>> reporter: hospitalizations now surging among the unvaccinated. >> do not do things like go to gathering where there are people who you do not know what their vaccination status is. >> reporter: overseas, the netherlands locking down, israel putting travelers from canada, germany and u.s. on no-fly list and uk not rolling out new restrictions. >> over the last 24 hours, largest number of new cases since the pandemic began. >> also tonight, democratic senator joe manchin dealing a potential death blow to the president's ambitious social spending plan. >> i've tried everything humanly possible, i can't get there. >> he has never negotiated in good faith. >> he has got explaining to do, let him vote no in front of the whole world. >> i'm pamela brown in washington, you are live in the cnn newsroom. just days before christmas and the prospect of a new year, sobering warning tonight in the fight against the coronavirus, new surge of cases and hospitalizations in the u.s. driven by the delta variant. for now, at least. the nation's top expert on nation's diseases dr. anthony fauci says the effort over omicron will stress test a healthcare system already on the brinks. brace for a few tough weeks and months ahead, dr. fauci's boss agrees. >> other variants pale by comparison in terms of the rate this one is spreading, doubling every two to three days, first in south africa and now parts of europe and the u.s. is on that exponential curve right now. so we're in for a world of trouble, i'm afraid, in the next month or two. >> so let's dive into the numbers and the images. here is a visual look at the spike in cases in the united kingdom in orange. in red, you see the recent jump in the u.s., and in blue, the beginning of what israeliy officials are calling their fifth wave. here is a look at covid patients in intensive care beds across the u.s., new mexico, minnesota and new hampshire, covid patients take up more than 40% of the icu capacity, deaths in the midwest lightly out range the other regions right now and nation-wide, deaths rose 8% from the week before. the case for covid-19 boosters never been stronger. unvaccinated people are 20 times more likely to die from covid-19 than people who have been boosted. that is, according to brand new cdc data. yet, only 60 million people in the u.s. or less than 20% have those odds in their favor as we head into what will likely be a brutal winter surge. so let's take you out now to los angeles and that is where we find our natasha chen who is tracking the rising hospitalizations there. hi, natasha so what is the latest? >> reporter: yeah, pamela, hospitalizations haven't been this high since about early october but really we need to just look at the case numbers in los angeles county to see the real story here. case numbers have tripled just bn this past week. if you look at tuesday, la county public health reported about 1,100 positive test cases, by saturday, more 2,700, now over 3,500, so we haven't seen more than 3,000 since late august, early september and even mentioned today's numbers may be low because of the lag in weekend reporting so that's not even a full week and we've already seen that number triple. and now, la has been requiring proof of covid vaccination to enter places like restaurants sincerely november, but the state of california stepped it up recently starting december 15th. a set of new protocols because of the recent rise in cases, state-wide, it is required now to wear masks indoors and indoor setting and see if you're going to a mega event, proof of vaccination or negative test required to enter either indoors with thousand people or outdoors with 10,000 people and always r recommended now, pamela, for travelers out of the state to get tested three to five days before. >> thank you natasha chen, so much, and in new york, state broke the record for highest covid-19 case count in a single day since the pandemic and that was for a single consecutive day. now the good news is hospitalizations remain relatively low and nowhere near previous spikes, that is important. in new york and many cities across the country, the lines for covid testing are long. joining me now is eric adams, mayor-elect of new york city. thank you for coming on the show. tell us, how worried are you about the surging number of cases right now? what is going on in your city? in your state? >> i think the country and if not, the globe, is dealing with this new variant. i believe when we do a proper analysis that the cases are high, but here in new york, we're not at a place where we're seeing a substantial number of deaths and not seeing a real problem with hospitalization. the real problem is the pan democrat be of lack of vaccinations. if we can get that under control, you see the hospital levels drop for those who are vaccinated and with booster shots as well as the serious impact of covid. >> we have been showing our viewers those long testing lines in new york. what can the local government do to help expedite testing? will that be a priority for you? >> yes it will be, but we need to understand that many people running lines, have determined to just do testing over and over again instead of doing the right thing for fellow new yorkers and that is to get vaccinated. we have two million new yorkers who have yet to take the booster shots so the goal is to be really aggressive, make it accessible. the booster shots as well as the vaccinations so we can get people protected in a right way. we're going to do massive testing throughout the entire city and i'm really partnered with the current mayor to make sure we have the seamless transition to deal with this virus. >> and i understand what you're saying that testing should never supplant getting the vaccination, but