ripstik. garrett exits forever frame left. the mystery surrounding his killing still abides. this sunday, covid, comeback and challenge. >> the jump in cases in a deadly mystery virus. >> nearly a year and a half after the pandemic hit. >> looks like a war zone. >> with a president refusing to face the crisis. >> one person from china. we have it under control. >> it's going to disappear. one day, it's like a miracle. it will disappear. >> and much of the country during into a coast-to-coast er. >> i've treated over a thousand patients myself. >> i couldn't get through the next day of work without breaking down. >> lifesaving vaccines developed

in record time came to the rescue. >> the fda authorized the pfizer biontech covid-19 vaccine. >> now, as cases and deaths plunge and the cases reopen. >> amazing concert for the first time. >> millions refusing to get vaccinated. >> i made it this far without getting it. i don't get vaccinated. >> i don't trust it. i'm sorry, but i just don't. >> a new variant hitting the u.s. >> we're seeing this delta variant double every two weeks. >> and causing lockdowns around the world. this morning we look at our comeback from covid, how it's changed how we live, how we work and how we go to school, and at the challenges still ahead. i'll talk to dr. anthony fauci and to a leader in the effort to vaccinate the world. welcome to sunday and a special edition of "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is a special edition of "meet

the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning and a happy july 4th, independence day to everyone. just as we now read about the great influenza of 1918 and '19, it's likely years from now people are read about the covid-19 pandemic. what will they take away from that history lesson? without question, things have improved, with the number of cases dropping dramatically since january. still, through the month of june, over 6,800 americans have died, including over 9,000 in the month of june, more than in world war ii, world war i, and vietnam combined. at one point the u.s. was doing so badly that though we have only 4% of the world's population, we accounted for nearly 20% of the world's deaths. since then, we have gone from being the leader example among industrialized countries of how not to handle a pandemic to a nation tentatively declaring its

independence from the virus as other countries face renewed lockdowns. this morning we'll look back to where we've been and we'll look forward to the challenges ahead, as the growing delta variant and vaccine hesitancy pose a threat to our own recovery here. we'll be asking what could we have done better? what have we learned? why do sought some people get perilously ill while others remain asymptomatic, and finally, how prepared are we for when, not if, but sadly when the next pandemic hits us? >> the history virus. >> jump in cases of a deadly mystery virus. >> more than 17 months after the first case of covid-19 was identified in the united states, the pandemic has fundamentally shifted life for all of us, politically and personally. >> it's almost like you're drawning from the inside. >> to have a patient ask you if they're dying. >> all the time she kept saying, i'm trying, i'm trying, but i can't breathe.

>> taking a deadly toll on the nation. >> christmas will not be the same, nor any other holiday because my mom is no longer here. >> now, after grief, trauma, isolation, and anxiety, and an unparalleled scientific breakthrough, america is reopening. >> unbelievably amazing to go to a concert for the first time. >> how does this compare to where we were six or eight months ago? >> it's a night-and-day difference as far as domestic passengers is concerned. >> even with the worry of contracting covid, just 29% say the pandemic is over. >> let's celebrate the fourth of juul with independence from the virus. we can get this dawn. >> despite his success in vaccinating a lot of americans, president biden has fallen short of his goal. >> our goal by july 4th is to have 70% of adult americans with at least one shot. >> the nation is still recovering from the trump administration's initial massive failure to respond to the

pandemic. >> we have it totally under control. it's one person coming in from china, and we have it under control. >> we're going down, not up. we're going very substantially down, not up. >> it's going to disappear. >> misinformation originating from the trump white house. >> this is going to go away without a vaccine. >> masks have problems too. >> spread on right wing media -- >> if the vaccine was so great, why have all these people lied about it? >> -- has taken root. >> i haven't taken the vaccine and the reason is i don't trust it. i'm sorry. but i just don't. >> i think we're moving into a medical dictatorship. >> 18 of the 0 states with the lowest vaccination rates are led by republican governors. disproportionately affecting black and latino communities who also lags behind on vaccination rates. though the economy is coming back, those gains are not equally shared. last month, 63% of u.s.

