>> reporter: she and more than 90% of the staff here at uc davis medical center here in sacramento, california, have received one dose at least of the vaccine. now listen to how high the rate is at the emergency department. >> we have 100% compliance among emergency physicians. >> reporter: 100%? >> 100%? >> reporter: we were there in december when he get his first shot. how has vaccinating the vast majority of employees here changed your ability to staff the er? >> that is a great question. so, before the vaccine came out, on any given day, we would have between 100, 150 employees that were sick with covid and were calling in sick and not coming in. >> reporter: now? >> i think it's single digits. there's less than 10. suddenly there was a pressure lifted from our shoulders. >> reporter: it's not just uc davis health system is, across

the university of california health system, cases dropped from 431 per week to 171 per week. with fewer out sick, the strain has dropped too. ann thompkins the interim health services director showed us the data. >> it's working. the numbers are a testameant, the vaccine is working. and we are going to be okay. >> reporter: back to nurse whitmer, she has gone from being a vaccine skeptic to an evangilizerhere is why. two days after getting her second dose, her mother, husband, three kids and grandmother tested positive for covid. you know who didn't? she and her grandfather, and they are the only two in the family who have been vaccinated. >> my husband was sick with covid pneumonia, was here at the emergency department for nine hours. my grandmother spent 25 days in the hospital with covid pneumonia and still is recovering on oxygen.

it's not fun seeing your family members sick. and it's very scary, being a nurse, watching them get sicker and sicker and whether to go to the hospital, whether to stay home. >> reporter: what do i hear? i hear the break up? >> yeah, just reliving it. >> reporter: when you relive it, what makes you emotional? >> um, not knowing if my husband would be one of the ones that would live or die. >> reporter: what a story. she went from being an i don't want it, to a thank god i got it. you know, one health official here at uc davis health said yesterday, david, covid-19 is no longer an occup u wh booster shots after new studies show the current vaccines are are less effective against some of the new variants. the moderna and pfizer vaccine work well with against the uk

strain but less effective against the south african variant that is now in ten u.s. states. meanwhile, south africa is the first distribute are the johnson & johnson vaccine. as we are reporting, there's not nearly enough to go around. >> reporter: lee mccabe never imagined that he would begin the year packing up his parents' belongings. heartbreaking reminders of his loss. >> i thought we did everything we could to protect them. >> reporter: for most of last year, mccabe kept his elderly parents safe. moving them in to a cottage on the property, as covid infections dropped they insisted returning home, unaware that the virus had mutated and a far more contagious strain was spreading like wild fire across their hometown. first, it took his father, five days later, his mother. >> reporter: maybe if we didn't let them go home, they would

still be around. to add to the pain of that regret, just four weeks after his parents died, the first batch of life saving devices landed in south africa, the johnson & johnson vaccine. >> if this arrived a few months ago, they would be alive and that makes me angry. because i feel that we have delayed so long in getting much needed help to people that need it. >> reporter: to day, south after has secured barely enough doses to cover half of the country. it's far worse in other developing nations where vaccine appartheid means that 9 out of 10 people will not get vaccinated this year many not until 2023. >> the virus is moving faster than global action. our action is too weak.

the virus is mutating. we are going to get more dangerous forms of this virus, and we will be running behind it slowly as people die. sonselccl r: until coinue to grievehes ie sll o enjoy with their family. globally unequal distribution will harm us all, experts warn. leaving reservoirs across the world for new variants to emerge and spread. it's a price that people in this country are already paying. south african strain has become the dominant strain here and the dominant strain here and reduce its borders i (ringing) - hey kaleb, what's up? how you doing? - hey, i'm good, guess what, i just had my 13th surgery. - really? i just had my 17th surgery. - well, you beat me. - well, i am a little bit older than you. - yeah it's true.

