April 21, 2021 • 20 mins
Guilty on all three counts. Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, causing his death, was found guilty on second and third degree murder, in addition to second degree manslaughter. In an emotional case, many feel that justice has been served, but it’s just a first step toward accountability. Janelle Griffith, national reporter at NBC News, was on the scene in Minneapolis and helps us break down this historic verdict.
Next, more than half of American adults have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, and while that is good news, experts increasingly feel that we might not get to herd immunity. Recent polls suggest that 15-25% of Americans don’t plan on being vaccinated which won’t help in the effort. Elizabeth Weise, national correspondent at USA Today, joins us for why herd immunity might no longer be on the table.
Finally, coronavirus vaccination cards are increasingly being used in fraud scams. Recent listings on eBay are promising an “Authentic CDC Vaccination Card” for about $10. And scammers are also using those vaccination selfies you might be posting to make their fakes look even more real. Dan Diamond, national health reporter at The Washington Post, joins us for more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Wednesday, April. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and
this is the Daily Dive. Guilty on all three counts.
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on
George Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes, causing his death,
(00:20):
was found guilty on second and third degree murder in
addition to second degree manslaughter. In an emotional case. Many
feel that justice has been served, but it's just the
first step toward accountability. Janelle Griffith, national reporter at NBC News,
was on the scene in Minneapolis and helps us break
down this historic verdict. Next, more than half of American
(00:41):
adults have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine,
and while that is good news, experts increasingly feel that
we might not get to hurt immunity. Recent polls suggests
that fifteen of Americans don't plan on being vaccinated, which
won't help in the effort. Elizabeth Wei's national correspondent at
US Say Today, joins us for why herd immunity might
(01:03):
no longer be on the table. Finally, coronavirus vaccination cards
are increasingly being used in fraud scans. Recent listings on
eBay are promising an authentic CDC vaccination card for about
ten bucks. Dan Diamond, national health reporter at Washington Post,
joins us for more. It's news without to know it.
Let's dive in. Today history was made. We're finally starting
(01:29):
to as a country live up to the promise of
equal justice under the law. Joining us now is Janelle Griffith,
national reporter at NBC News. Thanks for joining us, Janelle,
Thanks for having me. Historic day definitely. Yeah. We have
all guilty verdicts in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the
former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd by
(01:53):
putting his knee on his neck for nine minutes and
twenty nine seconds. As I mentioned, second degree unintentional murder guilty,
third degree murder guilty, second degree manslaughter guilty. Janelle, you're
joining us. This is right after we got the verdicts.
You're outside of the courthouse. I know it's pretty chaotic.
They're described the scene. Police tell that's what's going on.
(02:14):
So it's definitely chaotic, and I would describe it as
very emotional. Once the verdict was announced, a lot of
people erupted into tears. They were hugging each other, people
were chanting all three and chanting Black lives matter, people
of all races, not just black people. It's a very
mixed race crowd, and people were definitely celebratory, and they're
(02:37):
also being mindful to each other. And just two news outlets,
they're speaking to reporters like myself. They're telling us this
is just the beginning, this is just the start. So
the mood is definitely celebratory, but it's also a little somber,
and it's looking ahead at what yet needs to be
done in our country with regard to policing. Yeah, just
seeing some of the reactions so far, it seemed like
(02:59):
a collective of relief. I know people have said justice
has been served. A lot of people saying justice has
been served, but it's just the beginning. There's still a
lot more to go, but this is the beginning at least.
That's definitely what I'm hearing from people too. I've been
speaking to lots of people. I've been here following it
every step of the way, and I've been out here
(03:20):
even before the verdict was announced that people were telling
me that they were hopeful. They said that the fact
that the verdicts came down about ten hours after the
jury had started deliberating. They deliberated for about ten hours
over two days, and they took that as a sign
to mean that he was guilty. They felt like the
longer that the jury had deliberated it would be a
sign of them being confused or at odd. So the
(03:43):
length of time was an indicator to a lot of
people that it would be a guilty verdict, but they
did not necessarily interpreted to mean guilty on all three counts.
