i think people would have accused them of trying to grind the economy to a halt. howard: and the president belateddedly conceded that his plan to order 500 million covid home tests came much too late. >> it's not enough. it's clearly not enough. if i'd known, we would have gone harder. >> i think that we could all agree that the white house was a day behind and a dollar short, day late and a dollar short when it comes to testing overall. >> i actually think this flip flip-flop by the media and the biden administration, by the way, is very deliberate. i think they realize in polling that they're getting killed on covid. howard: joining us now to analyze the coverage, gayle trotter, who hosts the right in d.c., and gillian turner, correspondent here in washington. gayle, with a staggering 580,000 new covid cases reported on thursday alone, the cdc suddenly cuts in half the recommended isolation time and doesn't acknowledge the full story. why are we seeing relatively little media criticism of the