First 1 million cases. And theres no sign that the spread of this virus is slowing down. At this point, coronavirus has killed nearly 285,000 americans. This week marking the deadliest in the pandemic so far with an average of more than 2200 americans losing their lives each day. That is 2200 fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters every single day. Its hard to wrap your head around. But youve got to. But also this morning, there is a small sign of hope on the horizon. The entire world watching as the uk delivered its first shots of the Pfizer Vaccine becoming the first country to start mass vaccinations of a clinically tested, authorized vaccine. Margaret keenan, the 90yearold grandmother who received the first shot, perhaps the new picture of hope in the global fight to finally contain this deadly virus. And thats exactly where well begin this morning. Keir simmons joined us from cardiff, wales. What do we know about the first people getting the vaccine, and whats the feeling where you are . Hey, steph. Its amazing, isnt it, that behind this nondescript door, this is one of the 70 centers around the uk that is vaccinating people with this Pfizer Vaccine, this first rollout today. The kind of people who are getting the vaccinations to answer your question, that is folks in their 80s and 90s. We have seen here Many Health Care workers. We saw one doctor who just finished a nightshift in the icu, had come here for his vaccination. Thats how important it was to him. So people who work with the elderly, too, theyre also getting a priority here. It is a huge operation. What weve learned just this morning, and were in wales. This is one of the hardest hit countries in europe. They have had restrictions for seven months, two lockdowns. This couldnt come soon enough. Weve learned, too, about some of the hurdles here. So the vaccine been delivered to this community center. Theyre doing it in a basketball hall. Its been delivered here. Has been defrosted. So they have just the five days to carry out the scheduled appointments they need for those thousand doses of vaccines that get delivered to these different places. And thats quite a careful operation in a role Community Like this. But this is the kind of thing youll see in america. Local Community Halls being turned into Vaccination Centers where people can get to. And another point just to say, what weve seen here, we havent seen so many elderly and frail. I think as we go forward, another one of the challenges is going to be how do people who struggle with transportation, maybe struggle with movement, how do you get them to places like this or how do you get the vaccine to them . Both solutions are difficult. One of the Health Experts we spoke to here said they were actually really looking forward to other vaccines here in the uk being approved because that, if you know, will give them more weapons, more opportunities, more vaccines and some of those other vaccines yet to be approved dont have to be transported in the deep freeze temperatures. Keir, thank you, and stay safe where you are. We cant forget, here in the United States, we are still months away from a vaccine and right now hospitals across this country are struggling to keep up with demand. My colleague Steve Patterson is in reno, nevada, where one hospital is getting absolutely desperate. Steve, whats the situation where you are . Stephanie, nevada per capita has one of the worst hospitalization rates in the country. Here in washu county, 1 out of every 40 residents has been active case of coronavirus. This hospital, one of the largest in the region, was getting slammed. They had to get creative quickly. What they did is opened up this alternative care site converting a parking garage into one of these sites. Two floors. Freed up 1500 beds. Full negatively pressurized so it has all the amenities of a covid ward and its helped a lot. One of the doctors said its now the difference between them having to make incredibly difficult decisions and being able to get a little breathing room. But the situation inside that hospital still dire. The icu bed situation almost completely full to capacity. 35 out of 38 beds. By next week they may have to start doubling up on icu beds. I spoke to the doctor about that and how the situation in the garage has helped things. Heres what he said. Weve had to create an entirely new icu to care for critically ill patients. Weve had to develop entirely new units for covid positive patients so we can cohort them together and provide the oxygen and the isolation thats required. When those patients thankfully improve enough to where their oxygen requirements are eight liters or less, we can then move them to this alternative care site where we can still monitor their oxygen. We have nurses out here, physicians, respiratory therapists. So as the doctor was describing, sort of the flow of care, this alternative care site, this garage is just for mild to moderate cases. Youll see in a lot of cases, these are patients transitioning out of the hospital and many cases theyve been in er rooms for weeks, isolated from their friends and family and other people in the hospital. So this is one opportunity as theyre leaving to actually have a community. To see other people. They are all in there together. And they need