walensky.r. walensky: thank you so much. i'm glad to be back with you. i have new information to share from cdc regarding ongoing safety monitoring of the covid-19 vaccines. but before i go into those findings, i want to provide a brief overview of the latest development on the pandemic. we continue to see a five-week decline in cases, decreasing 69 cases in the seven-day average since hitting a peek on january 11th. the current seven-day average of approximately 77,000 cases is the lowest reported since the end of october, but still higher than the height of last summer's peak. like new covid-19 cases, the number of new hospital admissions continues to drop. the seven-day average of new admissions on february 16th, approximately 7,200, represents a 56% decline since the january 9th peak. as i reported on wednesday, the number of deaths continues to fluctuate. the latest data indicates that deaths have declined modestly in the past week to an average of approximately 2,700 per day. these number

walensky. i'm going to talk for a few minutes today. i'm updating you on where we are on some selected therapeutics for covid-19. so if we can move ahead to my first slide. in general, when one thinks of therapeutics, you think of them as therapeutics for early or moderate disease versus therapeutics for moderate-to-advanced disease. clearly, the strategy early on is to block the replication of virus and prevent it from going from the upper airway to the lungs and other organ systems. however, we have found, through experience over the past many months, that when one gets advanced disease, the hyper or aberrant inflammatory or immunological response gives as much to the morbidity and mortality as the actual virus replication itself. and in that regard, a variety of drugs have been tested. one, such as remdesivir, has gained fda approval. its effect is clear but modest. when regard to getting early intervention, monoclonal antibodies, both from lilly and from regeneron, have received emergency u

walensky. dr. walensky: thank you so much. i'm glad to be back with you. i have new information to share from cdc regarding ongoing safety monitoring of the covid-19 vaccines. but before i go into those findings, i want to provide a brief overview of the latest development on the pandemic. we continue to see a five-week decline in cases, decreasing 69 % in the seven-day average since hitting a peek on january 11th. the current seven-day average of approximately 77,000 cases is the lowest reported since the end of october, but still higher than the height of last summer's peak. like new covid-19 cases, the number of new hospital admissions continues to drop. the seven-day average of new admissions on february 16th, approximately 7,200, represents a 56% decline since the january 9th peak. as i reported on wednesday, the number of deaths continues to fluctuate. the latest data indicates that deaths have declined modestly in the past week to an average of approximately 2,700 per day. these numbers

walensky. dr. walensky -- for state of the pandemic. dr. walensky. >> thank you very much. i'm delighted to be back with you today, and i want to make sure we have time for questions, so i will be brief in my remarks. as i said monday, cases and hospitalizations continue to decrease. and we now appear to be in a consistent downward trajectory for both of those important outcomes. covid-19 cases have declined steadily since hitting a peak on january 18th, dropping 13.4% to an average of nearly 144,000 cases per day from january 26th to february 1st. cases are now back to the level we were before thanksgiving. similarly, new hospital admissions have continued to decline since they peaked on january 5th, decreasing 4.1% to an average of approximately 11,400 admissions per day from january 25th to january 31st. while deaths have continued to increase, the pace appears to be slowing, with the average number of deaths increasing 1% to slightly more than 3,100 deaths per day from january 26th to febru

walensky. dr. walensky: thank you. let's first begin with an overview of the data, and then i want to briefly discuss with you what we know about recently detected covid-19 variants and what we are doing in response. covid cases have been declining now for five weeks. the seven day average has decreased nearly 22% to an average of slightly more than 86,000 cases per day. similarly, hospitalizations have been a climbing -- have been declining since early january, averaging approximately 7700 admissions per day. we continue to see the daily number of reported deaths fluctuate. the latest data so i decline to an average of 376 deaths per day. these are a painful reminder of all of those that we have lost and continue to lose to this pandemic. while cases and hospitalizations continued to move in the right direction, we remain in the midst of a very serious pandemic , and continue to have more cases than we did even during last summer's peak. it could jeopardize the progress we have made in the last month if we let our gua

