it is the top of the hour. i am brianna keilar and any moment now joe biden will speak about his coronavirus response plan released today, first full day it's a the 46th president and speaking as he and his covid team are hit with a major reality check when it comes to vaccinations. sources tell cnn president biden is inheriting a non-existent vaccination distribution plan from the trump administration and the biden team needs to start from square one. the coordinator ads this, jeff zients, what we're inheriting is so much worse than we could have imagined. a member of the biden coronavirus advisory board explains that the team only new details available to the public, which included "operation warp speed" briefings and details on distribution. >> what we knew in the transition advisory board was that we were not getting any information that was not public information already. so it was a complete mystery,

was there going to be a binder describing the national strategy and what the status is of production of distribution and where things were, and the team on arrival, the president and his team found there was not those pieces there. and no coordinated national effort. it's been all breakthrough and no follow-through. >> bring in cnn white house correspondent mj lee and cnn chief white house correspondent kaitlan collins with us. mj, seeing the trump administration essentially didn't have a plan, a way for the biden team to manage expectations here, because that would be not unusual when talking about the politics of this for sure. >> you're absolutely right. so much of this is about setting expectations, and the biden white house sort of in the earliest days trying to lay down some early markers on where they think they are starting in this process, what sources told us, they essentially felt there was

no comprehensive federal vaccine distribution plan under former president trump, and that they would have to start from square one once they got into the white house. i mean, look at what jeff zients, white house covid coordinator told reporters. yesterday, almost a year now americans could not look to the federal government for any strategy let alone a comprehensive approach to response to covid and we've seen the tragic cost of that failure. that language is pretty reflective of what we actually heard from biden himself during the transition. he said that the vaccine rollout process has been absolutely dismal. that the trump administration was way too slow getting the vaccine shots administered and it's true the trump administration did not meet the goal set for themselves. brianna, this is important. the biden white house is now in the white house. they are the government now. they say that they have a federal plan. they are rolling out this national strategy today. what we are on the lookout for

in the coming days and weeks is how exactly are they going to execute their plan? what is their plan and does it actually look different from whatever it was that the trump administration was trying to do? and importantly, are they going to be able to meet their goal of 100 million vaccine shots administered in the first 100 days that he is in office? >> yeah. setting a base line and setting it low. for whatever the reason is. kaitlan, i wonder when the president speaks here, what are you expecting he is going to say and, i mean, really what he is talking about ftoday may be the most important thing he does in his entire presidency. >> reporter: certainly. it's going to be one of the things that consumes basically at least his entire first year while in office. we should make sure to stop and note it's just -- it is notable he's even addressing coronavirus, because for so long in the trump administration, especially at the end of his two months, last two months in office after he already lost the election we did not hear from the presidents on what the

vaccine distribution plan was that much. he made a few remarks here and there but it wasn't a daily onslaught from the administration talking about what was going on. notable in and of itself. biden will come out. he's going to play out this national strategy plan, they say. i expect it will be much more federal government focused than state controlled. what we saw with vaccine distribution plan from the last administration. that will be really the question going forward and also how he does things like wield the defense production act. use the federal government, powers of the federal government, to compel production for needed supplies that we're hearing from all over the country are desperately needed to ramp that up. i think that's the question. what they're going to do to change that framework. how they're going to build from that and what it's really going to look like in these next you know, right off the bat since they are starting today. they knew the problem was coming given we've seen how vaccine distribution has gone the last month or so and did not meet expectations trump officials laid out. the question now, what do biden

officials do and how quickly will they move? >> yeah. big challenge. and it is now theirs. kaitlan collins, mj lee, thank you to you both. just in to cnn, the results of two new medical studies suggesting existing covid vaccines may not be as effective against the south african variant of the disease discovered in october. talking about this with elizabeth cohen, cnn seener in medical correspondent. this is the fear i've heard from so many people when they are awaiting the vaccine. especially when it's going to be a while before they get it. what if the variants change such that the vaccine isn't actually, doesn't protect them the way it should? >> right, brianna. that's the concern. i want to say before i explain these studies. these are studies done in labs. these are early studies and they don't answer the important question that you're posing, brianna. they don't tell us whether the vaccine will work. it tell us us, boy, we need more study because there are red

