hello and welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm paula newton live from cnn center in atlanta where it's 2:00 am on the east coast, 11:00 p.m. on the west coast. the new coronavirus strain first found in the uk has now been confirmed right here in the united states. on tuesday, officials said a man in colorado was infected somehow even though he had no travel history. and that's significant. this news comes with the u.s. continuing to shatter pandemic records. on tuesday the country reported more than 3700 new deaths for

the first time. and there are now close to 125,000 hospital admissions nationwide. and since this strain is thought to be more contagious, health officials now fear it could lead to even more infections and hospital admissions in the weeks ahead. >> that's what we're concerned about, that in addition to the surge, we're going to have an increase superimposed upon that surge which could make january even worse than december. i hope not. i hope that doesn't happen, but it certainly is possible. >> a similar warning from the u.s. president-elect that the weeks ahead, weeks and months ahead could be the toughest of the pandemic. joe biden says he's expanding his covid response team and his administration will spare no effort to provide vaccines. >> the trump administration's plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind, far behind. a few weeks ago, trump

administration suggests that 20 million americans could be vaccinated by the end of december. with only a few days left in december, we've only vaccinated a few million so far. >> president trump tweeted in response, it is up to the states to distribute the vaccines once brought to the designated areas by the federal government. a republican senate majority leader mitch mcconnell could end up killing the effort to get americans' larger stimulus checks. on tuesday, he introduced legislation that combines the covid relief measure with two additional demands that democrats, of course, oppose. instead of allowing a direct vote on just the stimulus. but democrats and president trump want to increase checks from $600 to $2,000. and that's putting senate republicans in such a tricky spot. cnn's kaitlan collins explains. >> reporter: republican senators are feeling the heat from the very top. >> we didn't expect to be in session this week, but we are.

>> reporter: president trump now says unless republicans have a death wish and it's also the right thing to do, they must approve $2,000 payments asap, $600 is not enough. that tweet is forcing senate republicans to decide between defying the president or getting behind bigger stimulus checks which many in the gop initially resisted but a growing number are now supporting. that includes david perdue and kelly loeffler, two republicans just days away from a heated senate runoff in georgia who both sided with the president today. >> i've said absolutely, we need to get relief to americans now, and i will support that. >> i fully support what the president is doing right now. >> reporter: the fate of the stimulus checks is in majority leader mitch mcconnell's hands who offered no clarity today but blocked an effort by democrats to vote on it immediately. >> this week the senate will begin a process to bring these three priorities into focus. >> reporter: democrats are eager to take advantage of the

republican family feud. >> there's one question left today -- do senate republicans join with the rest of america in supporting $2,000 checks? now some of my republican colleagues have said they support the checks, but there's a major difference in saying you support $2,000 checks and fighting to put them into law. >> reporter: senator bernie sanders is vowing to hold up a vote to override trump's veto of the massive military bill unless they vote on the $2,000 checks. and his frustration spilled out on the senate floor today. >> do we turn our backs on struggling, working families or do we respond to their pain? >> reporter: mcconnell said the senate will vote on whether to override trump's veto of the defense bill potentially setting the gop up for its first major rebuke of the president during his last days in office. >> fail sure is simply not an option. i'd urge my colleagues to

support this legislation one more time when we vote tomorrow. >> reporter: the white house passed an override of trump's veto on monday causing him to lash out on twitter saying weak and tired republican leadership will allow the bad defense bill to pass. a disgraceful act of cowardice and total submission by weak people to big tech. with the stakes in washington higher than ever and the financial stability of millions of americans on the line, the president spent today like he has many others in palm beach, on the golf course. now since he appeared on the senate floor today, mitch mcconnell has made clear he's going to put everything the president wants in one bill to potentially bring it up for a vote on the senate floor. that's essentially guaranteeing it's going to go nowhere because democrats are against some of the other factors the president demanded be included, including that repeal of section 230 which would affect big tech companies and social media and the liability that they've had so far. the liability shield they've had so far. and so whether or not it's going

