welcome to thursday. it's "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd. right now our country is facing two historic crises. one is the greatest public health emergency in a century, and the other threatens the health of our democracy. as president trump continues his dangerous and delusional fight to overturn the results of a free and fair election. we're going to have much more on that emergency in a few minutes but we begin with the public health emergency. an fda advisory committee is holding a meeting to decide whether to recommend the authorization of pfizer's covid vaccine on an emergency basis. if the panel gives the green light, the fda could announce that emergency use authorization as early as tomorrow. and while help is hopefully on the way, the vaccine is sadly too late for far too many people. coronavirus has killed more than 290,000 americans, including more than 3,000 people yesterday. 3,000. this number shatters the previous single day coronavirus death toll. and it now makes it that single day, yesterday, one of the deadliest mass casualty eveptss in american history. look at it this way. the galveston hurricane of 1900 killed 8,000 people. the battle of antietem during the civil war tilde more than 3600. and the gabattle of gettysburg. december 9th, 3,103 americans died from covid-19. and it likely means that seven of the 10 worst mass casualty events in american history will all be covid related. yesterday's death toll is more americans than were killed in 9/11. and hospitals right now across the country are at capacity. so sadly, there's reason to believe we will surpass yesterday's death toll in the coming days and weeks. right now more than 106,000 americans are hospitalized with the coronavirus. it's the fourth consecutive day that hospitalization totals have broken a record. in austin, texas, icu capacity is at 87%. in baton rouge, louisiana, more than 91%. in albuquerque, new mexico, it's at 118%. erin mclaughlin is in austin, texas. also dr. christopher thomas, a pull monologist who treats critical care patients in baton rouge. erin, paint us the picture in austin. we know the country is suffering. austin, a huge city, a huge growing city. how are they in hospital capacity? >> well, it's not looking great here in austin, chuck. 83% hospital capacity for this city. that number climbs to 90% for the state of texas. and it's really a picture that we're seeing across the country. more than one-third of all americans live in areas right now that are being impacted, areas that are facing critical icu shortages, and surgeons and doctors tell me that it's having a profound impact, not only on covid-19 patients but non-covid patients as well. i was speaking to stephanie deer, her 47-year-old sister laurie's heart stopped in october. she was rushed to the hospital. needed an ecmo machine to save her life. there was not an ecmo machine available because they were all being taken by covid-19 patients. they took 3 1/2 hours for her -- for the doctors to find her a machine. she ended up dying days later because microscopic blood clots formed in her tissues. the doctors attributing her death to the fact that machine was not available due to covid-19. take a listen to what stephanie had to say. >> people are dying from preventable deaths because they cannot get medical care. my sister should be here right now. she should be shopping for christmas, and we should be gossiping. and laughing and she's not here. and she should be. >> since laurie terry's death, the situation in utah has gotten much worse. the numbers there tripling. i was speaking to one surgeon who said his hospital was having to cancel up to 10 elective procedures a day. and they really take exception to that term elective. they say, yes, we call it elective because it's scheduled but, really it is an essential surgery. a potentially life-saving surgery. and if they have to shut down as the surgeon was predicting, they'll have to do for elective surgeries there in utah, that will have profound effects. once you shut that down it's very difficult to restart the engines as we saw at the beginning of the pandemic. >> erin mclaughlin with a dire picture on the ground in austin, texas. thanks very much. let me move to dr. christopher thomas here. dr. thomas, how close is baton rouge are you getting to where, you know, you guys can only handle covid patients and scheduled surgeries. and i sake the point of some surgeons elective makes it sound like it's somehow okay. scheduled surgeries are something that's getting canceled now. >> yeah, we have seen significant elevation in our covid patients over the last four weeks. we now are at the spot and location where it is beginning to impact our non-covid patients significantly. we're a large referral center. and my biggest challenge is that the patients in louisiana who need our expertise are in a position where we can't offer that all the time because of the amount of patients who are in the hospital. the decision about surgeries is one that's critical. we know from the first two surges that there were patients similar to the story that you were just able to share where patient care was impacted. and we are desperate to try to reduce the volume so that we can provide that care, not only to our city of baton rouge but to smaller rural