there was news about the new variant. we ll get to that. go ahead. you have this one. bill: i was cheering for your broncos. dana: you wanted me to be in a good mood? did the bengals win? bill: on this variant now the president met with his covid response team last night and meet next hour. the president will speak to the american people. dana: task force says it will take two weeks to collect more information. what do we know now? omicron was first detected if south africa thursday and beginning today the u.s. is restricting travel for non-citizens from there and seven other nearby countries. bill: japan, israel, morocco are imposing a ban on all foreign travel. overnight canadien reported its first two cases. dana: the variant is already likely in the united states and too early to tell if existing
the mandate for workers they are up in the mid-90s in terms of take-up rates for vaccines but you think that the mandate for you has actually made it more difficult to convince people to get the vaccine. i do. people buck up. they offer more resistance if the government is telling them this is what you have to do. we are making great progress through medical information, trusted advisors. i had community town hall meetings and we gradually increased the vaccination rate and we continue to do it. it is harder whenever you have the debate about the mandates and so we oppose a federal mandate. the first time in history they have had this heavy federal government come in and tell the states what to do. every state might be different. for arkansas, we are using education, common sense, and driving those numbers up and people take it seriously. whenever you see the risk, that
people are wondering why we had such a reaction. president biden wants to try to get oil prices lower and no luck with releasing from the strategic oil reserve. it did nothing for the price of gasoline. once the omicron variant and all the panic that ensued happened on friday, it did the trick to send oil prices lower. they re now rebounding this morning. we re waiting to hear what president biden has to say about the new variant but i would expect the bounceback today and the bounceback perhaps a return to a bullish time sometime this week once we get more information from this administration on next steps. bill: today s cyber monday. get shopping done. black friday the brick and mortar stores, mom and pop, home depot, lowe s, they were down 28% when compared to sales
fear and travel restrictions aren t a long-term solution to control covid variants. more fear doesn t bode well for airlines and other businesses looking to recover from the past two years. health studies are underway. many expressing optimism they ll offer a degree of protection, the vaccine. dr. fauci informed the president it will take roughly two weeks to have more information. all americans must get vaccinated. delta and united the two airlines that fly direct from the united states to south africa aren t changing routes. with the new york governor declaring a state of emergency and the variant potentially already being detected in the u.s. it begs the question, will we see more international travel bans? will we see more bans at home? back to you. dana: thanks for the update. bill: let s bring in dr. marc siegel. nice to see you, sir. many questions here. what is real on this and what is imagined and how much is cya
i haven t seen anything substantive from this administration about where it started. instead i see them being protectionist to china creating a blockade that says let s make sure we don t say anything negative about china. i don t care what they call it. i want to get to the bottom of it. i don t think the democrats have taken that very soreously. bill: more information is better for all of us. that s the point there. jason, thank you so much. amen. dana: also this new york post cover on the face of it biden is a hypocrite. tells americans to mask up but flouts rule. something you see over and over again and happening here in new york city as well that now even though they have vaccine rate that is great, at a restaurant you don t have to wear a mask if you have your vaccine card but now all of these shops like the one that i love to go to requires a mask and i think