after six women of asian descent were among eight people killed in a rampage at three spas in the atlanta area. joining me now nbc news white house correspondent geoff bennett in atlanta, nbc news correspondent dr. john torres and heidi presblea. tell us more about the visit to the cdc and the vice president and president s visit meeting with asian-american leaders this hour. the visit to the cdc officials told us that was the president and vice president s opportunity to get a briefing from their medical and health teams about this ongoing fight against the pandemic. but based on what we saw from the president in his own words that was his opportunity to thank the scientists, to thank those career staffers who have been working around the clock at the cdc. he said science is back. he thanked those career staffers he said for changing the psyche of a nation. since then the president has made the short trip from the cdc over to emery university where he s meeting privately w
centers and more increase in testing. it s going to help us accelerate our nationwide evidence to reopen schools safely. last week i directed allstate®s, tribes and territories to make all adults eligibly vaccinated to later than may 1. while this is a time of optimism, it s not a time for relaxation. i need all americans to keep doing your part. wash your hands, stay socially distanced, keep masking up as recommended by the cdc and get vaccinated when it s your turn. none of this is political. it s all science-based. but now is not the time to let our guard down. that s science-based as well. and the last week, we have seen increases in the number of cases in several states. things may get worse as new variants of the virus spread. that s why we need to vaccinate as many people as quickly as we possibly can, because the best thing we can do to fight back against these variants we will do. we have to beat this virus. we have to. and we will. but we ll do it by setting aside
as of tonight, we know very little about most of the victims. now, information is still trickling in, but we still don t know literally anything about the victims in atlanta, beyond the fact that four asian women were killed. today, the atlanta deputy police chief said they were still in the process of notifying next of kin, fair enough. they also said that nothing is off the table in the investigation, including whether the murders were indeed a hate crime. we do know more about the four victims in the cherokee county shooting. they are delaney ashley yaon. paul andre michelles, age 54. a woman who was 49, and dao yo fung, who was 44. we also know ortiz was injured and is hospitalized in intensive care. out of all the victims, we know the most about delaina yan, she was visiting the spa with her husband who was in a separate room and wasn t injured. she had multiple children including a baby born just last summer. michelles was a handyman at young s asian massage, according
i m proud to announce that tomorrow, 58 days in our administration, we ll have met my goal of administering 100 million shots to our fellow americans. that s weeks ahead of schedule. the president says eight weeks ago, only 8% of seniors had received a vaccination. today 65% of people age 65 or older have received one shot. 30% are fully vaccinated. he continues to believe there will be enough vaccine supply for every adult in america by the end of may. so the white house says that s part of the reason why it s finalizing plans of sending millions of doses to mexico and canada. that vaccine important to note is not approved for use here in the united states. our first priority remains vaccinating the u.s. population and ensuring our neighbors can contain the virus is a mission critical step. we have seven million release able doses of astra zeneca. we re working to finalize plans to lend them to mexico and 1.5 million to canada. so the bottom line, charles, president
by that suspect were staffed predominantly by people of asian descent. all but one of the women killed were of asian descent. the suspect was apprehended and taken into custody late last night. he was charged today with eight counts of murder. law enforcement says he has admitted to the shootings. police say he told them he has a sex addiction and that s why he says he killed all those women working in those spas, because he wanted to eliminate his temptation for his addiction or something. police say in talking with the suspect, he gave them no indication that the killings were racially motivated, even if they did predominantly target asian women. a police captain in the cherokee county sheriff s department, cherokee county is where the first shooting took place. when he discussed the suspect s explanation for the shooting, he told reporters it was because the suspect was having a, quote, bad day yesterday. that s what he said. as if that was an explanation for why the young