Other states. But first, here are the facts on the pandemic at this hour. The wall street journal reports the Trump Administration has fallen short of its ppe stockpiling goals. Take n95 masks for frontline workers, the administration said in may it wanted to increase its supply to 300 Million Masks over 90 days. By mid november, we had less than half of that, just 142 million. Right now there are more americans hospitalized with this virus than at any other time during the pandemic according to the covid tracking project. The New York Times warns a third of americans live in areas where hospitals are running critically short of icu beds. The strain on our hospitals comes as we hit a new record for daily coronavirus cases. On tuesday, more than 222,000 americans were diagnosed with this virus. So far, listen to this number. About one in 22 americans have tested positive for covid19. A littleknown panel of independent experts is about to play a big role in the most critical step to stopping this pandemic, the fda approval process for pfizers vaccine. Tomorrow the group of epidemiologists and lawyers will meet to review pfizers trial data and give the recommendation to the fda over whether to approve the vaccine. Nbcs tom costello joins us now. Hes been following this. Tom, good morning. These panels are nothing new, but this level of attention certainly is. What is exactly going to happen . How does this work, tom . This is really the brain tuft, as you alluded to, the brain trust of the vaccine approval process, mds, phds. They have an acronym verdict pack, thats the name or shorthand for the name of their committee. They job is to review the data from an outside perspective to see whether they agree this vaccine is safe. I talked to the chairman of this group, dr. Arnold monto. Hes been looking at vaccines and viruses for 50 years. So we talked about the process of approvaling this vaccine. Is there anything here that gives you pause . Not really. The data are so much better. The efficacy is so much better than what we expected. These things will be available and totally transparent so the public has no question about whether the vaccines are safe and effective. Reporter so the timeline here, we expect the fda will actually probably look at this outside panels recommendation. We expect that will happen on either friday or saturday because we do expect that veer pack will approve the vaccine. Fda approval coming friday or saturday and the military expects the trucks to roll within 24 hours. I talked to the operation warp speed commander general perna. He reiterated, yes, they expect to have trucks moving 24 hours after they get emergency use authorization, but they havent pre positioned any trucks any vaccine shipments because they dont want to presuppose how the fda may rule riechlt now pfizer is the one that has all the vaccines and theyre loaded up and ready to go. Again, operation warp speed expects we could be seeing shots in arms as soon as sunday, maybe even monday. But this is really only just a couple days away. I lost my transmission and took my earpiece out because of that. Back to you. Tom costello with great information for us. Thank you so much for that. Louisiana is trying to get a head start on the distribution of the pfizer rack seen even before its approved by the fda. That state expects 79,000 doses in its first batch. The governor laid out a bold promise. The state will administer every single one within 48 hours of getting them. Nbcs valley castro is in shreveport, louisiana. Valerie, walk us through how that state plans to pull it off off. Reporter the state is hopefully expecting its first batch by the end of the week. That will be 39,000 doses, expecting a second batch next week. That will be 40,000 doses. As you can imagine, its a real challenge trying to get all those vaccines especially to the rural smaller communities and the smaller hospitaltype facilities. Were at morris and dickson. This is a company that will help with that process. Take a listen. We will receive the pfizer shipments and move them through our ultra cold freezers. Well break that down into smaller amounts to go to these smaller Public Health clinics in every parish in the state as well as smaller hospitals or fill in the difference that the larger Health System need. Reporter chris, of course, the challenge is making sure the vaccine stays cold enough. They will be taking those larger shipments and breaking them down and putting them into smaller coolers like this. They retrofitted them with these special gauges so they can monitor the temperature and track it and make sure the vaccine holds as it is shipped to those different facilities. Again, theyre trying to get these shipments to every single Rural Community in the state. Chris. Valerie castro, big job they have there as well as throughout the country. The conflicting messaging surrounding the coronavirus, thats arguably even muddier this morning as the president and the president elect simultaneously present starkly different descriptions of where we are in this pandemic. All i can tell you is the truth. Were in a very dark winter. Things may well get worse before they get better. You do have an immunity and develop an immunity over time. I hear were close to 15 . Thats terrific. A very powerful vaccine in itself and just tremendous progress has been made. A vaccine may soon be available. We need to level with one another. It will take longer than wed like to distribute it to all corners of the country zbl this will quickly and dramatically reduce deaths and hospitalizations within a short period of time. At competing events, competing messages. Eastern as the critical vaccine rollout is about to get under way. Nbcs mike melly is in wilmington, delaware with the biden team. Nbcs Kelly Odonnell is at the white