howard: well, i agree with you people being sick of the virus, sick of the coverage. nevertheless, these numbers are staggering even though, obviously, deaths are not up anywhere near as much given the fact it s the omicron variant. gillian, maybe it s justified to cut the isolation time just to keep businesses open and planes flying, but there s no doubt in my mind if the cdc has done the same thing under donald trump, pundits would be coming on i saying they re not following the science. i guess my question for the medical experts and the public health officials is if that was the calculation now, right, we re going to cut down by the way, i can t i didn t really see journalists ask this this week if they re going to cut down isolation times, why wasn t that a factor when we started the lack lockdowns a year and a half ago? it should have been equally a consideration then as it is now. to me, it undercuts the failures
we have to manage and we encourage everyone to play their part in addressing that. the best thing people can do is to limit social connections and to wear face coverings, to get vaccinated, to make sure they get their booster before hogmanay, and with these measures we can make a contribution in ensuring we tackle the issues and serious challenges we face. 2s, in ensuring we tackle the issues and serious challenges we face.- serious challenges we face. a final ruestion serious challenges we face. a final question about serious challenges we face. a final question about isolation serious challenges we face. a final question about isolation times, . question about isolation times, people in scotland who come into contact with someone who has covid need to isolate ten days. in england it is seven days and in the us they reduced it to five days. is there any indication that length of isolation will be cut in scotland to release the pressure building on the nhs? these huge numbers of st
omicron surge of cases has now topped delta s, but hospitalizations haven t skyrocketed in the same way. they remain about 70% of what they were during the september peak. it s part of the reason many businesses are now pushing to shorten isolation times for asymptomatic cases. in new york state essential workers are now allowed to return to work just five days after testing positive. yeah, that s right. note here, it applies to workers who are fully vaccinated, don t be have symptoms and haven t had a fever for 72 hours. also note here, testing not required, perhaps because finding a quick pcr test in particular right now is nearly impossible unless you want to pay hundreds of dollars. coast to coast there have been long lines and days spent waiting for pcr results. i was just hoping to have a normal christmas with my wife and family and in the middle of the day her sister said she wasn t feeling well. she was able to get a rapid test