12/22/21 12/221 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> america's armed forces will do everything in our power to avoid civilian casualties. we are conducting the most precise your campaign in history. amy: "the new york times" has revealed the pentagon has covered up the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians killed in the u.s. air wars in the middle east.

the explosive report directly contradicts claims by barack -- u.s. presidents and military leaders who praised the precision of the u.s. airstrikes. we will speak to reporter azmat khan, who personally visited 60 bomb sites in iraq, syria, and afghanistan to document the human toll of the air war. then we will look at president biden's plan to respond to the surge in covid cases linked to the omicron variant, from free-at home tests to deploying the military to help overwhelmed hospitals. pres. biden: how concerned should you be about omicron, which is now the dominant variant and it is country? it happened so quickly. the answer is straightforward, if you not fully vaccinated, you have good reason to be concerned. amy: we will speak to an emergency room doctor. and a group of haitian asylum-seekers have filed a class action lawsuit against the biden administration, accusing government of physical abuse,

racial discrimination, and other severe rights violations while they were forced to take shelter under a bridge in del rio, texas. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. president biden addressed the nation tuesday amid a fast-growing winter covid surge, largely linked to the highly transmissible omicron variant. he cautioned people against panicking but said unvaccinated people have "good reason to be concerned." biden announced a plan to distribute 500 million free at-home tests starting in january and more aid for hospitals. he also addressed the issue of federal vaccine mandates. pres. biden: i know vaccination requirements are unpopular for many. not even popular for those who are interested get them. my administration has put them in place not to control your

life, but to save your life and the lives of others. 400,000 americans die from covid this calendar year and almost all were unvaccinated. most all were preventable. amy: in texas, an unvaccinated man in his 50's is believed to be the first recorded u.s. covid death linked to the omicron variant. it was his second covid infection. harris counturged residents to get vaccinated. california will require healthcare workers to get a booster shot. it is the second state to announce a health worker booster mandate after new mexico. new york city is offering to $100 receive a booster shot at city-run vaccination sites before the new year in an effort to curb an explosion in cases. meanwhile, mayor-elect eric adams and other elected officials announced they are calling off an in-person inauguration gala due to the skyrocketing cases.

in philadelphia, the city's largest high school has switched to remote learning after 41 teachers called out of work following the death last week of monday a 17-year-old student from covid. california congressmember barbara lee is the latest vaccinated and boosted lawmaker to test positive for covid-19. she said she was experiencing cold-like symptoms and called on people to get their vaccine or booster. minnesota governor tim walz also announced he and his family tested positive for covid-19. so did the maryland governor larry hogan. the u.s. military has reportedly developed a vaccine that is highly effective against covid, including all its variants. the vaccine, created over two years at the walter reed army institute of research, is also said to be effective against other sars-origin viruses. a public announcement with more information about the vaccine is expected in the cong weeks. in international news, israel

will offer a fourth dose of a covid-19 vaccine to patients 60-or-older, those with compromised immune systems, and to health workers. it's the first country to implement a second booster dose. in france, the health minister said the country could start recording 100,000 new covid cases per day as the omicron variant is set to soon become the dominant variant. oxfam america, a moderna shareholder, has filed a complaint against the drug company with the securities and exchange commission. a lawyer for oxfam said -- "instead of using its life-saving technology to help curb the pandemic, moderna is obfuscating its patent dispute with the u.s. government, ignoring the death and suffering of millions worldwide, and declining to share their technology to help alleviate the stranglehold that covid-19 has placed on the global economy." in other vaccine news, european union regulators have approved novavax's vaccine for people 18 and older.

