david road, thank you so much for your analysis and your reporting. appreciate it. stick around. we have much more to come in the second hour of velshi, from how we landed in this covid testing debacle that we currently find ourselves in, to an escalation in extremism coming from republicans in congress. and the best stories you may not have heard about senator harry reid, a man who, yes, cared deeply and accomplished much, but also hung up on the president. another hour of velshi starts now. good morning. it s 9:00 a.m. on the east coast. i m mehdi hussein in for velshi. the omicron variant is fueling a relentless strike in new covid cases. on new year s day, there were just over 161,000 reported cases, likely down to the holidays, but still the daily