areas. and so the preventive measures that are necessary in smaller areas and in the cities is essentially one large community. it's no longer very local geographic for us. it's a statewide issue. and we need everyone to participate in those preventative measures so that non-covid and covid can get the expertise that we can provide. >> you know, i want to ask you more about the stress on your system there. how much -- how much are you dealing with outside of baton rouge versus in the baton rouge community. how bad are things in rural parts of louisiana where they have just no ability to treat some of these patients? >> yeah, we view ourselves as a service agency to the rest around baton rouge. the level of illness in baton rouge has limited that service capability and we are continuing every day to try to reinstate it. there is no doubt that nine months into this, going through our third surge here in louisiana, that our team members, while committed and wanting to do an excellent job are tired. and that is an impact as we talk about how do you surge again and ask people to do more and try to staff more. it's a real significant problem. >> are you noticing anything different in covid patients this time? are they getting it from a different way? you noted this is the third surge that you've had to deal with. is it -- are people catching it a different way? is there anything different about this surge on the patient side of things? >> yeah, our first surge march and april had a significant proportion of patients in nursing facilities and in congregate settings. this time our surge is almost all community spread, and so the difference is the patient population is really community interaction and community spread as opposed to those large areas where people were grouped together where we knew they could have a large outbreak such as nursing home versus living facilities. for us, over 90% of our cases right now are community spread. and so that's why we feel like it's such a big deal from a preventative measure perspective because you in the community are helping to prevent other communities from going through this if you can do the things like social distancing and wearing a mask. you literally now, as a person in the united states, as a citizen of louisiana, are a health care provider but your job is preventative care medicine as opposed to us, which is treatment. you are elite outpatient providers as public citizens. >> do you get the sense that the folks you're seeing on this surge or maybe folks that weren't wearing a mask all the time or didn't quite believe in the lethality of this and now, unfortunately, now see it? >> yeah, there is no doubt that the ability to not hold pretty strictly to things like masking and social distancing are primary drivers of people coming to the hospital. we tend not to focus on that from a health care provider because for all of us, they are all sick and they all will get excellent care. having said that, we do recognize the stress on us as a community related to the reluctance to do what we believe are basic preventative measures and we've been trying to facilitate both our availability and the idea that it's the right thing to do. >> dr. christopher thomas, hang in there. really appreciate you sharing your perspective with us and your expertise and keep fighting the good fight, sir. >> thank you, chuck. i now want to bring in the mayor of albuquerque, mayor tim keller. i've got to ask you this. you're out of icu beds. your capacity -- the capacity issue is over 100%. what do you do now? >> well, we're looking at a couple of aspects. firstly, we do have an ability to scale a little bit with respect to emergency facilities. and, of course, looking unfortunately at crisis level triage of care. and so this is just where we're at right now in albuquerque. very unfortunately. the city is also ready to basically convert anything into hospital or care space. our limiting factor is health care workers. you know, as we've heard, they are fatigued, they're working very hard, and we're maxed out. our challenge has been on getting that workforce as opposed to getting the physical space. and so we're -- so we are recruiting heavily retired health care workers and we have retired medical care and we're also trying to bring in folks from other states. so that is in process. we've had some success with that. but we've also just got to drop the spread, right? the other side of the equation is we have to create more space in our existing system. and that's why we are moving heavily around areas like enforcement. so we've cross deputized multiple departments. firefighters and code enforcement. we have a much higher compliance rate for mass groups, mass gatherings, even essential things like grocery shopping. that's what we've been focusing on both sides of that equation. >> what kind of decision -- what goes into the decision to start rationing care? are you involved in that decision? do you work with the various hospitals in albuquerque about that decision? is this something your public health officials are going to be recommending? where are you on this? >> so as the largest city in about 1,000 square miles we have most of the major hospitals in the state. and so we -- i enemy touam in t the heads of those hospitals. those kinds of decisions