michael osterholm. center for infectious disease research and policy at the university of minnesota, and he recently served on the biden team's coronavirus advisory board. dr. osterholm, great to have you back on the "newshour." dr. osterholm: thank you. william: before we get into the policy changes, can you just help us understand, what has been the hiccup so far in our ability to get vaccines to people? i mean, we know it's improving. but what have been the stumbling blocks so far? dr. osterholm: well, actually, there are three point to this. first of all, there has been a lot of misunderstanding of what's happening. when you actually look at the number of doses distributed to a state, which has been what everybody has been publicly seeing, that actually means that the operation warp speed has decided to send you the vaccine. and, in many cases, for states, that vaccine doesn't arrive for days to a week. and so, in a sense, we have been overestimating what the states can even put into people's arms.

let me show you something and i can ask michael osterholm if i got this right. if you have 50% more deadly strain, variant, that would lead to 1.5 times more deaths but what is interesting to this point is that if it's more contagious, not necessarily more deadly, because it will spread so much more and increasingly affect vulnerable populations, make more causal encounters more likely to result in infection, within a month, six generations could lead to a lot more deaths. that's the concern. >> so that's interesting. even if technically the variant is not more deadly if it's more contagious, it will end up being more deadly? >> absolutely. sanjay laid it out very nicely just now. >> professor, you're putting the pandemic into terms all of us can understand. i'm certainly not a sports expert but i do know there are nine innings in a baseball game. what inning is this pandemic in? >> i still think we're in the bottom of the third, top of the fourth. you know, i worry the next six to 14 weeks could be the darkest weeks of the pandemic. you know, we're down to 150,

what osterholm was also saying without coming right out and saying it is look what they had to do inhe uk. look what they've had to do in ireland. this idea that nobody wants to talk about, of potentially targeted lockdowns to really just break the cycle of transmission. may be necessary. nobody wants to say this, and i understand that. the incoming task force doesn't want to say it. obviously, this current administration we have not done that. but you know, the virus may be dictating some of these terms. if you are getting really, really significant spread and potentially 11 times more deaths as a result of that, that's obviously a gigantic problem, and there are ways we know to basically stop that. >> let's talk about that. michael osterholm scared me because i've thought for the past couple of days, oh, good, there's positive signs, hospitalizations are ticking down and so the idea this is about to explode, i don't want to go home and tell my kids that. >> no, look, i don't either, alisyn. it's tough to give this sort of news. and i feel like we've had to do it for the last year.

osterholm's realistic but dark prognostication? >> well, i think dr.he brakes from our basic public health measures. i also clinically am looking at some very promising shorter term indicators, jonathan, where we are seeing a decrease in icu admissions, hospitalizations and positivity rates which tells me from the ground that we are seeing at least what we hope is a current kind of crest and decrease to that surge we had all expected in the post-holiday period. i think you're absolutely correct, though, to put a little bit of a -- i would say we're in a sprint against the ability to vaccinate the majority of our population with these variants that are coming all around the world and are here in the united states. we don't know to what extent they are here, but they are here and that is why, more than ever, what the good doctor is pointing out is that we cannot think that just because my parents have a vaccine appointment that i can go ahead and get together with them and not wear my mask if i'm not immunized and we haven't achieved that herd immunity.

. >> michael osterholm sounded the alarm before anyone. he's on these. as you accumulate more and more mutations, the idea you're going to have more very ariants is tr which is why when we talk about vaccines, it's not just the number that get out there but the speed you vaccinate people to try to reduce the amount of virus that's transmitting and spreading and accumulating these muta mutations. let me show you something and i can ask michael osterholm if i got this right. in this situation, if you have 50% more deadly strain, variant, that would lead to 1.5 times more deaths but what is interesting to this point is that if it's more contagious, not necessarily more deadly, because it will spread so much more and increasingly affect vulnerable populations, make more causal encounters more likely to result in infection, within a month, six generations could lead to a lot more deaths. that's the concern. >> so that's interesting. even if technically the variant is not more deadly if it's more cont contagious, it will end up being more deadly? >> absolutely

