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former white house political director under george w. bush, sara fagen. welcome to sunday, it's "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> good sunday morning. as we've said before, as covid goes, so goes joe biden's presidency. right now covid is a major health and political problem. a combination of new variants like delta and omicron and stubborn vaccine refusal among millions has led to an all-time high in cases. the seven-day average has blown past previous records. that doesn't begin to account for people who don't report results of at-home tests or who are asymptomatic. hospitalizations are spiking as well. but the death rate so far has ticked up much more slowly, owing in part to a less severe illness caused by omicron. the public is in a different place than it was a year ago, and the biden administration is desperately trying to catch up. the cdc has offered confusing