their own homes. how many people have done that? they like to talk the talk, but they don't want to walk the walk. host: listen to what veronica escobar, the congresswoman of texas had to say. she writes, the trump administration's remaining mexico policy put an unsustainable burden on mexico and pushing people back into that country fueled even more of the criminal activities that are already liking it. the biden administration's challenge is not just the number of children arriving at the border it is that the previous -- we will take you to the covid-19 response briefing. >> the campaign to increase confidence in vaccinations. i want to provide an update on how we are accelerating our program to meet the goal of 200 million shot in 100 days.

as you can see in our progress report, our seven day average is 2.9 million vaccinations per day. that is up from 2.5 per day average last week. this is an unprecedented case. no other country is vaccinating this many people this fast. 74% of individuals 65 and over have received at least one shot. 50 prude -- 52% of american seniors are fully vaccinated. over 100 million americans have received at least one dose. more than 56 million adult americans are fully vaccinated. as the president announced this week, states are responding to his call to make all adult americans eligible to receive a vaccine no later than may 1.

by april 19, more than 90% of all adults across the country will be eligible for vaccination and 90% of americans will have a vaccination site within five miles of where they live. a total of more than 33 million doses went out to states, tribes, and territories. through federal channels including pharmacies. i want to address the issues the manufacturing plant in baltimore that is working for johnson & johnson to produce their vaccine substance. the issue did not impact any johnson & johnson doses that have been distributed. all doses to date were produced in a different fda approved facility johnson & johnson are

working through the identified issues and the fda approval process for the new facility. the company and fda will provide updates. at the same time, johnson & johnson has reiterated its commitment to deliver at or near 100 million doses by the end of may. importantly, we are on track to have enough vaccine supply for all adult americans by the end of may. let me reiterate what the president said at the beginning of the week. we are in a life and death race against the virus. the war against this virus is far from won. as we are vaccinating record numbers of people, we have many more people to get vaccinated. we are seeing cases rise. our whole of government response is accelerating to get americans

vaccinated as quickly, efficiently, and equitably as possible. we are working to put this pandemic behind us as fast as we can. we are not there yet. we need everyone to do their part. that is why the president called on every governor, mayor, and local leader to maintain or reinstate mask mandates. to be clear, as our vaccination efforts move forward, we need everyone to follow the science and listen to the expert. wear our mask, socially distant -- wear our mask -- wear a mask, socially distance, and get a vaccination. >> we are vaccinating close to 3 million people a day. nearly 40% of all adults in the

united states have received at least one dose and more than one in five adults is fully vaccinated. it is inspiring to see many americans embrace vaccinations. the massive scale of the vaccination is the key to protecting american people and inching us closer to -- our lives. we have the responsibility to provide you with science-based recommendations on the activities that can safely resume. in march, cdc issued guidance on what activities are safer for fully vaccinated people. fully vaccinated is defined as two weeks after receiving the single-dose vaccine or after receiving the second dose of the two dose vaccine. when we released guidance in march that emphasizes science and evidence were evolving and we would update our guidance as

new evidence emerged. we have new studies documenting the real-world effectiveness of covid-19 vaccines. we are releasing an update to our guidance for fully vaccinated people. specifically, the guidance speaks to travel. fully vaccinated people can resume travel at low risk to themselves. for domestic travel, fully vaccinated people do not need to get a covid-19 test before or after travel and do not need to self-quarantine after travel. fully vaccinated grandparents can fly to visit healthy grandkids without getting a covid-19 test or self-quarantining, provided they follow the other recommended prevention measures while traveling. for international travel, fully vaccinated people do not need to get a covid-19 test before they leave unless it is required by

their international destination. however, fully vaccinated people should get tested and have a negative test result before they board an international flight back into the united states. they do not need to quarantine when they arrive, however, fully vaccinated people who do international travel should be tested three to five days after arrival in the united states on an international flight. our guidance reiterates all travelers, regardless of vaccination status, should wear masks on planes, buses, trains, and other public transportation while traveling. the science on covid-19 is constantly evolving. we will continue to monitor the evidence and provide updates as we learn more. with so many people still unvaccinated, it is important everyone, regardless of vaccination status, continue to take prevention measures in

public and adhere to guidance to reduce the spread of covid-19. wear a mask, physically distance, wash your hands frequently. while we believe fully vaccinated people can travel at low risk to themselves, cdc is not recommending travel at this time due to the rising number of cases. i want to provide a brief overview of the state of the pandemic. recent data shows the seven day average of new cases is slightly above 62,000 cases per day. the continued increase over the seven day period. new hospitalizations continue to increase. the most recent seven day average at nearly 4950 admissions per day. this seven day average of deaths is slightly below 900 deaths per day.