flags here. the term i heard over and over again from researchers around the world. red flags. what the two studies did in a nutshell, took a variant found in south africa and they looked at antibodies of people who recovered. not from that variant but recovered months and months ago from covid. you think it would fight off the variant. but basically it had a lot of challenges. those antibodies did not do a great job of fighting off the variant. so there are concerns. geez, the antibodies that are made, in a the vaccine would make your body make might be similar. is the vaccine going to have the same experience? we don't know. vaccines may make even better antibodies and it won't be a problem. also a third study much more optimistic but done in a way that makes some people wonder about the results. i know this is all very scientific and confusing, but bottom line here is now two studies in two days from scientists in south africa drawing red flags, concern that this variant from south africa

might be able to outwit antibodies produced by prior infection or by the vaccine. we'll see if that's true. it me decrease efficacy a bit, hopefully not too much. take a look wrk there is. not spotted in the u.s., but has been spotted in 18 countries. the list you can see here is long. i won't read them all, you can see there this variant spotted in parts of europe and asia and africa. as i said, hasn't been spotted in the u.s., but that may be because the surveillance system in the u.s. is not very good. bri brianna? >> what you're, you mention there, the u.s. hasn't been leading the world when it comes to seeking out and identifies mutations. how bad is the u.s. doing at that? >> you know, take a look at this, because the data is, all well documented. we can actually take a look. when we look at number of sequences done genomic sequences

that tell us where there are mute agencies and there aren't. do a lot of sequences. we are finding the u.s. has not done so great with that. we see iceland one, australia two. u.s. in 33rd place. we are behind places like senegal, sierra leone, places with far fewer resources than the u.s. does they're doing a better job. >> all right. elizabeth, great to see you. thank you so much. elizabeth cohen. talk now with the medical director at baylor college of medicine. i want to ask you about these studies. first i want to ask you, i mean, why is this country, which has such good medicine, and you know so many scientists who are so gifted in their fields, why are they not tracking these viruses? why are we doing so poorly? >> that's a very complicated answer, brianna. i think it has to do with what you alluded to just a few minutes ago. the fact there really has been

no coordinated federal response in terms of handling this pandemic. not only is making that announcement a form of potential damage control or managing expectations by president biden and his administration, but also the truth. the fact lies in the numbers. we need to do a better job, the federal government needs to do a better job of coordinating their efforts to manage this pandemic nationally instead of letting states handful locally. >> sounds like the u.s. has an ability. just it's a leadership issue. so back to these studies. looking at new variants, and the possibility that vaccines may not be as effective against them. should we be concerned about the efficacy of the vaccines now? >> i'm not sure that we should be concerned just yet. there absolutely is nothing that we can do about this virus

mutating and new variants popping up. that's the nature of viruses. the more it spreads, the mores it has to replicate and mutate. we won't prevent that. we do know and what's looked at in the very, very small studies thus far is that the neutralizing antibodies produced may be less effective. the thing is, though, vaccines produce lots more antibodies other than just the neutralizing antibodies. we're hopeful all the different parts of the immune response can come together and combine and prevent severe illness. >> we heard today, doctor, that, heard from dr. fauci,jo johnson & johnson is within a week or two submitting vaccine approval. music to all of our ears, i thy. this one is expected to be a one-dose vaccine. how could that impact our supply chain here in the u.s. we are struggling with so mightily? >> definitely i think it will help supply chain.

johnson & johnson themselves have come out and said once they are granted approval, they're optimistic they can deliver 1 billion doses of vaccine before the end of the year. now, the significance with johnson & johnson being a one-shot vaccine is that the number of doses that are delivered are the number of people that can become vaccinated. versus pfizer and mroderna you have to divide their doses by two because it requires two sets. i'm not sure if supply chain is the issue here in the united states. we've had 36 million doses of vaccine delivered across the u.s., but only 16 million of those have actually been given to people. so what we need more help with aside from getting more doses of vaccine is help actually administering the doses we do have. >> yes. yes, we do. doctor, always great to see you. thanks for being with us. >> thank you for having me, brianna. good to see you. as we are awaiting now to hear from president biden about his covid response, we're going to take you to capitol hill

where house minority leader kevin mccarthy completely contradicted himself whether president trump provoked the capitol riots, and new video just how brutal attacks on police were on january 6th. of i , 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 ♪

house minority leader kevin mccarthy is trying to have it both ways today and really at the same time. first claimed president trump doesn't bear any responsibility for the capitol riots. something wholly different from what he said just eight days ago. let's listen to kevin mccarthy and then let's listen to kevin mccarthy. >> the president bears responsibility for wednesday's

