CDC Director warns all recent Covid-19 progress could be wiped out by variants

Anderson Cooper 360

CNN

News

3.7 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2021

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning Americans that the country is at risk of losing recent gains in the battle against Covid-19 as highly contagious variants continue to spread. Dr. Rochelle Wolensky encouraged people to “stay strong” and said “vaccination is what will bring us out of this pandemic. To get there, we need to vaccinate many more people.” Moderna, Pfizer and just recently approved Johnson & Johnson say they’ll deliver enough doses to fully vaccinate 130 million people by the end of March. Dr. Leana Wen is the former Baltimore Health Commissioner and is currently an emergency room physician. She also has been a volunteer participant in the two-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine trial. She joins AC360 to discuss Wolensky’s warning and the advantages of the newly approved J&J vaccine. Plus, GOP legislators around the country—including the battleground states of Georgia and Arizona—are trying to roll back voting access in the wake of the 2020 election. Stacey Abrams is the founder of Fair Fight, a national voting rights organization rooted in Georgia that encourages voter participation in elections around the country. She tells Anderson Cooper “they are not fighting to protect elections. They are fighting to preserve their ability to win.” Airdate: March 1, 2021 Guests: Dr. Leana Wen Stacey Abrams To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Good evening. We begin tonight with two big lies that got a dangerous boost over the weekend
0:05.1	that only increased the threat this week to the Capitol. The familiar one, the 2020 presidential
0:10.4	election was somehow rigged. And the more insidious lie that's been riding along with it from the
0:15.4	beginning, claimed by people who should and probably do know better that what we saw in January 6,
0:20.6	what you're seeing right there and what they saw first hand, was actually not what it seemed.
0:24.8	That somehow these Trump supporters, QAnon followers and members of far right notes and groups,
0:29.6	were not responsible for the insurrection and the other hidden forces actually were.
0:35.1	Now, neither that lie nor the foundational election lie have any facts at all to support them.
0:41.0	In fact, in addition, one lie contradicts the other. After all, the first is meant to justify
0:46.0	what the pro-Trump insurrection did. And the second says they didn't actually do it.
0:50.9	But despite being fundamentally incompatible, they're both designed to gaslight, to ask you to not
0:56.7	believe what you saw with your own eyes. And they both have already stirred people to kill.
1:02.0	Which is why there's still tight security around the Capitol. And in advance, the March 4th date
1:06.6	that many QAnon followers believe bizarrely will mark the return to power of the defeated 45th
1:13.2	president. As for him at this weekend's conservative political action conference in Orlando,
1:18.4	he of course was back at it spouting the election lie, trying to raise money, and using the same
1:23.3	kind of language that incited the insurrection. This election was rigged, and the Supreme Court
1:30.1	and other courts didn't want to do anything about it. They didn't have the courage to Supreme Court.
1:36.4	They didn't have the courage to act, but instead used process and lack of standing.
1:42.5	They should be ashamed of themselves for what they've done to our country. They didn't have the
1:48.6	guts of the courage to make the right decision. A lot of bronzer. It sounds familiar. That's because
1:56.4	in words and tone, it's nearly identical to what he said about the former vice president.
	...

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