good morning. it is sunday, december the 13th. we are 38 days until president-elect joe biden's inauguration. i'm ali velshi, live in houston, texas, on the latest stop on "velshi across america: surviving the next wave." and we begin this morning with important breaking news on the fight against covid-19. this was the scene just minutes ago at the pfizer plant. in fact, this is live now, at the pfizer plant in portage, michigan. the first fda-authorized covid-19 vaccine is right now being loaded up. it will soon be at hospitals

across the country. look at this applause as those workers are coming out there to load those trucks up. those are the trucks. they will be shipped in. this is a fedex truck, at portage, michigan. a live picture of that pfizer facility. the boxes that were packaged up this morning in dry ice, because it's got to be kept at minus 70 centigrade, minus 94 degrees fahrenheit, are being loaded into these trucks. those trucks will be flanked by united marshals before being distributed to sites across the country. >> i expect the first shipments to arrive monday morning. we expect 145 sites across all the states to receive vaccine on monday. another 425 sites on tuesday. and the final 66 sites on wednesday. which will complete the initial

delivery of the pfizer orders for vaccine. at the sites, the vaccine will marry up with the ancillary kits that we've already distributed. these kits include needles, syringes, dilutant and other supplies needed to administer the shots. >> let's get to allison barber outside the pfizer headquarters in portage, michigan. allison, you have a front row seat now. i see action behind you. i do see trucks. take us through what is unfolding right now. >> yeah, ali, we're expecting to see two trucks start to leave here any minute now. we're told that one of the trucks will have shipments heading for states in the east part of the country. the other for states in the west part. we're not expect clear on what their first stop will be after they leave here. we believe that at least one or both of these will go to an airport in lansing, michigan, and eventually make their way

down to those distribution centers in memphis, tennessee, and louisville, kentucky. we have watched this morning, pictures coming in from inside this pfizer plant, as workers have with such care gone through every single step to package these vials, filling them with dry ice, with thermal probes inside the boxes, so that the temperature can be monitor ed while the vaccines are in transit. each cardboard box has more than a thousand vials in them. you have all of these people gathered. it looks to me like they might be about to move the u.p.s. truck, which is in the loading dock number five there. the fedex truck, that has already made its way out. they arrived here around 6:00 a.m. this morning. it has been a long process. we are now just waiting here to see when these trucks will move and when we will see, for the first time, these covid-19 vaccines leaving this plant and making their way to those first

groups of people, who really need this vaccine. and we will have the first opportunity to get it. we are told by the army general who is leading operation warp speed that every single state will have a shipment of these vaccines at 145 different sites by monday morning. we are told the shipments leaving this morning will be going to all 50 states. these first two trucks, we expect to see one of them, i believe, the fedex one, will be carrying shipments that are for states east of the mississippi. the other, likely, the u.p.s. truck will be carrying shipments that are full of vaccines for states to the east of the mississippi. ali? >> all right. we're going to keep an eye on that. i'm going to ask my director, barry, my executive producer, rebecca, to stay with you. the minute a truck moves, i want to see that. i want to be with you in watching this history unfolds, as those trucks with the first doses of vaccine. the u.p.s. truck, they are

likely both to go to airports and get on planes. the u.p.s. shipments will go to louisville, which is u.p.s.' major hub for activities west of the mississippi. and it will -- the fedex shipments will go to memphis, tennessee, which is fedex's major hub for east of the mississippi. that is where they can get to pretty much anywhere in the world, but certainly, anywhere in the country, and that is why those planes that they get on will touch down today in those places, and then get on more fedex trucks and more u.p.s. trucks, until they get literally to places like this behind me in houston, which will get 59,000 doses within the next day or two. it may arrive -- in other words, it will land in some of these cities by tonight, and it will then be on trucks into medical centers, where it will start going into people's arms, possibly tomorrow, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday. by the end of this month, we will see millions of doses having been administered. so we will stay with allison

barber. that picture may show up in the bottom of the screen. i may have to interrupt a guest when it happens. but when that truck moves out, that fedex truck or that u.p.s. truck, we're going to see it in portage, maine. 3 million doses of that pfizer biontech vaccine are expected to be distributed this week. as many as 40 million doses could be distributed by the end of december. but it's still going to be months before regular people who are not front line workers, not regular people, not doctors, not nurses, not nursing home employees, not nursing home residents receive the vaccinations. if you're a regular person who just wants to get it, that's not happening this week, it's not happening this month, it's probably not happening in january, either. it may be february before that starts to happen. and again, some states will prioritize senior citizens, some states will prioritize younger people. some states will prioritize what they call essential workers, beyond those medical workers. yesterday, the cdc's advisory

