Elizabeth cohen. She joins us with the breaking details. What do you have, elizabeth . Alisyn, so the bottom line here is that we may soon have a third vaccine in the United States. We already have pfizer, moderna and with these results, its almost certain Johnson Johnson will be applying for Emergency Use Authorization from the fda. The bottom line, this vaccine does not seem to be as effective as pfizer or moderna but has impressive results and is still useful. Lets go over these specific numbers. The Johnson Johnson trial data shows that when you are looking at moderate to severe cases of covid19, it was 66 effective at putting preventing those, whereas moderna and pfizer was 95 . Those two were 95 . Thats a significant difference. If you look at preventing severe cases of covid19, which is the more important one, right . We dont want people in the hospital. We dont want people in the icu or dying. Johnson johnson was 85 effective at preventing severe cases. Moderna and pfizer were 100 or nearly 100 . So when i have asked experts, you know, what would you get . Which one would you get . They said, if i had the choice, id get moderna or pfizer. If i didnt have a choice, which you might not have because of the scarcity now, if i didnt have a choice and Johnson Johnson were available, i would for sure get that one instead. And maybe later get pfizer or moderna when theres more of a supply. So theres a gap there in the relative effectiveness between the Johnson Johnson vaccine and the ones weve seen from moderna and pfizer. Well discuss that in a moment. Another key piece of the science everyone is looking at so closely this morning, given the spread of the different variants from Around The World is how effective the Johnson Johnson vaccine is against the variant from south africa because theres a lot of data in this case about that. What have we learned . Thats right. So lab results have shown that this vaccine does not work as well against this South African Variant and now we have results in real people from Johnson Johnson and from another vaccinemaker, novavax that supports that. So lets take a look at those numbers. Johnson johnson, they found their vaccine was 60 effective overall when they looked at other countries but only 57 effective in south africa where that variant is becoming so dominant. For novavax, it was 89 effective overall but only 60 effective in south africa. This confirms what experts have been saying is that these vaccines will be effective against the variant from south africa, but they will not be as effective against that variant as they have been against other variants. John, alisyn . Elizabeth cohen, we really appreciate your reporting on this. Thank you very much. This is some information people have been waiting for, for a long time. Joining us now is dr. Paul offett from the Vaccine Education Center of the Childrens Hospital in philadelphia and a member of the fdas Vaccine Advisory Committee which means youll be looking at this data very carefully to figure out or to advise whether or not to grant Emergency Use Approval in the United States. As you look at this data for the first time, and the gap, frankly, between the effectiveness of the Pfizer Vaccine and what weve seen from moderna, from the Johnson Johnson vaccine and what weve seen from moderna and pfizer, what jumps out at you . Whats the most important thing here . First of all, these arent data. These are Press Releases from the company. What well see when we review this, both Johnson Johnson and novavax, submissions for an eua. Well have 100 pages to look at so i think well have more information. What i guess comes out to me is that if you look at for example the Johnson Johnson vaccine if you break it down by country, 72 effectivad preventing moderate to severe disease in the u. S. And 95 efofective as preventing serious disease. Preventing hospitalization, Icu Admission and death. You want to stay out of the hospital and stay out of the morgue. If you have mild infection, its somewhat burdensome to the p person but not terribly burdensome to the hospital. If everyone could get the mrna vaccines now, this wouldnt be a problem. 3. 5 Million People have received two doses of an mrnacontaining vaccine. Thats 1 of the population. We need at least 70 of the population. And thats going to take awhile. The other thing is Johnson Johnson is doing a twodose trial. So we should have the results of that also hopefully in the near future and worse comes to worse you get one dose of j j now and a second dose later which would provide greater protection. We dont know that yet because we havent seen all the data. Can you help us understand why this technology that j j is using isnt as effective as the moderna and pfizer . Not sure. The Messenger Rna, its a small naked piece of Messenger Rna that gets taken up into your cells. Then you make antibodies to the protein, which the Johnson Johnson technology is essentially the same except instead of taking this Lipid Nanoparticle in which the rna is encased, its a virus that cant replicate itself. So they are different technologies. They