simulcast on radio and television, without question our conversation of the day on the pandemic, from the baylor college of medicine on low-cost and global vaccines. this is bloomberg. good morning. ♪

my name is brad tobin, the dean at baylor law school. thank you for joining us today as we have a virtual front-row seat to listen in on a fascinating discussion between our friend, talmage boston, and former secretary of state, james baker iii. as you know, secretary baker was a powerhouse in washington, d.c., in the beltway, and literally around the globe as he served as the united states secretary of state and also further served four united states presidents over the course of three decades. secretary baker was scheduled to be our capstone speaker at the 2020 vision for leadership conference. however, he and mrs. baker contracted covid-19. i'm pleased to report that they now have covid-19, the illness, in their rear view mirror. today the secretary will be interviewed by talmage boston. talmage in his own right is a high-profile persona in texas and across the nation. he is a leading trial lawyer. he is known in our profession as what we call a go-to lawyer or a super lawyer. talmage is also a historian, and he has a special focused

>> so i write this message to the baylor college of medicine every week. i try to remain apolitical. i try to be realistic in my assessment of where we are. but also try and look to the future. i think there is ample cause for optimism right now. for one thing, our hospitals are battle hardened. we've been here, we've done it, we've got therapeutics we didn't have before. hospitals have surge plans in place that they have to reactivate, they don't have to reinvent them again. we are ready for whatever comes down the pike. second, based in houston, i'm sure true of most areas of the country, our community leaders are all pulled together. hospitals, business leaders, the religious community, the faith community, city and county health department, we all know each other. we're on the first-name basis. we have each other on speed dial. we are very well prepared to respond. and i think our public health organizations have substantially improved. as an example, in houston, we monitor waste water. we can pick up viral products in waste water. that predicts where

tobin and i am the dean at baylor law school. thank you for joining us today as we have a virtual front-row seat to listen in on a fascinating discussion between our friend, talmage boston, and former secretary of state, james baker iii. as you know, secretary baker was a powerhouse in washington, d.c., in the beltway, and literally around the globe as he served as the united states secretary of state and also further served four united states presidents over the course of three decades. secretary baker was scheduled to be our capstone speaker at the 2020 vision for leadership conference.

baylor, their head coach tested positive on sunday and canceled the first three games.tivities for 14 days and 4 games for them will need to be pushed back. the majority of games today will be taking place without fans but there are some having fans in the stands and that means today marks the first time that we will have basketball games with fans in an arena since the pandemic started back in march. >> thanks for that report. >>> thanks for joining us. brianna keilar picks up our coverage right now. >>> hi there. i'm brianna keilar and want to welcome the viewers here in the united states and around the world. we're in the coronavirus pandemic and the u.s. reported the deadliest day in the last six moths on tuesday. 2,146 people dead in this country. another 172,000 newly infected. hospit hospitalizations have broken records 15 days in a row. 88,000 people are currently hospitalized fighting covid. test positivity is above 10% in more than half the country. just look at the midnight blue on this map and indicates at least 16% of tts

my name is brad tobin, the dean at baylor law school. thank you for joining us today as we have a virtual front-row seat to listen in on a fascinating discussion between our friend, talmage boston, and former secretary of state, james baker iii. as you know, secretary baker was a powerhouse in washington, d.c., in the beltway, and literally around the globe as he

baylor is working with dynavax. they have partnered with india's biological ede. india has the second number of coronavirus cases in the world after the u.s. there are many parallel efforts to solve this deadly problem. >>> solving another problem. the economy and the recovery. to delaware, where president-elect joe biden is about to outline his economic recovery plan at any moment. hillary vaughn is in wilmington waiting for that. what can we expect? reporter: liz, we are expecting some at least insight or details from the meeting that he just held with ceos from different companies ranging from retail to technology. the ceos from gm, target, microsoft, gap, all meeting with him virtually along with labor leaders, top leaders from unions around the country chiming in about really how corporations and unions can work together to get businesses back open and workers back to work. we're expecting new information and details from that conversation that he had this afternoon at any moment now when he takes the stage. but while that is happening, there has been some sp

