national guard is being deployed for more health care workers. now, with omicron in the mix, new forecasting from the centers of disease control updates 44,000 new covid deaths over the next month. tom foreman has our lead story this hour. >> 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 says it plans to sign a contract for a 500 million at-home covid tests next week. as the center for disease control faces sharp questions for new guidelines for covid-weary americans. >> it really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate. >> reporter: the recommendation of five instead of ten isolation days for those testing positive but not showing no symptoms, then five days of masking, is aimed at keeping people working. but it's raising alarms, too. >> there's absolutely no data