house. Mike, the president elect was nothing if not ambitious in his promises for the first 100 days that his administration would oversee the injection of 100 million covid19 vaccine shots, reopen a majority of schools. How confident are they at this point that they can pull all this off . Reporter its so interesting, chris. We know joe biden has been reading up on fdr. President roosevelt popularized the idea of the first hundred days, taking action in the time of crisis. Some president s have been reluctant to live up to that 100day benchmark. Biden clearly doing that yesterday on vaccines, masks, opening schools. You heard him praising the expertise and the experience of that team, many of whom hes worked before. So to the extent that theyre in control of this situation, theyre very confident they can make real strides towards achieving each of these goals. But biden was also clear hes not entirely in control of this. A lot of this will depend on state and local governments to cooperate. It will depend on the government taking part in mask wearing specifically. Theres very real challenges. You heard him call on congress to get the relief and the money towards getting that vaccination challenge addressed as well. Were also going to hear, i think, from joe biden on this challenge as relates to another announcement hes about to make. This afternoon announcing formally lloyd austin as his choice for defense secretary. As he was defending this decision, explaining why he chose austin yesterday in an oped in the atlantic, he raised the vaccine issue saying austin, as the top u. S. Commander in iraq, helped oversee one of the most significant logistical challenges of drawing down the u. S. Troops presence there and hes the right man to help with this other logistical challenge. You heard him talk about getting vaccines distributed across the country. Chris, another challenge, cooperating with the Trump Administration. We know that the biden team is going to be sitting down for the first time with the Operation Warp Speed Team to try to continue to learn more about that Vaccine Distribution plan. Kelly, that brings me to you. Obviously its not just biden and trump with conflicting messages. You get them from within the administration. Operation warp speed is one thing as opposed to what were hearing from the president because the vaccine summit turned into as much of rehashing election conspiracy theories as anything else. Tell us whats going on from the administration perspective. Reporter thats even continued today with the president tweeting things like overturn, one of his more aggressive attempts to try to subvert the election. On coronavirus, what we have also seen is the task force has put out its own concerns about a patchwork of mitigation efforts around the country and nay want to see more uniformity. As the vaccine has so much promise, it still has that timeline associated with it, and it cant fix the now problem with the soaring rate of infection and the winter months ahead of us where there will still be a lot of time before americans broadly have access to the vaccine theyre talking about making certain states doing more to uniformly urge compliance among citizens for the different steps, mask wearing, hand washing, distan distanci distancing, staying home, all of those things because they argue there hasnt been enough consistency, even though its been in our sort of our whole lifestyle change of these last many months, its still not being done, enforced and complied with by the public. Thats part of what were hearing. From the president , still this resistance on the election where he is not willing to include the biden team in some of the planning and not willing to certainly do so in a public way because he claims he can still somehow have a second administration, and we know the window for that is closing rapidly and the president s efforts for legal action have already been resoundly pushed back again and again and again. Monday is the big day for the Electoral College. Chris, its trying to get a uniformity of message from a place where there has been mixed messaging as best over many months with the president not wearing a mask himself and not urging the public to do so in the way that perhaps could have been more effective if he had done so earlier. So thats part of what theyre trying to grapple with now. Kelly odonnell, mike memoli, always great to see both of you. Thank you for that. This morning theres new optimism that the uk is on day two of its vaccine rollout, but there are also some new concerns about how the pfizer injections could interject with serious allergies. The National Health service is reporting two staffers had adverse reactions. So its prompted a new warning that anyone with a history of severe allergic reactions, for example, people who regularly carry an epipen should hold off on getting vaccinated. It want to bring in dr. Sigh rah midad, the senior director of the special pathogens unit at new York City Health and hospitals. Always good to see you. I want to start with the warnings about the allergic reactions to the vaccine. Some people will see a headline and lit make them nervous about getting the vaccine. How concerned are you about the warning, and should we be careful not to wave off anyone with just a typical allergy . I think its important for us to look at the sam size. These are only just two cases out of whatever the sample sides currently has been made available to the population. I think this is certainly certainly warrants further investigation but nothing to be extremely surprised about. A lot of these things are going to happen as these massive campaigns roll out. I think this is something to be expected, but also just for a Public Health and safety standpoint, these things need to be further looked into. I