we really leave to the experts. so it's our state department of health in coordination with the hospital system to develop a criteria to go through how that actually would work and we feel that it should be in the hands of medical experts, not in the hands of politicians. >> you know, it's interesting you talked about how much you're trying to enforce some of these public health requirements, and we've seen other cities and other mayors and governors institute mandates but not enforce them saying it's too hard to enforce. you've decided to enforce. would you say it's too hard to enforce or if you really want to do it, you can? >> well, i would say that it's -- you can't enforce your way out. unfortunately just where we're at as citizenry and in america, there's always people who aren't going to do certain things. but we -- i would say you can have heavy success if you use the institutions where people are going to. so it is working with churches. it's working with grocery stores, shopping malls, the restaurants. but when i say working with, i mean enforcement through them. we basically say if you violate that order, and there are people in your establishment without masks and so forth, they'll close you down. and i think also trying to have compliance, some by civilians, not by law enforcement or police officers, has also gone a long way to people just saying, okay, i'll be in compliance. instead of really escalating a situation. so those are things that are much more doable if they're handled in that manner. >> look, you're a state and a city that has taken -- that has taken more aggressive action than some of the neighboring -- frankly, your two neighboring states to the east and the west. and yet, obviously, you haven't been able to protect from the virus. how would you say it's spreading right now in albuquerque? do you have an idea? is it people not mask? is it the small events, or is there something else? >> i would echo what the doctor from baton rouge said. we basically know that it's community spread. and we have a dynamic with our rural state and an urban center and what happens is, we have big families in new mexico, and we often have family all around the state and in colorado and arizona and texas. but we typically do get together on the weekends. it's a -- in albuquerque. that's been a dynamic for shopping or health care since before the pandemic. our population swells during the weekend. so that's certainly increasing spread and making it harder in the city of albuquerque. >> and you have had little luck trying to get people to perhaps not come to albuquerque on the weekends? >> well, for some of them, it's -- in some ways, it's not a choice, especially because, you know, we have a lot of, like my grandmother needs health care or i do my shopping literally in much of the shopping is done in albuquerque. so there is this notion that this concept of staying home is a luxury. not everyone can do it, especially in new mexico. so i think we try and pair is with support. when you do come in, it's gotten to the point where i'm handing checks into people's car windows for business support. if you're immigrant and couldn't get other funding. we're handing checks to people when they come into town. that's what leadership is right now in this crisis. >> mayor tim keller, albuquerque, new mexico, thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective. good to have you on. thank you. >> good to be with you. as we've said, an fda meeting is under way right this instant to decide whether to recommend the approval of the pfizer coronavirus vaccine, something both canada and the uk have done. first, president trump's latest and, yes, ludicrous last ditch effort to overturn the election. a lawsuit that has no basis in reality but is somehow gathering republican support anyway. concrete is fundamental to every structure. [music playing throughout] to build a house, you need a strong foundation. the same is true for building a business. black-owned businesses are an integral part of america's foundation. they lay the groundwork for other black businesses like mine - that turns concrete into something beautiful. i'm kimberley robles, and i'm the owner and founder of robles concrete design. the citi foundation is helping our community partners facilitate more loans to black-owned businesses. people are saving hundreds on the most reliable in a land not so far away, network with xfinity mobile. they can choose from the latest phones or bring their own. and choose the data option that's right for them. they even get nationwide 5g at no extra cost. and since they are on the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfation, they live happily ever after. again, again! xfinity mobile. your wireless. your rules. your way to stay closer together. click, call, or visit an xfinity store today. welcome back. in the midst of this raging crisis in this country, president trump's claims that the election was stolen from him are rnd mining the fundamentals of our democracy. the courts have not found a signal instance of widespread fraud in this election, nowhere, anywhere yet any of kind. in the late lost the white house is touting is seeking to overturn election results in four battleground states. and that lawsuit in a word is crazy. but understand how truly