brown and black community. how is that being received and why? >> i really think you hit the nail on the head. we are a small minority of students on campus. universitieseen actualized. i think among our non-black community at brown, i think in general students do see this is a very particular moment. it's about black advocacy and about black struggle. we're reckoning with a lot of these institutions that we all benefit from that have his story and in the modern day oppressed black folk. >> quickly before we let you guys go, you're doing this, trying to meet this national moment, but also we're in the middle of a pandemic. three of your family members tested positive. how are you navigating the social change, the pandemic and still being a student and your governing role? jason, that's to you. >> i really think -- it's very difficult right now for black students to have to be faced with racism from every single day being a student at a school like this, having to see people like us getting killed in the news every single day and having corona virus impact us. being a black student activist is difficult. >> danielle, sorry you have to run, and jason as

joining us is a political science chair from brown university.endy, this is the first stage of things. will there be a defense we will be able to take seriously and may actually make a dent? wendy: you have to look at who will announce they will retire, who will run in the next election. it will be a very expensive vote for republican senators. the cost is so high, and he is not in office anymore, you have to wonder why you would ever vote for this. but there are arguments to be made. is the purpose of impeachment to chastise or prevent somebody from running again? or is it simply to remove somebody for federal office? i think we will hear arguments on both sides of that. vonnie: if there's an incentive to make a good case, is the case already laid out by the defense good enough? one, that a former president can be impeached. two, that the president was exercising his free-speech rights. wendy: the jury is out on the former. it will be the senate that decides, on a bipartisan basis, whether a former president can be impeached. the constitution do

i enrolled at brown university with the intent of getting a ph.d. in physics. that didn't turn out to be the case. i was not a good fit for that curriculum. not to demean brown university, but the professors didn't know anything near what's i knew by that point in time about the areas of physics i was interested in. not their fault at all. and at the same time, the doctor that i mentioned earlier at columbia was in charge of research and development at k 25. he had been urging me to return. he said we really need you, just what we need. so i never finished up around your. i went back to buffalo and i married dorothy jean, my wife of 66 years. we took off with 30 dollars in my pocket, borrowed from my dad, for oak ridge. i went to commence work and i developed that i had not had my top secret clearance renewed, because i had not had time to do it. and so ralph, who was the personnel manager there, said larry, there is no sense of you sitting here in a green room reading these introductory papers like these other guys. why don't you just go and stay in town. doro

. >> first, to qualify why i call you a big brain, brown university. other day who was trying to fix some of the things wrong with my body, and he said hey, my kid is doing great at brown. they have no cases. that ashish jha got it right. i didn't even know about this. put up the statistic please and then explain the campus positivity rate is .15. the rhode island rate is 2.1. i thought colleges were supposed to be worse. what did you get right up there, and are any other people taking your lead? >> yeah, so chris, we decided we're going to follow the public health science. things you and i have talked about for the whole last year. we put in strict mask mandates. made sure that people weren't bunching up together indoors. we held classes all through the fall, we're holding classes in person now. but the other big thing we did, this is not magic, we did really aggressive testing and tracing. like we put in a really good testing and tracing program, and as soon as somebody gets infected, we identify them, isolate them, do contact tracing, and we make su

megan ranney emergency room physician and research err at brown university and the dean of the brown ing here. dr. jha, i will start with you. i think viewers really don't know what to think about the moment that we're in. cases are down, vaccinations are definitely speeding up, but you have experts like dr. osterholm warnings that the worst days could still be ahead. is he right about that and do you think that the rest of winter will be -- you know, what do you think it will be like for the rest of the winter and spring in the united states? >> good morning, abby. thanks for having me on. the short answer is dr. osterholm is right, here is how do think about it. we are in a much better spot than three weeks ago, cases are falling and the optimism and the kind of outlook for the future is very bright once we get into may and june. the issue is the time between now and then. this uk variant that is starting to circulate and growing every day could very well really flatten hospitals, cause all of the things that dr. osterholm is saying. so we need a short-term strategy. one more big be