he is a professor of pediatrics, molecular virology and microbiology at baylor college of medicine. see you. i wanted to speak to you specifically about the situation i find myself in now with the pine ridge reservation behind me, they have a clinic, if anybody gets particularly sick here they have to go off the reservation to a hospital in rapid city or places further. they have a clinic that has a pharmacy, i don't know if that pharmacy has a fridge that can handle the pfizer medication, maybe they can get one, but how do medications get to people like this, people in impoverished communities, people in very rural communities, even if you are not impoverished but you're where i am, you're far from a city? >> you're asking all the right questions, ali. we know that the native american population in the u.s. is a especially vulnerable to covid-19, with very high death rates in people under the age of 65. the narrative out there is everybody is over the age of 65, it's simply not true. especially among african-american, hispanic and native american populations, about a third of the d

he's the dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine. he's the co-director of the texas children's hospital center for vaccine development. he is an expert, more than many of us are, on things like covid. dr. hotez, good to see you again. i'm a little dismayed that you and i are still talking. i think it's about nine months since the first time, but at least we have some news. we've got this vaccines. they have some logistical challenges to them. one needs to be kept really, really cold. the other one just needs to be kept really cold, and they have to be manufactured and get all over the country. what's your take on what these vaccines, how effective they are, and how quickly most americans will get them? >> so, ali, it's great to see you again even though it's under such horrible circumstances. look, we've got now good news on two vaccines. i think there's two other vaccines we're going to hear about soon from astrazeneca-oxford as well as j&j. these are adenovirus vectored vaccines. in all, i think we'll see at least six or seven vacc

hoethtez is with baylor sch and with the children's center for vaccine development. for those of you who don't know what to believe about these things, follow him on social media. his writing is what you need to believe. >>> lieutenant colonel chris alexander recently retired from the u.s. army and writes about the challenges of executing a mass vaccination campaign in an article in "the daily beast" today, entitled "i was a military covid planner: the vaccine rollout is going to be a nightmare." lieutenant colonel alexander, thank you for making time to be here tonight. i read with great interest your article about the fact that you actually know what's going to go into this distribution. it probably will need federal government help, like, maybe, the army corps of engineers or fema. this is not just a matter of putting vaccines into, you know, a package and having them sent out to pharmacies. >> yeah, it's going to -- like i said in my article, it's going to take flawless execution between, you know, the local, state, and federal government, to roll out this vaccin

my name is brad tobin, the dean at baylor law school. th

let's take a look at some of the other stories making news around the world police in baylor's have fired warning shots and use stun grenades in an attempt to disperse tens of thousands of protesters marching in central minsk dozens of demonstrators have been arrested mass protests demanding the resignation of longtime president alexander lukashenko are now in their 12th straight week. while dolphins are choosing a new president 8 candidates are vying for the job including pro russia incumbent ego doggoned his biggest challenge is pro european former prime minister meyer sound if no candidate gets at least 50 percent of the vote a runoff will be held in 2 weeks. rescue workers have pulled a 70 year old man from a collapsed building in western turkey 2 days after a strong earthquake in the gnc struck the region but hopes of finding more survivors are fading the quake has killed at least 60 people and injured more than 900. to france now where the police say they have arrested a suspect over the shooting of a greek orthodox priest in the southern city of legal their priest was gunned down o

mcculloch, vice chairman of medicine at baylor, i believe harvard trained. drft harvey risch, yale, fareed, harvard trained, completely different assessment, than what you talk about, and you say it with a great deal of authority. let me first say, what is your opinion of these three gentlemen in front of us, these three doctors? i mean, no -- i'm not -- this is not pejorative to you three gentlemen, do you think they're just idiots? again, you are very authoritative and completely refuting what these three gentlemen are talking about. this is the disconnect, and this is what america needs to evaluate. okay? so tell me what your opinion of these three gentlemen are here. >> yeah, senator johnson, i don't know these three gentlemen, they're all clearly well qualified, clearly smart. and i believe they're all clearly committed to the right issues. i have no reasons to doubt any of that. my problem here is not so much that we have a differing reading of the literature, which we clearly do, it is this idea that there is this broad conspiracy across, you know, hu

dr peter hotez, a vaccine specialist and and dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylore hope, because clearly we are having a lot of trouble enforcing social distancing of masks in some countries, we have not had that culture because of an absence of federal leadership. so that requires you to become more dependent on biotechnology solutions like vaccines. i think we're going to have a pretty robust ecosystem. all of these vaccines pretty much work these vaccines pretty much work the same way including ours. we are not scaling up production of our covid vaccine in india, bioe in hyderabad, and we can do this because in some ways it's an old school problem in virology, all about using a strong immune response to the spiked protein of the virus, meaning the virus binds to our tissues with the spiked protein, producing high levels of virus neutralising antibody and t cell health and you will get a vaccine and there are multiple ways to do that so we are seeing the first probably to coming out through pfizer and the moderna, also the oxford astrazeneca vaccine will follow b

