jennifer nuzzo is with us until about 9:40, 945 eastern.ng, explained to us what the johns hopkins covid-19 testing insight initiative is. guest: yeah, so we started tracking testing early in the pandemic because it became clear it was an important operational metric. if everyone can remember where we were in march of 2020, when most of us began paying attention to the pandemic, it was really hard to get tested. the daily case numbers that were being reported were just the people who were able to access the test and in most cases it was people who were very sick, sick enough to be admitted to a hospital. that is where testing was constrained to. it became clear quite early that that wouldn't be sufficient and that there were other people who may not have been sick enough to show up at a hospital who needed to get tested, to understand their status and make sure they didn't pass it onto others. tracking testing since the beginning of the pandemic has been an important metric. so, we began tracking testing as they started reporting how many t

i'm joined now by epidemiologist jennifer nuzzo from the johns hopkins bloomberg school of public healthck on the newshour. i want to ask you about the cdc guidance. the cdc is now saying that 70 percent of americans live in counties where the risk is so low that they don't need to wear a mask indoors. what do you make of that? >> well, i think what we are hearing from the cdc is not that they have loosened their recommendations but they have actually changed how they calculate who is at risk. they are using new data. and that's reflective i i think of a few important changes. one the virus is not the same went had a huge surge of cases that was incredibly challenging but fortunately the percentage of those cases that went to the hospital was much lower, so it is a different virus than we had to deal with in earlier points of the pandemic. the other change that changed is the data we used to track the virus have changed and with the increasing use of home test metrics like case numbers and test positivity was what the cdc exclusively used to rely on to make those risk maps are no longer

we dig into that with jennifer nuzzo, who studies epidemiology and global health at the johns hopkins center for health. it's good to have you with us. we'll start there. what accounts for this high death rate the u.s. as compared to its peer nations. >> first of all we have to acknowledge it's a complete and utter tragedy because the vast majority of the deaths have been preventable because most have occurred since the development of the covid 19 vaccinings. what we're really seeing is the effect of the united states not making enough progress in vaccinating adults against the virus and people not protected against severe illness by vaccine are unfortunately the ones most likely to tie. >> reporter: what accounts for the lack of progress on vaccination? >> ihink in shop places people still have a hard time getting vaccinated in part because they work hours that are not conducive to going and getting vaccines, but i think we also have not done enough effort to emphasize the benefits of vaccines, the fact they prevent you frosevere illness and death. many are focusing on the fact they

host: jennifer nuzzo from johns hopkins university. that was yesterday on this program. if you want to watch that in its entirety, you can do so at our website, c-span.org. back to your phone calls. vivian from pine bluff, arkansas, you are next. caller: good morning. i just wanted to make a couple of observations. i am in a state where we have, so far, identified almost 800,000 total cases with almost 1000 added just yesterday. we are just coming off of a second spike. people are still dying. we have had a total of almost 10,000 deaths in our state. people forget, when we shut down the schools, we did not know what the impact was on children in our state. thankfully, we have only had two pediatric -- recorded pediatric covert tests. -- covid tests. but we still do not have total vaccine protection for our children. i think we are still suffering from misinformation and fear and politicize -- politicization from the last administration. individuals making statements about how horrible -- harmful the mask mandate is. this little thing called science says masks do help pre

and, a look at the state of covid-19 vaccines and testing with jennifer nuzzo.n the conversation with your phone calls, texts, facebook comments and tweets, next on -- next on washington journal. ♪ host: good morning. it is monday, february 7, 2022. mike pence -- mike pence stepped back into the political spotlight. on friday evening, he rebuked former president trump for claims the vice president had the authority on january 6, 2021, to overturn the 2020 election results. tensions escalating with trump in the discussion. a question for republican viewers only. we want to know what you think about mike pence and what role do

hopkins study you talked about, we talked about that yesterday, we played a clip a while ago with jennifer nuzzo of johns hopkins university. we asked about that study, if you're interested, and your response to it. you can just search "nuzzo" in the search bar of our webpage, c-span.org, and watch that segment if that is something you want to look into more. shirley, new york city, good morning. shirley, you with us? this is rudy, douglas, georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. i am 100% in support of maintaining that mask mandates. my wife is a schoolteacher here in georgia. they give the students here the option. she has had kids coming in coughing whose parents refused to allow them to wear our mask, and it jeopardizes her health and the health of the other students. i am a pastor, and we ask our parishioners to wear our mask. sunday, one young lady used to wear our mask and refused to have her children wear our mask, so i will counsel with her on the efficacy's of wearing a mask -- efficacies of wearing a mask. then i will give her the option to listen to us on youtube or facebook, be