educated in -- and he would go to latin school and providence before he was all set to go to brown university to continue his studies. unfortunately, financials effects and the family and greens personal life would force him instead to move to new york city to find a job at a dry goods store inside of a merchants office. while in new york city again he went on to teach mathematics at west point. he would fall in love at his time at west point marrying the sister of one of his classmates in 1920. eight upon graduation and going up the chain of command greenwood would be sent to maine and station at fort seven between 1832 and 1833. when he took the assignment he and his wife, elizabeth and their three, children would all go with them up to fort sullivan were tragedy would strike and alter greens course for the rest of his life. elizabeth and all three of his children would pass away while green was stationed at fort sullivan in may. green would retreat much inside of himself as you can imagine the tragedy affecting him. one of the things that he did to deal with a loss and his life was to turn

i thanks for having me i am an assistant professor in brown university and i'm a co-founder and co-director of a filipino health initiative at our school of public health. what did you think when you 1st saw that the number statistically stakes of how many for the peano nurses had died coronavirus. i mean it's absolutely devastating and this is both personal and professional for me i'm a daughter of a filipino nurse my relatives are nurses around the country as well as in other parts of the world so it's absolutely devastating i mean we're really underscore is that is that the invisibility of filipino nurses i'm in the u.s. health care industry that we don't hear about the dispersant number of filipino nurses that are part of the labor force they are our research is showing that they're on the front lines when they're in the i.c.u. use they're in the emergency rooms they're working in nursing homes and caring for some our force vulnerable populations but they themselves are gone out of all and we don't hear about them they've been here for it's not just recently filipino nurses have been in

ashish jha, the dean of the brown university school of public health. and dr. jha, always great to have you here with us. and you and i were on the air here after johnson & johnson first released their own early data. now weeks later and this new fda report tonight just as encouraging. let's just reiterate here, 86% effective against severe illness here in the u.s. 100% effective at preventing hospitalizations and death. a single shot. doesn't have to be stored at those deep freeze temperatures. normal refrigeration. so, i guess the question tonight is, is this a game changer? >> david, thank you for having me back. it's wonderful news. it is just one more piece of really good news on the vaccine front. i think it's going to make an enormous difference. it's going to be so much easier to store and get out to people. and look, what we care about most is those hospitalizations and deaths. and this vaccine seems terrific at preventing that and that's what matters. >> and dr. jha, we obviously just don't know how this could effect the ultimate timeline for vaccinat

the dean of brown university school of public health. dr. jha, as always, great to have you. we know the fda is set to meet february 26th right now to discuss johnson & johnson's emergency use authorization. you have said right here on this broadcast that this single dose vaccine will be really significant. 85% at preventing severe disease, 100% effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths. you believe a true game-changer if approved? >> i do, david, and thank you for having me on. this is going to be really important. we have got to see the full set of data. the fda is going to do a careful review. once this vaccine becomes widely available -- it's easy to store, a single shot -- i think it's going make a big difference. >> also, there is concern about what could be on the horizon -- dr. fauci and others warned for some time now that the uk variant could become the dominant variant right here in the u.s. and within weeks. we know that variant and others already detected in more than 30 states now. are we essentially in a race against time to get the first shot in the

one of the examples was at brown university when you confronted those from the past and present, who were financially supporting the university. the role in the triangular slave trade. i want you to speak to that. that's something that other institutions will have to grapple with. predominantly white institutions. what did you call for? were you successful in addressing the very important issue as a bridge from a historical perspective to now present day when people are asking you demanding reparations. >> first of all, my greatest teacher, my mother always said to tell the truth. and when the issue came up of what the ties of brown university could have been to the transatlantic slave trade my first thought was we should pursue this, and find out with the truth of it was. i didn't realize that so many people would be unhappy with the truth. in fact, the date that we announced that we were pursuing this issue, a good friend of mine, a scholar called and said girl, have you lost your mind? i laughed at the time at her comment, but she was pressured because she knew that all hell would

