john torres answers all of your coronavirus questions. that, do i? harmful bacteria lurk just below the gum line. crest gum detoxify works below the gum line to neutralize harmful plaque bacteria and help reverse early gum damage. crest. november 24th through december 1st with our black friday savings. catch your favorite pieces and save 35% at pandora jewelry. and save 35% killer attitude. nevor hydration.... neutrogena® hydro boost. the #1 hyaluronic acid moisturizer delivers 2x the hydration for supple, bouncy skin. neutrogena®. choose the longest lasting thiaa battery...son (music) energizer ultimate lithium backed by science. matched by no one. isn't like yesterday. (grrrr...put down that rake...) (and pick up that pb and j.) daddy? silence your growl. with kellogg's frosted mini-wheats. made to help fill you up. iwith vicks sinex saline nasal cmist.tioned mini-wheats. for drug free relief that works fast. vicks sinex. instantly clear everday congestion. >>> welcome back so many americans have questions relating to the coronavirus pandemic so nb

john torres. dr. torres, our first question comes from bridget. - hi, my name is bridget, and i'm six years old, and i'm from fort collins, colorado. and my question is if you're six feet away, can you take off your mask? bye. - all right, good question, bridget. dr. john, what about it? - and lester, i think a lot of us have had bridget's question. we're around other people, but we're six feet away, do we still need to wear a mask? and for the most part, the answer is yes, for a couple reasons. number one, if you're around a lot of other people, you might not always stay six feet away. they might pass close to you. you might actually get close to them. and so it's important that you have the mask on. plus, you need to realize that six feet is a starting point. you're safe at six feet. you're safer at 12 feet. so it helps to have this mask on if you're on other people that aren't from your own household, just to make sure you and your family are safe. - all right, our second question is about the upco

john torres, nbc news. >> so helpful.his thanksgiving, the challenge isn't just staying healthy. it's putting food on the table. this was the line of cars this morning in atlanta to receive food and gift cards. it went for miles. the food was donated by superstar tyler perry. he supplied the gifts for 5,000 families today through his studio there. >>> when we come back, victory lap. the inspiring way one community is helping kids who have recovered fm cancerro dry, distressed skin that struggles? new aveeno® restorative skin therapy. with our highest concentration of prebiotic oat intensely moisturizes over time to improve skin's resilience. aveeno® healthy. it's our nature™. i do motivational speakingld. to improve skin's resilience. in addition to the substitute teaching. i honestly feel that that's my calling-- to give back to younger people. i think most adults will start realizing that they don't recall things as quickly as they used to or they don't remember things as vividly as they once did. i've been taking preva

john torres john, this vaccine was developed in record time how can people be assured it's safe? reporter: lester, right now only a little more than half of americans recently polled say they're willing to get the covid-19 vaccine so addressing those concerns is essential to getting enough people vaccinated and that means being transparent with information about the vaccine, its overall safety during the human trials and its effectiveness to keeping us from getting sick to covid-19 these vaccine volunteers will continue to be monitored closely as researchers continue to get data from the trial. lester >> dr. john, thanks. >>> just in this evening, the fda giving emergency use authorization to eli lilly's antibody treatment for mild to moderately ill covid patients it is similar to the treatment president trump received when he was battling the coronavirus. >>> joe biden declaring the election over as he took the first steps toward his transition to the white house, focusin on the pandemic an issuing an urgent plea to all americans about mask wearing kristen welker has more for us

john torres. dr. john, the good news obviously that these covid vaccines appear to work quite well but how safe are they >> lester, both drug companies announced that their vaccines had minimal side effects but they have to show the fda two months of safety data before requesting emergency use authorization. i have been told by experts the fda won't approve any covid vaccine unless they have all the data on the trials and they're sure it is effectively and equally important safe and since pregnant women and young children were not tested they have to wait for further trials >> let me ask you this with more than one vaccine coming to market, how will we know which one to choose >> there will be multiple vaccines available but the ones available to you will depend on where you live and what group you fall into. but most experts tel me and i agree the best vaccine is the one you get so don't wait for one vaccine over the other. lester >> thank you. >>> let's not get ahead of ourselves as the country waits

