eve. what is it going to take to end our travel nightmare? welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. we start in our health lead. the cdc battling an apparent credibility problem. today the agency s director, dr. rochelle walensky took questions from reporters in her first solo news conference since july after facing a barrage of criticism, including from within the white house and the cdc over isolation guidance that even allies call confusing. walensky admitting the past few weeks have been particularly challenging. she noted that as a as the science changes, the guidance has to change as well. and she went on to say this is hard. and i am committed to continue to improve, unquote. now former biden administration health advisers are urging the white house to shift its covid strategy. as cnn s alexandra field reports, these advisers, former advisers want the president to prioritize ways for our society to learn to live and function
new daily covid infections are dropping in the states shown here in green, but the u.s. is not completely out of the woods. tragically deaths are still spiking at an average of 2,300 americans lost every day to covid. that s more than double the daily totals from two months ago. alexandra field reports for us now. it s not just infections and deaths that are diverging, so are americans attitudes on how to put this pandemic behind us. i am more optimistic about the pandemic today than i have been since it was declared a pandemic nearly two years ago. reporter: public health experts can t predict if or when the next covid surge might come, but many are increasingly certain this one is nearly behind us. in another few weeks, the omicron flash flood, not a wave but a flash flood, will have largely passed. reporter: clear signs of a turn-around across the country. declines in the number of new covid cases in 33 states compared to last week.
what role did the trump campaign pay. how much was sent to be organized, because so many of these certificates look quite identical with other states. so, we want to know about the level of coordination and who was really running this show. according to johns hopkins university, more than 2200 americans are dieing from covid-19 every day. but there is some sign of hope. daily numbers of infections and hospitalizations are dropping. more people are getting vaccinated. cnn s alexandra field reports. my message would be just hang in there. reporter: easier said than done for many americans, but as exhaustion with the pandemic grows, so do signs of hope. omicron cases coming down in much of the country, and promisingly, new data shows vaccination numbers are going up a bit during the omicron surge. a new kaiser family foundation study found 77% of americans
secured. they ll likely be signed by the end of the week but there is no guarantee that those will be available to be sent out this month. perhaps at the end of the month or beginning of next month. for all that s going on, testing remains one of the central challenges of this administration. the president said so today himself. jeff zeleny, thanks. appreciate it. in new york, the city s new mayor says he ll not feed into the, quote, hysteria around the rising covid case numbers after he rejected the city s largest teachers union s request to temporarily move to remote learning. as long as vaccines, masking, ventalation and testing are all part of the education process, medical experts do agree there is a steep price to keeping kids out of the classroom. as cnn s alexandra field reports. we cannot feed into hysteria. this is traumatizing our children. reporter: facing an unprecedented covid surge in new york city s new mayor insisting schools really are the safest place for child
in our health lead, dr. fauci provide something hope today if you get your booster shot. you ll have protection, he says, against the rapidly spreading omicron variant. that clear picture shaking shape as the u.s. passes a sad benchmark that no one wanted to reach. 800,000 americans have been lost to coronavirus since the pandemic started in early 2020. and to cnn s alexandra field reports, hospitals are still strained for beds and for critical staff. the grim milestone as delta r s destructive toll continues. the new variant in at least 36 states. we expect to see the proportion of omicron cases here in the united states continue to grow in the coming weeks. early data suggests that omicron is more transmissible than delta with a doubling time of about two days. reporter: 1 in 6 hospitals in the u.s. is already reporting