to make those $2,000 checks happen is another question because you are starting to see this growing support from republicans. so the president hasn't responded to this. it is what he wants but it won't achieve what he wants when it comes to the $2,000 checks. kaitlan collins, cnn, traveling with the president, in florida. now just a short while ago, covid claimed the life of a newly elected congressman, luke letlow. the louisiana republican announced he tested positive for the virus on december 19th, just two days later, he tweeted from hospital that he was confident he'd be, in his words, on the mend soon. luke letlow was just 41 years old. and that devastating news brings us to this tweet. we are way past a pearl harbor a day in death toll. past even a 9/11 a day in the death toll and the president remains awol, golfing while his party raises not a peep of

complaint about his leaving cities, states and average americans to fend for themselves amid the surge. the author, none other than our own cnn senior political analyst ron brownstein. and he is also a senior editor for "the atlantic." he joins me from los angeles. ron, look, in following your twitter feed today, i could feel the frustration. and really rage that we don't get from you often, ron, in the sense that you're so level-headed and yet it's that word. not a peep from the republicans, even though this virus has now killed one of their own. we all know, right, this would be different if it was a foreign adversary actually killing americans. >> you know, we are watching the greatest example of the dereliction of duty of a president, probably in american history. if you look at the magnitude of what we are now dealing with, as i said in the tweet. we are past a pearl harbor or a 9/11 a day in the daily death toll. there are the projections from

the university of washington model, which is one of the most respected models is that there may be 100,000 americans dying in january alone. here in los angeles, where i am, patients are being turned away from hospitals because they're running out of oxygen. in phoenix, the big hospital chains are talking about rationing care. in georgia, in atlanta, they have reopened a field hospital because the hospitals are being overrun. and the president has simply walked away from the public health challenge in the same way that he remained disengaged from the economic side of this, the legislation on that, until the 11th hour, 59th minute coming in to try to torpedo the bill. so he has essentially left american cities, states and average families on their own and you really have not heard a word of complaint from other republicans since he has walked away which is probably some time in late summer. >> yeah, and that brings us to what went on in washington today

and caitlin tried to go over. there's a complicated dance going on there this week and into this weekend. it's really mitch mcconnell who is doing the choreography here. >> and it's a complicated dance but a straightforward outcome. there should be no confusion. mitch mcconnell moved today to kill the $2,000 payments that the president has called for. and to do it in a way that allows republicans who want to, to cynically act as though they're supporting it. the way he did that was by attaching it to what's known as a poison pill. in this case, two poison pills. both the idea of a commission to study nonexistent voter fraud in the 2020 election on the same day that georgia announced that a survey as you know, an audit of absentee ballots found two mistakes -- possible mistakes out of 15,000 ballots. mcconnell ties the payments to a commission that he knows democrats won't accept as well as to the repeal of these protections for social media companies which democrats might

be willing to go along with but through a normal legislative process rather than doing it this way. he's virtually guaranteed these payments will not happen while allowing somewhat cynically the two republicans running in georgia to claim they support them. this is probably a preview of what the biden administration has to look forward to if mcconnell maintains the majority after those georgia elections next week. >> and let's get to that. and the polls still remain close so let's not prejudge this. we don't know what the outcome will be. if republicans win both those seats in georgia, would you say georgia voters are voting for mcconnell, not the two senators because what they'll be doing is making that decision for all of america. there will be more of this. >> absolutely. that is -- look. our elections, and this will be familiar to viewers around the world. our congressional elections are becoming parliamentary elections. as i like to say, the name on the back of the jersey no longer matters as much as the color on the front of the jersey.

people are voting for which side they want to see in control of congress. and georgia is a state where democrats have not elected a senator since the year 2000. now they have to elect two senators in one day in order to reach a 50/50 tie. but they see promising signs in the early returns of who has voted, both absentee and in the in-person early voting. all the indications seem to be turnout is higher so far in democratic congressional districts, democratic counties, african-americans are a larger share of the vote so far than in the general election. that doesn't mean that democrats are going to win, but it does mean that trump in his last-minute appearance on monday night coming up in georgia is going -- is likely going to have to inspire a significant day-of turnout among republicans for them to keep the majority. no question that's what's on the ballot. not warnock and ossoff and loeffler and perdue. it's whether biden has a

fighting shot at implement -- >> it will be an election night in america once again next tuesday. ron brownstein, thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. now at the same time, the u.s. is seeing a record number k of covid deaths, many hospitals are at near capacity. the situation so dire in california, the state is exte extending stay-at-home orders. cnn's nick watt has more. >> reporter: there's a reason the vp-elect just got vaccinated live on tv to reassure black americans, all americans, that it's safe. >> it's about saving your life, the life of your family members and the life of your community. >> reporter: the outgoing vp did it. the president-elect did it. lame-duck donald trump has not. his administration projected 20 million doses in arms by new year's. we're two days away? a little over 2 million shots logged.

