wild fair fire fire across the u.s. president biden set to make his first trip to the southern border this sunday. the visit comes after two years in office and more than 4 million migrant encounters. is it too little too late? more on those stories throughout the hour. first a fight for the speaker s gavel enters day four. republicans remain divided after 11 rounds of voting. the most since 1859 as lawmakers hint negotiations could last through the weekend. i m dana perino. bill: i m bill hemmer. kevin mccarthy still not able to strike a deal with 20 conservative hold-outs. 12th vote set for noon eastern time and see whether or not it goes down at that time. mccarthy and allies remain confident a deal is said to be on the table after yet another set of late night concessions. indiana republican elect jim banks with us last hour. a supporter of mccarthy talked to us about the latest. i don t know if i see light at the end of the tunnel yet but i m hearing about it. a lo
b-1.5. it sounds like sci-fi but the good news is it s within the omicron family. a lot of us have immunity built up to it from previous sub variants that will be helpful. if you ve had covid within the past six months or a recent vaccine over the past few months you have immunity on board. we re starting to build up resistance. what s new about this is it s more contagious. it binds more closely to the cells and 1 1/2 times more contagious than the last variant. it is spreading rapidly. so many people are home testing and doesn t get reported. hospitalizations are up and unfortunately deaths are up slightly. we have 44,000 people in the hospital right now. we have to keep an eye on it. dana: we go to call for number two. the rate of infection is 40.5% of u.s. cases versus 21% a week ago. doctor, i will ask you a