emerging here is that this country is going to be in the soup in just in the next few weeks with so many cases in so many locations that we are going to see critical infrastructure, as well as healthcare challenged. >> to that point, new cases are now averaging nearly 300,000 a day. a new cdc forecast out late today predicts more than 44,000 new deaths are possible over the next four weeks. yes, 44,000. meantime, testing remains hard to come by. former hhs official, rick bright, on cnn this evening compared it to the hunger games and as people scramble to get tested ahead of new year's eve and holiday flights back home, schools in some of the hardest-hit areas are laying out new guidelines. it is a lot. cnn's tom foreman starts us off. >> reporter: schools in d.c. will require all students and staff to have negative covid tests to come back to class. new york city will require rigorous testing, too. all that, as the white house