here's dr peter hotez, a vaccine specialist and dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor talking about the latest developments. clearly we are having a lot of trouble enforcing social distancing and masks in some countries, clearly in the united states we have not had that culture because of the absence of federal leadership. so that requires you to become more dependent on biotechnology solutions like vaccines. i think we're going to have a pretty robust ecosystem. all of these vaccines pretty much work by the same way, including ours. we are now scaling up production of our low—cost recombinant protein covid vaccine in india, with bioe. in hyderabad, they are preparing 1.2 billion doses and we are testing across india. and the reason we can do all this is because, in some ways, it's kind of an old school problem in virology — it is all about inducing a strong immune response to the spiked protein of the virus, meaning that the virus binds to our tissues via the spiked protein. you induce what are called high levels of virus neutralising antibody and some t cell help and

baylor university will not play at the bubbleville in connecticut this week after head coach scott drew tested positive for the virus over the weekend >>> and tennessee head coach rick barnes is in isolation after his positive test result the volunteer have suspended team activities while more tests are completed. on the women's side the university of connecticut ranked third in the country plans to miss their first four games of the season they halted team activities after a positive covid test in the program. >>> penguins from chicago's shedd aquarium got to march on the midway the bears were on a bye week allowing the penguins a lot of room to waddle around and stretch their happy feet on the grass. hardly monsters of the midway, but still a fun little excursion out for them. >> they got more yards there than the entire bears back field all year david montgomery better watch his back. >>> bill karins joining us to give us a look at the week ahead. good morning. >> a little inside info there. good morning, guys let's talk about the storm in the middle of the country, we have a little

the hardline leader of baylor's has clung to power despite widespread accusations of fraud during elections held over the summer. alexander lukashenko has increasingly resorted to force to break up mass protests against his authoritarian rule. among those who've been jailed or doctors battling the coronavirus pandemic, having spent months playing down the dangers of the virus. alexander lukashenko finally makes a public appearance with a face mask. but he only puts it on when asked to by a doctor during a visit to the covert ward of this hospital in minsk. obviously not bothered about social distancing. asks the patients here whether they got infected in china strikes. well, he says anyone with covert won't be striking again. another patient tells lukashenko he doesn't understand the protests. the people should safeguard what they've got. the man looks a lot like the medical director of another hospital raising suspicions in a doctor's chat room. that all this has been staged that the sinkers spokeswoman says that's not true. many doctors oppose look a shrink oh, and lots of ended up in jai

and u.s., secretary of state's mike from baylor touches down in israel, planning to become the 1st top diplomat to visit any legal settlement in the occupied west bank. the s. u.s. strike make a fire as a crime survey, quests emergency approval for school with 1000 vaccine in the coming days. this after results from his trials show that it's safe around 95 percent effective in old age groups. the vaccine develops with its german partner. biotech has shown consistent results across various demographics with no major side effects that speak to in wilmington, delaware, heidi, so what more is pfizer saying about the effectiveness of the vaccine this week? last week they were talking about 90 percent effective. now we've moved on to 95 percent. what's changed? what's improved? what's improved fully. what's changed is that the stage 3 clinical trials have completed. that is a rushed completion to this trial, actually made possible, sadly by the spike in infections in the u.s. with 11400000 cases now. and pfizer broke down the study this way, 44000 participants, half of them got the vaccine.

justice reform standard bearers tend to focus on they tend not to focus on jails at all outside of baylor for they're not really looking at cases like this. i think very sadly the answer is kind of within itself the reason these individuals are 'd in jail pretrial most the time is because they're too poor to get out and that right there exactly what you described but your mom that's heartbreaking i'm sorry to hear that is exactly why these individuals. die in jail because they have the smallest voice and when you have a small voice you really fall to the very bottom the list and i think a really important that just again or stand is that number 7 $1571.00 from 2000 h. $1800.00 that's only looking at $500.00 jails that's only 16 percent of the jails across the united states we don't we there's $3100.00 jails so that number is probably much higher. i think what truly breaks my heart about this story is the fact that these are people who are still technically not guilty if you know we still go by that old adage of innocent till proven guilty i know that's kind of a rarity these days but you

