- Dr. Collins, thank youso much for your time

it's great to see you again.

- Lorie it's nice to be with you,

glad to have a chancefor this conversation.

- So it's been about a yearsince this pandemic began.

If you would, please, sir,

just at first give us youroverall impressions about

where we are right now and in particular

if you could address so manyof our Christian viewers.

- Well, I'm a Christianalso, so I'm glad to do that.

It's been an incrediblydifficult year let's be honest.

We've lost more thanhalf a million Americans

to this terrible virus asit has spread rather wildly

through various communities.

And it's not done with us yet.

This virus, which came out of China

and which had the reallyunfortunate property

of being able to infecta fair number of people

who didn't even know they had it

but were still capable of spreading it

which made it very hardto get under control.

And we've learned a lotin the course of that year

and we've developed moreeffective treatments.

Things like monoclonal antibodies.

So the people who doend up in the hospital

have a better chance of survival

but we're still losing waytoo many people especially

those at higher risk, the elderly people

with chronic disease.

Here we are now March of 2021.

And I think one could say, thatthere is some real optimism

that we're going to get through this

because of the ability nowto be able to fight back

against this virus both with treatments

that seem to be more successful

but also with vaccines.

The vaccines which I've had a big part

in helping get developed have been tested

in the most rigorous imaginable trials.

They've been shown safe and effective.

And there now three ofthem that have been granted

emergency use authorization by the FDA.

And we are now at the point where more

and more people are getting immunized.

And we have a good pathwaytowards getting almost

all of the adults in the country

the opportunity forimmunization by June or so

which is our best hopeof being able to put

this pandemic behind us.

And something that sciencehas really pulled out

all the stops in orderto make that happen.

And for me as a scientist,who's also a Christian.

This is an answer to a lot of prayers

and it feels as if thisis the way in which God

is helping us get through this.

- You mentioned the vaccines,now we have three available.

A lot of people are wonderingwhich one they should take.

What's your advice about that?

- Well, my advice is to takethe one that's offered to you

and take it right now.

The sooner we can getmore people immunized

the sooner we can see the number of cases

and hospitalizations anddeaths head down towards zero

which is where it needs to be.

We've had a drop in themost severe case numbers

in the course of the last month and a half

but it's still stuck in aplateau at much too higher level.

So we really want topush the vaccine efforts.

Yeah, there are three differentvaccines, Pfizer, Moderna

Johnson & Johnson.

They all seem to haveessentially 100% effectiveness

in preventing hospitalizations and deaths.

There's a little differencemaybe in terms of their ability

to prevent mild diseasebut I think most people

are mostly interested in severe disease.

They're all really good at that.

The Johnson & Johnsonvaccine is a single dose

which some people will find appealing.

You don't have to comeback for that second shot

three or four weeks later.

But I think they've all beenput through rigorous testing.

I would be happy with any one of them.

If you get the offer to getvaccinated I wouldn't negotiate

about which one, just take it.

- The New Orleans Archdiocese came out

with a statement saying thatthe Johnson & Johnson vaccine

should be avoided among pro-life people

because some of fetalcell lines were used in

its development and production.

What's your response to that?

- That's a very importantissue for individuals

who are very committedto a pro-life perspective

to understand and to learn more about it.

I saw that statement from New Orleans.

I've also seen thestatements from the Vatican

which don't quite takethe same perspective.

So what is this all about?

Basically the vaccinesthat Johnson & Johnson

is producing (clears throat)

there's another one by AstraZeneca

which is not approved yet in the U.S.

They require that you growthe vaccine in cell lines

because that's the way in whichthe production can happen.

And cell lines that werederived more than 50 years ago

are the way in whichthis is generally done.

And these are cell lines that were derived

from an elective pregnancytermination done in Scandinavia

when it was legal at thatpoint and then turned

into these essentially immortalcell lines that are grown

in the lab by many different companies.

Some people are, I think,troubled by the idea

that the vaccine that's going

into their arm had that history.

It does not have any of those cells in it

but it has that history ofhaving been used in that way.

And I understand thereforewhy some will look

at the Johnson & Johnson vaccineand think maybe that's not

the one I would prefer to get.

The Pfizer and the Modernavaccines don't require this.

They don't require anykind of cell line growth

in order to be produced.