john torres. dr. john, what do you make of these new questions surrounding astrazeneca and their vaccine? >> kate, this shows us that the vaccine vetting process is actually working what you are seeing here are the vaccine manufacturers being held accountable by outside experts making sure all the information about the trials is released and asking the hard questions about who it's been tested on and what the specific outcomes were. the more scrutiny the manufacturers and their vaccines undergo now the more confidence and trust we can have that any approved vaccine will be both safe and effective. kate >> dr. john, thank you. >>> this is a thanksgiving like none other for health care workers, so many sacrificing their own holiday to help others and as hospitals reach their breaking point some patients are finding a lot to be thankful for gabe gutierrez has more on that. >> reporter: tonight in hospitals across america, no break from the virus but a flood of gratitude for those on the front lines >> i w

john torres, standing by for us. thanks for joining us on this. appreciate it. so we have good news and then troubling news, as well, as we're seeing spikes in cases and more folks traveling for the thanksgiving holiday. we have three vaccines on the horizon. talk to me first about the latest news we're hearing from astrazeneca, seeing it is 70% effectiveness, this astrazeneca vaccine. if you take it in the two-dose form format, 1/2 dose first, it is 90% effective. how encouraged are you by this latest news? >> yasmin, this is good news because we're seeing the vaccines showing more effectively than we thought they would show. right now, to date, the pfizer vaccine, moderna vaccine, and now the astrazeneca/oxford vaccine are all in the 90% range. astrazeneca had to do different dosings to get to the 90%. experts are sayinging the way it's working. more detals to codale details t. there are four, five front runners. one already dropped the emergency use authorization request here in the u.s., pfizer. moderna is probably soon to follow. the astrazeneca/oxford one

john torres, thank you. we go from dr. john to the medical director of special pathogens unit at boston medical center. also associate processor at boston university school of medicine and an msnbc medical contributor. let's start there, this idea that you can have a vaccine, but vaccinations don't -- vaccines don't save lives. vaccinations save lives. how can you convince the american public this is a vaccine that's safe and they should go out and get it? >> craig, you nailed it. i think this is such good news, right? not only does it tell you that we have this evacuativaccine, b proof of concept of this can be developed and other vaccines may show effectiveness. it'll be the distribution and really getting the vaccines in people's arms, for us to get to a point where we have population level herd immunity from a vaccine. that is the hard work. we've seen a couple of things. we've seen that there is a drop in the number of people who said they would take this vaccine, even over the last few months as we've seen the politic

john torres with more on the cdc's big announcement and nbc's kathy park at city hall in new york city where parents are speaking out after mayor bill de blasio's decision to move more than 1 million students back to virtual learning. john, the cdc doesn't speak out often during this pandemic, unlike other pandemics. now we're hearing this warning about thanksgiving. >> you're right, andrea, this is a very important announcement they made. i think the reason they made it, if you remember, a little while ago they put out recommendations for thanksgiving. they're seeing these numbers climb higher and higher. so they felt they needed to put out stronger recommendations. one, they strongly recommend against traveling over the thinking weekend. point blank, blunt, do not travel over thinking weekend. number two, they're also trying to clear up some confusion and they're defining what a household means, because they say only have celebrations with people in your own household. what does that mean? if somebody from your family like your son or daughter is coming back from college, are they pa

john torres joins us now to clear up some misconceptions of testing, especially in light of all the travel and family gatherings dr. john, how much should people be relying on these tests? >> lester, we all need to realize these tests are essentially just that, they're a snapshot in time so if you're negative today that doesn't mean you won't be positive tomorrow for example, you could be exposed today, test negative in five days then on day eight yo hang out with friends and family thinking you're fine only to develop symptoms and test positive on day ten and exposed those others without knowing you're contagious and that's why it's important to realize that testing is just one of the steps along with quarantining, avoiding crowds, wearing a mask and social distancing that can help make sure you don't hav the virus or spread it to others. lester >> an important reality check, all right. dr. john, thanks on sunday be sure to watch "meet the press. dr. fauci will discuss the pandemic with chuck todd. >>> now to black friday shattering online shopping records today. tonight what you can do f

john torres. if you look at how many cases the u.s. has added every day this week, for the last ten days, the number keeps rising. how concerned are you? are we able to get control of the spread? what do we have to do? >> alex, i'm very concerned about the direction we're taking right now. like you mentioned here, you saw in the graphic, the numbers keep climbing. 176,000 yesterday. huge numbers. if you remember back a week ago or so, some of the experts were saying that we're probably going to get around 300,000 during the holiday season. a lot of people are scoffing saying those numbers are alarming. these same experts are saying we would hit 100,000 from this time. they were erring on the light side. now we're much, much higher than that. the concern is, alex, we are not even into our winter months. we're not into the cold months. we know once we get there, this is going to be more active and spread more. we're coming into the holiday seasons. people will be traveling and going with families. the real i mean ealism is we'lls skyrock

