the state department has contacted all the americans registered in afghanistan now and instructed them to report to designated locations for evacuation. those evacuations have surged in the last few days. at least 70,000 total since august 14th. but the president has asked the military to be ready with contingency options to adjust the time table for final departure if necessary. still mr. biden issed a today mo that it is time to heave. the sooner we can finish the better. each day of operations brings added risk to our troops. every day we re on the ground is another day we know that isis k is seeking to target the airport and attack both u.s. and allied forces and innocent civilians. while the military races to get everyone out, two members of congress made their way in. democrat seth moulton and republican peter meyer both military vets said they flew to kabul to conduct oversight of evacuation efforts but they did not give advanced notice to house leadership or the
hundreds more leaving daily. could make it difficult to get people that are trapped outside of the kabul air and wanted american help. what is interesting to know and why we re going to go to this pentagon briefing, in each and every cases of these rescues outside the perimeter, the taliban has done nothing to disrupt the efforts or to interfere at all. that s raising concerns at the same time hope that there could be more of these missions to get more americans out. before i go to john kirby, another development that you heard in the last hour, this notion that we might have all of 4500 americans left there. that s hard to quantify and seems like a guess. but if that is correct, it does sort of dispute the other numbers that we ve seen. furthermore, records that there s 1,500 that might remain and many that might not want to go we ll explore that in more detail and try to understand how that could possibly be. meantime, let s go to the briefing. we ll make the right plans
deadline to withdraw u.s. troops from afghanistan. speaking from the white house yesterday jfafternoon,xd bidenñ reaffirmed his intent to get all americans out by next tuesday, but seem toñi a+owledge that the date is flexible. we are currently on a pace to finish by august the 31st.ñr the sooner we canxd finish the better. each day of operations brings added risk to our troops. but thee1 completion of august 31st depends upon the taliban continuing to cooperate. and allow access to the airport for those who are transporting out and no disruption to our operation. in addition, i ve asked the penoqdon and the state department forñi contingency pl to adjuste1 the timetable shoul that become necessary. i m determined to make sure we complete our gi$m%=91ñ this mission. during a news conference in kabul yesterday, a taliban spokesperson said the u.s. must stick to the august 31st deadline and warns that the group won t lete1 afghans being taken out on evacuation flights
it also open the door to more vaccine mandates? we are seeing a rise in cases and hospitalizations in the country and daily reported deaths. surpassing 1,000 for the first time in five months. nearly all of those in the unvaccinated. i want to get to our senior medical correspondent. as we look at this, there are a number of people who have said i m not getting that shot until it has full approval. now it does. what does this mean? reporter: it means that it could make a difference. i think that we shouldn t expect a tsunami of people to say now it s been approved and i ll get it. there s so much misinformation on social media. it s hard to counteract that. let s look at the hope of what this full approval could do. as i said, it could encourage unvaccinated people to get the shot, but no one should rely on that. it allows pfizer to advertise. they weren t allowed to advertise with emergency use authorization. but pharmaceutical companies good at advertising and making conv
now, we don t know who the soldiers are or who is doing the shooting here but we do know this is apparently happening multiple times a day outside the airport. you see children in the area as well. president biden says as many as 65,000 afghan allies and families are still stuck in the country, along with up to 15,000 americans. the big problem, of course, is while the u.s. controls kabul airport, the taliban controls all the roads leading into the area, leading to scenes like this with crowds gathered just beyond the walls. on wednesday, defense secretary lloyd austin said there are no plans to use american soldiers to open a path to the airport. that left many afghans at the mercy of taliban fighters that control the roads, beating and whipping people trying to get in. some cases, people managed to access the airport by climbing walls. you can see american soldiers helping a woman over the top, onto the airport grounds. as for evacuations themselves, the u.s. says it is run