not even close. even if you undercount the 2 million as an undercount, how much undercount could it be? we're below where we want to be. >> reporter: the federal government ships the doses but leaves the lodgistics from there to others. here's the optimistic take. >> think of it like a locomotive getting started. those first few wheel turns are slow and difficult and then things move faster. >> reporter: meantime, more than 2,000 americans on average are killed by covid-19 every day. >> i think we just have to assume that it's going to get worse. >> reporter: the stay-home order for much of california was extended. >> on average, 9 to 10 people in l.a. county test positive for covid-19 every minute. >> reporter: and icu capacity across the region is at zero percent. >> what's going to happen in california when you run out of capacity of physicians and bioethicists in these hospitals will need to decide which

patients are salvageable, potentially salvageable, and which patients aren't. >> reporter: more americans are hospitalized with this virus now than ever before and december is already the deadliest month of the pandemic. then came christmas. the travel. the gather,s. >> in addition to the surge we're going to have an increase superimposed upon that surge which could make january even worse than december. i hope not. >> reporter: nick watt, cnn, los angeles. this is cnn breaking news. >> some breaking news into cnn. thankfully it's good news. the uk has now authorized the covid-19 vaccine from astrazeneca and the university of oxford. it is something that we have been waiting for and that the british government had said that its regulators would, in fact, authorize it likely this week. that's now happened. we want to go straight to salma

abdulaziz in london. there had been some confusion about the clinical trials here, but given what's going on in the uk right now, there still must be incredible relief this also now has been authorized as a vaccine. >> absolutely, paula. it's a matter of national pride. this was invented, developed right here in the uk by oxford university. this is the home-grown vaccine, the one the uk wants to push as one of its own. yes, there has been some debate about its efficacy. during clinical trials it was found to be 70% effective in immunizing against the vaccine which is obviously lower than pfizer and biontech in the 90 percentile. however, the scientists, the researchers behind this oxford vaccine say they can increase that efficacy by changing around the dosage, by changing the formula of that dosage. so essentially you remember how we need two doses. one of those two doses would be a half dose and that could bring that efficacy up to 90%.

there's a lot of advantages to this vaccine. it's really cheap. only costs about 3 pounds or 4 u.s. dollars, as much as your morning latte. and it doesn't need that special refrigeration capacity. so you've seen the logistical challenges that have played out across the eu with getting the pfizer/biontech vaccine into people's arms because it needs to be kept at that extra cold temperature. you need to maintain that cold chain. with this vaccine, that is not the case. so that's a major advantage that everyone is excited about. we can see it rolled out as early as january 4th. so we're just talking a matter of days. and the authorities plan to get up to 2 million people vaccinated in the first 14 days. so that is a significant number there of people -- vulnerable people potentially who could be getting vaccinated. a great deal of positive news. the british government will be very excited to push this as their own, the vaccine invented,

created right here in the uk, paula. >> absolutely in terms of expectations about who is going to get vaccinated and how many vaccinations they can do. the uk has been doing quite well. this will only help. in terms of what's going on if we can give this context. you've been covering it. an incredible spike in cases in the uk. authorities are saying that it is due to this variant but it still seemed to take a lot of people by surprise. what do you know about the decision-making going on right now with boris johnson and his cabinet about whether or not they need to do more, stricter lockdowns? >> paula, it's an absolutely concerning situation across the uk. you have for two days in a row broken the daily record of new covid-19 cases. two days in a row. you are looking at unprecedented infection rates. this country has not faced since the start of the pandemic. you are looking at more patients with coronavirus in hospital than at any time before. you are looking at a london ambulance service that's saying