americans say it was difficult to cover usual household expenses. one in five renters living with children are not caught up in rent. one in eight do not have enough to late. low income students have been dispro portion natalie left behind and the pandemic has taken a toll. >> shut up way too long. >> now, as the u.s. celebrates its overall vaccination success, anxiety is rising about new variants. >> delta is the most transmissible of the variants identified so far. it has been identified in at least 85 countries. >> and there is now growing confusion about mask wearing with the w.h.o. recommending mask wearing indoors even for the vaccinated. the cdc disagrees. >> the bottom line is the cdc still says, if you are vaccinated, you don't have to wear a mask. >> that's exactly right. >> and if ever we had a guest who required really no introduction it's the man joining me now, dr. anthony fauci. he's the director.

dr. fauci, welcome back once again to "meet the press," sir. >> thank you, chuck. thank you for having me. >> it's disconcerting to realize we have nearly 10,000 people die of covid in this most recent month that we completed in june. how preventable were each one of those deaths, and how many of them were unvaccinated? >> well, if you look at the number of deaths, about 99.2% of them are unvaccinated. about 0.8% are vaccinated. no vaccine is perfect, but when you talk about the avoidability of hobblizations and death, chuck, it's really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventible. obviously, there will be some people -- because of the variant among people and their response to vaccine, you'll see some that get vaccinated still get into trouble and get hospitalized and die, but the overwhelming proportion of people who get

into trouble are the unvaccinated, which is the reason why we say this is really entirely avoidable and preventible. >> look, we've discussed this over and over again about what's driving this. there's always been a sort of an anti-vaccine 10% to 15%, but it isn't just the 10% to 15%. there's clearly been a political divide that's put over this. have you discovered any new breakthroughs on how to break through this wall of hesitancy? again, i want to lead with this question. i think every death right now is nearly preventable, and yet if we're knowingly watching ourselves, we're watching us kill ourselves. >> it's terrible, chuck, particularly for those of us who have dealt with diseases in which you don't have an

effective countermeasure like a prevention. i mean, we, over the decades i've been doing this, you're frustrated because you have diseases where you don't have an appropriate countermeasure, be it prevention or treatment. then when you have a situation like you have today where you have a formidable enemy in the virus that has tragically really disrupted our planet now for about a year and a half, it destroyed economies, have just disrupted us in every possible way. yet we do have a countermeasure that's highly, highly effective. and that's the reason why it's all the more sad and all the more tragic why it isn't being completely implemented in the country. whatever the reasons -- as you said, some of them are ideologic, some are fundamentally anti-vaxxer or anti-science or whatever.

we need to put that aside now. we're dealing with a historic situation with this pandemic, and we do have the tools to counter it, so for goodness sake, put aside all of those differences and realize the common enemy is the virus, and we have a tool, a highly effective tool against this virus. we in our country are very fortunate, chuck. we have enough vaccines to vaccinate essentially everybody in the country, and there are people throughout the world who would do anything to get vaccine. if you look at the world situation, 10% of the world is vaccinated. we could vaccinate everybody if they would wind up saying that, let's just put everything aside and get vaccinated and put an end to this terrible tragedy. >> let's talk about the delta variant. it is clearly the most transmissible variant we've dealt with yet. is it more lethal? and how concerned are you that

it could cause another spike in this country? >> well, a couple of answers to the questions, chuck. first of all, right now the experience that we're seeing with this is that it is clearly more transmissible. it is more effective and efficient in its ability to transmit from person to person. and studies that we've seen where there have been the variant that's dominated in other countries, it's clear that it appears to be more lethal in the sense of more serious -- allow you to get more serious disease leading to hospitalization and in some cases leading to deaths. that's clearly the issue. now, with regard to your other question -- what was the other question, chuck? i'm sorry. >> no, no. it's how in danger are we in this variant creating a spike? >> well, i think when you talk about how much of a danger it is to do a spike, i think you then