professor corey brettschnedier teaches constitutional law and politics at brown university.ampshire. imagine for someone who studies constitutional law that today must of been as interesting as it can get. your thoughts first of all on the house managers presentations and arguments first of all i thought it was a tour de force, really brilliant at putting forth what is at stake here and this is notjust a high crime or misdemeanor, if you hurt mr raskin argued but it is a paradigmatic case at what a heck being misdemeanor is full of it is about an attack notjust on the capital but on our democracy on the day that electoral votes were to be certified and more than that it was something that had been ongoing from the time that donald trump deny the truth which was it this was a free and fair election and try to really undermine democracy over and over again. find really undermine democracy over and over again.— and over again. and as mr raskin said _ and over again. and as mr raskin said the _ and over again. and as mr raskin said the fax - and over again. and as mr raskin said

that reckoning continues at colleges and universities, many of which have direct connections to the history of slavery. jeffrey brownt, part of our "race matters" series and our arts and culture coverage, "canvas." >> reporter: on the campus of the university of virginia, a new memorial to the thousands of enslaved people who helped build the school and then worked there-- craftsmen, construction workers, cooks, domestic servants. some of their names are known. most-- more than 3,000-- remain anonymous, honored by so-called "memory marks" in the stone. historian kirt von daacke helped lead the effort to uncover his school's past. >> this story has to be visible on our landscape in a way that the casual visitor will understand when they visit here. and we have to acknowledge the humanity, the skill, the life, the labor of the enslaved, and do it in a way that responds to current community concerns. and i think our memorial really does a fantastic job of that. but it's not an end. it's a beginning. >> reporter: it's a story often hidden in plain sight, as in this 19th century engraving, intended to capture the campus

ashish jha, dean at brown university stoochool of public health. so glad you're with us. let's start with pregnant women. you've got that study which is concerning, to say the least. but then you've also got good news from pfizer that they have now completed the first shot, the first dose of their trial of the covid-19 vaccine on 4,000 women in the u.s. and what is also interesting is they're going to study not only the impact on women -- pregnant women but on the baby. and when the baby is born. but what should women that are pregnant do until we know the results? >> yeah, so again, good morning. thanks for having me on. pregnant women are at higher risk of getting infected. and then we know from other studies that pregnant women who are infected are at higher risk of complications than other women of similar age. covid is a real risk for pregnant women. and, you know, even though pregnant women weren't included in the initial clinical trials, all the data we're seeing so far suggests that these vaccines are quite safe in pregnancy. and so when i've been asked by pregnan

at brown university it is 204,000.e schools with multibillion-dollar endowments, heavily subsidized by you from your tax dollars. they could afford to educate poor kids, they just choose not to. at princeton, 72% of students come from families in the top 20% nationally for household income. nobody seems to have any plans to change any of this. diversity is for wage earners, not for the people in charge. no one is trying to diversify them, because in real life, let's be honest, the lack of diversity is the real reason that people go there in the first place. no one applies to yale in order to learn things. that is not the point. the point of going to yell as to cement your position as credential member of america's ruling class paired that is the singular purpose of the experience, the only purpose. more than any other standard, more than any award in american society, and ivy league degree increases the chance that those who hold it in the end will be giving the orders, not taking the orders. that's effect is real and

it has been downgraded over and over again including studies of brown university, duke university, all over europe and norway recently. half of the teachers are under 41 years of age. teaching is a young profession. 82% are under 55. high-risk teachers should be vaccinated and protected but all the social distancing and everything we have talked about agonizing them. but the rest of these features, the only thing different about a school from the society outside of a school is the schools are lower risk. if i get to pick a job that was safer from covid-19, i would pick being a schoolteacher. this is the complete travesty. it is destroying children, particularly the very children's that these people seem to have given lip service to caring about. it is outrageous! it is a real embarrassment to the united states. it is a disgrace. >> rachel: dr. come i want to ask you about something else because we had dr. fauci come out and say, the states go back to school and then it says a talking point from somebody and he says it isn't. is it time to stop pretending that dr. fauci is not political

