covid-19. saying that battle is far from over, and setting goal of july 4th for small gathering and number of people vaccinated in the united states continues to climb, critics are claiming the president and his own cdc are being too cautious and approaching the return to normal and in their guidelines for when vaccinated americans are able to do let's bring in fox news medical contributor dr. marty a professor at the john hopkins school of medicine and bloomberg school of public health. so welcome, doctor great to see you again. >> thanks. paul: let's start with the may 1st target for vaccinating all adults that's declaring victory for something that is already on the way to being accomplished. >> well that's right most states are going to open up vaccination to anybody who wants it by april, and you look at states like connecticut that i already said that any age group regardless of the category will be able to get the vaccine by end of march. so that's a very conservative estimate we're probably going to be there well into april. paul: interesting now july 4th, target for small gatherings, you know, you've been cautious, you've been critical of the cdc and some of these guidelines that they've been issuing, as the vaccines have rolled on too cautious in terms of the behavior that we can start to the vaccinated can start to undertake. what do you make of the president's july 4th target? >> look, i think a lot of restrictions have been, you know, overly excessive i think the president is being cautious by saying that. it is also dismissive of natural immunity this tuesday showed that 38 pblght percent of californians have antibodies many their sicklation that study from a month ago now the immunity rates in california are upwards of 40 to 50% that doesn't evans include the t-cell immunity we add to that 20% of the population that's vaccinated, we're starting to get a lot closer to herd immunity than that estimate now dr. fauci advising the president has been basically dismissive of natural immunity from prior infection therefore the path to normalcy or herd immunity is only vaccinated immunity in his mind. paul: why do you think that is if you have had the infection you have some immunity is the problem from dr. fauci he thinks it is not enough immunity that you get a lot more and why would he be that dismiss i? >> old guard medical establishment all of the time, they insisting on sort of a randomize study in the new england journal to believe. and we need to vaccinate 70 to 85% of the population in order to reach herd immunity that's dismissive of natural immunity and if you look paul, at north dakota, they have achieved herd immunity they've had many days with zero deaths their cases are in the dozens per day on certain days. so natural immunity is real. paul: now, if you have been vaccinated, what kind of behavior can you should you be able to safely undertake what should you feel confident about doing that you're not going to get sick yourself or you're not going to give somebody else covid if you happen to get a mild case. >> we've got more information this week. we've got more data showing that the vaccines are 94 to 95% against asymptomatic disease using israeli study this was a big deal in understanding covid we've got to start being practical and recognize that we're not going to extinguish virus from the population we keangts just focus on virus replication and value human life profound loneliness is a real epidemic and kills people people need to be active the key is remember you have almost no immunity for first ten days after first dose give it four weeks, and then live a normal life. it is that simple and more simple the messaging i think little more credibility the public health community will have and the easier it will be to follow. paul: and just on kinds of actions you can take is air travel, for example, going to be safe? can we stop wearing masks or should we continue to wear masks? >> i think it is a good i do to wear masks at least for the next -- four to six weeks. once we get to a better place it is just very hard in indoor public set technician to enforce a sort of selective masking policy. so for those public indoor gatherings, i think it is reasonable to keep wearing a mask for now but in other settings once you've been vaccinated live a normal life. that's the simple message. paul: that means air travel going to see your folks in some other state no worries? >> yeah. the cdc has gotten criticized a lot about not lifting the travel advisory for people who are fully vaccinated and so they're revisiting that i think you're going see a correction what have they said it has been very sort of patchy what they've put. a lot of conditions a lot of stipulations to their guidance. i think ultimately things like that lose credibility because people perceive a low risk of the infection in the community and they're right. 60% of seniors are now vaccinated. 