elizabeth clayborne with the university. thank you for joining us.ard a lot of people wondering if the vaccine will protect against that variant strain. what do we know, if anything, at this point? >> alex, there are a lot of investigations still going on and we have reason to believe that the vaccine will be protective against this strain. that is not for sure, there is still research that needs to take place, but for now pointing to these vaccines continuing to be effective for the variant that may be more contagious but not necessarily more deadly. >> nearly 2 million americans have been vaccinated, so the new goal is to get to everyone by summertime. doctor, some were saying this is slower than expected, but it sure sounds faster than what we're hearing from matt bradley in europe there. do you agree it's taking more time? >> no, alex, i actually think we should be quite proud of the progress we've made. the development of this vaccine was faster than anything we've had in the history of medicine, and the efforts going into rolling it out have be

elizabeth clayborne and dr. nahid bhadelia. this one question was asked a lot of times. ed the dice and so you dr. clayborne get to answer it. it's all the time we have. this is from holly who asks, what happens if someone gets vaccinated without realizing they are newly infected with covid? could a vaccine reaction coincide with onset of symptoms and would it hurt or help your infection? again, we got this a lot. so what's your thought on that, dr. clayborne? >> great question, holly. there are overlaps with the side effect profile for these vaccines as well as covid-19, which include things like fever, headache, fatigue. and so it is possible that if you are being infected with covid-19 and receiving the vaccine at some time you would not be able to differentiate if those symptoms are from the virus itself or the vaccine. but the good news is that it is still okay for you to have gotten that vaccine. it is possible that in the future you would mount a response from the vaccine that could help you battle the virus. and hopefully prevent you from getting seriously ill. in