ludicrous it is, that's peel back the levels of crazy at play here. first off, it's crazy that this lawsuit was filed in the first place. texas attorney general ken paxton is asking the supreme court to delay monday's meeting of presidential electors in georgia, michigan, pennsylvania and wisconsin. attempting to nullify millions of votes. that's unconstitutional. also the state of texas does not have a legal right to challenge how other states conduct their elections. that's not how the law works. second, it's not just crazy, but it's downright delusional the president is touting and joining the texas suit. he's joining as an private citizen, not as the sitting president. with a legal filing that somehow cites a rasmussen poll and incorrectly claims that no presidential candidate has won both florida and ohio but lost the overall election. ask richard nixon about the 1960 election. he'd beg to differ. it also turns from crazy and delusional to dangerous. that other republicans, elected ones, chief law enforcement officers, mind you, are backing this baseless lawsuit. attorneys general in 17 states sine e signed an amicus brief in support of this suit. they somehow find this crazy lawsuit drawn up by ken paxton who may or may not be shopping for a pardon. they thought this was worthy. by the way, all these states were carried by president trump in november that these attorneys general represent. it also has the backing of the two georgia republican senators on the ballot in next month's runoff election. though georgia's attorney general called the suit constitutionally, legally and factually wrong about georgia. he's a republican, by the way. but perhaps what is most crazy about this lawsuit is that it's become the president's full-time obsession. at a moment when his attention should be on a pandemic that is killing thousands of americans every single day. so joining me to break down the implications of this lawsuit and the president's attacks on democraerks "washington post" white house reporter ashley parker and professor of law at boston university, robert sai. so ashley, the president is taking it to another level, and i believe he's got state attorneys general coming to the white house today. other than creating the illusion that there is some sort of legal standing for this lawsuit, is there any other maneuvers here that they're trying to attempt today? >> well, the thing is the president is, at this point, just determined, contrary to what some people thought immediately after the election, that he is simply not going to accept the election results. and so he has surrounded himself by enablers, or people who fear him, need him potentially, you know, for a 2022 republican primary. want that endorsement. people who are willing to buttress this alternative reality, frankly. and so even big defeats like the supreme court declining to hear the pennsylvania suit are just viewed as, okay, well, don't worry about that. now we're going to deal with this texas lawsuit. that's really your next best shot when, in fact, if anyone was telling him anything close to the truth, they would explain that it is a deeply problematic lawsuit that is also probably not going to see the light of day at the supreme court. >> and at this point, i mean, what is he -- what is he hoping to accomplish with today's event? with these attorneys general and, you know, is he going to really make a list of anybody who does not sign on to this suit? we saw that he was looking for a list of congressional republicans who would file amicus briefs. >> well, you know, there's a world in which, and i want to be clear, this is not what is happening now, but there's a world you can have a scenario where it's the emperor has no clothes. the president is tilting at the windmills in this baseless, false reality, but his supporters and the citizens and democracy moves on because nobody is standing there and supporting it. and what the president has correctly intuitted is the more he can brow beat or threaten or convince to support his baseless claims, in some way, the more power those claims have. they posted a great story this weekend that found out of all the republicans on capitol hill, only 27 were willing to accept that joe biden was the president-elect. now imagine this moment, imagine trump's tweets and false public utterances how that would look against a backdrop where democrats say the president is lying and is false but every republican who knows better says that publicly as well. it's a totally different dynamic. that's what this event in sort of keeping track, taking names, marking them down, is about. >> robert, i just -- you do this for a living. would you even bother to use this lawsuit to teach constitutional law to explain the tenth amendment, to explain how this works? >> i might. even though as most people agree, it is a ludicrous lawsuit. you know, i think what will be interesting to watch is how the supreme court responds to this. what the state of texas has tried to do is to do an end run around the usual sort of state courts and lower federal courts where these kinds of cases are lodged and asked the supreme court to take it up in the first instance. the court has at least for the last several decades treated this original jurisdiction power as discretionary. and so, you