have to look at the country as a whole and those areas of the country in which you have a low level of vaccination and a high level of viral dynamics. that's the thing that gets confusing. as a nation as a whole, we are doing very well. we have more than 50% -- about 50% of the adult population totally vaccinated. we have now more than -- about 66%, 67% of the adult population that's at least one dose. the elderly have been vaccinated to the tune of more than 80%, and the deaths have gone down by that. that's the country as a whole. but we have a big country with disparity in the willingness to be vaccinated. so there are some states where the level of vaccination of individuals is 35% or less. under those circumstances, you might expect to see spikes in certain regions in certain

regions, in certain states, cities, or counties. i don't think you're going to be seeing anything nationwide because fortunately we have a substantial proportion of the population vaccinated, so it's going to be reegeal, and that's the thank that will be confusing when people look at what we do. we're going to see -- and i've said -- almost two types of america, those regions of america, which are highly vaccinated, and we have a low level of dynamics of infection. in some places, some states, cities, areas, where the level of vaccination is low and the level of virus dissemination is high. that's where you're going to see the spikes. >> well, let's talk about a specific here. we know mississippi's one of the lowest -- i believe the lowest vaccinated -- has the lowest vaccination rate in the driven. if you're in biloxi, mississippi, right now, dr. fauci, would you be wearing a mask? you'd be fully vaccinated, but

would you be wearing a mask in biloxi, mississippi? >> i think there would be good reason to do that. as we've said so often, nothing is 100%. if you put yourself in an environment in which you have a high level of viral dynamics and a very low level of vaccine, you might want to go the extra step and say, when i'm in that area where there's a considerable degree of viral circulation, i might want to go the extra mile, to be cautious enough to make sure i get the extra added level of protection even though the vaccines themselves are highly effective. >> asymptomatic spread was the real killer with this virus, right? it's what's made it so difficult to -- at times when we first were dealing with it. can a fully vaccinated person be an asymptomatic spreader of the virus? >> the answer is you have to say yes.

if you're looking at studies being done, we will get the answer to that because we're looking at situations where you have vaccinated people who have breakthrough infections, namely, they're infected despite the fact they've been vaccinated. most of these people will be without symptoms. if you look at the level of virus in their nasal pharynx, it appears to be significantly less than individuals who are unvaccinated who get infected and have asymptomatic infection. so when you look at the level of the virus to be lower, that would mean you can make a reasonable assumption that those individuals would be less likely to transmit the infection to someone else, vaccinates person, breakthrough infection, unlikely, but it's not going to be zero because whenever you have a biological phenomena,

there's always a range. for the most part, it would be less likely. >> let me ask you about -- let's say you're somebody who took the johnson & johnson vaccine, and you've seen that the protection rate, particularly with the delta variant, may be lower. and you wish you had gotten the pfizer vaccine. would you advise that person to go ahead, if they feel more comfortable, going ahead and getting a two-dose pfizer vaccine on top of their j&j vaccine, or are they risking some hecht problems by doing that? >> well, chuck, then you get to the interesting complicated issue of making a recommendation based on data and a clinical trial in which you have data very suss making an assumption that some people would say -- and it's bun done, all right, check. there are competent physicians and health care providers who are saying, you know, with the

j&j, a singe dose, i'm not sure. maybe we should get a boost. you can't give as a formal recommendation from a regulatory authority or a public health authority like the fda and the cdc respectively. what you're seeing is that people are going ahead and making those decisions. a problem to do that, but you can't get a formal recommendation when you don't have official data based on good science and good clinical trials. >> i've asked you this before. how close are we -- we've been under emergency authorization. you said before we were close, and sometimes scientifically close. five years could be close when you think of it in scientific terms. before labor day, do you expect to see these vaccines fully authorized? >> you know, chuck, i always have to give the same answer and i'm sorry. i don't want to get ahead of the fda and their deliberations

