francis collins. >>> and our new nbc poll. where president biden stands 100 days into his administration. the early successes and the early warning signs. joining me are "washington post" eugene robinson. joining me are "wall street journal" columnist peggy noonan. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington. the longest running show in television history. this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >>> and a good sunday morning. millions of americans felt a combination of grief and relief, experiencing both the trial and the verdict of derek chauvin last week. but even as much of america exhales, it does help to remember the initial statement from the minneapolis police department. here is how it read. officers were able to get the suspect, george floyd, into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medical distress. officers called for an ambulance. he was transported to hennepin county medical center by ambulance where he died a short time later. he appe

francis collins is the director of the national institutes of health. he said the goal of the program is to see if home testing is showing behaviors and slows transmission. by comparing the transmission rate in county to areas without the kits. >> is it late in the pandemic to do this? >> the technology to do testing at home has just gotten invented. let's be clear, we are not over the risks of the pandemic. we have 40 or 50,000 people a day estimate testing positive. >> there's a long way to go before everyone is protected which is why leaders expect the kids to be in high demand. i bet they will go fast. >> oh, that's what i said. i know i will be short. >> with many americans looking forward to summer vacations, a new book is sharing the travel wisdom of beloved chef, author and tv host anthony bourdain before he died by suicide in 2018. when he finished the book, he has observations abohe rld. i master traveler anthony bourdain was not one to mince words. >> if you love fooded and you come here, you are missing out. >> he spent 250 days each year on

francis collins. dr. collins, thanks for coming back this morning.w you don't want to get ahead of the advisory panel but give us your thoughts on the johnson & johnson vaccine and the risks. >> well, since two of my grandchildren have received it, i'm very much hoping that we will come forward with a really positive sense here of how this vaccine can save lives and as you just heard in the lead-up to this, this is a one in a million kind of risk that's been identified of this rare blood clotting problem and yet at the same time the cdc's advisory committee is going to look seriously at all the data and try to make a recommendation. the fact that the europeans already did so a couple of days ago and decided it was okay to proceed just with a warning on the vaccine so that everybody knows is encouraging that maybe the u.s. will decide to do the same but i don't want to judge what their consequence might be here of their decisions. i think it is important to point out that this is a treatable condition if you recognize it right away and one of the reas

john: francis collins, a fervent christian himself. rev. moore: yes.e it from what you are saying that a government push to try to reach evangelical christians could actually backfire. rev. moore: well, it could if it is heavy-handed. the emphasis ought to be on what's possible. if we get vaccinated in large numbers, the way that we can actually get back to -- we disagree on so many things in american life right now. we are at each other's throats, but there are some things we can agree on, and part of that is we want to be together again. we want to be able to get as close back to normal as we can, and that is probably especially true for people who are religious communities, because we believe that we ought to be congregated together. i think emphasizing the positive is the best way to go. >> reverend russell moore, thank you. rev. moore: thank you. ♪ judy: we and many others have spent much time of covering the struggle of health care workers during the pandemic. but there has been far less attention to the deaths of doctors and nurses. a project ha

francis collins about the j&j vaccine and risk. >> i think it is important to point out, this is a treatable aren't recognizing it right away. one of the reasons i think it's been good to have this pause is to get everybody prize, so that physicians know, this is something to watch out for and can be prepared to appropriately. >> the panel can make a number of recommendations get big and decided keep things the way they are, they can join european officials, who have cleared the j&j vaccine, but have added his safety warning, or they can say only certain populations should use this vaccine. >>> for the first time in weeks, the daily average of shots but and arms had fallen below 3 million doses a day. scientists put together this map, and the areas that you see in darker blue show where americans are resisting the vaccine the most. >> obviously there is an element of vaccine hesitancy, or concern that we need address. >> so here's the latest information on vaccine supply, and the demand for it in some bay area counties. we've learned san mateo supplies severely constrained. it's expected to