they are receiving a huge volume of calls, thousands of emergency calls a day. essentially you're looking at a hospital system, a health care system that's feeling right on the edge. teetering on the brink. what's going to happen today in parliament is regional restrictions, we're under a regional system here across the uk, that regional system will be reviewed and the expectation is that more restrictions will be rolled out. so in london and the affected areas, these are the areas where that variant is common. that variant that's more transmissible that spreads more easily. these areas, london and the affected areas have essentially been under localized lockdowns. and that variant is spreading across the country. more areas will fall under tougher rules. but the challenge for the government is to get people to follow the rules. there's been a lot of controversy with prime minister boris johnson's handling of the government. i think experts will tell you that people, the public are lacking confidence in the authorities. it's been, of course, the

holiday season where people have been more flexible to bending the rules. these restrictions, these rules need to be followed. you have doctors, nurses essentially begging, pleading with the population. look, the hospitals are going to be overwhelmed if people don't start staying at home, working from home, being vigilant. paula? >> i have to ask you anecdotally, it's been puzzling to see these cases. in one day, 12,000 increase in cases. it is puzzling to many people anecdotally, what do you see in terms of people following the rules, whether it's social distancing, whether it's wearing masks, whether it's those all-important indicators of mobility throughout the uk. are people heeding the warnings? >> here's the thing we always have to remember, paula, with the numbers. there's generally a lot. there's a lot between getting the illness, getting infected with the illness, showing up in the hospital. there's lags in those numbers. yes if you walk through central london a couple of days ago, i

was there. it was empty. absolutely empty. but here's the key but. the weekend before christmas, when these new restrictions were announced, central london was packed. shopping malls were packed. the stores were packed. people were running for the airports and train stations to get out of this city before new restrictions went into place. the argument is they were too late into putting these rules into place. and thinking about that lag, this is what has health experts concerned. we have yet to see what they expect to be a spike from christmastime celebrations. so, yes, once london shut down in many ways, everything is closed, you can't go out. there's little to do. but where people are bending the rules is at home, privately during christmas celebrations, during holiday celebrations and then about these restrictions coming in time. and that's where the controversy lies that boris johnson quite often, according to his critics, quite often acts too late to a spike in cases. paula? >> he was the man that told everyone there would be a christmas and then had to go

back on that plan right away. salma, thanks so much. i'm interested in hearing those anecdotal reports because it gives us more context into what's going on. stand by for us there. we'll get back to you with more on our breaking news. right now, we want to go to a short break.

more breaking news this hour. argentina's senate approved a landmark bill legalizing abortion. it's, of course, a divisive issue in the predominantly roman catholic country bringing out huge crowds of protesters on both sides. the proposal would allow for abortions up to 14 weeks. they had been permitted only in cases of rape or when the mother's health was in danger. now women's rights groups say the bill's passage could set the stage for a wider reform right across latin america. we want to head to rome and the senior vatican analyst john allen on this. it is interesting to see the vatican's influence and more specifically lack of influence from pope francis at this point in time. does it surprise you what's going on in argentina right now with this vote?

>> hi there, paula. happy holidays to you. obviously, not quite so happy for pope francis because this is a rather stinging setback in his native country. in terms of whether this was a surprise, not so much. you'll recall the abortion debate came up in argentina two years ago in 2018. the difference is at that time, the country was led by a center right government that did not back the measure, merry pe rly permitted the debate to occur. this time it had the backing of senator alberto fernandez who brought his own party members with him into the senate. this was probably expected but it's a somewhat bitter pill for pope francis to swallow. he had intervened energetically on several different occasions in the run up to this vote to appeal for the pro-life position. so it can't help to some extent, paula, be seen as a bit of a snub to the most famous argentinean in the world perhaps after messe.

>> but it will make such a consequential difference to catholics all over the world in terms of where those predominantly catholic countries are moving now. >> yeah, that's right. let's remember, latin america is home to more than 40% of the world's catholic population. it traditionally has been an almost homogenously catholic continent. the plates are shifting in terms of latin america's political topography. in terms of the church's influence here, we should remember that argentina, a number of years ago, voted to legalize same-sex marriage and it has been moving in the direction of a legalization of abortion for some time. in that sense, i think the church in latin america is going to have to follow the path of the catholic church in western europe where it has to adjust from being the tone-setting majority that calls the shots to

being an important traditional but minority group that has to accept that the civil order of the societies in which it operates aren't necessarily going to reflect church teaching. >> the other issue here is women's rights and women's movements and where we talk about that within the catholic church. pope francis hasn't exactly been a trail blazer. >> well, i mean, he has and he hasn't. he certainly has been a champion of women's rights on multiple occasions. he has, to some degree, boosted the stock of women in the vatican, giving them positions they hadn't held before. he certainly has said a firm no to the idea of women priests and although it's been recommended to him a couple of different times, he also has not given a yes to the idea of women deacons. so i think most observers here would see -- would say that the record is a bit mixed.