osterholm, great to have you back on the newshour.e get to the policy changes, can you just help us understand what has been the hik up so far in our ability to get vaccines to people? we know it's improving, but what have been the stumbling blocks so far? >> well, actually, there are three point to this. first of all, there has been a lot of misunderstanding to what's happening. when you actually look at the number of doses distributed to a state, which has been what everybody has been publicly seeing,s that actually means that the operation warp speed has decided to send yo the vaccine. and in many cases, for states that vaccine doesn't arrive for days to a week. and so, in a sense, we've been overestimating what the states can even put into people's arms. second of all is the doses received by individuals has also been underreported because sometimes it takes up to two days to get that information from the time the person was vaccinated into that system. so the numbers are not nearly as far apart as one would think. the second piec

michael osterholm.sident biden struggling to get republican support for his $1.9 trillion package. >> covid relief has to pass. no ifs, ands or i'll talk to p biden's chief economic adviser, brian deese. >>> less than a month after the capitol insurrection, more republicans decide to stand by their man. >> democrats are wasting the nation's time on a partisan vendetta against a man no longer in office. >> -- than to oppose him? >> what we saw, incitement to insurrection is an impeachable offense. if not, what is? >> i'll talk to adam kinzinger, one of only ten house republicans who voted to impeach about his drive to return the party to more traditional values. >>> what should republicans do about marjorie taylor green, the qanon supporting congresswoman who has many members concerned about their own safety. joining me, eddie glaude jr. of princeton university, amy many walter from the cook political report, republican strategist al card nis and ashleigh "the washington post." welcome to sunday. it's "m

osterholm. a key difference is that j&j is a little bit more like a flu vaccine because it is made from a weakened virus, right? it's not the mrna or the rna. should that matter to people? >> right. it's not actually like the glu vaccine but what it is, it's another vaccine where it uses another virus piece. basically what we call an adno virus to help cause the antigen or material we were trying to vaccinate you against, how it enters into the body and how it then presents itself to the immune system. so it is a tried and true method and again, it has been well researched for many, many years. so from that standpoint, we think this is a very positive development. >> okay. now i don't want to get ahead of ourselves because right now we're still struggling to get a first vaccine option into the arms of americans. but if it gets to the point where all of us, and it will get to that point, where it's widely available, any of these vaccines is widely available, do you agree with the guidance that, l

osterholm, always good to have you on. >> good morning.>> let me ask you this. in five days, biden is going to take over. he's assembled a team that includes you. they have a plan. i'm just curious. what will be different about biden's vaccination plan? how much of a difference will it make? one of the key challenges is states' preparedness for this. is that something you can fix quickly? >> well, first of all, let me say it's an incredibly comprehensive plan that starts with how to even increase the amount of vaccine being produced which is, of course, a very important limiting factor. but he has really listened to what state and local health departments who are the air traffic control towers for moving vaccine in our communities need to be able to do their job. this will be a comprehensive effort. it's going to take federal resources like, for example, additional staffing, having the pharmacies around the country being involved, and so what he's done is really put together all the tools that the people at the local level have said they n

michael osterholm, university of minnesota, member of the president's covid-19 advisory board., let me see if i have this right, i am guessing that you're so very happy at the return of competence, diligence and expertise at this pursuit. on the other hand, i need you to tell our viewers what we're heading into, and i need you to reassure us that these new strains aren't going to be smart enough to render our existing vaccine formulas inert. >> well, first of all, thank you brian for having me tonight. let me just say it's difference between night and day. now have planning going on, we have a plan. we have transparency, people can understand what's happening, and you're going to see the vaccine situation only get better over time. doesn't mean it's taken care of overnight. still takes months to make all the vaccine we need, but in regard to other issue you raised about the variants and mutated viruses, what that means, really two areas we're concerned about. one, do they transmit more, cause more serious illness, and second area, could they defeat the immune response we have t