that as they leave this hospital. Stephanie . A sense of community. Certainly comforting. Please, stay safe. Joining us to discuss this and more, dr. Kavita patel, physician and fellow at the Brookings Institution and former Obama White House policy health director. Weve got to start with this vaccine news. The fda released their analysis of that Pfizer Vaccine ahead of the United States decision on whether or not to authorize it. What stands out to you from these documents, and as you look to what theyre doing in the uk . Yeah, stephanie. Great to be with you. Glad to see youre recovering and a speedy, continuous recovery. I will say, i theres no word other than gleeful. Im looking through 53 pages. The committee will discuss this publicly thursday. Three things stand out, stephanie. There is actually incredible evidence that theres immunity that starts to occur even after the first dose. So im i want to emphasize that the twodose vaccine, but really strong efficacy, even after the first dose. Second, i also want to warn americans that it looks like this vaccine will have kind of the same reaction pattern that we see with the shingles vaccine, stephanie, and people over a certain age. My patients will know what this is. Localized arm ache, some reaction at the site of the injection. All of that is i think, very mild and certainly no serious adverse effects to speak of. And, of course, this incredible kind of 95 and i want to unpack that briefly what this tells us. Of the people who receive the vaccine, they are 95 less likely to get mild, moderate or severe covid compared to a group of people that dont get the vaccine. Thats the right way to interpret it and the data reinforces that. Its rare that you join me on this show and you tell me youre gleeful, so ill take that any day. But i want to talk about where we are right now because we dont have the vaccine today. What we have is testing. Can you help me understand why 11 months in, our testing, which is so essential, is still in such a bad place. People are waiting five, six, seven, eight days just to get their test results. And during that time period, were expecting people to isolate and we both know theyre not. And when people dont isolate, thats when it spreads. Stephanie, its so its even worse than that. I will tell you that its the very reason youve been reporting on. Small businesses, businesses of any size, schools. This has all been bound up in the cluster of testing or the lack thereof. The fda has not been willing to create a pathway for what we call surveillance tests. So think about kids in schools around the country who dont necessarily have symptoms but we want to understand if they could possibly have covid. Universities around the country are doing this by the way, and they have just done it with their own labs and taken it upon themselves. We should be able to scale that. You should be able, with the technology developed, you should be able to not even leave your house without an answer about whether or not theres a high chance you could have covid. And i think its the failure of regulatory status and its a failure of the will of the federal government to prioritize this because at the end of the day, it takes energy and money to dedicate those resources, and they just simply havent. Okay. But then lets stay on that because if we want schools open, businesses open, which we both do, its about having the information needed to isolate. And, yes, it would cost a lot of money, but were spending lots and lots of money already and were losing lots and lots of money because were shut down. What would be the reason to not have this rapid test information . I mean, im somebody who is currently isolating, and i know exactly how hard it is to get tested, and it makes no sense to me. Who would want that . Nobody. Nobody. Stephanie there is no explanation. And all you have to do is rewind several months when we saw admiral giroux. Weve seen a number of Trump Officials say that were doing more testing, were doing more testing than any other country. Were simply not doing enough testing by virtue of our Positivity Rate and exactly what you just said. And certainly, stephanie, ill take it a step further. Its a policy failure, but its a failure of leadership because we also had to cater to the president s message that we were doing enough testing. So what would it look like if we tripled, quadrupled our tests, which is exactly what we need to do. And then i will tell you this. You bring up an incredible point about isolation or people in quarantine. Most americans have not adhered to quarantine restrictions. Telling people to not work or not see other people for 14 days if you had a close contact is very hard if you are a working mother or just anybody. So this has been incredible. The postmortem on this, i hope, will reveal we could have saved lives, could have kept businesses open and certainly kept schools open safely. Isolating works. Its just very, very hard to do. And at the very least, we need to acknowledge it and provide support for people who simply cant put their lives on hold. Dr. Patel, always good to see you. Thanks for joining me. Weve got to talk economics because as these numbers are getting worse and more businesses are being forced to close, lawmakers are still not giving us a relief