walensky. i would like to address two issues that have come up for discussion over the last several days, and one is the question of, given the fact that there is a greater demand than there is supply, should we be putting all of our effort into getting the first dose into people with less emphasis on the second dose? the reason for that, i have explained in the past, because the science has shown in both of the vaccines we have available, the moderna and the pfizer, the strong data indicates that a prime boost gives a response of 95% efficacy, but the question has arisen, why not study in detail whether or not you can get away with a single dose? it is not an unreasonable thing to suggest a study. the only issue is that the practicality of that really makes that a situation that i do not think is able to be done for the following reason. if you look at the number of people that would be required in the study to answer the question, one versus two, with the currently available vaccines, the tim

walensky. subject thank you so much i'm glad to be back with you today. i have new information to share cdc regarding ongoing safety monitoring of the covid 19 vaccine. but before i go into those findings want to provide a brief overview. we continue to see a five week case is being increased 69% in the seven day average. the current seven day average of approximately 77000 cases is the lowest recorded since the end of october. but still higher than the height of last week. like new speakers the hospital admissions need to drop the seven day average on february 16 at proximally 7200 represents a 56% decline since january 9. : : . dropping by a full year compared to 2019. this represents a substantial decline in life expectancy in our nation. importantly, like the populations most affected by this pandemic the decline in life expectancy is most pronounced in certain racial and ethnic minority groups. the largest declines in life expectancy occurred in non-hispanic white persons dropping 2.7 year

walensky. >> thank you very much. i'm delighted to be back with you today. i want to make sure we have time for questions, so i will be brief in my remarks. as i said monday, cases and hospital admissions continue to decrease. we now appear to be in a consistent downward trajectory for both of these important outcomes. covid-19 cases have declined steadily since hitting a peak on january 8th, dropping 13.4% to an average of nearly 144,000 cases per day from january 26 to february 1st. cases are now back to the level we were before thanksgiving. similarly, new hospital admissions have continued to decline since they peaked on january 5th, decreasing 4.1% to an average of approximately 11,400 admissions per day from january 25th to january 31st. while deaths have continued to increase, the pace appears to be slowing with the average number of deaths increasing 1% to slightly more than 3,100 deaths per day from january 26th to february 1st. the recent decline in hospitalizations gives us hope that

walensky. >> thank you so much, andy. i'm glad to be back joining you today. today i'm going to give you a brief update on the pandemic. as i mentioned on friday, despite trending moving in the right direction, we remain in a serious situation. covid-19 continues to affect too many people as we continue to mourn all of those lives that have been lost. cases have continued to decline over the last four weeks. an average of 119,900 new cases were reported between january 31st and february 6th. that's a drop of nearly 20% from the prior week. but still higher than last summer's peak. we must continue to drive cases down. new covid-19 hospital admissions also continued to decline. an average of 9,977 admissions per day were reported between january 30th and february 5th, a decline of nearly 17% from the week prior. this is promising but hospitalizations also remain incredibly high. over 83,000 americans are hospitalized right now with covid-19. much higher than the summer and fall. today, we are re

walensky: it's a great question. have tried to do with this new guidance is to take the extensive literature that has occurred from september through now where we had experiences from other schools, from other countries to see what the science says and how we can do so safely. it's not just that we need to include these mitigation measures, but they're hard to do, so some of them suggest, for example, diagnostic testing and contact tracing within 48 hours of a contact to ensure that people can be properly isolated and quarantined, so really it's a layered mitigation approach and what was put forward in this guidance is the road map to get us there. >> chris: but to just press on this issue, even your cdc guidelines, if you have proper mitigation in place, is there any reason why a public school district needs to shut down for the better part of a year? >> dr. walensky: so -- we need to make sure the k-5 schools and the density is down when part of the reason they haven't been able to open is because we hadn't previou

walensky. >> i'm glad to be back to show the latest updates on the state of the pandemic. overall, while we continue to see decreases in covid-19 cases and hospital admissions, that is also in continuing to rise. cases remain elevated levels so let's start with the cases. january 30, 25.9 million cases had been reported to the cdc. during the week of january 24 to january 30, is seven day average increased 14.5% to 149,000 cases per day. the seven day average of new hospital admissions for patients with covid-19 during the week of the 23rd through the 29th decreased 14.6% to 11,800 admissions per day. however, 85,655 people were hospitalized with covid-19 january 29. through january 30 438,035 deaths have been reported to the cdc. during the week of january 24 to january 30, the seven day average of deaths increased 2.4% to 3,146 per day. while the rates are encouraging they are counterbalanced by the reality that, in january, we recorded the highest number of covid-19 that's then any month sin

