it preciously. meaning, arm those children with the two things they have that can protect them. one is masking and two, and most importantly for those other over five is vaccination. right. dr. reiner, there is confusion after the cdc issued new guidelines, right, on isolation and quarantine, right? how many days is it? does it matter if you have symptoms? i mean, it s like you got to go through some kind of grid and see where you come out on the other end. you were vocal last week saying guidelines were confusing. you wanted a testing component. now, dr. fauci tells cnn there is more clarification coming soon on that. but when it comes to this testing question, i want to play something the florida surgeon general said just today, dr. reiner. let me play it. we are going to be working to unwind the sort of testing psychology that our federal leadership has managed to, unfortunately, get most of the country in over the last two years. we need to unwind this testing sort of um so
hospitalized with covid. last week more than 500 children were admitted each day. some of whom too young to be vaccinated. also new this morning, cnn learned the cdc is expected to update its guidance on the recommended isolation period imminently after facing pressure to include a testing component. all of this as a new study out of houston shows that patients infected with omicron are not getting as sick as those who have previous strands of the virus. that is reassuring news indeed. cnn senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen is following all this news and including that out of houston. doctors are saying compared to alpha or delta variants, have been significantly fewer omicron patients hospitalized. what are you learning out of this? yes, that s certainly good news and it is great that the folks in houston they have taken their system and analyzed it to give some insight into the differences between omicron and delta and the other variants this is a houston methodist, a
heinrich has that story tonight from the north lawn. good evening, jacqui. good evening, bret. it s a new we re for the biden administration many of last year s challenges persist especially related to bringing down covid cases and ramping up testing. unclear whether president biden thinks the revised cdc quarantine guidance should have included a testing component. i will be talking to you about that later. after two top public health officials made conflicting statements about whether it s necessary. after infection can be positive for up to 12 weeks. that is not going to be helpful. if you got a rapid test at five days and it was negative, we weren t convinced that you weren t still transmissible. why not test people at that time? i myself feel that s a reasonable thing to do. now the administration is floating more possible policy changes in response to public pressure. there has been some concern about why we don t ask people at
that day, the folks we re visiting is going to test that day and we re going to enjoy ourselves. that s really the strategy that i think should work best in this country. we keep hearing from you, from other doctors i ve spoken with that testing component is a key tool in order to gather with family, but we ve seen the long lines. it s a problem for people to have access to tests right now. it s not that simple. it s not that simple, it s not that cheap, so a box of two of rapid antigen tests are $24. so a family of four, it s going to be $50 for that one testing encounter if you can find them, and they re hard to find. there are other tests on the market that are also hard to find. look, i think the biden administration s plan to acquire half a billion of these tests and to allow folks to order them online is great, it s just not enough. these tests need to be available everywhere you look.
if you think about it over the past 1 1/2 years, and i would commend all of the professional men and women out there around the country that have been heroic in their efforts throughout the pandemic to get the emergency and essential supplies not only to the hospitals and the medical professionals but to first responders and all of the commerce out to the citizens around the country. you know, i d say if you think about it, a truck driver probably has one of the best work scenarios being by themselves in a truck. in terms of the necessity of the vaccine mandate, there s challenges there. i think this industry has proven throughout the past 1 1/2 years that it can operate and function in a great way. i think the mandate is going to be a challenge. if you think about it, if there s a testing component to this as well, literally we re talking about hundreds of thousands of drivers on the move at any given time.