if more help is going to come for both food banks as well as for every day citizens. Without that kind of help, we are really worried that we are not going to be able to meet the growing need. The problem with hungry in america is yearround and always a problem. Its a shame. Its an absolute tragedy. Frankly a disgrace. Now you have the pandemic and the economic problems because of the pandemic. Has the demand this year put such a strain that youre not able to even provide for the people who are normally struggling . It has been incredibly difficult for food banks like ours across the country to keep up with the need. The reality is we are only scratching the surface. Its why we ask people to definitely support us. We also call for increases to snap. We realize that we cant do it alone. We have to partner with government and with other agencies to begin to meet the need that people have. How has coronavirus changed the way you conduct operations to try to feed so many families . You, obviously, cant have the kind of facetoface interaction and you have volunteers come in the way you probably were able to in past . Absolutely. We have had to change dramatically how we operate. Initially when covid first started we shut down our operation to volunteers. We now are able to have volunteers in our warehouse. Its helping us sort and pack food. We have fewer volunteers there and we do it safely and take temperatures anybody who come in our buildings and we have covid19 waivers and encourage social distancing and we have masks and gloves and we do everything we can do to keep our staff and volunteers safe but its made it harder. We have had increased expenses for additional cleaning and ppe. We have also provided that for not just our folks but also for the 350 agencies that we work with and through in the philadelphia area. Lori jones, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for the work you do. Im going to give to fill abundance after the show and tweet the show fill abundance. Org. Join me, viewers, if you can. You can find sister organizations at feeding america. Org. If youre looking for ways to help various groups across the country go to cnn. Com impact. Ill put that up on twitter and facebook and instagram after the show so if you missed it, dont worry about it. Thanks again. Thank you. Over 312,000 americans have died from coronavirus. So many families are spending the holidays without their loved ones for the first time because of this pandemic. Mary teachers, paul and rosemary black well are two that we lost. They were passionate about educating the youth of Grand Prairie texas. They had 20 grandkids of their own. Paul was a 61yearold p. E. Teacher, a mentor and a coach. Rosemary was 65 and a bilingual teacher, the longest serving educator at their school. Their son remembers how special his parents made the holidays. Mom made christmas happen and its crazy. Its crazy she is not here and her favorite time of year. When the couple contracted coronavirus, they were hospitalized and quickly declined. On sunday the hospital put them in the same room and interlaced their hands. Paul and rosemary died within minutes. May their memories be a blessing. Our coverage on cnn continues right now. Ill see you sunday morning. Snowe. Announcer this is cnn breaking news welcome on our viewers in the United States and around the world. Im wolf blitzer in the the situation room. We are following breaking news. The United States is now on the verge of another historic milestone in the coronavirus pandemic. At any moment now, the