walensky tried to hammer this point home. we cannot let our guard down as far as wearing masks, social distancing. so they didn't say it out right, like this, i think, but states that are letting their guards down now are making a huge mistake for all of us. >> especially one that focus continues to be on so many -- in so many places the need to get children back in school and in person. they have to bring the community spread rates down. doctor, thank you. appreciate your perspective. >>> we have breaking news coming in. very sad breaking news. congressman ron wright, his office has just announced that he paz passed away after a battle with the coronavirus. the texas republican congressional office just announced that he passed away yesterday at the age of 67. his wife susan by his side according to the statement. he was admitted to baylor hospital in texas after testing positive for covid. just a couple of weeks ago. he had long battled cancer and we now know that he has passed away from coronavirus. we're so sorry for his

walensky. >> thank you very much. i'm glad to be back with you today. let's start with a snapshot of the pandemic. the united states continues to see a decrease in covid-19 cases since its peak on january 8th. the number of new cases on february 3rd approximately 121,000 represents a 61% decrease since the peak on january 8th. similarly, the number of new hospital admissions reporting on february 2nd, approximately 10,500 was down nearly 42% since the hospitalization peak of 18,000 reported on january 5th. on wednesday, i noted the peak -- the pace of deaths appears to be slowing and that we anticipated deaths would start to decrease in the coming weeks. early data suggests now we're starting to see the decrease with the seven day average number of deaths declining 6.7% to slightly more than 3,000 deaths per day from january 28th through february 3rd. while we watch these data closely to see if these will be a confirmed trend, prior data do suggest that peaks and depth trail the peaks in cases

walensky. >> thank you very much. i'm delighted to be back with you today. i want to make sure we have time for questions. i will be brief in my remarks. as i said monday, cases and hospital admissions continue to decrease. we are in a consistent downward trajectory for these. covid-19 cases have declined steadily since hitting a peak on january 8, dropping 13.4% to an average of nearly 144,000 cases per day from january 26 to february 1. cases are now back to the level we were before thanksgiving. similarly, new hospital admissions have continued to decline since they peaked on january 5th, decreasing 4.1% to an average of approximately 11,400 admissions per day from january 25th to january 31st. while deaths have continued to increase, the pace appears to be slowing with the average number of deaths increasing 1% to slightly more than 3,100 deaths per day from january 26 to february 1. the recent decline in hospitalizations gives us hope that the number of deaths should start to decrease in t

walensky, anything you want to add? dr. walensky: those authorized now have two doses in the trial. when you follow the science and rolling out the vaccines, that is our intent, 21 days is what was done for the pfizer trial and 28 days in the moderna trial. there are concerns if we do not go with what was done in the trial that the vaccine will be left durable and will not work for as long. and then of course we have the concern we would see the emergence of more variants because the virus was allowed to mutate. until we have further data, and there are data being found, but until we have further data, we intend to follow the trials and the science to say 21 days for two doses of pfizer and 28 days for two doses of moderna. andy: thank you next question, please. >> next we will go to sabrina at "the wall street journal." >> thank you so much for doing this. you have signaled you are encouraged by the developments of the johnson & johnson vaccine. i was wondering, if approved, how does that get incorporated into your administration's distribution framework with respect to the timetab

walensky. i would like to address three different points briefly and then we can lead that for questions and discussions. as you know last week with the data that came out from the j&j vaccine trial, as well as information from the novavax trial, i think it is important for people to appreciate we have three separate vaccine lat forms, mrna, soluble protein, and viral vectors, in the mix right now. obviously j&j will be putting their information into the fda for an application for emergency use authorization. the reason i bring this up is because as these things roll out, they will have different degrees of what is called point vaccine efficacy. we know we had a 72% overall efficacy in the united states for the j&j, but important to point out when people ask about the difference between 72% and 94%, 95% with moderna at pfizer's when you look at serious disease, hospitalizations and death, it has had a profound affect on that. as we get into the next weeks and months and more vaccines come out t

