a dean of brown university school of public health pointed out, we have evidence the benefits of vaccinations born out in south dakota and vermont. they demonstrate perfectly the stark difference between the states. vermont and south dakota are quite similar. they have republican governors. this is not partisan. these days they look super similar on current infection. those states are in a pretty good place right now. he explains it's how they got to that place that matters. vermont vaccinated more of its population. south dakota is in middle of states at 51%. because south dakota and the governor followed the donald trump get out in the battlefield and vermont from the giping has followed the fight the virus and get vaccinated route, the two states ended up in a similar place in case resistance but the cost of many more lives in south side south dakota who did not have to die. nearly six times as many people in south dakota died of covid as in vermont. they didn't need to die. they did because of choices that their leaders made. right now one of the biggest challenges of the young people inc

the dean of brown university school of public health. stions. that's tonight's "last word." "the 11th hour with brian williams" begins right now. >>> good evening once again. day 182 of the biden administration. tonight yet another member of the twice impeached former president's inner circle is in very deep trouble with the feds and behind bars, in fact. tom baric the billionaire who chaired the trump 2017 inaugural committee was arrested today on charges of illegally lobbying the trump administration on behalf of the united arab emirates. he is also accused of failing to register with the justice department as a foreign agent as well as obstruction and of lying

the dean of brown university school of public health. >>> all right.th incredible story. she will be right back and we'll be right back. backnd a we'll be right back. ♪ she will be right back and we'll be right back. nincredible story. she will be right back and we'll be right back. an incredible story. she will be right back and we'll be right back. ght back and we'll be right back. well, since you asked. it finds discounts and policy recommendations, so you only pay for what you need. limu, you're an animal! who's got the bird legs now? only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ do you struggle with occasional nerve aches, weakness or discomfort in your hands or feet? introducing nervive nerve relief from the world's number 1 selling nerve care company. as we age, natural changes to our nerves occur which can lead to occasional discomfort. nervive contains b complex vitamins that nourish nerves, build nerve insulation and enhance nerve communication. and, alpha-lipoic acid, which relieves occasional nerve aches, weakness and

ashish jha, the dean of brown university's school of public health. >> dr. jha, welcome back to the "newshour". always good to have you here. people will look at the study and say this tells me if i'm vaccinated, i can steel still get the virus, feel sick, and transmit it to other people. why should i get the vaccine. what do you say to them. >> first of all, thanks for having me back on the "newshour". actually, this study, looking at what happened in hon, the vaccine is working exactly as expected. let me lay out why. what you had was an influx of a lot of people coming to provincetown for july 4 celebrations, a lot of unvaccinated people. delta virus surging. you did have a good number of brkthrough infections, not surprising when you have a lot of people packed into bars and clubs. but let's see what happened to those people. almost all did extraordinarily well. a small number ended up in the hospital. no one died, and it did not fuel this massive outbreak that led to more and more cases and exponential growth. that outbreak memorials faded akay. case nu

science is heading and you think cdc made a good call. >> thank you, the dean of the brown university of school of public health a very long time, thanks for your time. we'll be right back. e. we'll be right back. n, we switched to tide hygienic clean free. it's gentle on her skin, and out cleans our old free detergent. tide hygienic clean free. hypoallergenic and safe for sensitive skin. for people living with h-i-v, keep being you. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that's when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit h-i-v through sex. serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. rare, life-threatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilide or rifampin. tell your doctor about a

he's an associate professor at brown university school of public health. he joins us from providence, rhode island, brenda marshall, welcome to al jazeera. i remember maybe a 2, maybe 3 of the trump administration. he was going to war against opioid addiction. what happened to that? thanks peter, for having me on the show. so, you know, this is a staggering an unprecedented loss of life over 93000 people died of a drug overdose in, in 2020. but as you indicated, we've been seeing these increases actually for more than 2 decades now in family, some of the actions the trump administration took to try to address this problem, probably made it worse. what we need now are major investments in harm reduction, evidence based treatment, and in dressing. many of those stressors that you mentioned that are affecting people who are suffering from addiction and at risk for overdose, like joblessness, social isolation and threats of addiction. and i suppose when covert hit in the u. s. just the same as it hit around the world that led to people being alone, people being

ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health. this new data from the cdc raises so many questions about returning to live as we knew it. the delta variant more contagious than the common cold, so what does this mean for the common future? do you see us returning to lockdowns? people wearing masks indoors and out, no matter the area? >> thanks for having me back. the data i find mostly reassuring, and i'll tell you why -- yes, there was an outbreak. yes, many vaccinated people did end up getting infected. they did really well. very few of them ended up getting sick. very few ended up getting hospitalized. nobody died, and the outbreak quickly abated. this is the kind of stuff we should expect. these vaccines are not 100%, but all the data i'm seeing so far says the vaccines are protecting people. as long as we keep vaccinating people, we'll be fine. >> we have our eyes on this outbreak in provincetown that steve was mentioning. 74% of cases among those fully vaccinated, yet we have been told repeatedly breakthrough infections are

joining us now is doctor ashish -- brown university school of by public health. ctor, thanks for being with us today. your take on this? we're henry right now. we're clearly far better than we were a year ago. still, we're in the tens of thousands of cases, or at least over 10,000 new cases each week. and we have this delta variant. >> yes, first of all. thanks for having me back. couple things, first of all, we still have 100 american sign every day. it's not great, is we want that number to be lower. we are as a country is more and more aware we're becoming a nation of two americans. we have a vaccination america that's doing well that, i think it's gonna have a safe july 4th. and we have unvaccinated america that is at very high risk from the delta variant. unfortunately, i'm worried that the unvaccinated america is going to see a lot of infections and hospitalizations in the weeks and months ahead. >> what do you do about it doctor, at this point? is it a messaging palm? is an access problem? i'm here in new york city where they literally have pop-up sends all

ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health. and we heard dr. walensky say there that this is new and worrisome data on the delta variant, something we did not know. that's science for you. she said the new data shows that vaccinated people with these rare breakthrough cases may be contagious, may be able to spread, so, do you agree with this new mask guidance inside public spaces to help protect yourself, not only from the breakthrough cases, but to protect others from giving them the virus? >> yeah, david, thanks for having me back. i do agree with this. first of all, i think it's worth noting that most transmission is still happening among unvaccinated people. the breakthrough infections are rare. when they happen, this is surprising to all of us, but with the delta variant, high levels of virus means people can transmit. people wearing a mask indoors makes sense in those high transmission areas. >> you know people at home tonight are going to say, oh, no, are we going back to last year? what do you think about that? >> no, we're not going ba

ashish jha, dean of brown university school of public health.fizer claims its booster shot will bolster immunity. the federal government says boosters aren't necessary now. can you please help us clear up this confusion? >> right now the science and evidence says that two shots of the pfizer or moderna vaccine is more than good enough to protect you against all the variants out there including the delta variant. so until we see better data that says a third shot is necessary, i remain very comfortable saying we should stick with the two- shot regimen and see where things unfold. >> garrett: does the spread of delta variant that we keep reading about accelerate the timeline? >> the delta variant is by far the most contagious variant we've seen. definitely important everybody get the two shots. if we start seeing data that says the vaccines are not holding up as well as they did initially, i think that's probably the motivation at that point to think about a booster shot. i would say talk of boosters is premature. >> garrett: if infections reach a

ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health. dr. jha, always great to have you with us. and i wanted to get back to alabama there. governor kay ivey, her comments that made national news, saying it's time to start essentially blaming the unvaccinated folks, were her words. we know that alabama has the lowest vaccination rate in the country. she essentially said, i've done what i can. i have had mask mandates here in the state. it's now up to people who haven't been vaccinated to get the shot. but how do you get the word out? how do we encourage more people to hear that message? >> david, thanks for having me back. i don't know if it's useful to blame people. i will tell you, at this point, across the country we're seeing a lot of unvaccinated people getting very sick and dying. and so my message to people is, it's about protecting yourself, your family. these vaccines make an enormous difference in preventing you from getting very sick and dying. everyone needs to get vaccinated. this is how we put the pandemic behind us. >> yeah, p