data continues to be clear. despite the good news on the vaccination front, we cannot afford to relax the prevention strategy. we must continue the practice of mitigation strategies that we know work, like wearing a mask and physical distancing, two slow the spread of covid-19 and see the end of this pandemic. this is a pivotal moment for our country. we are taking unprecedented actions to vaccinate the public as quickly as possible. millions are being vaccinated each and every day. we are better equipped than ever before to take on these challenges, but we must remain vigilant. i want to follow up on a question i received wednesday about the variant.

listing a variant as one of interest rather than of concern does not mean we are not prioritizing the variant or that it is not important for us to follow. it means we are still working to understand the variant, gather data on it, and determine its impact on medical therapies and transmissibility. as we are better able to characterize the variant, classification may change. in the case of b1526, we will continue to assess it regionally and nationally, and to conduct studies to understand how its mutation impacts therapeutic and antibody responses. until those discussions are complete, it will remain a carefully followed variant of interest. i want to acknowledge providing

guidance in the midst of a changing pandemic and changing science is complex. on one hand, we are telling you we are worried about rising cases, to wear a mask and avoid travel. on the other hand, we are saying if you are vaccinated, evolving data suggest traveling is likely lower risk. science shows us getting vaccinated allows you to do more things safely, even in the context of rising cases. at the same time, most americans are not yet fully vaccinated, which is likely contributing to our rising cases. we have to continue to reinforce messages about the critical importance of covid-19 prevention measures. we all want to return to the things we love, getting more people vaccinated as quickly as possible and taking prevention measures to stop the spread of covid-19 is the path out of this

pandemic and back to our everyday activities. to help the public understand what actions to take, we have placed updated information for consumers on the cdc website. thank you. >> thank you. i would like to spend a couple of minutes extending what she said about the real world effectiveness of the vaccine. if i could have the first slide. there have been a couple things that have occurred over the last several days worthy of note. the recent -- from the cdc shows the messenger rna of madonna and pfizer -- of modernity and pfizer -- of moderna and pfizer shows effectiveness.

this is the mmwr from the cdc that shows through the pfizer and moderna, there is an efficacy of 90%. in the yellow highlight, on the bottom, there were only three pcr confirmed infections that occurred in 79,000 person days with full immunization, which comes to 0.04 per thousand person days. when you do clinical trials, often the efficacy of a trial turn out to be better than the real-world effectiveness. what we are seeing is effectiveness that is easily as good, if not better, than what we see with the efficacy. in this slide, from pfizer, it shows high efficacy up to six

months. one aspect of this is very interesting. part of this study was done in south africa. it was small in size, they showed in the setting of the troublesome south african variant that there were six cases in the placebo and zero in the vaccinated groups, showing the efficacy of the vaccines we are using now against problematic variants. the goal is to vaccinate the entire population. children and adolescents make up about 22% of the population. data suggests vaccination can prevent a symptom attic carriage -- prevent a symptom attic -- asymptomatic carriage.

a study showed 100% efficacy in which 18 cases of covid-19 was seen in the placebo group and no cases in the vaccine group. there are studies underway in children that go from six months to 11 years. by the end of this year, we should have enough information to safely vaccinate children of virtually any age. vaccines work well. they work against variants, although we need data to confirm that. they are durable for six months and they work in adolescents. very good reasons for anyone to get vaccinated as soon as it becomes available to you.

