testing, to increase pop-ups. we haven t seen those pop up yet. we re in the middle of the surge. we need those a week ago, fred, to help people out. men time, a lot of schools are starting back tomorrow. there s a lot of concern in so many households. i want to play some sound from the former fda commissioner and what he said this morning. it does appear now based on a lot of experimental evidence we ve gotten in the last two weeks that this is a milder form of the coronavirus. it appears to be an upper airway disease than a lower airway disease. that s good for most americans. the one group that may be a problem for are very young kids, toddler whose have trouble with upper air waif infections. it could be a bigger challenge in young kids because of the way it binds to the airway cells. help parents and families understand what that means. we re talking about the omicron
that s a key point, especially when you look at averaging 400,000 cases, new infections a day and knocks you back on your heels. to your point with omicron so far the data tells us most of these cases are not as severe which is why this from the former fda commissioner scott got lieb over the weekend jumped out at me. listen to this, sir. it does appear now based on a lot of experimental evidence that we ve gotten in the last two weeks that this is a mild form of the coronavirus. it appears to be more of an upper airway disease than a lower airway disease. good for most americans. the one group that that may be a problem for is very young children, toddlers, who have trouble with upper airway infections. this is your wheelhouse, proceedtic infectious diseases it, what does he mean by toddlers and the upper airway problem? well, anecdotally here in alabama we ve been seeing as an example of this to what dr. gotlieb was getting at. we ve been seeing younger children, you know, 1
it appears to be more of an upper airway disease than a lower airway disease. that s good for most americans. but that s a problem for younger children. you re seeing more bronchitis-like systmptoms. cnn s ryan young is in atlanta at one of the world s busiest airports. but let s start with cnn s polo sandoval in new york. how is this latest surge in cases impacting people in new york? once again it s at the epicenter. how are they responding? reporter: let s first off with first responders. these staggering numbers also leading to an extremely high number of ems workers, for example, calling in sick. that number currently sits at about 30%. that s already exceeded what we saw at the start of the pandemic in the spring of 2020.
much be a cold, respiratory illness, upper respiratory illness, virus appears to be much more infectious in the upper respiratory tract than lower, like a bad cold. you re not vaccinated you may still get sick with it. the problem is we re seeing a significant number of people getting admitted to hospitals and particularly children. i think the number of children going to hospitals is going up quite a bit and that s something we all are concerned about. that has been a bit alarming for parents across the country, and it s something that the former head of the fda addressed over the weekend after scott gottlieb gave his thoughts as to why he thinks we are seeing that spike in cases among children. let s take a listen. it does appear based on a lot of experimental evidence that we ve gotten in the last two weeks that this is a milder form of the coronavirus. it appears to be more of an upper area disease than lower airway disease. that s good for most americans. the one group that ma
it appears to be more of an upper airway disease than a lower airway disease. that s good for most americans. the one that may be a problem for is very young children, toddlers who have trouble with upper airway infections. the conversation on omicron has been that it s less severe as you stated in your previous answer. the reason i m an emergency medicine doctor, the reason i m a doctor at all is because at a very early age, at 5 years of age, i made a decision to be a doctor because i was that wheezy little asthmatic kid that was sent to the emergency department all the time for breathing treatments, usually set off by a virus. it could have been the shag carpeting, the two pets and the two smokers i had in my house in the 80s too. but certainly every time i got a virus, i would get an asthma attack. that s what we re seeing in a lot of these pediatric patients,