And a lot of people are saying they hoped that
this has an influence across the country because there are
problems in police seeing across our country that people have
been objecting to for years, and George Floyd's death just
(04:06):
reignited those problems, and they hope that with this verdict
it can open more conversations and actually invoke serious change
where there needs to be. We got a statement from
Ben Crump, he's the attorney for the Floyd family, and
he said that painfully earned justice is finally a right
for George Floyd's family, and this verdict is a turney
point in history and it sends a clear message on
(04:28):
the need for accountability for law enforcement, So definitely that's
where people want to go on the next steps in
all of this. The sentencing, it could be a few
weeks away, but the judge also has to consider aggravating factors,
which is going to be an important point. They could
make the sentence even longer. Yes, the judge definitely will
have to factor that in. What he has on his
(04:49):
side is that clearly he didn't have any criminal history.
But the judge will have the final say in terms
of the length of his sentence. A few days after
George Boy's death, Derek Chauvin was willing to plead guilty
to third degree murder and he was willing to serve
at least ten years in prison. But William Barr, who
was the Attorney General at the time, he killed the deal,
(05:12):
and people close to him told us another outlets that
the reason why was because he feared that the sentence
was too lenient, that it would cause a great uproar
with that sentence up to ten years, So he killed
it and now here we are and he faces a
much different punishment than just ten years. So I wonder
if that's something that is weighing on him. Chauvin, you know,
(05:33):
had he been able to go ahead with that plea,
he would have only faced ten years, and now he's
facing a much, much, much more punishment. I think the
counts of second degree and third degree I think at
a minimum or the presumed initial sentences about twelve and
a half years. So that's kind of a starting point possibly.
And as we mentioned that these aggravating factors, there's five
(05:53):
different ones. Floyd was vulnerable because he had his hands
tied behind his back, he was treated with cruelty, the
police abused their sition of authorities, the officers committed the
at as a group, and it was done in front
of children also, So these are all considerations that are
going to be taken into account for that, yes, and
I imagine they will weigh heavily when the judges deciding it.
(06:15):
Time will tell, but I can't imagine it helps his
case in any way. The burden of proof was on
the prosecution. They had to make the jury feel that,
without a reasonable doubt, Derek Chauvin did cause the murder
of George Floyd, and obviously they did that. The defense
was shaky all along, and some of the way they
approached this, I mean you kind of shake your head
(06:36):
at it, so definitely a victory for the prosecution team,
and the defense just did not muster enough to win this.
They spoke to a handful of legal experts, probably half
a dozen prosecutors and also defense attorneys, and what they
unanimously said was that basically Eric Nelson was no match
(06:56):
for this prosecution. It was a team up all stars.
The majority of the attorneys where seasoned attorneys, long time attorneys.
He was no match for them. They had thirty eight
witnesses to his seven, and only two of his seven
were experts, so he was clearly the underdog, and really
he didn't really have a defense. He was blaming George
(07:16):
Floyd's death on his pre existing health condition, but even
the medical examiner's ruling didn't side with him, and the
prosecution had these all star witnesses from the police chiefs
himself in the rare rebuke that we have discussed previously,
he rebuked Chauvin, and then he had people like Dr Tobin,
who is a world renowned pulminologist who literally mapped out
(07:38):
the minute George Floyd stopped breathing. He was able to
break down this very complicated medical language to the average
lay person and it clearly translated, because here we are
with Chauvin being fund guilty on all three counts. Johnel Griffith,
National reporter at NBC News, thank you very much for
joining us. Thank you so much for having me. We're
(08:08):
gonna have increased hesitancy in the population soon. Supply is
gonna outstrip demand, and so we really have to be
focused on building that confidence on those people that are
sort of waiting and seeing if we're gonna get to
that herd immunity. You know, we need to get all
adults on board with this vaccine. Joining us now is
Elizabeth Wei's national correspondent at USA Today. Thanks for joining us, Elizabeth,
(08:28):
You're so welcome. We have seen a little bit more
than half of American adults receiving at least one dose
of the vaccine. You know, many are definitely on their
way to their second shots already, so we're making good
progress on that front. But the question of herd immunity
has always kind of been looming since the beginning of
the pandemic, and the gold post had been moved there
(08:49):
a lot. You know, it's like se some say, with
the new variants that should be up to but experts
are saying increasingly that we probably won't get there, so
we need to start considering this in different terms. So, Elizabeth,
you spoke to a few people about this. What are
we hearing about her immunity now? So her immunity is
(09:09):
basically that there were enough people who are immune to
a disease that it basically can't find any more people
to infect and it stops spreading and for COVID, as
you said, and then we're still learning how COVID works.
