♪ >> brennan: welcome back to "face the nation." we turn now to the director of the centers for disease control, dr. rochelle walensky. she joins us from boston this morning. you heard the british prime minister give himself a little bit of wiggle room on committing to reopening schools in his country next month, particularly given this new research on b117, that highly contagious strain that is found to have higher hospitalization and death risk associated with it. should areas of this country, where there is b117, still have in-person classes? >> doctor: there are over a thousand b117 cases

we have documented in this country in 39 states. we estimate now that about 4% of disease in this country is related to b117, and we have projections it may be the dominant strain by the end of march. the amount of disease in school is very much related to the amount of disease in the communities. so the work we do to decrease the amount of disease in our communities is that much more benefit to getting our schools reopened. >> brennan: you said on friday at a press conference that 90% of the country's schools are in areas with high levels of transmission. don't those schools risk becoming vectors of transmission? >> doctor: so what we know from the literature, from the scientific literature, is that most disease transmission does not happen in the walls of the school. it comes in from the community. there is very limited transmission between students, between students and staff. really mostly between staff to staff when there are breaches in

mask-wearing. what we're really advocating for now is working to get our -- especially in the high areas of transmission, the red zones you just talked about, getting our "k" to 5 kids back in a hybrid mode with universal mask-wearing and distancing. >> brennan: so in places like south florida or california, where there is a high dr degree of these mutant strains, it still applies? >> doctor: indeed. it is the same disease. we prevent it in the same ways. our mitigation strategies work, whether it is a b117 variant or a wild type. the b117 may be less forgiving when we have the breaching strategies. >> brennan: the c.d.c. stsays that the health for children has decreased 24%

over the last year, but mental health isn't mentioned in those guidelines that you released this week. >> doctor: we are worried about all of the collateral damage that we're going to see, not just mental health. of course mental health, but lots of educational milestones, food insecurity. which is why we would very disscriptdescriptive so they can reopen safely. >> brennan: on the mental health issue, are you going to issue new guidelines on how to deal with that? >> doctor: we'll certainly be watching that space and looking to our mental health colleagues and looking to where and when guidelines are required and necessary. >> brennan: when you were last with us, it was just right before the inauguration. and you predicted that the country would be close to half a mill deaths by

mid-february. that's almost exactly where we are right now. what do you think the trajectory is from this point? >> doctor: you know, i think so much depends on how we, as a country, behave. we still have 100,000 cases a day. we still have somewhere between 1500 and 3500 deaths per day. and yet we see some communities relaxing some of their mitigation strategies. we are nowhere out of the woods. and, as you know, if we relax these mitigation strategies with increasing transmissible variants out there, we could be in a much more difficult spot. what i would say is now is the time to not let up our guard. now is the time to double down. still with 100,000 cases a day, still with over two and a half times the cases we had over the summer. >> brennan: and you're talking about places like montana and iowa, where they have lifted masking requirements, and you say that is a mistake? >> doctor: indeed. we're not out of the woods yet. we need to get our kids

back to school. we need to get our communities back to some normal functioning before we can start thinking about letting up our mitigation strategies. >> brennan: i want to ask what you have changed since you've taken the job at c.d.c. you talked about the need to scale up testing and scaling of the new variants. >> doctor: i think there is a lot of change that has happened at the c.d.c. first of all, we've released the school guidance, which has been long incoming. we really wanted to get that out and we have done so. in terms of the variants, we have much more sequencing happening. each state is now giving us strains fo for sequ for sequ. and we want to sequence over 6,000 virus a week, as well as collaborations with universities, with

the intent of really, really scaling up our sequencing. >> brennan: but how much are we getting a glimpse of? where are we, 5%, 10%? >> we are -- in the beginning of january, early january, we were sequencing 250 a week, and we're doing more and more every week. >> brennan: it sounds like you think there is still work to do to figure out where virus is spreading in this country? >> doctor: absolutely. we have the intent to do more and more sequencing every week. we need resources in order to do so. but the scale-up has been over 10-fold in the three weeks we've been there. >> brennan: when do you think that the farms sees pharms have developed these vaccines, what do they need to do with the

variants? >> the major variant is b117, the one that came from the u.k. we know in the labs that the current vaccines actually work quite well against b117, according to laboratory data. we don't have any data here yet to demonstrate otherwise, although we're watching it extraordinarily carefully. in the meantime, the pharmaceutical companies are adjusting their manufacturing and science to directly neutralize the b117 variant. we're both watching what is happening with the epidemiology. in case we need vaccines that has two different strains, or booster vaccines. both are happening. >> brennan: both of happening. doctor, thank you for your time. >> doctor: thanks so much. >> brennan: we'll be right back.

