natalie azar, thank you as always.o see you. >>> coming up in our next hour, by the way, i'm going to be joined, as i just mentioned, by an expectant mother to get her story on why she remains unvaccinated. i'm going to play that answer for her from dr. natalie azar to get her reaction as well. >>> during the height of the george floyd protests, a former u.s. diplomat wrote an article about a system of white supremacy at the state department keeping minorities from being hired or promoted. the question now is, has anything changed in that time, and what can the biden administration do to create a more inclusive environment? christopher richardson wrote that op-ed and he's joining me next. that op-ed and he's joining me next namel repair toothpaste, we can help actively repair enamel in its weakened state. it's innovative. my go to toothpaste is going to be pronamel repair. >>> welcome back. in the aftermath of george floyd's murder, the u.s. endured a racial reckoning, yet little has been done to cement meaningful chan

natalie azar, welcome both.ut the treatment the general underwent there at walter reed? >> the family of colin powell, yasmin, is praising the caring treatment that he got here at walter reed national military medical center. but we don't really know a whole lot about how the last few days of his life unfolded as he was battling covid. we don't know for example which side effects or complications from covid-19 he had or even when he tested positive for the virus, although we do know that he had been fully vaccinated, meaning this was a breakthrough case. we also know that colin powell, as you mentioned, was someone who had suffered actually multiple bouts with cancer including a 2003 bout with prostate cancer in which he had surgery while he was the sitting secretary of state. we also know the multiple myeloma, cancer in the bone marrow, not only made him more vulnerable to severe covid-19 infection, but a study published in july in the journal "nature" found people with multiple myeloma were actually less respo

natalie azar.ngs from the cdc, urging all pregnant women to get vaccinated immediately when you take a look at some of these startling numbers and i just want to read them to you so you understand the situation. you got twofold increased risk of icu admission if, in fact, you are unvaccinated and pregnant. 70% higher risk of death. 161 pregnant women have died of covid. 22 deaths in august alone. what do you make of these warnings, these numbers that i just told you? is there any chance, any possibility that you're willing to change your mind in the last eight weeks of your pregnancy, that you're considering getting vaccinated? >> definitely hearing what the doctor said, we're still learning all together, really, and that was very helpful of what she said. and from those numbers that you just said, it's scary. like i said, it's very scary, just seeing the chances of something happening to me or my child, it's very alarming. but in all of this, like you said, i have eight weeks left, and i would fee

natalie azar, nbc medical contributor, dr. azar, if we hadn't been listening to president biden and talking about that important story, we might have come on the air talking about this one. talk to us about the highlights of this study, which a lot of experts and professionals in your field have been looking to see how this was going to lay things out. >> i think the first take-home message is that mixing and matching is safe and it works. i think the most highly anticipated outcome, if you will, is what you sort of did in the lead, which is that it does appear that boosting with a mrna is superior if your primary series was a johnson & johnson, than by boosting with johnson & johnson itself. let me make a couple of points. this has not been peer-reviewed yet. the presentation happening on friday. vrbpac, the advisory committee to the fda, has 48 hours to really dissect this. a really important point is this study was not necessarily designed to directly compare the response between regimens. i want to state that kind of unequ

natalie azar i guess you can get started. i'm going to ask you a question while while i'm in pain.t hurt at all. hang o a i can the flu shot last year the numbers were way down and they think, i don't need to get it again this year >> you do. i know -- we didn't have a lot of flu last year we didn't build up any immunity from the flu last year experts are worried it could be worse for us for that reason you're not just doing it for yourself doing the flu shot for yourself will help prevent severe disease, hospitalization, death, particularly in children you're also doing it as a good neighbor, right, to get less flu around in the community and that will also lessen the burden on hospitals that are already overwhelmed from covid let me make an obvious pointed last year, we were at home kids were at home. people weren't traveling this year, the world is a little bit of a different place and we got delta. >> and a lot of people aren't wearing masks as much anymore. can you get the covid vaccine and the flu shot on the same day -- >> this is lovely new updated guidance you can get both

natalie azar and kerry sanders, thank you for being with me this morning. >>> this morning, thousands of airline passengers are scrambling after southwest airlines canceled nearly 2,000 flights yesterday, leaving many passengers stranded this holiday weekend. take a look at these shots from different airports around the country. the faa and airline officials give contradictory explanations for the cancellations. and all of this comes as southwest pilots are challenging the company's covid-19 vaccine mandate. joining me now from miami international airport, nbc news correspondent, sam brock. sam, good morning. what more can you tell us about these wave of cancellations that continues today, right? >> reporter: jose, good morning. 700 more delays and cancellations so far today. sources familiar with what's going at southwest say things are normalizing today and should be operational tomorrow. but what is going on? what catalyzed this cataclysmic problem. southwest says what happened is severe weather in florida that was compounded by air traffic control issues. however, that particular