because that would be not productive. i would hope so. one of the things that i think people need to understand, when you have an emergency use authorization, it's usually under the context of the benefit is worth more -- clearly outstrips the risk. there are varying degrees of that. when you have a vaccine like we have now, for exam tell, the mrna vaccines, the numbers of people who receive it, the high degree of effectiveness in the real world setting is very, very clear. therefore, i would be astounded if we did not get full approval in the classical sense of these vaccines. the fda will have to be doing all the dotting of the is and

the crossing of the ts. this is a little different situation in which you have an iffy something that's been given in emergency use authorization and you're kind of waiting for a lot more data convince you whether it works or not. there's no doubt when you're looking at this these. in this case, an emergency use authorization in the mind of so many of us is equivalent to a full approval when you have such overwhelmingly positive data that you're seeing with these vaccines. >> i want to close with -- we began our conversation with, frankly, how needless these deaths were in the month of june, needless they were in the month of may. we have the tools to prevent death and hospitalization for just about everybody. yes, there's a slight, slight percentage chance for some. but when you look at the pandemic as a whole, how preventable were these 600,000 deaths? and how much did we essentially do ourselves in in 2020? >> i don't think, chuck, i can honestly quantitate that. i mean, this is a really bad

actor, this virus, globally throw the whole planet. even if you had a perfect response, you were going to see suffering and you were going to see death. to be able to quantitate it, how much better we could have done, for someone who has been witnessing this and being part of it, at least from the standpoint of being involved in the government of the vaccines with our group here at nih, but as a person who watched it unfold, the one thing i was struck with is, if ever there was a situation where you had a pandemic that was as destructive as this, the one thing you'd want to do is realize that you're dealing with a common enemy, the virus, and not have the kind of divisiveness that we've had in our country in trying to address this terrible enemy. it's been like in many respects, fighting with each other instead of getting together, putting all differences aside and realizing that the common enemy is the virus, not each other. that's the thing i've been impressed with.

i can't give you a quantitation of how many deaths would have been avoided if we did not have that, but i'm certain there certainly would have been some that would have been avoided, and maybe a lot. >> how are you holding up? it's been a tough year on you. you've had two different bossesover the last year, two different types -- sometimes a support network, sometimes not. how are you holding up? >> it certainly has not been easy, chuck. i'm doing fine. i focus on my job as the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases. it was my responsibility to make sure that we did the science that got us to the vaccines that as we know now has already saved millions and millions of lives. with regard to what we had to do, do the basic science, do the clinical science, get the clinical trials done, get

vaccines,cs which we need do, and we'll be doing a lot more of that. as far as i'm concerned, putting all that other noise aside, chuck, and it really is noise, i just focus on my job. when i focus on my job, i'm fine. when you get distracted from the other nonsense that goes on, that makes it pretty difficult. i'm pretty good at focusing on my job. >> yes, you are. it is a massive success story when it comes to vaccines and what this government-led effort did. dr. fauci, thank you as always. >> thank you very much for having me, chuck. and joining me now is dr. sect berkeley, part of an international group known as covax, working to speed up the development of vaccines through the world, particularly those countries with less means than the industrialized world. dr. berkley, welcome to "meet the press."

i want to start with paint a picture. in some ways america is in its own bubble with its vaccine supply while you are trying to figure out how to vaccinate the world. how dire would you paint the situation right now globally? >> well, certainly i won't be as positive as tony fauci was. just to start and put this into perspective, this is a global pandemic. it started in a point outbreak in china and very rapidly spread around the world. i think the challenge we started with is to remind people that you're only safe if everyone is safe because viruses will mutate and they'll continue to move and that's what we've seen. i think initially people were not taking that seriously. we saw a lot of vaccine nationalism. we saw high coverage in a small number of countries, 75% of the vaccine being used in eight or nine countries, and we now see, if you look at high-income countries, about 40% of the populations are vaccinated. but in low income countries,

it's still less than 1%. i think when india -- the variant that came out of india, the delta variant occurred, i think people woke up and said, yes, this is true because that went from 40 countries to now 85 countries, and we have to keep in mind this may not be the last variant. what we need is a global process, and we're not really there yet in terms of getting the coverage we need. >> explain some of the hurdles. we made -- basically you need 9 billion vaccines minus the billion -- let's say you need 8 billion people to be vaccinated. what are the biggest hurdles standing in the way? >> well, i mean, there's many. first of all, when we started this whole effort, we had no idea whether any of these vaccines would work. or if all of them did. we were very lucky. we had fabulous science.