So at first we thought sixty, Then we learn more
and we're like, yeah, maybe seventy eight with the variants,
(09:30):
maybe worked at ninety. Now what we're hearing is that, yes,
the United States could totally get to full herd immunity
if of Americans got vaccinated against the COVID nineteen virus.
We're not going to get there because from all the
surveys that we're seeing, fifteen to pent of Americans are
(09:52):
either saying they are unlikely or definitively won't get vaccinated
and if we are, vaccination will never reach her community.
The outside of that is they're saying, but if you
read me unize, there's great that out of Israel and
you may be okay even though. And let's talk a
(10:13):
little bit about the data out of Israel, because their
number one right now when it comes to vaccinations, they're
about so they're doing really well there. And what they
saw is that when they hit over fifty people vaccinated,
they started to see cases, debts, really severe cases of
it starts to plummet right away, so right away you
can see the gains hitting there when the majority of
(10:35):
the population gets vaccinated. The other news out of there,
which is heartening is that it looks like when you
get a lot of people, a lot of adults vaccinated,
the cases in children starts to fall a lot as well.
And again this is just because that's what viruses do.
They're looking for the next person to infect so that
they can keep moving around in a population. And the
(10:59):
few were people there are that it can infect, the
harder time it has to move around, and so it's
it's protective of people who haven't gotten vaccinated, and of
course the people who have gotten vaccinated are well protected.
So that's all really heartening. The thing that the experts
were telling me is what they're concerned about is will
end up with the US looking a bit like a
(11:21):
patchwork quilt. There's going to be some areas with very
high rates of vaccination where there's very little virus circulating,
and so if you've been vaccinated, or even if you
weren't able to get vaccinated, you're probably not going to
get sick. And if you were vaccinated, even if you
do get sick, you won't get desperately ill. But there
are other parts of the country where vaccination rates are lower,
(11:44):
and they may stay lower, and in those areas, the
possibility of getting infected with COVID will be just as
it is right now, and COVID will continue to be
just as dangerous as it is right now. You were
talking about some polling and stuff about Democrats say they
have plans to get vaccinated or have been already. On
(12:04):
the Republican side, forty six percent say they don't plan to,
and I think it was like a hard thirty percent
that said they're not going to get it at all.
This is why there's you know, information campaigns geared towards conservatives,
communities of color, younger people also to get them all
on board to get it. But as you mentioned that patchwork,
you know, we might see these pockets where certain counties,
(12:24):
certain states continue to have these higher infection rates. No.
I did talk to one population biologists at the University
of Wisconsin who had a slightly more hopeful message. He said,
you know what, I were starting to maybe see glimmers
of this as more people see lots of folks around
them who have gotten vaccinated, They know people have gotten vaccinated,
(12:48):
and they see that nothing horrible happens to them, and
the in fact are able to open up their lives
in ways that they haven't for a long time. And
also as we continue to see the un vaccinated getting
sick and sometimes ending up in the hospital and sometimes dying,
that he's hopeful that over time some of that that
hesitancy or that outright refusal will shift and that we
(13:11):
will see those vaccination rates live even in the pockets
where there's kind of hard refusals in place. Elizabeth Lee,
national correspondent at USA today, thank you very much for
joining us. You're so welcome. Thank you. And with the
(13:37):
human possibility of organizations, sporting arenas, businesses, some travel and
so on that are are asking for proof of vaccination,
some of these Americans have decided that the way to
meet that potential requirement is to forge their own paper
vaccination card or by one off ebit. Joining us now
(13:58):
is Dan Diamond, now national health reporter at the Washington Post.
Thanks for joining us, Dan, thank you for having me back.
