here we go. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world, it is monday, october 24th. i m christine romans. we begin with the midterm elections now just 15 days away. early voting already under way with more than 5.8 million ballots cast in 39 states. right now polls and political spending suggests republicans are surging and stand a good chance of retaking the house of representatives with a solid majority. recent surveys show the reason for that surge, the economy. inflation and to a lesser degree crime. early this summer looked like the anger at the supreme court ruling overturning roe versus wade would give democrats a chance to hold back the red tide and keep control of the house. now it looks like that abortion-fueled momentum may have peaked too soon. they have to split their messaging between abortion and the economy are the democrats. nobody said we re doing abortion rather than economy. but it s about both. i can tell you that that issue is ver
the reason why is covid. those covid patterns set in 2020 where people became very comfortable with early voting. that s what democrats want to do now. so the question is does this show huge enthusiasm, new voters coming out, new women voting for abortion protections? or is this just the people who would have voted any way voting early? maybe some voting early because they re concerned about restrictions at the polls, channels at the polls, long lines, you know, fights over can we get a bottle of water in line and saying i don t want to mess with that. i m just going to vote now. if they re voting now, that s great. but it doesn t mean democratic surge between now and election day. so i think that s one of the big questions here. president biden told msnbc this about the 2024 race. listen. u. the reason i m not making a judgment about formally running or not running, once i make that
europe has trended about three to four weeks ahead to have the u.s. in terms of its covid patterns, and in the u.s. we re already seeing an increase in the amount of covid in the waste water which would also signal that we re heading into a surge here as well. reporter: the average daily number of new cases has dropped to about 31,000 per day, down 96% from the omicron peak, although the spread of the new ba2 sub variant is more trance missilable, it isn t more severe than omicron, and vaccines and a prior omicron infection are affective against the new strain. how concerned with you of large gatherings today on st. patrick s day. i think large gathering can be done safely outside and in spaces that are well ventilated. but if you are talking about large gatherings in a crowded indoor bar, i think that could result in a lot of transmission. reporter: and it will take a few weeks before we know if st. patrick s day parties resulted in more covid cases.
maintained on the continent. their levels are now a fraction of ours. but the data about the impact of masks in the uk is far from straightforward. there is broader large scale research that shows masks reduce transmission, but asjohn burn murdoch notes, the data suggests this is not a major driver of case numbers in the uk. here is his tweet. and we know that despite some policy differences across the four nations, including some mandatory mask wearing, we are seeing similar covid patterns for all of the uk, and those patterns are leaving some nhs leaders to call for those measures to be brought back. they say it is time for the government s plan b. the government said it would enact plan b if they felt the health service was at risk,
not a major driver of case numbers in the uk. here is his tweet. and we know that despite some policy differences across the four nations, including some mandatory mask wearing, we are seeing similar covid patterns for all of the uk, and those patterns are leaving some nhs leaders to call for those measures to be brought back. they say it is time for the government s plan b. the government said it would implement plan b if they felt the health implement plan b if they felt the health service was at risk, we are saying health service was at risk, we are saying it health service was at risk, we are saying it is health service was at risk, we are saying it is at risk, we need to take saying it is at risk, we need to take measures now, measures like wearing take measures now, measures like wearing masks in crowded places, avoiding wearing masks in crowded places, avoiding unnecessary indoor meetings, working from home if you can. ., ., ., can. there are two government response