tests have shown the u.s.-developed shot to be roughly 90% effective, though there is limited data on its efficacy against variants of concern, including omicron. novavax will start delivering vaccines to the eu in january. during his covid address on tuesday, biden was asked by reporters about west virginia senator joe manchin sinking the build back better act this week and the fate of the bill. pres. biden: i want to get things done. i still think there is a possibility of getting build back better done. >> did senator manchin break is commitment to you? amy: joe manchin joined other senate democrats for a special virtual meeting tuesday night about a possible path forward on the bill. majority leader chuck schumer said on the call the senate would vote on a revised version of the package and a potential rules change to circumvent a republican filibuster. manchin has long opposed

measures to combat climate change, due to his ties with the coal industry in which he and his family are heavily invested, and his ties to fossil fuel lobby groups. in related news, united mine workers of america international, the u.s.'s largest coal mining union, called on manchin monday to support the roughly $2 trillion social and climate bill. in a major victory for labor rights, workers at kellogg's cereal plants have ended their nearly three-month strike after approving a new contract that provides across-the-board wage increases and enhanced benefits for all. one of the most contested issues had been a permanent two-tier system, where workers hired after 2015 were paid less than longer-tenured workers. the new five-year agreement with kellogg's doesn't include the two-tier system, eliminated -- gives workers a clear path to full-time employment, and provides a significant increase in the pension multiplier. the 1400 kellogg's workers in michigan, nebraska, pennsylvania, and tennessee had been on strike since october.

the united nations is reporting over 160 refugees ground in two -- drowned in two separate shipwrecks off libya this past weekend. some 1500 refugees have drowned so far this year according to the u.n. as people take on the dangerous route across the mediterranean sea seeking safety in europe. the world food programme warns the dire humanitarian situation in yemen is likely to worsen as the group has been forced to cut aid to due to a lack of fund the eight-year-long conflict between u.s.-backed saudi-led forces and houthi rebels has killed some 377,000 people according to the u.n., internally displaced another 4 million, and put 16 million yemenis on a path to starvation. "the washington post" is reporting an emirati agency had pegasus spyware installed on jamal khashoggi's fiancée's cellphone months before he was killed at the saudi consulate in istanbul in 2018. hanan elatr was detained at the dubai airport in april 2018 and

had her mobile phones and laptop confiscated. the pegasus spyware, made by israeli company nso group, has been used to target journalists, dissidents, and activists around the world. a researcher at the university of toronto citizen lab which helped uncover the covert, hanan elatr and khashoggi were secretly married in june, just four months before his murder according to "the washington post." he was also engaged to hatice cengiz at the time of his assassination. in guatemala, hundreds of maya k'iche protesters blocked a major highway for a second consecutive day tuesday, denouncing the recent massacre of over a dozen people in the western highlands of sololá. protesters placed the caskets of 11 of the 13 victims to obstruct traffic. among those killed were four children. the youngest, five years old. the weekend massacre over a land dispute was reportedly carried out by a group of armed men who ambushed the victims.

protesters have since been defying a state of siege enacted in the region by the guatemala government. in the u.s., republican congressmember scott perry has refused a request to speak with the house committee investigating the capitol insurrection. the committee could move to subpoena perry. investigators say he met with trump ahead of the january 6 riot and pushed justice department officials to block the election results. meanwhile, trump's short-lived former national security adviser michael flynn is suing the house committee in a bid to block a congressional subpoena for his phone records. and president trump has announced he will hold a news conference on january 6. new york city mayor-elect eric adams has come under fire after he lashed out at incoming city council members who sent him a letter this week asking him to reverse his support of solitary confinement in prisons. last week, adams said he would bring solitary punishment back to rikers island. the practice is widely

considered to be torture, including by the united nations. this is eric adams speaking tuesday. >> i wore bullet-proof vest for 22 years are protected people of this city. and when you do that, then you have the right to question me on safety and public safety matters. i think i know a little something about this. amy: mayor elect adams also said accused the incoming city council members of being disruptive and said he would ignore them. a new report by the brennan center for justice warns the "tidal wave of restrictive voting legislation" pushed by republican states this year will continue in 2022 as voters prepare to cast ballots in crucial midterm elections. the group says 19 states passed 34 voter suppression laws over the past year despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud. at least 13 bills have been pre-filed in state legislatures for the coming year and a colorado district attorney is asking the court to reconsider the 110-year prison sentence of rogel

aguilera-mederos, a 26-year-old truck driver from cuba convicted in october of vehicular homicide and other charges related to a deadly crash in april 2019. aguilera-mederos has said the brakes on his semi-trailer failed when driving downhill, leading to a multi-vehicle pileup that killed four people. at his sentencing hearing last week, he pleaded with the judge to forgive him. >> i want to say sorry. sorry for the loss. sorry for the people injured. i know i caused trauma. i know that. please, don't be angry with me, please. amy: a petition asking for