the bottom line is that testing is a very important tool to fight in this fight against the pandemic and at-home covid tests right now cost around 20, $25, sometimes more. new york city's minimum wage is $15 an hour. do you support free testing for all? >> oh yes, and we're doing that. we're doing much of the free testing here in new york city using mobile vans as well, looking at those hot spot areas and that's something i'm going to focus on, to go to those areas where we are seeing the spikes. what's different about this variant than others is that because it's such a mild, really, symptoms in some cases particularly those unvaccinated, people think it's just a common cold, then you continue to spread the virus. we want people to get tested, understand their results and really self-contain themselves like he has covid, mild symptoms, but understands how important it is not to spread the virus. >> current mayor, bill deblasio still hasn't announced whether the city held a celebration in times square, if you were in his shoes what would you do? >> right now, with the information i have, i would move forward with the new years eve but remember, that can change in the number of days in front of us. this is a moving target, it continues to evolve, it's a formidable opponent but we have two crises we're facing. the crisis of hope that many people believe the city should remain closed and tourism, multibillion dollar industry, we want them here, but at the same time finding the safety involved, i think he's making the right approach, will pivot and adjust based on what the numbers look like in time for new years eve celebration. >> why do you think you would allow the new years eve celebration to go forward right now and what would be the metric for you to not go forward? >> two things i'm looking at, number one, hospitalization. can we control the flow right now? doing an amazing job. new yorkers doing what's right. they are using masks when necessary. they're taking the vaccinations we have, the substantial number of new yorkers have done so and number two, the severities of death, the number of deaths associated. so if we reach a point where we cannot handle the hospitalizations or there's a major threat here, you make the determination of canceling the new years eve celebration, i don't believe we're there yet. if we are, we will do something, though. >> do you think mandating boosters is a necessary step to beat covid? you talked about how important vaccines are. what do you think on that front? >> i believe we make it to that point. i cannot continue to emphasize that this is a moving target and we should not be so stringent and unwilling to pivot when it's necessary. we may get to that point where we will have to mandate booster shots. we can now encourage people to take the booster shot. i took mine and i hate needles, but trust me, when i tell you i felt confident as i moved throughout the city knowing that i took the booster shot and i'm out often and thank god thus far i have not had to deal with the impact of covid. >> all right, mayor elect, eric adams, thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you, take care. >> well the covid surge is playing havoc with entertainment and sports, this afternoon the national hockey league announced it is suspending dozens of games. ramira joins me now from atlanta, nadia, tell us more about the decision here. >> reporter: yeah pamela, this feels like déjà vu when we saw so many professional leagues canceling games, nhl announcing today they'll be postponing 30 games between this weekend and also postponing cross continental travel, so postponing those games as well. not just the nhl though, but the nba as well announcing this weekend postponing five games because they have so many players throughout the league and covid-19 protocols under the restrictive list including nba super stars like kyrie irving and kevin durant not able to play. the nfl for the first time this season postponing some of their games. supposed to have a big double header on saturday and ended up being a single show-down between the patriots and colts so now the games rescheduled to play, potentially tomorrow night, and other moves the nfl says they'll change their protocols. without routinely testing, vaccinated players who are asymptomatic, that's a big change for the nfl and pamela, we can only expect to see more of this throughout the next couple of days. >> you're absolutely right about that, nadia ramiro thank you so much. still ahead this sunday evening, democratic senator joe manchin dealing a likely death blow to the president's ambitious social spending plan. congresswoman debby dingle joins me next and i'll ask her where the build back better plan goes from here. plus the national institutes of health showing trump once pressured them to endorse unconventional covid treatments. >> i was not going to compromise scientific principles to just hold on to the job. ♪ this holiday, let them shine like never before. ♪ ♪ ♪ this is how we shine. ♪ find the perfect gift at zales. the diamond store. ray loves vacations. but his diabetes never seemed to take one. everything felt like a 'no'. everything. but then ray went from no to know. with freestyle libre 2, now he knows his glucose levels when he needs to. and... when he wants to. so ray... can be ray. take the mystery out of your glucose levels, and lower your a1c. now you know. try it for free. visit freestylelibre.us ♪ you pour your heart into everything you do, which is a lot. so take care of that heart with lipton. because sippin' on unsweetened lipton can help support a healthy heart. lipton. stop chuggin'. start sippin'. i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! 