Just the same I think reasonable people

will have reasonablydifferent views in terms

of whether this is somethingthat a pro-life individual

should avoid after all thisis five decades removed

from the event that we're concerned about.

And certainly the Catholicchurch as represented

by the Vatican has said itis moral for individuals

to take advantage of such vaccines

if in so doing, they maybe helping save lives.

And we do believe all ofthese vaccines can save lives.

- So do you recommend people wait

and put if they're offeredthe Johnson & Johnson vaccine

a lot of people might wantto wait until they can get

the Pfizer or Moderna one.

What is your thought about that?

- I think that's verymuch up to the individual.

I don't want to insert my ideaabout what is a moral choice

into the middle of somethingthat's very personal.

I think this is a circumstancepeople can learn more

about simply by reading what's out there

and then make their own personal decision.

Whether this represents forthem, the kind of barrier

that they would reallyrather not take advantage

of such a vaccine as Johnson & Johnson

or whether considering thefive decades that have passed.

And the fact that thesecells are not in the vaccine

then that's an acceptableway to take advantage

of something life saving.

Frankly, people shouldrealize you're probably

not going to be in a situationwhere you have a menu

and you get to pick whichvaccine you're going to be able

to receive that day.

Most of the time clinics will be set up

and they'll invite you to come.

And I would be reluctant to suggest

that anybody should just wait

until they get the one they like.

Cause that might be waiting a while

in the meantime people can still get sick.

- So if you would pleaseelaborate a little bit

about the timing of this.

Is there a need to hurryup and get vaccinated?

Because we think aboutsome of these variants

that have been identifiedin the United States

particularly the UK andthe South African variants.

So is time of the essenceor do people have the luxury

of waiting until they get the vaccine

they want, for example.

- That's a great question, Lorie

and I do think time is of the essence.

And for two reasons, one isthe virus is still spreading

in most communities that means people

are still getting sick,70,000 people every day

in the United States.

And some of those peopleare going to do badly.

And if they were already vaccinated

that would probably nothave happened to them.

So just to save lives,the sooner we can get more

and more people immunize the better.

But secondly, you raisedthe issue of these variants.

We are watching closely asthis virus slightly changes

it's spike protein coat which is the thing

that we're most worried about

because that can result in thevirus, eluding the response

to the vaccines that we have planned.

So far we're okay.

The variants like theSouth African variant

the British variant,the Brazilian variant.

Well they are troubling andthey may be more infectious

in terms of their abilityto spread they do seem to be

those that the vaccine shouldstill provide protection.

So the sooner we get people vaccinated

the better chance we haveto head off what otherwise

could be a fourth wave of the illness

from those new highly infectious variants.

One other thing I might say is

if we don't want more variants to emerge

that might be even more troubling,

the best way to prevent that is to get

as many people immune as soon as possible

because the virus doesn'tchange its instruction book

unless it copies itself.

And it doesn't copy itself unless somebody

has been infected with it.

As soon as we can reducethe number of infections

we're reducing the chance ofsome other variant emerging

that might be even more trouble.

- So that's an interesting point

because so many people particularly young

and relatively healthy peoplehaven't been bit too concerned

about catching COVID-19

because they think we'll allprobably have a mild case

perhaps rightly thinking so.

But when you talk aboutthe idea of variants

and even people whohave asymptomatic cases

or mild cases can contributeto these variants taking hold

it becomes a different issue, doesn't it?

- You're exactly right.

And if we really want toput an end to that risk

we need to spread this protective blanket

of immunity across all of humanity.

And of course we're talking right now

about the United States

but we need to think aboutthe rest of the world too.

That's the best way to put this virus

in the rear view mirror.

And that includes young people too

who may view themselvesas not so much at risk

if they get infected but theycould still keep spreading it.

They could still be the placewhere new variants appear.

So it's up to all ofthem as well to embrace

the opportunity for a vaccine.

Once it's offered to them.

Most of them so far, haven'thad the offering happen

because the way the vaccinesare being distributed

is focused appropriatelyon the highest risk people

and somebody in their20s with no illnesses

hasn't yet been asked if they'd be willing

to roll up their sleeve

but that time is coming as soonas a month or two from now.

And I think it will be very important

for all of those folks to say, yes.

Maybe this isn't all togethergoing to be critical for me

but it might be critical formy neighbors, my grandparents

for other people in theworld who are depending

on all of us to take part in this.