committee on immunization practices voted to recommend the pfizer/biontech vaccine for people 16 and older, but with some precautions, many of which actually sound like your average commercial for medications. the precautions include that recommending that pregnant women consult with their doctors before receiving the vaccine and that people with a history of serious allergic reactions to vaccines are being recommended against taking the pfizer drug, which is actually standard practice when it comes to vaccines. joining me now is the perfect person to talk about all things vaccine related. he's here in texas with me. dr. peter hotez. he's the co-director of the texas children's hospital center for vaccine development and a professor of virology and microbiology at the baylor college of medicine here in houston. dr. hotez, i have to say to you, i normally talk to people who are local to where i am when i'm traveling, but you are really one of the very, very first people we spoke to on this show, on "velshi" about the vaccine, because you have been one of those people who have been studying a vaccine for

coronavirus. i don't know how many years ago, but you've actually been on top of this. you're the guy to comment on this. tell me from your perspective, as a coronavirus vaccine expert, what you make of what's happened so far? >> well, thanks, ali. and first of all, welcome to houston. it's great to have you here. i hope to have you back again soon. you know, i'm a vaccine scientist, of course, and i'm excited about seeing these vaccines rolled out, probably more excited than anybody. but i also have mixed emotions, i have to tell you. we've never had a national covid-19 response in this country and now we're looking at 300,000 americans who will lose their lives maybe by tonight or tomorrow. and that's just an awful, awful milestone. and the point is, we did not have to get to that place. and although it's wonderful the vaccines are rolling out, what happened in this country is without any kind of national strategy or plan, we kind of backed ourselves into a corner

in that we had -- we have no other choice now, but to vaccinate our way out of this. we did not have to rely so exclusively on biotechnology solutions. so, i'm really excited that this vaccine is rolling out. i think it's going to be the first of four or five or maybe even six vaccines. maybe ours will be one of them. but it's also a very sad time in the country, as well -- >> peter, i'm just going to interrupt you for a second. peter, i want to interrupt you for a second. we do have -- the trucks are moving out now. it is 7:09 -- it is 8:09 in the east, 7:09 in houston time. and it appears that the first truck, a fedex truck, has left or is leaving as we speak. it has pulled out of the picture. the pfizer facility in portage, michigan. that is the first truck with thousands, possibly tens of thousands. ellison says that there are a thousand vials per box that was put into the dry ice and then there are hundreds if not thousands of those boxes on the

truck. this is a pool shot. we don't control this camera that we're looking at. i don't know if ellison's got a camera that's got a better shot of this right now. we're pulling out a little bit to get a shot there. what you see there are two fedex trucks. they will go to different places. they will probably both go to lansing, maybe to detroit. but they're going to airports where they will be put largely, some of them may not be, but some of them will be put on planes going to a hub where they will be distributed. and some of them, dr. hotez, will land in houston by tonight. i'm sorry to interrupt your thought. i just want the viewers to see that history being made right now. >> yeah, of course. as i say, it's an exciting moment in the history of vaccine science, to see these trucks roll out. we're looking forward to having these vaccines here at our vast texas medical center, which is the first -- the world's first medical city, more than 100,000 employees and multiple hospital systems and medical schools. but i think the point is, it

would have been great not to do this under duress, where we backed ourselves into a corner, where we only had vaccines as our option. having said that, you know, american ingenuity really came through. it was backed by 17 years of research on coronavirus vaccines that was started first back in 2003, after the original sars virus. so the covid-19 is caused by sars 2, the original sars that hit southern china and knocked out toronto for a while, started in 2003, and that's when our scientific community began a pretty aggressive program of covid-19 vaccines, showing that the spike protein was the soft underbelly of the virus. the weak link. and allowed us to begin making prototype vaccines. so when the covid-19 sequence came out, we were able to hit the ground running. and i think that point is important, because so many are worried about the vaccine, because they think it was rushed, that it appeared out of nowhere, over a period of weeks

or months. and part of that is the narrative from the pharma company press releases. but the truth is, this is about the right timeline, 17 years is a typical timeline for vaccine development. >> and that's why i want -- that's why i wanted to talk to you this morning. because everybody else thinks it's nine months or ten months or whatever. but in fact, there are people like you and other experts around this country who have understood coronaviruses for a while. i mean, we have never -- i have never -- i covered live news my entire career. i have never covered the shipping out of a vaccine. but i remember years ago in dallas, in texas, a nurse got ebola, and we covered the taking off of her plane. she was going to a hospital in the washington, d.c. area, and we didn't know whether she was going to live or not. she did live. but these miracles come from years and years of hard work. and we are going to have other pandemics after this one. >> yeah, that's absolutely right. and you know, we saw sars in 2003, then we had middle eastern

respiratory system, mers in 2012 arise out of the arabian peninsula, that was a coronavirus. now this one. that's why the nih and our community of scientists began really looking at this, because we knew other coronaviruses were coming. we were kind of waiting for this one. and we were ready. and that's part of the reason for it, is, you know, we asked the american people to invest in the nih and to invest in science, to the tune of 36 to $40 billion a year. and for a long, long time, and this is how we got to this place. and so, the american people deserve an enormous amount of credit for helping to make this happen. and you know what, ali? we're going to see covid-26 and covid-32. this is a new reality that we'll have multiple coronaviruses emerging. and this is why a number of us now are looking at how we can develop universal coronavirus vaccines, so we don't have to scramble every time a new coronavirus emerges.