walensky. >> the united states continues to see a decrease in covid-19 cases since its peak on january 8th. the number of new cases on february 3rd, approximately 121,000, represents a 61% decrease since the peak on january 8th. similarly, the number of new hospital admissions reported on february 2nd, approximately 10,500, was down nearly 42% since the hospitalization peak of 18,000 reported on january 5th. on wednesday, i noted the peak -- the pace of deaths appears to be slowing and that we anticipated deaths would start to decrease in the coming weeks. early data suggests now we are starting to see this decrease with a seven-day average number of deaths declining 6.7% to slightly more than 3,000 deaths per day from january 28th through february 3rd. while we watch these data closely to see if these will be a confirmed trend, prior data do suggest that peaks in deaths usually trail the peaks in cases by somewhere between nine and 20 days. however, we also may see variation in the daily numbe

walensky. >> thank you so much. i'm glad to be back with you today. let's get started on an overview of the pandemic. over the last few weeks, cases and hospital admissions had been coming down since early january. deaths had been declining in the past week. the latest data suggests that these declines may be stalling. potentially leveling off at a high number. we consider this a concerning shift. the most recent seven day average of cases, approximately 66,350, is higher than the average i shared with you on wednesday. in fact, cases have been increasing for the past three days compared to the prior week. while deaths tend to fluctuate more than cases and hospital admissions, the most recent seven day average, 2,000 per day, is slightly higher than the seven day average earlier in the week. we are watching these concerning data closely to see where they will go over the next few days. it's important to remember where we are in the pandemic. things are tenuous. now is not the time to relax rest

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walensky and a great relationship with who. it's hard to elaborate in great length anything on what people have said. i would like to add that if we think about what we need to invest in to end this epidemic and to be sure that we are ready for the next one because this isn't the last one , history shows us there will be another we need to ensure we one. don't forget to invest in human capital. we can develop money to sequence viruses and transport specimens and manufacture them but as oliver pointed out it is the prepared mind that is often in the right place to quickly recognize there is a problem. one of the issues we've seen with the sequences is we are boosting thousands of sequences and they are being uploaded to databases that everyone in the world has access to, but the skill of the person, the number of people skilled to interpret those data meaningfully is right now very few. they are working hard, but that's an investment we can't forget to leave behind. the other one that i like to call the silent problem that you d

walensky. i would like to address three separate points very briefly and then we can leave that open for questions and discussions. as you know, last week with the data that came out from the j&j janssen vaccine trial as well as information from the novavax trial, i think it's important for people to appreciate that we now have the three separate vaccine platforms. obviously, the j&j will be putting their information into the fda for an application for an emergency use authorization. the reason i bring this up is that as these things roll out, they will have different degrees of what's called point vaccine efficacy. we know we had a 72% overall efficacy in the united states for the j&j. point out, when people ask about the difference between 72% and 94% with the moderna and pfizer, is when you look at serious disease, hospitalizations and deaths, it has had a profound affect on that. as we get into the next weeks and months and more vaccines come out, there may be different -- there will be com

rochelle walensky. we'll bring you that as soon as it begins. this comes at a critical point in the fight against the virus. as experts are warning that the country is now in a race against time and also simultaneously at a cross roads. with new variants popping up across the country and a vaccine distribution effort that is still plagued with delays and uncertainty. leading one top infectious disease expert to warn of this. >> the fact is that the surge that is likely to occur with this new variant from england is going to happen in the next six to 14 weeks. and if we see that happen, which my 45 years in the trefnches tel us we will, we will r going to see something take we've not seen in this country. >> after the year that we've been through. at the same time the extreme financial toll that the pandemic has taken on almost every american is also in the spotlight today. in just a few hours ten republican senators will be meeting with president biden at the white house to talk about the covid relief package that he's been pushing. the group of

walensky: thank you for that question. i think it is probably too early to reflect on what is happening with the mask order now because we have a lot of things that have happened at the same time. for instance, is the case that cases are coming down, and i think the mask order is helping protect people and having cases coming down, but what is also happening is we are coming off of the case bumped from the holidays so a lot of things are happening at once. we are going to be watching the mask data very carefully. as i mentioned, what will be coming out today did demonstrate in 10 states when mask orders were in place, after three weeks, rates went down so i think it is too early to tell, but i'm encouraged with the decreasing case rates right now. andy: ok, well, thank you all for attending this briefing and other briefings this week. we think it was a productive week here. the team is working incredibly hard and we are very cognizant of the fact that public is eager to get their vaccinations and move beyond this pandemic.

