"washington post" health policy reporter yasmeen abutaleb. yasmin, thank you for joining us tonight and you are why reporting. i want to be clear. you have reported this out, you got image of the slides. the cdc has still not said this -- they've not made this public. >> they have not. what we have from our reporting is they're expected to release the data that prompted this decision tomorrow, even in these slides they mentioned data. they cite studies. they cite their own investigations. but the actual methodology, the data, the sample size is not in there yet. the expectation is that they will publish that tomorrow. >> obviously we spoke to the head of the cdc here on tuesday night where they had talked about this new mask guidance which has confused some people because they feel like it's a backtrack or reversal. the cdc says it's an update. but that's the masking part of things, that vaccinated people should wear masks in some circumstances, indoors if they're in a high transmission area. what are they doing about the vaccine problem? bec

joining us, top reporters, yasmeen abutaleb, health reporter for "the washington post." and joining us in studio, eva mckend, with the spectrum news. and carol leonnig of "the washington post" and philip rucker of "the washington post." carol and phil are authors of the best selling book "i alone can fix it, donald trump's catastrophic final year." i'm so excited to dig into all of the things that happened this this week. yasmeen, some data suggests the u.s. is seeing as many as 1,000 new covid cases every hour. but today i talked to a white house source who underscored to me tha people who are unvaccinated should be the most concerned about the numbers. why are unvaccinated americans so much mor at risk and what are experts most concerned about as the delta variant spreads? yasmeen: i think the evidence of why unvaccinated people are most at risk is in the numbers. the c.d.c. director said more than 97% of hospitalizations are in people who are unvaccinated. more than 99% of deaths are in people who are unvaccinated so although we're hearing reports of people who are fu

"washington post" health policy reporter yasmeen abutaleb, we appreciate it. joining us now is dr. ezekiel emmanuel, former health care adviser to president obama. he was a member of president biden's covid-19 advisory board. zeke, good to have you with us tonight. and i really lean on you for your evaluation of this. you heard this reporting. this could represent a sea change in where we thought we were with this virus. what do you make of it? >> yeah. well, let's be clear. i haven't seen the slides that yasmeen referred to. but i have seen her report. and the concerning factor is first that we are pretty sure it's more transmissible and that people who are vaccinated can transmit it. that means that they generate a lot of virus and can put that out into the environment as an aerosol. and that is very concerning. wearing a mask then would do two things, protect you if you're uninfected but also protect others if you happen to be infectped but also be asymptomatic. and that seems to be quite common with the delta variant that people get infected but are asymptomatic and therefore c

. >> yeah, yasmeen abutaleb and heidi prizbyla, thank you, both. >>> and now, joining us, we will see press secretary behind that lectern and bring you any relevant portions of the q&a live when it happens, but dr. olsterholm, we are hearing that this delta variant is more contagious, and what is it that we should learn from this data? >> well, it is that data is something that we apply and we should learn new things. so this issue of how well the vaccines work also includes an element of time. we have known all along that maybe six months or eight months the vaccines may not be as effective, and that is why there is a discussion of boosters, and some what you are hearing today is that in fact we have learn more about these breakthrough infections occur. the data from israel shows that as time goes on, they are likely to increase. nothing to consider here as a fundamental change in what has been happening. the one exception would be just the fact that those who are now infected and are vaccinated may have levels of infection and be able to spread the virus similar to those who are not