01/03/22 01/03/22 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> we are definitely in the middle of a very severe search and uptick in cases. if you look at the -- it is almost vertical increase. we are at an average of about 400,000 cases per day, hospitalizations are up. amy: as covid cases skyrocket,

we will speak to dr. per hotez at texas children's hospital about e omicrosearch and h oundbrking wk develong tent-free vaccine. india has just given it emergency approval >> there is not enough attention paid to a durable, easy breezy vaccine for resource-poor countries, which is what we have been doing. hopefuy, now wcan move this along pretty quickly. amy: it is india that has just given it emergency approval. plus, as the nation faces a shortage of rapid covid tests, we will speak to an m.i.t. scntist who developed an inexpensive rapid test nearly two years ago but the fda refused to approve it. we will also go to colorado, where two people are feared dead after a devastating climate change-fueled wildfire destroyed

nearly 1000 homes outside of boulder. >> climate change is here now. this is not some future threat that we have to deal with at some point some day, but this is here and now. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. global coronavirus cases have surged to their highest level of the pandemic, with nearly a million-and-a-half confirmed cases a day, driven largely by the fast-spreading omicron variant. here in the u.s., where hospitalizations are rising rapidly and more than 400,000 people are testing positive each day, many cities held muted new year's eve celebrations. in new york city, some 15,000 people still gathered in times square to witness the iconic

ball drop. new york state reported a record of over 85,000 new cases on new year's eve. health experts warn that even though a lower percentage of people infected with omicron end up hospitalized, the sheer number of cases is pushing many hospitals past its breaking point. this is top u.s. infectious disease expert dr. anthony fauci. >> even if you have a less percentage of severity, we have multifold more people getting infected, the net amount is you're still going to get a lot of people that are needing hospitalization and that is the reason why we are concerned about stressing and straining the hospital system. amy: hospitalizations among children hit new records, with covid-related admissions increasing by 66% in the last week of december, though the number of fatalities remains comparatively low. this comes as millions of

students across the united states return to school today. education secretary miguel cardona said sunday in-person learning is a priority but that bumps in the road are expected amid the current surge. in related news, economists are warning mounting infections and the loss of the increased pandemic-related child-tax credit could lead to serious nancial rdship for millions of filies. travel disruptions continued into the new year, with over 2600 flights cancelled on january 1 in the u.s. alone due to a combination of severe winter weather and sick staff. more than 14,000 flights were canceled over the last 10 days. defense secretary lloyd austin is the latest high profile government official to test positive for covid. he is fully vaccinated and boosted and has reported mild symptoms. in colorado, two people are

missing and presumed dead after a fast-spreading wildfire tore through the suburbs of boulder county, destroying at least 1000 homes and businesses. the fires were fanned by winds that gusted up to 110 miles per hour. they capped a year of exceptional drought across the western u.s. and came amid an unusually warm december. louisville, colorado, resident paul bassis saw his home nearly destroyed in the blaze. >> climate change is here now. this is not some future threat that we have to deal with at some point some day, but this is here and now. people lost all of their belongings, their memories that were in those homes, families that were raised there. amy: later in the broadcast, we'll go to boulder to speak with dr. jennifer balch, director of the earth lab at the university of colorado come about the climate change-fueled

fire. a new york jury convicted ghislaine maxwell of federal sex trafficking charges for helping jeffrey epstein recruit and sexually assault teenage girls. the british socialite was found guilty of five out of six counts and faces up to 65 years in prison. during the three-week trial, four survivors recounted being abused at the hands of maxwell and epstein, who killed himself in a manhattan jail in 2019. in a statement, survivor and witness annie farmer said -- "i hope that this verdict brings solace to all who need it and demonstrates that no one is above the law. even those with great power and privilege will be held accountable when they sexually abuse and exploit the young." british royal prince andrew is now under intensified scrutiny. following the verdict, another epstein survivor, virginia giuffre, tweeted -- "maxwell did not act alone. others must be held accountable." giuffre has accused maxwell of

trafficking her to prince andrew when she was 17. on friday, federal judge rejected a bid from andrew's lawyer to dismiss uffre's lawsuit on the groundshat she no longer resides in the u.s. she lives in australia. a new york court is set to unseal a confidential 2009 settlement between epstein and giuffre today, and prince andrew's lawyers are expected to argue again for a dismissal of her case against him on tuesday. meanwhile, the bbc was forced to apologize after asking dershowitz to comment on the verdict. he has also been accused of sexual assault, a charge he denies. sudan's civilian prime minister abdalla hamdok stepped down sunday, warning sudan's military leaders are blocking the transition to a fully civilian government.