know, the court, you know, could very easily just decline to take the case and say very little. it also has an opportunity to step in and say something more, to say something more about the dramatic nature of the legal theory here, where one state could try to intermeddle in the inner workings of the electoral systems created by other states. and if the court chose to say something about that outlandish legal theory, it could really do some good. that will be worth watching. if the court does say something more, rather than just quietly declining to take the case, that certainly would be worth teaching. >> all right. but in fairness, i think we all expect them quietly to do nothing and say nothing, but we'll see. you're right. they could send quite the message. i want to put up this quote from the nebraska secretary of state who also decided to join this lawsuit. this is what his rationale. it is absolutely essential that credible claims of election improprieties be brought to light and fully investigated. tens of millions of americans have been left wondering about the integrity of our election. the success of our democracy requires that legitimate concerns about the election be properly addressed. the texas lawsuit is an effort to do so. he's basically saying because somebody who claims to have credibility has made a claim that that is the equivalent of evidence. i mean, at least that's how i'm reading this. because somebody said they don't trust the results, that's the -- that's the evidence to investigate. i assume that's not enough for any court to say oh, yeah, that's evidence. >> it's not enough. it's just -- elementary principle that you can't just make allegations of a naked sort. you have to at some point come forward with facts, reliable facts that support the kind of allegations you're trying to make. and if we look at the texas lawsuit, i mean, really, we don't have a situation where, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire. instead, we're sort of living, instead, the situation more like the, you know, the idiot who tells the tale that is full of sound and fury signifying nothing. these allegations have been fully litigated in state and federal courts throughout the country and have been rejected. and this is sort of a last-ditch effort to try to convince the supreme court of the united states to act, you know, as fact finders in the first instance. an extremely rare sort of power. and i just can't imagine the court will be tempted to want to exercise that authority. >> ashley parker, last weekend, i got a briefing from the trump campaign about their various lawsuit strategies, and none of them -- whatever -- everything they briefed me on, and it's background. i won't say the names. but everything they briefed me on is null and void. none of the suits they are touting is what the president is focused on. are we going to -- and we saw the project changed his lawyer. are more people in trump's orbit backing away, including the campaign? >> i mean, you've seen this from election day. originally, i talked to people who had gotten similar briefings potentially as you got, and it seems like there were some long shots but at least se semi legitimate efforts in legal plays to be made. as each one sort of fell out or didn't pan out and it became an even longer shot, what you've seen is the people who are the serious lawyers, the serious campaign strategists generally, the people who have perhaps even after four years in trump world a shred of credibility left, quietly backing away. that's in the president's white house in the campaign, and it's very telling to look at who is willing to go out and defend this. who are the people making these claims? and they have no credibility at this point. >> that's for sure. ashley parker, robert tsai, thank you. bill stepien put out a release about joe biden going to georgia, and essentially because stepien said this was about control of the united states senate at stake, the campaign manager's way of admitting joe biden won the election. up ahead, the covid fight on two fronts. the health care workers rushing to treat a surge of patients and a stops -- an attempt to stop the surge of misinformation. t's. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology for smarter trading decisions. fidelity. ♪ ♪ you're all, you're all i need ♪ ♪ you're all, you're all i need ♪ ♪ as long as i got you then baby ♪ ♪ you know that you've got me, oh! yea...♪ ♪ tonight, try pure zzzs all night. ♪ you know that you've got me, oh! yea...