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who joins us from tampa, florida, this morning. good morning to you. >> good morning. how are you? >> brennan: i'm well. as of this week your stores and other pharmacy chains are now receiving directly from the federal government doses of the covid-19 vaccine. according to your press release, you'll get 100 doses initially for stores in california, new jersey, and philly. what does it mean to get the vaccine directly? >> it is long-awaited. we're super excited to be getting these doses directly so we have the ability to protect more people in a meaningful way. we have been doing over 140,000 shots so far with state governments and local municipalities. so we were in the whole process much earlier than we ever expected, even with the states. but it is just exciting to be picked in these states as one of two pharmacies that will be distributing

the federally allocated doses. >> brennan: with the newly allocated doses, how many vaccinations do you think you'll be able to conduct each week? how many did you do this week, for example? >> so we're doing -- we got 116,000 doses last week. those are all right in process. we are administering, as you said, 100 doses per store per week. there are 1160 stores. we anticipate and are hopeful that volume will go up. >> brennan: can you explain what the registration system will look like? i'm sure you know i know plenty of people, particularly older people, who really struggle trying to figure out which website to go to at the state, at the county level, which store to go to. how are you going to streamline that part of the process? >> well, at this point, it

is all still being handled by the state and local jurisdictions. and if you go to rite-a rite-aid.com /covid 19. and we have a daily update by state and jurisdiction, that shows you which to click on to register for a vaccine, and update you on the status of rite-aid's participation. we do not currently schedule in the store. so you have to go through the state or local jurisdiction's websites. and then you can pick a rite-aid or a wal-mart or a pubix to register with. and the supply continues to be not able to meet up the demand. so we still have very long waiting lists. but we're hoping in the

april/may timeframe, when you hear about all of these new doses becoming available, we're hoping that you can go to directly to us and register on our scheduling system. but for now, you need to go to that link. we feel it is a great source of information for people who are very confused. >> brennan: you said back in january, you said it yourself, that all of this is pretty confusing because of how states are breaking this down. how would you advice the biden administration to change it? should the private sector be taking more of a role in every part of this? >> i think the private sector is more experienced with these scheduling tools and registration tools, which are very much stressed right now. and so i always think that the private sector, who build these tools and scale these tools in the cloud, from a technology perspective, would be the best people to help in

this regard, as well as with the call centers. i know that the governors are doing a wonderful job, as best they can. for example, the governor of new jersey putting their on-call centers together and trying to do as much of this as they can. but the demand is so high, i do think the private sector can play a role here. we have built our over schedule tool. >> brennan: dr. margaret smith, who leads the task force for the white house, has talked about trying to get the vaccines in vulnerable areas. c.v.s.'s c.e.o. they had they could use mobile vans. do you have plans like that? >> we are prepared to do everything. and we plan to do anything and everything. i think the federal government has done a really good job, in the prior administration and

the current administration, with the testing sites, and focusing on the vulnerable areas and making sure we provide as much coverage as we can. they're doing the same thing right now, making sure where they pick our stores, for example, is ensuring adequate coverage for geology and vulnerable areas. as we roll both testing and vaccines out, they're very focused on making sure that we cover those communities. >> brennan: have you seen a dropoff in testing? because the covid tracking says there has been a 20% drop in testing since president biden has been inaugurated. >> there has been -- it has been our assumption because the holidays are over, and we are assuming there might be a pickup after the super bowl. people are a bit weary, and maybe they're taking a break after christmas and

the holidays, so we have seen the tests drop off. but we have just rolled out to 1200 stores pretesting because we anticipate that testing will continue to be a very important tool in the arsenal of america. >> brennan: thank you very much for your time today. >> thank you. >> brennan: we turn to dr.scott gottlieb, who sits on the board of pfizer. and he joins us from connecticut. good morning to you. >> doctor: good morning. >> brennan: i know you agree with the c.e.o. of rite-aid that the private sector should take a more direct role en more of in more f this process. do you see the biden administration eventually getting there? >> doctor: i think they're doing it right now, the biden administration, in terms of trying to push this out and create more access sites. i wouldn't devote as much federal resources to developing these mass

vaccination sites. i think people can go on line, register, go to dodgers stadium. they could be serviced by wal-mart and rite-aid. it could be used in some of the hard to reach environments, whether you can move mobile vans into those communities, try to work through community groups, local providers, church groups, community health centers, to try to get harder to reach populations vaccinated. it is a hands-on effort. i think marshaling the federal resources towards that kind of mission. >> brennan: the biden administration purchased 200 million more doses, it gives them a stockpile of about 600 eventually, once it comes off the production line. you've heard me talk with the c.d.c. director, and i asked her when production should shift to those treatments of new variants. she said that is happening now. what can you tell us about