We've seen about a hundred and thirty million Americans that
have gotten either one or both doses of the coronavirus
vaccine so far. Despite some of the issues we're having
with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, these numbers are still
kind of going up, thankfully. But one of the things
(14:21):
that's been happening is we've seen increasing scams with regards
to these CDC vaccination cards. You know, their paper cards
are very easily counterfeited in a lot of cases, and
we're just seeing these listings pop up on eBay, people
trying to make some money off of this. So Dan,
tell us a little bit more about what we're seeing. Well,
I think the good news is, yes, many Americans, more
(14:42):
than half of adults, have now gotten legally a vaccination
card by going to get vaccinated. So the trend is
pointing in the right direction. The challenges that there are
many Americans who don't want to be vaccinated at all,
and with the looming possibility of organizations, sport ing arenas, businesses,
some travel and so on that are are asking for
(15:06):
proof of vaccination. Some of these Americans have decided that
the way to meet that potential requirement is to forge
their own paper vaccination card or buy one off eBay.
Now I don't think regulators know how much this is happening.
It's possible it's just a fringe, but there's certainly a
lot of interest in it. And my story for The
Washington Post delve into why this is happening and who
(15:29):
some of these scameras are. I do want to get
into who one of these scameras are because it's an
interesting story there. But let's start off first with why
did we get these paper cards. My understanding is that
there was a lot of plans ready to go digital
on this, and that the paper cards were kind of
the fail safe, the backup plan that didn't happen. That's
what they went with. So how did that part of
(15:49):
it work out? About a year ago, when the federal
government was starting to roll out its anticipated plans for
the vaccine, knowing that a vaccine could come at the
end of the year or come very soon, there was
talk about doing a digital system where if you've checked
out a library book and you've got the email saying
(16:09):
your library book is due next week, your library book
is due today. Similar idea that you would get digital
reminders about where you were in the queue, when it
was your time to get a shot, when it was
your time to get a second shot, and so on.
That plan never really materialized. Now, whether that was because
CDC officials, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention were aiming too high and they just ran out
(16:32):
of time and expertise, that might be one reason. Another
is that, given the complexity of setting up the digital system,
paper cards were seen as the easiest way to give
people reminders to make slacking on some basic level happened
as fast as possible, and as the end of the
year approached and vaccines were starting to be prepared to
(16:55):
be shipped out to states, that's when CDC started telling
other officials will be going with paper cards instead. So
now let's get into one of these listings that you
saw on eBay. You guys actually were able to obtain
one of these fake cards. But it's a weird story.
It was like a real card, but illegally obtained, So
tell us about how that worked out. Yeah, it appeared
(17:16):
to be a real card. There was a person on
eBay among the many people an eBay listing vaccination cards
for sale, or in one case, listing a protective pouch
for a vaccination card for it is about ten dollars,
I think, and if you bought the vaccination card pouch,
as one whistleblower did, that person got an actual blank
(17:39):
CDC vaccination card, and using clues that the whistleblower shared
with me, I was able to trace back that account
to a pharmacist in the Chicago area who works in
a major pharmacy chain. Now I'm not mentioning that person's
name or the chain because that person claimed to me
that he had no knowledge of these cards that were
(18:00):
being sold through his account, that have been sold for
the past couple of weeks. He claimed that his eBay
password has been mysteriously changed and he didn't think about
fixing it. It was odd because he has other listings
up that he did confirm that he posted. Either way,
the fact this was happening under ords the The issue
that I think is bigger that these cards are either
(18:21):
available on eBay on Etsy. People are making them at
home because as you pointed out, they're very easy to counterfeit,
and if a pharmacist is even tangentially involved in us,
it points up that there is some market for these
kinds of fake cards. The last thing I wanted to
just kind of bring up. You even mentioned in your
article that some of these scameras are exploiting all those
(18:43):
selfies that people are posting. You know, people are excited
to get their vaccines and get back to normal, so
they're putting it on social media. But this kind of
also helps these scammeras when they can see those lot
numbers for the vaccine, it helps them get the wording
and the numbers right to make their fakes look more authentic.