. >> were having a little bit of technical difficulty, why don't we go to doctor walensky, sort through those difficulties and we will come back to you at the end for you to complete your remarks so let's go to doctor walensky on the state of the pandemic. >> thanks to all of you for being with us today area emissions continue to fall. debts have decreased slightly in the last seven days and we are watching the state of the coronavirus closely. because cases and deaths remain high and because we are still losing more than 1000 americans daily to this disease , we must continue to take every action we can to protect our loved ones and our communities. one of the simple things we can all do, one thing that will make the biggest difference is to wear a mask. i know some of you are both tired ofhearing about masks as well as tired of wearing them . masks can be cumbersome. they can be inconvenient and i also know many of you still have questions about masks. you may be unsure if they work and whether two masks are better than one. we've learned a lot about masks over the last year. today i

walensky. >> thank you. i'm so glad to be back with you today to share the latest information on the status of the pandemic. let's first begin with an overview of the data, and then i want to briefly discuss with you what cdc knows about recently detected covid-19 varnts and what we're doing in response. covid-19 cases have been declining for five weeks. the seven-day average in the past week, cases have decreased nearly 22% to an average of slightly more than 86,000 cases per day. similarly, new hospital admissions have been consistently declining since early january with a 21% decline in the seven-day average over the past week averaging approximately 7,700 admissions her day. we continue to see the daily number of reported deaths fluctuate. the latest data indicate deaths declined by 0.6% to an average of 3,076 deaths per day from february 9 to february 15. these numbers are a painful reminder of all those we have lost and continue to lose, our family members, our friends, our neighbors and

in a moment, walensky will discuss this. all of this is not only the whole of government response with you to leverage the best exiting resources outside of government to end this pandemic as quickly as possible. and our third phase, the public education campaign will be time for maximum effectiveness and designed based on beau our learnings and take full advantage of the participation of many throughout the country. so with that i'll turn it over to dr. walensky and then to dr. fauci and then we'll take your questions. >> thank you. i'm glad to be back with you today. we continue to see trends head in the right direction. but cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain at very high levels. covid-19 in the united states has been declining for five weeks with the seven-day average dropping 74% since the peak seven-day average on january 11th. the current seven-day average, approximately 66,000 cases per day, is similar tom seen in last summer's peak. cases remain significantly elevated. and the seven-day average for new hospita

walensky said. this should be forthcoming hopefully within the next day or two, together with the recommendations about how it is to be utilized. in addition, on this particular slide, there are other candidates that have fulfilled enrollment and we're looking forward with them, too. the bottom line is that the more vaccines that have high efficacy, that we could get into play, the better there is. next slide. now one of the things that was mentioned by dr. walensky is the fact that we have variants that are in play. we have the 117 increasing in its prevalence now in the country with modeling telling us that by the end of march, it might be the overwhelming candidate for -- not candidate but the overwhelming strain that is actually spreading. we also have the others that dr. walensky mentioned, the 427 in california, the 526 in new york. we must address these. there are a couple of ways of doing that. let's take a look at the 351 which was originally in south africa and not dominant here in the uni

all handed over to doctor walensky for any further comment. >> thank you dr. fauci i don't have aha lot to add except the c is actively looking at the questions and what some of the data that has been emerging as we found these variants in the contact tracing we are finding that people will not take the primary measures of any masks or distancing. i think thatop is really against the variance to do the masks and social distancing and you'll get more from coming from the cdc with double masking. >> all remind everybody his first day in office president biden signed an executive order requiring mask wearing an all federal buildings and federal aplaces. in public transportation, utinterstate travel and that is part of a nationwide 100 day mask challenge. the president is asking everybody to mask up for the next 100 days and the estimates that will save over 50000 lives, masking up is one of the things all-american should be doing. >> we have time for one more question with mbs radio. >> thank you for doing this i have two questions, the first one the variant in t