clemency or lesser sentence has gathered over million 4.6 signatures. meanwhile, many truck drivers say they're boycotting colorado in protest of his sentence. supporters are also calling on the trucking company to be held liable for the crash and the vehicle's failure. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman in new york, joined by my co-host juan gonzález in new brunswick, new jersey. hi, juan. juan: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: we begin today's show looking at how the pentagon has conducted a vast cover-up of civilians killed in the u.s. air wars in the middle east. "the new york times" has published a remarkable two-part series based on extensive reporting on the ground in iraq and syria, as well as 1300 confidential pentagon reports on civilian casualties resulting from u.s. drones and other

airstrikes. "new york times" reporter azmat khan writes -- "the documents lay bare how the air war has been marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting, and the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians, many of them children." the reports directly contradict public claims made by successive u.s. presidents and military leaders. in 2016, then president obama claimed the u.s. was waging the most precise air campaign in history. obama, in stark contract to isil, america's armed forces will continue to do everything in our power to avoid civilian casualties. with our extraordinary technology, we are conducting the most precise air campaign in history. after all, it is the innocent civilians of syria and iraq who are suffering the most.

they need to be saved from isil's terror. amy: we are joined now by azmat khan, the award-winning investigative journalist and contributing writer for "the new york times magazine." she spent over five years researching the u.s. air wars. as part of her reporting, she visited 60 different bomb sites in iraq, syria, and afghanistan. part one of her investigation is headlined "hidden pentagon records reveal pattern of failures in deadly airstrikes." and part two is "the human toll of america's air wars." talk him back to democracy now! thank you so much for this comprehensive report. i'm wondering if you can start off by telling us the story of a man and his family. >> ali and his family moved from a village that was just that of the mosul dam. they left it because they were fighting between isi and #of

forces and looking for anywhere they could be saved. that often meant for many families moving to places where you already had family. his dahter w married to a ung man whose present and west mosul and that is wherehey wound up moving. they moved tan industrial area this week storage district. this is a very large extended family plus not he had many children and grandchildren. this usually were unable to -- they moved into this kind of storage space, made it home, brought in things to sleep on, brought in a water tank. essentially, tried to get by as best they could end this war. and one night in march 2016, there were sitting down to dinner and there was an

airstrike. what they did not know the time was the united states had been surveilling this house and that particular compound or area the house is located on, believing it to be the site of a chemical weapons production facility and other kinds of structures associated with chemical weapons making and dissemination. but wound up happening is that the intelligence review before the strike was great opposition he had different people going in this target. the actual intelligence for this site may have come from the human source and as people evaluated what they saw, there is one person who was looking at this and saw the intelligence that said, listen, i have a bit of a different assessment. she was an usaid official.

when she spotted the 10 children who everyone was reviewing the footage saw said, listen, i don't think those children are transients, meaning they are merely passing through, i think they live in or near this target compound. the military disagreed. they continue to classify the children as transients, meaning they believed they could mitigate the potential for the harm to those kids by carrying out the strike at night when they would not be outside playing or wherever it was they had seen them playing by the structure and the target video, the pre-surveillance video. shortly after this airstrike, video surfaced online family members whom i had met four years later i believe, who were picking up the bodies of their loved ones and trying to salvage everyone they could. at least 21 people died from that single family alone in this airstrike, and they were civilians.

when that video surfaced online, it triggered a credibility assessment in which the u.s.-led coalition took a look at the evidence, reacher viewed this usaid official to try to determine what went wrong and what they concluded is there was the process and procedures, you know, they did notind any wrongdoing or disciplinary action. in fact, they said theyould take more measures than necessary to protect against civilian harm. there wasn't the kind of deep unearthing of what happened here. when i first got this document about this incident, showed it to a source in the military. he said, you know this is confirmation. he explained this way. he said if military official see something called a target or called a chemical weapons production facility, as it is