francis collins, director of the national institutes of health. dr. collins, i don't know if there's anybody working harder than you to combat vaccine hesitancy and i know a lot of people are working very hard on this. let me start with this. you're a man of faith. you talked about talking to communities of faith about vaccine hesitancy. is that the issue though or is this a larger problem than -- than maybe religious believes? >> it's a larger problem, chuck. certainly the case that particularly white evangelicals seem to be resistant of the idea vaccines are something they want to take advantage of. it's also true of a lot of young people who think of this disease as not much of a threat to them and going back doing the usual things about much concern. politically, we know from the polls also this seems to split by your political party and certainly republican men in particular seem less likely to be interested in the vaccine. everybody has somewhat different reasons for this but it is alarming this is so widespread at a time we're right on the edge

many of them, i think, will eventually come around. >> yang: francis collins, of course a christian himself, a very fervent christian himself. i take it from what you're saying that a government push to try to reach evangelical christians could actually backfire. >> well, it could if it's too heavy handed. i think that the emphasis ought to be on what's possible. if we get vaccinated in large numbers, the way we actually can get back to-- we disagree on so many ningz american life right now, and we're at each others' throats on so many things, that there are actually some things we can agree on, and part of that is we want to be together again. we want to be able to get as close back to normal as we can. and that's probably especially true for people who are religious communities, because we believe we ought to be congregated together. and so i think emphasizing the positive is the best way to go. >> yang: the reverend russell moore of the southern baptist convention. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: we and many others have spent much time covering the struggles of health car

francis collins is the director of the national institutes of health. goal of the program is to see if home testing is showing behaviors and slows transmission. by comparing the transmission rate in county to areas without the kits. >> is it late in the pandemic to do this? >> the technology to do testing at home has just gotten invented. let's be clear, we are not over the risks of the pandemic. we have

francis collins. dr. collins, thanks as usual for joining us.ates that vaccine milestone, we're starting to see vaccine supply, and this is worrisome, outpace demand. what needs to be done, dr. collins, to ensure americans are willing to get these shots as they become available? >> well, it is a milestone now that we've got 200 million doses in arms and more than half of americans have had at least one dose and more than a third of them are fully immunized having had both doses. but the hard part lies ahead. there's 130 million americans that haven't started yet. a lot of the polls would say a lot of those folks still aren't sure if they want to take part in this amazing opportunity to put this virus behind us so we have to really figure out how to get the message out there. those who are still undecided, get the information they need to see why this is really something they would want to do. for me as a physician, a scientist, director of nih, it's a very compelling case but not everybody has bought into it. >> you and i have known each other q

i have zero trust in joe biden when it comes to anything related to abortion, but i do trust francis collinsf the nih who is a strong christian, and makes a good argument that the vaccines, for example -- there only connection to abortion is the cell line from an aborted fetus was used from 50 years ago to study and to produce this. i know some people might feel squeamish about that. i would ask people to consider, if you had a child that needed to an organ transplant to live, and one was available but it came from the body of a child that had been shot to death, would you refuse it because it was connected to a murder? probably not. i think we need to be very careful about this, and whatever we do, we cannot incentivize the barbaric practice of abortion. >> 26 house democrats writing, the previous administration's restrictions on fetal tissue research, medical advances blocking intramural research is an discouraging extramural researchers. the trump administration's policy was politically motivated and unnecessary. a father frank, is this politics or moral issue? >> we see another example o

evidence that the novel coronavirus erodes nationally and it is beyond disturbing that doctor francis collinsc officials, would put out such cynical and dishonest misinformation and his statement conflated to totally different theories to cause doubt on the credible one and we've never said that the pandemic virus was quote, deliberately released to make people sick but we, doctor redfield and many others are saying it did likely leak from a lab accidentally. what study is francis talking about to support his claims of a natural origin? the reassuring findings he says are the result of genomic analyses conducted by international research team partly supported by nih. and now, we get to the central structural barrier to efforts to establish the true origins of this pandemic. nih is using a study that it helped pay for to deny that the pandemic virus was engineered and a lab despite that the virus is massively more contagious and more perfectly suited for infecting the human respiratory system than any previously observed virus and despite the fact that its first outbreak was in the one place i