30% of adults are vaccinated certain states, and so we're doing pretty well on a good path. paul: now the united states has had a faster pace of vaccination than many other partle of the world european for example most except maybe another country or two. what happens when the u.s. achieves close to herd immunity or other parts of the world do not. what does that do for international travel and entry into the united states? >> i think international travel is going to be one of the later things to restore back to normal, paul. i think we're going sees an obligation not on to support strategic allies overseas with a vaccine, but they are incapable of producing but also it is seen as important from a public health stand point because of variants mutate overseas from this point forward they could jump back into the united states so a global effort here does help protect the health and wellness of americans. paul: all right dr. mccarey informative appreciate it when we come back a year of covid lockdown what the states have taught us about what works, and what doesn't -- next. >> when this pandemic ends and it will ends soon we're not going to go back to normal because i think we all agree, normal is never good enough. ♪ ♪ the strength and stability of pacific life with their tomorrows. because life isn't about what tomorrow brings. it's what you do with it. ask a financial professional about pacific life are you packed yet? 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>> well, one, lockdowns are completely politically economically and socially, you know -- once, you know, you start after a couple of months, people get stir crazy they start socializing again and really is very difficult to control the human natural instinct to be with other people. ditto, you can't continue to fund these with trillions and trillions of federal debt. i mean, this congress is already appropriated 5.5 trillion much of it was unnecessary. but businesses need to be able to operate. they've also been terribly destructive for, you know, public health actually. paul: lockdowns you're talking about. >> lock downs there's been countless studies that shown heart attacks increase, miss more cancer diagnosis at least in the spring when elected care was shut down. the stress unemployment reduce actually increases cardiovascular risk and dampen as well. i think the lockdown ended up doing more to harm human or human health than actually good. paul: all right so there's been a real contrast between some of the states that like california and new york in particular and florida. what's the evidence that is there any evidence that the lockdowns did better for those lockdown states and those who eased up? >> no, it is very hard to see any difference and back if you look at the winter over -- new york, and california had more cases than deaths per adjusted per capita. than florida. there are many reasons probably for that. but very difficult as i mentioned before that for government with human behavior into some extent, it is in california which has been very by the way, very similar climate to florida at least during the wirnt winter months that -- you know, close down outdoor dining in california, so people congregate in more indoors that is why these one thought or one reason why people out here speculate that california had such a huge surge during the winter that overwhelm the hospitals. where florida had basically study race through since from the fall. new york, you know maybe biggest contributor to new york death is its, you know, during the spring, its inability to protect the elderly and that elderly are the most vulnerable, you know, exponential risk increases as people get older. so for most parts, young people don't die they can socialize so as long as you protect elderly knowing in florida what they did was implement regular testing of the nursing homes, they, you know, searched ppp equipment to the facilities. and they isolated people who were sick or elderly or sick. paul: okay. kim, what's your biggest take away from the last year? >> my biggest take away is don't trust the experts. you know, paul, if you look out there, and how this country is performing over the last year, we've had this ingenious pharmaceutical industry that has come up with a vaccine in under a year. we had businesses that rushed to fill the void of new equipment, shifted we had this incredibly resilient people who worked around this and manage to make things happen and educate their kids and failure has been mostly been public health experts and government, and the prooch of that is as we went along look nobody understood much about this in the beginning and you might be able to look past government moved to lockdowns. but very we cannilies quickly we began to understand about who this affected the most, the elderly, and a lot more about how to treat it and yet that public health community has never shifted shifted it becamet nick lockdown and west virginia we've gotten confusing backtracking advice and i think come out with a lot more scepght schism about government and public health ability to protect people. >> on the other hand, dan one of the outcomes of this has been an enormous expansion in government. i mean government -- whatever you think about how it has performed more power than it had a year ago. >> yes, it is. because people simply defaulted early on to a pmed that was not understood a virus that was not understood, and the epidemiologist essentially resorted to defaulted to policy that they discovered during the 1918 flu pandemic in which they thought that social distancing in st. louis caused fewer deaths than philadelphia which had very little social distancing. so they imposed that policy on the entire country back when their pmed began. and when the biggest flaws going forward paul was that they never stood back to try to reassess whether that proved extreme protocols made sense in terms of what was happening in the economy, in the schools and so forth. and therefore, states