This is a love your neighbor moment

where we all have thechance to do something

not just for ourselves, butfor everybody around us.

- If you could elaborateon that a little bit too

from a Christian perspective,do you think that

from a Christian perspective,does Jesus, for example

have an opinion about how webehave during this pandemic

and even whether we getvaccines do you think that

the Bible speaks to these issues?

- I think the Bible speaksto virtually every issue

and that's where Ioften go when I'm trying

to sort something out that Ican't figure out on my own.

And certainly when you seehow much time Jesus spent

in the little we know abouthis earthly time doing healings

I think we were supposed tonotice that that healing was

an action that we should try to emulate.

And even Jesus sometimes usethings like water and mud.

Well, maybe that was hisparticular divine way

of accomplishing a healing.

We humans as God's childrenhave been given the tools

of science to kind ofcome up with our own way

to work through God's graceto provide an opportunity

to prevent suffering.

And I think that's what vaccines are

and have been all along.

So, yeah, I think we're called to that.

And I think as you were going a minute ago

this is not just aboutsort of self-serving.

I want to be sure I don't get sick.

It really does come down to,are we going to take part

in something that willhelp others around us?

I think particularly of those individuals

who have immune suppression,people who have cancer

and whose immune systems have been damaged

by the chemotherapy,

the vaccine isn't going towork very well for those folks.

They won't respond to it.

So their best chance of notgetting infected is not to be

around other people whomight be carrying it.

Okay, that could be any one of us.

If you think that somehowyou are not the person

that could do this, think again,and then maybe sign up for

the vaccine and oh yeah, bythe way wear your mask as well,

because that's another way

for the time being untilwe're all vaccinated

we can keep from spreadingthis terrible virus.

- Well, you talked aboutthe case number being too

high right now, too high for comfort

but can you switch andtalk about the death count.

We've seen the deaths are downand we know so many people

in nursing homes havealready been vaccinated

and an estimated 1/2 ofpeople over the age of 65

have gotten at leastone dose of the vaccine.

Do you anticipate the deaths going back up

because of those facts?

- You know, it isencouraging to see the number

of deaths each day has come down.

It was as high as 3000, almostevery day back in January.

Now we're down to about 1000

but of course that'sstill an incredible number

of people losing their lives.

One of the reasons it hascome down as you say is

because nursing homes whereso many deaths were happening

are now in the front linesof getting the vaccines.

And you can see the results of that

deaths in nursing homes have plummeted

but they're stillhappening in other places.

And they are happening not just to people

who are quite elderly

but there are lots ofpeople in their 50s and 60s

who are also getting sickand dying from this disease.

It doesn't spare really anyone

even young people occasionally.

So we're on the right pathhere in terms of seeing

the death rates starting downthe vaccines are helping.

Maybe people's willingness to continue

to follow these public health measures.

Even though I know we're all tired of them

of wearing the mask and staying apart

and not congregatingindoors without masks on

maybe that's helping as well

although we need to doubledown on those right now.

The concern or is that thosevariants that we were talking

about which may be moreinfectious, could turn this around.

That one from the UKcalled B117 is doubling

in its frequency in theUnited States every 10 days.

And that kind of exponential growth

is quite a source of concern.

We need to watch that really closely

and our best protection against that

is to do everything we can rightnow to get people immunized

or to prevent them fromspreading the disease.

(object banging)

- Do you think people havea false sense of security

because the case numbers and the deaths

and the hospitalizations have dropped

so dramatically since January?

- I do think the dramatic dropencouraged people to think,

okay maybe it's finallyover, but watch those curves,

that drop which was so gratifying

for three or four weeks stopped dropping.

And now we're in thisplateau where day after day

the numbers of new cases, thenumber of hospitalizations

the number of deaths is staying the same.

It should be coming down.

If it's not coming down,we should worry about that.

And we should double downon everything we can do

to change that.

I know I sound like adowner here (laughs).

I know everybody is like could you please

just give us some encouraging news?

Let me do that too.

I think we're on a good path here.

I think we're going to get through this.

I think by this summer lifehas a reasonable chance

of getting back to somethingyou would recognize

as normalcy we're vaccinatedpeople can gather together,

take their masks off andhug each other (laughs)

but we're not there yet.

And this would be a terriblemoment to lose our momentum

just when we can kindof see the goal line.