>> and there are a lot of lessons to be learned. some of which you have pointed out. but one of them was one of the first things you ever told me. and that is, you had trouble garnering attention and funding to develop a coronavirus vaccine, because people didn't take it all that seriously and didn't think that there would be much of a market for it. has that world changed? >> well, we always hope so, right? and after every major pandemic, we say, this is the one that's finally going to take the global leaders into having a better infrastructure, so we don't have to run around at the last minute. things get better with each pandemic. after the first sars in 2003, the world health organization put out international health regulations and then with h1n1, the obama administration put out the global health security agenda. and now, after ebola in 2014, the gates foundation and w.h.o and gavi helped put together a

trust, put together what's called accesepi, a fund for a n vaccine development. and this one, after we do the analysis, we'll figure out something even more detailed and extensive. i think one of the keys to this is getting greater involvement from the other g-20 countries. you know, we're so dependent on the u.s., the uk, and the country known as the bill and melinda gates foundation and we need to bring in other actors. >> need to broaden it out. yeah. peter, hang on a second. i want to bring in ellison barber again. she has a different shot at that pfizer plant and ask my controller to bring in roland martin. i'll introduce him in a second. houston is his hometown and i want to talk to him about politics here. is ellison ready for me to talk to her? i saw her shot there for a second. ellison, what have you got? >> reporter: hey, ali. i've got you. let me show you a little of what we're just seeing.

he just walked away. there is what appears to be a u.s. marshal who was walking over to speak to the driver in that fedex truck. he's in a tan uniform. there's another apparent u.s. marshal as well that was over closer to the u.p.s. truck. so we think we could be starting to see some sort of movement soon. it seems like everyone's inching a little closer and closer to it. we expect to see the fedex truck head out as well as the u.p.s. truck. one of them is carrying shipments of the pfizer vaccine to go to states that are east of the mississippi. the other for states that are west of the mississippi. in these two trucks, between the two of them. we are told that there are 189 boxes, approximately, 189 boxes in those trucks. there's a little under a thousand vials in each of those boxes. again, they will head out to states east of the mississippi, west of the mississippi, in these two trucks, we are told, there are vials, doses of this vaccine that will go to all 50

states. at some point, later today, we expect another shipment to go out, to go to four u.s. territories. so for now, ali, i'll let you see one more time. if you can see, loading deck number five, you can see all the people in the bright green vests, waiting, getting things together. seems like they're making last-minute plan, talking to the u.s. marshal or whatever law enforcement official that is with them there to make their final plans. and soon we expect them to get, making their way towards the airport in lansing and making their way towards memphis and louisville and the states all across the country. >> yeah, that's making a list and checking it twice. and they're telling the drivers to use the restroom, please, now, before they leave. ellison, the shot that we're using is locked on to something, so i'll need your shot when the trucks start moving. i'll ask our control room, we'll go to you when that fedex truck pulls out, when those u.p.s. trucks pull out. we'll watch that together. america will watch those trucks with those vaccines going out.

i've got peter hotez with me, roland martin with me. roland, it was important for me to have you here today, because i'm in your hometown. you're not in texas, but we are in texas where you come from. one thing i want you to talk about. you're an expert on a lot of things, one thing we're not is vaccine experts. but what you know about your home state of texas, which is the size of a country, both physically and in terms of population, is that there are health care deserts in this state. there are pharmacy deserts. there are counties where there is one doctor. there are entire counties where -- look, here we go. we've got a truck moving. hold that thought, roland and peter hotez and ellison barber, we are now watching the u.p.s. truck move about 4 inches, actually. maybe they were checking it to make sure it was actually good to go. because once that thing goes, they know that there are going to be u.s. marshals there, cameras on it. there's the second u.p.s. truck now pulling a few inches ahead. i guess they're trying to

coordinate this. remember, there is a big -- there's a security concern here, as well. there are u.s. marshals there. they need to make sure that nothing stops these vaccines from getting to lansing airport or other destinations that they're going to. and that nothing stops them from being loaded on to those planes. and you know at lansing airport, u.p.s. and fedex are checking their planes and checking them twice to make sure nothing is out of order. normally, moments before a plane takes off, a pilot makes a pre-flight inspection of a plane. they are going to be doing that already. they are going to be ready to roll, because this thing has to get to louisville and get to memphis, those two planes. there may be more planes going. they've got to get to those two hubs and see how these operations work. it is clockwork. they will move from those planes back on to more trucks to go to other hubs or other planes to get to other places. and by tonight, cities like houston, like miami, and other places across the united states will be getting boxes of vaccines arriving.