but professor michael osterholm and others are looking at the new variants we're seeing around the world and in some cases in the united states, and they are concerned we could see a new surge, a new wave from these new variants. how real should that fear be this morning? >> well, you always have to maintain that as a possibility, john. i'm not exactly sure that that's going to happen. we do have variants in this country right now. the uk variant is in several states. it has not become dominant. it might. that's the reason why you have to watch it carefully as we go from january into february. and really take a good look. but as dr. osterholm said and it's a real possibility that with the variants here we may have strains that transmit more efficiently. the best thing you can do about that is to uniformly adhere to the public health recommendations we've spoken of time and again from the wearing of masks to the washing of hands to avoiding congregate settings. that's the kind of thing that prevents surges, regardless of what the type of virus, the mutant of virus or what have yous there.

osterholm, as always, you have clarified this so importantly for all of us.nk you very much. >> thank you very much, andrea. >>> and we have new details today about the house's plans to impeach president trump for the second time. congressman adam schiff, who led the first impeachment effort, joins me next. stay with us right here on andrea mitchell. air force vetee of doing what's right, not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. ♪ usaa essential for pine trees, but maybe not for people with certain inflammatory conditions. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz. the first and only pill of its kind that treats moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, or moderate to severe ulcerative colitis when other med

michael osterholm of member of president-elect biden's coronavirus task force.it all morning, the number is so big, 400,000 at the times. can you give us a reality check of where we stand right now? >> i have often been trying to call this pandemic much like a baseball game to give you a sense of where i think we are. and unfortunately i've been saying for several months that i think we're basically at the bottom of the third or the top of the fourth and i don't think we're much further than that right now. i worry that the very darkest days of the pandemic will be before us. even though we have vaccine coming, which is a very, very good thing. i think this new variant, this mutated virus that we're seeing in england, ireland and elsewhere, which is now here in the united states, means that we could have really our roughest days in the immediate months ahead. >> in terms of president-elect biden's goal, his vaccination goal for his first hundred days, how do you think he's going to achieve that in. >> i think we're well on our way to that now. over the weekend w

osterholm said, and we all realize, there's a possibility that with the variants here, we may have a those strains that tend to transmit more efficiently. the best thing you can do about that is to continue to uniformly adhere to the public health recommendations that we've spoken about time and again, from the wearing of masks to the washing of hands to avoid congregant settings. that's the kind of thing that prevents surges, regardless of what the type of virus, the mutant of virus or what have you is there. that together with an increase in the rollout of vaccines is the thing that we should be concentrating on. at the same time that we always take seriously when you get new strains or mutants or variants of the virus that you have to keep an eye out on. >> does the increase in the rate of transmissibility change the target? how does it change the target of the number of americans, the percent of americans you think need to get vaccinated in order to turn the corner? >> not very much, john. you know, when you talk about the real level is going to be of herd immunity, you don't kno

osterholm, he's on the covid advisory committee for president biden's transition team. we were nowhere out of the woods, and here we are. it's good to talk to you, let me start with this new variant, the south african -- that we first found from south africa, why it's deemed the south african variant, this is the one that dr. fauci has said there's concern it could be ducking the vaccine, if you will. what should we be doing right now in this country to mitigate the risk of this variant spreading? >> well, thank you, chuck, for having me. let me just say there's actually more than one variant that may actually duck the vaccine or our natural protection we get from having had infection. also the one from brazil is of grave concern to us at the same time. and as you know the variant that we've been talking about from the united kingdom, the uk variant which surely is increasing cases really these together have really changed the entire picture of the covid-19 pandemic. i think we're now in by far the most dangerous period in the pandemic period that we've ever had. i thin

michael osterholm, part of the incoming biden administration's coronavirus task force, is talking about new, more- infectious strain found in at least eight states. >> it is going to get much worse before it gets better. >> reporter: pfizer and biontech announced their vaccine appears to protect against the new strain. today, president-elect biden said he would speed up vaccine delivery by releasing nearly all available doses now, rather than holding back the second dose the approved vaccines called for. >> i'm committed to get 100 million shots in people's arms in the first 100 days. >> reporter: but production would need to ramp up to supply enough second doses. so-called mega-distribution sites are being set up in texas, new jersey, and pennsylvania. in california, military teams are now helping some overwhelmed hospitals. and in new jersey, 25-year-old army veteran joe dalton and his wife, melissa, shared their cautionary tale. he caught covid, but was considered too young and not sick enough for a hospital bed, until it became a medical emergency. >> and i think that just shows you