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joining me now, democratic congresswoman debby dingle from michigan, hi congresswoman, good to see you. >> good to see you, happy holidays. or not so happy holidays. anyway -- >> well, for you, certainly, and other democrats. i'm curious, after working on this for so long, do you feel betrayed by joe manchin? what would you say to him right now? because you heard what the white house said in that statement and clearly the president feels that way. >> you know, i quite frankly was stunned this morning when i heard the news and in my initial feeling was joe manchin is the grinch that stole christmas. look, he had raised some issues. i'll sit down at any table and talk them through, but in, he had indicated he was going to keep talking. what he did today was take hope away from a lot of people who wanted to see lower prescription drug prices, who were worried about childcare. i spent years working to get long-term care for people that are desperate on, to stay in their own homes and just need a helping hand, a million people on that waiting list. we've had two within one week, high wind incidences. you've been seeing tornados across the midwest, the wildfires, global climate is real, we got to work on it. there are so many things that matter, we have to figure out what we're going to do but joe manchin's no can't be an acceptable final answer to all of this and we've got a lot of issues we got to tell the american people. we got to help on and figure out how we get there. >> and i want to go and talk about that in just a second but first play another key part for manchin's statements this morning, take a listen what he said about the way democrats were attempting to meet his demands. >> the thing that never changed, bret, was basically the same amount of things they're trying to accomplish by just changing, if you will, the amount of time we can depend on it. >> so the argument he was making was there should have been fewer items paid for over a longer period of time rather than just trying to do all of this over a shorter amount of time. what do you make of those comments? did democrats do well enough to write a bill manchin could vote for? >> i think people spent a lot of time trying to get a bill he could agree to. many issues had already been brought. he's raised issues with me that i was -- i set tables, when you're talking about electric vehicles, we have to go to evs, eliminate the internal combustion engine, but how do do that, i hear them, i've been calling the unions together saying how are we going to get there? i don't know what i'm supposed to tell people who are so upset about how much they're paying for their insulin or the long-term care people i've been working with for years and almost at the finish line. i just can't believe this man wants to take hope away from them but that's what he did today the way he delivered this message and i'm telling u i'm not going to let the hope die, we'll have to figure out how we're getting some of this done. >> so then how do you explain this? the white house according to our reporting was surprised by manchin's announcement today, knee he was leading in that direction but didn't think he would make that final decision. how do you explain that final disconnect? >> you know, i don't know. i think if you respect eachother, you trust your colleagues, you owe it to them to tell them what you're going to do, to talk to them, so to talk to fox news this morning and announce this without giving anybody a heads up, was startling. >> he did give the white house a heads up about 45 or 30 minutes before. >> 30 minutes and wouldn't respond to the president's call. if you respect each other, you call and give each other an adequate heads up, and i'm disappointed. i'm just disappointed. i don't treat my republican or democratic colleagues that way. >> do you think the build back better is dead, or is there another way forward. you keep talking about hope, not giving up hope, but what does the way forward look like? >> we'll have to sit down and figure out how to get thinking in there, because we can't give up. the childcare on lowering prescription drugs, i know republicans who believe we need to do that as strongly as we do. there are things in this bill and is anybody going to say global climate isn't real? i have young people saying what do we do to protect future generations. they're really worried when they see what's happening with glaciers melting and extreme weather worried it will get worse. we can't put our heads in the sand. we have to work together to get something done. and i'm disappointed, because i was willing to work with senator manchin, as were others, to find that common ground, because the problems we're addressing aren't going away and need answering. >> i want to ask you before we let you go, just learning that senator elizabeth warren, now, new jersey senator booker tested positive for covid, are you worried your fellow lawmakers getting sick like this and what's going on with covid across the country? >> i did not know they had tested positive but i think we all got to learn what the scientists are saying, wear our masks, rethink our holiday plans, keep distances, contain it to smaller groups, and make sure people are testic themselves before they go to these gatherings. i have at least 10 friends in the last 24 hours who tested positive and quite frankly, that has got my attention, quite seriously. i haven't been with any of them. >> a lot of people are having that experience where if they're not testing positive a lot of people in their circle are. very least, congresswoman debby dingle, thank you so much for making the time for us tonight. >> thank you. >> well the covid surge leading to new shutdowns and cancellations this weekend and into the holidays. up next, the medical director at the bailer college of medicine answers your covid questions. stay with us. aj) because as a fiduciary, it's our responsibility to always put clients first. 