attack on congress by mob rioters. >> i don't believe he provoked it. listen to what he said at the rally. >> also this after weeks of supporting conservative lawmakers efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. mccarthy now trying to avoid taking any blame for that, too. here's his exchange earlier with my colleague manu raju. >> well, after the rioters came into the capitol on january 6th you voted to overturn the results of pennsylvania and arizona. you also signed on to that extra lawsuit to invalidate the election and waited until a couple weeks ago to declare that joe biden won the election. given the violence we saw, do you regret the role you played in down playing elections? >> i denounce anybody's. denounce it that day, now and in the summer and denounced when it happened last night in portland and seattle as well. very consistent. what i voted on wasn't to overturn and election, because it wouldn't.

it would not overturn. did the legislature have the right tore move through to make changes. the same thing that happened in the last three presidential elections, the same thing nancy pelosi said on the floor when she said this is democracy. we should debate it. it's different when jim clyburn voted to overturn. mine binsd policy and principle, yes, stay the course. always denounced whatever individuals did here in the summer, last night. un-american, it's undemocratic. anybody involved with that should be prosecuted. i've been very, very clear about that from day one. so, thank you. >> cnn chief congressional correspondent manu raju is with us now. i mean, manu, he says one thing, and then he turns around and he contradicts himself, but then turns around and contradicts

himself contradicting himself, which is enough to make one's head spin like it's the ex exorcist. explain this. >> reporter: it's hard to explain, because he's in a spot in the aftermath of this deadly riot that occurred on capitol hill. he does not want to take any responsibility himself, and also wants to stand by where most of his republican conference is right now in supporting donald trump and still backing the decision that majority of them made after the deadly riot. they voted to overturn the results in both arizona and pennsylvania along with kevin mccarthy, along with the number two, steve scalise. so mccarthy is in a spot, because he does not want to break from his conference and also doesn't want to take any responsibility for his actions. he also tried to claim this was similar to what happened in the past three elections. that is simply not the case. in those elections, the democratic losing candidates of

2016, 2004, after the 2000 elections all conceded. there was not an effort by the losing presidential candidate to sow doubt, contend that the election was stolen, that it was rigged and filleds with lies. i asked mccarthy for weeks whether or not he would push back on the president, whether or not he considered joe biden the victor even after the december 14th electoral college vote to make joe biden's win official. even then mccarthy would not push back at that time. in fact, privately gave a green light to those conservatives who tried to object on the house floor and tried to overturn the electoral results so he is at this moment trying to move on, but his role there is pretty clear when you look at the past, his efforts to at least allow his conference to move forward, overturn elections and giving trump supporters hope that could actually occur and we saw what happened here in january 6th, the raesult. >> he's worked himself into a rhetorical pretzel.

very obvious based on the questions and answers you had in an exchange with him. thank you so much for doing that. i want to ask about nancy pelosi talking about holding people accountable. even if that means her own colleagues. let's listen. >> there is no question that there were members in this body who gave aid and comfort to those with the idea that they were embracing a lie. a lie perpetrated by the president of the united states, that the election did not have legitimacy. and in that regard i'm very pleased we will have an action with you reviewing many aspects of what happened. if people did aid and abet, there will be more than just comments from their colleagues here. there will be prosecution if they aided and abetted an insurrection which people died.

>> manu, where do these investigations stand? >> reporter: they're happening right now. pelosi made clear she doesn't have evidence yet there was inside information to give to these insurrectionists that later knew where some of the key offices were on capitol hill that day. she said she didn't know for sure. same with kevin mccorningccarth that helps should are prosecuted but there's no evidence. there are probes ongoing about the exact role of any members of congress, also, what she's also saying members who aided and gave comfort to these rioters, which she's likely referring to there are those member whose went to that rally, spoke at that rally, people like mo brooks, urging rioters, rallygoers at the time later became rioters to essentially, in his words, kick some ass on capitol hill. what will happen to those members? censured?

