to keep everyone safe including the staff, and they should be mask as well even if they re vaccinated. kids can transmit this. the great divide, i can feel the temperature going up with a lot of people, particularly vaccinated people when they have to deal with these unvaccinated people. eugene, give us a sense how the white house has been operating behind the scenes this week with regard to handling the surge. what is driving joe biden s latest public announcements and then his statement tonight there may be more to unfold in this strategy. . yes, there s an urgency because they know you know, their one focus, their one focus walking in was the pandemic. that was number one. that was the thing no matter what you wanted to talk to them about, they wanted to talk about covid-19. they wanted to talk about that relief bill. as time has gone on they ve done a good job on vaccinations, right. we have a lot of people vaccinated, 164 million by the last time i checked, more than 164 mi
so i think mandating the coronavirus vaccine, in particular the mrna one but really any one because they re all severely effective, i think mandating them could go a long way. would make it a crime not to get it. remember, if you are a hermit you don t have to be vaccinated or if you wear a hazmat suit all the time, but if you are interacting other people vaccination would be the way to go. i think mandating them is the only way to significantly increase the rates. i want to ask you before i let you go and it does stick with me, getting hit by the train analogy, how are the folks you are working with doing? very fatigued. the worst part is the residents i am training also, for one, are getting infected despite being vaccinated and, two, having to deal with patients at odds with their treatment plan. as my resident told me two nights ago multiple times on shift, i m beginning to lose
before. i do think president trump will file something and will seek to delay the production of these documents. i think he ultimately will lose, but i think he will fight it until he can fight no more. so, dr. patel, i want to go back to the questions that i know you are hearing a lot from folks about the coronavirus. let s start, if we can, with the whole idea of boosters. journalists and author laurie garrett wrote this in a column today for foreign policy. waning vaccine efficacy coupled with a stubborn one-fifth of the adult population refusing any immunization, has opened the door for the dangerous mutant delta variant to wreak havoc among the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. that s why the united states is going to need a third dose of the mrna vaccines for the nation s older population. the triple play is already overdue. when do we need to start having a serious conversation?
show. i will be joined by bet owe o rourke. watch the saturday show at 10:00 a.m. eastern on msnbc. the 11th hour with brian williams starts right now. good evening once again. i m chris jansing in for brian williams. day 192 of the biden administration. in this urgent and critical phase of the pandemic, the white house has stepped up its response to the surge, doubling efforts to get more vaccinated and also recommending masks even for those who have gotten their shots. tonight there s a new indication the white house could be weighing even tougher tactics to stop the spread. reporter: should americans expect more coming up, more restrictions because of covid? in all probability. by the way, we had a good day yesterday. almost a million people got vaccinated.
earlier isn t letting schools mandate mask. also he said he s not masking his own three kids. he said, i want to be able to see them smile. he said, and this is the important thing, there s no evidence masks can prevent outbreaks at schools. is that true? do masks not work the same way as they do for everybody else? you know who is not smiling? kids with covid. they actually look pretty might rabble and their parents aren t happy either, and they re really in dire straits when they go to icu. i will grant kids generally don t get as sick as adults do, but none, none of the kids i have seen infected with covid have been happy about it. absolutely zero of them with a very tight confidence interval. we know from other countries, we know from other school systems that masks are very effective. listen, if 100% of the school is vaccinated you probably don t need a mask. but i know nobody under age 12 in this country is vaccinated. the only way of preventing transmission of disease if not