. >>> plus, we will speak with michael osterholm, a member of president-elect biden's president-electov9 presidenent-elect bibiden's cov9 advisory b board aboutut the rot ofof the vaccicine. and comedidian chris rock has a candid conversation with gayle king on everything from politics to race. that's it for "cbs morning news." thanks for watching. i'm anne-marie green. have a great day.

michael osterholm is on president biden's covid advisory panel. was there a clear strategy?u know, operation warp speed was a tremendous success with regard to making the vaccine, but there was no plans really put into place for how to move it into our communities. >> reporter: florida's governor today fought back against white house claims the state has failed to administer half of its vaccine doses, saying some are being held back to guarantee seniors get the second prescribed shot. >> because that's what the f.d.a. has recommended, and so, that's what we're following. >> well, that, in a sense, is a disconnect, because you sure don't need to hold all the second doses, if you can count on vaccine coming next week. >> reporter: there is hope for more supply. johnson & johnson is expected to release data on its single-dose vaccine in the coming days. and regeneron, an antibody cocktail president trump credited for his recovery last year... >> i took something, regeneron, it was, you know, highly sophisticated stuff. >> reporter: ...was found to be effective in preventing cov

michael osterholm. president biden

michael osterholm, thank you very much for being with us again.s a big focus in technology trends in 2021. we'll show you how innovations like a device that connects doctors and patients for virtual medical exams. and what is new at the big ces tech show >>> ahead, our wide ranging interview with comedian chris rock, he shows us his serious side. he's got that and opens up about the beginning of his career. >> honestly, gayle, if you would have offered me in like 1989, '90, if you would have offered me a job that paid $10, $12 an hour, i would have never told another joke. >> really? >> yeah. >> aren't we glad nobody offered him that job. at $10 an hour. coming up, chris rock discusses politics, race and his family. he also tells us what we can expect in the new extended cut of his netflix special, out today. you're watching "cbs this morning." we always appreciate that. we'll be right back. that. we'll be right back. edicine. powerful relief so you can restore and recover. theraflu hot beats cold. and asask your dococtor ababout biktararvy. bikta

of shifting goalpost spirit and listen to these warnings from biden covid advisors from michael osterholm, pay special attention to the date. >> the next six to 12 weeks are going to be the darkest of the entire pandemic. >> i worry that the next 6-14 weeks are the darkest week of the pandemic. >> laura: [laughs] it's clear now that we are always going to be heading into the darkest hour under biden. never going to get better. the pandemic will never end, and they are going to use it to maintain total control over you. of course, the same people moving the goalpost will vehemently deny doing so once they are called out. that's what dr. fauci did on his very channel earlier today. >> the goalposts keep moving. we know california is having problems, we are talking about additional strains, we all wear our masks, we hope most people are wearing their masks, but now we hear we have to wear too? >> the discussion is changing, not the goalposts. >> laura: we are really stupid, dr. atlas, because it was a discussion all along. it wasn't actually objective metrics. i host a youth tv show, i'm run

michael osterholm is part of the university of minnesota.documented these bottlenecks, it's not getting into people's arms fast enough. what is the biden team doing to ensure that the bottlenecks get loosened, or the obstruction gets unobstructed come january 20th? >> well first of all, thank you for having me. happy new year to you. the biden-harris team is doing a lot to understand how much vaccine will be coming, when it will be coming, and where it is going to go. second is trying to move resources out to the states and local health departments. you have to remember that when the program was launched we spent billions and billions of dollars to make the vaccines, to do the research. but we did very little to help support that last mile, even that last inch. so we have to help support state and local sources. they have not been able to hire people to direct and oversee the clinics in such a way that they run smoothly. >> you say you want to help support local infrastructure, local hospitals, et cetera, what does that mean? does it mean se