stripped from committee assignments such as the republican congress decision? key questions going forward but the investigation is continuing. >> we know when those answers, you will get there. manu raju live on capitol hill. bring in our chief political correspondent dana bash. i wonder first, dana, you covered leader mccarthy extensively. i want your reaction to him trying to turn the tables on democrats and pointing to democrats when he was such a big part of perpetuating the big lie for weeks and weeks? >> what you're seeing is a leader who is trying to figure out where his caucus is, where the party is. and you know, during the trump years, it was quite easy. it was, with donald trump. and what we saw with his press conference today is, it still is with donald trump from his perspective, and when i say that, i'm saying it based on

watching him versus mitch mcconnell. and the reaction and the criticism that mitch mcconnell has been getting from fellow republicans and some things i've been hearing just in texting top republicans about the dynamics going on. mitch mcconnell, as you mentioned earlier, calling out in no uncertain tern terms mob incited by president trump. you know that is something that he clearly believes, that he believes is correct and that it is the thing you need to say for history. never mind how he will or won't vote on impeachment, but kevin mccarthy is clearly seeing the reaction to that and deciding despite the fact that on the day that they actually, that they voted and he spoke out he spoke out and said i'm against violence, that he's trying to feel out his caucus and it is still very, very much the trump

caucus. >> biden, dana, invited leaders from both parties to the white house tomorrow. i wonder, i had the distinct honor covering congress with you in the early years of the obama administration, and at that time we saw these overtures, which i mean, it was admirable to see especially in the senate republicans and democrats might work together, but in the end, nothing came of this. and the president's big agenda item was really his party that pushed it through. so i wonder, as we hear these overtures about unity and bipartisanship what is that really going to look like in the biden administration? >> we don't know yet, because it does take two to tango, and you know, when we were covering the early days of the obama administration, they had the luxury of having really big democratic majorities in the house and especially the senate where the filibuster was an issue. they were more concerned at that

time with making sure that moderate democrats were in the fold as opposed to reaching across the aisle, even though sometimes some moderate republicans did join them and in some issues, but now it's totally different. there is a very slim majority in the house. the senate could not be any tighter. it is 50-50, and the vice president, kamala harris will probably be spending a lot of time in her, not so old stomping grounds in the senate, having to deal with that as a tie-breaking vote and maybe with negotiations. so by necessity it has to be more than rhetorical or else joe biden will get nothing done. and we don't know, because of the conversation we were just having, about whose party is it and positioning and trying to figure out how to play this, that is going on as we speak within the republican party, particularly the leadership of the republican party. we don't know how that's going

to shake things i'm interested in after they do what's really necessary for the country, stimulus and the economy and covid, maybe republican leaders choose easy things. i talked to members of congress on the republican side in particular who are urging the biden administration to do that to show we can do some things. the low-hanging fruit, they like to say in congress. see if that happens. >> all right. we will. dana dash, you look surprisingly awake. i don't know how. you've been on my tv forever. >> a very good makeup team, as you know, brianna. >> all in the under-eye concealer. great to see you after such a long couple of days. thanks so much. next, what happens the day after your conspiracy theory falls apart? digging into how qanon supporters reacted to what they

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we have all seen the pictures of the violence during the attack on the capitol. now new federal court documents revealing the full extent of the brutality. rioters used flagpoles, used fire extinguishers and their fists to attack police. cnn security correspondent josh campbell is with us now. josh, tell us what you're learning. >> yeah, brianna. we've seen a lot of images. reading through hundreds of these court documents it paints a horrifying picture about what occurred at the united states capitol on january 6th for those law enforcement officers who were trying to present the building. in one instance prosecutors say this former firefighters named robert sanford of pennsylvania threw a fire extinguisher ricocheted off several officers one of them did not have a

helmet. the officer taken to the hospital. now the attorney for this person said he got caught up in mob mentality though he faces serious charges. another man peter stagger accused of battering a d.c. police officer with a flagpole carrying the american flag. just a truly horrifying scene there. he later told an informant of the federal government that he thought he was battling antifa. however, it was clear, prosecutors say, the officer he was assaulting had a police vest. finally, who can forget the story, dramatic details heard from the d.c. police officer michael fanone interviewed by mark morales describing what he faced in that crowd. take a listen. >> we were getting -- you know, chemical irritant sprayed. you know, they had pipes and,

you know, different metal object batons some taken from law enforcement personnel. striking us. and the sheer force coming from that side. >> reporter: of course, terrifying as it is to see and hear, to read in these court documents, of course, brianna, the hypocrisy here lies in what we heard from the president, former president, donald trump, beforehand. who claimed he, he was president of law and order, of law enforcement and incited this riot and we're learning new details about a cause of injures, really great harm to a lot of these police officers there on the day at the united states capitol simply trying to protect the building. brianna? >> josh, thank you so much. there are supporters of the qanon conspiracy theory now facing the cold, hard truth, that president trump will not be