the founding dean of baylor college of medicine.ring you with the doctor so me explain some of the science behind it, and why we can't be sure that the immunity lasts for very long. first off i want to hear about your experience. you wrote about how you're not the kind of person to normally do something like this. but you said new york was scary and depressing place in march, april, and may. what was it like in that room getting the injection and you didn't know if it was the placebo or the vaccine? >> it was sort of exciting. i believe in science and after the last four years there has been some wareal anti-science rhetoric. it was nice to do something tangible. also i never participated in a medical trial and i'm not the type that probably should, but the study doctors were amazing and they made me feel really comfortable. >> what did they tell you about what you were likely to experience. >> i think the doctor can talk about this, too. this drug is a vaccine that is very new, but it is extremely so far anecdotally very well toler

simulcast on radio and television, without question our conversation of the day on the pandemic, from the baylorlege of medicine on low-cost and global vaccines. this is bloomberg. good morning. ♪ francine: this is bloomberg surveillance. tom and francine from london and new york. let's talk about covid and some of the vaccinations or treatments. like stone chief executive says lessons learned from collaborations from regulators, pharmaceutical companies, and technologies are set to permanently accelerate drug discovery. >> how many times a day do people ask you when you're vaccine will be available? [laughter] regular question whether it is from employers, the media, or my mother. people have been delighted to see the recent news of some of the first results coming through on vaccines. yesterday i was on a call last night with 10 of the global were heavily who involved in bringing solutions to covid and we are excited and optimistic to see some of the first data coming through and will be seeing more in the next six month or so. we have three vaccines in the clinic and to therapeutic treatments

hotelshotels of -- peter baylor commit poor parts of the world need cheap, traditional pharmacology. or do we do both? he hit the nail on the head. it might be possible for us to organize distribution of a 94cine needs a -70 degrees fahrenheit storage around the u.s. and europe, but i'm sure you can't really do that to the majority of the world where large part of the population live. you need to have vaccines that need basic fridges. tom: what is the state of traditional vaccine? ; china leads on that little bit -- sam: china leads on that a little bit. short headline news yesterday saying there vaccine was 100% protective. we need to see the data. we do have those vaccines in development in europe and the u.s.. novavax developing a traditional vaccine, phase three in the next few months. the nave of europe is doing that. andourse you have glaxo sanofi working on the traditional vaccine starting in 2021. francine: sam, what can you tell us about modernity? this week was all about pfizer. it seems we are expecting some kind of trial analysis from moderna. pfizer andsurpass give us be

he is a doctor at baylor college of medicine. what about the good news on the vaccine front.benefits from your perspective of this astrazeneca vaccine compared to the other two? >> a few things. you can make a lot of it. the plans are to make 3 billion doses which far exceeds the number of dose currently under consideration for pfizer and moderna. so massive scale-up. it's actually being made locally in india and brazil and locally along with ours to be the first global vaccines for covid-19. i think that is very important. also, it does not have a freezer requirement. but the pfizer vaccine has got that deep freeze minus 94 degrees fahrenheit and this could be refrigerated and made fair inexpensivive and manufacturers are talking about $3 to $4 a dose. i think it's a great vaccine to add to our operation warp speed. a little unclear what the regulatory pathway is in the u.s. since most of the data has been accumulated overseas. i imagine those discussions are under way with the fda. the bottom line is we are now looking at three good vaccines used in the united states. i thi

we visited baylor.ee how thigh have prepared for this new and unprecedented season. >> a new college basketball season is under way. it will look and feel unlike any oth other. >> can you take me through things that are different? >> it's a long list. >> they point to social distancing first. >> it's spread apart, not as much interaction, high fives and hugs, things like that as you coach you preach it makes a successful team. >> there is testing a minimum of three times a week. the ncaa released a full set of safety guidelines for teams at home and on the road. >> the covid regulations, those things definitely have kept us on our toes. >> for head coaches like drew used to having control, the pandemic in some ways is the great equalizer. >> if one person gets the virus, now the direct contact can take out a team real quick as a cope, you can live with a coach, if he does everything right and somehow gets it, i bet it will happen. >> reporter: it turns out, it happened to him. sunday less than a week af