the only new information is confirmatory from brown university, duke university.ound the world. children have little risk of a significant illness. we know teachers don't get significant cases when in schools that are open. and we know overwhelmingly the harms to children, not the teachers of lack of in-person schools. these people are -- i don't know what they're talking about with lies. they're bizarre statements. they have no fact whatsoever. there's a complete perversion of the term "the science." there's no reason not to open schools. there's nothing special about schools except they're low risk environments. these people are just -- i don't understand it. in fact, there's no reason by the way to prioritize teachers in vaccination programs. teachers are not at high risk. high risk teachers should be prioritized. but you know, 82% of teachers in the united states are under 55. half of them are under 41. they're low risk, young profession. they should be back at work. i said this months ago. right hand schools -- >> martha: you said it on our program. people gi

ashish jha, also the dean of the brown university school of public health. good morning, dr. jha. as someone who resides in new york city, i took particular interest, obviously, looking at this. but my main concern wasn't just that it looks like it's really here. it's that it's that part of it that they think it evades our -- part of our body's natural immune response, and i wonder what you can tell us about that and how it relates to the vaccines. >> yeah, so good morning. thanks for having me on. so this is new development and we're tracking this. the two things i would say are, first, there's a lot we have to learn about this variant. we don't really know if it's more infectious or more deadly. and on the issue of the immunity and vaccines, my best guess based on very little data is that our vaccines are going to continue to work just fine against this variant. but let's be honest. we don't know. that needs to be tested more carefully and my hope is in the days and weeks to come we'll get more answers on that. >> dr. jha, the fact is that viruses mutate. this always happens. it

moments ago, brown university published an extensive twitter thread, a medical authority has taken thextrapolation of the better news on the vaccination, the better news on the deaths across this nation. jonathan: yields have gone one way, yields have gone higher. think the one question people ask is whether we get any sort of subtle intervention from the federal reserve chairman later this morning. tom: i dazzled kailey leinz this morning and the 5:00 hour with a positive 30 year yield. are we seeing higher yields or a normalization from the really distressed yields we have seen? i am going to go with the optimistic case that we are normalizing. jonathan: you know where lisa is going to go. but i think we should be asking this question. i keep hearing the reflation trade, but this move in the last few days has been real yields, and inflation expectations haven't been coming along for the ride. lisa: if you take a look at five-year year five year breakeven rates, the expectation for inflation over the next 10 years has declined for five straight sessions, which really calls into questi

reagan manny is from brown university, doctor, gret to have you on. let's talk about the state of vaccinations. so we're seeing some states continue to struggle to distribute vaccines, how could we turn that around as we're trying to race against the clock with these new variants? >> so, the first and biggest thing is that we still face inadequate supply. we've heard reports over the last week about a number of mass vaccination clinics having to shut down or cancel appointments because they simply ran out of enough vaccines. the second thing is that the states need to be able to count on the number of doses that they're going to be able to get in a given week. and i know the biden administration is hard at work at getting states more accurate information about how many vaccines are out there, but it is got to be done real quickly because it is impossible for states to plan. and then of course we have to get people to trust it. i still hear so many people in my community waffling as to whether or not they will get a vaccine in this moment of political

. >>> we're joined now by there ashish jha, dean of brown university school of public health. always good to see you, dr. jha. >> good morning, gayle. thanks for having me back. >> i always wait for you to say that. we are -- i know it cracks me up, too. let's go back to david's piece about that booster shot. how important is the booster shot, and when do you think it will be available? >> yeah, first of all, i don't know if we need it. i'm just really not sure. the current vaccines really do look like they're working pretty well. so i suspect that -- >> they say we need it because of the variant, though. they're saying we need it because of the variant. you're saying maybe not? >> maybe not. maybe not. even the current vaccines seem to work pretty well against the variant. the j&j vaccine was tested against that variant, worked pretty well. nobody got hospitalized after or died. i don't know if we need it. if we need it, it will probably be sometime in the fall, i suspect. at which point we should have enough for people to get it. so we'll have to see. i remain pretty optimis

holding a bachelor's degree in english literature from brown university living in austin with her husband and two children with that i would like to welcome maurice and pamela up to the stage thank you for joining us i'm thrilled for this conversation. take it away. >> thank you so much for joining us tonight it wish we were sitting on the second floor so badly and we were altogether but hopefully this draws an even larger group together and i'm glad we can do this. thank you for this beautiful book you have written what i wanted to say before jumping into questions i have covered capital punishment in texas over 20 years i covered cases described in this book written in this book i learned so much and it helped me to understand the larger framework of so many things i did not see until reading this beautiful book. thank you for writing it and i'm just so excited to talk to you about it. >> that means a lot coming from you. i admired your work for years and shapes how i became a journalist. thinking i'm looking forward to this. >> i want to start on a personal note then going to the large

