Emergency use authorization next week. But there is a caveat, the efficacy of the j js vaccine dropped 57 from the highly contagious variant from south africa. Despite the travel van to stop that variant from coming over here, the new variant is already here. Two cases identified this week in South Carolina with two patients with no ties to each other and no travel history given that, signals community spread. During todays White House Briefing dr. Anthony fauci stressed the importance of vaccinating as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, before those mutant strains get out of control. Whether or not thats going to ultimately take over in the sense of being dominant is unclear by now. The projection that is made with regard to the uk is that probably by the end of march, the beginning of april, it actually will become more dominant in this country. The fundamental principle of getting people vaccinated as quickly and as efficiently as you possible can will always be the be
at our southwest border now. the homeland security department out with this dire warning. at this rate we could encounter more people there than we have in the last 20 years. we re going to dig into what s being done to deal with it including a total transformation of a major city s convention center. but we start on this tuesday with our reporters following the biden administration s push to sell that covid relief package. nbc s chief white house correspondent kristen welker is there at the white house, and priscilla thompson is in delaware county, where president biden will be visiting today. she is in chester, which is a suburb of philadelphia. kristen, let me start with you. help us understand why president biden is focusing on pennsylvania s small businesses today with promoting this covid relief deal. reporter: he s doing two things, craig. one, president biden trying to now sell and explain that sweeping $1.9 trillion covid relief package. so he s going to talk about
sick and who are going into the hospital. and vaccines are doing an incredible job with that. they won t be the silver bullet to stop transmission throughout the city. and i think that these two do have to be separated. people have to be aware even if transmission is occurring if you have been vaccinated, boosted, you re very unlikely to get seriously ill with this virus despite transmission. but that distinction is important because it does seem to still be misunderstood by so many people, that vaccine isn t necessarily going to ensome you are that you don t get infected. it will help to ensure that you don t go to the hospital or die. that is right. and there was a lot of misunderstanding and unfortunate mixed messaging earlier on when the vaccines were first unrolled, there was a lot of belief that they would do a much better job at limiting spread and we ve recognized had they just haven t done quite as good a job as much as we wanted. and especially now with new
antibody peak following the second dose of the two dose mrna, it s like at this level. if you look at the peak following the third shot boost, it goes way up here. reporter: nearly 30% of americans who are eligible have gotten a booster shot and demand is surging with concerns about the omicron variant. we were kind of a little bit lazy and didn t get our appointments set up yet, so this kind of pushed us forward. reporter: while there is plenty of supply in the pipeline, some pharmacies temporarily running out. i got a text, your appointment has been canceled. yeah, now the frustration across the country trying to get the boosters. matt with us tonight. and matt, we also paid attention to dr. fauci saying within thing that we learned from the delta variant, he said, is that even if a vaccine isn t specifically directed to a new variant, you can still get a high immune response, what he called spillover protection. he said he s expecting that with this new variant, too. i w