first vaccine, 327 days. that's amazing. the previous record before that was four years. i think to keep in mind how fast the science moved, but we normally provide, in terms of vaccines, about 5 million doses a year. now what we're talking about is quadrupling that number. the number you mentioned is people. but, of course, most of the vaccines are two doses. so we need double the number of vaccines to cover that population. this has been an unprecedented, in a sense, drive towards that. we've been very proud to see the increased supply. of course, we've hit all kinds of problems. the biggest problem we hit was as the outbreak occurred in india, which is the large producer of vaccines by volume, it meant they turned

national with their programs, and that meant that there were less for the rest of the world. of course, at the beginning, had vaccines been shared, we would have been able to get to health care workers and high-risk groups quickly. that might have dampened the spread of the infection. we ultimately, of course, need to get there. >> all right. i'm curious. how do you handle -- you're getting vaccine contributions from china, from the united states, getting vaccine contributions i think also from russia, just among those that developed their own vaccines. the chinese vaccine is seen as not quite as effective as some of these -- the moderna or the pfizer vaccine. how do you deal with that as an international organization? certainly that vaccine is better than nothing for some people, but some vaccines are better. how do you equitably handle that situation? >> well, first of all, as i said, we had no idea whether vaccines were going to work when it started. as vaccines began to show promise, our environment is track scenes go through a stringent regulatory agency,

that they show high levels efficacy, that they show safety, and we required w.h.o. prequalification as a standardized way to look at vaccines across the world. at the moment, we're not using the russian vaccine and chinese vaccine. that may change over time. but we're using a range of rack scenes. we have nine vaccines in our portfolio now and soon to be 11 or 12. that's what we started as a priority to move forward because we realized we very well might have needed diversity if it turned out that different types of vaccines didn't work. of course, we've been lucky. now, the advantage of this is it's not only that we did this. for example, the u.s. government as part of "operation warp speed" invested in a range of technology. it turns out that the mrnas work very well, the johnson & johnson, you already talked about that.

what now is happening is there are excess doses that have been produced by most of the high-income countries. our estimates are somewhere between 1.5 billion to 2 billion doses. those can supplement the doses we've purchased. we've purchased about 3.4 billion doses of vaccine. but if those countries are willing to make those vaccines available now, we can move those forward. for example, the u.s. did its first donation with us to honduras last weekend. >> dr. seth berkley, good luck with this. obviously none of us can get out of this pandemic until the world gets out of this pandemic. i really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective with us. >> thank you, chuck, for having me. when we come back, mask wearing and social distancing may be on the wane. life after the pandemic may look quite a bit different than it did before this virus hit. that's next. [♪♪] are you constantly cleaning and sanitizing your bathroom? for an easy solution that lasts, try microban24 bathroom cleaner.

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welcome back. "data download" time. we've looked at unemployment and shuttered businesses again and again during the pandemic, but there are other ways our economy has been transformed, perhaps more permanently, when it comes to the way people get around, what they buy, and where they live. let's start with where they live. check out where four of the top five markets for home sale price increases. in four of those metro areas, it's places that are a bit more open space, stamford, connecticut, much farther outside of new york city, provo, utah, boise, idaho, austin, texas. only number five on the list, san francisco, which is a reminder that cities won't fully empty out. there are still some seat tease that will see increases in