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so dad bought puffs plus lotion, smell irresistible. and rescued his nose. with up to 50% more lotion puffs bring soothing softness and relief. a nose in need deserves puffs indeed. peanutaler apeanutallergie deadly to children and also affect adults. >> peanut butter was her go-to snack until she was 32 years old. >> i opened the jar of peanut butter and instantly my lungs chd i was not able to breathe. >> reporter: she became allergic to peanuts as an adul shows 4.5 million adults suffer from peanut allergies and some developing it after 18. >> this was surprising for us

that adults are developing more food allergies. >> reporter: this doctor said is that it could have to do with my c -- micro organisms that are in the gut. >> why is the biggest question that all of us researchers across the world are asking. we do not have the clearance. how do we better understand this? how do we help adults with food allergies. >> reporter: the study finds 60% offed a puts who develop a peanut allergy are proper ly diagnosed and they are less likely to carry an epi pen. >> it's really, really important to know what to do in case of allergic reaction and to know how to manage it. >> reporter: she wants other allergic adults to know they are not alone. >> it's consuming and it can be intimidating at the beginning. i would like people to know, it's not a choice. we have to live with it and it's really a life threatening

condition. >> reporter: she is allergic to tree nuts, shell fish and pork. allaler zis that came on when she was an adult. >> c bmbs news new york. >> you may have heard that rush limbaugh has pas pased away, we look back on his life and controversial career. >> the democrats are going tear this country apart. >> reporter: until the end, rush limbaugh was divisive, the people that voted for trump know what the left is doing to our country. it has nothing to do with race or white supremacy or white this or that. it has to do with the left destroying western civilation. >> the polarizing host paved the way for modern partisan media. he made a name as a right wing radio talk show host and used his air waves as a political weapon, where mockery, insults were common place. >> one of the problems of the

country is the societal decay. >> reporter: he gave voice to republicans like newt gingrich and gave a start for causes. david is a media correspondent for npr. >> what you saw him do was pave the way for fox news. what you saw him do was pave the way for somebody more conservative and more conspiracy minded, somebody like glen beck. >> rush is god. >> nicknamed ditto heads. because limbaugh said what h felts. awttracted 15.5 million listeners a week. he was the most listened to. >> they loved his fire and rhetorical fight. >> his critics have labeled him racist, and homophobic and pushing a us verse them mentality.

>> we have a major immigration party that needs a permanent class of voters that wants the parade of illegal people, that are uneducated, they want them here. if any race of people should not have guilty about slavery is caucas caucasian. >> in 2012, he said this about a woman fighting for expanded access to birth control. >> it's means ys she is a slut right, she is a prostitute. she wants to be paid for sex is. >> president trump him the -- >> he is the greatest fighter that you will media, rush limba limbaugh, thank you. >> rush was special. he was a very special guy. and you said irreplaceable it's true. >> now the death of rush

limbaugh raises the question with, who is the conservative media figure to steer the party

we have got a fish story, a new deep water monster that never has been seen before. it's not surprising, since it's efforted that 90% of ocean species have yet to be classified. still this one has caught the attention of scientists around the world. we have the story from tokyo. >> back in 2016, an expedition off central japan yielded an

astonishing discovery, long fishing lines hooked a monster. >> rter: w alogyis saw the first image, he was skeptical. >> it's very grainy photo, almost like when you see a photo of the lochness monster. you say, what is it and there's no scale. when they said it was 25kilos, i could not believe it. >> this is called slick head because of the scale free head. mostly they are a foot long. this was the size and weight of small child. they captured a rare glimpse of the fish in motion. a swish of the tail suggesting a stswimr.>> it's fh urprising and it's a mystery, how could something this large survive in an environment that is so hostile. >> it's not surprising to find big bony fishes in surface

layers of the ocean. but down that depth is a completely different story. >> it proved the fish was an apex predator, the deep sea equivalent of a lion or killer whale. for the marine biologyists, this discovery, 8,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, shows that our final frontier is on earth. >> we know more about the moon than the deep sea. and this fish is a perfect example of t statement. >> and that's the ohtew for this some of theews continueorcbs this morning. and follow us online any time, at cbs news.com. reporting from the nation's capitol, i'm ben tracy.

it's friday, february 19th, 2021. this is the "cbs morning news." misery and outrage. first no electricity, now no clean water for millions in texas as senator ted cruz tries to explain his getaway to cancun. pregnant and vaccinated. pfizer begins a crucial study on soon-to-be moms who get a covid vaccine. confirmed, "perseverance" on the surface of mars. >> touchdown confirmed. an epic mission is underway on mars. where the latest nasa rover is searching for signs of life. captioning funded by cbs