hamdok was deposed in an october 25 military coup and then restored to power in november. his resignation on sunday came as sudanese soldiers killed three people protesting for an end to military rule, pushing the death toll in the protests to at least 57. the protesters are hoping to topple sudan's military dictatorship just as they forced long-time ruler omar al-bashir from power in 2019. >> the international community used to support omar al-bashir in his final days and wasn't expected the people in the street would escalate and that protest would turn to a popular revolution. in the end, succumbed. the internationa community's role comes after people in the street -- the international community does not have the final say. amy: in hong kong, the independent media outlet citizen news is shuttering this week, citing safety concerns, days after authorities raided another independent news organization,

stand news, and arrested at least seven staffers. this is chief editor of citizen news daisy li. >> what has changed is not us but the environment. as the editor-in-chief nowadays, there are things i cannot make the decision for. i am unsure whether a story, a piece of news, or a sentence will violate a new regulation under the changing news environment. amy: this comes as hong kong' first so-called patriots only legislature was sworn in today following last month's election, where all candidates were vetted for their loyalty or selected by pro-beijing committees. german officials say they've shut down three of the nation's six remaining nuclear plants ahead of a year-end deadline to cease the use of nuclear power. germany's government says it's on track to phase out the use of coal by 2030 and will continue to scale-up renewable energy sources to meet demand for electricity. back in the united states,

president joe biden and vice president kamala harris are set to speak at an event thursday marking the first anniversary of the u.s. capitol insurrection. on sunday, wyoming congressmember liz cheney, the top republican on the house select committee investigating the insurrection, told abc news former president trump is "clearly unfit for future office" as she described his refusal to stop the violent mob attack on january 6. >> we know as he was sitting there in the dining room next to the oval office, members of his staff were pleading with him to go on television to tell people to stop. we know leader mccarthy was pleading with him to do that. we know members of his family, we know his daughter -- we have firsthand testimony his daughter went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence. amy: twitter permanently suspended the personal account of republican congressmember marjorie taylor greene for repeatedly posting

misinformation about covid-19. the suspension came after the far-right georgia lawmaker tweeted over the weekend about "extremely high amounts of covid vaccine deaths." it was greene's fifth strike according to twitter, which previously temporarily suspended her for other false claims about the pandemic. the disabled twitter handle was greene's preferred account, though she still has access to her congressional handle. karen ferguson, the long-time labor lawyer who fought to protect workers' pensions and retirement plans, has died at the age of 80. ferguson was head of the pension rights center for more than four decades, where she successfully lobbied congress for pension reforms while helping thousands of workers recover their retirement benefits. ferguson got her start in washington, d.c., as one of "nader's raiders" -- a group of lawyers who joined consumer advocate ralph nader's public interest research group in the 1970's. in colorado, governor jared

polis reduced the 110-year prison sentence of truck driver rogel aguilera-mederos to 10 years. he called initial lengthy sentence unjust. the case of the 26-year-old driver from cuba, triggered widespread condemnation, including a boycott of colorado led by other truck drivers in protest. aguilera-mederos has said the brakes on his semi-trailer failed when driving downhill, leading to a multi-vehicle pileup that killed four people. many are calling on the trucking company to be held liable for the crash. in south africa, firefighters have tamed a massive blaze that destroyed parts of the south african parliament in cape town. a suspect has been arrested in connection with the fire, which had been burning since the early hours of sunday. no one was injured in the blaze. the building is also home to

thousands of national treasures, including struggle documents. and in more news from south africa, friends, family, and supporters paid tribute to anti-apartheid hero archbishop desmond tutu at an official state funeral in cape town saturday. south african president cyril ramaphosa delivered the main eulogy during the service at st. george's cathedral, where he hailed tutu as "our national conscience." tutu's family also spoke at the ceremony. this is his daughter, the reverend nontombi naomi tutu. >> we thank you for loving our father, grandfather, husband, uncle, brother, bther-in-law. many of the messages we received have said thank you for sharing them with the world. it is a two-way street because we shared him with the world, you shared part of the love you held for him with us.