being vetted through these chains, they place very high value on that kind of vetting. at that point it is hard for them to unsee ias anything else other than that particular target. he said probably this usaid official who had not been through seven instances of that ki of military th would lead you to believe these people were targets or these children were not transients owhatever it might be, she had the kind of eyes that were clear and understanding what was happening here. that issue of confirmation bias came up again and again in the more than 1300 records i obtained through the freedom of information act of the military zone assessment. misidentification, conflating somebody's was a civilian or combat was common. the number one reason that

happened was there was confirmation bias. juan: i wanted to ask you to put these records and this many deaths in the context of past u.s. wars. it seems to me the mass killings of civilians have marked all modern u.s. wars. in vietnam, the use of napalm and white phosphorous bombs against what became the civilian -- largely silly population. to the pantomime patient, the first use of what the pentagon called bunker buster bombs. it wasn't until the gulf war of 1991 the pentagon began to trumpet the use of so-called smart remote precision guided bombs that were going to eliminate civilian casualties. our government seems to increasingly rely on this false claim that better technology can somehow eliminate the stakes and

save both u.s. soldiers and civilians. what do you see from these documents, once again demonstrates the basic or fundamental fallacy of this approach to war? >> it is true a lot of these different innovations in warfare, weaponry, have been implemented in earlier wars. at the time, the u.s. would make grand claims about it. you mentioned the gulf war. during the gulf war, u.s. officials were very ap to talk about these are precision guided weapons, their effectiveness. surprisingly few civilian casualties. there is congressional research service report that came out many years later that was made or was made public many years later that said a lot of those claims being made about the effectiveness of that decision weaponry used in the call for or

vastly overstated. we have seen that again and again. there are claims about the use of precision guided weapons that just do not stack up with the reality ofhat th they can offer in the ability to follow a moving target. you can precisely hit a target exactly the way you want to with many of this you weaponry, but that is meaningless if you have the wrong target in the first place. if your intelligence is wrong. what i found many of these documents, overwhelmi patterns of failures in intelligence over and over, whether that was conflating a civilian with a combatant buster probably the biggest was failing to detect the presence of civilians in the first place before carrying ou a strike. seven instances they determined there were not civilians.

the military is really only held to a standard of reasonable certainty we concluded this particular thing. and their chain of command in the process. another major finding in the examinion of these documents was there were no findings -- at least not in the records i have -- any findings of wrongdoing or disciplinary action. that surprises a lot of people, but he probably should not when you know what results in funding the wrongdoing or dyspnea or action in the kind of apparatus or the way these investigations or assessments work, which is that it is based on mainly chain of command, reasonable certainty , and despite this often being amed where there is a major failure that becomes very public like the kabul strike for the msf bombing in 2015, american

officials will come out and say this is an anomaly, unique, and extremely tragic error. what i found through the examination of the documents 60 sites deemed credible, meaning they had accepted those -- accepted that casualties occurred and more than 40 others that were either deemed non-credible or not yet assessed, the more than 100 in total, what i often found in examining the records, looking at these strikes come on the ground, interviewing people, and really going and depth was that there were patterns of failure that they really could not investigate or understand without being on the ground, that they had limited view from where they were looking in the kinds of things they were using. and after a while, once you see that over and over, you do have to ask whether this is really a system of accountability or whether it is a system of

impunity to provide, for example, some sources have told me to provide legal cover in instances in which there will be allegations against u.s. soldiers or even to provide the military, as one analyst larry lewis studied a lot of these documents in the past reported, to basically provide them expanded authority on the battlefield and use to justify taking greater freedom of action in war. juan: speaking of accountability, your reports of -- or the military's own investigation -- about how many of them did the pentagon officially acknowledge as civilian casualties and how we basically kept in-house until your able to uncover these records? >> the number of records

previously been made public before i obtain them, i think around 280 assessments that they have done either determining them to be credible or not. of those 2000, 340 named credible. before i started requesting them -- actually, before putting aside the number i got, the number that have been made public among those was less than 20. so less than 20 of these records had ever been made public. i obtained i think 260 credible assessments and around 1100 or so non-credible ones, where they concluded it was not likely they had killed or injured civilians. amy: can you give us the example, azmat khan, of what happened in syria? you have special operations forces reported they killed 85

