Candidate is 66 effective yet 85 effective against severe covid disease, that is lower in terms of efficacy than pfizer and moderna. Both were authorized at por than 95 effective but dr. Fauci hopes the one shot vaccine keeps people out of the hospital and helps alleviate the stress this pandemic has put on the health care system. The Johnson Johnson has te one vaccine and roll up your sleeves and get whatever vaccine is made available first. As More Con Tagious Variants continue across america. The South African variant has been detected and a new model shows that the pandemic could claim nearly 654,000 american lives by may 1, were up to 433. So disheartening to see. Lets begin with elizabeth cohen. So break down this data on the Johnson Johnson vaccine for us. All right, poppy and jim. Before i do, to just reiterate, bottom line Johnson Johnson, we expect them to apply to the fda for authorization very soon and it is a good vaccine. It works. It does well. But it is not as effective as pfizer and moderna. If it does come on the market, markets say take this one aun could get pfizer and moderna later as a booster. They found when looking at preventing moderate to severe cases, Johnson Johnson was 66 and moderna and pfizer was 95 effective. And that is a big difference. What matters even more which is preventing severe cases, keeping people out of the hospital and from dying, Johnson Johnson was 85 and moderna and pfizer sorry to interrupt. To the white house now. Jen psaki beginning of the White House Press briefing. Lets have a listen. Okay. I have several announcements for you to today. To begin, i know many of you and the American People are interesting in the news coming from Johnson Johnson trial data. The president is encouraged by positive data on a potential new vaccine. He also knows that this is just new data and now is the time for the fda to do its job of evaluating the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. In the meantime he continues to urge all americans to mask up and follow Public Health guidelines until it is their turn to get vaccinated. Now i know there may be a lot of questions you have for us about the trial data or Johnson Johnson. Im here to tell you i wont get ahead of the experts to you hear from in the next hour in our Public Health briefing from the Covid Response team. They will discuss this more with you and what everything means then. At wednesdays briefing i also shared some of the engagement and outreach the white house is doing to move forward the American Rescue plan. From the president and the Vice President on down, that work has continued and accelerated. Yesterday senior staff spoke again to governors about the challenges they are facing and the importance of relief. Today National EconomicCouncil Deputy director david kayman will meet with the council of state governments, the office of Public Engagement will brief black civic groups and hunger advocates and key progressive groups to invite their feedback. These conversations are critical to Building Support and moving the president s bill forward. But we also saw evidence this week that the American People overwhelmingly want their elected leaders to work with the president to confront the pandemic and get put people back to work. According to a monmouth poll released wednesday, 71 of the American People want republicans in congress to work with President Biden, that number is up nearly 10 points from after the election. Meaning the trend of support for working in a bipartisan manner with the president is only growing. Finally, the president is committed to getting relief to working families, hence he has also meeting this morning with his Economic Team with the Vice President and treasury secretary janet yellen for a briefing on the cost of inaction and the impact of a delay in moving forward with a relief package. Millions of americans dont have enough food to eat and millions more have lost their jobs and their Interest Rate at the historic lows and it is a right toim to make smart investments. Moodys said we could end up with 4 million fewer jobs this year if woe dont act on the president s plan, that is 4 million americans that could get back to work. Well discuss this at the briefing later this morning. Last thing, we are venturing to provide a week ahead to all of you, our return to providing week ahead to all of you. So, a quick preview. Next monday, the president will meet with the Secretary Of State at the State Department. On tuesday President Biden will deliver remarks and sign an Executive Order advancing his priority to modernize our immigration system. And friday is, of course, jobs day and the president will deliver remarks about the economy. Well have hopefully more over the next couple of days but we wanted to provide as many details as we could with that, why dont you kick us off. With serving in afghanistan is the president still committed to winding down troop this is year. The i have not spoken to our National Security team about this in particular but his commitment remains. And then at the top you mentioned that americans should follow Public Health guidance. What are the challenges has been over the course of the last ten months is that Public Health guidance from state to state varies. Some have maskin dates and others have school opens and others dont. What guidance should the American People follow . The governors guidance or the president s . Well, first, what were venturing to do is provide more Concrete Guidance from the federal government, from the cdc, from health and medical experts on the important steps of the American People could take to keep themselves safe. That includes the importance of mask wearing, of course. And how vital that is to keeping us safe. It also included the importance of hand washing, of restricting travel. These are all guidelines that have come in recent days and weeks, i should say, from the president of the United States and from our medical and Health Experts. But in addition, as we discussed yesterday, there are guidelines including the safe reopening of schools that he signed an Executive Order on directing both the Department Of Education and hhs, and the cdc i should say, im sorry, to produce the guidelines to give more specific advice and markers to states and local School Districts on what they should follow. So it will ultimately be up to states, to governors, to local School Districts and others to make determinations but we do want to provide more clear guidance from the federal government based on the expertise of health and medical experts on what people should follow and what will help keep the American People safe. I just want to call the cdc study that was discussed a couple of days ago, one of the part of Reopening Schools was to close Indoor Dining and restaurants at bars, is that a part of the federal guidance that we should be expecting to see from the cdc in the information soon. Well you get to hear from the director from the cdc in about 45 minutes and our medical and Health Experts and you could ask them if there is any up dated guidance. Go ahead. Dr. Fauci said that the u. S. May not be able to meet that goal of reopening most k schools in 100 days because of the trajectory of the pandemic. Given that, is the president going to adjust his goal of trying to get all of the schools reopened in a hundred days. As we talked about a