educated in rhode island and go on to latin school in providence before he was all set to go to brown university to continue his studies. unfortunately, financial setbacks in the family and greene's personal life would force him to move to new york city to find a job at a dry goods store, inside of a merchants office. but while in new york city and working to provide some income for himself and his family, greene received an appointment to the united states military academy. he would enter west point at the age of 18, and he would graduate as part of the class of 1823 with high honors, second in his class of 79. he would serve as the lieutenant of artillery upon graduation and would go on to teach mathematics for four years at west point. he would fall in love during his time at west point, marrying a sister of one of his classmates, elizabeth, in 1828. but upon graduation and moving up the chain of command, he would eventually be sent to maine and stationed at fort sullivan between 1830 to an 1833. when he took the assignment, him and his wife elizabeth and three children will go with him up to

megan rainey at brown university is with us. so good to see you. this study in israel that shows after two weeks of just one dose of the pfizer vaccine people are 85% protected. do you see an option where one dose may be better and to expand out at least one dose for other people? >> let's be clear on what the israeli study really shows. it is exciting in two ways. the first is it confirms what we already knew from the trials presented to the fda showing that after the first dose, you do get some degree of immunity. the second even more exciting thing about this study is that it shows not just that you are protected from severe infection, but that you are also protected from any infection which makes this vaccine truly the magic bullet we've all been looking for to reopen the country. it means that if you are vaccinated, you are really unlikely to catch it and passes disease on to someone who hasn't been vaccinated. what this study does not show in any way shape or form is that you can avoid or delay the second dose. it does not show that. it hoes

ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health. i want to ask you a question, it relates to the j&j vaccine but also news we got about the astrazeneca vaccine. it is -- that is effective against this new uk variant of covid-19 that is more transmissible. some data, it might be more deadly. is that the big picture here that we're seeing the existing vaccines are effective against the new variants? >> yeah, so good morning. thanks for having me on. that is the big picture. these variants are concerning. they are, obviously, things we have to keep an eye on. but i believe our vaccines are going to hold up to them. certainly the uk variant, i have a lot of confidence that all of our vaccines are going to work. the south africa variant will be a little bit -- the vaccine will be a little less effective, but still, i think quite effective. these vaccines are doing really well. doesn't necessarily mean that for all future variants it will hold up, but right now things look good. >> how big of a game changer would the j&j vaccine actually

jaw now, dean of brown university school of public health.s nice to see you today how troubling are these new variants amid the race to vaccinate. >> they're pretty concerning and the good news is that i expect our vaccines to work again. that's really good news. but elspecially that u.k. varian is here and circulating and it will become dominant in the next four weeks in my mind the second four to six weeks is what we have to vaccinate as many people as possible. >> are you satisfied with the effort 1.7 million shots a day seems pretty good compared to what we have seen. >> it is clearly an improvement, and i will never be satisfied until we get every high risk person vaccinated. i would love to see more the challenge is production. we could only make production so fast states are doing a better job getting it out some states are still struggling. >> let's talk a little about this u.k. variant. why is that in particular so troubling to you >> yeah. the reason is when we look at every other country that's been hit by it, obviously u.k. but ir

the dean of brown university school of public health told the "new york times" and i want to quote him back for you. he said i don't actually care bin nexts. i care about hospitalizations and death and long-term comp kagsz, and so he's essentially agreeing with other health experts who are saying, you know, that the key to eliminating this pandemic is ensuring that people -- when they get infected that they don't wind up in the hospital. dr. mcmurray heat, help us understand how the vaccines will get us to a place where cases don't even really matter. >> well, you know, if we think about it, brooke, the difference between how we respond to covid and how we respond to influenza every year is not just the fact that covid is more transmissible, which is it is, but it's also because it produces devastating consequences, serious hospitalizations and the sequella we see with stroke and with heart ailments that follow and sometimes lagat initial infection. that is what makes covid so vexing and troublesome so any tool we have that stops those serious effects is good in my book, so vaccines th