This is something that attorneys general have been warning about
for a few months that, in the best of intentions,
(19:05):
people posting photos of getting vaccinated hoping to encourage others
to do the same, but by putting their names, their
birthdates a lot numbers up, that is sharing personal private
information and it makes it that much easier for scammer
to simply copy all of that down. Dan Diamond, national
health reporter at the Washington Post, Thank you very much
(19:25):
for joining us, Thanks for having me back. That's it
for today. Join us on social media at Daily Dive
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give us a rating, and tell us a store is
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(19:47):
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The Daily Divers produced by Baker Right and engineered by
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Dive
It's Wednesday, April. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and
this is the Daily Dive. Guilty on all three counts.
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on
George Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes, causing his death,
(00:20):
was found guilty on second and third degree murder in
addition to second degree manslaughter. In an emotional case. Many
feel that justice has been served, but it's just the
first step toward accountability. Janelle Griffith, national reporter at NBC News,
was on the scene in Minneapolis and helps us break
down this historic verdict. Next, more than half of American
(00:41):
adults have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine,
and while that is good news, experts increasingly feel that
we might not get to hurt immunity. Recent polls suggests
that fifteen of Americans don't plan on being vaccinated, which
won't help in the effort. Elizabeth Wei's national correspondent at
US Say Today, joins us for why herd immunity might
(01:03):
no longer be on the table. Finally, coronavirus vaccination cards
are increasingly being used in fraud scans. Recent listings on
eBay are promising an authentic CDC vaccination card for about
ten bucks. Dan Diamond, national health reporter at Washington Post,
joins us for more. It's news without to know it.
Let's dive in. Today history was made. We're finally starting
(01:29):
to as a country live up to the promise of
equal justice under the law. Joining us now is Janelle Griffith,
national reporter at NBC News. Thanks for joining us, Janelle,
Thanks for having me. Historic day definitely. Yeah. We have
all guilty verdicts in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the
former Minneapolis police officer accused of killing George Floyd by
(01:53):
putting his knee on his neck for nine minutes and
twenty nine seconds. As I mentioned, second degree unintentional murder guilty,
third degree murder guilty, second degree manslaughter guilty. Janelle, you're
joining us. This is right after we got the verdicts.
You're outside of the courthouse. I know it's pretty chaotic.
They're described the scene. Police tell that's what's going on.
(02:14):
So it's definitely chaotic, and I would describe it as
very emotional. Once the verdict was announced, a lot of
people erupted into tears. They were hugging each other, people
were chanting all three and chanting Black lives matter, people
of all races, not just black people. It's a very
mixed race crowd, and people were definitely celebratory, and they're
(02:37):
also being mindful to each other. And just two news outlets,
they're speaking to reporters like myself. They're telling us this
is just the beginning, this is just the start. So
the mood is definitely celebratory, but it's also a little somber,
and it's looking ahead at what yet needs to be
done in our country with regard to policing. Yeah, just
seeing some of the reactions so far, it seemed like
(02:59):
a collective of relief. I know people have said justice
has been served. A lot of people saying justice has
been served, but it's just the beginning. There's still a
lot more to go, but this is the beginning at least.
That's definitely what I'm hearing from people too. I've been
speaking to lots of people. I've been here following it
every step of the way, and I've been out here
(03:20):
even before the verdict was announced that people were telling
me that they were hopeful. They said that the fact
that the verdicts came down about ten hours after the
jury had started deliberating. They deliberated for about ten hours
over two days, and they took that as a sign
to mean that he was guilty. They felt like the
longer that the jury had deliberated it would be a
sign of them being confused or at odd. So the
(03:43):
length of time was an indicator to a lot of
people that it would be a guilty verdict, but they
did not necessarily interpreted to mean guilty on all three counts.
And a lot of people are saying they hoped that
this has an influence across the country because there are
problems in police seeing across our country that people have
been objecting to for years, and George Floyd's death just
(04:06):
reignited those problems, and they hope that with this verdict
it can open more conversations and actually invoke serious change
where there needs to be. We got a statement from
Ben Crump, he's the attorney for the Floyd family, and
he said that painfully earned justice is finally a right
for George Floyd's family, and this verdict is a turney
point in history and it sends a clear message on
(04:28):
the need for accountability for law enforcement, So definitely that's
where people want to go on the next steps in
all of this. The sentencing, it could be a few
weeks away, but the judge also has to consider aggravating factors,
which is going to be an important point. They could
make the sentence even longer. Yes, the judge definitely will
have to factor that in. What he has on his
(04:49):
side is that clearly he didn't have any criminal history.
