Company says its phase 3 trial in the u. S. Found its 72 effective in preventing moderate to severe symptoms and says it will file for Emergency Authorization in the coming week, that could mean approval by the end of february. Heres whats key, the vaccine does not require Ultra Cold Temperatures for storage and Shelf Life Is Good for up to two years, huge win. The other breaking story were following, scientists warning the u. S. Is in a race against time with the new Coronavirus Variants popping up across the country and one of those strains, the South African Variant, is now officially here. Two cases have been confirmed in the state of south carolina. Even more concerning, the state departments Public Health warning says that two infected adults had no recent travel history and no connection to one another. And its raising concerns the strain may already be circulating within the community as new data indicates the vaccines we have may be less effective against this one. That said, that has always been our concern that when viruses mutate and they develop strains and dominant strains they usually do so for some advantage to the virus. That may come in the tune of, you know, our vaccines not working as well. That said, i also want to note that, you know, we never expected a vaccine as efficacious as the moderna and Pfizer Vaccine at 95 efficacy. All of this as the u. S. Surpasses 434,000 coronavirus deaths, and 25. 9 million infections. I want to bring in dr. Kavita patel. Im so glad youre here. I want to start with, what do you think the Immediate Impact of this singledose vaccine could be . Hi, stephanie, morning, i know, so much to talk about. I think the Immediate Impact is on the world. This is as you mentioned an incredibly stable vaccine to use, especially in developing countries where freezers frankly are not practical. I think this is good news for the entire world. Its putting all of us who see how highly effective the first two vaccines that we have in the United States have been in a bit of a conundrum. Because stephanie, ill say it, while these results seem disappointing trying to achieve 95 was never something we thought possible and i think it makes even more critical some of the biden goals to get as many shots into arms now as quickly as possible and the j j vaccine gives us one of those tools because it does offer pretty high protection, especially against severe disease. J j says its vaccine is 72 effective. Can you help us understand the difference . Because 95 for moderna and pfizer, i dont know, to the layman like me, id want to go for the 90. I dont blame you, stephanie, and thats why i think its really important to remember when the trials were done and where they were done. To put it into context what we saw from pfizer and moderna on their data did not include Trial Participants that had these variants and some of the countries in which these variants have emerged. So interestingly enough youve got Johnson Johnson which was in trial in Latin American countries as well as data from south africa. Moderna put out data last week that against the South African Variant they did not have that 95 . So i do think putting the 95 against the 72 , couple of things, youre right, but i would also tell you that it is more critical that we get as Many Americans vaccinated as soon as possible. If we can do that with the two more highly effective vaccines in a shorter time im all for it but stephanie im looking at those numbers that the biden team put out, its going to be summer, end of summer. These variants, there are more out there, and the ones that we know of that are frightening some of us are here in the United States. So we do need to get these shots out and i just want to point out that 85 , if you look at the subanalysis for Johnson Johnson, it does show an 85 Risk Reduction in severe disease, which is very good news. So for the person out there whos saying, wait a minute, if it doesnt work well on these new variants, maybe i shouldnt take it at all. Help that person understand why they should take it no matter what. Look, i think that where were at in the country, including the Vaccine Clinics that im working in, we dont have the luxury of having choices as youve reported on supply scares, we are looking at trying to get what vaccines we can get from the federal government and state into peoples arms. What i would be very cautious, first of all, weve got a little bit of Science By Press Release but theyve been doing a good job at least getting as much data as possible. What i would try to look at is understanding differences by age. We know sometimes these vaccines dont work as well in people over the age of 80. Not sure if the trial had participants over the age of 80 but we would want to see if theres a certain demographic and especially the demographic that would benefit from this shot, stephanie, is one that is a high risk demographic of not getting that second shot. For other vaccines we have where you need more than one dose we can see anywhere from a 25 to a 60 dropoff in that second shot, and we know that with one shot you can at least get efficacy, or effectiveness to fight severe moderate and severe covid which is what were most worried about in the clinical world. President biden has signed a number of executive actions on covid, what tangible differences do you expect to see on the front lines with your patients . Yeah, the most tangible difference, i work in a Community Health center, a majority of our population is uninsured, stephanie, because they lost jobs, didnt have Health Insurance through employment, i was incredibly proud to see the president open up enrollment into the Affordable Care act from February 15th To May 15th. Consider this a Public Service announcement, if you do not have Health Insurance or you know someone who doesnt and they are struggling, even though weve said costs related to covid that are, quote, covered, stephanie, you and i know that bills pop up and people have to face critical problems when they have health care issues. That, alone to me, was the single most important thing, probably can cover up to 20 million uninsured people, and stephanie, heres the good news, about 5 million of those qualify for completely free premiums for certain plans on the individual exchange. Thats great news for any american trying to struggle with covid this year. That is excellent news indeed. Dr. Patel, im always glad when youre here, especially when weve got big news like this, thanks for join ing us. Lets talk to our reporters in the field. First to my colleague dasha burns in new jersey, you got an exclusive look at the Vaccine Shortages in my home state. Every day im hitting refresh, refresh to help my parents and thus far have been unsuccessful. Reporter yeah, stephanie, one thing i can tell you, after all of our reporting this week is that your home state is ready, ready to vaccinate on a massive scale. Today were at one of the six megasites in the state, this used to be the meadowlands racetrack, you can see the remnants of that still here. But today this is a site that can vaccinate 2,400 people a day. But today, stephanie, theyre only giving out about 600 doses, a fraction