and coronavirus at the same time as cases of omicron are already overwhelming hospitals and testing centers. jonathan serrie live for us in atlanta home to the cdc. good morning. good morning to you, trace. even those most omicron cases is relatively mild the new variant is creating so many cases it is putting a huge burden on medical centers. in southern california hospitals are so busy that ambulances are waiting four hours or longer to offload patients. with lines already long at covid test sites the laboratory industry forecast the demand for covid tests during the omicron surge will surpass that of previous variants. the white house and administration is working with the test manufacturers as well as labs to get the capacity up. so far it appears that we will not run into the supply chain challenges that we did a year
january, we worked with warehouses to see where additional tests were stored and assessed that additional capacity and are bringing that capacity to bear for these initial tests that are going out, which is why you re seeing contracts with warehouses and not with test manufacturers. so they ve got 50 million tests in warehouses in the united states and all we did was access that inventory? that is my understanding. well, will you confirm your understanding? this is a very, very important piece when you ve got companies that don t manufacture tests and all of a sudden we re giving them $190 million contract for about 14 million home tests and their expertise is importation of vodka. i d encourage you to look through the list of people that we re signing up with. are you aware some of the larger test manufacturers in 2021 shut
no excuse for anyone being unvaccinated reporter: it s a critical moment for the president who came to office vowing to shutdown the virus but now faces an unprecedented covid surge. the president under fire for not being prepared on testing. last month, he promised free at-home tests for americans starting now rapid tests will start going out in the beginning of january, because they re being produced now reporter: the white house acknowledging it still hasn t finalized a contract with test manufacturers nor unveiled its website to order tests meanwhile, president biden is advising americans to use google i know this remains frustrating. believe me, it s frustrating to me, but we re making improvements covid tests near me on google to find the nearest site where you can get a test reporter: but states tonight are pleading for help. we do not have enough testing to go around i don t think any state has enough testing to go around. reporter: massive
warehouses to see where additional tests were stored and assessed that additional capacity and are bringing that capacity to bear for these initial tests that are going out, which is why you are seeing contracts with warehouses and not with test manufacturers. is what you are telling me they have 50 million tests in warehouses in the united states and all we did was access that inventory? that is my understanding. well, will you confirm your understanding? this is a very, very important piece when you ve got companies that don t manufacture tests and all of a sudden we re giving them $190 million contract for 14 million home tests and their expertise is importation of vodka. i encourage you to look through the list of people we re signing up with. are you aware that some of the larger test manufacturers in 2021 shut down lines because of the lack of purchases for
the website is going to be opening tomorrow for americans to get their rapid tests. but we know there s a 7 to 12-day delay on shipping. so this really cannot be. already behind, and we really have to make sure the next time that this happens that we are prepared. and there s so many things that we can do. the biden administration can actually work with rapid test manufacturers to subsidize the tests to get them over american. so there are things that we can do, that we haven t done to prepare ourselves for the next wave. you know, get tests out to where people are working, and you know, i m just thinking of the folks that were working, the essential workers in our country that are working in the fields. and when they get sick. first of all, they can t take time off. but then, there s no access to testing. we ve got to have that available to everyone in this country. now, ellison, meanwhile, you re at houston methodist, which has a virtual intensive care unit. what does that mean?