amy: archbishop desmond tutu died last week at the age of 90. to see our special on desmond tutu in his own words, go to democracynow.org. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the united states is now averaging 400,000 new covid cases a day as the omicron variant rapidly spreads across the country. the record-breaking surge is puttg aew strain on hospitals, even the early study suggest omicron infections appear to be milder than previous variants. in washington, d.c., cases are up by 500% over the past two weeks. in puerto rico, cases are up nearly 1000%. covid cases are also rapidly rising globally with daily new cases surpassing 1 million for the first time as the pandemic enters its third year. in argentina, nearly 30% of all

covid tests are coming back positive. in china, the city of xi'an has entered a second week of lockdown. cases in australia have reached a new high. we begin today's show looking at vaccine and equity and efforts to -- equity and effts to vaccinate the world. last week, the indian government gave emergency approval to a new low-cost, patent-free vaccine called corbevax. the vaccine was developed by two doctors at the texas children's hospital's center for vaccine development. an indian company is now aiming to produce 1 billion does of the vaccine this year to help address the massive shortage of covid vaccines in the global south. we are joined by one of the vaccine's creators, dr. peter hotez, co-director of the center for vaccine development at texas children's hospital. his most recent book, "preventing the next pandemic: vaccine diplomacy in a time of anti-science." welcome back to democracy now!

can you link the first part of our lead, what is happening around the world with the speed of the omicron variant, to what you have now just accomplished, making this patent-free vaccine available to the world? india has just given you emergency approval. >> delta and omicron variant, the reason they rose is because we allowed large unvaccinated populations to go unvaccinated. amy: can repeat what you said at the beginning? we did not quite get it and it is critical. >> thanks again for having me. the reason why we have the situation now with omicron, just like we had with delta, is we allowed large unvaccinated populations in low and middle income countries to remain

unvaccinated. delta arose out of an unvaccinated population in india in early 2021 and omicron out of a large unvaccinated population on the african continent later in the same ye. so if these two variants of concern represent failures, failures by global leaders to work with sub-saharan africa, southeast asia, and latin america to vaccinate the southern hemisphere. we got tired of it so we decided to do what we have always done for 20 years -- when i say we commit me myself and our team of 20 scientists, we make vaccines for diseases the pharma companies won't make for parasitic infections and we adopted the coronavirus program about 10 years ago. thene fliphat around to make a covid vaccine. the only thing we know how to do is make low-cost straightforward vaccines. that was the failure of global

policy leaders. they never had any interest. it was always about speed and innovation and to make enough interesting vaccines for north america and europe without any intention for the rest of the world. we went the opposite direction and we worked really hard. it was difficult to get funding. we got no support from operation warp speed or the g-7 countries. we were on our own. we have licensed our prototype doubt india, indonesia bangladesh, and now botswana. india is the furthest along and we worked with an extraordinary organization that has got a track record of making low-cost vacines for the world. we have partnered with them, working with them on a daily, weekly basis. now that vaccine is being produced by biological -- they already have 150 million doses ready to go. they're producing 100 million doses a mon and tt will get us to 1.2 billion. we will need severl alien more

and hopefully -- billion more and hope we are other partners will have simila sucss. it is exciting to show you don't need to be a multinational pharmaceical comny a just make brand-new technogs that ll only suibleor the northern hemisere. we can make a vaccine for the world, and that is what our goal has always been for the last 20 years and we think we have made an important first step with covid-19. amy: public citizen has said -- doing "texas children hospital's commitment to sharing technology is a challenge to the pharma giants and the false narrative that vaccine production and medical innovation thrive through secrecy and exclusivity. if texas children's hospital can do it, why can't pfizer and moderna?" can you talk about how you are able to do this with so little funding while they are making billions, not to mention

billionaires of their founders and chairs and execs in the companies, while millions now -- we are dealing with the largest surge in the history of this pandemic. >> the way i look at it, the multinational pharma companies are the multinational pharma companies. they're going to do with a do. they made some good vaccines. i myself was the beneficiary of the pfizer biotech vaccine. the problem was not balancing that -- not balancing the ecosystem, putting all of the eggs and the pharma basket and not igniting we have some outstanding vaccine producers in lower income countries. that is what we have been doing for the last 20 years. the other thing we do, we build capacity. we invite scientists to come into our labs to learn how to make vaccines under a quality