♪ unlike other sleep aids, our extended release melatonin helps you sleep longer. and longer. zzzquil pure zzzs all night. fall asleep. stay asleep. that's why we've merged with sprint.get more. now it's about to get even better. and as we work to integrate sprint's network, our nationwide 5g keeps getting stronger. with the capacity and coverage to reach more people and places across the country. who says you can't have it all. now is the time for 5g. now is the time to join t-mobile. ...i was just fighting an uphill battle in my career. so when i heard about the applied digital skills courses, i'm thinking i can become more marketable. you don't need to be a computer expert to be great at this. these are skills lots of people can learn. i feel hopeful about the future now. ♪ welcome back. as we've said, frontline health care workers across the country are struggling to keep up with rising cases. you just heard the mayor of albuquerque, they have a staffing issue there, among other things. hospitalizations and deaths in their communities are overwhelming too many folks. in some places, these health care workers are fighting misinformation. in tennessee, nonemergency procedures have been postponed and the area's largest medical center had to bring in a mobile morgue truck from fema to handle the increasing deaths. when news stories of the morgue truck hit the local airwaves, some residents of johnson city took to social media to deny the morgue truck's existence. suggesting somehow that the morgue was meant to spread fear or that the pictures were somehow faked. joining me from johnson medical center is nbc news reporter dasha burns from johnson city, tennessee. dasha, it's one thing to fight the virus. it's another thing to fight misinformation about the virus here. what's been tougher for these health care workers? >> chuck, where i'm standing right now, this is not comfortable. these things are not comfortable or easy to talk about, but we're here because this is the grim reality. this morgue trailer behind me here, this is very real as you can see. and it is very necessary because the fact is that right now, johnson city medical center, their morgue is full as of today. and while this trailer is empty right now, it is possible, if not probable, that that will no longer be the case as some point today. and still, still there are patients coming into this hospital sick with covid who don't believe this virus is real. and that is perhaps the most heartbreaking thing for these frontline workers. i want you to hear from one of those nurses, allison johnson, and also from a former covid patient whose husband recently died from the virus, teresa fleming. take a listen to these ladies. >> sometimes it's a struggle, especially with a patient population and people in the community that don't necessarily believe that covid is real. just this week, we have an icu paus patient who came in extremely hypoxic. his oxygen level was very low. they are referring to it as happy hypoxia. he was stable with a low oxygen level and in complete disbelief that he had covid or that he was as sick as he was. >> were you surprised something as straightforward and heartbreaking as a mobile morgue trailer is being questioned? >> i've had a very difficult time wrapping my mind around the disbelief and the misinformation that exists in our community. so it's very sad when people call you a liar or say you're embellishing the truth. because i became a nurse to make a difference. >> it's a real thing. and i want people to take it seriously. i don't want them to end up like me. i lost the love of my life. my grandsons that live with me and my daughter, they have lost their male role model. and we're all devastated. and we just miss him so much. he was such -- he was a wonderful person. >> chuck, these stories are so hard to hear, and that patient that the nurse was talking about, he is now on a ventilator. he now believes in the reality, but misinformation can do such harm. there are people who are delaying care for not coming to the hospital because they don't believe they're sick. by the time they get here, chuck, it's too late. >> dasha burns with some -- a reality check in johnson city, tennessee. thank you and please stay safe. up next, an update on the fda meeting that could lead to the approval of pfizer's covid vaccine here in the united states and what comes next before it gets to you and your family. keep it here. at dell technologies, we started by making the cloud easier to manage. but we didn't stop there. we made a cloud flexible enough to adapt to any size business. no matter what it does, or how it changes. and we kept going. so you only pay for what you use. because at dell technologies, we stop...at nothing. ♪ [ engine rumbling ] ♪ [ beeping ] [ engine revs ] ♪ uh, you know there's a 30-minute limit, right? tell that to the rain. [ beeping ] for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. to help you build a flexible wealth plan. you'll have access to tax-smart investing strategies, and with brokerage accounts online trades are commission free. personalized advice. unmatched value. at fidelity, you can have both. welcome back. as we mentioned earlier this hour, an fda advisory committee is meeting to discuss whether to recommend approval of pfizer's covid-19 vaccine. it's kind of like a scientists courtroom, if one person described it. the fda could formally grant emergency use authorization as early as tomorrow and millions of doses of vaccine could be delivered within a few days after that. but approval is just one challenge health officials face in vaccinating americans. also the lodgistical challenges and ensuring the vaccine is safe. here's stephen hahn this morning. >> we need to get to herd immunity. that requires a substantial percentage of americans to be vaccinated. so that's why we've been transparent. it's why we want this public discussion of the data. it's why we've been very careful about the review of the data. and we'll make a very careful decision, understanding, of course, the importance of the situation and the urgency