francis collins say this morning about the pause. is. >> one of the reasons i think it's been good to have this pause is to get everybody apprised of that so that all physicians know that this is something to watch out for and can be prepared to treat it appropriately if it should happen again in the future. >> the thinking is for physicians, don't give a certain type of treatment medication to people who have had this vaccine because it can increase the blood clotting. he thinks the pause is good. my question is, if it comes back to market, are people going to take it? >> that is the question. i agree with him that the pause was worthwhile for two reasons. one, making physicians like me aware this happens. when people are coming into the e.r. now telling me they have headaches or severe belly pain a couple of weeks after the j&j vaccine, i have a different set of things to look for than i would have two weeks ago. it also changes how i treat clots. if i find them. that was the first important reason for the pause. the second is to a

i have zero trust in joe biden when it comes to anything related to abortion, but i do trust francis collinst the vaccines, for example -- there only connection to abortion is the cell line from an aborted fetus was used from 50 years ago to study and to produce this. i know some people might feel squeamish about that. i would ask people to consider, if you had a child that needed to an organ transplant to live, and one was available but it came from the body of a child that had been shot to death, would you refuse it because it was connected to a murder? probably not. i think we need to be very careful about this, and whatever we do, we cannot incentivize the barbaric practice of abortion. >> 26 house democrats writing, the previous administration's restrictions on fetal tissue research, medical advances blocking intramural research is an discouraging extramural researchers. the trump administration's policy was politically motivated and unnecessary. a father frank, is this politics or moral issue? >> we see another example of how disconnected the democrats are from the moral and religious

up next, chuck todd speaks with francis collins, director of the national institute of health on "mptllo? hi mommy, i won a medal. that's amazing! ♪ going back to the place we love ♪ i got in! ♪ with endless summer nights ♪ he's walking! ♪ comes alive ♪ ♪ i don't need the rain ♪ ♪ when the sky is blue ♪ this mother's day, receive a free sterling silver bangle with your purchase at pandora jewelry. my plaque psoriasis... ...the itching ...the burning. the stinging. my skin was no longer mine. my psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff, swollen... painful. emerge tremfyant™ with tremfya®, adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis... ...can uncover clearer skin and improve symptoms at 16 weeks. tremfya® is also approved for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. tremfya®. emerge tremfyant™ janssen can help you explore cost support options. how great is it that we get to

using all the connections we can, whether it's a former fda director, whether it's tony fauci or francis collinswhite house knows about it. and maybe the news today that the governor asked for some volunteer effort, it's not a mandate but a volunteer to be more comfortable, maybe as we see the numbers escalate the next couple days as they have the last couple weeks, maybe we get them to reconsider. maybe ship some doses that perhaps other states are not using right now. >> neil: got it. congressman dingell, what is remarkable here, michigan has had strenuous restrictions in the past. the governor took a lot of blowback to protect michigan residents. yesterday with all of that and among the more severe restrictions in the country, this is still happening while in places like florida, texas, not nearly as much. i'm wondering if it's just the luck or the tragic luck of the draw or something we're missing here. congresswoman, your thoughts. >> i think it's a combination of several things. first, there's covid fatigue. that is a reality. we may be tired of covid, covid is not tired of us. also, it's