peter will of baylor medicine, be joining us so we can put questions to him on this program on bloomberg. tom: ♪ let it go let it go ♪ karina: with the first word news, i'm karina mitchell. state and federal election officials are rejecting president trump's claims of widespread voter fraud. they say that last week's election was the most secure in american history. has congratulated joe biden and kamala harris on winning the presidential election. that ended days of speculation about when beijing would formally acknowledge the erie. china was -- the victory. new reaction came after several television networks projected biden would defeat president trump in arizona. it is the latest move by the white house to pressure beijing. president trump has signed an executive order barring investment to chinese companies owned or controlled by the military. the order says china is exploiting u.s. capitol. ministerk., prime forrest johnson most powerful eight is quitting -- prime minister boris johnson's most aide is quitting. dominic cummings was the mastermind of the successful brexit campaign. s

peter hotez, professor and dean of tropical medicine of baylor college of medicine.ry has surpassed 13 million cases. how dangerous is this accelerated transmission? and it is accelerated. >> we're in the most dangerous public health crisis this nation has faced at least for the last hundred years. we're going easily to 00,000 new cases per day. it will be accelerated because of the thanksgiving holiday. it will be accelerated again over christmas. and i'm so upset about the deaths, so we are going to be regularly hitting 2,000 deaths per day, but then going up to 3,000 deaths and 4,000 deaths per day, and it's happening for a very simple reason, unfortunately, which is without any national program in place, we're seeing such a surge in new cases that hospital emergency rooms, hospital beds and icus are becoming overwhelmed. we don't have enough trained staff in many parts of the country, the northern midwest, and texas, where it's the worst in the world right now in terms of number of new cases. we know when hospital staff starts to get overwhelmed, that's when the

. >>> i'm joined by an emergency medicine physician and assistant professor at baylor college of medicine. thank you for spending part of your thanksgiving with us. i have to ask about the new cdc study that estimates one in eight coronavirus cases may have actually been counted so far in the united states. meaning that we vastly undercounted cases. what do you make of the study and what concerns does that raise for you? >> that's definitely believable, boris. what we know is that some of those who are affected with covid-19 are completely asymptomatic. if you don't have symptoms, nothing is going to prompt you to get tested. so we're not capturing those numbers. there are also others who have been exposed to the virus in one way or another, but they may only have mild symptoms. if they don't know they're exposed that also wouldn't prompt them to get tested. that's why it's likely we're undercounting the numbers we're seeing in the united states. >> a critic might look at the number and say that would get us to herd immunity. would it? >> not necessarily. in order for us to achieve herd i

we have talked to steve riley at imperial college, peter hotez out of baylor, and right now, , aert koversity professor of epidemiology. that barely describes his focus on the heart of the matter right now, which is transition dynamics. he is world-class in this, and we are thrilled he could join us. are you smarter about the transmission dynamics of this virus then you were in april? dr. ko: thank you very much for the invitation. with respect to whether we are smarter, i am not sure that is the best way to describe it. we have learned more about how this virus transmits, who it transmits, and where it transmits. i think what we are not necessarily smarter is learning that lesson and translating it into policy. tom: but we have a policy void. can we wait until january 20? please color for me the urgency of policy right now in the final days of the trumpet ministration. -- the trump administration. dr. ko: we are at a critical moment right now, and we can't wait until january for effective action. we are on the exponential curve , not only in the united states, but also in the northeas

joining us now is the dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of mediciner. hotez, it's astonishing how checked out president donald trump is as the rest of us are in the grip of this national nightmare that gets worse every morning. we just showed the hospitalizations. i also want to show the new cases what that graph looks like, this mount everest of a graph of new cases, yes, that means more people are being tested. why would more people be tested? because ne hathey have symptoms they've had exposure. being tested is kind of a pain. you only do that when you are worried that you've been exposed. and that's what that curve looks like. what are you seeing this morning? >> you know, alisyn, one thing you can't hide are deaths. and now the deaths are starting to come. we're regularly over a thousand deaths per day. the projections are we're going to move towards 2,000 deaths per day and maybe higher than that. within a few weeks, covid-19 will be the single leading cause of death in the united states. we are looking at 150,000 americans who will lose their l