>> thank you. good to be with you. yesterday, we education campaign. and i want to provide you with an update and discuss our approach. our covid public education campaign has two goals, provide information. we want to give the american people facts to slow the spread and protect themselves. two, build trust. we need to build confidence in the faxing by giving people accurate, scientific information from trusted sources, and connect people to vaccines. we need to mobilize the community to increase awareness of how you can get the vaccine when it is your turn. research is telling us that when people decide whether to get vaccinated, they want to hear

from people that they know and trust, that may be a doctor, nurse, teacher, minister, family member, or friend. that is why the most important energy -- element is empowering local, trusted voices. we will be providing them with the resources they need to get vaccinated. why is this so important? it is important because we have a diverse country, not everyone listens to the same individuals or trusts the same institutions and misinformation spreads quickly. that is why these community members are essential for health education, and empowerment. i have seen this myself. i have seen conversations with doctors that change people's mind as they see that the sciences sound. i have witnessed how people see their friends and family getting vaccinated and that helps with their concerns.

the bottom line is that people look to trusted community members when they have questions and concerns and we want to support these voices because they have the power to turn this pandemic around. and that is why yesterday, we launched the covid-19 community core a nationwide, grassroots network of health professionals, community organizations, businesses and americans from all walks of life who are collectively stepping up to be leaders for their communities in this national vaccination effort. our plan is to equip them with cdc improve -- approved materials to deliver science-based information to their networks and we are reaching out to everyone everywhere to join the effort. some of the founding members include nascar, major league baseball and wwe, health professionals like the american nurses and american netted -- medical associations. indices -- industry groups like the farm bureau. civic sort -- civic

organizations like the naacp. faith-based organizations like catholic charities and the salvation army. this is a broad coalition that is trusted in their communities and ready to help deliver public health information that will save lives. yesterday we launched with 275 founding members. i am happy to tell you that within less than 24 hours, 2500 more have signed up. our goal is that when this program is established, more and more americans from all corners will sign up and become community corp members. if you are active on social media or volunteer with a civic group. if you run an organization that you think can be helpful, or if you want to help have an informed conversation with family members, then we need you. we want to give as many people as we can access to the information that they need to

choose to get vaccinated and help the people they care about make that decision. you can sign up and get more information at wecando this.hhs.gov. finally, i will say this in closing. this has been a hard year for all of us, but in spite the suffering that cobit has caused, this pandemic reminded that -- reminded us of a fundamental truth, we need each other, and together we have the power to end the pandemic. we can do this, but it will take all of us working together, and keeping our faith that better days are ahead. thank you and i will turn it over to jeff. jeff: thank you. let us open it up for a few questions. >> let us keep one question each. let us go to victoria knight at kaiser health news. >> can you hear me?

>> yes. >> hello, my question is, i am a d.c. resident and we are among the lowest percent of having our population vaccinated, it was like 14% this morning. i know there is a huge demand here. what is the federal government going to do to help the states and territories that are struggling with the percent of population vaccinated? >> this week was a record amount of supply, and that is a good start. we need to work with states to ensure they are administering shots in an efficient way and the federal government is supporting states and efforts to do so. we have established federal channels including retail pharmacies, which across the next few weeks will be 40,000 vaccine allocations --

allocating federal allocation to the 40,000 retail pharmacies directly. that is quite a coverage across the country with 90% of americans living within five miles. we are making direct allocations to community health centers. that program is scaling up to 900. we are doing everything we can through the federal and state channels support efforts to take these increased supply and convert that into shots and arms. next question. >> stephanie at abc news. stephanie: i wanted to ask about the travel guidance. it addresses the low risk to fully vaccinated individuals, but what do we know about the risk to unvaccinated individuals who might also be traveling? and, is that part of the tension that dr. walensky discussed on

the guidance that travel is safer fully vaccinated individuals but you still do not want people engaging in non-essential travel at this time? dr. walensky: thank you. we have not changed argie -- our guidance for non-essential travel. especially for on vaccinated individuals. our guidance on unvaccinated individuals can only -- is to limit two essential travel with masking and prevention strategies. the update is really only for those that are vaccinated and that represents about 20% of the adult population. >> next question. >> reuters. >> thank you very much. a follow-up on the travel guidelines. i want to be clear that this is an honest question and not a gotcha question. dr. walensky, do you still feel a sense of impending doom, and

how do you square that with these new guidelines today? dr. walensky: thank you. it is our responsibility to look at the evolving evidence of what is lower risk to do when you are fully vaccinated and that demonstrates that traveling would be a low risk activity if you are fully vaccinated. and that was part of the update of the guidance. that said, we are at 64,000 new covid cases today, and our numbers continue to increase. we have an increase of 8% today. i still continue to worry that with 80% of the population unvaccinated that we have a lot to do to control this pandemic, which remains my concern. jeff: brian. brian: thank you very much, two

questions for dr. fauci. there have been reports that there have been thousands of cases of the b117 strain in the united states that appeared to be deadlier they had the original strain. is there any data to show that that particular truth -- strain or any other strain is as or more lethal than the original strain? the second question is the question i get from everyone who is not a reporter. most of us on this call have covered this pandemic since the beginning, many of us were in the white house briefing room, dr. fauci, when you first came out and talk to us, but there are many of those who see that you have been vilified by certain members of congress and that you are accused of causing a problem that you are trying to solve. on a personal level, just a human response, how do you deal with that? dr. fauci: ok. the first question about the

