Omicron First News Today

Ship to your homes for free, today im directing my team to procure an additional half a -- an additional 500 million more tests to distribute for free. a billion tests in total to meet future demand. >> whats says details on how to order those tests will come tomorrow and shipping will begin by the end of the its an understatement, folks, to say a billion rapid tests cant come soon enough, although still far below last winters peak, daily deaths are up 40%, they are increasing in about half of a...

But the israeli government sees this as something as a race against time to try to get as many of the fourth doses out as they can before the omicron wave peaks. that wave is a little bit behind the u.s. and the uk. other countries and israels government says that is because of the very strict travel restrictions they put in place in november when omicron first emerged. all foreigners are banned from entering israel right now. the u.s., canada, turkey, other major countries are also on israels t...

Three studies presented to our committee a year ago. so when pfizer did its 40,000-person study and moderna its 30,000-person studies, resip i did notes received their second dose. looking at protection against mild illness, it was 95% effective for those vaccines. that would never hold up because neutralizing antibodies fade, protection against mild illness fade, and the goal is protecting mild illness, well be giving frequent boosterings but that doesnt make a lot of sense. >> look, at least i...

Day after day, they want to try to keep the country open, they want to try to keep schools as open as possible. we were just hearing from ellison about the situation in new york. relatively few israeli children are in remote learning right now. and the hope is that the booster shots will provide this wall that will protect the country from the wave of omicron. were going to see what happens. israel put in place very strict travel restrictions when omicron first emerged in november. that actually...

Just the innovation and courage to lead. join me. as we begin a new week, there is, thankfully, some good news to report about the direction were headed when it comes to the omicron variant. theres been a lot of speculation about when it might peak here in the u.s. here are the facts. cases are down in the last week from more than 800,000 per day to more than 600,000. you can see on this map a cluster of dropping cases particularly in the northeast as well as a handful of other states where om...

Skyrocketing. pediatric cases tripling in the last two weeks to nearly a million. and hospitals are waging an all-out battle that could last weeks. in oklahoma city, doctors describe a warzone with zero icu beds and more than 100 patients waiting. >> our emergency departments are overflowing. we have to care for patients in hallways, sometimes closets. >> reporter: with 1,000 workers in quarantine, doctors warn they are running out of staff and critical supplies like syringes and saline. still i...

Of hospitalization and death dropping by more than half for the new strain in fact, one study found patients infected with omicron may have increased protection against more severe variants like delta. >> well have more variants im convinced well have more variants, but each of them will impact us less and less. >> reporter: in london, hard hit by the variant, the peak may have already passed in south africa, where omicron first spread wildly in november, the government said thursday the worst w...

Potentially easing those very tough travel restrictions that were brought into place when omicron first emerged. right now foreigners are banned from entering israel unless they have special permission, and israel has a very long and growing list of countries that are labeled red, which means israeli citizens cannot travel to or from there. the u.s. is on that list as is most of western europe. weve kind of reached that ironic phase in the cases in israel where its getting high enough, there is ...

Omicron is, is still in flux. >> reporter: there is some preliminary data that suggests it could be mild. first, early lab studies have found omicron may not attack the lungs like other variants. >> omicron replicates, multiplies in the upper airway and less well in the lung >> reporter: second, in south africa where omicron first took off, the headlines this weekend are stoking optimism hospitalizations are down 91% >> we can say one thing, its not more severe what they have seen in south afric...

Holidays? >> well, not in a good place. in terms of what we could expect to happen in the next two or three weeks. and this is very much what was also seen in south africa where omicron first emerged. and seeing right now in the united kingdom where something like 44% of cases in london are now omicron and again doubling about every two or three days. so the bad news is this is a very contagious virus, it spreads more rapidly than delta or the original virus from wuhan. it is just really good at...