isis fighters in a july 2016 air raid in northern syria. in fact, the rate hit houses far from the front line, killing 120 villagers. use that as an example of what gets covered up. >> in this case, what you have is a scale of civilian deaths that is vastly different than what they claim. there is in area of syria that was widely known among local journalists, on the material, open-source material, that as many claimed 200 people died. in this recording, essentially, what i got was a document that said they had concluded 85 isis fighters had bee killed at three staging areas, different vehicles they had attacked. i went to the site of it in ria and verified these

numbers, but came to the conclusion at least 120 civilians had been killed. in the pentagon's own assessment, they acknowledged between seven and 24 civilians had been killed. they were looking in this case for fourfold increase of the actual rate of civilian deaths or injury. the strength or -- i learned a lot from doing this reporting. the ability to compare the documents that are made with respect to assessing these records to the reality on the ground, even in cases where they have accepted an incident as credible and acknowledged casualties took place, it was arresting in concerning. amy: i know you have to go. i want to get to this issue of what is happening today. talk about the u.s. new-wave

were taking shape after the 12,009 surge in u.s. forces in afghanistan by the end of 2014, obama declared america's ground wars essentially done, shifting the military's mission to mostly air support and advice for of can forces battling the taliban. at roughly the same time, authorizing a campaign of airstrikes against isis targets and supportive allied forces in syria. can he talk about how the obama administration came to the ground for former president trump to lunch tens of thousands of airstrikes in a rack syria, and afghanistan and then what biden is doing today? >> it is 8:30 and i said i would leave at 8:30. it is a complicated question that deserves a longer answer. certainly, you can say we have seen a dramatic increase in the use of airstrikes as american soldiers were withdrawn from different war zones under the obama administration. as a result of that, there was a choice to ramp up the number of

airstrikes. certainly, that is the case. if you like to learn more about that, read it as it is written in the story. yes, sir lander the trump administration you saw the expanded use of who could call in airstrikes as in the chain of command authorize some of these strikes as well. i really don't want to get -- amy: we will link to both parts of this astounding report that took you years to do. azmat khan, thank you so much for being with us, award-winning investigative journalist for "the new york times magazine" and we will link to the two-part investigation. part one is headlined "hidden pentagon records reveal pattern of failures in deadly airstrikes." and part two is "the human toll of america's air wars." coming up we speak to an emergency room doctor about president biden's plan to

respond to the surge in covid cases linked to the omicron variant. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: the legendary folk singer michael hurley performing his song "wildgeeses" in our democracy now! studio just before the pandemic began when we still have performers coming in. michael hurley turned 80 years this week. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. president biden has announced a plan to begin distributing in january 500 million at-home covid tests in response to a fast-spreading winter covid surge linked to the highly transmissible omicron variant. biden addressed the nation on tuesday and urged everyone to get vaccinated. pres. biden: folks, let me

summarize. we should all be concerned about omicron, but not panicked. if you're fully vaccinated, especially if you got your booster shot, you are highly protected. if you are unvaccinated, you are at a higher risk to getting severely ill from covid-19, getting hospitalized, and even died. sohe best thing to do is get fully vaccinated and get your booster shot. amy: president biden also announced plans to set up new federal testing sites and to dispatch military medical personnel to help overwhelmed hospitals. he also called out anti-vaxxers who have spread misinformation about the vaccines and the pandemic. pres. biden: the unvaccinated are responsible for their own choices, but those choices have been fueled by dangerous misinformation on cable tv and social media. you know, these companies are making money by peddling lies in passing along this information

that can kill their own customers and supporters. it is wrong. it is immoral. i call on them to stop it. stop it now. amy: to talk about the state of the pandemic and biden's plan, we are joined by dr. tsion firew. she is assistant professor of emergency medicine at the columbia university medical center. she is also an adviser to the ministry of health in ethiopia. thank you so much for joining us. you are here in new york. the lines of hundreds of people -- i was speaking to someone who told me about a teacher who wanted to sign up for a test and the local clinic where she wanted to go, they told her can't would be -- she would get the shot in maybe 10 hours. talk about the state of facts has to testing now, why it is important, and also what president biden has said the administration will do with these 500 million free tests at

home? >>. welcome news that we're going to have half a billion tests by january. but as you stated, we need it now more so than ever. especially with the holidays coming and people traveling and also shared the story of a similar everyone i talked to in the hospital. yesterday during telemedicine, people having access to medicine or using home antigen test. april 2020, there was no access or limited testing for even health care providers in general. back to square one with the surge. the messaging was clear yesterday about the need for vaccination, but the tests in are more important. people just have mild symptoms are more likely to have covid.