of what they have the capacity to do and this is something that were seeing at every level, state, county, municipality, the investment in infrastructure has actually been incredible but a lot of it is not being used right now because of the lack of supply. We visited the supply hub here in Bergen County where they invested in enough Freezer Space to store a million doses but right now all those freezers, theyre sitting empty because theyre only getting an allocation of about 1,500 to 2,000 a week. And this is something were seeing, like i said, across the board. Remember just a couple of months ago when we were talking about how these places were preparing, we were asking questions, can these counties, can these Health Departments really do it, can they build out the infrastructure. The answer weve largely found is yes, the thing thats missing is actually the vaccines. I want you to hear from the Bergen County executive, take a listen. When we First Talking about the vaccine coming out we had 217 cubic foot. One of those is at the hospital right now, the other one is in the room over there. But because they were saying were going to get all this vaccine we said, listen, lets get prepared, lets get the biggest we can get so that we can store the most and get it out into the population here in Bergen County and northern new jersey. Thats why you see these 27 cubic foot freezers ready to go. Reporter stephanie, the governor is going to be here in just a little bit, hes going to tour the site and were going to talk to him about what hes hearing from the federal government about when sites like this can really operate at their full potential, stephanie. You might have to go have lunch with my parents, dasha. I want to turn to new york where my colleague Kristen Dahlgren is standing by. What more can you tell us about this disturbing story out of new york that covid related nursing home deaths may have been 50 higher than were first reported, and the first reported numbers were upsetting. Reporter right, i mean, we all know what happened early on in the pandemic in Nursing Homes was tragic but now the Attorney General is saying it may be much worse than we were told so this comes out of a months long investigation by the state Attorney General. Shes saying the number of Covid Nursing Deaths may be much, much higher, this was a 76 page report and took aim at that March 25th Directive that sent Covid Patients into Nursing Homes to free up hospital beds. Its long been a political hot potato here in new york, new York Governor Andrew Cuomo saying he was just following federal guidelines and that Nursing Homes could at any point tell the state if they werent equipped to take those patients. The Attorney General report also found that some Nursing Homes didnt follow protocol, didnt even have Covid Patients isolated like they were supposed to. This morning the state Health Commissioner is taking issue with the report, especially that word undercounted. He said the state has always been very consistent with Counting Nursing Home deaths as those people who died in Nursing Homes. They werent putting into that pool anyone who went from a nursing home to a hospital and then died. And so if you add those numbers up, the people who died in Nursing Homes, the people who were taken from Nursing Homes to hospitals, and then a few thousand people that theyre still waiting on confirmation that it was covid deaths, that number, stephanie, is 12,500, and not the 6,000 that is currently on the books. Wow, weve got to keep reporting this story out. That is not good news. Kristen, thank you so much. Coming up, trading will be back open on the robinhood app for 13 stocks that were forced to halt some trading during the gamestop frenzy after the company got A Billion Dollar infusion from their investors and theres already at least one congressional hearing expected into what happened. Were going to explain by the anger of the trade freeze might be off base but the ire over broken markets in unfair system is justified and may be an opportunity to make them stronger and better for everyone. And next, no new Executive Orders are expected from President Biden today after a record first nine days in office. Could his use of the Executive Pen come back to hurt Coronavirus Relief negotiations . Well find out. Ting nothing bute till you find the perfect slice. Even if everyone asks you. Another burger truck . Dont listen to them that means cooking day and night until you get. [ ding ] you got paid that means adding people to the payroll. Hi mom. That means. Best burger ever. 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Walgreens makes affording your medicare prescriptions. No sweat. So you can get back to the thing youd rather be doing. This morning President Biden is getting to work but hes not putting his pen to paper, this is the first weekday since his inauguration that the president doesnt have any executive actions to sign after he signed all 45 of these actions since he took office nine days ago. White House Press Secretary jen psaki saying yesterday that he doesnt want to use them for everything but she also said hes got a huge mess to clean up since hes been sworn in. There are steps, including overturning some of the harmful detrimental and yes immoral actions of the Prior Administration that he felt he could not wait to overturn. Any historian will tell you that he walked into the presidency at one of the most difficult moments in history. My colleague Kelly Odonnell joins us from nbc, and we have pbs newshour White House Correspondent yamish elsinder. Is this winding down of Executive Orders, any chance its from criticism the president has gotten from a number of of outlets saying to slow down. The white house has been about the 1st Of February the Executive Order Plan of rolling out some of these initial steps would wind down. So they are commenting on the criticism but this was also a part of the plan. Part of that commentary is to say this is a need in the president s eyes to undosome of what President Trump had done, to put his own imprint on the executive branch, to fulfill smfs promises made on the Campaign Trail and to have a flurry of activity at the beginning where weve seen the president day by day taking steps in a variety of areas. Legislation is the answer to a lot of issues long term and that will be a harder slog. They have acknowledged there was criticism of the use of exec tiff orders, as there always is, when a president does this. Theres some uneasiness in washington about unilateral steps taken by a president but again they only really can deal with what happens within the executive branch. So its a setting of sort of the new terms of a new administration, and the bigger issues, like the covid relief package, that will take legislation and that will be a bigger challenge and harder to accomplish. Steph . Yamish, the president did take office amid multiple disasters, crises the country is facing. Does the fact hes leaning so heavily on Executive Orders tell you anything about how hard it is to pass anything with this congress . Well, President Biden wanted to hit the ground running and he wanted to also send the signal that