i think it's worthy of note that one of pope francis' arguments in this abortion debate was precisely that he didn't feel that poor women in argentina actually wanted this bill. he felt it was sort of being rammed down their throats. he was positioning his own opposition as a pro-women's stance rather than one intended to get in the way of their rights. >> and that is an interesting point when you see everything going on in argentina right now and really how divisive it was but also how close it was. you certainly see the emotion on the streets there and it's coming from both sides of the argument. john allen, thank you for being with us as we have that breaking news out of argentina. appreciate it. now british hospitals are at their breaking point. we'll get an update from london on the fight against the coronavirus. stay with us. we'll have more news after the break.

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i want to welcome back to our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm paula newton live from cnn center in atlanta. i want to update our breaking news from the uk. government regulators there have approved another covid-19 vaccine. the oxford/astrazeneca vaccine is set to be rolled out nearly the new year. we want to go back to london and salma abdulazeez to get the background on this. obviously, good news. and the government really betting this will be, in fact, an accelerator to the progress that's already made in rolling out the vaccines. >> that's true, paula. i'm sure it is an expectation this will be an accelerator. it's important to remember here this is of course, a very limited segment of the

population that will be looking at getting this vaccine. the elderly, those in care homes or nursing homes, frontline health care workers. for the rest of us, life will not change. for the rest of us, you're still months away from being vaccinated. yes, a great deal of excitement about the dent they could put into the number of jobs given in the first 14 days, looking at vaccinating up to 2 million people. so a lot of excitement about that but for the rest of the population, you have to balance this out with, yes, vaccines are being rolled out, jobs are being given and grandparents and grandmothers getting vaccinated but for the rest of us, you have to still follow the rules and restrictions. we're looking across the uk at a health care system on the brink, teetering on the edge, begging for some sort of relief. they're feeling they could easily be overwhelmed next year. more patients with coronavirus in hospital than ever before. the uk breaking its daily record move to covid cases in a 24-hour period for the second day in a

row yesterday. a variant that right now is plaguing london, parts of the southeast of england and spreading further into the country, a variant the government says spreads more easily, is more transmissible. it's not a pretty picture. you have these moments of hope, this ray of light but it's important when the authorities step out they'll say, we'll get to see people get vaccinated but please follow the rules. we're still far away. we're not there yet, paula. >> and something all of us should remember. going back to this vaccine, though, and how it's been developed, it should be noted many countries, including here in the united states are really leaning heavily on this vaccine candidate now approved in the uk helping them out. the united states is saying, moncef slaoui has said that this will be one of the vaccines that helped them inoculate hopefully 100 million people at the end of the first quarter of 2021. and yet salma, there has been some controversy over the efficacy. can you fill us in on the latest

on that? i know continually astrazeneca and the university of oxford are trying to update the information they have on that efficacy. >> yes. so there was a great debate on the efficacy because when the preliminary papers, the preliminary results of the trials came out, there were different numbers in there. the overall efficacy is about 70%. if you look at the pfizer and biontech vaccine, they are in the 90th percentile. that's disappointing in that sense. however, the scientists and researchers behind it, behind this oxford vaccine say they have a winning formula to get that efficacy better. what's the winning formula? well, you know how we need two doses, so that first dose, instead of being a full dose is a half dose and the second dose would be a full dose. we're expecting more information on this to come out, but that's what happened during the trials. and it was a mistake. it was an accident. they didn't mean to give the

participants a half dose. but they said it was a happy mistake because they believe it mimicked the way the body works. half dose followed by a full dose. the idea you'd be getting a little bit of viral load and then the full thing. that's the idea behind it. we're waiting for more information. but that winning formula is really key because once you bring up that efficacy, you have so many more advantages to this vaccine. it's cheap. only costs about $3, 4 pounds. it's as much as your morning latte really. so cheap, cheap vaccine. and then quite critically, it doesn't need the special refrigeration capacity. so we've seen some of the drama play out with the pfizer/biontech vaccine in the eu where vaccine rollouts were delayed because of the need to keep this cold chain. that's not going to be needed now. that's a very exciting part. you can just put it in the normal refrigerator. and a lot of the logistical hurdles with the pfizer/biontech