francis collins of the national institutes of health talking about one of the groups of americans whohe coronavirus vaccine that's white evangelicals. there's about 41 million according to the pew research center and most say they won't get the shot. experts say what some evangelical pastors preach from the pulpit for months and months had a profound effect in shaping their opinions. >> do not take the vaccine. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> believe in the blood much jesus. believe in divine immunity. >> that is pastor whose church in miami has been a must visit for republicans running for office in recent years including former florida governor and current u.s. senator rick scott and president trump who launched his evangelical support group there and inactivitied the pastor to the white house. in miami-dade county where he is headquartered more than 6,000 people have died from covid. last year while the cdc recommended limiting mask gatherings, he said the fear that kept people home was a demonic spirit and he also said this. >> i can't go to church today. why? i think the pa

francis collins, the national institute of health director. doctor, great to have you back. curious what you make of this. statistically the odds of developing these clots are quite literally a million to one. but yet they're out there. what do you think of the way they're handling it right now? >> i think they're doing it exactly right, neil. i hope people will be re-assured to see that we have a system in place in the united states to watch for even extremely rare events so we know they're happening and we can look closely at the evidence. in this case, put a pause on administration of the vaccines until we can understand who sat risk for this. we don't know that answer right now. it's primarily women but not exclusively women. it seems to be something that happens about a week or two weeks after you've had your immunization. it's clearly caused by the generation of a strange auto anti-body, an auto immune response that causes the platelets in your blood to begin to have very sticky. it's platelets that cause clots. so we think we understand this in terms of the mechanism.

francis collins, plus an interview with the associate professor of african-american and african studies at the university of minnesota, keith mays. we hope you tune in to "meet the press" at 8:00 a.m., right after this newscast. >>> coming up in about 30 minutes from now, we'll talk to our nbc bay area political analyst larry gerston for our weekly segment and look at the presidential executive orders that president biden has signed and how they compare to past presidents. >>> now to an unexpected discovery for a train conductor after someone left their bag on the train. they found a bag full of diamond rings while working the shift on the long island railwood earlier this week. a jewelry portfolio containing 36 diamond rings to be exact. the settings are estimated to be worth $100,000. conductor jonathan yellowday turned them in before he even, before the jeweler, pardon me, realized he'd leem real. i was like, this can't be what i think it is. >> to show his appreciation, the jewel he promised to craft something for yellowday to wear. wow! i love diamonds. >>> new video this morning o

letter to the white house and fred and i have made multiple calls to the white house, tony fauci, francis collinse the amount of mitigation that is still going on in the state. first of all, nine out of the top -- the ten largest cities -- the cities with the largest number of covid are in michigan. we have the largest number of the b.1.1.7 variant, we have multiple variants and it just spreads more quickly. that's a fact. the governor still has many mitigation orders in place, restaurants can only operate at 50% capacity, this week she asked people to only eat outside, gatherings of 25 and under are all that's allowed, she's asked the schools to go on a two-week pause. the white house keeps saying there's more that you can do. the fact of the matter is our legislature hasn't let her spend money that we approved last december, which is a crime as far as i'm concerned at this point, and she's got ten court cases challenging her. i heard last week on "morning joe" when you were on scott gottlieb say that it is accepted public health policy to send vaccines into areas where it is surging. my hospita

this morning on gma, george stephanopoulos talks to francis collins about the vaccines and the risks.i think it is important to point out that this is a treatable condition if you recognize it right away. one of the reasons i think it has been good to have this pause is to get everybody apprised of that so that all physicians know, this is something to watch out for and can be prepared to treat it appropriately if it should happen again in the future. >> the panel could make a number of recommendations and they could decide to keep things the same, join european officials who have cleared the j&j vaccine for use, but added a safety warrant morning, or say only certain populations should use the vaccine. >>> for the first time in weeks, the daily average of shots put into arms has fallen below 3 million doses a day. scientists put together this map and the areas in darker blue show where americans are resisting the vaccine the most. >> obviously, there is an element of vexing hesitancy or concern that we need to address. >> so here is the latest information on vaccine supply and the de