jha, dean of the brown university school of public health and doctor when james e.k. f medical college and an infectious disease specialist. let me begin with you, here in tennessee which has a low vaccination rate, it's 39.1% of people 18 years and older we are now learning tonight that even among the vaccinated, the dangers of the delta variant are greater than we thought. what is this going to mean for tennessee? >> lawrence, thank you, good to be with you again, i think what it means for tennis is that we need to be more vigilant, and redouble our efforts to get people vaccinated. this is not the same virus that we started with back in january of 2020, it's clearly a different virus and i do agree that we have to be, we have to have a much more concerted effort to fight this virus because it is so easily transmitted. and you know, as long as the infections remain low, i think we can keep doing what we're doing, but we have to be more vigilant about this virus because it is not the same virus that we've been concerned about. >> doctor ashish k. jha, this makes perfe

ashish jha, the dean at brown university's school of public health. always great to have you on. vid-19 case rate and the prevalence of the delta variant is highest in missouri and lowest in vermont. this tracks with vaccine data that shows wide deployment in vermont and not so much in missouri. you say the data is clear and these vaccines needful fda approval. how would that make a difference? help us understand. >> boris, thanks for having me on. yes, the delta variant is a real challenge for our country, and the reason full approval from the fda is warranted and would be helpful is as follows. first of all, we have data on hundreds of millions of people who have gotten the vaccines. there's no question whether we have enough data. we clearly do. more than we usually do for most drugs and vaccines. there are people still on the fence who are hesitant because they want to see that full approval from the fda. i think it will help them. there are a lot of businesses that want to mandate vaccines but want to see the full approval from the fda. i think it will help a lot of people ge

ashish jha is with me now from brown university school of public health. we also have cnn senior data reporter harry enten. great to see you both. dr. jha, i want to look at that cluster map, again. most of these pockets have covid cases going up, right now. and they're at risk for even more deadly variants. i mean, is it a matter of when, not if, more deadly variants will emerge? >> yeah, pamela. first of all, thanks for having me back. it is it's been i think a real wake-up call to all of us watching the emergence of these variants and they always tend to happen in the context of large outbreaks. so i think all of us expect, at this point, there will be more variants throughout the rest of this pandemic. obviously, we hope they don't evade our vaccines. but the ones that emerge tend to be more infectious, more deadly and that's what we have got to avoid and the best way to avoid that is bring these outbreaks under control. >> and, harry, you crunch political numbers every day. and the math of states with low-vaccination rates looks a lot like the 2020 pre

megan ranney, assistant dean of brown university school of public health. good to see all of you.e about what's going on in the orlando area. i think there's been a huge jump in both cases and the positivity rate there. >> a huge jump. i'm at advent health, the major health system here in this part of the state. 20 hospitals, and they have 1,000 actual covid cases right now in their hospitals. which is a new record. let's take a look at the actual numbers that sort of tell you how dramatic things are. on tuesday, orange county had a record number of new covid cases. 1371. and when you take a look at the positivity rate, we're more that 15%. just six weeks ago, it was slightly -- just about 3.7%. in other words, they have seen this incredible spike. joining us here is dr. rebecca gomez, and she is just coming out of the ward with those who have covid. still have your mask on. just sort of curious, first of all, tell me, as you see the numbers increasing, what does it tell you and what's your worry? >> it's been such a dramatic increase. we have had to open up units that have been c

jha, the dean of brown university school of public health. dr. jha, first, on schools and what to do with the unvaccinated children, do you think that what we're hearing from the fda reconciles with what we're seeing, especially with the spread of the delta variant? >> yeah, so, first of all, thanks for having me back. couple of thoughts on this. i was really thrilled to see the cdc come out and be very, very clear that all kids need to be back in school full-time this fall and that it is safe to do so. that, i think, is sort of principle number one. no doubt about it, getting kids and adults vaccinated is going to make a big difference but you can't do that for under 12 kids and not all kids over 12 will be vaccinated and whether to have all of them masked up, i think it's reasonable. you can also imagine using local infection numbers in a community, let's say, in vermont where there's essentially no infections. you may not need to mask everybody up. but in a place like missouri or arkansas where there are larger outbreaks, maybe masks would make