population. guess what? this move out of the cities in so placestion hag led to a bit of hesitation on public transportation. subway ridership in particular has plummeted from pre-pandemic levels. look at the recent work we compared to the same week in 2019. we may be getting back to normal, but how we get around may be a bit different. guess what? you fear the subway, you now suddenly are thinking about a car. after years of talk that people may not need more personal cars anymore, particularly gen z and young millennials, maybe won't ever own a car, new car sales are way up. look how it's impacting car prices this way versus last. car prices up 3% for new cars, a whopping 30% for used cars. some of that increase in used cars is because there aren't new cars available to buy due to the chip shortage we've been dealing with around the world. by the way, those used car prices, the inflation rate there is actually contributing to what appears to be a high inflation rate overall, but still, as you can see, what you're seeing here is people may be changing where they live, how they get to and

from work perhaps for the long run. when we come back, looking ahead to how our lives have changed from work to school to public gatherings as america continues to reopen on this fourth of july weekend. >> as everybody gets back to life post-covid, i think it's going to be important for organizations to just clearly identify why this is a great place for people to work and way it's a great place for you to be a customer. >> the money that we are waiting for from the small business administration is the absolute lifeline, and it cannot come soon enough. we cannot open until we get that money. >> we've learned a lot through the pandemic. a lot of these things are brand-new for us. we're going to fail forward, but at least we'll be trying something new for our families. s .

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like you, my hands are everything to me. but i was diagnosed with dupuytren's contracture. and it got to the point where things i took for granted got tougher to do. thought surgery was my only option. turns out i was wrong. so when a hand specialist told me about nonsurgical treatments, it was a total game changer. like you, my hands have a lot more to do. learn more at factsonhand.com today. welcome back, the panel is joining us, audie cornish, host of all things considered, kate snow, our senior national correspondent here and adam grant, an organizational psychologist and author of the book "think again: if power of knowing what you don't know." audie cornish, i want to start with a poll number from gallup.

has life returned to pre-pandemic normal? normal, 62%, not normal, 33%? how would you have answered that question? >> i think it's pretty obvious that normal left us a long time ago. i heard you talking about post covid. there's no such thing as post covid. while many americans are hesitant to take the vaccine that is available to them. now it's a matter of how do we live with this going forward? how do we approach mitigation measures if and when necessary and how do some of the industries that have been sort of culturally disrupted as a result deal with that now? >> kate snow, you saw the graphic about subway ridership. i want to put up a graphic of the cleveland baseball team and show just attendance -- this is

an open-air event, and attendance for the cleveland baseball team is basically down more than a third from june of '19 pre-pandemic to the most recent completed month here. i think this is proof that we are not normal yet and maybe we're not going to be. >> yeah. two things. i think we're not normal that. part of that is the stress that a lot of americans are feeling about re-entry, about going back to the old commuting and the old going to the office, all of those things, school even. i was looking through my stories i've done in the past year, chuck, and looking at all the sort of mental health impacts and physical impacts on people. 42% of adults in this country gained weight over the pandemic. more than half were less physically active, two of three not sleeping right, one in four of us drank more than we used to. i think right now we're in the summer of reset, in a period where we need to get back our

health, mental health, our well being, and really reset before, i think, fall where in a lot of parts of the country will be a real challenge because people will be expected to go back to their employment. >> well, i was just going to say, adam, let's talk about what is life at work going to look like these days? i want to read something here about return to work. i've heard many leaders complain working from home, choosing where you work is not the same thing as flexibility over how you work and when you work. but it seems pretty clear-cut rally this is probably a big change that's not going away. we saw amazon and microsoft have been in interesting tests here in the pacific northwest. amazon wanting everybody to return. there was a revolt. microsoft, being very flexible, everybody happy. where are we headed? >> well, chuck, i hope flexibility is the future.