they will go to their hubs in those cities. it is unclear whether they will take delivery tonight, but i guarantee every hospital, every military facility, everybody who was planning to get vaccines is on high alert and will go so when they get it. roland, we're going to watch this. when those trucks move, i'll interrupt you again, but i want you to tell me about your state, and the fact that not everybody is in houston. if you need your vaccine and you're in houston, you may get your vaccine this week. but there are people in this state without health care coverage and without hospitals and without doctors and without fapharmacies near them. >> when you talk about the hospital district that's in dallas, in the major cities, folks really don't understand how dire a situation is across the state, but also across the country. i'm actually live in atlanta, georgia. yesterday, i was in rural georgia, and what you have seen in this country, so many of the states, red states, refusing to have medicaid expansion. you have rural hospitals shutting down all across the

country. and in the aftermath of the affordable care act, you see how significant this is. when you talk about individuals who have filed for bankruptcy. what they largely filed for? health care. so we have to confront this idea of health care as a fundamental right in this country. that's why you see the whole battle with medicare for all, as well. and people say, we have this great health care system. it's great money. it's great if you have a great health care plan. but imagine the wealth inequality in this country and the lack of resources and how we have grossly underfunded our public health infrastructure. and i'm sure the doctor would agree, at texas children's hospital. one of the greatest children's hospitals in the country. but there are many kids who simply can't afford to be able to treat it, be treated at texas children's hospital, and others. and that is a fundamental problem that political leaders, whether they are in washington, whether they are in austin, whether they are in the county

government there in harris county, or in the city hall, have to contend with. >> dr. hotez, this is a fact that we're trying to fix. but it's not being fixed. in the rio grande valley, i'm going to be talking to dr. ivan melendez, the chief health authority there. they've got rates of death and infection that are substantially higher than the texas average and the state average. and that story is repeated across texas and it's repeated across america. that hasn't been solved. in the months in which we have been able to watch this logistical, amazing feat that we have never seen other than wartime, what you're going to see in the next 72 hours is something that has never been done outside of wartime in terms of the logistics of getting these vaccines out. imagine if we had that kind of effort to deal with everybody's basic health and make sure everybody in the country get the same chance as that vaccine, as people in cities or people who are wealthy, or people who live

near pharmacies and doctors. >> yeah, i think, you know, roland is absolutely right about the quality of care, especially for people who live in poverty. although i will just make one point about texas children's hospital, where i work, that it provides probably more care for the -- for kids living in poverty than just about any other health care institution in the united states. so you know, our ceo, mark wallace, has this extraordinary commitment to helping kids all around texas and even globally. but the point, as otherwise well taken, is that, you know, we've got an incredible level of poverty here in texas. we have great wealth, and we have great poverty. probably the greatest disparity between wealth and poverty of any state in the country, as measured by what's called the gin equivalent. that's a real issue, providing and ensuring access for cutting

edge measures is going to be really important. and we also have this problem for the covid-19 vaccines. a lot of vaccine hesitancy and concern among the african-american community, because of historic racism, structural racism, and the -- and the fact that there's so few african-american physicians and health care providers in this country, especially african-american male health care providers for physicians. we have to fix that. we also have to fix a pretty aggressive anti-vaccine movement, that specifically targets african-american populations and that's really tragic, and we are not doing anything about that. so, having the vaccines are wonderful, but getting people vaccinated. this is going to be -- there's going to be a lot of hurdles and a lot of bumps in the roads. we're going to see, you know, this pfizer vaccine is probably the most logistically complex of all of the vaccines in terms of deep freezer requirements and

how we manage that. other vaccines will follow, we'll have the moderna vaccine, i hope, next week, which is also an mrna vaccine, which also requires freezing temperatures, but not as complicated. and then we'll have a couple of adnovirus-based vaccines from astrazeneca and j&j, a particle vaccine from novomax. so we'll be looking at half a dozen vaccines before this is out. >> then we have the u.p.s. truck moving out. we have ellison's camera on the right. we've got the pool camera on the left. we just saw an armed guard walk by, checking things out. we've got a photographer there in the green vest. that is probably a pfizer employee or somebody there who's taking pictures, making sure that this moment in history is caught. the u.p.s. truck about to just drive by that fedex truck. the fedex truck looks like it's been cleared to go. i think what they're doing is

they're positioning there. they've moved out of the dock. the loading is finished. the trucks are finished. there are officials with radios walking around those trucks, so i think they're doing whatever final check, making final arrangements for how they're going to ride, whether it's in convoy or what they do if anything goes wrong. so we've now seen both of those trucks. the first two trucks that will depart, ready to go. they're not going yet. roland, you were saying? >> yeah, the point the doctor was just making there, and i need people to understand how this thing begins to expand. he laid out those health disparities. when you see the numbers in terms of how black women, maternal health. how you have racism within the health and the medical industry, where black patients don't get the same care when it comes to white doctors, as well. then you see the inequality when it comes to resources.