were forced to do that on their own. florida, texas, georgia, decided to ease up some. and the northern states did not. so the pandemic got politicized very quickly, paul. as a result i think you saw the growth of government as you remember describing and many of the whether blue states. paul: thank you all still ahead this week also marking an entire year out of the classroom for millions of american children. despite growing evidence that it is safe to return -- what we've learned about the role of teachers unions in the battle to reopen schools, next. t big investment. worth is a partner to help share the load. wealth is saving a little extra. worth is knowing it's never too late to start - or too early. ♪ ♪ wealth helps you retire. worth is knowing why. ♪ ♪ principal. for all it's worth. are you managing your diabetes... ...using fingersticks? 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exactly jen! calm + restore oat gel is formulated with prebiotic oat. and strengthens skin's moisture barrier. uh! i love it! aveeno® healthy. it's our nature.™ >> it has now been a full year since millions of american school children have seen the inside of a classroom. as covid closures have stretched on and many districts, some still with no timeline for reopening. this despite mounting evidence that in school instruction can safely resume. a new analysis of more than 130 studies worldwide concludes that covid-19 transmission is limited in schools with proper precautions and that reopening does not lead to increase cases in a community. so why are so many schools in the u.s. still closed? we're back dan kim strassel wall street journal manhattan institute fellow jason wiley answer that question for us. why are they closed? >> well, the short answer is because of the teachers unions, paul. they control public education, and we return to in person learning on their terms and that's what the pandemic has taught us. and it is interesting you say that the evidence is mounting that -- that we have about the impact of the virus on kids. we've known this for quite some time. this was one of the earliest observations we had at the start of the pandemic. so it just speaks to how remarkably strong the teachers union influence is on returning people back to the classroom with all of the science and all of the follow the science stuff on the left. this was one area where the unions have been tiebl buck the science successfully for a full year. paul: dan i was struck by the president comments, he you know he laid out all of the suffering that's taken place he talked about school children missing school and missing classes. he never mentioned fact that this had anything to do with the unions and he never even said that -- i mention for example, that private schools are opening safely. that many, many public schools in a lot of areas have managed to reopen safely. did that strike you as odd coming from the president? >> no it did not strike me as odd joe biden is a democrat and the democrats are never going to buck these teachers unions. this is one of the lessons coming out of the past year a lesson we have to come to grips with, paul. in new york city, the head of the teachers union is michael and united federation of teachers commenting few days ago on money that's being spent by the federal government to new york he said this will go towards helping the damage done to the children and if in the next breath says that means we should hire 10,000 new people for the department of education to rebuild this system. [laughter] in other words, hire bureaucrats are you kidding me? look, the public school status quo in the central cities does not work. it is not there to educate children. the democrats will never do anything about that, and i think it is incumbent on opposition party, the republicans to start agitating actively for school choice, and state legislatures, voucher programs, that allow tax dollars to transfer with the kids to private or schools and the expansion of charter schools because the public school system is clearly, obviously, broken after what has happened to it the past year. paul: kim what's so pin pureuating to me about this is that this is a major cause of lifetime inequality. i mean if you don't give kids if they lose a year of school some of them might lose more than a year of school. they're never going get that back because schools aren't great to begun with even when they do in classroom instruction, and yet the -- people say oh well, you know this is somebody else's fault no this is the people who run the fault of the people who run the schools. >> yes. infuriating the right word especially because there's a certain leveling of hypocrisy here too. when you look at a lot of these teachers unions, they claim that they can't go back there's racial inequality the the way the vaccine is being distributed when you look at the outset of this, it makes a point of noting that of those 130 study miss of them repeat again and again that the people that the kids that have been most impacted by this, are those who are most vulnerable in our society in particular low income and minority families. and they are not just losing a year of education. but potentially years of earnings in the future things that they could never get back not to mention mental health toll, poverty and more, and so you can't on the one hand use that pex kyes for not going back to school and not acknowledge that you are direct caus