john torres joins me now the current surge simply didn't have to happen it's very grim and the vaccine is coming. what do we do now to stop the surge >> lester, you're right. we could have avoided the alarmingly high number of cases we are seeing had we taken measures earlier to keep it under control. it basically comes down to human behavior we all need to follow the three "ws. wear a mask, watch your distance, wash your hands along with avoiding large groups. we especially need to follow this if indoors even with a small group of people. if we do these things we can get the numbers more under control as we wait for vaccine to help end the pandemic. lester >> we can all make an impact here. dr. john, thanks. >>> a new setback here in new york which is shutting down the schools again as cases in the city climb bu it's controversial with schools considered relatively safe and bars and restaurants remaining open nbc's rehema ellis has that story. >> reporter: tonight the largest school district in the country announce new york city classrooms will shut down again starting tomorrow mornin

john torres asked a group of infectious disease experts how they are going to celebrate this thanksgivinge pandemic, thanksgiving. we asked five top infectious disease doctors across the country how have your thanksgiving plans changed? >> literally, it'll be my husband and the dog. >> reporter: this doctor usually gets together with friends and family. but this year she's worried about her elderly parents. >> this year more than ever it's the year that we're not going to congregate. i so desperately want to see my parents. i keep telling myself, this sacrifice is for years to come i can still have them around. >> reporter: in california this doctor plans to cook and then see mom and dad but without the danger of indoor dining. >> we would go for a walk together or a hike together or just hang out in somebody's backyard together but wearing masks. >> reporter: across the u.s. small gatherings are fueling the rise in covid cases. >> is there a number you can put on a small group gathering? >> every person that you add to the gathering has the potential to bring the virus to the gathering.

we caught up with mayor john torre not at city hall but at home, hunkering down for a second wave hemany cities underestimated. >> we now are very focused on the marginalized neighborhoods where the fire spread and the positivity and test rates has been much higher than in other parts of the population, and we're really focused on all of that now. the lock down will help us get a greater grip. >> protests against the lock down and masks have been small, but persistent. a reminder that the city's goodwill has its limits. there's no question a second lock down will be tough here in toronto. what's been tougher to think about are the consequences if it doesn't work. >> the worry fewer restrictions in other areas bordering the city means people will move freely to shop, dine and get together. only toronto and one of the sprawling suburbs, peel, is in lock down. hot house restaurant managers adam joe, deployed a hundred people, able to keep half on payroll thanks to their large patio. under lock down, they will have to scale back even further. >> i would say a little crest fallen, we have

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john torres to break down how hospitals get overwhelmed. he's a cnbc medical corresponde correspondent. >> the rising death rate is a direct connection to overwhelmed hospitals. the more people sick from covid put a higher strain on the system even people with low symptoms, mild and moderate symptoms can take a lot of time, a lot of resources but as those symptoms become more severe, as the patients become more complicated, they use a lot more resources, a bigger strain on the hospital and the hospital systems and the staff. seeing the death numbers rise, that's a lot of intensive care being used to try to save their lives, and that puts an incredible amount of strain on the hospital and hospital system. >> and even worse, deaths lag. doctors estimate about three weeks behind cases first, there are more cases, then more hospital saizations ad then more deaths the dean of the brown university school of public health, doctor, how bad is this, are you expecting daily deaths to continue to rise as our data indicates they will? . >> so thank you

john torres. we've got to live our lives, i think, is something that millions of people are saying.ose people crowded into airports, it's such a stark contrast. i'm sure you saw over the weekend "the new york times" pub li published this survey. the vast majority of epidemiologists are staying home, having dinner only with those in their household. what goes through your mind when you hear something like that, you've got to live your life? >> chris, i get it. it's pandemic fatigue. we all want to see family members, get back to normal life, but we're not at a normal life right now. we're still in the midst of the pandemic and so when you see these people in the airports and, we're taking all the precautions so everything should be okay, that's when you see events crop up and superspreader events happen a week or two after. we'll see more and more people having problems, more and more cases of coronavirus resulting because of all the travel right now over thanksgiving. this is what a lot of experts were concerned about. this weekend we'd have a lot of traveling, a lot of gatherings a