of the situation. >> nbc's morgan radford is outside the fda and here with her medical perspective is dr. nahid bhadeledahadeliabhadelia. morgan, where are we? sort of the scientific courtroom of sorts here? how is it going and do we have an expectation of a finding some time before the end of the day? >> we do, chuck. it all starts here. there are 23 people who are in that panel. they are health experts, scientists. they've been meeting since 9:00 am. we expect to see them vote between 3:15 and 5:15 when their committee meeting ends. and the bottom line is they are voting on whether or not to recommend emergency use of this pfizer vaccine to the fda. and if the fda does, in fact, authorize it, they can do so as early as tomorrow and that means that millions of americans and every corner of the country could have access to this vaccine. but, of course, chuck, there are outstanding questions. number one, the distribution plan. there's already an elaborate distribution plan in place. it's run by the military with help from the ups on the east coast, fedex on the west coast. they're taking those 2.9 million doses in that first vaccine from the pfizer farm and they'll take them across the country. number two, the big question everyone is asking is, who will actually get their hands on this vaccine? we do know there's priority given to the elderly and to frontline health care workers. but one of the biggest hurdles is this concept of trust. and a recent quinnipiac poll, only 61% of americans said they would actually take this vaccine. but as you heard commissioner hahn mention, they really need to get a higher number to reach that herd immunity. they need to see 75% or 85% of the population take this vaccine for it to be effective. and the question is around that effectiveness, chuck. we do know that it has been tested and appears to work across different races and ethnicities and even with people with comorbidities. but the alternate fact is that we don't know how it works for, for example, pregnant women or children under the age of 16. so those are some of the outstanding questions that they are having in that virtual meeting. what's interesting, chuck, that virtual meeting you can see how health experts are really trying to be transparent because of this issue of trust. they oar you can go to the youtube link and watch this meeting online in realtime as you and i are speaking. and that's because they want people to not only trust the vaccine but they also want them to trust the process. chuck? >> and morgan, when does the moderna v moderna vaccine go through this fda court of sorts? >> well, it's not just moderna but also astrazeneca and johnson & johnson. moderna could be toward the end of the month. johnson & johnson could come up early next year. also several other companies that are also in the race to be the ones to manufacture this vaccine. and make it available to the general public, which health experts say besides those people who get first priority, the general public can see this as early as early spring or summer. chuck? >> morgan radford at the fda, thanks very much. dr. bhadelia, let me start with the question of what you expect the fda to do. we expect them to grant the emergency use, but we already have seen the uk has said if you -- has put out a warning to folks if you regularly have allergic reactions to things, don't take this vaccine. do you expect more warnings like that up front from our fda when we assume happens in a couple hours when they approve this vaccine? >> i think so, chuck. it hasn't been discussed. so far this morning, you know, that hasn't been discussed. it was brought up in the public session around lunchtime and it's going to come up later on. generally, most vaccines, one of the questions we ask, have you had allergic reactions to vaccines and medications? they're looking for these propensities. the striking thing to me, and i want to underscore what commissioner hahn said and morgan said, making it so transparent. the process so transparent. it's so important. i've been watching the fda hearing all day, and it feels historic for that reason because not only are you having discussions about the product, but also the ethics and the steps forward. the two things that stuck out to me, dr. nancy of the cdc said this is not a full approval. this is emergency use authorization. so here are the plans for us to continue watching for, hey, what's the real life effectiveness. this is not within a trial. everything is not perfect. what's the real life effectiveness of the vaccine once you release it to a bigger population. she also revealed a big plan on -- expanded plan on active surveillance for adverse effects. one way to move forward that the cdc and fda will work on is sknrusi in introducing a new program called be safe, a text message program where people who have the vaccine, if they have adverse reactions they can text that to the cdc and they'll be followed up and expanding the traditional vaccine monitoring call, the reporting systems. they're going to give that a bit more muscle and ensure that people are observed even after they get this vaccination for a long period of time. >> so let me ask you the -- a question this way. as a doctor, who would you tell right now to hold off on getting this vaccine if they had an