andrew pekosz with us of johns hopkins.uld join us this morning. the idea is that if i choose to be unvaccinated, how sick is sick when i get the delta variant? what is the level of sick we should expect? andrew: the data is rolling in now that the delta variant is causing disease primarily in unvaccinated populations and the disease it is showing seems to be a bit more severe than the disease we saw in similar age groups at the beginning of the pandemic. if you are unvaccinated, the risk from the delta variant is greater of infection and there will be a greater increase of severe disease from infection. there is nothing good about being unvaccinated when you think about the delta variant. tom: where are we on the vaccination process? i saw age over 12 vaccinated. are you pleased? andrew: i would love to see these vaccination rights get much higher than they are right now. we reached a stage where many of the people who are vaccinated now are obviously protected from disease. we have not reached those levels that give us a

andrew pekosz with johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health . l.a. y cautious tone. maybe we should have the vaccinated wear masks again. were you surprised by that news? andrew: i wasn't surprised. in baltimore, we have a location positivity rate, low testing rate, a good vaccination rate, so we don't have those kind of restrictions considered. los angeles is a very different story. the delta variant is moving quickly through unvaccinated populations, and even though the vaccine does provide protection against delta, it is always good to have more than one thing in place, particularly when the risk is getting higher. masks represent one extra thing that a vaccinated person can do to prevent infections in a situation where you might have a higher chance of being exposed to the virus. tom: i noticed the washington post with a round number, 47% totally vaccinated. what number do we need to see? andrew: it keeps getting higher and higher as we find variants that are easily transmitted. we were using the 70% number early in the campaign, before the alpha