umbrella. you cannot walk into moderna or pfizer and say, show me how to make a vaccine. we think the problem is not balancing that model better. that is what we are doing now. for me, the biggest frustration was never really getting the support from the g7 countries. not only was i going on cable news networks and talking about the disinformation empire that was building out of the white house in 2020, but trying to raise meager fundsust to get started. founately, we were able to get funding through texas and new york-based philanthropies, and that made -- we raised about $7 million. we were able to pay our scientists to actually do this, transfer the checked elegy, no patent, no strings attached come to poor and low income countries. we have been getting calls for help all over the world from

ministries of signs and ministries of health and we do what we can. if we had even a fraction of the support that say moderna are the other pharma companies had gotten, who knows? we might have been able to have the whole world vaccinated. amy: this pot you rais with moderna, which got a fortune from u.s. taxpayers -- we are talking millions if not a billion dollars -- to do the research to develop this, and yet they are not willing to share the formula. >> here was the problem. the oblem was the policymakers not only ithe u.s., but globally, were so fixed on speed and innovation. it was all about the brand-new technologies, rapidly immunizing populations without that situational awareness to understand when you have only to rely on a brand-new technology, there's a learning curve. we need 9 billion doses of

vaccines sub-saharan africa, latin america, and southeast asia and nobody was able to take a step back as a new first-year engineering graduate student will tell you, you cannot go from zero to 9 billion right away. you better balance it with old technologies. that was the frustration we had, we could not persuade the big policymakers that that was the way to go in addition to what they were doing. fortunately, we were able to do it. we could have done it faster had we had support. now we're are moving forward. india is starting to vaccinate is population. eventually, we think we can vaccinate the southern hemisphere come the global south , and prevent the future variants from emerging. we are still not getting that kind of awareness. for instance, president biden -- i am a big fan of the 10 the

administration has brought on -- astedhat a cole weeks ago, right before the new year, he donad 275 miion doses t110 cotries. ll, heck. we he alrey mched that with ouresearch instite in texas a we're abouto exceed it. we really need the g7 countries to step up in a bigger way. we think we uld helphem quite a bit with our technology. it is really robust. the same technology used to make hepatitis b vaccine that is been around for 40 years. durable, simple refrigeration actually has one of the best safety -- maybe the best safety profile of any of the covid vaccines. now we're are doing clinical trials in kids, emergency use for adults. hepatitis b vaccine has been given to evans for decades. our technology is the same.

we are hoping that could be the vaccine to immunize kids all over the world. the one thing we don't have is a patent in the u.s. because we don't have u.s. partner. amy: what exactly does it mean? bella children's -- texas bayless children's hospital. the vaccine is called corbevax. can you expend the older technology? johnson & johnson also used over technology and now it is not as effective as the moderna and pfizer. can you talk about that and how your vaccine exactly works? >> again, the johnson & johnson technology, that has never been used before to make a vaccine in anything near this scale. not since the -- ours is truly an old-school technology that has been used to make hepatitis b vaccine, fermentation, yeast,

even a vegan vaccine which is interesting. now we are partners in indonesia who are scaling it up and try to do this as a vaccine for muslim majority countries, which is pretty exciting as well. as i said, what we do is we licensed the technology. we provide the prototype. no strings attached, no patent. we help in the codevelopment. then they countries themselves and those companies own it. so corbevax is the one for india, owned by biologicale. they work out the plan with the indian regulators and health organizations. we a hands off. we do not try to medd in their business. we very much are believers in the concept of decolonization. there are too many colonial trappings trying to own technology and dictate to the global south what to do. for us that is quite a pouring.

we do this without strings attached. once we do our due diligence once we know the vaccine proder has a track record of producing vaccinesor the world, then we handed off to them come help them in any way we can. at her own expense. it is no cost to the developing country manufacture countries. amy: i would ask when you say a vegan vaccine. how are the others not? >> well, the others use either -- often use mammalian cells and some aspect of the process. it is not that it is better or worse, it is just that hours has no animal products in our vaccines. that makes it little more straightforward for country, especially some of the muslim majority countries that worry about whether vaccine is -- or not. amy: let me go to dr. fauci.

