steve: snow day. brian: talking about this virus and a new approach. obviously this current approach is not working and i love with his former advisers, medical advisers helped on transition team and advisers during his campaign said you have got to approach this different. number one, yours the term humility, humble. you didn t see delta or omicron coming. easier said than done but got it at least make that objective. i was not encouraged by some of the recommendations, get a voucher program to assessing n-95 and kn 95 masks. improve the air and waste water, surveillance and genomic sequences. they call for low cost of accessible testing. that we know is an epic fail by the administration. clearly they point out in july when you said we have the upper hand on the virus. that was obviously the wrong message,
guidance? i think it is probably been a long time coming. but i do understand where they were coming from early on. we didn t have enough n-95s for health care personnel who are in the thick of it, treating people who are being intubated or on oxygen and spreading the virus more. i think now we know definitively they re better. we ve always known that. but we can t let that mean that masks of any kind aren t better than no mask. it is still better to wear a cloth mask than none at you will. it is better to wear a surgical than a cloth. but n-95 are the best. are you concerned with so much guidance coming out from the cdc and so many adjust. s, the message isn t going through to the folks that it as effects the most. the biggest part of public health is messaging and i think it is been a bit messy. but it is in the midst of a
masks, telling americans that loosely woven cloth masks provide less protection than n-95 and kn-95s. but tonight, the warning on how many of those could be fake. here s phil lipof in new york. reporter: tonight, covid cases surging to record highs. the u.s. reporting more than 5.5 million new infections in just one week. hospitals across the country feeling the strain. not only are you physically exhausted, you re mentally exhausted and sometimes your heart hurts. reporter: in 40 states, icus now at or above 80% capacity, levels not seen in a year. a record 158,000 americans are battling the virus in the hospital, though experts say some of those patients testing positive after being admitted for other health reasons. our hospital is absolutely full. reporter: at this hospital in southern california, a half dozen ambulances waiting to offload patients. staff struggling to keep up. we ve expanded into every
seven of them have less than 10% of icu capacity. hospitals, many of which, including mine are at capacity and we re seeing the worst of it currently. reporter: on friday, the cdc updated guidance to recommend wearing the most protective mask or respirator that fits well and could be warn consistently and saying that n-95 and kn-95 offer the highest protection. it is not just filtering particles, it is attracting particles. reporter: another important tool in the fight, vaccinations. but the rate of new cases is currently about double that of new vaccinations. the supreme court on thursday reinstated a federal vaccine mandate for certain health care workers in 24 states. they ll have until march 15th to be fully vaccinated. another 25 states and d.c. continue to face a february 28th deadline for health care workers to be fully vaccinated as the mandate had not been blocked
cloth masks provide the least protection with omicron so contagious, and that n-95 and kn-95 masks provide more protection and they re especially important for people at high risk of infection or severe disease. tonight, as this moves across the country, in new york, the encouraging news a glimmer of hope on all of this. once the epicenter of this omicron wave at the start, what the governor now says they re seeing. here s erielle reshef tonight. reporter: tonight, the cdc is out with that long-awaited guidance on masks, warning that loosely woven cloth masks provide the least protection, that n-95 and kn-95 masks might be a better option, and that these highly protective masks may be important for people in high-risk settings or at risk for severe disease. but the cdc stopping short of urging americans to upgrade their masks, even though health experts have been recommending higher quality masks in the wake of omicron. the cdc is recognizing that n-95 and kn-95 masks really