time. all of our variants have arisen around unvaccinated populations. until we fix this problem, we re going to continue to have problems. i appreciate that remark. thank you for that. i mentioned tonight s survey question at smerconish .com. should vaccination status be a factor when distributing limited supply of the new covid pill? experience his is a no vote. i m not with him on that. i d like to see it considered. make up your own mind, go to my website, cast a ballot, and i ll give you the result in an hour. what do we have that s come in so far on social media? if the efficacy of the covid pill is high enough, wouldn t it it bring the fatality rate down low enough that we could get back to some sense of normalcy? jim, i should have kept the doctor around to answer that. i would like to think and i actually went through this with dr. ashish jha last night from brown that a silver lining to omicron might be that it s
welcome back to cnn newsroom. i m max foster. if you are just joining us let me bring you up to date with some of the other stories we re fooling. officials in south korea have given pfizer s covid pill. thousands of flights are canceled over the weekend by major u.s. air lines as the omicron surge impacts airline staff and crews. nearly 1500 flights were canceled on sunday alone. delta and united airlines say the omicron variant has had a direct impact on their operations. u.s. president joe biden won t be ringing in the new year after west virginia senator joe manchin slammed the door on it. now democrats are considering a new approach. cnn s jeremy diamond has more from washington. reporter: well, christmas came and went and president biden still doesn t have that key piece of his domestic policy agenda secured.
we re going to take apart this potentially game changing covid pill authorized by the fda today and take hold of this encouraging new data that appears to show omicron might not be as ominous as it sounds. and also take in this rare moment of harmony between presidents biden and trump in our pandemic fight, never say never. this country could use some doses of good news as we now see omicron all over the map of the united states. the variant that arrived 22 days ago has spread to all 50 states, along with d.c. and puerto rico. but that shouldn t necessarily be as frightening as it looks. dr. fauci highlighted data today from africa where omicron was first detected that shows this new covid strain poses a 70% lower risk of severe disease than the delta variant. fauci also pointed to data from scotland appears to back it up. that study found a two-thirds reduction in the risk of covid hospitalization compared with delta. so that s welcome news because
that are. they should an interior important, more checkpoints are shutdown. once you get past the border you are home free. isis has been decapitated. a policy director to i said this. being in the country illegally is not enough to be arrested. the cartels are using this to get people across the border into the united states so they know the consequence. benjamin: we hope this changes. thank you for your service and have a merry christmas. thank you. merry christmas. ashley: times 5:41. it is being called a game changer and it couldn t come at a better time. pfizer s new covid pill to cut the stamp of approval from the fda and on top of all of that that we have seen from this administration want biden to cut another blank check, details next.
thanks to the prior administration and our scientific community, america is one of the first countries to get the vaccine. just the other day, former president trump announced he had gotten his booster shot. maybe one of the few things he and i agree on. this wasn t the first time that biden has acknowledged the vaccines were developed on trump s watch but talks to definitely caught trump s attention. here s what he told fox news in response to biden giving him credit. he said, quote, i m very appreciative of that. i saw surprised to hear it. i think it was a terrific thing and it makes a lot of people happy. i think he did something very good. you know, it has to be a process of healing in this country, and that will help a lot. would it have made a difference if trump and biden had played nice with one another all along? vaccine politics have held this country back from beating covid back, but should we be a lot more hopeful tonight with this new data on omicron severity and this