are different in their capacity to induce vigorous immune responses but the j sg j data, i think overall are encouraging in that it can prevent you from being hospitalized and from dying. And in a time where this virus is running wild in this country, and we dont have enough mrna vaccine, i think its a good sign, assuming that it gets uae approval, and well see. I had a chance to talk to dr. Fauci a few days ago. I said whats the bar . Whats the number that you want to see for Johnson Johnson. I want to play this response because its pretty revealing. Cant go much better than 94 , 95 , which is where moderna and pfizer are, but i would like to see the johnson j product come around near there, just maybe a few off. If you see it 20 less than that, then you have to be a little careful of that. Theres going to be some eyebrows raised about which one youll want to use. All right. The first part of that, its close on severe. It is 20 points down or more on moderate and severe. So you can see the dilemma this poses now because now people are presented with this question, and im hoping you have a clear answer. If you have a choice if you have a choice, between taking the Johnson Johnson vaccine, based on what we know, assuming the data bears out whats in the Press Release if you have a choice between Johnson Johnson or moderna and pfizer, what should you do . Again, if the mrna vaccines were abundant and we didnt have the manufacturing issues we had, you would choose the mrna vaccine, but thats not the current reality. The current reality is that we dont have enough mrna vaccine. We have another vaccine in Johnson Johnsons. We need to look at the data at the fda level. We have another vaccine which is highly effective at keeping you out of the hospital. Thats an advantage in a situation where we dont have enough vaccines. So i think people need to consider that. Were it me, were i not able to get the mrna vaccine and i only had the choice of Johnson Johnson, i would take it assuming that the data look good as we look at the fda. Id take it knowing theres probably a second dose trial out there which is likely to show its even more effective. And knowing, worst case scenario, frankly, and this probably doesnt preclude you from get an mrna vaccine down the line. Those two technologies shouldnt compete with each other. Well have to generate those data. We should mention you are on the fda Vaccine Advisory Committee. And so does this information that you are hearing this morning about j j, does that change what you are thinking on there, what you would advise . It makes me hungry to see all the data. We will eventually see the 100 pages of data. I would like to see how sort of things break down. We know that it was 57 effective in south africa as compared to 72 effective at preventing moderate to severe disease. How did that break down for severe disease in south africa . How good at preventing severe disease caused by a strain, the South African strain that no doubt will start to become more prevalent in this country. But this is stage one. Stage two, if the South African strain becomes more prevalent or brazilian strain, similar to the South African strain becomes more prevalent, we can still construct vaccines to prevent that and so that may be the Second Generation product. And thats no doubt going on right now. Again, you just brought up the variant that were seeing in south africa. The data is up on the screen. 57 effective. Novavax just yesterday came out saying 60 effective against the variant in south africa. We now have some data that the variant there, it, you know, is outrunning the vaccine more so compared to the than were seeing in the original variant. You just wrote a piece saying youre not as concerned about the variants maybe as some other people are, but does this cause you to reassess a little bit . No, i mean, obviously theres Laboratory Evidence that, if you are inoculated for example with the Messenger Rna vaccines, do those neutralizing antibodies neutralize the virus in the laboratory . We raised that question in the journal of the american medical association. How does that play out in the real world . We dont really have an immunological protection. Now we know how it plays out in the real world. Those neutralization in the laboratory did correlate with less protection in the real world. But if you look at the novavax, and its 60 effective in south africa against mild, moderate to severe disease. Sort of all disease. How did it fare against moderate to severe or severe disease because it may be and likely to be much higher there. And those are data we need to see and thats the difficulty with trying to make predictions based on Press Releases. Youd like to see all the data. Dr. Offitt, can you help us understand how concerned were supposed to be, how alarmed about the South African strain . The two cases that have popped up in the u. S. , these are people without known travel histories. So that means theres community spread. And if its one of these ga galloping varieties, and vaccines arent keeping up, it sounds frightening. Its not like theres no protection. 