look, i'm looking at the billions that are going to be spent on communicating these vaccines to various communities. the question then becomes, how much money and resources does black media, folks like myself, actually get when it comes to sharing those messages? when it comes to where those resources are being spent. the federal government spends $5 billion over a five-year period on media, and media got 51 million of the $5 billion. so inequality. so when you confront where we are as a nation. how black and brown communities have been starved, have been frankly starved of resources, starved of opportunity, then you begin to see how it plays out in the health disparity. why african-americans are so greatly impacted by coronavirus dying at a higher rate than anyone else as well. and it so calls into question in this nation how do we expend resources. there is a national health care plan. they're called emergency rooms. and it's not a good idea.

you're paying higher taxes to cover the health care expenses from ers. imagine if we provided a health care for americans, then you wouldn't see the money being spent there. but it requires the will of those with resources in this country to be willing to say, i have to think more about myself than anyone else and coronavirus and illness has a direct impact on our economy as well. sick days. folks not being able to get there. so we as a nation, for all of our greatness and riches, must confront the gross inequality in this country and a lot of it has to do with race in america. >> let's talk about that messaging that peter ho ttez wa talking about, especially among some americans who are concerned about being at the front of the line to take a vaccine. there is a rich and scarred history in this country about experimental drugs being used on african-americans. obviously, the first run of a

vaccine is scary to a lot of people. we have about a 63% acceptance rate, which we'll probably start to see increase over the next days as we start to see people being vaccinated. but have you heard about that amongst members of the african-american community, an increased level of concern? >> i've been black 52 years and i've heard it for 52 years. of course i've heard it. but this is also where trust comes in. and it's no disrespect to all of the well-meaning and frankly good doctors who are not black, but the bottom line is this here, the stats don't lie. african-americans get better treatment and have great trust when they are getting care from black health care professionals. when they are receiving information from trusted black sources. when you have african-americans -- look, one of the things i've done on my show "unfiltered," for the past six months, i have purposefully,

more than anybody in mainstream media, put on black -- >> let me just stop you, let e w just stop you for a second. take a look at this, roland. they are now leaving the premises. this is portage, michigan. i think i said maine earlier. it's portage, michigan, under escort of united states marshals. the united parcel service, u.p.s. -- u.p.s. truck is moving off the premises now. those two trucks, ellison barber, was saying, have in excess of 100,000 boxes of vaccine, a thousand vials of vaccine per box. the u.p.s. truck leaving first, followed very closely by the fedex truck. now, again, i don't know exactly where those two trucks are going. but they are headed toward depots and airports. they will get on planes in those airports and the bulk of them will go toward the distribution

centers for fedex and for u.p.s. so you've seen now two u.p.s. trucks and a fedex trucks. we've seen three trucks now moving from the facility in portage, maine. that is a pfizer facility. they are under the escort of united states marshals. the third one is on the road now. just to the right there, you can see ellison barber's set-up. that is our crew on the right. they will then go to those facilities. they will be put on planes, where they will go to major fedex and u.p.s. hubs. the biggest ones are louisville, kentucky, and nashville, tennessee, for fedex. if you've ever been to those airports, you understand what i'm talking about. there's greater u.p.s. or fedex presence there than anyone else. you are now seeing more trucks roll out. so we have now got a number of loaded trucks. they are all leaving the facilities. remember, pfizer is not keeping any of this behind. everything they've got is going into those dry iceboxes. their being loaded on to these

trucks. these trucks are going to airports. they're going to land. they're going to get on other trucks, u.p.s. and fedex trucks and they are going to hospitals. there are in excess of 400 sites that will have the vaccines in their possession within 72 hours. some will get there tomorrow, some will get there tuesday, and some will get there wednesday. the first batch of doses are all leaving. there appears to be one more truck, one more trailer in the bay there in what appears to be bay seven. we don't know what the story is there. there is not a cab attach odd that truck. we don't know if that's a spare or if a cab will be brought in and attached to it. we now see another trailer backing into what appears to be bay four. bay four is getting another truck. that is a -- that one's not labeled. we don't know whose it is.