But the judge will have the final say in terms
of the length of his sentence. A few days after
George Boy's death, Derek Chauvin was willing to plead guilty
to third degree murder and he was willing to serve
at least ten years in prison. But William Barr, who
was the Attorney General at the time, he killed the deal,
(05:12):
and people close to him told us another outlets that
the reason why was because he feared that the sentence
was too lenient, that it would cause a great uproar
with that sentence up to ten years, So he killed
it and now here we are and he faces a
much different punishment than just ten years. So I wonder
if that's something that is weighing on him. Chauvin, you know,
(05:33):
had he been able to go ahead with that plea,
he would have only faced ten years, and now he's
facing a much, much, much more punishment. I think the
counts of second degree and third degree I think at
a minimum or the presumed initial sentences about twelve and
a half years. So that's kind of a starting point possibly.
And as we mentioned that these aggravating factors, there's five
(05:53):
different ones. Floyd was vulnerable because he had his hands
tied behind his back, he was treated with cruelty, the
police abused their sition of authorities, the officers committed the
at as a group, and it was done in front
of children also, So these are all considerations that are
going to be taken into account for that, yes, and
I imagine they will weigh heavily when the judges deciding it.
(06:15):
Time will tell, but I can't imagine it helps his
case in any way. The burden of proof was on
the prosecution. They had to make the jury feel that,
without a reasonable doubt, Derek Chauvin did cause the murder
of George Floyd, and obviously they did that. The defense
was shaky all along, and some of the way they
approached this, I mean you kind of shake your head
(06:36):
at it, so definitely a victory for the prosecution team,
and the defense just did not muster enough to win this.
They spoke to a handful of legal experts, probably half
a dozen prosecutors and also defense attorneys, and what they
unanimously said was that basically Eric Nelson was no match
(06:56):
for this prosecution. It was a team up all stars.
The majority of the attorneys where seasoned attorneys, long time attorneys.
He was no match for them. They had thirty eight
witnesses to his seven, and only two of his seven
were experts, so he was clearly the underdog, and really
he didn't really have a defense. He was blaming George
(07:16):
Floyd's death on his pre existing health condition, but even
the medical examiner's ruling didn't side with him, and the
prosecution had these all star witnesses from the police chiefs
himself in the rare rebuke that we have discussed previously,
he rebuked Chauvin, and then he had people like Dr Tobin,
who is a world renowned pulminologist who literally mapped out
(07:38):
the minute George Floyd stopped breathing. He was able to
break down this very complicated medical language to the average
lay person and it clearly translated, because here we are
with Chauvin being fund guilty on all three counts. Johnel Griffith,
National reporter at NBC News, thank you very much for
joining us. Thank you so much for having me. We're
(08:08):
gonna have increased hesitancy in the population soon. Supply is
gonna outstrip demand, and so we really have to be
focused on building that confidence on those people that are
sort of waiting and seeing if we're gonna get to
that herd immunity. You know, we need to get all
adults on board with this vaccine. Joining us now is
Elizabeth Wei's national correspondent at USA Today. Thanks for joining us, Elizabeth,
(08:28):
You're so welcome. We have seen a little bit more
than half of American adults receiving at least one dose
of the vaccine. You know, many are definitely on their
way to their second shots already, so we're making good
progress on that front. But the question of herd immunity
has always kind of been looming since the beginning of
the pandemic, and the gold post had been moved there
(08:49):
a lot. You know, it's like se some say, with
the new variants that should be up to but experts
are saying increasingly that we probably won't get there, so
we need to start considering this in different terms. So, Elizabeth,
you spoke to a few people about this. What are
we hearing about her immunity now? So her immunity is
(09:09):
basically that there were enough people who are immune to
a disease that it basically can't find any more people
to infect and it stops spreading and for COVID, as
you said, and then we're still learning how COVID works.
So at first we thought sixty, Then we learn more
and we're like, yeah, maybe seventy eight with the variants,
(09:30):
maybe worked at ninety. Now what we're hearing is that, yes,
the United States could totally get to full herd immunity
if of Americans got vaccinated against the COVID nineteen virus.
