cnn global town hall "coronavirus facts and fears." that's tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. eastern. all right, federal reserve chairman jerome powell testifies about the new threat posed by the omicron variant. as we have said, much remains unknown about omicron, but powell's prepared remarks say that if the new variant prolongs the pandemic, it could hurt the economy in three ways. it could keep pushing prices up, it could hurt job growth, and make the supply chain crisis worse. powell predicts the u.s. economy will show 5% growth for 2021. that is strongest growth actually in decades, right? but he says omicron couldn't do much of that if it undermine's americans' willingness to work in person. the stock and oil markets sold off but they regained ground when investors took a breath and sensed a buying opportunity as often happens on wall street. that's the pattern we saw when wall street first heard about the delta variant and there was reason to think history might remeet itself if omicron isn't