little bit yesterday, the president wants to not only to reopen the schools and he wants the schools to stay open and he does rely on the guidance of his Health Experts and he wont do anything that is not safe and doesnt keep teachers and students and in our School Districts safe. But a key part is the guidelines as we mentioned. The Executive Order to ensure that School Districts are getting the information they need and clarity they need on what steps that they should take to keep their students safe and teachers safe of course. But it is also funding. And weve talked about this quite a bit in here. And the American Rescue plan is pivotal for a number of reasons including that americans have food on table and we could get shot news the arms of people across the country but that Public Schools have the funding they need to take steps on everything from ventilation to ppe to testing. And the longer that is delayed, the harder it is going to be to meet that goal. And has President Biden spoken to former President Trump since taking office and if so could you give us an up dit on what President Trump said in his letter to President Biden . I dont have any calls to report on. There are no calls to report on, i should say. And i dont have any update on the letter. As i said, when we talked about this about a week and a half ago, it seems longer than that, im going to acknowledge, the president thought the letter was gracious and generous, but he plans to keep it private. Go ahead. I understand you dont want to get too much into the Johnson Johnson vaccine given the data that is out there. But this likely wont be the only vaccine that is less effective than the pfizer and the moderna vaccines. And so i wonder what is the president s message to those americans who would be less more reluctant to get one of those less effective vaccines and are you concerned about that the impact that would have and how many doses have been already bought. Well, first, when the president announced his plan earlier this week, to ensure that we have enough vaccines to give every american two shots by the end of the summer, with the purchase of moderna and pfizer vaccines. He was doing that without the need for additional vaccines approved. Obviously, if additional vaccines, Johnson Johnson and any others go through the fda approval process, that is a positive step. No doubt about that. But he purchased the large orders for vaccines that well have by the end of the sum tore get into Arms Of Americans to ensure that were able to do that without the steps going forward. And so he would encourage any vaccine by approved by the fda . Im not getting ahead of the fda but well rely on Health Experts to advice if there are additional vaccines. If and when ill be optimistic that proof by fda and how that will impact our Vaccine Distribution plan. And secondly on the Coronavirus Relief bill, in his first month in Office President obama traveled no a number of key states to drum up support for the recovery act. Does President Biden has any plans to do something similar to drum up support for his 1. 9 trillion relief bill. Then Vice President biden also travelled to a number of states to dumb up support for the american Recovery Atd Act at the time and we werent dealing with a pandemic. So the circumstances were quite different. But he fully recognized as do we the importance of speaking directly to the American People about the components of this package. Whether it is the importance of funding to get schools open or get vaccines in the Arms Of Americans or just ensure that people know they could put food on the table. So were having to ache a number of creative steps to do that, whether that is direct television or local media or from the president , the Vice President and others, were doing that. Whether it is engaging with governors and local elected officials to answer all of the questions they have and they could convey to the public. So were taking a number of creative steps. His preference would be to get on a plane and fry around the country. President biden did travel a good amount in the final days of campaign and hes received both doses of the vaccine and a number of safety precautions are in place for his travel so why wouldnt he be travel. It is about keeping the public safe and were not going to do an event, a rally with 20,000 people. That wouldnt be a recommendation made by Health Experts. And without a crowd, to go out in the country. We may travel, but i have nothing to preview for you at this point in time. What im conveying is that it is vital for the president and the Vice President and every member of our team to be speaking directly to the American People. And so were looking for creative ways to do that. And on foreign policy, what Alexei Navalny, President Biden said there was no doubt that the kremlin was responsible and he vowed to hold the putin regime accountable. This week you told us that the president conveyed his concerns to president put inbut has not taken any action to hold russia accountable. So i wonder does President Biden hold President Putin directly responsible for the poisoning and why hasnt he taken actions to punish russia for its actions. The president spoken with President Putin this week and did he not hold back in his concerns about a number of the actions of the kremlin and of the russian government. But there is a review underway that we have spoken about a bit in here by our National Security team and well let that review Carry Forward. Including the Solar Winds Breech and the poisoning of Alexei Navalny and the im kind of losing my thought here, but it includes a number of steps, a number of concerning actions that theyve taken. We want that review to Carry Forward and be completed and the president always reserves the right to respond and in the manner of his choosing and the time of his choosing. Does he hold President Putin responsible for the attempted assassination. Well let the review come forward and then well have more to say about it at that point in time. Go ahead. Thank you. The new York Attorney general released a report yesterday saying that the state had undercounted the number of covid deaths by as much as 50 in nursing homes. Would President Biden support a federal investigation into what happened and governor Andrew Cuomos role. Ive seen those reports. I would say any investigation, would you point you to the department of justice. Does the white house think that sh t should be looked into further. Again, any investigation could be led by the department of justice. Were in a new age. Theyre independent and they will determine what paths they take moving forward. On immigration. I know you said yesterday that it was never 100 that today was immigration day, just an early d draft and things change and could you understand why it is taking longer for the executive actions On Immigration to execute. Sure. It is widely reported that the president is planning to announce his task force, or plans to announce his launch of a task force on reunifying families an children. Something that hes personally committed to. His wife dr. Biden is personally committed to and invested in and he will plan to do to make that announcement next tuesday. The task force will be led by secretary of Homeland Security. Once hes confirmed, mayorkas and we planned to sign that Executive Order today or at the end of the wee