all of their eggs in the vaccination basket. you know that may have worked potentially but we had delta and now omicron and the biden administration did not anticipate that we would end up essentially a 60% vaccination rate. so they did not use other measures like testing and did not prepare other measures like testing and other country took different approaches. where is the testing and could we at least secure tests for this moment, and obviously it did a lot of great for businesses. was testing not emphasized in
at-home tests not to be found. but don t put the blame on joe. what is your message to americans who are trying to get tested and are asking what took so long to ramp up testing. come on, what took sloang. wad happened is the omicron virus spread more quickly than anybody thought. jesse: the grinch stole christmas gifts with the supply chain mess. people unable to get their christmas gifts in time. some can, some can t. but joe says the supply channel crisis never happened. everything from pet food to alcohol, candy canes. some of the biggest charities say supply chain issues will be affecting their ability to give this year. i can t promise that every person will get every gift they
sends you awesome boxes every month and i love it. head to bespokepost.com and get a free gift with your first box when you enter code free. any minute at the white house we expect to hear from president biden from this room at the white house. as he joins his doctors, the covid response team s call with the nation s governors. we ll bring you the comments live as soon as they begin. the backdrop to the meeting is the omicron variant, driving a national surge in covid cases straining hospitals in some parts of the country, putting pressure on testing. despite that, the u.s. economy is doing slightly better than expected with holiday sales rising at their fastest pace in 17 years. to help us understand that, joining me now the peter baker, donna edwards, and douglas
the cdc is out with new guidelines shortening the recommending isolation of quarantine time for those who tested positive or expose todd the virus. this comes as the fast omicron variant puts pressure on airlines and other businesses. nbc news. reporter: testing for the virus reaches by a crisis point. by 5:00, the lines in south florida already forming with the prospect of free covid testing kits. what are you seeing in shelves? they re all in stock and fine, i guess they all disappeared in a matter of three days like they were not there.
the relief package? we need to stockpil some of these things in case a variant comes. a great question, our reporting shows there were a group of health officials who went to the white house and said we are not doing enough on testing and we should really ramp up test production and we should make sure we have an ample supply in tests. the white house did not act on that information. there was a scenario where you could have defeat testing the the same way operation warp speed conducted. the government created this enormous demand and promised companies they would have a profit if they put in enormous resources into treating these tests. that s what we did with the vaccines. the decision was made not to