for another couple weeks. a lot of people need testing now. so they re behind the eight ball on that, and there had been some criticism they hadn t gotten ready earlier in the year. testing had fallen by the wayside while they were focussed on vaccines which are super important. so he s going to try to show today that he is on top of this. he recognizes this is causing a great deal of trouble, and in some cases, a great deal of heart ache in families where people are sick or in the hospital. you know, it s it s been, i think the single challenge of his presidency is to get his hands around this pandemic which is going on almost two years. the public is tired, exhausted and not listening to a lot of the advice from public health experts. i think his challenge is to get through his message to a public that just would yould assume move on. donna, i m going to quickly ask you a question knowing we might hear from the president, but the early data indicates the
jonathan, it s interesting on the testing because several times over the course of the last three months since the end of the summer, the president said he s going to ramp up testing. he s made it sound like in the last week or so that well omicron came out of the flu and it caught us by surprise. he has said multiple times we are really going to ramp up testing because we need more testing heading into the winter. what happened? why didn t those commitments to ramp up testing translate into actual tests heading into the winter? certainly there were more tests available in the last two months than the hype of the pandemic in 2020. they do fell short, you making good point, this is not the second time the white house officials have acknowledged. they have been caught off guards by the speed of the pandemic, the best example of this is on july 4th, when the united states is about to declare its
leave. so i think before we shorten the isolation periods and force people to get back to work as soon as possible, when they still may not be feeling well or they risk exposing other people, we need to focus on broader public health measures to keep everyone safe. i want to bring in nbc s sam brock who is in miami right now. we should note florida seeing an increase of more than 500% in cases over the last two weeks in miami right now. seeing staggering j staggering long lines to get covid tests. sam, tell us what s going on there. how is the city addressing the intense demand? i think there was a question, joe, if what we saw last week was just an anomaly or whether it s a bellwether. it s the latter. especially since it s more difficult to get testing in stores. people are coming out throughout miami dade for tests being
negative. you have to prove yourself. we have data from workplace and school testing programs that highlight, jonathan, exactly what you said. people will have a symptom, test negative, test negative with a rapid test and get a pcr test, which is much better, that will be positive. short supplies, delays, lines around the corner. we know that s another kind of to willie s comment earlier, this feels the timing as well as lack of comment on testing for isolation. let me be clear, isolation is what happens when you have a positive test or symptom. a quarantine is what happens when you re exposed. i m also shortening the quarantining time if you re vaccinated, the cdc makes that distinction. but this testing positive, if your symptoms, quote, resolve i have to tell you after almost 20 years in practice, i don t know if i can trust even myself. you want to go back to work, if that s your only paycheck, you bet you re going to think your
when you are exposed, i do think you can end quarantine early. i do agree the cdc did the right thing on that policy, you are vaccinated and you don t have to haul away in your house and waiting to test. if you tested positive or your symptomatic and you just wait. we have seen patients who have been testing positive, not just day ten, they have been testing positive for 12 days. that s not the norms. it s possible. we know there are people who are still infectious. without testing and without a distinction for vaccinated individuals and without some criteria to say what does it mean that your symptoms are resolving or what are your symptoms you should be looking for. these all mimics of common cold. true cold has no ability to get a test or not tested and for them to be locked in this confusing advisory from the cdc for weeks even.