juan: i wanted -- give out the issue of testing. clearly, the government -- i wanted to ask you about the issue of testing. clearly, the government downplayed the need for testing once vaccinations began but there were elite institutions around the country. i think of princeton university. princeton university was requiring once a week testing since the beginning of the year for all vaccinated students. twice a week testing if you were not vaccinated. not just the students, but all faculty and neveproviding pretesting the local community. -- free testing for the local community. they have been doing it since september yet we find huge portions of our government infrastructure was not reall paying attention to the need to continue to test, even his people were getting vaccinated. was this just a question of money and resources or was there basically a mistaken view of how

to continue to have surveillance of the development of the virus? >> i would say i think a lot of the push and the resources are going toward the vaccine and the boosters, and we've seen in new york city many of the testing sites have been shut down especially once the boosters -- trying to push that agenda, the push for testing has been declining all of the country, not just in new york. to comment on that specifically, especially the places that have low prevalence of covid, i think testing has reduced drastically. but i think what i think the right thing to do at that time we see the omicron variant arriving from different places around the world and the surge in south africa, to see mostly happen in the u.s. and prepare

for that beforehand would have been appropriate to have testing sites available also amp up the availability of antigen test at home. we've been asking for that alone time, making the tests available at home for many across the u.s. when germany and other countries in europe were doing this. especially people would be traveling for the holidays. we were predicting the numbers might be going up. unfortunate, some of the responses have been delayed and i think we need to learn from the previous surge and also other countries about short-term memory and we seem to forget what we have gone through. juan: we're hearing reports there is a huge shortage of nurses and other health care workers around the country. could you explain what is happening and the effects on your hospital and other medical

facilities as well as we confront this new surge? >> we are seeing all over -- right after the pandemic started, an increase in burnout. also people your retirement age, started to retire early because of the burden everybody went through come especially during the surge in the new york area. my hospital is no exception. we are seeing that all of the country. people who can afford to leave for other professions have left health care in general. as we see more and more nurses leave and other health care providers leaving, the burden is added on to the people who are staying and working. so the burnout all over we feel for many people in hospitals and just -- sometimes especially the pandemic going on forever and so much of the anti-factors and [indiscernible]

we don't know when the pandemic is going to be over. when the end is not near and continuing to witness the surge here and there, especially [indiscernible] very frustrating and overburdening our health care system. amy: dr. firew, i would ask about an article you wrote. i'm a pregnant doctor and i feel confident receiving the covered vaccine, here's why. it was from last january. i wanted to ask about pregnant people and whether they should be concerned. maybe they already had the double shot and now we are talking about the booster. i mean, if the vaccine has not been approved for infants, should they be concerned about the effects on the fetus? why you feel so confident at

this point and now this new information coming out about johnson & johnson vaccines, people, you know, who might suffer from thrombosis, blood clotting disease should not take it and the whole push to move away from johnson & johnson. if you could talk about this, starting with the issue of pregnancy. >> last year, almost a year ago, i was one of the people who were pregnant and received the vaccine. at the time, meeting the health care provider, i wanted more information and i was hesitant. what we're seeing right now, pregnant women are at higher risk of having severe illness from the disease if they are not vaccinated. to your point, us of the patients i've seen testing positive for severely ill are funded the hesitancy or slack of information or no one has gone over the data.

the data shows so far there's not been any harm to the fetus from vaccination. it has been protective of the mother and also the fetus. see more patients who are unvaccinated come especially pregnant women, ending up in the icu, severely ill, harming the baby because the mothers are not getting appropriate oxygenation and this causes severe harm to the baby. so the risk, like every vaccine, the risk of vaccination -- from vaccines are side effects but they are very minimal. having the disease brings greater risk to the mother and the baby. at this point, now a year into the vaccine, 70 pregnant women, especially health care workers, were vaccinated and have now normal and healthy babies at this point. speaking to the data. i talked to patient yesterday it was hesitant about getting the vaccine.