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>> yeah, i was not going to compromise scientific principles to just hold on to the job. >> let's bring in dr. rac rachina sett mccain, director at the bailer hospital of medicine. >> i think we're seeing the results of those dangers and living in those dangers right now, pamela. the partisan divide, turning this pandemic into a political issue is part of the reason we had over 8,000 deaths from covid in this country. the united states only makes up 4% of the world's population, yet make up 15% of deaths in the world from covid. it doesn't make sense, and the reason is because of mixed messaging from different political parties. >> yeah, i mean, i think that's a really good point when you put it into perspective like that. dr. fauci told abc on friday that he doesn't think we'll get to the point where we don't need masks on planes. do you agree with him? >> i definitely agree that's not going to be happening anytime soon. when the pandemic first started, we thought this would be something quick that we could tackle and it's proven that that is not the case. the pandemic is unlikely to be over in 2022. we're likely still going to be talking about covid in 2023 so masks are still going to be in use. >> so right now, we know testing is hard to come by for a lot of people. we're seeing the long lines and so forth. what should someone do if they are exposed to covid? if they were in a group, someone in their group had covid, what should they do, especially with holiday travel on the horizon for so many? >> if you've been exposed to covid you definitely need to get test said. t if the cdc changed the recommendations so you can wait three to five days, if you have been exposed and not tested negative, please don't travel and expose other people. >> i'll get to viewer questions, we have some great ones. first viewer asks how are the kids handling omicron based on data from south africa and europe? will the kids who only received two doses have enough antibody response to protect them from severe disease? >> so we aren't sure exactly how children are responding to omicron from the south africa/uk data, we do know, however, for the 18th week in a row, we have seen over 100,000 pediatric cases of covid in the united states and that number is increasing. as cases spike, cases in children will spike. >> that's really troubling, as a mom of two little ones. our second viewer asks, is there any real current information on which booster is most effective? >> the pfizer and moderna boosters are the boosters you should be getting. if you got the johnson & johnson vaccine it's okay to mix and match, but please go get one of the mrna vaccines as your booster. >> so for everyone watching this right now maybe feeling anxious, what should they think? what else would you tell people on edge during the current state of the pandemic right now? >> i understand the anxiety, i mean we're almost two years into this and seems every time we starting to things under control, there's another blow and another hit, but what i do want people to realize is we're not at a point in the pandemic where we have tools at our disposal which can help us come back from this virus and disease. please get vaccinated if you're not vaccinated. if you're vaccinated and now eligible for a booster, get it now, not the time to wait. >> really quickly, how swamped is it in your hospital and what do you want to say about what med med med med medical professionals are going through right now. >> i think we're not experiencing as much as they are in the midwest and northwoeast t we are seeing patient numbers rise. i have had several come and it tell me, i was going to get a booster tomorrow, but before they did that, it was too late and they contracted the virus. i cannot stress enough, it is not the time to start lrelaxing recommendations and lacking when it comes to protecting yourself. >> dr. rachina, thank you. >> all the missing people from the tornados in kentucky accounted for, more from congressman, you're in the cnn newsroom. and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. so, you can really promise better sleep? 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(excited yell) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health. hi susan! honey? yeah? i respect that. but that cough looks pretty bad... try this robitussin honey. the real honey you love... plus the powerful cough relief you need. mind if i root through your trash? now get powerful relief with robitussin elderberry. well barely a week after a deadly tornado ripped through western kentucky, people are rallying around those who suffered the worse damage. one relief fund already raised $19 million to help the thousands of people whose homes were destroyed. congressman joins me now, representing mayfield a town of less than 10,000 people. congressman, thanks for joining us. i just spoke to one of your constituents last night on the show and he actually said look, it's been really rough since the tornado came through, lost his home, car, worried about, you know, money and so forth, but he did say that the local organizations, the state, has been helpful in helping people like him with their needs. tell us more about how your constituents are doing. >> well, i think they're doing as well as can be expected. the outpouring of support from across america has been unbelievable, and pam, you did a great job covering the storm in the early days and that helped propel an outpouring of support. the