janice adds that the times of london newspaper today saying that british intelligence believes a lab leak is a feasible cause of the coronavirus pandemic. around this country, americans are celebrating memorial day weekend maskless. this as the cdc reports 40% of americans are fully vaccinated and 50% have received at least their first shot. so joining me now, the founder and ceo of advancing health equity and msnbc medical contributor. glad to see you, especially because this is some darn good news. other than the interesting thing that was just reported by janice about the origins of covid-19, so your perspective as a doctor, what is the medical importance of figuring out the source? thank you for having me, alex. so the importance is that we need to know the origins of this
it s the absence of proof of any scenario that might explain the pandemic. i believe we do need an investigation where there s open transparency. reporter: from the outset, china has been criticized for a lack of transparency. wuhan has china s only level four super laboratory that works with the world s most deadly pathogens to include, yes, the coronavirus. reporter: the trump administration embraced the idea. we have people looking at it very strongly. reporter: much of the scientific community dismissed it. but experts have questioned the world health organization, and said a lab leak was unlikely. in a joint letter in the journal science experts called for a broader investigation, say nothing possibility should be ruled out until we have sufficient data. nbc news was granted the only independent media access to the
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particular coronavirus so that another pandemic like this one never happens again. this is the third coronavirus, sars in 2002 and mers in 2012, that s caused an outbreak. this is the most significant outbreak. we need to know, did this happen naturally or was it a result of a lab leak? there s so many questions. also, what were the lab protocols? what were the diagnosis of those lab workers that had to go to the hospital? we need to have all of these answers, and these answers aren t going to be found in a 90-day investigation. we need folks on the ground, in wuhan, taking blood samples from animals, from residents, and from lab workers to get the answer. so these other coronavirus variants that are emanating from various parts of the world, are we 100% certain that they all came from the original? is there any chance that any of them erupted on their own accord?
so i think that we can appreciate that the country has done very well in terms of vaccination efforts. but when you look more on a granular level, there are many areas of the country that are undervaccinated, and even pockets within certain counties. the vaccination rates are quite low. my person is that people traveling over this memorial day weekend, they may be traveling from areas of low vaccination rates and expos a potential rate to people who are undervaccinated. so we all still have to be very careful, even though it seems like we are headed back to quote unquote normalcy, we need more people to be vaccinated. okay, appreciate your insights. thank you very much. why this weekend is like none other in tulsa, oklahoma. none other in tulsa, oklahoma. the light.