opportunity for it? and the categories of people i want to ask are children under 18, pregnant women, immuno comprised folks and, say, people getting cancer treatments. in those four categories, is this vaccine safe? >> so we have a little bit of data. honestly, the problem is we don't have as much data on all these groups compared to the larger population. we know there were pregnant women who became enrolled in the pfizer trial without knowing they were pregnant and we should have data on that soon. there were people not -- immuno compromised people that were not included in the trial. that's data we're currently missing. the trouble is not just going to be whether people have those conditions or age. we know for children the fda is likely not to -- currently the authorization is supposed to be for those over 16. we know kids are not going to be vaccinated currently given their lower risk for severe disease. immunocompromised is the one that we need to answer soonest because the concern is that they may have more severe disease. >> right. morgan radford and dr. nahid bhadelia, thank you both. doctor, thank you for your expertise in joining us as well. up next -- the two democratic senate candidates in georgia have a couple of big boosts coming their way. when i was laid off... ...it was absolutely terrifying. i felt like i was just fighting an uphill battle in my career. as a little kid i knew that i wanted to work with computers. ♪ so when i heard about the applied digital skills courses, that definitely appealed to me. you're learning how to create spreadsheets, documents, forms and surveys. i'm thinking i can become more marketable. i got to about the third course and i'm like, you know, i probably could do this for a living. you don't need to be a computer expert to be great at this. these are skills lots and lots of people can learn. ♪ i feel hopeful about the future now. it's empowering to have that knowledge that nobody can take away from you. ♪ before we talk about tax-s-audrey's expecting... new? -twins! that nobody can take away from you. ♪ we'd be closer to the twins. change in plans. at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. intronew advil dual action. the world of pain relief: advil targets pain at the source. acetaminophen blocks pain signals. new advil dual action with acetaminophen. welcome back. president-elect joe biden is planning to hit the campaign trail. the transition team announced that bide listen go to georgia on tuesday to campaign ahead of the january 5th runoff. it is coinciding with monday, the final election day in america for the electoral college for those of you keeping track. after that biden announcement the trump campaign released a statement that seems to acknowledge his victory. joe biden's trip to georgia proves that they're taking the senate runoff election seriously. control of the u.s. stake is at stake and it is imperative that david purdue and kelly leoffler return to washington. so bill steppian may have to go check his twitter feed. joining me now is shaquille brewster. >> you really feel the intensity here. a lot of people are waiting for the announcement of when president-elect bide listen make his first trip, they have been out in force knocking on doors. i workforce a group of union members having a big rally. of course today mike pence will be in savanna. you talk about that comment or that statement from the trump campaign manager, that is the delicate dance that you're hearing from many republicans trying to campaign on behalf of the two republican candidates here. tomorrow we will see the republicans kick off the save america campaign. you get the sense that they're framing this as it is, as the reality suggestis, that that is about the senate being up for grabs. president trump fighting the battles of his election. you awe thsaw that with mayor r giuliani continuing to launch conspiracy theories that have been debunked by republican officials here in the state. bottom line you really feel the intensity is ticking up for those playing back up. but also on the democratic side what the president-elect joe biden. >> shaquille brewster, thank you for being out there. i know it is a rough day, week, month, year, hang in there. we'll figure this out, america. we'll be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily." we continue with katy tur after the break. continue with katy t the break. we made usaa insurance for members like martin. an air force veteran made of doing what's right, not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. ♪ usaa before we talk about tax-s-audrey's expecting... new? -twins! we're made for. ♪ we'd be closer to the twins. change in plans. at fidelity, a change in plans is always part of the plan. (combative yelling) he used to have bad breath. now, he uses a capful of therabreath fresh breath oral rinse to keep his breath smelling great, all day long. (combative yelling) therabreath, it's a better mouthwash. at walmart, target and other fine stores. good afternoon. i'm katy tur. right now the united states is one crucial step closer to an approved covid-19 vak teep. an fda advisory board is meeting to decide whether or not to approve it for emergency kus. the decision is expected later today and it could make approval of the vaccine imminent. health and