think putting a pause on it the way they have done and having a blanket statement, for those who have severe allergies, i think there needs to be more investigation before you make some sort of Statement Like that. Youre an epidemiologist, not a logistics expert, but as we get ready to start vaccinations, what do you make of the biden plan for 100 million covid shots within the first 100 days in office and our capability to get together logistically so that can happen and, frankly, have the supply of the vaccine . I think its important to mention this is obviously a huge, massive undertaking by Public Health and Health Care Systems, and this is not just providing a vaccine to 330 million americans one time. This is doing it twice in a matter of three weeks. This obviously is going to be phased out. This is a huge effort, a lot of logistical constraints about it. Its not just the cold storage and handling everyone is hearing about. But once it hits Health Care Systems theres an entire process behind the scenes in making sure we have the capability and the staffing to be able to do the handling, to administer the vaccine and to actually bring individuals to get the vaccine. We know we cant bring the vaccine to people. People have to come to the vaccine because of these requirements. Theres an entire process that has to go on behind the scenes that is happening right now as we speak across the nation. We know theres only so many doses of vaccine. Theres going to be this intense composition for the vaccine supply. This morning politico was reporting the u. S. Could be, and im coating here, heading for a vaccine cliff this spring with shortages forcing hundreds of millions of americans to wait for shots and intense global competition for limited doses. Im sure you saw the former fda commissioner, Scott Gottlieb who is on pfizers board confirmed to cnbc yesterday that the administration turn down the chance to lock in more doses, presumably betting on other companies to win approval for their vaccines. But right now with just two in the immediate pipeline, could we be heading for a serious shortage of shots . I think we should expect hiccups and these essential these issues that were having with the rollout of these vaccines. These are manufacturers that are going to hit supply chain constraints. I think these are iet stems and issues that are certainly not new. So i think this is something we need to understand this is an entire process. Theres going to be bumps and bruises along the way. There are going to be hiccups. But we are do know that were not putting all our eggs in one basket. Theres going to be multiple other vaccines that will be made available, specifically coming into next year in quarter one. Well probably have four to five different vaccines authorized by then. Well have more of a supply for the general population. This is something that is to be expected. Unfortunately were seeing it earlier than we would have hoped for, but i think this is something thats going to continue to happen. And in the meantime, weve talked about this so much, we still have a number of months to get through. As of tuesday, the u. S. Surpassed 15 million known infections which means one out of every 22 americans have now tested positive. How worried are you that we still have the holidays to get through and that the case surge thats expected to come from that will top anything that weave ever experienced . Its extremely alarming. Youre see hospitalizations skyrocket. Youre seeing not only high number of infections throughout the united states, youre also seeing our testing is not essentially keeping up with our supply and demand. If you look at south dakota and idaho, they have a percent Positivity Rate of over 50 , which means we are not catching a lot of these infections. So even the infections theyre seeing today, its probably just the tip of the iceberg. You have many, many more people that are Walking Around that are infectious, that are continuing to spread the disease. Its very, very concerning on that front, especially considering the Holiday Season is right around the corner. Hospitals are getting overwhelmed. Youll also see the standard of care is not going to be optimal, especially for individuals who are sickest. Icu staffing is constrained, staffing is constrained. Thats going to increase morbidity and mortality across the board. Dr. Syra madad, thank you so much. The u. S. Could be days away from approving a covid19 vaccine, but then what . Where do you go to get it, when can you get it . There are so many questions about how we get from vaccine approval to that vaccine going into peoples arms. We have the perfect guest to help answer some of those questions, so stick around for that. First, new details in the furious debate in congress over another relief deal. The latest question, whether it will include more direct payments to americans. Youre all, youre all i need youre all, youre all i need as long as i got you then baby you know that youve got me, oh yea. Our bargain detergent couldnt keep up. With us. You know that youve got me, oh yea. Turns out its mostly water. 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Whats that brewery doing to avoid having to permanently close its doors . Reporter the governor and state Health Officials say while theyve seen some progress in terms of new covid infections, those have dropped in the last two weeks, it wasnt enough because covid hospitalizations and the death rate, those numbers are still high. They need to see some sort of stabilization across the board. They also say they needed the extra time here to assess what the potential impacts of thanksgiving gatherings could be in terms of the numbers. This place, the brewery were at, royal oak brewery, they have been around and opened since 1995. At this point they