We're not going to get there because from all the
surveys that we're seeing, fifteen to pent of Americans are
(09:52):
either saying they are unlikely or definitively won't get vaccinated
and if we are, vaccination will never reach her community.
The outside of that is they're saying, but if you
read me unize, there's great that out of Israel and
you may be okay even though. And let's talk a
(10:13):
little bit about the data out of Israel, because their
number one right now when it comes to vaccinations, they're
about so they're doing really well there. And what they
saw is that when they hit over fifty people vaccinated,
they started to see cases, debts, really severe cases of
it starts to plummet right away, so right away you
can see the gains hitting there when the majority of
(10:35):
the population gets vaccinated. The other news out of there,
which is heartening is that it looks like when you
get a lot of people, a lot of adults vaccinated,
the cases in children starts to fall a lot as well.
And again this is just because that's what viruses do.
They're looking for the next person to infect so that
they can keep moving around in a population. And the
(10:59):
few were people there are that it can infect, the
harder time it has to move around, and so it's
it's protective of people who haven't gotten vaccinated, and of
course the people who have gotten vaccinated are well protected.
So that's all really heartening. The thing that the experts
were telling me is what they're concerned about is will
end up with the US looking a bit like a
(11:21):
patchwork quilt. There's going to be some areas with very
high rates of vaccination where there's very little virus circulating,
and so if you've been vaccinated, or even if you
weren't able to get vaccinated, you're probably not going to
get sick. And if you were vaccinated, even if you
do get sick, you won't get desperately ill. But there
are other parts of the country where vaccination rates are lower,
(11:44):
and they may stay lower, and in those areas, the
possibility of getting infected with COVID will be just as
it is right now, and COVID will continue to be
just as dangerous as it is right now. You were
talking about some polling and stuff about Democrats say they
have plans to get vaccinated or have been already. On
(12:04):
the Republican side, forty six percent say they don't plan to,
and I think it was like a hard thirty percent
that said they're not going to get it at all.
This is why there's you know, information campaigns geared towards conservatives,
communities of color, younger people also to get them all
on board to get it. But as you mentioned that patchwork,
you know, we might see these pockets where certain counties,
(12:24):
certain states continue to have these higher infection rates. No.
I did talk to one population biologists at the University
of Wisconsin who had a slightly more hopeful message. He said,
you know what, I were starting to maybe see glimmers
of this as more people see lots of folks around
them who have gotten vaccinated, They know people have gotten vaccinated,
(12:48):
and they see that nothing horrible happens to them, and
the in fact are able to open up their lives
in ways that they haven't for a long time. And
also as we continue to see the un vaccinated getting
sick and sometimes ending up in the hospital and sometimes dying,
that he's hopeful that over time some of that that
hesitancy or that outright refusal will shift and that we
(13:11):
will see those vaccination rates live even in the pockets
where there's kind of hard refusals in place. Elizabeth Lee,
national correspondent at USA today, thank you very much for
joining us. You're so welcome. Thank you. And with the
(13:37):
human possibility of organizations, sporting arenas, businesses, some travel and
so on that are are asking for proof of vaccination,
some of these Americans have decided that the way to
meet that potential requirement is to forge their own paper
vaccination card or by one off ebit. Joining us now
(13:58):
is Dan Diamond, now national health reporter at the Washington Post.
Thanks for joining us, Dan, thank you for having me back.
We've seen about a hundred and thirty million Americans that
have gotten either one or both doses of the coronavirus
vaccine so far. Despite some of the issues we're having
with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, these numbers are still
kind of going up, thankfully. But one of the things
(14:21):
that's been happening is we've seen increasing scams with regards
to these CDC vaccination cards. You know, their paper cards
are very easily counterfeited in a lot of cases, and
we're just seeing these listings pop up on eBay, people
trying to make some money off of this. So Dan,
tell us a little bit more about what we're seeing. Well,
I think the good news is, yes, many Americans, more
(14:42):
than half of adults, have now gotten legally a vaccination
card by going to get vaccinated. So the trend is
pointing in the right direction. The challenges that there are
many Americans who don't want to be vaccinated at all,
and with the looming possibility of organizations, sport ing arenas, businesses,
some travel and so on that are are asking for
(15:06):
proof of vaccination. Some of these Americans have decided that
the way to meet that potential requirement is to forge
their own paper vaccination card or buy one off eBay.
