andy slavitt, thank you very much for your time. we appreciate it. thank you, jim. and given the climbing pediatric hospitalization numbers, i want to focus more closely now on what parents need to know, especially as back to school approaches. let s talk to dr. paul offit, who we saw him briefly in tom foreman s report a few moments ago. he is director of the vaccine education center at children s hospital of philadelphia. also a member of the fda vaccine advisory committee. dr. offit, i mean, this is concerning that we are seeing these pediatric hospitalizations on the rise in this country. they are now near their september peak in the u.s. how concerned are you about this? well, it s winter and this is a winter virus. so you would expect that there would be an increase, much the same way we see an increase in influenza or other winter respiratory viruses. omicron is definitely more contagious and i can tell you in our hospital, we are definitely seeing more cases of of child
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emphasized. again, this is the letter from the attending physician of the congress of the united states. brian monahan who is essentially the doctor for the house and senate advising a maximal telework posture for congress. again, the senate is supposed to be in session this week, we will see how that plays out. we will have more later on this hour as to what is going on with hospitalization numbers, we have seen over the past couple weeks as case numbers have just gone off the charts by infectious disease experts say now that we are watching the case numbers and we need to watch hospitalization numbers not just case numbers. and we do avoid having might surprise you does not so comport with common wisdom and
is this never trump sliver that is now partnering with the democrats and that s what they are going for. that explains this idea of them taking someone like liz cheney and plugging them in with joe biden. rachel: yeah. she has got to save herself in wyoming, first. i don t think she can do that let alone save joe biden. all right, katie, stephen, great talk to you tonight. thank you so much. thank you. rachel: omicron doom and gloom. hospitalization numbers were used to shut down america again. those numbers aren t what they re cracked up to be. we will talk to dr. mehmet oz next. stay with us.
hospitals. nearly 1 in 4 nationwide now reporting critical staffing shortages, federal data shows, while covid hospitalization numbers near the pandemic s all-time high. among unvaccinated people and among unboosted high-risk people, it is putting a big strain. and given how much infection there is, our hospitals really are at the brink right now. reporter: for children, average daily hospitalizations are well above any pandemic peak we ve seen before. for those children not eligible for vaccination, we do know that they are most likely to get sick with covid if their family members aren t vaccinated. reporter: amid a shortage of covid tests nationwide, some testing labs report they re already overburdened. universities from washington state to north carolina prioritizing who gets tested. if you look what s happening across the east coast, new york city, washington, d.c., maryland, probably florida as well, have already peaked. maybe delaware and rhode island. you ll start to