i took my time and said, i have a healthy young boy who is nine months and a lot of my colleagues who are vaccinated at that time have young healthy babies at this point. i think we should end the hesitancy and people should speak to their doctors, said town and go over the data of what is available. we have convincing data at this point. what you suggested earlier about the johnson & johnson come the risk of blood clots, we see that with some of the vaccines and again, the risks are very, very minimal. at this point, where the covid is spreading like wildfire, i think it is very appropriate to take a small risk. ju: speaking of spreading like wildfire, we have heard repeatedly reports that basically omicron is spreading among the unvaccinated. but there is still a significant percentage of children in the

u.s. who are unvaccinated. are you seeing younger and younger patients in the hospitals now? >> i don't work only with pediatric patients. but talking to my colleagues, they have seen patients that are testing highly positive especially among kids. thankfully, not severely ill. i would like to share the data in south africa, and the number of kids under two who are testing positive and also needing admission to hospital had increased, especially for kids under the age of two. this is something that we have to prepare for in the u.s. to as your question, increase of kids positivity but not so much in hospitalizations. amy: let's talk internationally. in the corporate media in the united states, the message is very clear -- wear that mask unless you're the southwest ceo

who testified before congress is that masks don't help, amongst his seo colleagues he testified, was not wearing a mask when he testified and went home and tested positive for covid. but wear that mask, get vaccinated, socially distance, be responsible, don't gather in large groups. but this issue unvaccinated the world is not emphasized very much in the united states. really, the power center in the world, and determined so much what happens in the world, and the issue, for example, of access to vaccines. in addition to being an emergency room doctor and professor of emergency medicine, you are an adviser to the ministry of health in ethiopia. i think something like 1.4% of the people have been fully vaccinated there compared to something like 60% in the united states. can you talk about the demand of so many that the u.s. push

harder, especially given aliens to moderna and pfizer, forgetting these vaccines to the world and allowing factories around the world that have the ability to produce these vaccines, making it possible to do this? >> thank you fact question. it is something i am passionate about and something my colleagues have shared and written about. to have this global solution for a global problem. as you have seen coming from different parts of the world and this is because people do not have access to vaccination and people are at risk. saying we are all at risk until everyone -- as you have stated, the vaccination and uptake in many places, especially in lower income countries, because poor access and distribution of

vaccine in those areas. also the pharmaceutical companies are not sharing the technology. because of that, it makes the distribution of the vaccine very difficult, especially lower and middle income countries. that is something we should emphasize. the u.s. has made a promise to donate vaccines worldwide. as we have seen, it is taking a long time to get those vaccines into the arms from especially the most vulnerable populations of the world. as we seen more of the variants coming, more transmittable, as more of the transmittable viruses are coming around increase chances and increase the chance of having new variants. that might not even be a response to the vaccines that have been doubled already. each time there's more viruses that are going around from one country to another, one person

to another, there is the increased chance of developing a new variant. we won't be able to know what is going on. what we see right now, some of the countries, especially the xenophobia countries that should be applauded for identifying the variant, but really are being punished for identifying this variant -- i still don't understand why we have a travel ban in south africa and many south countries while we have omicron in the u.s., deleting numbers all the country. -- leading numbers all of the country. i think the pandemic at this point we should have learned how we are all interconnected when there are few people a threat, not building up walls but having this global solution for this global problem.

that is the definition of a pandemic. a global problem. we should address it and come up with a global solution stead of working in silos. amy: dr. tsion firew is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the columbia university medical center. also an adviser to the ministry health in ethiopia. coming up, group of haitian asylum seekers have filed a class-action suit against the biden administration, accusing it of racial discrimination and other severe rights violations. we will be back in 30 seconds. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "if i was president" by wyclef jean performing outside the otay mesa detention center in october. this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. a group of 11 haitian asylum seekers has filed a class action lawsuit against the biden administration, accusing the government of physical and verbal abuse, and other severe rights violations while they were forced to take shelter under a bridge in the borderlands of del rio, texas, in september. it was in del rio or u.s. border patrol agents on horseback lived haitian asylum seekers. one of the plaintiff said she was "terrorized by officers on horseback." the plaintiffs are also demanding the u.s. government allow the return of the thousands of haitian asylum seekers deported from the del rio encampment. we are joined by guerline jozef,