we had data pre-pandemic, that people could work from anywhere. they were more productive, more sat filed, and more likely to stay. there wasn't an observable cost to relationships or collaboration. there was an experiment at a call center showing when people worked from home, they were 13.5% more productive. it's been very slow for organizations to adapt to that. 2020 forced us to rethink that. now as people start to come back to some version of the office, i think employers that force pleas to be on site might not be around for a very long time. >> speaking of work, i want to talk about the issue of vaccine mandates because it sort of gets back to who you were talking about at the beginning. i'm stunned by this number. a majority of employed americans apparently are against vaccine mandates, not in favor. obviously we've had a political divide on vaccines. we've seen aggressive -- the idea that the cruise industry has been held hostage in the state of florida because they

would like one and they're not allowed to have one, i feel like this is culturally getting in our way. you can't send your kid to public school if you don't get the measles and mumps vaccine. is? something we ought to culturally try to change the minds of? >> i think there are so many ways that covid was like a low tide that sort of revealed all the different sort of divides and ways certain systems have atrophied or trends that we were already seeing. we were already seeing this reluctance when it comes to vaccines. we were already seeing that in schools. we considered it sort of pocket or fringe, and now this is showing us how these things can metastasize and create greater problems. i don't think we can answer that here in terms of work because some of this will be done as a battle in courts, right?

because there are rights that employers have, to say, this is what we need our work-force to do, please comply. some will be done by the employees, people who will move. i think there's a lot of talk, for instance, about the 4 million people who quit their jobs, right, in recent months and how eye-popping that number was considering the concern about unemployment. there is a percentage of people who are voting with their feet. >> i was just going to say, adam, how much is this going to impact -- are we actually going to see rising wages? i mean, there's not a fast food restaurant in america that doesn't have a help wanted sign, and a lot of us are wondering, well, maybe raise your salary. >> i don't think we know yet. i think what we're seeing right now is a short-term response to a dramatic shift in what people are able to do and what kind of work they're willing to do. one data point that really surprised me, though, is that more than half of americans say they want their next job to be working independently for

themselves, either as entrepreneurs or in the creator economy. i'm not sure rising wages are going to be enough to give people that sense of freedom and flexibility that many of us got a taste of during the pandemic and are now saying we want more. i think only time will tell. >> but, kate, it also, i think, is going to increase demand -- you brought up the mental health issue. there's many companies that don't provide mental health care coverage. maybe they provide physical health coverage, but not mental health coverage. now i think more people realize this is not a perk. this is a necessity. >> yeah. well, that's a huge issue that was revealed as audi said when the tide washes back and you see things more clearly during a pandemic. we have had a mental health crisis in this country for decades now. for the past decade, the numbers -- we're constantly reporting on the numbers of anxiety and depression, particularly among our kids, rising.

the issue of access, you just raised, chuck, has been an issue for years. there are not enough psychologists and psychiatrists in this country and there's not enough access and insurance coverage to go to those people. and with the pandemic, the rise in demand for that kind of help was so great that you've got people on waiting lists. you've got places in the country where there's one child psychiatrist for every 100,000 children. >> yeah, i know, and there's so many new apps and attempts, i mean, to try to deal with this kush with zoom session and things like that. >> can i jump in just for a minute? >> go ahead. >> just for a minute because i think she's bringing up such a fascinating point. insurers didn't even know how to cover telemedicine visits.

we were doing reporting on a medical school focused on teaching website manner instead of bedside manner. there are going to be long-term shifts we're going to see because culturally we have embraced some aspects of remote work and remote interaction. >> yep. no doubt. all right. when we come back, we're going to do more of this as well, but we're going to talk about family reunions and some of the other moments of, yes, joy, but purse venice as well in what was a very tough time for covid. venice as well in what was a very tough time for covid.

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welcome back. let's face it, this country has been through a lot. for months we watched as friends, relatives, neighbors became ill with a disease that had no cure and frankly, no proven treatment. we watched as schools and offices and, frankly, our way of life completely shut down. we did want to take a moment to focus on other moments, moments

of hope and joy, families reunited and small victories we got over this virus and, of course, to remember our health care workers who became national heroes to all of us. >> we will wake up tomorrow morning again so that no matter how exhausted we are in the emergency department, no matter what difficulties that come our way, we will succeed. >> it has been some very hard weeks for the staff, but they've stood up, they've stood strong, and they will continue to be here to support this community. >> applauding our health care workers who are putting their lives on the line in the fight against the coronavirus. people across the city took a moment to say thank you. >> those moments that remind us we're in this together. >> we really miss them. we were really happy to see our teachers again. ♪♪ [ horns honking ]