john torres and nbc investigative and consumer correspondent vicky nguyen.. >> vicky, let's start with you. help give us the basics here if you would, vicky, the dos and don'ts as we head into winter. >> the number one most important thing we can all do is wear a mask when you're out in public. you want to avoid large gatherings, especially if you're in a hot spot. when you're socializing, stick to your pod, that small quarantine you've put together, the people you've been hanging out with. i think dr. torres would agree with me, we don't want another lockdown, we don't need another lockdown if we take personal responsibility and follow those three ws, wear a mask, watch our distance and wash our hands. we can avoid another lockdown and keep covid rates low. >> dr. john, this one is for you. what are some things people should have on hand in their homes in case someone they live with gets sick with covid? >> remember, the vast majority of coronavirus cases, if you do have that, you can take care of at home just like you can most of the flu and cold symptoms

john torres the nbc chief medical correspondent asked dr. steven haan the fda commissioner about this exact situation last week what would happen if we saw data from outside the u.s. and did not yet have u.s. data on the astrazeneca vaccine. they will be flexible and be sure of their own standards. as we wait for the results in the u.s. from astrazeneca's trial, there's going to be aggression about how the fda will handle this particularly as it's messy you know, we don't really understand why this half dose will work better than a full dose so, the process is not going to be as straight forward as say pfizer they already applied for emergency use authorization and the fda already set a date for their outside meetings of advisers, december 10th. probably go forward f pfizer. >> it's just a matter of time, the vials are ready. what do they have? >> well they say in december if these things get the green light pfizer and moderna vaccine, they would have enough for 20 million people by the end of the year. that's 40 million doses of vaccine. th

john torres. >> dr. torres, we're watching doctors and nurses basically on bended knee, pleading with people. if you're not going to do it for yourselves, do it for us. i can feel them wondering, like, is anybody listening? >> you're exactly right. that's what i'm hearing from my friends, as well. they're saying, even to the point where people are getting intubated, as they're with their last gasping breath, are saying, i don't believe this is coronavirus. i think this is the flu. why are you doing this to me? or they're saying, "i should have listened and done these things that we know we need to do." the concerning thing is, this has been going on for nine months or so. we have many, many more months to go with this. everybody working in the health care industry, doctors, nurse, health techs, they are tired and overworked, overwhelmed. psychologically, it is taking the toll, as well, and that is important. we have to remember that, as well. >> the nightmare scenario is before us. thanksgiving is coming

john torres was saying, do you really need a test it's just a snapshot in time it is not a cure-all fortive the pcr is the gold standard but results take a few days. >>> let's turn to nbc's senior business correspondent, stephanie ruhle. steph, the holidays, one of those times a lot of families use it as a time to give back. it seems this would be the perfect year to give back to some local mom and pop restaurants. >> absolutely. this is the year where you might want to consider not cooking at home you know, we've done so much cooking, make this the year you order. we're seeing a record number of local restaurants and grocery stores offering a full thanksgiving meal. all you need to do is order. but this is important. if you can, pick it up yourself. a lot of very popular delivery services are charging those restaurants 15% to 30%, so if you can pick it up, go that direction. plus, how about bakeries make this the year you're not making your own apple or pumpkin pie. call your local bakery so they know how much supplies they need and try to order help those businesses. >> speaking of bu

john torres likes to say, any time you invite someone over, it is inviting all the people they've beeng the number of people who can gather, as well. >> what if you're eating and drinking constantly? >> you can have your mask down, carson that's your secret weapon. >> thank you >> i can relate to that. thank you. >>> let's go to dylan for a check of the weather is it going to be cold >> the northern plains, upper midwest, it certainly is it'll also be wet across parts of the southeast we have a tropical storm eta still moving through northern florida, and you can see some of the heavier rain is out over the atlantic it's going to wrap back around, combined with the cold front, and we are going to see a lot of rain across the carolinas. november landfalls of hurricanes since 1850 16 landfalling tropical storms and five hurricanes. most occur across the west coast of florida this november, we have had the two landfalls, actually the same storm, eta hit the florida keys and up near cedar key overnight. we are certainly seeing the trend continue however, now the big concern is for that hea