Contact tracing is largely gone. I think and i believe that we should be treating every case as if its a variant during this pandemic right now. The good news according to dr. Anthony fauci is Johnson Johnsons new singledose vaccine could help get more people vaccinated and prevent severe disease and hospitalizations as the virus continues to mutate and replicate. We have now a valueadded additional vaccine candidate. This is a singleshot vaccine in which you start to see efficacy anywhere from 7 to 10 days. It is inexpensive and the company is capable of making doses in the numbers of billions. Joining me now nbc news chief White House Correspondent and Weekend Today cohost Kristen Welker. Dr. Celine gounder, a member of bidens Advisory Board during the transition. And patrice harris, former president of the american medical association. Kristen, how difficult is it proving for the biden team with such a short transition, if any, to get their arms around the shortage of doses and the
We have a ton of developments today in the Coronavirus Vaccine situation. What we do know is encouraging in many waysramping up vaccine production. What we dont know about the effectiveness is terrifying. It makes you wonder if the u. S. Needs to dramatically rethink the current Vaccine Distribution strategy. Lets start with the good news. Today johnson and johnson leased some promising data from its phase three clinical trials. The vaccine is 72 effective in the u. S. At preventing moderate to severe illness. Experts consider that a strong level of protection. Here is the potential worrying news. The company disclosed the data suggests the vaccine was less effective against the South Africa Covid Variant we have been dropping. Effectiveness dropped from 72 to 57 . Its called that because it was south africa was the first place it was found which is more contagious and resistant to the vaccines we have. Its already in the United States and appears to be spreading. The more contagious u
I think it was an effective measure. The idea now is we have to hit back hard. We have to hit back strong if were going to finally put this dual crisis of the pandemic and economic payment engendered behind us. With respect to larrys point, one thing is just wrong which is our team is dismissive of inflationary risks. We have constantly argued the risks of doing too little are far greater than the risk of going big. Providing families and businesses with the relief they need to put this virus behind us. I want to quote Jerome Powell who strongly reiterated this view the other day. I think it was a week or so ago that inflationary risks are also asymmetric. He said, im much more worry about falling short of a complete recovery and losing peoples careers and lives they built because they dont get back to work in time. Im more concerned about the damage that will do, not just to their lives but to the United States economy, to the productive capacity of the economy. Im more concerned abou
I dug into and im excited to tell my daughter about it. For those who have not been following as closely, through the Artemis Program, the United States government will work with industry and International Partners to send astronauts to the surface of the moon, another man and another woman to the moon, which is exciting, conduct new and exciting science, and demonstrate americas values. To date only 12 humans have walked on the moon. That was half a century ago. The Artemis Program provides exactly the opportunity to add numbers to that, of course. Lunar exploration has broad and bicameral support in congress, most recently detailed in the fy201 Omnibus Spending Bill and we support this effort. Can you update us on the president s thinking on the issue of forgiving Student Loan Debt . There are some groups that are pushing anew for the president to forgive all Student Loan Debt. Where does he stand on that . Sure. The president has and continues to support canceling 10,000 of federal
Things that i just told you i cared about, and i want you to know, a lot of americans dont trust our government and thats sad. The problem with that is, though, is i was allowed to believe things that werent true and i would ask questions about them and talk about them and that is absolutely what i regret. Regret. Its about the closest youre going to hear for anything that even comes close to an apology. There was no apology. We have a lot to unpack from those remarks. As you can see there, congresswoman greene basically tried to portray herself more as a victim, not as a perpetrator of all this nonsense and she tried to distance herself from past support of qanon conspiracy theories, drawing a line around the year 2018 and compartmentalizing things there and saying that was a different person. The house is debating ahead of that vote this afternoon to strip congresswoman greene of her two Committee Assignments. A vote putting every member on the record about where they stand on greene