vaccine, like get it into a nursing home rather than at the hospital, that may be resolved with this vaccine. that's why people are excited about it and it's been a point of national pride for the british government. this can get exported. this goes to other countries like the united states and this becomes branded with oxford university, we've cracked a secret, found it a way to make it logistically easier to get the vaccine out. >> we should point out fda approval here in the united states is still pending even though the united states has preordered these doses. they had indicated that perhaps this really interesting development with the doses, not being right first off, but might have been some of the data that the fda wanted to pore over a little more before they give approval. salma, i don't have to remind you this is coming at a critical point in the uk and the rest of europe and right here in the united states with, you know, the questions about this new variant and obviously another surge in cases. let us know what you think may

happen today. another pivotal day in the uk in terms of what they may decide needs to be done in order to combat this virus. >> i cannot overemphasize how dire the picture is here. by some indications, the worst it's ever been in terms of the coronavirus pandemic. you are looking right now at more patients in hospital with coronavirus than at any point before. the uk, again, for the second day in a row yesterday broke its daily record of new covid-19 cases. doctors and nurses are essentially pleading with the public, the population to follow the restrictions, follow the rules. they themselves are facing short staffing at their hospitals. so we expect more restrictions to be rolled out today. but again, people have to follow these rules. there's no good to these rules and restrictions being rolled out in other parts of england if people don't follow the rules. >> what's causing the problems in the uk, the var yarntiant, hn found in the united states as well, in the state of colorado.

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back to our breaking news. british government regulators have authorized the oxford/astrazeneca covid-19 vaccine for emergency use. this comes weeks after the country was the first to start vaccinating people with the pfizer/biontech vaccine which has already been given to hundreds of thousands of patients in the uk. now developers had said this oxford/astrazeneca vaccine had an average efficacy of 70%. you'll note that's below moderna or pfizer at this point. the british government says its authorization follows what it calls rigorous clinical trials. vaccines usually take years, even decades to develop, but this year, a handful of shots that we've seen for the coronavirus were actually produced and authorized in record time.

health experts say the breakthroughs were years in the making that that previous research on other viruses helped lay the groundwork really for the shots we have today. for more on this i'm joined by jason mcclellan from the university of texas at austin. thanks for your time. i bet at this point, you want to take a deep breath. it's so interesting to hear what your last year has been like. when you first heard about what they had possibly found in wuhan, what were you doing, and how quickly did you get into the lab? >> yeah, we were tracking -- we were aware of these pneumonia outbreaks in wuhan. it was early january. i was snowboarding with my family in park city. i got a call from dr. barney graham at the national institutes of health and he let me know it looked like this pathogen was a coronavirus. similar to the sars coronavirus from 2002. and he wanted to know if we were

ready to collaborate and try and quickly make a vaccine. i said yes and immediately contacted my lab. we only had to wait a few more days for the genome sequence of the virus to be made available online and then we were able to get to work. >> and what was the platform that was already in place because we've heard from so many people now this was really years in development, even though we've been able to get a vaccine inside of a year. >> yeah, there's actually like two separate pieces that have been actively developed. one is all the prior knowledge on coronaviruses. we've known about coronaviruses since the 1960s. a lot of research dedicated to coronaviruses since the first sars outbreak in 2002. we knew about the spike protein, that it was the parg etarget of antibodies. my lab, working with barney graham, determined how to stabilize the spike protein and the confirmation that was good for vaccines. we knew all that about

coronavirus and vaccine development and a lot of the vaccine latforms like the mrna platforms from biontech and moderna, the adnoviral vectors from johnson & johnson and oxford protein subunit. all these vaccine platforms were really mature. we knew what antigen we wanted to use, how the platforms needed to be developed quickly and those two things came together and humans were vaccinated in march. i think for the first phase one clinical trial. >> it's incredible, isn't it? total mach speed is the way it seems to us. given all the research here and given the fact we now are coming up with the new variant perhaps, maybe more than one, given the way these vaccines work, do you have confidence that it will work no matter how the strain may change or how it may mutate? >> we're confident that the vaccines will be effective against some of the current

