. >> joining me now, correspondent priscilla thompson in michigan, and the manager of opportunity labs, dr. ramirez, he served as pandemic and emerging threats coordinator at hhs during the obama administration, and a warning to both of you if the president comes out i will have to interrupt you. let's get right into this. priscilla, tell us what you can about what we're going to see. >> reporter: katy, michigan has been the leading the country for the past several weeks in terms of covid-19 cases, and, you know, in the past -- in recent days they have seen some of their highest numbers since december in terms of new cases per day, and you mentioned president biden will be speaking about expanding vaccine access and that's something michigan did just this week, allowing anybody over the age of 16 to receive that vaccine. that is really important from what we are hearing from health care workers here at a hospital in lansing, the farrow hospital here in lansing, because patients in the emergency beds are 18 to 49, and people who prior to this week did not have access to the vaccine, and

priscilla thompson, you are posted up there. talk about what's on his agenda. this is an important state for the president and obviously control of the senate in congress it was, and now you've got the president really trying to emphasize the first stop of his sort of post-speech tour there. >> absolutely, hallie. the president is commemorating the big day by making several stops here in georgia, a state that for the first time in nearly two decades sent a democrat to the white house when voters chose joe biden in november, and not only did they do that, but they also sent two democratic senators to washington to help joe biden pursue his agenda. this is no doubt in part a thank you to the voters of georgia who helped to do all of that. we know that the president is first going to stop in plains, georgia, and meet with former president and fellow democrat jimmy carter and his wife rose lin carter. the president will head to gwinnett county, one of those diversifying suburbs of atlanta that was really crucial to the president's win here in the state. it was form

>> priscilla thompson in atlanta. on moms lost their jobs during the pandemic. we'll break down the president's plan to get these women back to work. >>> the country might be opening back up but vaccinations have slowed down. what that might mean in the face of a pandemic. stay with us. stay with us [sizzling] i may not be able to tell time, but i know what time it is. [whispering] it's grilled cheese o'clock. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ the light. ♪ it comes from within. it drives you. and it guides you. to shine your brightest. ♪ as you charge ahead. illuminating the way forward. a light maker. recognizing that the impact you make comes from the energy you create. introducing the all-electric lyriq. lighting the way. ♪ not all 5g networks are created equal. lighting♪the way. t-mobile america's largest and fastest 5g network. you can't plan for your period's... what the gush moments. but the right pad can. only always ultra thins have rapiddry technology and, they absorb 40% faster. the gush happens fast. that's why always absorbs

officials say, they are working to get shots into arms, as quickly as humanly possible nbc's priscilla thompson live outside a vaccination site at ford field priscilla? >> shep, state officials are saying vaccinating young people is now crucial to their plan in curving those covid spikes and that is because of the data that is coming out, among that group, specifically. among children, under the age of 10, the average-covid cases have risen by 230%, since mid-february and the second-highest spike was seen among the group, ages 10 to 19 years old seeing a 227% increase so, very concerning numbers. and consider this. 40% of all of the outbreaks, the clusters, that this state is seeing, are coming from schools and youth sports now, i spoke to a number of parents, today, who came to get their teens vaccinated, as soon as they were eligible. take a listen to what one mom shared with me >> knowing that my son is going to go after spring break, back into a school environment where, probably, a lot of people have been traveling it is concerning it is very scary, to think about our kids, our most-valuab

. >>> i will turn live to priscilla thompson in michigan, a state that has seen an 116% increase in cases over the past two weeks. priscilla 116% sounds scary but up from what? where with they two weeks ago and what's the latest on hospitalizations? >> yes, stephanie, two weeks ago michigan was leading the country in new covid cases. at that time it was around 105% increase over the previous 2 weeks and, of course, now that number is higher. in fact, this weekend the state saw its highest daily count of new cases since december. so those numbers are not moving in the right direction. hospitalizations are up. the death rate is also trending up and very concerning, of course. this comes after the state began reopening in february and what we've heard from the governor recently is that new restrictions are not going to be the answer to turning this around but the focus really is on making sure folks continue to wear those masks, keep those safety precautions up and getting folks vaccinated, getting those shots into arms. this week michigan did expand vaccine access to anyone over the age of

i want to go live to priscilla thompson in georgia, where officials there have just announced they're down several state-run vaccination sites as demand increases. priscilla, i don't understand this, georgia is at the bottom, ranking 47th in the nation for percentage of people vaccinated. why would they be shutting down sites? >> state officials say they're going to be shifting their priorities away from these state-run mass vaccination sites, focusing instead on giving those resources to community sites, community clinics that may be able to better distribute those vaccines. throughout this time, georgia has pretty consistently found itself at the bottom of this list. months into the rollout, public health experts here are saying it's really vaccine hesitancy and that access issue that is driving that low vaccination rate. the new data we have shows that 26% of white evangelicals said they will not get the vaccine and 41% of republicans say the same. i spoke to ralph reed, founder of the chairman of the faith and freedom coalition here. take a listen to what he said -- >> i think wha

this and bring in nbc's monica alba near the white house, leigh ann caldwell on capitol hill, priscilla thompson in georgia, where the president is heading later today and eugene daniels, political white house correspondent and co-author of the politico playbook. monica, 100 days in and the president has now laid out an extremely ambitious agenda. one problem with that agenda, you've got to execute on it. government isn't normally very good of that, irrelevant of who's in power. how is he going to get all of this done? >> ambitious and aggressive is absolutely right, steph. that's why you heard the president last night spend more than 19 minutes of his speech talking about the priorities and how he sees the path to getting them accomplished. but what we also heard last night were new deadlines. the white house expecting to have a lot more major progress on the american jobs plan, that's infrastructure, of course, by memorial day. but we also got a sense of a brand-new deadline that the president is setting, urging lawmakers to really get police reform done and across the finish line by passing t

in lansing, here's nbc news' priscilla thompson. >> reporter: shep, michigan has been leading the country in new coronavirus cases for the past several weeks, and in the last 24 hours, the state has reported more than 11,000 new covid cases. that is the highest single-day record since this pandemic began more than a year ago and doctors here at sparrow health tell me that the majority of patients that are filling their hospital beds right now are not those older patients that we saw early on in the pandemic but they are people under the age of 50, those who have not yet had an opportunity to be vaccinated yet now, the good news is michigan this week has expanded their vaccine eligibility to include anyone over the age of 16, and doctors and elected officials are hopeful this could help to curb some of those numbers but many folks tell us it will get worse here before it gets better take a listen to what one doctor shared with us. >> if our predictions continue to hold, we will significantly exceed the peak we had before. so part of us in our leadership role is to remind people of the real