One of the things we want to emphasize and have been emphasizing is to take a look at where you are in the area of the so-called opening America again. Are you at the gateway phase one, phase two, phase three ? the CDC has guidelines about the opening of schools at various stages of those checkpoints. The basic fundamental goal would be as soon as you possibly can to get the children back to school and to use the public health as a tool to help get children back to school.

Anthony Fauci

Without substantial mitigation, the middle of January can be a really dark time for us.

We dont expect to see the full brunt of it between two and three weeks following Thanksgiving, so I think we have not yet seen the post-Thanksgiving peak, thats the concerning thing because the numbers in and of themselves are alarming, and then you realize that it is likely well see more of a surge as we get two to three weeks past the Thanksgiving holiday.

If you look at the vaccine, the level and quality of neutralizing antibodies was comparable to and even better than what you see in the convalescent plasma of people who actually were infected and developed an immune response, it's at least as good as the response associated with natural infection.

OK, so both of the vaccines that we're talking about -- the Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine -- are what's called a prime boost, one injection followed in (three to four) weeks by another injection.

After the second dose, you get optimal immunity anywhere from seven to 10 days after the second dose.

I do have great faith in both the scientific community and the regulatory community in the UK, i did not mean to apply any sloppiness (to the UK regulatory process), even though it came out that way.

If we had for example approved it yesterday or tomorrow, there likely would have been pushback on an already scrutinising society, you know, at the end of the day, it’s going to be safe, it’s going to be effective, the people in the UK are going to receive it and they’re going to do really well, and the people in the United States are going to receive it and we’re going to do pretty well.

We're entering into what really is a precarious situation because we're in the middle of a steep slope.

We say it, not being facetiously or havinga soundbite or anything, but you know: close the bars, keep the schools open, is what we really say.

We tried to get the word out, as difficult as it is to not have large gatherings of people and family.

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, what we do need is we need to get as many people as possible vaccinated.

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.

So, if we get the overwhelming majority of people taking the vaccine, and you have on the one hand an effective vaccine, on the other hand, a high degree of uptake of the vaccine, we could start getting things back to relative normal as we get into the second and third quarter of the year, where people can start thinking about doing things that were too dangerous just months ago.

Some people in this country are going to be able to have a relatively normal type of a Thanksgiving, but in other areas of the country, it's going to be,' You better hold off and maybe just have immediate family, and make sure you do it in a way that people wear masks, and you don't have large crowds of people,' what we're starting to see now -- and we can't run away from it -- we're starting to see in the Midwest and the Northwest, an uptick in test positivity, which tends to be a predictor that you're going to have surges.

Transitions are important, and if you don't have a smooth transition, you would not optimize whatever efforts you're doing right now.

I just can't understand why there's pushback against that. They're not difficult to do, and they save lives.

Stay completely apolitical. Don't get involved in any of the political aspects, and just focus on what your job is as a scientist and a physician, you do that, you'll be fine.

We do know for absolutely certain that there is a post-Covid-19 syndrome -- referred to sometimes as long Covid, chronic Covid, long haulers, we're seeing variable percentages, and anywhere from 25 to 35 % or more have lingering symptoms -- well beyond what you'd expect post any viral syndrome, like influenza and others.

Ultimately, they're going to wind up infecting people in the community, but they're the ones that are sort of driving the infection.

I have real problems with that guy, he's a smart guy who's talking about things that I believe he doesn't have any real insight or knowledge or experience in. He keeps talking about things that when you dissect it out and parse it out, it doesn't make any sense.