let's bring in to discuss a doctor, the dean of the brown university school of public health.ly these are s.w.a.t. teams. the white house beaming experts across the country. you see on the map here the regions being hard hit by the delta variant. why is this so important and what can these teams do? >> yeah. thanks for having me back. this is really important. the reason is we're shifting to a new phase of the pandemic. we're not going to have nationwide outbreaks anymore. we have parts of the country that are highly vaccinated. and they're going to largely be spared some of these things. so we need local efforts, and what these teams do is augment what are really exhausted local public health entities and help them fight the outbreaks that are going to be happening across the country. >> sometimes the science gets complicated. sometimes you can look at things and connect the dots. if you look at the map of vaccinations, this is the county approaching. when you see the gray states, these are working on data. it's incomplete. that's why they're gray. i showed the map that showe

joining me for more on the topic, brown university school of public health and dean, dr. shah.t. as far as i'm concerned when listening to the debate the seems like a chicken or egg question. we're talking about putting masks back on people. we're not sure of the efficacy. if you're not wearing n95 mask there are debates how effective it is. 43.2% of all americans not vaccinated to get vaccines. the president said as peter mentioned there, we have to. how do we do that? >> yeah, first of all thank for having me here. there are two sets of issues i think are worthying about. the masks mandates or encouragement, that is testimony pour airyizing measure. we're seeing outbreaks be and cities and states are figuring out what to do to stop the spread and masks help. they're testimony pour rising. the long-term solution is getting people vaccinated. asking people what is holding them back. you will see employers and private businesses make decisions around mandates. i think we'll get there. it will be a bit of a slog between now and then. jackie: the stats speak for themselves. i want

wen and the dean of the brown university school of public health. doctors, thank you for joining us. doctor, i want to discuss this lab leak theory with you in a few moments. take a look at this map. coronavirus cases are rising right now in all 50 states, while less than 50% of americans are fully vaccinated. did we ever expect we would be looking at this alarming map once again and seeing these images so soon? >> well, it's really unfortunate that this is where we are, but i have to say that many of us predicted we would be here right now, and we predicted this when the cdc released their guidance for fully vaccinated people that then lead to widespread chaos and confusion and the precipitous and premature ending of mask mandates. unfortunately, we didn't have enough people vaccinated at that time. the honor m is was not working. the whole idea was that vaccinated people would take off their mask, but if you were unvaccinated you had to behave as before. but unvaccinated people also said, well, i don't have any restrictions on my activities anymor

the dean of brown university school of public health. he, like so many others, makes time for us to answer these questions. that's tonight's "last word." "the 11th hour with brian williams" begins right now. >>> good evening once again. day 182 of the biden administration. tonight yet another member of the twice impeached former president's inner circle is in very deep trouble with the feds and behind bars, in fact. tom baric the billionaire who chaired the trump 2017 inaugural committee was arrested today on charges of illegally lobbying the trump administration on behalf of the united arab emirates. he is also accused of failing to register with the justice department as a foreign agent as well as obstruction and of lying to the fbi about his dealings with the uae. he's been friends with donald trump since the '80s. he helped rescue his business and later became a top fundraiser for his presidential campaign and the inauguration. the indictment notes several instances where he used that relationship with trump to advocate for the uae wi

ashish jha, the dean of brown university school of public health. let's start in tokyo. re than 61 people have tested positive in connection to the olympics. we do not know of the 61 people, whether they have symptoms, whether they're sick, just that they have tested positive. is this better, worse, or about what you expected when it comes to caseloads at the olympics? >> yeah, jake. so thanks for having me back. it was about what i was expecting. i was hoping it would be better. we still have four days to go before the games begin. and i think a lot of us are worried, given how many unvaccinated people there are at olympic stadium or olympic village that you are going to see more spread of this virus in the days and week as head. >> and there's no requirement that athletes get vaccinated. first lady jill biden is headed to tokyo on wednesday. would you advise her not to go, given what we're seeing? >> no. she is vaccinated and everybody around her is vaccinated and they practice some basic public health measures and avoid large crowds. she'll be fine. what i'm really wor

