Radio host Chris Smith said he is talking to lawyers after comments made by chief Covid betwetters suggested his support of the cruise industry was due to a commercial connection.
i m not a lawmaker. i am a law enforcer and i think that is a very important principle that we here abide by and take very seriously. dana: melissa nelson in jacksonville, florida for us. they re lucky to have you. bill: there is tragedy yet again on the border. a texas nation fall guardsman presumed dead trying to save two migrants crossing the rio grande river. brandon judd coming up on that. plus the white house splits with its chief covid response advisor and jimmy failla has some thoughts on that. dana: oh oh. flamboyant. there s a powerful va benefit that veterans have earned, but many don t even know about. it s the va home loan benefit. as a veteran,
it is still a real challenge for our country. the pandemic is not over. as much as we all wish it were. up next i ll ask dr. leana wen about where she thinks we are in this pandemic and about pushback to comments on how seriously to take covid.
philadelphia. so for perspective let s bring in cnn medical analyst and former baltimore health commissioner dr. leana wen. dr. wen, nice to see you. first off i want to get your reaction to philadelphia reimposing this mask manned ya mandate. you have been critical of the idea that cases are the right metric for these sorts of policies. what do you make of this decision? i understand that they want to be safe and that they are seeing cases rise and so they want to say let s not wait until our hospitalizations start rising. but at the same time at some point we have to think about how mask mandates and other mitigation measures are to be used. they are a last resort, especially when we re talking about government-imposed mandates. and my fear is if they keep on getting applied when it s not really a last resort, when it s not really a crisis, it s the boy who cries wolf and at some point when they are really needed, for example, if there s a really dangerous new variant or hospitals
very different. he with really wanted to keep on avoiding getting covid until he was able to get vaccinated. about then omicron is so contagious, so many people got omicron, and in addition the vaccine for children, it s going to be a few more months at least probably before kids are going to be vaccinated and then fully vaccinated. and so for that reason we decided we re not going to take these extraordinary measures to try to avoid covid including not masking our child while in school. all right. dr. wen, thank you so much. this has been such a helpful conversation just to help us understand where we are in this pandemic. thank you. thanks, pamela. well, struggling to buy a house or pay the mortgage you already have? realtor and investor johnny hong is here to share some helpful hacks. up next. allergies don t have to be scscary. spraying flonase daily stops your body from overreacting to allergens all season long. psstst! psst! flonase all goo.