walensky.thank you. i'm glad to be back with you today to share the latest information on the status of the pandemic. let's first begin with an overview of the data. then i want to briefly discuss with you what cdc knows about recently detected covid-19 variants and what we're doing in response. cases have been declining for five weeks. the seven-day average in the past week, cases have decreased nearly 22% to an average of slightly more than 86,000 cases per day. similarly, new hospital admissions have been declining since early january with a 21% decline in the seven-day average over the past week. averaging approximately 7,700 admissions per day. we see the daily number of reported deaths fluctuate. the latest data indicate deaths declined by 0.6% to an average of 3,076 deaths per day from february 9th to february 15th. these numbers are a painful reminder that we have -- of all those we lost and continue to lose, our family members, our friends, our neighbors and our co-workers to this pand

rochelle walensky, the new director of the centers for disease control. ma'am, i'll just say it right now, thank you for what you're doing. and i am -- i will reiterated how intimidated i am by the task ahead of you. but the task ahead of you. but i'll also tell you if you get stepped on and you and the scientists at the cdc for any reason feel you're not able to lead with public health or not able to say what needs to be done. which i don't expect but if it happens please know you have an open door here to tell the public what's going on, and you'll not believe how much support you'll get for scientific freedom if there's any political trammel on what you're doing. >> i certainly hope to be back and i don't hope or anticipate it'll be for that reason. >> i look forward to having you back. good luck to you. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> all right. we'll be right back. stay with us. you >> all right we'll be right back. stay with us what a messed up- only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ trelegy for copd. ♪ birds flyin'

walensky. i'm going to talk for a few minutes and updating you on where we are on selected therapy petics for covid-19, so if we can move ahead to my first slide. in general when one thinks of therapeutics, you think of them as their petics for early or moderate disease versus therapeutics for moderate to advanced disease. clearly the strategy early on is to block the replication of virus and prevent it from going to the upper airways and the lungs to other organ systems. however, we have found through experience over the past many months that when one gets advanced disease, the hyper or aberrant inflammatory or immunological response gives as much to the morbidity and mortality as the actual virus replication itself and in that regard a variety of drugs have been tested. one, such as remdesivir has gained fda aproved. its effect is clear but modest. with regard to getting early intervention monoclonal antibodies, both from lile and regeneron have received emergency use authorization. here agai

rochelle walensky warned people should get vaccinated as soon as possible to prevent new coronavirus variants from causing a fresh surge in cases. >> we have seen declines in cases and admissions and a recent slowing of deaths. cases remain extraordinarily high. twice as high as the peak number of cases before the summer. and that continue liberation of variants that spread more easily threatens to reverse these recent trends. amy: the cdc director also says the vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for safe reopening of schools. a position in astron fire from teachers unions nationwide. on wednesday, baltimore city schools announced a two-week delay to its plans to expand in person after students and parents joined teachs in a car caravan protest demanding stronger safety measures, including that all staff members be fully vaccinated. president biden's pick to become secretary of education received a warm reception on capitol hill wednesday. connecticut public schools commissioner miguel cardona told a senate committee he favors reopening schools during the pandemic with sci

walensky. what i would like to do over the next couple of minutes is just update you on an important component of the spectrum of covid-19 disease. if i could have the first slide. many of you are aware of what had long been called long co-vitd. that's post-acute sequelae. the reason i'm bringing it up will be apparent in a minute of two. the symptoms of this include, fatigue, shortness of breath, sleep disorders, fever, gi symptoms, anxiety and depression and what some refer to as brain fog or inability or difficulty in concentrating or focusing. remember, these are post-acute sequelae, after the virus has been cleared from the body. new symptoms sometimes arise well after the time of infection or they evolve over time and they may persist as i will get to in a moment for months and can range from mild, annoying, to actually quite incapaci incapacitating. the magnitude is not fully known. there have been a number of papers that have described in some detail large cohorts. here is one from chin

