November 22 coronavirus news

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that there are two things that make a vaccination program effective: the efficacy of the vaccine and how many people take it. 

Fauci was speaking to CBS’s Margaret Brennan on Face The Nation on Sunday. Brennan quoted Operation Warp Speeds chief scientific advisor, Moncef Slaoui, saying “we could have true herd immunity take place somewhere in the month of May as the vaccine is distributed.”

Brennan then asked Fauci if America goes back to normal life in May.

“If you have a highly efficacious vaccine, and only a relatively small 40, 50% of the people get vaccinated, you’re not going to get the herd immunity you need,” Fauci said. “What we do need is we need to get as many people as possible vaccinated.”  

This is why, he explained, “we want to be very transparent” and for people to understand the independent, transparent process which led to the point of the US Food and Drug Administration, along with independent advisory committees, saying that the vaccines are safe and effective with an EUA and ultimately a license. 

“When the American public hears that, you should be assured that that is the case and if you get an overwhelming majority of the people vaccinated with a highly efficacious vaccine, we can reasonably quickly get into herd immunity that would be a blanket of protection for the country,” Fauci said. 

In anticipation of the upcoming holiday season, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is warning Americans about the risk of infection at friends and family gatherings. 

“One of the spots, if you want to call them, where you have a risk is seemingly innocent family friends get togethers indoors and it seems like the most natural thing,” Fauci said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation.

 Fauci said he is concerned about people traveling through crowded airports. 

“When you get on a crowded plane, you're in a crowded airport, you're lining up, not everybody's wearing masks – that puts yourself at risk,” he said. 

He also said that the he is concerned about a possible spike in cases leading up to Christmas.

“You're not going to see an increase until weeks later – things lag,” he said. “So what you don't want to see is another spike in cases as we get colder and colder into December and then you start dealing with the Christmas holiday – we can really be in a very difficult situation.”

“So you want to tell people to please, seriously consider decisions that you make,” he added. 

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the head of the government's effort to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" this morning to answer questions about the US's race to develop and distribute a coronavirus vaccine.

Here are the key takeaways from his interview:

The US is seeing an unprecedented pandemic resurgence, and nearly a quarter of all Covid-19 cases reported in the United States so far were recorded in November.

Records are being set in some states: Mississippi reported a single day record in the state with 1,972 cases on Saturday, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health.

In New Mexico, records were set on Saturday with 825 hospitalizations, a tweet from Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said.

Overall, 37 states are reporting more coronavirus cases in the past week than they did in the previous week. Another eight are seeing a steady number of new cases, and just five are seeing declining numbers.

Here's a look at where cases are rising:

Sen. David Perdue campaign spokesperson Casey Black says the Georgia senator will remain at home until Sen. Kelly Loeffler receives confirmation of her test results. 

What is this about: As CNN reported Saturday, Loeffler’s campaign confirmed that the Georgia Republican tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday but a subsequent test came back as inconclusive on Saturday evening.

Loeffler was maskless with Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Perdue during campaign events most of the day Friday. The trio rode on a bus from the airport to two campaign events for Georgia senate seat runoff elections. 

As Americans prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving next week, some doctors shared what they're planning for the holiday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NPR’s Rachel Martin on Morning Edition Tuesday that his Thanksgiving will be "significantly" different this year than previous holidays.

His three adult daughters — who live in separate parts of the country — said that they did not want to put him, as an elderly person, at risk. Fauci is 79 years old. 

He and his wife will have a meal and Zoom with his daughters to spend time with them.

“I don’t like it that way, but I think they’re making a prudent decision in trying to protect their father and I’m proud of them for that,” he said. 

CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta also said he won't be visiting family this year.

And CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen — who has urged Americans to skip indoor gatherings, but said it's possible to visit family by socializing outdoors — described how she has hosted outdoor get-togethers.

"I like to have a big table in the middle, where I put all the drinks and plates," she said. "I also have chairs set up so that every household is spaced at least 6 feet apart. I'll pour drinks and then have people come up, individually, to pick them up. Food should be plated separately; no buffets or people reaching into a common bowl. We won't share food or drinks."

The expedited timeline of Operation Warp Speed has had nothing to do with political pressure, its chief scientific officer, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union on Sunday. 

He continued to tell Tapper it’s been “an incredible visionary approach to put together science and the Department of Defense and industry in incredible partnership, frankly it’s been, it’s been exceptional.” 

Ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, more than 1 million passengers traveled through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at US airports on Friday, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

This is only the second time during the pandemic that the US saw that high passenger volume. The TSA topped 1 million passenger screenings at the end of the long Columbus Day weekend.

Here's a look at the numbers this weekend:

March 16 was the last day going into the pandemic that the US routinely had 1 million passenger days, according to the TSA. On March 16, 1,257,823 passengers traveled through TSA checkpoints. The following day, March 17, that number dropped below a million passengers with 953,699 passengers.

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the head of the White House's coronavirus vaccine effort, said he hopes that the high efficacy rates of the vaccine candidates will encourage those who may we have concerns about vaccines to get one.

"I think people have misunderstood the level of efficacy that the FDA aimed for, which was to say, at least 50% efficacy. Maybe people thought that was the efficacy of the vaccine," he told CNN this morning. "It's 95%. It's almost a full insurance against this pandemic. I think and I hope that's gonna change people's perception."

He added that it's "very unfortunate" that the vaccine development process has become political.

"I really think it's very unfortunate that the whole process has been politicized and, therefore, the context has created conditions whereby people's perception has been exacerbated and we are where we are today," he said.

He added that the vaccines are safe for Americans.