i don't know, jim, you talk to people like mike osterholm and he'll say from the strains are this much 50% more transmissible, then they become the dominant strain in the country because they'll crowd out the other strains and more people will become infected. but i think the larger question is will that lead to more hospitalizations and deaths. we don't know the answer to that yet. i think what this says more than anything else, as everybody knows now, that the basic public health tool as comply and it is not just the amount of vaccine out there, it is the pace of the vaccines. because as the virus spreads more and more, it accumulates more and more mutations, most ever those mutations are random. really have no consequence. but every now and then you get a collection of mutations that will make it more transmissible. so we have to outpace the virus with the vaccine. not just in terms of numbers but in terms of speed. >> sanjay, finally regeneron just shared their data. they're saying their covid-19 antibody treatment, this is what the president got, right, former president trump, can

osterholm will be big influencers, i'm sure, in that dialogue. but it's not for the white house and the white house will not interfere with the best scientific answer. >> can the white house tell us, though, whether or not those conversations are being had at the cdc and the fda? >> in my latest conversations with the cdc director, she is very clear that she wants them to be done as what is best. that is the current state of the science, of the analysis, of the disease, and i'm sure that is an evaluation that she continues to make. and the last thing we want to do is confuse the public by saying that there is a, you know, i think people coming in and giving their well thought out opinions. but the cdc and the fda are the authorities here. if you want a first dose, get your appointment for a second dose, it is very important. >> so there are new more infectious variants of the virus. today the south african variant has been found in south carolina. we heard from all of our experts that we're in for a really bad few weeks and couple months because

i want you to listen to what epidemiologist michael osterholm said about the vaccine. >> the surge that'sikely to occur with the next variant is going to happen in the next 6 to 14 weeks and if we see this happen and my 45 years in the trenches tell us we will, we'll see something like we've not seen yet in this country. >> and he also talked about the speeding up and giving the first dose to people as well, so how are you preparing for that scenario, and is that something that you would consider giving more people the first dose of the vaccine? >> well, we are currently giving more people their first dose in every week than we get first doses from the federal government. while it took us a little bit to ramp up like everybody else, now -- two weeks ago we vaccinated 82,511 people with the first dose but only got 56,000 first doses. the issue is supply. we could do 250,000 first doses a week, but, again, we're now scheduled to get about 64,000, and that's every other state as well, but the only thing that's keeping us from defeating this virus next month is the amount of supply we get. no

i want to get your reaction to the comments of michael osterholm. >> the surge that is likely to occur will happen in the next 6 to 14 weeks. if we see that happen which my 45 years in the trenches tells me we will, we will see something like we have not seen glet this country. at 120,000 to 130,000, we saw our health care system on the edge of not being able to provide care. imagine what we have if what has happened in england, twice as many of those cases is what we have to prepare for. >> alarming and scary, a couple words that come to mind as we listen to him. is that what we need to before prepared for in the coming months? >> it feels like we're in the eye of the storm. the reason why is that since we last spoke as you just reported three variants, there has to be more transmissble. two others, the one from south africa and brazil, are thought to not only decrease the effectiveness of some of our therapies, but potentially also affect the efficacy of vaccines. thankfully in all of those vaccine settings is they are still preventing severe disease and hospitalization. the third an

i want to ask you about what michael osterholm. his concern about the new variants and what it could -- what could be coming because of the variants in the next six weeks. what do you think of it? >> i think the u.k. variant has shown to be more contagious. there is not clear evidence it is more virulent. if you look at people who are admitted in the united kingdom to the hospital with a variant or non-variant strain, the mortality rate is the same. but the good news is it is still spread by small droplets and could be prevented by masking and physical distancing. so that is what we need to do. and at least to date we don't see any clear evidence that this variant is likely to escape vaccine induced immunity which would be a major problem. >> absolutely. and also, i wanted to get to what kristin holmes was reported about the question over vaccine distribution. this was a big question for the new cdc director dr. rochelle walensky during the town hall last night. and i want to play what she said and how she explains talks about shot