where we stand in terms of being ready to protect against those new variants? >> doctor: well, look, i think we have plenty of time to get this right for the fall and have vaccine boosters that could cover the new variants. the development work is going on right now. all of the companies are developing new variant vaccines, including pfizer, the company i'm on the board of. and the question is: when are you going to shift over your manufacturing. i think you'll have to make that decision in jewejuly, august at the latest. remember, they won't be fully through clinical trials, so you don't want to throw all of your eggs in one basket. i think that's about the point where you're going to make that decision. the time for starting the manufacturing process and actually getting finished vaccine off the line is about two months. if you start manufacturing in july, jewel start getting vaccine off the

line n time for the fall. >> brennan: you heard the prime minister stand by his decision to keep using the astrazeneca3 vaccine. the w.h.o. is sticking with it, too. is that a mistake? >> doctor: i think if we're going to do that, we need a plan "b." i understand why they want to do that. they've manufactured a lot of this vaccine, and it is cheap and accessible. and because of the handling requirements, it doesn't require complicated storage. but if you know it does not cover the b117, you have the risk to select for in that markets. you need a plan on what vaccine you're going to deploy into those markets. the problem is you may 4 close the one vaccine that is the most likely

candidate. but, in fact, the astrazeneca vaccine is very immunogenetic against the vaccine sector. they're using a chimpanzee adno virus, and it creates antibodies that can attack other antibodies. so you mi might foreclose these opportunities, which means you need another vaccine. those vaccines are harder to handle in those markets because they require more complicated cold-chain storage. so we need to work this out right now. >> brennan: that's a pretty big warning you're making right now. >> doctor: i think they need to have a plan for that, yeah. >> brennan: i want to ask you about the comints, comms from the biden administration, jake said yesterday that the biden administration has deep

concern about the world health oganization's investigation, chinese interference in it. he demanded handing over data. that's exactly what the trump administration demanded as well. what is it that china still has here that we need to know? >> doctor: a lot of data. first of all, they have antibody testing on the people who worked in that wuhan lab, and they didn't make that available. you would want to know if they had antibodies. those antibodies will weigh in over that time. we want to see samples from people admitted t to the hospital with the viral problems to see if they were close to the virus. there was a lot of data that was not made available. >> brennan: dr. gottlieb, thank you, as always, for your time. we'll be back in a moment.

>> brennan: the senate impeachment trial put on display some horrowing new sights and sounds from january 6th, as protestors stormed the capitol and made their way

into the senate chamber. we asked mark strassmann to take a look at those images. [yelling] >> reporter: january 6, american democracy's day of infamy. watching this montage of mayhem, it gives spasms of menace and malice. [yelling] >> we were normal, good, law-abiding citizens, and you guys did this to us. >> reporter: we learned this week about how appalling many moments were. pro-trump rioters bludgeon police, drag them down flights of stairs. >> it looked like a medieval battle seen. people were yelling out, "we got one. we got one." >> reporter: the mob of hunters almost got elected leaders. >> nancy.

where are you nancy? >> reporter: here you see senator mitt romney abruptly reversing course away from rioters, now inside the capitol. with gallows set up outside, the secret service whisked away mike pence and his family. an aide carried what appeared to be one of the three nuclear footballs. rioters came within 100 feet of them. >> take your hands off me. >> reporter: representatives and staff coward and cried. video shows chuck schumer and other senators evacuate the floor. the ark of behavior and seditious and close calls. >> i had tears in my eyes. >> reporter: but after an acquittal on the impeachment charge, there is worry about a lingering threat. what this video says most

of all: no one wants to see a sequel. >> if we pretend this didn't happen, or worse, if we let it go unanswered, who is to say it won't happen again. >> reporter: for "face the nation," i'm mark strassmann. >> brennan: we'll be right back. you stay awake for them. once daily sunosi improves wakefulness in adults with excessive daytime sleepiness due to obstructive sleep apnea. sunosi worked for up to nine hours at 12 weeks in a clinical study. sunosi does not treat the cause of osa or take the place of your cpap. continue to use any treatments or devices as prescribed by your doctor. don't take sunosi if you've taken an maoi in the last 14 days. sunosi may increase blood pressure and heart rate, which can increase your risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure, or death. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure. sunosi can cause symptoms such as anxiety, problems sleeping, irritability, and agitation.

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>> brennan: that's it for us today. thank you for watching. we did offer invitations to over two dozen senate republicans to join us today. no one accepted. until next week, for "face the for "face the nation" i'm margaret brennan. captioningng sponsoreded by cbs captioned d by media accecess group a at wgbh access.wgbh.org

. extreme weather alert. the plows are out, snow, ice and vehicles are piling up. >> snow is creating blizzard like conditions several governors have declared a state of emergencier, and activating crews as the worse is yet to come. republicans divide over impeachment as democrats defend their strategy. >> we successfully prosecuted him and convicted him in the court of public opinion. plus, vaccine milestone, 50 million get their shots as infections fall. >> now, is the time to not let up our guard.