so it s a very puzzling situation because they are really in a place now where they are going to see a lot of hospitalizations, already are, and going to see a lot of deaths. and how that impacts us, i think, we re going to have to expect that there s going to be spillover, and what we really have to hope is new variants aren t created at the same time. yeah. andy slavitt, always great to talk to you. thank you very much. on that note, as we just discussed, covid cases are growing exponentially in china. the numbers are undercounted, but it s clear it s bad. that s why i wanted to talk with bill bishop, longtime china expert, on my podcast this week. you can scan the qr code to listen to why is this happening wherever you get your podcasts. much more still to come tonight, including new revelations about incoming republican congressman george santos and his finances, and new
trying to move public opinion and explain to people this is a person who should be held accountable. it was great to have you all on. have a great weekend. and a happy new year. thanks, chris. still ahead, we are in another covid winter. we look at the state of the pandemic and the prognosis for next year. stay with us. rognosis for next year. stay with us bye, bye cough. later chest congestion. hello 12 hours of relief. 12 hours!! not coughing? hashtag still not coughing?! mucinex dm gives you 12 hours of relief from chest congestion and any type of cough, day or night. mucinex dm. it s comeback season.
is up to date vaccination. the bivalent booster. we have good news about that. there s tons of people over 65 at high risk who haven t gotten the bivalent booster. on the point of exhaustion, china is the ultimate example. they have gone from this zero covid policy, the most extreme measures that were quite successful and probably saved millions of people s lives in china to essentially a 180. they basically have dropped everything and there s real worry about how bad it s going to get there. what are you thinking about what we should be expecting to see coming out of china? well, it s totally befuddling that you can understand a zero covid policy for a period of time if during that period of time they re vaccinating the public and vaccinating elderly people. that s not what happened. you know, you understand, the state department in the u.s. has reached out to offer assistance to china, to offer vaccines, to offer therapeutics, and the chinese are not interested.
i m going to guess that right now you know someone who has covid, probably a couple people who had covid mess up family gatherings this holiday season. that s sort of the new reality we re in in our now third covid winter. we know the drill, right? people are inside, it s cold out, there s more transmission when they re inside. there s a new omicron subvariant spreading fast. cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are rising over the past two weeks. for the thid year running in 2022, covid-19 is the third leading cause of death in the u.s. after heart disease and cancer. look at that. that said, also look at the progress. 475,000 deaths last year. 234,000 this year. the levels of severe illness, of hospitalization, and mortality are far below what they were a year ago, thanks to vaccination and immunity from prior infection. it still feels to me at least like it s way, way higher than
it should be. joining me to talk about what to expect as we enter our fourth year with covid is andy slavitt, former senior adviser for covid response in the white house, and author of preventable, the inside story of how the doomed response. how would you characterize how we are with this virus and about to go into our third year, in our third winter? well, i think society, chris, has decided for us that roughly 250,000 to 350,000 deaths a year is an acceptable level, acceptable price to pay to go about our lives about like normal. and i think there are other costs as we know, as well. particularly people who work by the hour, people who work in public, deathly afraid of