but this is what you're going to see. you'll see these trucks loaded up with vaccines and going out to the airport. peter hotez, what happens? do you know what happens, being part of a medical center, and as you point out, in houston, we have the biggest medical center in the world. the biggest medical campus in the world, the largest collection of hospitals and medical centers. what will happen? do you have any sense of what happens once the vaccine gets here? >> a little bit. the priorities are to vaccinate two populations at least in the beginning. and it was recommended by the acip from the center for disease control to focus on two populations at the outset. and those, of course, are older individuals living in nursing home homes and assisted living facilities, where we've seen such extraordinarily high death rates, up to 39, 40% of the deaths are among those

populations. and i remember early on, testifying to congress about how this virus is swooping in like the angel of death. that was the term i used, which was a very provocative statement, but i did it deliberately so that we could start shoring up our nursing and assisted living facilities, but unfortunately, it's still -- it still ripped through those places, causing devastating destruction. so that's a priority. but the other, which i think was very wise of the acip committee is that, looki, we've got to stable our health care infrastructure. our health care providers, our doctors, our nurses, our pas, our respiratory techs, lab techs are just getting hammered with this virus. and not only because of infection, but also exhaustion and emotional stress. so i think vaccinating that group will help to stabilize our health care system, so here in the texas medical center, which is, as i said, is the world's

largest medical center. there's a fair bit of vaccine going to our health care heroes in that area and i think that's going to be really important to help our state and to help the nation, as well. >> peter and ellison -- hang on a second, roland. i've got somebody with me i want to bring in, a colleague of peter's from baylor. dr. rashida bassett is with me. you're here with me for this momentous occasion. i don't know if you can hear peter, but peter was talking about what's happening. we're going to get about 225,000 doses of the medication coming to texas. houston's going to get about 58 or 59,000 of them. so a quarter of what happens is going to come here. what are you hoping for and what are you expecting in the next 24 to 48 hours? >> well, hospitals in the medical center are already gearing up to make sure that we can administer to this vaccine to front line staff.

as of last week, e-mails went out to get staff to sign up. people are signing up for slots as early as monday hoping that the vaccine gets here in time. everybody is eager and ready to get the vaccine show on the road. >> you know, we've got a 63% acceptance rate among people who are being polled. i'm going to assume your acceptance rates of people who want to sign up for this at baylor are much higher? >> for health care professionals, our acceptance rate is a little bit higher. i think that's because we have more base line knowledge than the general public. that's why it's important for us to speak about the data, the efficacy, the safety of this vaccine. people are very, very skeptical. the vaccine was developed pretty quickly. and for those who don't know science, they may think that it was rushed or that corners were cut. and that's not the case. this vaccine is safe, it's effective, and what's we need to get back to our normal way of living. >> we on the left side of our screen were watching pfizer, and everybody at pfizer was appla applauding and clapping. what an historic moment.

i've go to imagine some of your doctors and nurses and administrative staff are so exhausted after this ten months. is there some feeling of celebration or are they still worried about the fact that it's going to be months that you're still going to be treating people and we're still seeing more than 2,000, almost 3,000 people dying a day in this country. >> it is a momentous occasion, but we still have a very long road. the vaccine is being released in limited quantities. only select populations will get the vaccine first, and it will probably be the second quarter of next year when we see the general public start to get vaccinated. we'll still have to wear masks for a while, still social distance for a while. and just because the vaccine is released tomorrow, doesn't mean that all of a sudden things go back to normal. >> what's the situation in your hospitals here at baylor and in texas? are folks managing with the levels of increased infection and hospitalization? >> i mean, we're feeling the

brunt just as everyone else is feeling the brunt across the country. there is not a single state in the u.s. that has not had a positive growth in the number of daily cases of covid. every state is seeing at least 4% growth. a lot of states, 10%. some over 15% growth. in the texas medical center, we've surpassed our icu capacity. we're actually now in what they call phase ii of surge planning. and even with our combined phase i and phase ii surge beds, we're already at 83% capacity. there are almost 10,000 people in the state of texas that are hospitalized from covid-19. and 30% of those are in the icu. so people are getting covid and they're getting sick with covid. >> dr. bassett, i'll ask you to stay here with me as we are continuing to watch how this is unfolding. i want to tell you a story about a medical worker. because we've been talking so much about medical workers, i want to ask my executive producer, rebecca, if we can tell the story of a doctor here in houston who was working so hard to fight covid for these months. can we get that there while we

continue to watch what's going on in portage, michigan, with those vaccines going out. these first truckloads of pfizer vaccine, as you saw, are hitting the road. as you know, hospitals here in the city of houston are going to be some of the first to get a vaccine shipment. and hospital workers are being prioritized. but for hundreds of medical professionals on the covid front lines, that help is coming too late. dr. carlos arahos was agreeing houston's most desperate covid patients before he became one. he moved to the united states from el salvador in the '90s with the desire to heal. eventually, he met his partner in medicine and in life, here in houston, his girlfriend. paige king was a nurse practitioner at the hospital where he worked. as a critical care pulmonologist, dr. arrejos spent