Now I don't think regulators know how much this is happening.
It's possible it's just a fringe, but there's certainly a
lot of interest in it. And my story for The
Washington Post delve into why this is happening and who
(15:29):
some of these scameras are. I do want to get
into who one of these scameras are because it's an
interesting story there. But let's start off first with why
did we get these paper cards. My understanding is that
there was a lot of plans ready to go digital
on this, and that the paper cards were kind of
the fail safe, the backup plan that didn't happen. That's
what they went with. So how did that part of
(15:49):
it work out? About a year ago, when the federal
government was starting to roll out its anticipated plans for
the vaccine, knowing that a vaccine could come at the
end of the year or come very soon, there was
talk about doing a digital system where if you've checked
out a library book and you've got the email saying
(16:09):
your library book is due next week, your library book
is due today. Similar idea that you would get digital
reminders about where you were in the queue, when it
was your time to get a shot, when it was
your time to get a second shot, and so on.
That plan never really materialized. Now, whether that was because
CDC officials, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention were aiming too high and they just ran out
(16:32):
of time and expertise, that might be one reason. Another
is that, given the complexity of setting up the digital system,
paper cards were seen as the easiest way to give
people reminders to make slacking on some basic level happened
as fast as possible, and as the end of the
year approached and vaccines were starting to be prepared to
(16:55):
be shipped out to states, that's when CDC started telling
other officials will be going with paper cards instead. So
now let's get into one of these listings that you
saw on eBay. You guys actually were able to obtain
one of these fake cards. But it's a weird story.
It was like a real card, but illegally obtained, So
tell us about how that worked out. Yeah, it appeared
(17:16):
to be a real card. There was a person on
eBay among the many people an eBay listing vaccination cards
for sale, or in one case, listing a protective pouch
for a vaccination card for it is about ten dollars,
I think, and if you bought the vaccination card pouch,
as one whistleblower did, that person got an actual blank
(17:39):
CDC vaccination card, and using clues that the whistleblower shared
with me, I was able to trace back that account
to a pharmacist in the Chicago area who works in
a major pharmacy chain. Now I'm not mentioning that person's
name or the chain because that person claimed to me
that he had no knowledge of these cards that were
(18:00):
being sold through his account, that have been sold for
the past couple of weeks. He claimed that his eBay
password has been mysteriously changed and he didn't think about
fixing it. It was odd because he has other listings
up that he did confirm that he posted. Either way,
the fact this was happening under ords the The issue
that I think is bigger that these cards are either
(18:21):
available on eBay on Etsy. People are making them at
home because as you pointed out, they're very easy to counterfeit,
and if a pharmacist is even tangentially involved in us,
it points up that there is some market for these
kinds of fake cards. The last thing I wanted to
just kind of bring up. You even mentioned in your
article that some of these scameras are exploiting all those
(18:43):
selfies that people are posting. You know, people are excited
to get their vaccines and get back to normal, so
they're putting it on social media. But this kind of
also helps these scammeras when they can see those lot
numbers for the vaccine, it helps them get the wording
and the numbers right to make their fakes look more authentic.
This is something that attorneys general have been warning about
for a few months that, in the best of intentions,
(19:05):
people posting photos of getting vaccinated hoping to encourage others
to do the same, but by putting their names, their
birthdates a lot numbers up, that is sharing personal private
information and it makes it that much easier for scammer
to simply copy all of that down. Dan Diamond, national
health reporter at the Washington Post, Thank you very much
(19:25):
for joining us, Thanks for having me back. That's it
for today. Join us on social media at Daily Dive
Pod on both Twitter and Instagram. Leave us a comment,
give us a rating, and tell us a store is
that you're interested in. Follow us and I heard radio
(19:47):
or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This episode of
The Daily Divers produced by Baker Right and engineered by
Tony Sargantina him Oscar Ameres. And this was your Daily
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