57 against severe to moderate disease in south africa where the South African strain predominates. Youd like to see against severe disease. Its not like theres no protection. I think there is also likely, you know, were going to have a Second Generation vaccine out there. I think what we should do right now is deal with the strain that is prevalent in this country, socalled d614 strain which is the first variant that came out of wuhan. Deal with that and then well be making vaccines against specifically the South African strain or these other strains as if they come up. And our continued attempt to suppress the spread and dangerousness of this virus. So i think theres a lot of reason for hope here. Thats how i see it. Dr. Paul offitt, are we lucky to have you this morning for this Breaking News. Thank you for helping us work through this because its a moment people have been waiting for. To reiterate, so people know, Johnson Johnson is saying their vaccine 85 effective against severe cases of covid. Less so, 66 , about moderate and severe. Overall, thats much less, not much less, it is notably less than we saw from moderna and pfizer, which is something that we will be discussing over the coming hours. In the meantime, new developments in terms of what the Republican Party plans to do Going Forward. Really, what they want to represent Going Forward as the country faces this pandemic, as the country faces economic crisis. House minority leader Kevin Mccarthy there showing you exactly where he wants the party to go. Thats next. What will republicans do about the Qanon Conspiracy Theorist in their midst. Marjorie Taylor Greene heckled a teenager who survived the Parkland School shooting and posted a video of her doing so. Then house leadership put her on the Education Committee. They also found posts of her endorsing positions including the execution of top democratic lawmakers. Joining us now, cnn White House Correspondent john harwood and laura baron lopez, a White House Correspondent for politico. Laura, marjorie Taylor Greene is not going away, and these were not secrets. Her positions were not secret. There was a mound were told of Opposition Research that her opponent had. People in georgia knew about her. And people in congress knew about her. Liz cheney, Steve Scalise went to Kevin Mccarthy to say, this is a problem if she comes to congress. She is a poisonous person, and she made it. She was elected. Kevin mccarthy, as far as we know, has not yet talked to her. What now . Yeah, youre right, alisyn. Politico had unearthed a lot of racist, islamophobic comments marjorie Taylor Greene made and Kevin Mccarthy at the time had acted as though republicans were going to help her challenger in that race and help never game. So right now, again, republicans are dealing with this same issue because marjorie Taylor Greene has made an enormous amount of comments that you outlined about threatening the Top Democrats or supporting threats to the top democrat nancy pelosi. And so right now the two options some of the options are expulsion, which is doesnt look at all like republicans are going to support such an option. They could also strip her of her Committee Post but that would be something it appears a lot of republicans arent going to support but democrats are going to probably push for because they dont really want to see her on those committee assignments, especially Education Committee p. I want to put up the picture, the excited Press Release we got from the former president of the United States and the endorsement given by the House Minority leader Kevin Mccarthy. The picture from maralago. I think we have access to that to look at the former president there and Kevin Mccarthy. Mccarthy, the House Republican leader said President Trumps popularity has never been stronger than it is today and his endorsement means more than perhaps any endorsement at any time. John harwood, it means more to him than anything hes ever gotten. Its like the best promise present. Its like a sled under the tree for mccarthy. This pat on the head from the former president. I think the most important thing now is when you look at his picture. What does that tell you about where the Republican Party is today and going to be tomorrow and what it means for the country. John, the issue is that the Republican Party has walled itself off against the realities of 21st century america. Demographically, economically, culturally. And they have, while doing so, been forced to appeal to a smaller and Smaller Group of americans, the people who are angriest about the way the country has changed, most bitter. They need that energy, that anger. That causes them to rely on extreme people, crazy people like marjorie Taylor Greene. They cant afford to alienate those people. They will do only what they are forced by events to do to distance themselves. When all of that anger exploded on january 6th, whipped up by President Trump, then they backed off for a moment. Lindsey graham said, im out. But the further distanced you get away from those extreme events, which