return back to santa rosa and our thanks to them and all veterans today, absolutely a 100 and a 105 baylor all right, give you a live look. >>as if you're in a dc 3 flying over san francisco, pam looks pretty nice weather. our chief meteorologist lawrence karnow standing by with a look at what's ahead and forecast lauren yeah hoping bring some rain drops back to the bay area's he got a couple of scattered showers off the coastline doppler radar picking up on that now but they are going to wait for that to come on shore so let's over the weather wall check things out tonight the clouds have been gathering you've seen those throughout the day actually kept the temperatures from getting as cold is forecast this morning. you see some of those clouds out there right now but beginning to break up. >>in parts of the north bay and then you see the big green blob off the coastline. those are some of those scattered showers but that's not to be able to make it really back on shore tonight, partly cloudy over san francisco temperatures right now we've got 53 degrees in san francisco, 56 in oakland 55

guidelines as there are new infections, doctor peter hotez, a professor of pediatric microbiology at the bayloryou. first, what is your advice on how we should handle thanksgiving and then christmas, birthday parties and family gatherings, unfortunately they spread the virus, what is your advice on what to do. >> the governor of ohio really said it pretty well, vaccines are coming by this time next year, actually much earlier march, april, may is significant percentage of the market population will be vaccinated it's a matter of getting through the horrible winter, the projections of the health metrics in seattle say we can be up to 202,500 americans will die every day, covid-19 will become the leading cause of death on a daily basis by january. the point is vaccines are coming, now you want to take every step possible to protect the life of your father, mother, brother, sister. and do whatever we need to do to stop the surgeons on the icus. that's the one mortality rate goes up. but the point in the past when i've said those i never had any brackets it was asking americans to do this indefinit

co-director center for vaccines children's hospital and dean of national school of tropical medicals at baylor college of medicine. doctor, welcome, sir. can you first of all walk us through a timeline how soon you are expecting the fda to approve pfizer's vaccine and once that's down, how long before shipped out in sdrishgs? distribution? >> good to see you, alex. we think the dossier will be submitted to the u.s. food and drug administration for the pfizer vaccine. it will take around two weeks for the fda to go through all of the data. i mean, remember, they look at the primary data. not just looking at press releases. they're going through the data, detailing to confirm the efficacy and safety and sometimes see things that the companies don't pick up or notice. that two-week review period is important, and then likely they'll present it to what's called verback, committee of the fda and ascp linked to the centers for d.c. control and then can move quickly. hope, early, mid-december might start releasing the first doses of vaccines probably in pilot programs and in several states including

peter hotez is a professor and dean of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine. dr.otez, we'd like to start with you. who needs to get this vaccine first? the most vulnerable members of the population, the elderly, or those who are most often spreading the virus, younger demographic? >> well, boris, so far, the priorities seem to be focusing on preventing deaths, preventing people from going into the icu and dying but also stabilizing the health system, because that's another huge issue as we're overwhelming our healthcare providers, our healthcare heroes with numbers of patients. so, the national academy of sciences, medicine, and engineering have issued some recommendations, and ultimately, the decision is going to be quite a bit left to the individual states, but the guidelines will indicate, of course, healthcare professionals need to get vaccinated at the front of the line as well as first-line responders and then we move to highly vulnerable populations, older individuals. now, exactly what that age cutoff is remains to be determined because we're hearing the a

peter hotez from baylor college of medicine. thanks again for being with us. we're seeing these troubling models, 471,000 dead from covid by march 1st, so we're talking about a half million americans in the course of a year. we should note this model, ihme model has generally been conservative, it tends to underestimate the number of deaths. so what do you want people to know now at this critical time? >> well, you know, what i want people to know, brianna, is that nobody has to die. we are looking now at 150,000 americans who will lose their lives between now and roughly a week or so after the inauguration. none of those individuals have to lose their lives. this is all preventable through aggressive social distancing and wearing face masks. the thing that's most troubling to me is that where it is hyper accelerating in the northern part of the midwest, dakotas, north dakota, south dakota, wyoming, idaho, and west texas, we are seeing surges on intensive care units. then the mortality of the death rate goes vertical. nurses and other staff and doctors get ove

peter hotez, dean of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine. thank you for being with us this thanksgiving, sir. hope you're having a good holiday. i wonder as you see americans going ahead with thanksgiving travel plans, despite skyrocketing coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, death, numbers we heard from stephanie and evan in l.a. and new york, where do you think we're going to be in the next three weeks. it seems inevitable we're going to go back to some of the strict, severe restrictions we saw in the spring. >> well, it is not only over the next three weeks, we're looking, boris, at dire predictions by the week or two after the inauguration. how we behave as a country can determine whether or not a half million people lose their lives from covid-19 or we keep it around 300,000 or somewhere in between, and the only way we can keep it down to that 300,000 number is to maximize social distancing, avoid any large indoor gatherings, wearing face masks, don't travel, don't go through airports and bus terminals. the message is we have to do this