. >> michael osterholm, we hear your red flags.see them. >> thank you. >> thank you very much for being on "new day." >> thank you. >>> republican house leader kevin mckaecarthy is scheduled meet today with president trump at mar-a-lago. >>> marjorie taylor greene was just put on the education committee. when you switch to xfinity mobile, you're choosing to get connected to the most reliable network nationwide, now with 5g included. discover how to save up to $300 a year with shared data starting at $15 a month, or get the lowest price for one line of unlimited. come into your local xfinity store to make the most of your mobile experience. you can shop the latest phones, bring your own device, or trade in for extra savings. stop in or book an appointment to shop safely with peace of mind at your local xfinity store. >>> house minority leader kevin mccarthy will meet with the former president today in florida. a source tells cnn the meeting was mccarthy's idea and part of a way to get back in the former president's good graces. mcca

michael osterholm, director for infect infectious research. already exhausted, dashing hopes expanded access. so we'll lee lease it all, but there is really no more to release. how do you fix that? >> first of all, let me just say that this is a surprise to all of us in the biden team and public health in general. in short i think the way that i can best summarize this right now is that the biden team on january 20th is inheriting a mess in terms of vaccine distribution. and so what we have to do is go back and basically fix that. the way we'll do that is, first of all, manage expectations. we're where we might be when you have a plan if distribution which they didn't do. it is coming, but i like -- i want my vaccine dose. i can't get it because we don't have enough doses yet. we haven't matched up reality oe and what can be done. and the numbers saying that there are still a lot of doeszs that have not been administered, many have been allocated to one of two companies that have varks natures the long term care facilities or already in hospit

michael osterholm, the director of the center for infectious disease research. thank you, sir.people are hurting during this pandemic. medicaid enrollment has jumped. there's about 15 million uninsured people who could now get coverage on the exchanges. does that help in this war on the virus? >> it absolutely helps on this war, and we need more. right now so many small businesses and people who work in those small businesses are suffering mightily. we want them to do the right thing, and i think small businesses want to do the right thing. they don't want to be open and transmitting the virus when we see the levels of virus like we've recently seen in our communities. so anything congress can do to help move forward the president's plan will help us immensely out here in the field. >> two cases of the south african coronavirus variant have been discovered in south carolina, and officials say the two adults had no travel history, no connection to each other. it is clear that this is spreading in this country. should another lockdown be imposed? >> well, first of all, when we ta

here's mike osterholm, one of joe biden's advisers, explaining what that revolution was like. >> we weree learned that in fact there weren't these extra doses of vaccine being held back for a second dose. something that significant only to find out last friday makes you very concerned there's still more to be learned that you don't know that's going to create a real challenge as we go forward over the weeks ahead. >> and this is what the team is grappling with. they can write as many plans as they want but in a matter of hours, joe biden is going to be in charge of this enormous health crisis and that means g grieving with the hundreds of thousands of americans who died and families and get us out of this mess with relatively limited information so far, anderson. >> there's obviously huge concern over the rollout thus far of the vaccines. >> absolutely. i mean, we've seen this has gone at a much slower pace than anyone expected. certainly a much slower pace than we heard from operation warp speed. leaving it up to the states means everyone is trying different things and there isn't great

osterholm says, don't get too complacent or too encouraged by the decrease in the hospitalizations, because look where we are going in terms of our baseline. we are not dropping down to 40,000 a day. we are just dropping down a little bit. in all likelihood, those numbers are going to go up as well. just by sheer number, as soon as you have a more contagious bug or more transmissible bug, the number of hospitalizations will increase. remember, if younger people are getting sick and if the variant, for example, is not as virulent, they may not end up in the hospital. it's one metric, but it's not science. >> thank you. >>> president biden, vice president harris at the white house, getting an economic briefing with treasury secretary janet yellen. let's listen. >> advisors to former president trump and george bush. i have been meeting all morning with other folks as well. the notion here is we would have to act now. there's no time for any delay. so we can end up with 4 million fewer jobs according to a wall street firm. it could take a year longer to return to full employment if we don't act