co-founder and executive director of haitian bridge alliance which is part of the class action lawsuit. she recently awarded the 2021 rfk human rights award. congratulations. >> thank you for having me. y cooking talk abo the significance of this lawsuit? >> we believe it will force the administration to be accountable fo what we continue to see is racism within the immigration system. we understand from the testimony and reports of the people were abused and potential victims of what happened, including attentive and we also an at that picture -- each element in that picture we solving grabbed by the officer on horseback, pushing and abusing him. the whole lawsuit is in

solidarity of the people who came and asked for safety. thpeople the administration have decided to disapar them. this is why we felt it was necessary to hold the administration accountable. juan: so far the biden administration has allowed over 120 deportation flights with about 14,000 migrants of haitian descent and deported. are all being sent back to haiti? >> absolutely,hich is painful reality for our community. as of september, the people saw on the bridge, close to 11,000 of them have been deported, including the gentleman we saw on the picture. under president biden, as you mentioned, 120 flights had been sent to haiti, even in the

middle of the extreme uprising as we have spoken about four, as we see the country continue to go under extreme political unrest. at the same time, the u.s. is putting a level 4 do not travel to haiti and asking u.s. citizens in haiti to leave the country immediately. asylum seekers who have come, sending them back to haiti. juan: administration is also begun a new remain in mexico program for asylum-seekers. how is the mexican government dealing with those who are told to remain in mexico if they are from africa or haiti or non-spanish-speaking countries? >> what the government has done, they have extended rema in mexico, which we ll the

migrant persecution protocol. asf right now, they have extended it to include everyone from the western hemisphere, clean people from haiti, jamaica, and brazil. what does that do? for haitian specifically, they are in limbo because title 42 is still in full fect. they can expel and deported under title 42. and then mexico under mpp. relieve them to be able to get protection by extending black people in mexico cannot hide. they are extremely vulnerable, actually visible. -- extremely visible. the administration provide the space for people to get protection and ask for asylum. we are really pushing hard with our brothers and sisters. we will hold president biden and

the entire administration accountable for what we all witnessed. the horrific pictures and videos we saw, they must be held accountable. amy: you have 11,000 haitians deported back to haiti, but the biden administration has announced plans to allow 20,000 more immigrant workers into the u.s. temporarily via the h-2b visa program. because companies are saying they don't have enough workers. 6500 of the visas will be set aside for applicants from guatemala, honduras, el salvador, and haiti. can you talk about what is going on here, deporting thousands and thousands and then, what, will some of the people who happened be brought back up? >> absolutely not. done under that program. that is what we are asking for the administration to the ople back step at the same time as you just mentioned, it does not make sense. we also understand it is

extremely impossible for people to even get access to the u.s. embassy in haiti. even if the program was in effect, how would people have access to the program? and why would they depart haitians come into the country and then provide visas for people -- protection? ere, not all of those to be ld accountable -- we are calling on all of us to be held accountable. we are making sure people have access to whatever proction is afforded to them under the law. we continue to push to make sure asylum-seekers at the u.s. have mexico border are ptected new matter where they are from but also understanding anti-black racism is at the root of what we are watching. we want to make sure people understand that immigration is a black issue. we cannot disconnect that from the reality after what we saw under the bridge in del rio. amy: guerline jozef, thank you

for being with us, cofounder and executive director of the haitian bridge alliance. by the way, tune into our holiday special on friday we will speak to nsa whistleblower edward snowden and pulitzer prize winning journalists glenn greenwald and chris hedges. next week, we will bring you a 25 anniversary special as well as an hour with noam chomsky as part of our year-end conversation. that does it for today's show. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or il them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

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(sophie fouron) we're right in the middle of a lava field. this used to be a land and a neighbourhood. when you live here, it can be taken by lava, and it can rain any second of the day. there's a very raw and authentic vibe here, on big island. is it because it's the only island of all hawaiian islands that have active volcanoes? they also believe very strongly in the gods. it's not the