so, i ve done whatever i did, the normal shot and you know that at the end of the day is people s individual decisions about what they want to do. and of course with the omicron surge, a lot of talk of boosters and also of masks. i just mentioned the cdc going to update its guidance to tell us all which masks are best and the white house today said they are, quote, in the process right now of strongly considering options of how to get better quality masks out there to more americans. a little whiff of too little, too late right there. wolf. nick watt reporting for us. and thank you very much. let s bring in our pandemic experts right now. dr. paul offit is a member of the fda vaccine advisory committee and ounlor of the very important book you bet your life. you re also joined by dr. aila stanford from the black doctors covid-19 consortium. thank you to both of you for
few days have been yet higher. daily hospitalizations are up 72% in the same two-week period, striking a daily average of more than 121,000 people being admitted, but again, if you look at the right side of the screen you ll notice the days have been higher than that. vaccines and testing are the two best tools in the fight against covid and we re dealing with a crisis of the unvaccinated a omicron drives a spike along testing shortage that s nothing short of a debacle. long lines and long delays in getting results. joining me is dr. laila stanford, pediatric and general surgeon and founder of the black doctors covid-19 consortium and she administered my first covid-19 test back in 2020. dr. stanford, thank you for being here. you, right in the beginning, before we had vaccines, before we had a talk of vaccines, you were sitting there saying people
she is a pediatric surgeon who has spend the last-14 months building trust, and bringing testing and vaccinations to those in need in her hometown of philadelphia. meet dr. ila stanford. african-americans were dying at a rate greater than any other group in philadelphia. so i jumped in. we were intentional about getting black and brown communities, the access and care they needed. those who are most vulnerable. they need to have the support. i m done. feel great. just seeing folks come out, day in and day out. their presence says everything. yes! and she s smiling. it was all this narrative. black people don t want the vaccine. but they were lined up. we had to earn the trust of the people. you know it s saving lives. the data shows it. i could not allow one-additional life to be lost, when i knew that i could do something about it.