If you're a fan of a footballgame you don't want to see

how that guy who'scarrying the ball stumble

on the 15 yard line when youadd a clear shot at the goal,

that's kind of us, let'snot stumble people.

- So once again, if you couldmake your recommendations

you already said people shouldget their vaccine as soon

as possible, regardless ofwhich vaccine they're offered.

And couldn't you againmake your recommendations,

especially again to theChristian community regarding

the masks and the social distancing,

which has really a lot of people

have been resistant to up until now.

- I know and I understandall of the messages

that have been spreadaround that make you wonder,

wait a minute is this really something

that's based evidence?

Let me assure you, it is.

But let me also be sure toexplain that I'm sympathetic

with people who are wonderingwhy they have to do this.

One was that Theodore Roosevelt said,

"People don't care what you know

"until they know that you care."

I do want to say all of us whoare working in public health

we do care about the fact that

this is an enormous burden on everybody.

And that everybody istired and discouraged.

They've lost family members.

Their economic situation is in trouble.

It's like, please don't giveme another bit of bad news

but this doesn't have to be bad news.

This is basically somethingthat we especially as Christians

can do to love each otherto love our neighbors,

to try to do as Jesus calls us to,

to be the best we can bein a difficult situation

even with suffering around us.

And that does mean, yes,

when you get the chancefor that vaccine, take it.

You're helping yourself,

you're helping everybody around you.

And yes, in the meantime wear your mask

whenever you're outside.

Cause you might be that personwho unwittingly is infected

with no symptoms and yetare spreading it to others

and putting their lives at risk.

It's a simple measure.

Don't listen to thosefolks who try to tell you

that a mask is a political statement.

It's not (laughs) or who tell you

that it's an invasion of your freedom.

Well, okay, maybe like a seatbelt,

but isn't that something you'd want to do

if it's going to save somebody else's life

it's just a life medical device.

Use it as such and be gratefulthat we have something

we can all do together to keepthis from getting any worse.

- When do you think we might have

more vaccines available to the U.S?

- Well, the manufacturing isgoing up quite steeply now

Pfizer and Moderna announceda couple of weeks ago

that they had gotten some

of the bugs out of theirfactory production.

And they were going tobe able to beef that up

further than they had expected.

So we should be in Marchgetting to the point of three

or four million dosesgoing into arms every day

which is really a wonderfulkind of trajectory to be on.

And now with Johnson &Johnson getting also approved

they will add theirs.

Already the president hassaid by the end of July

we'll have 600 million doses.

That's enough for 300 million people

cause it's two doses perperson that pretty much

would get us there in termsof the adults in the country.

We still don't have approval for kids.

And you add on top of that,the Johnson & Johnson doses

which will be 100 million by June

and that's one dose per person.

I think if all goes wellwith the distribution

and if people are willing toroll up their sleeves and say,

"Yeah, I want this too."

We could be by the end ofJune in that remarkable place

we call herd immunity,which is a terrible term.

That makes it sound like we're all cattle

but I'd rather call it thisblanket protection of immunity

so that this virus basicallyloses its grip on us.

And we get to go backto living the way we all

thought we would be ableto until this came along.

- So best case scenario,

we may be able to throw awayour masks by 4th of July,

or is that too optimistic?

- I think by 4th of Julywould be optimistic,

but maybe that's achievable.

And again, that means throw away your mask

if you're gathered with other people

who are all also immunized.

If a lot of us decide, no,I don't want that vaccine,

I'm not taking it, then if I'maround one of those people,

I got to put my mask back on

because I might still be theone to give them an illness

that's going to make them sick.

So come on, everybodylet's do this together.

It'll be so much simpler that way.

- All right, Dr. Collins, unfortunately,

we're out of time right now

but we just wanted to thankyou so much for number one

your dedication and yourservice to the Lord.

And also for the hardwork that you've done

as the director of theNational Institutes of Health.

So thank you so muchfor being with us today.

- Well Lorie, thank you.

And again, I'm always glad to talk

to other believers about this situation.

And I claimed in many of thosescriptures that encouraged me

at a time like this,something like second Timothy

where the chapter one verse seven

we have not been given a spirit of fear

even though it's temptingnot to get fearful.

We've been given a spirit of power

and love and self control.

Let's celebrate thatand give thanks to God

that we are in that situation.

- Amen, what a great wayto end this interview.

Thank you again, Dr. Collins.

- Thank you, many blessings.