the last few months treating the sickest of the patients. his team was stretched so thin early in the pandemic that he started staying at the hospital overnight in april for weeks. he slept in a room near the icu, so when patients deteriorated, he would be only steps away when it was time to intubate them. he was a superhero, but the coronavirus became his kryptonite. after treating covid patients for months, he tested positive in october. he was healthy and fit. he didn't have high risk of complications. all of the statistics were on his side, and he's a doctor, until they weren't. first, he refused to go to the hospital when he got coronavirus, saying, quote, i'll go when i think that someone else doesn't need the bed more than i do. soon enough, though, his condition deteriorated. and he checked himself into his own hospital. his own colleagues administering the same experimental therapies that he had been using on

patients for months. weeks later, the virus wanted nothing more to do with his lungs, but itted had affected h brain, dr. araujo-preza suffered a stroke. it's a rare, but serious covid-19 complication. and more than a month after his original diagnosis, dr. araujo-preza was killed by the very villain he had been fighting for months. his girlfriend received an invitation from the hospital. it was to register for the coronavirus vaccine, which medical workers have already received and will continue to receive in the coming days and weeks. paige king felt a flood of new emotions, rage, despair, regret, the gut-wrenching realization that if the love of her life had been able to avoid the virus for just a few more months, maybe she'd be picking out his favorite suit for a celebration and not for his funeral. all right. i want to bring my guests -- i want to keep my guests here

while we are watching this momentous occasion, but bring in gary grumbach, our reporter reporting from where i normally am in philadelphia. philadelphia is one of those cities that is like houston, not as big as houston, as a hospital medical center, but it's actually got a lot of hospitals. assist major medical center, large pediatric treatment center. gary, what's the situation in philadelphia? >> hey, there. so 72 hours from now, we will be seeing shots in arms in philadelphia. and as we were saying, it's coming out of that pfizer facility in michigan, it's going to u.p.s. and fedex, and then it's coming here to philadelphia. but officials tell me, they don't know how many vaccines they're going to get here in philadelphia. when they do have that number, they will distribute it to every single hospital here in philly, so that every hospital has at least some of the coronavirus vaccine. and it's going to go to those front line workers, as we've been saying. to those folks that are dealing with covid-positive individuals on a daily basis. after that, it will go to the

rest of the hospital staff, and places here like the nursing home behind me here in northeast philly, these residents are excited, this staff is excited, and it will be administered by the cvs pharmacy. the pharmacy will come in here, go room by room in this facility, and they are going to administer the covid vaccine to everyone who wants. it and then they're going to go to the staff and set up a clinic for that, as well. now yesterday, i spoke to the commissioner of the philadelphia department of public health and he told me, for folks who are a little bit nervous about getting the vaccine, for folks who may think this is going too quickly, he said, don't be worried, he looked at all the numbers, he thinks everything is safe and everything is going well and this is a very safe vaccine that he would even take. but he also said, don't let your guard down. just because people are getting vaccinated, does not mean people wi can go out on the streets and gather without masks on. that's why in part the state of michigan this weekend has instituted a closure of all indoor dining across the state and a closure of places like gyms and entertainment facilities.

that's going to go through the holidays. still a long way to go here, ali. but certainly some good news here in philly. >> excellent. and there continue to be -- philadelphia does have a large black population. it's also a place where it's very hard to get testing. later this afternoon at 2:00, i'll be speaking on facebook and instagram with dr. ella stanford of the black doctors covid-19 consortium, and we're taking questions from people about the safety of the vaccine, the efficacy of the vaccine. we're answering people's questions, because right now, about 60 to 63% of americans say they're willing to take this vaccine. it continues to be something that people fear. now, i think over the next month or two, as you see people taking it and see the numbers starting to go down, more people will become accepting of it. but we do have questions and there are reasons why people are legitimately worried about this. some of those reasons are the politicization of the creation of this vaccine by president trump. there have been people who say, hold on, was this an effort to get him re-elected or was this thing actually created safely

and optimally? we'll be having that discussion. i want to go back to ellison barber, who is in front of that pfizer factory in portage, michigan. ellison, we've seen several trucks leave. tell me what you saw from your perspective and what's going on now. >> reporter: right, so we were told that two trucks would be leaving this morning. we saw three leaving. a fedex, a u.p.s. truck, and a third truck with boyle was the name on the side. we're not entirely sure what was in that third truck. we're trying to get a little more clarity on that. but we do know that there were shipments of the vaccine that were heading to states east of the mississippi and also states west of the mississippi. that initial shipment, we were told, there were 189 boxes of the pfizer covid vaccine going out to states. we expected at least one, if not all of those trucks to head to lansing, michigan, to go to the airport there, to then make their way towards the distribution centers in memphis, tennessee, and louisville, kentucky. but obviously, as the trucks drive, we will eventually see