serving for another four years. the moment that joe biden took the oath of office, qanon followers exploded on message boards. they had a lot of confusion. they had a lot of questions. john avlon has a reality check. all right. actually, we do not have that. any minute mow president biden is expected to speak at the white house about his plan to get the coronavirus response. we're expecting to hear the president very soon. go pro at subway® for double the protein on any footlong. or on any new protein bowl! so many ways to go pro at subway®! it's not amateur-tein, it's pro-tein, baby! go pro and get double the protein for just $2 more. subway. eat fresh.

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neutrogena® hydro boost. the #1 hyaluronic acid moisturizer delivers 2x the hydration for supple, bouncy skin. neutrogena®. any moment now we are expecting to hear president biden's speech about how his administration hopes to turn around the coronavirus response. this is, of course, a daunting task. more than 4,300 people died from the virus on his first day in office. another 122,000 are in the hospital. i want to bring in our chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta, and sang jjay you have a

piece on cnn.com, where we are one year from when the first covid patient was sdiscovered i the u.s. what did you find and what do you hope to hear from the president today? >> an interesting piece to put together, looking back over the last year, from the first patient confirmed diagnosed here in the united states a year ago to some 24 million people. those early days where we thought, or it was thought by the president that the numbers would go down to 0 from 15 and all of that. sort of just piece that all together. you know, i think what i'm hoping to hear today, i think, is what everyone else is hoping to hear as well. we're hearing the right notes. increasing, actually getting vaccines into people. it's not vaccines that matter. it's vaccinations that matter. testing. we used to talk about testing so much. this idea you could have rapid antigen test income your home, you could take it on a regular, some suggest even daily basis

and know that day, are you contagious or not? then, you know, schools. i have three daughters in school, and this has been topic number one in our households. in our schools, are they safe enough? the things that should be done to maintain safety any schools? all of those things. president biden has been hitting the right notes in the covid rescue plan and some comments already made about this, but what does that translate to? how much easier is it going to be for someone to get a vaccine? still getting text hmessaging from people, can't get a vaccine. testing. what will that translate into? and what does it mean in terms of getting back to a sense of normalcy? right? the question everybody asks. curious what he says about that. >> i'm curious too. hitting all points affecting everyone's lives in all of these different gruroups.

right now, sanjay, testing positive rate dipping. three low 10% first time in six weeks. 46 states trending downward with number of cases. of course, we know deaths lag that. are we finally headed in the right direction? >> well, you know, another thing i've learned this past year, brianna, is that even more humility. because this virus continues to be tricky and can fool you. i'm encouraged by that. you're absolutely right. you look to see the numbers of new infections going down first. followed a couple, three weeks later by hospitalizations going down followed by death rates going down. the first two parameters have shown encouraging signs. number of new cases and hospitalizations. but deaths are still really, i mean, they're tragically high. brianna, i just -- i don't think anyone should get used to saying more than 4,000 people are dieing every day of this disease. those typically are a few weeks

behind overall new infections. if you look at models, i look at all the models, mid-february new deaths sort of peak. some of those models suggest may peak around 5.5 thousand to 6,000 per day. if it's true new cases are coming down we should come off that peak by end of february. i don't say any nonchalantly. these are unmatchable numbers. could come off that peak late february if the trends continues. keel see. there are hopeful signs. we have to stay vigilant now. half the country now thinks this thing is the worse days behind us, half the country thinks worst days in front of are us. split down the middle almost. still going to get worse in terms of deaths before it gets better. >> we can't forget that. you're so right, sanjay. we think -- that number of people we're losing every day and then consider the family members that orbit that person,

and then think of the folks who are treating these people. i always think, too, like -- the kind of trauma they've then through, haven't even been able to process because of doing it day in, day out, month after month. it's incredible. now the other thing we're looking forward to is the vaccine and dr. fauci says the u.s. can surpass this goal of 100 million doses by end of the first 100 days. right now we're just over 16 million. do you think that's realistic? >> you know, i really do, brianna. that's base and discussions with people who are helping create these vaccines. but also you know, people within the national pharmacy retail space. looking at people who may be responsible for these in certain communities doling out the vaccines. i do. in fact, we're 800,000, 900,000 vaccines roughly on average being administered now. frankly without any sort of real plan.