117, there seems to be little doubt that the 117 seems to transmit more efficiently from person-to-person. there is a suggestion that it also causes more severe disease. the proof of that is much more difficult than showing that it is more transmissible. so, i will think from the reports we are seeing that it could likely be a bit more serious, but it definitely is more transmissible. with regard to your second question, it is really unfortunate that there is that degree of vilification of me, and i just think it is a reflection i guess of concern about what we are doing now compared to what was being done before. i tend -- you asked me how i deal with it. i deal with it by trying to the best of my ability to not pay attention to it. i have a very serious and important job now as the chief

medical advisor on covid-19 to president biden. and i really want to use all of my energy to focus on how together with the medical team, which is an extraordinary team, how i can be part of that team and function with value-added. if i start worrying about the slings and arrows that get thrown at me, it would be a distraction and i tend not to want to be distracted. that is how i deal with it. jeff: next question. >> josh from bloomberg. josh: thank you for taking the call. dr. walensky, i believe you said that the cdc is not recommending non-essential travel for vaccinated people and someone tweeted something similar. the written report does not say that. can you clarify, showed fully vaccinated people be doing non-essential travel or not? or is it just unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people that should anoint -- could avoid

that. jeff on johnson & johnson they said 24 million doses in april, would you have expected that to be higher if it had been approved? dr. walensky: i would say, generally we know that travel it was up for the month of march, more so than has happened since the beginning of the pandemic. we know right now we have a surging number of cases. i advocate about -- against general travel over all, but our guidance is silent on recommending or not fully vaccinated people. our guidance speaks to the safety of doing so if you are vaccinated, it is lower risk. jeff: johnson & johnson as you know delivered 20 million doses by the end of march. the company has committed to 24 million doses by the end of april, and importantly to be at or near the 100 million by the end of may.

we have seen with all of the vaccine manufacturers meaning moderna and pfizer they ramp up across time. moderna and pfizer are in a steady cadence, not something that johnson & johnson has yet achieved. so 20 million delivered today, 24 million is the target that the company has committed to for april. most importantly, the company has committed to being at or near 100 million doses by the end of may. stepping back, we will have enough supply for all adult americans by the end of may, which is what is most important here. >> thank you for joining and we look forward to seeing you on monday. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> jen psaki holds a briefing with reporters. watch live at 12:30 eastern on c-span, c-span.org or with the free radio app.

saturday on "the communicators," tom wheeler federal chair of the communications division under president obama. >> the complaint that was being made about net neutrality is that it would stifle innovation, and it would stifle investment blood, the reality is that in the period of time when the net neutrality rules were in place the internet service providers spent more on capital investments than they spent after the trump fcc removed those rules. and it was that capital investment that has allowed us to be successful now during covid when everybody is on zoom and stressing out the network. and so, the point of the matter is that what we tried to deal with was to continue this concept, this basic american concept of not having

gatekeepers for crucial services , and encouraging competition among those using those networks. >> watch it saturday at 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> sunday night on q7a a conversation about education policy and the importance of having civil discussions when differing opinions are involved. our guest co-authored the book " a search for common ground." frederick s and pedro noguera. >> we have too many kids languishing in schools who are not challenged and no one is troubled by it. and that should disturb all of us. we know that if we are going to use education to promote mobility, opportunity, to addressed poverty and -- address

poverty and inequality we have to empower kids and make sure they get the skills and education they need to contribute to families and communities. >> pedro has eloquently talked about some inequities, and i think that, given that those of us who have the resources to move into communities with good schools or attend private schools have strategies for making sure our kids get something. school choice as a way to empower those who do not have those resources. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on q and a. you can also listen to it as a podcast where you get your podcasts. joining us this morning from new york is katrina vanden heuvel, who is the editorial director and publisher of "the nation." let's begin with your recent opinion piece in the "washington post." biden is facing a roosevelt moment.