charitable organizations have been unbelievable and there have been many communities besides mayfield and dawson springs affected, remember, three tornados touched down in kentucky, all predominantly in my congressional district, all declared disaster areas, fema in there on the federal level but on the local level, the first responders were there before the sun came up, just minutes after the tornado hit, they were there rescuing people and never stopped. utility crews working in the rain nonstop and just about all the power restored so just an amazing process watching everyone come together. >> it's incredible. they were doing that day or two after the tornado, putting up power lines and so forth. it's really incredible and we talked about the relief if you need created by the governor, what else has been done to help those in need? >> well, red cross is there and just so many chairble organizations. a little county in my district, russell county east of where the tornados hit, they had raised $206,000 for tornado relief, just about every county in kentucky had a relief effort and sending it to the various communities affected and every community has a shelter and they're full of clothing, food, and of course that will eventually run out and hopefully people will continue giving because this is going to be a many, many month long process of rebuilding. >> and i'll be, aults, from my end, covering it as well. i want to turn to the pandemicous, the omicron variant spread from kentucky, he says as contagious as this is going to be, you are going to be the omicron variant. masking is important, because if you test positive you will have to quarantine for 10 days to not get others sick. the governor is urging people to get vaccinated and to go back to wearing masks in public, including kids at school. what do you think about that? >> well, i think it's great to urge people to wear their mask and to be vaccinated. i wear my mask when i'm around people and obviously, i've been vaccinated. my entire family's been vaccinated, but there are people who will choose not to be vaccinated. there are people who don't want to wear a mask, and i think when you have government leaders trying to mandate vaccines and trying to mandate mask-wearing, i think it has a counter productive effect. and unfortunately, i think a lot of people have refused to be vaccinated and refuse to wear masks because there are a lot of politicians telling them they have to do it. that's just the nature of how some people react and i'm glad that the governor is encouraging people to do it. i think he'll get a lot better response by encouraging people to do it than mandating people to do it. >> let's talk about that quickly, every doctor i've spoken to is emphasizing the need for vaccines and booster shots, i know you don't support a federal vaccine mandate but many americans without the vaccine and we may have another wave right now. how bad does it have to get for you to support another vaccine or test mandate or would you ever support it? would you ever support it at the state level rather than federal level? anything where you could get behind that? >> no. and i think that people in my district firmly believe that. we have to trust the science, trust our doctors, and unfortunately, pam, for better or worse, this has been politicized by both parties from the very beginning and i think there are a lot of people that just really have a large distrust of government and politicians in general and i think the more they go on tv and certain politicians and say you have to do this, you have to do this, more people are going to say i'm not going to do it, and dr. fauci, for better or worse, i think has got to the point of where he's at the law of diminishing returns with a lot of people in america. >> well, but hold on, and we do have to go, but talk about politicizing, i know you're trying to, let's be clear here, this virus started under president trump and he was the one that politicized it. dr. fauci, i know he's become the boogie man of the right and you can have whatever opinion you want of him, but wasn't it president trump who started that trend of politicizing this? >> i think president trump did a great job with operation warpspeed to get a vaccine. i don't think a lot of liberal presidents would have cut through that much red tape and gotten a vaccine created that early so i think he deserved credit for that, but, you know, the politicization started behind you had government shutdowns, that's when the wheels came off for a lot of people especially conservatives saying you cannot open your restaurant or only do so at 30% capacity. i'm not saying that's right or wrong, pam, but i'm saying that's when things got bad and then learning the origination of covid and things dr. fauci he said that contradicted himself, i think there are a lot of conservatives who just aren't confident in what he says, that's why i think it's wise if we got some new faces as we move forward with the new variant and future variants, need to have new faces in place at the cdc. faces that will hopefully gain the trust of majority of americans. >> all right congressman james comber of kentucky, thank you so much. for more information about how you can help tornado victims, go to cnn.com/impact. we'll be right back. this is your home. this is your family room slash gym. the guest bedroom slash music studio. the daybed slash dog bed. the living room slash yoga shanti slash regional office slash classroom. and this is the basement slash panic room. maybe what your family needs is a vacation home slash vacation home. find yours on the vrbo app. ♪ it's the last minute gift sale. get up to 40% off storewide. 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