this goes to the whole issue of last week the cdc-controlled reducing the recommended isolation time for people with asymptomatic infections to five days down from 10. on sunday, dr. fauci appeared on "this week" it said the cdc is considering updating the isolation guidance after facing widespread criticism. >> you're right there has been some concerns about why we don't ask people at that five day period to get tested. that is something that is now under consideration. the cdc is very well aware the data -- there has been some pushback about that. there may be an option that testing could be a part of that. i think we're going to be hearing more about that in the next day or so from the cdc. amy: and our next segment, we will be talking more about testing. at this lack of testing in the u.s. makes it impossible for there to be a kind of sane approach to all of this.

but the fact the cdc said people could come back to work, which in some cases workers -- the employers then require workers to come back to work after five days, without a test. your response? >> as dr. fauci points out, probably will have to walk that back partly and do an antigen -based test. this was a tough call for the cdc as well. i think the omicron variant, which is so disruptive because of its high transmissibility, almost as high as measles, we are trying to balance what we know about the science with the fact right now we have to keep our society functioning at some level. the biggest concern is that health care providers getting knocked out of the workforce because they are at home with covid, and that creates a dangerous situation. we heard all week and about the problems with the airlines and the fact round these are absent, air traffic controllers are absent.

each variantas its own unique attributes are what i call shop of horrors. in the case of omicron, this credibly high transmissibility that can be so disruptive. this edc was trying to balance what makes it scientifically with the reality of trying to keep the country functioning. i do not fault them as much as others do. yes, i think i probably should have had the antigen test added on afterwards, but it is tough when you're in the middle of a firestorm. amy: can you talk about children? after all, or at texas children's hospital. the enormous number of children who are now coming down with covid, but how seriously are they being affected? >> well, there are two aspects to this.

first of all, we saw this a little bit with the delta variant here in the south in texas over the summer, that it was much more transmissible and kids were getting swept up and it wasn't because delta was selectively targeting kids. i think that is probably true of omicron as well. when you have something transmissible, a lot of kids are getting infected. what you're seeing are two types of hospitalizations. first of all, i think are some kids were getting admitted for various conditions and upon routine testing, they are found to be positive. so they may be asymptomatic further covid but found to be positive and i think that is part of the hospitalizations. there are kids who are genuinely sick from covid-19, a lot of younger kids as well. now that schools are opening, especially in the northward transmission is so high, we should expect that trend to continue. again, it will be that one-to punch of having kids

hospitalized and health care workers and pediatric hospitals at home because they are ill from covid were found to be positive. i think -- for me, that is the dangerous situation with covid-19. yes, it looks like overall the virus mayroduce less severe disease but still enough to cause a pretty steep rise in hospitalizations. we are seeing a 50% to 60% rise in hospitalizations in n york and washington, d.c., and having that help to work worse unable to adequately take care of those hospitalized individuals -- one thing we have learned in the last two years of the pandemic is when er's in emergency rooms and pediatric icus get overwhelmed, that is when mortality really skyrockets and that is the danger point with covid-19, on top of the fa two of our three monoclonal antibodies do not work for the omicron variant and we do not have enough of the third one. we have to rely on remdisiver.

it does not work quite as well as paxlovid. the diagnostic test is still a job diabolical. this brings us back to how we started our whole conversation, which all of this was predicted in predictable and preventable had we showed greater result to vaccinate the world, especially low and middle income countries. amy: you tweeted -- "200,000 americans have lost their lives to covid despite wide red availability vaccines. needlessly died because they believed disinformation from the far right." however, vaccine hesitancy seems to span the political divide with left-leaning parents, some refusing to vaccinate them

selves or their kids. your message to those who think vaccines are a profit-making mechanism for big pharma that will pollute their bodies and irreversibly alter their need systems natural responses? >> the first part may be true, vaccines clearly have en profitable for pfizer and moderna but it does not mean they can't save your lives. that is the message. we have seen that of those 200,000 americans who died since june 1, we now know 85% were unvaccinated, the other 15% split between partially vaccinated and a few full vaccinated, especially if they were immunocompromised or of extremely high age. overwhelmingly, it is the unvaccinated losing their lives. overwhelmingly, that is coming from an aggressive campaign of disinformation, what i call anti-science aggression, coming

from the consumer the dutch conservative news outlets, the members of congress who talk about congress woman marjorie taylor greene taken off twitter because she has been o discrediting vaccines. she and her colleagues. we have about half a dozen members in the u.s. congress going out of their way even sang political instrument of control or reading listings like first they're going to vaccinate you and then they're going to take away your guns and bibles. as absurd as that sounds to us, there is a fourth of the country that believes it and those are the ones not getting vaccinated. we even have far right think tanks to get these far-right groups academic cover. this is a whole ecosystem coming from political extremism on the far right, and it is a killer. i have written an article told "antiscience kills."

