which no one wants to do, or you try and get a situation where you can safely get people back, particularly to critical jobs, without having them be out for a full ten days. >> reporter: long testing lines are still snaking across the country. new cases are skyrocketing to numbers never seen before. deaths and hospitalizations, key indicators at this moment, are also climbing but not as quickly. >> are we seeing lower hospitalization rates because omicron is less virulent or are we seeing lower hospitalization rates because we do have a considerable amount of the population that is vaccinated? >> reporter: booster shots for younger teens may now be just weeks away, says the cdc, while younger children remain the least vaccinated age group in the country. >> the vast majority of children that are infected with covid have mild infection, but you do have to be aware that that does put your child at risk for hospitalization and puts your