dean on baylor's team developing a coronavirus vaccine, and joined by senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen. talk about the vaccine. big benefit, elizabeth, the vaccine, the storage of it, not as demanding as phizer's candidate vaccine. explain to us. >> that's right. so phizer and moderna have similar efficacy, over 90%, both appearing to be safe with early data, no serious side effects. the way they're stored, distributed, shipped, will be different. it will make a difference. look at the differences. phizer's has to be kept minus 75 degrees, way colder than any other vaccine currently in use in the u.s. that means doctors and pharmacists don't have the freezers that go that low. after it comes out of that temperature, can stay five days in the refrigerator. moderna needs to stay minus 20, so they have freezers that go that low. that one when you take it out can last 30 days in the refrigerator. those are tactical differences that could make a big difference in which one of these does well in the real world. brianna? >> you can see that when you look at the side by side. dr. hoi wan

he is the dean of the national tropical school of medicine at baylor.r vaccine development. on the issue of hospitals and what dr. fauci is talking about, a surge upon a surge. because you have been writing that you've never seen anything like what you are seeing right now. what? nine, ten months into this, and you say you just did rounds where you never -- you have never seen so many covid patients? tell us about that. >> yeah, john. hospitals across the country are in a really bad spot, right now. i cannot emphasize this strongly enough. in the early months of the pandemic, we saw horrific surges in very small areas of the country. right now, it's occurring in literally every state, except for hawaii. and hospitals across the country are running out of beds. health care workers. we are sending out an sos. we are running out of staff. we are opening up field hospitals. but we are desperately afraid that, if we, as americans, don't do the right thing, if this surge continues to grow, we're going to have to stop being able to provide care to people who c

through these latest coronavirus headlines, he's a professor and the dean of tropical medicine at baylorge. as we look at this, doctor, i feel like, and i said this earlier to dr. wen, for months now, we have heard from the both of you, we know what to do, we have the tools. we know how to slow this, and yet here we are, more than 12,000 cases, more than 255,000 deaths, and we're seeing scenes like what we just saw at the airport in phoenix. i'm just curious, for you, who is fighting every day to get this message out there, what do pictures like that -- what do those do to you? >> well, we know what the result of this is going to be. look, erica, we're in the worst part of the epidemic right now, a historic levels. we're going to be, by next week, we'll be at 200,000 new cases a day. we're already getting up to 2,000 deaths per day, and the numbers are going to continue to climb. some estimates from the institute for health metrics indicate that 150,000 americans will lose their lives between now and about a week or two after the inauguration. all of those deaths, all of those 150,000 de

peter hotez from the baylor college of medicine.fidence in a vaccine that the released under this emergency use authorization? >> thanks, jessica. there's not a lot of choice at this point. the pandemic, especially in the united states, is accelerating so aggressively, we may be looking at 3,000, 4,000 deaths per day as the surges on the icus mount. so some numbers indicate half a million americans could lose their life by a week or so after the inauguration and go on from there. the full approval process often can take six to nine months, even if it's expedited. you multiply those numbers of days times the number of americans who are losing their life every day, it's an unacceptable death toll. but what the fda has done, we haven't done emergency use authorization for a vaccine that's released to large segments of the population before. so what the fda is doing is balancing the urgency with trying to closely proximate as possible the approval process. they're on top of it. they've definitely have not compromised the phase 3 trials

. >> joining me now is the founding dean of the school of tropical medicine at baylor school of medicine, dr. peter hotez. always a pleasure to have you on. thanks for joining us. let's pick up on this notion or news that we're getting from pfizer, and certainly the vaccine debate in general, because pfizer and biontech announced a final analysis of their vaccine candidacy shows it's a 95% effective success rate, if you will, in preventing infection. they also announced they'll be seeking regulatory approval in the coming days. what do you make of these dw developments? >> well, thanks so much. it looks like it's going to be really good news. remember, these are all press releases. we still haven't -- the scientific community still hasn't had the opportunity to review the data, but assuming that it is as advertised, it's very good news. a couple of weeks ago, they had the press release, but now, they were able to finish more of the phase three trial. they got additional information. they were able to add new information about the fact that the vaccine is also preventing against serious i