jha he is the dean of brown university school of public health, dr. john, good to see you again. elta variant or some version of the coronavirus? >> ali, thanks for having me back. i think this is to be expected for a couple of reasons. one, we are seeing massive outbreaks in unvaccinated individuals. we have a lot of virus circulating around. it's going to challenge vaccinated people and we can see breakthroughs. so this is not totally surprising. the good news is, people who have these breakthrough infections have had mild symptoms. that means that these vaccines are working. we so the point of vaccines is to reduce at the amount of infections in the community. >> i never got my head around the term but, viral load, when we're talking about how infectious something is compared to the flu, a year ago. is the viral load such that people who are vaccinated can be spreading this to other people? >> yet we, they can, but far less likely to. and that is the key thing. so they're a couple of differences between vaccinated people and unvaccinated. people unvaccinated people spread quite

. >> let's bring in the dean of brown university school of public health. thank you for joining us.e is the words on masks and get your reaction to where things stand. >> at this moment the cdc still says and recommends that if you are vaccinated fully that you do not need to wear a mask indoors. the cdc agrees with that ability and discretion capability to say, you know we are in a situation where we have a lot of dynamics of infection so even if you are vaccinated you should wear a mask. that's a local decision that is not incompatible with the cdc's overall recommendation. it's been a >> sandra: so if the premise to dropping our masks while being vaccinated and that was backed by science then why would the science suddenly change indicating that vaccinated americans have to mask backup? >> it's a great question and to thank you for having me back. the science hasn't changed. if you are fully vaccinated you don't have to mask up. but here's the key part. if you are in an area where there are lots of infections you would probably subject yourselves to a breakthrough. breakthrough i

dean of the brown university school of public health. dr. jha, welcome back this morning.heard dr. fauci say the cdc might be considering revising its mask guidance. do you think that's a good idea? >> good morning, george. thanks for having me here. you know, i think it will help. the issue really at this point is whether americans are willing to mask back up again. it can be a measure, but what we need is a lot more people vaccinated. that's how we end this thing. >> that's how we end this thing. how about schools though? schools are starting soon as the next of couple weeks. should they be thinking vaccine and mask mandates? >> i think for kids under 12 who have not been vaccinated, especially if you're in a zone with a lot of infections, masks can make sense. for older kids, people vaccinated, imagine a room of vaccinated kids and teachers, it probably is less necessary. i think it's a community community decision. >> one of the biggest things holding people back from taking the vaccine is the fact that there's only emergency use authorization for the vaccines. not ful

universal masking in schools but, george, some parents say they appreciate the freedom to make the decision for their family. >> okay, kayna, thanks very much. >>> let's bring in dr. ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public healthanks for joining us again, dr. jha. let's start with that new study on the johnson & johnson vaccine. it doesn't really track what the other studies out there. what's your big takeaway? >> my big takeaway is, when i put all the data together i i think the j&j vaccine is holding. just fine. we're not seeing large numbers of breakthrough infections or hospitalization in people who have gotten it. i think we need more data. i would not act or worry it isn't going to work for you. >> even though there are breakthrough cases we still know that these vaccines prevent largely serious illness and death. >> yeah, absolutely, and we're going to see breakthrough infections when there are large outbreaks happening overall. when you have lots of people infected and large numbers of virus circulating in the communities, we'll see a few breakthroughs but the good news is people are not getting hospitalized and not dying if they've been vaccinated and that's the key. >> we're getting all the different

ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health. welcome back, dr. jha. t's start out by setting terms of what is going on here. explain what guillian-barre syndrome is. >> yeah, so good morning, george. thanks for having me back. guillian-barre syndrome is a neurologic condition. basically it's an immune -- your immune system attacks your own nerve cells. it's pretty rare. it's pretty rare in general and can be caused by -- can be triggered by other infections. it has been known to be triggered by medicines or other vaccines. we see this. it's a pretty rare condition but it happens. >> and we should emphasize the association between guillian-barre and the johnson & johnson vaccine is even more rare. 100 cases out of more than 12 million covid cases overall. people who have been vaccinated by the johnson & johnson vaccine. >> absolutely, this is a very rare side effect of the johnson & johnson vaccine. we're still figuring out whether it's really related. but given that it's been shown with other vaccines, it's been shown with infections, it would not be s

