marcus plescia. tell us about your organization. how many members do you have? guest: we have a professional organization for the leadership of state public health departments, so we represent all of the states and seven territories in freely associated areas -- and freely associated areas. we represent the health officials, but also their leadership teams, so several hundred people when you look at that broader group. and we support them. we lobby for them. and we provide technical assistance to them. host: you have joined us a number of times during the pandemic here on "washington journal." as we talk here at the end of march and 2021, how is the vaccine distribution going? guest: we think it is going well. people seem to be interested in the vaccine, which is a good thing. we are seeing states move a lot faster now that the vaccine supply is greater. in some states, they have actually opened up where anybody can get the vaccine. it seems to be well tolerated. there have not been reports of any serious adverse effects beyond of the few people who had allergic

marcus plescia will join us.e will be with us to talk about how states are dealing with the vaccine rollout, vexing hesitancy and other issues. worse, we will return to our opening question for you this morning about the u.s.-mexico border. is it a crisis? if so, what should be done? the lines are (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. independents, (202) 748-8002. if you are on the southern border, (202) 748-8003. we take texts from that line as well. we take tweets from c-span to bj on twitter. alejandra was on a number of sunday shows, including meet the press. he placed the blame on the trump administration. >> please remember something. that president trump dismantled the orderly, humane and efficient way of allowing children to make their claims under united states law in their home countries. he dismantled the central american minors program. we are rebuilding those orderly and safe processes as quickly as possible. in the meantime, in the meantime, we will not expel into the mexican

marcus plescia is our guest. we're talking about the pandemic vaccine in the states.ou're welcome to call. before we get to your calls, one of the certainly most recent capitol hill appearance -- i'm sorry, i'm giving the numbers wrong. my fault. it's monday. the lines are by time zones. 244-748-8000. the most recent appearance by chief covid advisor dr. anthony fauci this week on capitol hill. let's hear what he had to say about the vaccine distribution program so far in the u.s. >> right now the biggest challenge, i think, is multifaceted. one is staying ahead of this virus itself. we are doing a good job now, up to 2 million to 3 million vaccinations a day. if more would get vaccinated, literally every day that goes by and more and more people get vaccinated, we can stay ahead of what i would consider a race between our ability to vaccinate people and the emergence of variants. we have variants that are well established like the 117. luckily, as dr. kessla has mentioned, the vaccine does very well against it, but there are other variants that, in fact, when you loo

marcus plescia. tell us about your organization. how many members do you have? guest: we

marcus plescia. tell us about your organization. how many members do you