amy: dr. peter hotez, thank you for being with us, codirector center for vaccine development at texas children's hospital. just came up with a vaccine that is being made, available patent-free, to the world. dr. hotez's latest book, "preventing the next pandemic: vaccine diplomacy in a time of anti-science." facing a shortage of covid tests, we will speak to a scientist who developed a test two years ago but the fda would not approve it. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "déjà vu" by crosby, stills, nash & young. this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman. as u.s. faces a shortage of tests, the omicron surge, we turn to speak to a scientist who developed an inexpensive rapid at-home covid tests nearly two years ago but the fda refused to approve it. irene bosch is the founder of the diagnostic company e25bio and a visiting professor at m.i.t. adjunct professor of , medicine at mount sinai. in march 2020, she is submitted the test for emergency authorization. the fda approval never came. it would be another year before more expensive at-home covid tests began appearing on the

market. today those tests are hard to comeby, if not impossible. irene bosch joins us now from cambridge, massachusetts. it is great to have you with us. if you can tell us, first, what happened. i want to credit an excellent article in propria look like that brought you -- propub that brought you to our attention. lica >> it is a well done article. what happened was in 2020, we had a group of scientists had already made other similar antigen tests for other viral diseases, we jumped into covid basically knowing a bit of what we were doing. by april, we had already made a test. i july, we did our first

clinical trial in united states. it was the first submission to the f da. but short after, we learned it was going to be hard to meet the standards. we agree with having excellent tests being approved. athe time we thought the standards were too harsh for meeting that requirement. other than that, the test was excellent at it could have been approved under 2021 standards. amy: i want to remind people that the u.s. government came out with a test that was faulty at the beginning. >> it was a different test. there were faulty because they were doing pcr, which is molecular and not antigen. they made a mistake in the primers, which are an integral part of this molecular test.

yes, they made a mistake which was a huge one, but they repaired the damage. for pcr or molecular test, you can quickly in the lab iterate and fix it. for antigen tests, it does not allow scientists like us to validate and approve the behavior of these tests in the lab. yet to do clinical trials, but not for pcr. amy: explain why you were turned down and how many tests you could have gotten out there will step related to what we're saying now, this massive lack of testing available. >>enerally, when you mak these kinds of simple tests, it is just a strip, you could make millions a week. the numbers come in is a nonissue. we had good manufacturers lined up to make these tests for us

and for the united states. so that is not a problem. numbers are easily made available. moreover, what happened to that particular case that we refer to happened also to other companies. basically, the requirements were such and perhaps maybe lack of experience -- i mean, we were all new in the pandemic experice, right? the fda could have understand the way these antigen tests are meant to be used. the reason why say this is because for diagnostic only, like pcr, you -- very, very sensitive. for antigen tests you use every day, anywhere, anytime, anyone that is kind of -- anthony fauci said, that is how we will

control the pandemic, this antigen test works beautifully if you use them repeatedly. basically, that was an issue. there were no directives for well set in 20 for the use of antigen tests. antigen tests can offer so much more. amy: i want to go to what the fda recently responded to the reset report about the covid-19 rapid test that created in march 2020. the fda said -- "unfortunately, many submissions the fda has received for home tests include incomplete or poor data, and it is the fda's responsibility to protect the public health by declining to authorize poorly performing tests or those without complete data. if the fda received a home test that the data and science supported in early-to-mid 2020, we would have quickly authorized it." can you respond to this? close of course we want the fda to protect the public.

as a scientist, we completely agree with that. what we do not agree is if you have wasted validate a test that are not the best for our way to strict, meeting you compare the pcr with an expansion of the genome to detection of a protein in your nasal cavity, so that is the problem of the fda. the fda forgot to add to that quote, "indeed, we were mistaken." amy: people know pcr tests take more time and they are precise, but the country is now accepting, the government is now accepting these antigen tests like yours is compass critical to day-to-day functioning. explain when you say what is essential is the repeated test.