let's bring in doctor the dean of brown university school of public health. joining us and there are exceptions with teachers with comorbidity, students two, what you make of the guidance that teachers can return to the classroom with precaution in place and what happened in school that cannot afford to put precautions in place like improved ventilation systems, you know as well there's 130 billion allocated and president biden's coronavirus relief package to make schools safer, what do schools like that doing the entire? >> thank you for having me on first of all it's absolutely true teachers can go back to school without vaccinations but i been a proponent of getting teachers vaccinated sooner rather than later and putting them near the front of the line at this moment. it will certainly help and build confidence in more than anything else we need to get our schools back open in any way we can do that safely is good. in terms of making schools safer a bunch of us have been talking about since last summer saying all of the things the federal government and t

megan ranney, emergency physician at brown university.miologists are saying these variants could make the fight against covid much harder by causing more severe disease or lessening the effectiveness of the vaccines. what concerns you most? >> so right now, what concerns me most is simply that we already know that they're more tran transmissible, which means it's easier to infect people. we're in a race against time against these varyniants with trying to get people vaccinated before they spread across the country. it means going to the grocery store or school or work could become more dangerous. we have an overtaxed and exhausted health care system. we have a little breathing room right now, but if these new variants become dominant in our country, we're going to be right back where we were in november and december, and perhaps even worse. >> do you see another surge happening? >> you know, i don't know. we're watching the falling numbers across the country with a sense of relief. but we have seen this happen before. and as we see the nu

i want to bring in an emergency physician at brown university and co-founder of get us ppe.org.octor. we are seeing the cases really start to come down now. when will the deaths follow? they are barely ticking down so far >> i am definitely feeling the decrease in new cases in my own emergency department. i spent the last two days working and you could feel a palpable difference in the number of new folks being diagnosed with covid-19 and being admitted to the hospital. but the thing is our hospitals are still full of people diagnosed over the last two months. as we know covid very rarely kills immediately. it lingers. and those deaths continue to occur. so we'll keep seeing deaths for weeks yet. when will we start to see deaths fall? probably a month from now if all goes well. if we can keep those new variants at bay and of course get vaccinations into arms quick enough to keep the number of new infections low. >> you said you are starting to see a little bit of lifting in the emergency room on the front lines as you fight this pandemic. can you tell us a little bit more about

ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health. dr. jha, thanks for joining us. i want to ask you first about vaccines and kids. experts from cincinnati children's hospital medical center report that the infection rate in children is now the equivalent to the infection rate in adults. how urgent is it now to get the vaccines authorized for kids and how soon could it happen? >> good morning, whit. thanks for having me on. i think it's important that we figure out whether we can vaccinate kids safely or not. right now, moderna and pfizer are studying it in 12-year-old to 17-year-olds. i expect that data late spring to early summer. the big issue is going to be about, what about younger kids? we need to do safety studies. to make sure it's safe for younger kids. i think that all of that will take into summer/fall. i think it's important that we figure out whether we can get kids vaccinated. i think we'll get there, and get them vaccinated. >> i want to ask you about this, too, on friday the cdc released, updated its road map to get kids back in the classroom. at one

brown university looked at 200,000 students in numerous states, schools, and they found the covid casechildren need schools for therapy, things like autism and even depression. you wonder what is going on with the administration promising one thing, doing another? we know it is tough for teachers. everybody understands that but we have mailmen working cops, working, firemen working, grocery workers working. turns out democrats get a lot of money from the teachers union. 90% of the donations go to democrats and joe biden. your reaction to that? >> i think teachers have been put in a tough situation. i said it before, no kindergarten teacher signed up to be online professor. my county has not been offered or received first dose of the vaccine. there are numerous other people in high-risk jobs as well who have not had a chance. all we ask as parents to give the option to go back. if you want to stay at home, do online learning that is great. give kids option to be back in school five days a week. there are some out there who don't have the ability to work from home or don't have the abili

