focus and talk about the covid pandemic because johnson & johnson will reportedly ask the fda to approve a booster for its one-shot covid vaccine this week. that s happening as we re seeing a decline in infections across the country. new cases have dropped by more than 20% over the last two weeks, and three more air carriers are joining united airlines in the new york city public school system in requiring vaccines for all of their employees. joining us now is dr. vin gupta, a critical care pulmonologist at the university of washington. also with us is nbc news correspondent shaquille brewster at a hospital in marshal, michigan. i want to talk about the fact that new infections are down. so we re all wondering, have we finally reached a plateau with this current wave, with this current delta variant? good afternoon, geoff, great to see you. what we expect to happen throughout the month of october is actually a minor decline in cases and a plateau. right now we ve lost 1,800
where some of those vaccination efforts stand. months into the efforts, you see the figures on the screen here. about 77% of eligible americans have received at least one shot. about 67% already considered fully vaccinated, and then there s also some promising infection numbers here showing the decreasing cases and hospitalizations across the country. we have heard promising news from multiple officials here. when it comes to what we re seeing here in new york, for example, come monday, the new vaccination mandate will actually take effect, those teachers in the new york city public school system had until yesterday at 5:00 p.m. to have at least one shot, and we understand 93% of those teachers actually got that shot but i tell you what, though, one of the big things to watch are going to be some of those meetings by fda vaccine advisory committees that will be happening in the coming days, talking not only about the pfizer shot for some of the younger folks but booster shots, moderna
time will tell. time will tell. all right, thank you so much. jacqui, very, very much. we are getting word right now that u.s. supreme court justice sonia sotomayor refuses to block new york city vaccine mandate for public school employees. bryan llenas has more on this. brian, this is something that would really was bothering teachers who felt that the mandate went too far. what are you hearing now? well, look this was an emergency order. they were asking for. these 4 new york city teachers to come in and block this vaccine mandate that takes effect in exactly two minutes. justice sonia sotomayor from new york decided thee will not be blocking this vaccine mandate. now all 148,000 teachers and staff members that work for the new york city public school system, the largest in the country, must be vaccinated. those that are unvaccinated come
that every other fully approved vaccine has done. the fda is the gold standard in the world in terms of a regulatory body. there s no other national regulatory authority that matches the fda. now, according to our nbc news count, total covid cases in the united states have now passed 38 million. 1 million new cases have been added over just these last six days. cdc data showing over 51% of us are now fully vaccinated. nearly 61% have had at least one dose. and as the president recommended, more vaccine mandates are going into effect. earlier today, the country s largest school system announced its own rules. all teachers and staff in the new york city public school system must have at least one dose in them by september 27. pentagon also preparing to send specific vaccination guidelines to over a million active duty service members. meanwhile, speaking of the
more vaccine monitor going into effect. earlier today, the largest school system announced its own rules and all teachers and staff in the new york city public school system must have at least one dose and then by september 27. the pentagon is also preparing to send specific vaccination guidelines to over 1 million active duty service members. speaking of the active duty military, the white house is speeding up the evacuations out of afghanistan now with eight days left officially until the august 31 troop withdrawal deadline. then ministration says, in the past 24, hours nearly 11,000 people have been evacuated from kabul. 48,000 have been airlifted out since august the 14th. crowds desperate to leave afghanistan remain outside the airport gates where it s bedlam. the pentagon says, u.s. military commanders are in contact with the pentagram.