dean of the brown university school of public health. welcome back. the evidence is getting more clear by the day. if ou are not vaccinated, you've got a very good chance of getting the delta variant and getting very sick. >> good morning, george. that's right. the evidence is that this virus is going to be with us for a long time. it's going to become endemic so everybody is either going to end up at some point getting vaccinated or they'll end up getting infecting. people have to be really careful out there if they're nvaccinated and you have to get the shot. >> what are you seeing of reports of vaccinated people contracting the virus again? >> yeah. this is the most contagious version of the virus we have seen throughout the whole pandemic. it's really very, very contagious, and so, if you have significant exposure, you are going to see some breakthrough infections even for vaccinated people. the good news is those people who are vaccinated end up hospitalized or dying, that's what's really useful here. no vaccine is perfectly 100% effective. >> de

ashish jha, dean of the brown university school of public health. dr. jha, thank you for joining us this morning, and we want to talk about the pfizer vaccine, new data that we just heard about. should people who are more than six months out from being vaccinated be getting boosters now and is there potential harm in doing so? >> good morning, michael. thanks for having me back. yeah, i read that data a little differently, michael. i looked at that data and six months out, out of the 22,000 people who have been vaccinated, only one of them had severe illness. so i said, you know, my read of the data is the vaccine even six months out has incredibly terrific protection against severe illness and hospitalizations and deaths. now, that was before the delta variant hit. we don't know how well it's going to do six months out, so i think we need a little more data but i certainly don't think everybody should be going out and thinking about booster shots. i think we're far away from that right now. >> since the data was before the delta variant hit, does that

ashish jha, the dean of the brown university school of public health.nks for joining us again this morning. dr. jha, how worried are you about the delta variant? >> good morning, george. thanks for having me back. i'm pretty worried. we have large communities in our country that are not adequately vaccinated and for those places, for those people, the delta variant is the riskiest variant we have seen so far. if you're fully vaccinated much less concerning but for the unvaccinated this is concerning. >> that gets to a pretty important point. the vaccines do seem to be pretty effective overall against the delta variant. >> absolutely. absolutely. we have now lots of studies, occasionally you'll see one study say it may not be as effective as we thought but all the other studies so far are showing 85%, 90% effectiveness and really quite terrific and offers a high level of protection. particularly against getting very sick and dying, which is the thing we care about. >> given that we know this disease now is vaccine preventable, is it time not just to enco

ashish jha, the dean of brown university of school of public health. dr.it's good to see you on this holiday monday. thank you so much. we certainly appreciate it. let's talk about this. the biden administration set the goal of 70% for one dose for all americans. they made it to 67%. now people look at that and say they didn't make the goal but there's something to celebrate here, is there not? >> yeah, thanks for having me back. absolutely. i always thought that was the most ambitious goals of the goals the president has set on vaccinations and two-thirds of adlt americans have gotten a shot. that's fabulous and made an enormous difference and i think we should be celebrating. >> but what can we do to convince the others? i know you must feel like a broken record. good to point out the people getting sick from covid are the people who are not vaccinated. isn't that true? >> it is absolutely true. we still have hundreds of americans guying every week of this disease. 99 plus percent of them were people unvaccinated. that's where the virus is circulating am

. >> i want to ask you about that, doctor, because as dean of the brown university school of public health among the professors and the student population about how to spread good, consistent public health information in the environment that we live in today. and i guess the question is, what have you heard? how do you compete out there? or is death really the only device that can be effective to communicate to people who are listening to facebook, trump conspiracy theories, and right wing media who are dead wrong, literally? >> yeah. look, this is such a complex problem and such a big problem we need a multi-prong strategy. right. so you need facebook among them. other social media outlets too but particularly facebook, to step up and do a lot more than they have. i appreciate their points that they've made some efforts it's not nearly enough and they know they can do better. so i don't want to hear they're doing everything they can, they're not. that's number one. they have to block the bad information that's spreading. and the rest of us have to be sources of good information. we have t