you start to put in community centers, the pharmacies sump as cvs and walgreens largely tavgt the handling long-term care 2356789s. a lot of that done by end of the month and hopefully can turn attention with enough resources and funding to actually getsing the rest of the country vaccinated. i think as much as the previous administration sort of overpromised and underdelivered, i think in some ways, this may be underpromising and overdelivering. we need to do more than a million shots per day. look at the idea of two-shot retch gin retch minhs. 500 million shotses. get to that per day, looking at maybe end of summer getting to that point of herd immunity. really have to ramp up. the pharmacies alone, looking at some data, could do about 100 million shots per month. again, if they had enough resources and funding to do so. we could get -- i really --

optimistic about that. i think we could get to those numbers. >> so glad you're optimistic, sa sanjay. if you count mind, stand by. we're awaiting, of course, president biden and want to hear what you have to say about that. getting a quick break in and then we will be awaiting this speech on coronavirus from the president. “could have been me” by the struts hey, mercedes? how can i help you? the 2021 e-class. motortrend's 2021 car of the year. between what is hoped for and what can be, there's a bridge. between endangered and protected, there's a bridge. between chaos and wonder,

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announcement, let me take a few moments to thank all the law enforcement folks for all they did the military personnel from all across the federal state and local agencies to securing yesterday's inaugural activities. and a special thanks to the members of the national guard for around the country. it was an unprecedented situation. hopefully it will never have to be renewed again. and with the most professionalism and duty and honor that can be expected. as president in commander in chief, i always respect and revere their service and that of their families. but now to today's announcement, vice president harris and i were joined by members of our covid-19 team, response team, and dr. tony fauci, our chief covid medical adviser, xavier becerra, our nominee for secretary of health and human services, mr. vivek murthy, our

nominee for surgeon general, and the dr. marcella nuñez smith who will be leading our equity would, and covid response. and who are managing this whole effort. yesterday during my inaugural address, i offered a salient prayer and silent prayer. i thought it was important that people understand what had happened, that we all pay tribute for our prayers for those 400,000 americans who have lost their lives in this pandemic. on tuesday jill and i, kamala, and doug, we stood at the reflecting pool in front of the lincoln memorial and joined americans all across the country to remember those 400,000 moms and dads, husbands and wives, children, sons, daughters. and i said at that moment that

to heal we must remember, to heal we must remember. it's important to do that as a nation. we must also act, though, not just remember. yet, for the past year, we couldn't rely on the federal government to act with the urgency and focus and coordination we needed. and we have seen the tragic cost of that failure. three to 4,000 deaths per day. to date, more than 24 million americans have been infected. to put that in context, america makes up 4% of the world's population. but 25% of the world's confirmed covid-19 cases and nearly 20% of all the covid-19 deaths when we have 4% of the world's population. the pandemic has disproportionately impacted blacks, latinos, and native americans who are about four times as likely to be hospitalized and nearly three

times more likely to die from the covid-19 pandemic than white americans. hospitals are out of beds. businesses are closed for good. schools are caught in between. and while the vaccine provides so much hope, the rollout has been a dismal failure thus far. so, i understand the despair and frustration of so many americans and how they're feeling. i understand why many governors, mayors, county officials, tribal leaders, feel like they're left on their own without a clear national plan to get them through the crisis. let me be very clear. things are going to continue to get worse before they get better. the memorial we held two nights ago will not be our last one, unfortunately. the death toll will likely top 500,000 next month. and the cases will continue to mount. we didn't get into this mess overnight, and it's going to take months for us to turn

things around. but let me be equally clear. we will get through this. the we will defeat this pandemic. and to a nation waiting for action, let me be the clearest on this point. help is on the way. today, i am unveiling a national strategy on covid-19, and executive actions to beat this pandemic. this plan reflects the ideas i set forward during the campaign and further refined over the past three months. it consists of my transitions team, task force, tony fauci and the team here today, and other experts, put this plan together. our national strategy is comprehensive. it's based on science, not politics. it's based on truth, not denial, and it is detailed. you can review this entire plan by going to whitehouse.gov. it is so detailed, it's 198

