due to covid issues and schools like harvard university moving graduate and professional schools to online classes for the first three weeks of january. covid striking governor larry hogan and members of congress with elizabeth warren, new jersey senator corey booker, and colorado congressman jason crow, all testing positive for the virus. health workers and government officials increasingly focused on boosters. we see those a are vaccinated, who have received their booster, aren t coming in at the same rates. reporter: moderna showing that its half dose booster shot increased antibody levels against omicron, noticing a larger size dose helped even more. right now, you need that third dose. i wish we on stop calling it a booster. it s a three-dose vaccine. reporter: basic mitigation measures like mask kg help slow
a public health imperative. i think we ll hear all that. he needs to talk to us and he knows that. he needs to say, i know it will get bad but i m doing something. it is good that people are getting out there and getting tested. a lot of people are doing that to protect family members. this should have been foreseen. so president biden s approval ratings, they are at rock bottom. he just had his build back better plan effectively killed off by his buddy, senator joe manchin and now he s trying to end the pandemic with his new more contagious omicron variant, making his task even more difficult. how does he recover from all this? well, i mean, that s the huge question. so i think he needs to explain to people what we should already understand with respect to the pandemic. there is only. so in his control. he understands that politically, americans are not in the place where they would tolerate
quickly. just over 12% in a week. and that 73% is a couple days ago. so it is a very dominant strain. it will take over for delta very shortly. and the problem is that our vaccines don t work nearly as well for omicron as they did for delta. so without the booster, the effectiveness is down in the 30%. it shoots up to about 75% to protect against infection with the booster third shot. so that s why we need to get those percentages of third shots up as high as we can. and of course, we seem to, we know this is more contagious. we don t know for sure if this is more severe or less severe. how many do you worry that this omicron variant, along with delta, could overwhelm the health care system in this country in the next few weeks and months? right, well, it is already
the spread, washington, d.c. mayor is reinstating an indoor citywide mask order after lifting it only a few weeks ago. the district is seeing its highest daily count since it began. this new measure goes into effect tuesday and lasts until the end of january. cnn, new york. so let s bring in a cardiologist and professor of molecular meds at scripps research. he joins me now from la jolla, california. thank you for all you do and for talking with us. good to be with you again. thank you. the omicron is now the dominant variant making up 73% of all new cases. what does that tell but this variant? and what lies ahead considering less than 20% of americans have that third covid shot to protect them. that s right. so this shot up exceptionally
now with the omicron spreading, there are serious concerns that the nhs could be under their own pressure, warning that england could be facing 3,000 daily cases. and we heard from the head. it is meant to pressure the government to take action. many thanks. for more on omicron and how the u.s. can respond, white house medical adviser dr. anthony fauci will join cnn s new day later today. that is 7:00 a.m. in new york. noon in london. the center piece of president biden is on life support. can democrats salvage build back