variants, ones in the uk, south africa. but we don't know whether there will be some modest decrease in efficacy. maybe going from 95% to 85% or something like that. and that's what's being actively investigated now and tested. if the new viral variant occurred that did drift too far away, some of these mrna vaccines could be reformulated within six weeks and produced at scale. but we're pretty confident the current variants will be protected against by the vaccine. >> so it must be gratifying to you to know that eventually you and your family members will get vaccinated hopefully. >> yeah, my wife was actually vaccinated last week. she's a health care worker and treats cancer patients. that was really exciting that she was vaccinated with a vaccine my lab helped create and i think we're part of phase 1b or phase 1c so i should be

vaccinated in the next few weeks. it's all really exciting and no serious side effects for my wife. >> that is so amazing to hear and must be so gratifying to you just to really see a lot of your labor for so many years in the lab really helping your family out that way and so many people around the world. that's incredible. doctor, thank you so much. appreciate it. >> some good news there all around about the vaccine. we'll continue to have more on our breaking news in a moment. these folks don't have time to go to the post office

they use stamps.com all the services of the post office only cheaper get a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again.

updating our breaking news story. the u.k. has another weapon in the arsenal against the coronavirus. regulators have authorized use of the oxford astrazeneca vaccine. the statement said it went through rigorous clinical trials and met strict safety standards. the u.k. prime minister boris johnson tweeted it was fantastic news and a triumph for british science. brittain is using the pfizer biontech vaccine and that will continue as well. this news comes from the u.k. as experts in the united states warn america's vaccine rollout

isn't moving quickly enough. i spoke earlier with cnn medical analyst about the concerns here in the united states. >> you are a public health professional. this is something i know shakes you to your core when you see that vaccines are not being rolled out here in the united states at the pace at which they need to be rolled out. and i've been really interested to hear from you because you're not trying to blame people or point fingers, you're saying, we need to see what's wrong and fix it. >> that's right. this is not about blame. this is about introspection and having the humility to say this is the most ambitious vaccine plan we have ever undertaken in the way. let's not overpromise and under deliver. let's figure out what went wrong. if the initial expectation was 40 million people or 40 million doses distributed by the end of

the year and we've only been able to administer 2 doses, what happened? where are the mistakes and what can we do differently moving forward? >> what is the difficulty in moving forward? there seems to be really the federal government saying that, look, this is not our responsibility. the states need to be able to do this. in your experience, do the states have the asperatus and all they need is the money or do they lack the logistics help or the expertise? >> those are tied together. so state and local health departments know how to do vaccinations. this is their bread and butter in the same way that testing, contact trace, quarantining, that's the bread and butter of public health. you can't do that in a vacuum. prior to the pandemic they were severely understaffed. they lost about 25% of their work force in the last two decades because of funding. in the pandemic in addition to

daily normal duties, they have had to stand up and do public education and testing and they had to do vaccination on top of it. they needed to have resources months ago in order to do the logistics, the coordination and that needs to come now. >> i'm hearing anecdotally from the u.k., older people and people are getting vaccinations and it's happening in a timely way. at this pace it would take ten years. the pace would increase. what do you think needs to be done in terms of how many vaccinations need to be done per week? >> well, it depends on what our goal is. the initial goal that was set out by the trump administration to have most americans, let's say 80% of americans to reach herd immunity to get that number vaccinated in six months, if

we're going to have that rate then we need vaccinations at 3.5 million a day. we are a long way off of that. we are at a million a week. it's in theory something that we can achieve but we need to ramp up substantially. we need to ramp up from production to better distribution to critically that last mile of what happens once between the time that a vaccine is given to a state and the time that it actually goes into someone's arm whether it's in a hospital, nursing home or pharmacy. >> thanks for your time. >> thank you. now we have lots of breaking news here up ahead on cnn. i want to thank you for watching me. i'm paula newton. the news continues with cnn and isa suarez after the break.

within the past hour the u.k. approved another easy to store vaccine paving the way for millions more people to get protected against the coronavirus. the covid variant first found in the u.k. is in the u.s. as the country reports the highest number of deaths since the start of the pandemic. celebrations for major latin american catholic country by moving to legalize abortion. hello, i'm isa