explain why we are where we are today. >> this is very important question because 50% of people with covid do not present symptoms. so they will not get a pcr, they will not go to a doctor o hospital. so they are around spreading the disease everywhere. the only mobile device is in antigen test because it does not need specialized apparatus or specialized technology that you need a nurse. you can do it yourself. so by having 50% of cas or even more now of cases that do not present a symptom, you out to do it regularly in order to detect an asymptomatic test. regularly means under today's circumstances, you have to do it twice a week, minimum once a week so you can catch the 12 day of expansion of your viral

infection. that is what i mean with frequency. we just found out in 2020, we did another clinical trial for home use and we found out if you repeat antigen tests more than one day in a row, it reaches the same sensitivity of pcr. so the fda does not necessarily know or acquired the knowledge into the regulatory body, which is sad. amy: did other countries approve the rapid quick covid tests early on? i mean, countries like britai korea, andid it make a difference in their country in the spread of covid? >> yeah, so asia and europe did approve many community antigen tests. 40 different brands where in the u.s. you had barely a handful.

it is true other countries had a completely different take on how these antigen tests would work. indeed, ey understood there is a range of virus where the antigen tests will detect beautifully day 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, seven depending on the case. those countries that a wired the knowledge center than the revelatory body of the usa, they did better and their super inexpensive. we here in germany, you can buy a test for 60 sense of a dollar. that is not the case for usa. amy: it's like $23 for $25 for two tests. this is expensive if you are expected to do it every single eklet alonunavailable. >> absolutely. these tests, we know you can make them at $.50 at cost, maybe you say, ok, i will seldom fry

dollar or two dollars -- sell them for a dollar or two dollars, still a decent margin for companies for return on their investment. they do not cost that much. moreover, these antigen tests can be understood by a cell phone. it becomes a super fancy gadget. the cell phone takes a picture of the test, immediately and in the cloud or -- immediately, in real time, we know if it is positive or negative and you can disperse that data on the fly. so you have something simple linked to a mobile technology to make it a really efficient monitoring tool. amy: you are now working to help other test developers carry out trials that will meet fda regulations, even though they say they are wrong now, the fda. can you talk about efforts in a low come boston area to do the

testing field needs to be done at this point? >> we found out the at-home test by mandate of the usa regulatory requires a mobile phone and many people don't even have access to that mobile phone, and we centered our attention to the more underprivileged populations. sometimes they only speak spanish, sometimes they are elderly. we are working in chelsea, massachusetts, to enable and educate the population on how they can use the rapid tests. all the tests we deployed in our study have been validated in europe, asia, and in the lab so they are highly performing, even some better than some of the fda ones. we do not deploy anything that we don't know will perform well. moreover, we teach them how to use the phone app. it is a very interesting project. we were looking for to working

with the community for the next four months. amy: irene bosch, thank you for being with us founder of the , diagnostic company e25bio and an adjunct professor of medicine at mount sinai. developed an inexpensive rapid test just weeks into the pandemic that the fda turned it down. when we come back, we look at the climate change-fueled fires that have ripped through the suburbs of denver and boulder. the state's most devastating wildfire in history. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "can't fool me" by the denver based funk band the motet. the drummer and founder of the band dave watts lost his home and three ts in the recent wildfire. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. in colorado, the still-smoking remains of homes destroyed by the state's most devastating wildfires in history are now covered in snow. last thursday, fastpreading, climate change-fueled wildfires tore through the suburbs of

suburbs of denver and boulder with little notice, described in this video by an eyewitness. >> we look out across a golf course and a pond. as i panted the left ear, we see huge fires on the other side of 36. significant fires. and over here, more fires. amy: the origin of the wildfire is under investigation. the fire was fanned by winds that gusted up to one have a 10 miles per louisville, colorado, hour. resident paul bassis saw his home nearly destroyed in the blaze. >> climate change is here now. this is not some future threat that we have to deal with at some point, some day. this is here and now. people lost all their

belongings, their memories that were in those homes, families that were raised there. amy: the marshall fire destroyed at least 1000 homes and businesses and at least two people are still missing and presumed dead. it capped a year of drought across the western united states and came as temperatures in colorado between june and december were the warmest on record. a report by the national oceanic and atmospheric administration's drought task force found that without "stringent" climate mitigation, the region will continue to warm. for more, we go to boulder to speak with dr. jennifer balch, director of the earth lab at the university of colorado, boulder. welcome to democracy now! it is great to have u with us. very painful under the circumstances. can you explain what happened? you yourself, one of your own scientists lost his home in the fire. >> that's right. have many fries and collects who lost homes. this has been a disaster. i will go back to basics to try and explain what happened here.