more on all of this, dean of the brown university school of public health is joining us.ou for joining us. what does this new study from pfizer show about how its vaccine works against this variant found in south africa? >> good afternoon, wolf. thanks for having me on. this is really good news. this has been a pretty consistent theme of these vaccines that these variants are concerning, they clearly cause a big spike in infection, search the uk one does. but time after time study after study shows that our vaccines look like they will hold up pretty well, certainly against the uk variant and also against the south africa variant. >> the pfizer study comes on the heel s of another study showing similar results for the moderna vaccine. and that is a pretty encouraging development as well. >> absolutely. and we have data from j & j. and again, we'll get more details on that in the next week or so as fda goes through its review. and i suspect that we'll find similar things from the j & j data that it is pretty protective and certainly very protective against severe disease.

megan rany, emergency room physician at brown university. good to see you again, doctor. what was your most important takeaway from today's briefing? >> so, as you know, i co-founded an organization, get us ppe almost a year ago because of the lack of personal protective equipment for health care workers across the country. so to me, the most exciting and important thing out of this press announcement was their declaration that they'll be delivering millions of masks to community health centers and food pantries across the united states. that's huge in terms of our ability to prevent the transmission of this disease while we wait for vaccines to get in arms. the other thing, kate, is how refreshing it is to hear a press conference that's driven by science and by data. it's such a stark contrast to what we heard in so much of 2020. >> it was really interesting. i was struck by that mask announcement. 25 million masks they'll be delivering for free in march, that there is this -- maybe not renewed focus, but continued focus, as they have said, on masks. i guess you could sa

i was not a good fit for that curriculum and not to demean brown university, but the professors did notnow anything near what i knew. not their fault at all. at the same time dr. beck, clifford beck who mentioned earlier at columbia, was in charge of research and development at k-25 and he had been urging me to return and said, we really need you. you are just what we need. so i never finished at brown. i went back to buffalo and married dorothy jean, my wife for 66 years. we took off with $30 in my pocket from my dad. [laughs] i went to commence work that i had not had in my top-secret clearance renewed. they had not had time. ralph, the personnel manager, said, larry, there is no sense of you sitting in the green room reading these introductory papers like these other guys. why don't you just go stay in touch? dorothy and i went up and we had a six week honeymoon in a cabin in the national park. [laughs] we were getting acquainted. [laughs] checking in every other day. i would walk down to the lodge and phone in and they would say, not yet. one day he said, you are green. good to go.

with us now is emergency physician at brown university dr. meghan ranny.f this pandemic, what is the impact of the u.s. on the brink of having a third covid-19 vaccine, especially this one, a single dose? >> ana, it is just tremendous. you think about a year ago. that's when we diagnosed our first cases of covid-19 in the united states, and to now have three vaccines that are tremendously effective against severe disease, hospitalization and death, that's more than i could have hoped for when i admitted my first patient to the hospital last year at the end of february. it is just going to be tremendous. we've already seen huge decreases in the number of infections, hospitalizations in deaths among people who have gotten a vaccine in the united states. in my home state of rhode island, an 80% decrease in the towns where we concentrated vaccinations. getting the johnson & johnson vaccine out will be transformational. it will get more fuel to more people more quickly. >> yippy is all i can say. the johnson & johnson vaccine, let's talk about this for a moment

asher ja is joining us, the dean of the brown university skoofl public health. dr.ha, thank you so much for joining us. do you think this johnson & johnson vaccine will still play a key role in kangt the pandemic feen it's not necessarily quite as effective as the shots from pfizer and moderna? >> yeah, so wolf, thank you for having me on. the johnson & johnson vaccine is terrific. it's a very good vaccine. and on the issue of is it as effective as moderna and pfizer, the bottom line that we care most about is hospitalizations and deaths. and this vaccine is terrific. basically 100% at preventing hospitalizations and deaths. so i think it's going to end up playing a really big role in our effort to bring this pandemic under control. >> does it make any sense as some have suggested, dr. j ha, that we reserve the pfizer and moderna vaccines for the highest risk americans and offer the johnson & johnson shot to everyone else? >> well, there's a little bit of data, and we'll see what the fda's advisory committee says, that for people over 60 this vaccine seemed -- again

ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health. dr.n where michael osterholm left off which is the worst is coming. and that is based on the development of variants including of a number of possibly seven variants already developing in the united states. sourcing in the united states. new variants. >> good evening, lawrence. thanks for having me on. dr. osterholm has been reliably right and i disagree with him with some trepidation, but i'm a little bit more optimistic than he is. i'm worried about the variants. let me be very clear. i'm very worried. there are a couple differences between us and the uk and ireland and other places were when they were hit. first, we are vaccinating and we're vaccinating relatively quickly. second, we know that this is coming and we can take proper steps, so i'm hoping we can stave off the worst, but that's not going to happen naturally. we are going to have to be vigilant about the variants. not to downplay them at all. >> we heard vice president harris at the beginning of this segment say they came in

ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health.with us this morning. so we just heard from dr. collins, the j & j vaccine is easier to distribute and to administer. it's 66% effective overall, but 85% effective against two things that really matter which are illness and death. some people see that 66% number and they say, wow, this vaccine is really not as good as the other ones. what do you say to those people? >> good morning, abby, thank you for having me on. i start off by saying to those folks those are not apples to apples comparisons. the johnson & johnson vaccine was tested against the south african variant in south africa, tested against the variant in brazil. the moderna and pfizer vaccines weren't. we are not comparing the same thing. the second is when you look at what we really compare about which is preventing hospitalizations and deaths, the johnson & johnson vaccine comes in at 100% once it's had a chance to work. so this is a terrific vaccine and i would certainly -- i would take it, i would recommend it to my fami

to talk more about all the latest on the pandemic, i'm joined by decent of brown university school ofhealth. it is always great to see you. let's start with the new findings out of the south africa trial. the astrazeneca vaccine has not been approved for emergency use here. but with the desperate need for more doses, the hope was it could be added to the arsenal fatherly quickly. what might this mean for the u.s.? >> first thanks for having me on. two things about the south africa decision. first, it is a pretty small trial. i think they made a decision that it doesn't seem to have much effect on moderate disease. we don't know if it prevents severe illness or not. i'm hopeful that it may still do that. in terms of the u.s. data, the trials are ongoing. i think we'll find out more in a few weeks. we'll see what the data shows. i think there's a much better chance that astrazeneca will end up getting authorized in the u.s. i think it will end up being part of our tool box. not the only solution but thankfully we have many other vaccines as well. >> and then when you look at the study t

>> what i've learned, rev been there too from the james brown university.y play their own note. it's very important that you play your own note. he was around all those cats. the vibe just rubs off of you. it was a beautiful experience even though it was hard but it really wasn't hard for us because we wanted to learn. we wanted to be disciplined. it's a different -- it's a different thing when you really want to learn. just being out there was like, we wanted to be the best. we can only be the best with the best. james brown was the best and he taught us well. he wore us out. >> yeah. >> i think he's right. james brown taught us to be authentic. he said promise me you won't be one of the boys. i remember he would always say have your own style, do you own thing. you have to work hard. don't take nothing for granted. i remember when bootsie went on. james brown said i taught him to leave us. you got to be yourself. he's bring it to another level. >> i love that. >> i'm in atlanta now signing books. music came up. she has a spotify list. boy does she love yo

i have one email at cuny which you can find online and i still have an email at brown university where i used to work, which is just ted underscore widmer at brown.edu. so i'll try that way but um, i don't remember in the facts that he was disguised as her sickly brother that is in the movie that harold mentioned an early 1950s movie called the tall target that i liked a lot. so there's a kate warren like figure who talks about her sick relative. and that becomes you don't really even see him for most of the movie. it's a sort of shadow in the background, but in in the sources that i consulted that are largely at the huntington library, but published in a book called lincoln and the baltimore plot there was no reference of a sick. i want to be precise not it wasn't as specific as that the the train was held up at philadelphia at the last minute because what was called an important package had to be given to the conductor of the train very important for delivery in washington, and that was a pile a package of meaningless paper. and as that package was being handed to the conductor in ph