>> for my birthday, at first i thought it was going to be really boring because of quarantine and coronavirus, but it turned out to be really fun. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you. >> despite the daunting numbers, every single day covid-19 patients are recovering and being released from the hospital. >> the fda authorized for emergency use the pfizer biontech covid-19 vaccine. >> it's even more emotional because bernie here, i treated her when she was sick. she gets to give me the vaccine. >> it's been over a year since many grandparents have been able to hug or kiss their grandchildren. >> oh, my gosh. oh, my gosh. i can't believe this. >> this is a big, big deal. >> coast to coast, signs of reopening. >> i think the community i

start to get back to normal. >> people are, not only physically getting past covid, but emotionally getting past covid. >> i'm glad the city is here, it's open, and -- words can't say how i feel. - words can't say how i feel with spring comes rebirth. everything begins anew. and many of us realize a fundamental human need to connect with other like-minded people. welcome back to the world. viking. exploring the world in comfort... once again.

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so well and that is life expectancy broken out by race and ethnicity. life expectancy in this country went down overall, among black americans nearly three years. hispanics, nearly two years. among whites, less than a year. audie cornish, this revealed what we saw throughout the pandemic, black and brown americans were more at risk, had worse access to health, all of this. this to me, if we don't see it now, the fixes we've got to make in response need to be prioritized. >> also the harm to these communities. if you know somebody who has lost someone to covid and you're vaccinated, now is also the time to reach out and grieve with them. grief and isolation is monstrous, and this is the moment where i think we also need to reach out and acknowledge and comfort each other in the face of all of this harm.

>> kate snow, we've talked a lot about mental health, but this -- the income inequality in this country was revealed way too often, whether it's in education, whether it was in health. >> yeah. the socioeconomic divide in this country, we always knew it was there, but it was just so easy to see during this pandemic. you look at every measure, you look at education and kids trying to go to virtual school who didn't even have the technology to do that. you look at every single measure. i think i want to pick up on something audie just said. i think we all are culturally going to have to re-evaluate our lives to some extent now too. i hear a lot of people saying they don't want to go back to the speed of life we were living were, the frenetic pace that many of us had in our lives. people are valuing community, people are valuing family time,

quiet time in a way that in some ways i think this pandemic fully changed us and made us appreciate things that we didn't before. >> adam, i've never had a closer relationship with my kids this last year than with covid. it's something, you're like, why did it take a pandemic to do this. i know i'm not alone. >> yeah, chuck, when we study psychology, people's reactions to traumatic events, about 15% come out of them with ptsd. that's the worst case, being broken by tragedy. over 50% of people experience the opposite, post-traumatic growth, bouncing forward, feeling you're closer to people, you have deeper connections. i got through that? i can get through almost anything. especially seeing new pockets and having a new sense of purpose. and to kate's point, i think a lot of us are doing a lot of relying right now. this past year has been a checkup on our careers, our families, where we want to live and how we want to spend our time. we should not let that crisis go to waste.

>> audie, what about what we do for a living? i've never felt more powerless with the platforms you have, the platforms kate and i have, we live in these information bubbles before. and these information bubbles have caused death. >> i would say obviously misinformation was a concern. it was prior to covid. so the question is what are the solutions, and i think the shine is off the apple when it comes to big tech, and manufacture more of these conversations are being more serious. >> they sure are. really appreciate all of you today. very thoughtful panel to have on what many of us are hoping really is a different kind of independence day. that's all we have for you today. thank you for watching. enjoy the rest of your july 4th weekend. remember, you want freedom, celebrate freedom? if you haven't been vaccinated, get vaccinated. if you have relatives who haven't, encourage them to do it. we'll be back next week. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

and today we see the results of the unity of purpose, for together, we're beating the virus. together, we're breeding life into our economy. together, we will rescue our people from division and despair. but, together, we must do it. over the past year, we've lived through some of our darkest days. now i truly believe, i give my word as a biden, i naturally believe we're about