you need three ingredients for fires. you needed to be warm, need fuel to burn, and you need an ignition source. we had all three. we had one of the warmest periods during our fall and winter on record from colorado springs to fort collins. leading up to that, we had a lot of grasses that grew out of a really wet spring. that a lot of grass fuel, warm conditions would in our fuel was very dry, and we had any ignition source that is still under investigation. what made this a fire disaster, two things, there were a lot of homes in the way. thousands of homes have been built into the landscape between denver and boulder over the last several decades. and we had very high wind conditions. those factors together gave us the right conditions for this type of event and this type of disaster. in the western u.s., we have

millions of homes and what is called the wildland urban or were homes intermingle with agitatio work we did over a million homes roughly the last two decades outside of boundary. another 59 million homes within a kilometer of the wildfires. we are living with high fire risk and we don't even know it. amy: can you compare what happened in boulder to what took place in oregon and california? the size of these fires? this is it even the largest wildfire in colorado, but it is the most destructive in a ceury. >> that's right. it is among the most destructive wildfires in u.s. history as well, not just in colorado. the fact 1000 homes burned to the ground is remarkable.

comparing to oregon and california, one thing that is really important to note is this is a winter wildfire. that is an oxymoron. there's only one other time in my career when i have talked about snow putting out wildfires. this to me is an important signal. we have seen the signal across the west. we know since the 1980's, the amount of forest that have burned has doubled and it is directly tied to how warm our temperatures are and essentially how dry our fuels have become. we have known there's a link between climate change and fires for over a decade, and it takes just a little bit of warming delete to a lot more bning and that is what we are saying. we no longer have a fire season, we have fires all year round. this wildfire is small relative to some of the fires in california and oregon that happened over the summer and haven't last summer. 6000 acres relative to some of

the biggest wildfires we have seen in the lower 48. this is a small fire but what made it is disaster is there are a lot of homes in the way. that has to do with how we are building and the landscape. there's a lot we can do to change how we build into flammable places. amy: what can be done? >> we need to rethink how we are building. there is a lot of material we can use that are not as flammable. when we build with wood siding and wood deck and asphalt roofs, they are flammable. we have restrictions of sprinklers inside industrial buildings that we do not have equivalent codes to protect our homes from wildfires. california is on the leading edge of this and other states are looking seriously at how we are building homes.

all of colorado is flammable. this, shrubs, trees are flammable. this is a dry landscape. most of the year now. we need rethink how we are rebuilding. amy: and the drought. can you talk about the effect of what this historic 20-year drought before the wildfire, from july to december, denver reported the lowest amount of precipitation. >> moisture is another huge factor. not only temperature increase, also how much moisture we are getting. we did not get a lick of moisture from this region before this wildfire started. how much rain or snow we get plus warm temperatures essentially equates to really, really dry fuel. and dry over a period of time. not only that, plans are stressed out so they die and become fuel to burn. essentially, what happened is

this fire in the first two hours is that it moved through an open space that was essentially a grassland. it had an entire runway of grass to go through for several miles before it started to hit neighborhoods. essentially that meant it was a very long after fire line is it moved toward the homes. in very dry fuel. amy: what you say to climate change deniers like lauren boebert? >> it is frustrating. science has been known for over a decade that there's a link between warming and wildfires. we need to acknowledge it in order to build solutions. we are essentially sitting ducks to the repercussions of climate change if we do not acknowledge it. i think part of the solution is acknowledging it and figuring out how we can live with increasing fire in the future. we are going to build back, but i hope colorado builds back

smarter, thinking about how we can build more fire-resilient homes and communities moving forward. amy: we will leave it there. i want to thank you for being with us. dr. jennifer balch is the director of earth lab at the university of colorado, boulder. that does it for our show. de■ú

ggccccc'''''' sarah ferguson: there's something remarkable going on in a remote corner of southeast texas. something vast and visionary. just above the sand dunes of boca chica beach, one of the world's richest men is building starships to take humans back to the moon and on to mars. elon musk: for the first orbital launch our goal is to make it to orbit without blowing up. to be totally frank, if it takes off without blowing up the stand, or stage zero, that would be a victory.