eight countries in africa starting today. welcome to a new hour of "america's newsroom." i'm dana perino. >> bill: i'm bill hemmer. nice to see you again. missed you for five days, right? we're back at it. >> dana: we're at it. >> bill: we are. >> dana: here we go. >> bill: you have several countries around the world and high alert for the new strain of covid as it remains unclear what it means for handling the pandemic. president biden will once again be urging americans to get vaccinated and get the booster shot if you haven't yet when he speaks to the country next hour. his chief medical officer says it is too early to tell if there will be any need for additional restrictions. >> it's really too early to say. people talking about lockdowns, people talking about that. let's see what the information that we are getting in realtime tells us and we'll make decisions based on the science and the evidence the way we always do. >> bill: team fox coverage begins a new hour. rich edson in washington jason chaffetz has reaction and