[bacon sizzles] [bacon sizzles] [electronic music plays] [bacon sizzles] [electronic music plays] woo! this morning we re now seeing nearly a million new cases in this country every day because of the omicron variant. in australia cases are just over 100,000 a day. a much smaller country, but that country s approach to omicron s surge, t raising eyebrows.
here in the u.s. but in addition to that, you re also dealing with an underserved or a short-staffed health care system around the globe, particularly in the u.s. what you re dealing with is a huge number of patients coming in at the same time, dealing with multiple medical illnesses that are exacerbated by the omicron variant, so simply letting it rip does nothing for the population except increase excess death which is a much more accurate indicator of what omicron is doing rather than looking at directly contributed to omicron. meanwhile, as you know, doctor, 82% of icu hospital beds as we understand it, those are the numbers there in florida. 82% of icu beds are in use there where you are. how are hospitals there handling this limited bed capacity? what are some of the difficult choices that are being made
there? in short, not well, first of all. you know, i m working in a hospital as well as treating patients in an outpatient setting. we re seeing there s a huge backlog of patients waiting in the er. as a result, they re simply, one, being exposed to omicron given the high rate coming in. in addition to that, once you have omicron, you have to be under isolation which puts a huge crunch on not only our beds but our staff. and so yes, you may not have the same amount of patients coming in as delta, but you re dealing with staff being allocated to patients in isolation in addition to the fact that that staff shortage compounded with omicron causes cancellation and drawdown on elected procedures which ultimately impact people s health long-term.
president biden today. you delivered on roads and bridges, now deliver on voting rights. later this hour, i ll talk to grant lewis, the mother of late georgia congressman john lewis, the name sake of one of the bills. i ll ask him what this battle means for his family and what john lewis would tell us today if he were still with us. then major developments in the 11-hour texas sin nothing standoff now being called an act of terror. two teenagers have been arrested in the united kingdom in connection to the standoff. what the fbi is now revealing about what the hostage takers said repeatedly during the negotiations. in a fight against omicron, the numbers keep climbing and climbing fast. there are nearly 1 million new cases in this country every single day. we re going to talk about australia s controversial new tactic to deal with the pandemic. let it rip.
Amid rising Covid cases linked to Omicron, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said individual alertness and discipline are a big strength of the country in the fight against the new variant of coronavirus.