where they are going and have more clarity on that fairly soon. they were escorted by u.s. marshals into unmarked cars along their side. they stopped traffic here at the plant, so that they could make their way out. some people who live in this community have come out to watch them leave, and there were a little bit of cheers as they left. one woman who was speaking to one of our colleagues, she cried as she talked about seeing this moment. listening to you, ali, talking about that doctor in houston, that's something i've been thinking about just all morning, watching this. what this moment must feel like for all of those families who have lost someone, because of this virus. i imagine they are watching this and there is a part of them that is so glad that maybe there are families somewhere that don't have to feel the same heartbreak and same pain that they have felt, but at the same time, they must be wondering if things had been just a little bit different or a little bit faster, if things might have been different for their loved one. we have lost so many people because of this virus, and for so many people, this vaccine was

not and is not soon enough. we will lose a lot more people before enough people have access to this for it to really have a huge impact. and i hope those families who have lost someone in know that we have not forgotten them and we feel that pain with them in this moment. but today in portage, michigan, seeing these trucks leave this pfizer facility, this was the closest thing to hope that we have seen since the pandemic began. ali? >> i just hope -- it is great hope. it is a big deal. it is momentous, it is important, but it's the beginning of the end. and the end is some distance away. and for some people, they are still getting infected. and we are still seeing thousands of people die. we are still seeing almost 3,000 people a day die. and it will be several weeks, if not some months before most people get this. please, in the interim, stay safe. do everything you can to protect yourself and your family. wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands. do what you have to do.

i want to thank all of my guests so far this morning. dr. rashida bassett here with me in houston, the medical director at the baylor college of medicine, roland martin, and dr. peter hotez, also of baylor. thank you, all of you, and gary grumbach as well in philadelphia. thanks to all of you for your reporting. we'll be going back to our reporters as this continues this morning. "velshi" continues right after this break. "velshi" continues right after this break ♪ it's the easiest because it's the cheesiest. kraft. for the win win.

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we are continuing to follow the funews of the vaccine vacci coming out. roland, we have this massive story, the vaccine we've all been waiting for coming out. on the other side, and i'm sure you were watching this yesterday, all kinds of crazy going on in this country. the wisconsin supreme court shut down another trump challenge to try to get a whole bunch of people disqualified from voting,

mostly people of color by the way, not across wisconsin but in two counties, two counties that happened to have a lot of black people in them. then we saw senator ron johnson saying he's not all that convinced by the results of the election. and we have this guy that i'm hoping my viewers don't know, but he's the head of the proud boys, posting a picture at the white house on parler. he claims he got some last minute invitation. the white house says he didn't, he was just coming for a tour. i don't know if you know, but regular folks can't just roll up to the white house and have a tour. so i don't know what all that is about. then there was this weird demonstration in washington about how they're going to take over and the election's not real. a whole lot of crazy going on in this country. >> a whole lot of crazy going on, fomented not only by donald trump but the republican party. this is dealing with the issue of white fear. i'm actually working on a book

on this very thing, because that's what we're dealing with. you talked about this attack on black voters. it is an assault on the integrity of black voters. i'm in atlanta right now, and the same thing, when you have senators kelly loeffler and david perdue co-sign that ridiculous lawsuit from texas attorney general ken paxton suing these other states, and again, they are assaulting black voters in atlanta, in philadelphia, in milwaukee, in detroit, because they are angry with the results. and so what you see, what you see with the proud boys and you see, again, the embracing of this, in fact kelly loeffler, a photo that dropped yesterday of her taking a photo with a white supremacist, somebody who was marching in charlottesville. this is not just all about trump, ali. what we're seeing are people who are deathly afraid of this nation becoming a nation of a majority of people of color. we're going to see more of this.

we must undergird ourselves. remember, the fbi talked about the greatest terrorism threat is white democrats terrorism in this country. that's what the proud boys are. who supports them? donald trump and the republican party. i say this here, for those 126 house members, what they did was sedition. they were traitors. and we cannot tread lightly. these individuals have a complete disregard for democracy. we must combat that at every turn and call them out and not ignore those 18 republican attorney generals and 126 house members and the shameful u.s. senators like ron johnson who is not representing his black constituents in wisconsin. >> yep. roland, good to see you as always, host of "roland martin unfiltered," nice to be in your home state. stay with us, we're just getting

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get self protection for $10 a month. good morning, it's sunday, december 13. i'm ali velshi. the historic vaccine rollout is under way. fedex trucks rolled out of the pfizer facility moments ago. the precious cargo filled with the lifesaving fda authorized

pfizer/biontech vaccines which has been loaded into precisely refrigerated containers and being transported to more than 630 locations nationwide. according to general gus perna, chief operating officer of operation warp speed, the vaccines will arrive at hundreds of sites across the united states on monday, tuesday, and wednesday of this week. the department of health and human services will determine who receives the vaccine first. the first injections are expected to be given by monday to high risk health care workers. officials say 40 million doses will be administered by the end of december. and that is enough to vaccinate 20 million americans. >> while this moment is extraordinary in time and i'm proud to be here announcing the distribution, we have a lot of work to do. we are not taking a victory lap. we know that the road ahead of us