ability to test and because of the holiday surge and because of the surge of coronavirus cases driven by the omicron variant. the president making clear this is not enough. he said it is clearly not enough. and once again he said that if the federal government had known and if it had the capacity to manufacture tests ahead of time, it would have done that. instead we re now left waiting for the 500 million tests which are going to be shipped to americans who request them. but that, of course, does not begin until sometime next month. the president last week said in an interview that he wishes he had thought of that a couple of months sooner. but clearly that is now the focus to try to manufacture the tests as quickly as possible and distribute them and work with governors to get them to americans. jeremy diamond, thank you. joining us now dr. leave eye from boston children s hospital. thank you so much for being here. i think one of the things that just came out of the call that jere
hello, everyone. i m kate bolduan. here s what we are watching at this hour on this christmas eve holiday. a holiday surge. travelers hitting the road but major travel disruptions to come because of covid. big decision by the cdc, changing how long health care workers need to isolate after testing positive for covid. and now airlines want the same. going where no telescope has gone before. nasa preparing for a huge launch tomorrow that could answer some of our most burning questions about the origins of the universe. thanks for being here. we begin with the omicron surge impacting everyone s holiday. it s partly responsible for airlines canceling hundreds of flights this christmas eve. both united and delta air lines pointing to employee shortages due to the fast-spreading
public, some four days before christmas that this is a pandemic that is out of control, certainly. but for those vaccinated and boosted, there is there certainly are many reasons to be thankful for in that regard. he will use this speech as another attempt to urge people to get those vaccinations here during this holiday surge, ana. and this new threat hits close to home as the white house just revealed, a mid-level staff member, a close contact of the president, tested positive for covid-19 monday morning. what do we know about the president s possible exposure here? we know the president tested negative we are told by the white house press secretary. and he will take a pcr test again tomorrow. of course he tests regularly here. this is all from a trip on friday where a staffer of the white house spent about 30 minutes or so with the president, we re told, on air force 1 after the president traveled to south carolina. and the staffer at the time tested negative.
captioning sponsored by cbs tonight, holiday surge. travel takes off. more than 100 million americans on the move, as covid cases skyrocket from coast to coast. the latest variants spreading fast. it s unimaginable to have to go through another winter. you have so much death and misery. but confidence in vaccines and pandemic fatigue appear to have people accepting the risk. i m mar cyst gonzalez. new york city sees record infections, broadway shutters shows, broad way premiers cancelled. pro sports put some games and