walensky could i want to finish where we started which is to thank everybody who is going to be working over this weekend to catch up from weather-related events and to thank our partners in states and local vaccinators for extending their hours and increasing the access to folks to get their vaccines and to ensure people that if they are vaccine because -- their second child has been delayed for sure period of time it is not a problem. that whitmer. >> [indiscernible conversation] nathan. 351,000 [indiscernible] >> 361,000 doses. >> we move the needle. come on up. [laughter] >> [indiscernible] for the freezer. this has five cabinet. this hold 60 bundles. -- this holds 60 bundles. >> [indiscernible conversation] >> we have 350 freezers in this warehouse. this right here is 351,000 doses. 350 freezers, and this warehouse , holding over 350 million doses -- in this warehouse, holding over 350 million doses. [indiscernible] >> alright, good. >> welcome, mr. president. >> [indiscernible] >> [indiscernible] -60 or below temperature range. we transfer the vaccine into the answer later -- into

rochelle walensky, the new director of the cdc. dr. again for being here and it is a real honor to have you. the comments at the covid briefing from the white house got a lot of attention and i think broadly speaking i am not a teacher. i know a lot of teachers. i feel like teachers are worried that even if kids are not high risk, if they get infected at school, many of the teachers feel like they are at high risk. why is it not a prerequisite? >> thank you for raising this and thank you for discussing this. i want to be very clear about what the science shows and what i believe in how that we should prioritize. thereis accumulating data something there is not a lot of transmission happening in schools when the proper mitigation levels are taken. masking, distancing, dedensification of the classroom, ventilation, contact tracing, hand washing. all of those things when done well the data and the science suggests there is not a lot of transmission in schools and that the case rates in schools are generally lower than they are in the popu

this is what rochelle walensky said to my colleague jake tapper today.. >> we really don't want to bring community disease into the classroom. we also know that mask breaching is among the reasons that we have transmission within schools when it happens. so we really need to do the hard work to make sure that there is universal masking, there's strict six feet of distancing between, that there's cohorting or podding, so that there's restriction of disease if it wrb to be transmitted, and all of the contact tracing and what not that needs to be done. and all of that is really hard to put together. >> so she's basically saying even if the schools have the masks available, that the problem is mask breaching. so how can every school ensure there won't be mask breaching especially in areas where there are no longer mask mandates? >> that's exactly what the challenge is honestly, pamela. and it's why dr. walensky and dr. fauci both believe vaccinations should be prioritized for educators. and it's a complex problem, it's that road to put all of that together.

walensky. i want to finish where we started, which is to thank everybody who will be working over this weekend to catch up from the weather-related events, to thank our partners in states and local vaccinators for extending their hours and increasing the access to folks to get their vaccines, and to assure people that if their vaccine, because of the weather -- their second shot has been delayed for a short period of time, it is not a problem. that will be accommodated completely. thank you all, and i hope everybody has had a nice weekend. announcer: president biden went to michigan today to visit a pfizer plant in kalamazoo. that creates and packs the covid-19 vaccine. he was joined by the pfizer ceo and governor whitmer. >> [indiscernible conversation] nathan. 351,000 [indiscernible] >> 361,000 doses. >> we move the needle. come on up. [laughter] >> [indiscernible] for the freezer. this has five cabinet. this hold 60 bundles. -- this holds 60 bundles. >> [indiscernible conversation] >> we hav

didn't the cdc director rochelle walensky say earlier in the week that a vaccine wasn't a prerequisitegoing back to school. >> that took everyone by surprised. that a vaccine is not required but only if you have all of the necessary safety measures in place. now director walensky says her agency plans to release guidance on whether teachers should be vaccinated before schools fully reopen in person. >> more to come, obviously. thanks very much. it is almost the weekend. just in time we will see >> all lanes are open after a garbage truck caught fire in san francisco. the truck went up in flames around 11:30. in the northbound lanes near the off ramp. all lanes were closed for some time. again, they are back open this evening. all right. you can tell from the shot that it was a clear, sunny day today. let's get to the accuweather forecast with sandhya patel. wow. needed the shades today, sandhya. >> yeah. it was bright and sunny and mild to warm, ama. we will continue this for the weekend since there are so many people enjoying it. i know we need the rain but i do not have it yet. i wan