bill. They are trying to pass a covid relief bill but we dont have it yet. Garrett haake is on capitol hill with the latest. Garrett, where are we on this . Dont have it yet, steph. They may not have it for another week or so. Yesterday we Learned Congress was going to do the thing that we all wish we could do in our own lives when we have an impending deadline and give themselves an extra week to complete their work. Theyre going to vote this week to give themselves another week to finish the government funding deal theyre working on and this covid relief package. The new deadline is next friday. Joe manchin this morning essentially the democratic leader of this Bipartisan Coalition thats working on a relief package said that today he hopes to release this detailed section by section of most of the elements of their bipartisan framework. Money for vaccines, unemployment insurance, even for unemployment. Well learn how all that works today but what we wont learn is how theyll do state and local government funding and how theyre going to do liability shield. That Liability Protection for businesses. Those continue to be the stickiest issues in this entire negotiation. In fact, the team thats working on the liability portion, they met last night. They are meeting again this morning. Theyre trying to hammer that part out of it. What they do if they cant come to an agreement on those two items, the other big question. Do they pass all the other things they can agree upon or keep fighting this out . Thats where we are right now and this Team Continues to work more or less around the clock on this relief package. Weve got a Record Number of people going to food pantries and food banks. We dont have enough access to rapid tests, and were bickering over liability shields for businesses on whether or not they need to protect their customers and employees. Think about that. Garrett, thank you. And now i want to turn to a shocking story out of florida. Authorities have raided the home of a former state official who has said she was ousted earlier this year for refusing to censor the States Coronavirus data. She was a whistleblower. Rebekah jones tweeted this video of the raid on her home saying this. State police came into my house and took all of my hardware and technology. They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids. In search of a warrant an investigator said, a person at jones home, who was using her email draerks illegally gained access to a staterun communications platform. That person sent a group text message telling people it was, quote, time to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead. Jones led the effort to establish a Public Information portal that listed the number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the state of florida. In may, she told a local tv station her exit was not voluntary. She now says Governor Ron Desantis is behind the raid on her home. The Florida Department of health has made no comment. Still ahead the white house hosts a vaccine summit today. Whats actually going to happen at that summit . Because there may be a backlog of vaccines after the Trump Administration turned down the opportunity to order extra doses from pfizer. Plus, firing up the base. 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Vaccine Developers Pfizer and moderna declined the president s invitation to attend the summit. And new reporting by the Washington Post reveals pfizer has told u. S. Officials it will not be able to supply a substantial amount of additional vaccine doses until some time next summer. That comes after Trump Administration officials reportedly declined when pfizer offered to sell the u. S. More vaccine doses last summer. I want to bring in Michael Memoli where the biden team is and White House Bureau chief of the Washington Post, phil rucker. Mike, lets talk biden first. Introducing his health team in just a few hours. What should we expect in terms of an action plan . Can they do anything before january 20th . Well, steph, its interesting. You just laid it out there. Were more than a month since joe biden was projected as the president elect and were going to have another one of these split screen moments where at the white house, President Trump is essentially celebrating the vaccine, trying to claim credit for it and at the same time, biden will be introducing his team, the team that will be largely the one responsible for actually distributing this vaccine, getting it out to the public. And were seeing some considerable praise for some of those selections. Rochelle walensky. Shell be at the head of the cdc. Youre also going to see vivek murthy back as the Surgeon General after serving that role in the obama administration, and Jeffrey Zients as the covid czar helping to work across agencies to do this. Some criticism for xavier becerra, former congressman, get something pushback from republicans on capitol hill. But, steph, to the question you ask, its going to be a focus of a meeting that we now expect to take place on thursday. Moncef slaoui saying in an interview this morning thats the day hell meet with members of the biden transition team. Slaoui is the head of operation warp speed. Theres already been evidence of daylight between the two sides on how much the biden team believes there has