we begin this hour with the president s fight against the pandemic. a short time from now he ll speak to the nation and lay out his plan for fighting the new winter surge. so far we know that plan will include expanding access to testing, making some 500 million at-home test kits available to americans as soon as next month. increased support for hospitals asking the pentagon to deploy troops to some of the hardest hit areas and stepping up vaccine capacity, including new pop yup sites for people to get shots. according to the white house, the president will also lay out two messages for two groups of americans, for the vaccinated and boosted, no need to cancel holiday plans, and for those who are not, they are putting their lives at even greater risk right now. from what we re seeing in south africa, it might turn out to be overall omicron being somewhat less severe, but, you know, everything is relative. when you say less severe, you re