but for other vaccines that have been caused by the pause, if you will, despite the fact that francis collinsu have more risk from taking an aspirin, more risk of clotting and thrombosis from an aspirin than you do from a reaction from j&j. >> so i do think it is very important for people to understand that these are extraordinarily safe vaccines and they're much safer than many, many other medicines and vaccines that we take. that was dr. collins' point and i agree with that. i hope that people understand that certainly any concerns about the j&j, vaccine doesn't spill over to the moderna and pfizer vaccines which don't have these very rare complications. i would personally feel comfortable taking any of the three, and i would hope that more americans are willing to get vaccinated, as well. >> i think it is happening already. we have a correspondent who in florida said that a facility that was doing 3,000 a day and the mass facility was seeing a few hundred people and there was a real drop-off in people getting the vaccine and it seems to be across all vaccines and a problem with 8% of peopl

francis collins, head of the nih, say today, quote, this is a treatable condition if you recognize it one of the reasons it's been good to have this pause is get everybody apprised of that so physicians can be prepared to treat it appropriately if it should happen in the future. tonight officials from the fda and the cdc who did this press conference about the end of the pause, the resumption of administering this vaccine, in the question and answer period they essentially made the sam point that this rare, serious side effect is itself treatable if you know to look for it and you can get to it early. is that true? and do enough clinicians know that? >> yeah, a, it is true. it requires a very specific type of treatment, and i think one of the reasons for the pause was to help physicians understand that you don't want to use standard blood clotting or antiblood clotting therapies. there are different therapies for this one. and i think that has now gotten out there. and most physicians i think are now well aware of this, because it has gotten so much attention. so i think the attention

francis collins, the director of the national institutes of health in bethesda, maryland. >> g good >ot in conflict. with science answering questions that start with how. and faith often better positioned to answer why. ♪ >> on easter sunday, of all days, i find good reasons to hope, despite the tragedy of the covid-19 pandemic that has taken more than a half million american lives. we're pursuing ways to serve one another and love one another, while keeping our families and communities safe. millions of americans are now getting the vaccine every day. so hope is not just around the concern; it is here. but we are not yet at the finish line. it will take all of us, with god's grace, to get there. getting a vaccine and following public health measures is a servi service not only to ourselves, but to others in preventing the spread of the virus and protecting the vulnerable from severe illness and death. so this is truly a "love your neighbor" moment. it is okay to ask questions, to help make informed decisions about the vaccine. but as people dedicated to truth, it is important to use

francis collins is the director of the natinute home testing affects people's behaviors and slows transmissions it a little late in the pandemic to be doing this? >> the technology to be able to do testing at home has really just gotten intervented. let's -- invented. let's be clear, we're not over the risks of the pandemic. we have 40,000 or 50,000 people a day testing positive. >> reporter: and with just about 20% of pitt county vaccinated at this point, there is still a long way to go before everyone is protected. which is why leaders like pastor medina expect these kits to be in high demand. >> i bet they're going to go fast. >> that's what i said. i know i'm going to be short. >> good to meet the good pastor. as of today, program managers have handed out more than 15,000 test kits so far. you know, director collins points out this could be where testing is headed -- giving people the tools to test themselves at home before going to work or going to see family. and since we could be living with covid for the foreseeable future, even after herd immunity, home testing could be the future of

and francis collins along with other directors in may and rochelle walensky. in may the subcommittee will hold a hearing with public witnesses as well as a hearing for house members to highlight their requests for 2022. the subcommittee will circulate further information in the coming weeks on hearings in may. most of the dates and details have been confirmed. mr. secretary as i'm sure you're well aware, you are taking over leadership of one of the most important departments in the federal government. and it is an immensely critical time for this country as we recover from public health and economic emergencies. this administration has made a strong start and you certainly deserve credit for the many public health and economic recoveies that are currently taking shape. this administration increased daily vaccine doses to more than 3 million doses a day, which puts us on the way of achieving the president's goal of 200 million doses in his first 100 days. tuesday's news of the pause on the johnson & johnson vaccine may complicate the efforts but we must have co