michael osterholm. >> we still want to get two doses in everyone but i think right now in advance of the surge we need to get as many one doses in as many people over 65 as we possibly can. to reduce the serious illness and deaths that are going to occur over the weeks ahead. >> doctor, what is your take on perhaps delaying second doses of vaccines so that more people can get the first dose? >> i think it's a bad idea. it is a two dose vaccine. you get much better and much longer lasting immunity with the second dose. if you get one dose where you have lesser immunity and more time goes by, two months, three months, four months say, actually all you do is promote the creation of variants. i think the biden administration has made it very clear this is a two dose vaccine and they want to stick to the science. although one could get the second dose say six weeks after the first which is three weeks longer than you would typically for the pfizer vaccine or two weeks for the moderna vaccine this is a two dose vaccine and we need to know that and we can do that. i am optimistic we can do

osterholm on might the "meet the press" giving us a reminder of the snowballing coronavirus cases we'reing across the country. one city dealing with serious fallout over its distribution plan is philadelphia where a group of college students trusted to run the city's vaccination efforts has been severed by the health department after the 22-year-old ceo admitted to taking advantage seen doses and administering them to his buddies, to his friends. pennsylvania is still working through vaccinating phase 1-a of those eligible with frontline health care workers saying there isn't enough supply to keep up with demand. joining me now is amy crawford vice chair of the primary care institute at allegheny health network. thank you so much for joining us. so i guess the big question, and i'm sorry to start off with this, but it is why we have you on, which is what is going on in the state of pennsylvania. you have most states across the country now into phase two, but it seems as if at this point pennsylvania only has about half the allocated decembers being administered so far. >> thanks for hav

osterholm said, and we all realized, there's a possibility that with the variants here, we may have a dominance of those strains that tend to transmit more efficiently. the best thing you can do about that is to continue to uniformly adhere to the public health recommendations that we've spoken about time and again, from the wearing of masks to the washing of hands, to avoiding congregant settings. that's the kind of thing that prevents surges, regardless of what the type of virus, the mutant of virus of what have you is there. that together with an increase in the rollout of vaccines is the thing that we should be concentrating on. >> okay. we have much more of that in a moment, but we also have breaking news overnight. the biden administration rolling out new executive orders to try to fix the economic crisis. president biden is pushing for things like a $15 minimum wage for federal workers in this $1.9 trillion stimulus package. but this morning, lawmakers have yet to even agree on the rules that will govern the senate. >> all right. i want to get the latest on coronavirus and what

epidemiologist michael osterholm is saying he has reviewed a u k report and he says he's also seen other data not publicly available and he is convinced that this variant is deadlier. dr. yasmin, have you seen any of this data? >> i don't know specifically what he is talking about but i will break it down this way. when you look at the new variant that was first identified in the uk and you kind of analyze it, you do see that it spreads more easily between people. on the face of it, it doesn't look like that variant does anything different to the body. it doesn't seem to make us sicker or increase the likelihood of dying from infection. but then if you have a virus that's more transmissible and say on average one person infects another person but with the new variant they infect two more people and those two infect two more, right, the spread just becomes so much bigger. so even if you're saying that the virus itself isn't more deadly, if you are spreading it a lot easier, if it is spreading to more people, of course some of those people are going to get severely sick. of course some of

this was something michael osterholm and a lot of people warned about, that anti-vaxxers would take advantage of situations like this. how do you counterprogram this? >> you know, chuck, it's a great point. it's a great concern. i mean, i understand, in some people's minds, it's ironic that we have a lot of people who want to get the vaccine and can't get it, and why are we worried about the people who don't want to get the vaccine? well, we have to worry about those people, because unless we can reduce vaccine hesitancy, unless we can get all americans to take this vaccine, we're going to continue to see covid be a problem in our country. so, we have appointed a task force -- first of all, one focused on health equity. we know a lot of hesitancy is located in communities of color. we're going to tackle that problem with trusted communicators, with direct on-the-ground communication to try to win over those people who are vaccine hesitant. we're going to, obviously, try to work with the social media companies to lessen the amount of this information that's available online and get the truth o