pages. our plan starts with mounting an aggressive, safe and effective vaccination campaign to meet our goal of administering 100 million shots in our first hundred days in office. we're at day one. this is going to be one of the greatest operational challenges our nation has ever undertaken, and i'm committed to getting it done, we're committed to getting it done. we'll move heaven and earth to get more people vaccinated for free and create more places for them to get vaccinated to mobilize more medical teams to get shots in people's arms and to increase vaccine supply and get it out the door as fast as possible. yesterday we got started. we directed the federal emergency management agency, fema, to start standing up the

first federally supported community vaccination centers with the goal of standing up 100 centers within the next month. the centers for disease control and prevention will launch the federal pharmacy program to make vaccines available to communities in their local pharmacies beginning within i think by the 7th or 8th of february, in very early february. we'll also task the department of health and human services to prepare and expand the pool of medical professionals who can administer the vaccine, who can administer the vaccine. and ensure we have enough vaccinators to meet the nation's needs and quickly. in addition to this effort, our administration will be asking congress to fund, for the funds to grow the public health workforce. we also are going to take immediate steps to partner with governors, mayors, and other local officials who we've been

talking to all along who are on the front lines of this fight. we directed fema to establish a covid response liaison for each state, which means every state will have a point person at the federal level to maximize cooperation between the federal government and the states. this is a model we use to respond to hurricane sandy, which i was deeply involved with. and in just a few moments i'm going to sign a declaration to paidly begin reimbursing states 100% for the use of their national guards to help covid relief efforts. something democrats and republican governors alike have called for. but the brutal truth is it's going to take months before we can get the majority of americans vaccinated. so, while we increase

vaccinations, we're going to take steps necessary now to slow the spread of the disease as well. one of our 100-day challenges is asking the american people to mask up for the first hundred days, the next 99 days. the masks have become a partisan issue, unfortunately, but it's a patriotic act. but for a few months to wear a mask, no vaccines, the fact is that the single best thing we can do. they're even more important than the vaccines because they take time to work. and if we do this as americans, the experts say by wearing a mask from now until april, we would save more than 50,000 lives going forward. so i'm asking every american to mask up for the next hundred days. yesterday i signed an executive action that requires masks and social distancing on federal

property. today we'll be signing an additional executive action to extend masking requirements on interstate travel like on trains, planes, and buses. and in light of the new covid variants that we're learning about, we are instituting now a new measure for individuals flying into the united states from other countries. in addition to wearing masks, everyone flying to the united states from another country will need to test before they get on that plane, before they depart, and quarantine when they arrive in america. our national plan launches a full-scale wartime effort to address the supply shortages by ramping up production and protective equipment, syringes, needles, you name it. and when i say wartime, people kind of look at me like wartime? as i said last night, 400,000 americans have died. that's more than have died in

all of world war ii. 400,000. this is a wartime undertaking. today i'm signing an executive action to use the defense production act and all other available authorities to direct all federal agencies and private industry accelerate the making of everything that is needed to protect, test, vaccinate, and take care of our people. we've already identified suppliers, and we're working with them to move the plan forward. now, look, our strategy includes a plan to safely reopen schools and businesses while protecting our workers. today we're directing the department of education, the department of health and human services to immediately provide schools and communities with clear guidance and resources to safely reopen the schools and childcare centers. and, by the way, when you do

that, think of all the people who can get back to work, all the mothers and single fathers that are staying home taking care of their children. we're going to put full force of the federal government behind expanding testing by launching a covid-19 pandemic testing board. this effort will ensure that we get testing to where it is needed and where it is needed most. helping schools and businesses reopen safely and protecting the most vulnerable like those who live in long-term care facilities. and for the millions of workers, many of whom are people of color, immigrants and low-wage workers who continue to put their lives on the line to keep this country going through the pandemic, i'm calling for the enforcement of a more stringent worker safety standard so that you are better protected from this virus while you have to continue to work to protect the rest of us. our plan also protects those most at risk and works for

everyone of all races and urban and rural communities alike. today, i'm formalizing the health equity task force that we announced in the transition led by the brilliant dr. marcella nuñez smith who is going to ensure that equality is at every decision we make. fighting disinformation campaigns that are already underway. above all, our plan is to restore public trust. we will make sure that scientists and public health experts will speak directly to you. that's why you're going to be hearing a lot more from dr. fauci again, not from the president but from the real genuine experts and scientists. we're going to make sure they work free from political interference and that they make decisions strictly based on science an