. >> michael osterholm, we hear you loudly and clearly.ding the alarm like you always have on the program. >> thank you. >>> we want to remember some of the nearly 400,000 americans lost to coronavirus. father renee ridias died just two and a half days after diagnosis. the utah catholic priest immigrated from the philippines in 2007. members of his flock in ogdon remember him as joyous, caring and prone to spontaneously breaking into song during his sermons. he was just 58 years old. james dankis manager in north carolina where he worked at a big box in 20 years. he was proud of the souls he saved. his wife and children remember him as a loving, outgoing man who cared about others and always wearing this goofy grin, they say. he was just 48 years old. el paso police detective cam reno santiago worked for the department for 24 years and is its first coronavirus casualty. former colleagues recall his good heart and dry sense of humor. santiago was 67 and planned to retire at the end of this month. we'll be right back. ♪ new year's resolution

don't expect cases to drop too low warns infectious disease expert michael osterholm. >> i think this is why it's concerning why the race we have between the virus and the variants and the vaccine administration right now is so critical. >> reporter: getting the vaccine to underserved communities is also critical. and that's what dr. richard bates is doing here in michigan. usually twice a week, dr. bates loads a cooler full of vaccines in his pickup truck and drives 2 1/2 hours north to a hospital in rural alpena where they're immediately administered. that's because alpena doesn't have the freezers needed to store the vials. so from the moment he drops them off ththey have fiveve days to themem. >> i need d to be there for the clinic, it's my community, and i'll go. >> reporter: bates is a hospital administrator at mid-michigan health but before that he was an ob/gyn right here in alpena. after delivering babies for 25 years he says the joy of delivering vaccines is the same. >> seeing the look on people's' faces just like i did when i handed off newborn babies. you know, a baby tha

that is our goal and i'll support however we can make that work >> michael osterholm, thanks for youradition with a very special laos bon gactenyr wein going to surprise us. than we do. workday. how do they make better decisions faster? workday. got to do something. workday! i think i got something. work... hey, rob, you're on mute. hello. [all] hey... there he is. workday, the finance, hr, and planning system for a changing world. ♪ch-ch-changes they were able to give me a personal loan so i could pay off all of my credit cards. i got my mortgage through sofi and the whole process was so easy. ♪ express yourself ♪ ♪ express yourself ♪ >>> blackstone's byron wein is out with his top surprises for 2021 featuring everything from an embrace of monetary theory to trump tv and a -- with china and somehow just missing the top 10 as a prediction of tesla byron joins us now vice president of blackstone solutions. i don't even want to talk about 2020 the sofs black swannish and out of the rel of anything predicted that let's just forget about it and do this year's i know that joe's -- seydeled

i talked to mike osterholm who agrees this poses a real problem.izes how we need to do the vaccinations more quickly. we've been hearing the biden team is concerned about the plan that is left in place. i am very eager to get to hear from them as they have said they are going to get in there and get an inventory of what the situation is, where all the dose red wings and start to give more clear guidance that is something we've heard from states and hospitals. we need to know where they are and they can plan. in new york city thousands of people are getting their appointments canceled because they ran out of vaccines better planning and better use of data we'll be eager to hear from the team how they plan to manage that. >> i think that's a huge concern. the new york city issue where they're running out of it versus new jersey where they have hundreds of thousands of doses that are sitting on the shelf because they're waiting. they have been guaranteed to people who are going to be vaccinated in nursing homes, which you understand you want them vacc