families. we begin with the stunning transmissible omicron variant now in all 50 states and accounting for 90% of the cases in many parts of the country. the u.s. is averaging 146,000 new cases each day. that's 36% higher than a week ago and just 4% below the peak of delta, of the delta surge in mid-september. while cases are surging, hospitalizations are not, leaving a lot of people to wonder what this means. two new studies out of the uk and south africa suggest omicron may be less likely to cause severe disease compared to the delta variant. we'll have more on that in just a second. also this -- president biden is again defending his administration's response to the now dominant omicron variant. >> how did you get it wrong? >> how did we get it wrong? nobody saw it coming. nobody in the whole world saw it coming. >> how could the administration not expect there could be moments like this one where you have a highly transmissible variant around the corner? >> sure, it was possible. it was possible there could be other variants coming along. you plan for what you think is available as the most likely threat to exist at the time. and you respond to it. and i think that's exactly what we've done. >> let's start with cnn's elizabeth cohen with details on the new omicron studies that are getting a lot of attention. what are the big take-aways? >> reporter: the take-aways are that omicron does not seem to be as virulent. it doesn't put as many people in the hospital or as high a percentage of people in the hospital or send them to the morgue as delta. but before i read you these studies, i want to say, as we can see, omicron spreads so quickly, so many people are going to get it, that a small percentage of a big number can still be a very big number. let's look at what these studies found. a study? south africa looked at cases in october and november, and they found with omicron, 2.5% of people wered a miltded to hospital, whereas with delta, 12.8% of the people they looked at were admitted to the hospital. that is obviously a huge difference, delta being more dangerous in that way. now, if we look at a study in scotland very similar, a two-thirds reduction in hospitalization risk, and they found that a booster was linked to a 57% reduction in the risk of symptomatic infections. so, kate, the bottom line here is vaccination makes a big difference with omicron. get vaccinated. if you're more than six months past your second shot, get a booster. don't be lulled into thinking, oh, this isn't all that dangerous, people are just getting the sniffles. who cares how widespread it is? it's not true. people are ending up in the hospital and dying from omicron. it's a smaller percentage but still, again, a small percentage of a large number can still be a large number. remember, we also want to protect the elderly as well as people with compromised immune systems who are more vulnerable to this variant and really to any variant for covid-19. kate? >> elizabeth, also new this morning the fda has authorized a second antiviral pill to treat covid. what can you tell us about this one? >> reporter: yes. this pill in many ways is similar to the pfizer one that got an emergency use authorization yesterday. both antivirals you can take in early stages of covid so important. this is the first time there are pills your doctor can call in a prescription. let's take a look at what the merck clinical trials found. they took hundreds of people, divided them in half. the ones that received a placebo, 68 offensively those people, because they had covid-19, were hospitalized, and 9 of them died. of the ones who received merck antiviral, 48 were hospitalized and 1 died. that is obviously a big difference. now, the merck -- there's more safety concerns with the merck drug. there are concerns especially for pregnant women, and it will be interesting to see how that plays out as things go along. kate? >> elizabeth, thank you so much. right now, hospitals in new mexico at risk of being overwhelmed by the omicron surge. their icust are at 115% capacity and they're facing massive staffing shortages. sara schneider has more. what are you hearing from doctors and nurses? >> reporter: you know, they're exhausted, and beyond exhausted. some of them are simply despondent. what has happened in the main hospital here in santa fe is that they've had to create basically two hospitals, one for covid patients and an icu for those patients and another for the other ones. they are getting a surge of people in both icus. they're over capacity. what dints to the staff is nothing short of disturbing. everyone on the staff has reported being exhausted, has reported being sometimes unable to continue this work they're doing. and the reason for that is because they are now seeing, again, another surge. they're seeing daily dits. and they're dealing with the sickest of sick patients. we were able to talk to an incredible respiratory therapist, the manager there at st. vincent's medical center here in santa fe. he talked about how hard this has been on his staff and how harold it has been on him watching the light go out of his staff's eyes. >> they come to me and they say, i do need a break, help me. >> when we talk about things like pulling them out and people breaking down, it sounds like a war zone. that's the same language that soldiers sometimes use. >> yes. >> is that what it feels like? >> yes. to the point of it being almost unbearable. >> it's okay. >> to see that -- these are very good people, good respiratory ther therapists, good clinicians who want to do the best possible job, right? and they just can't. they can't do it. >> reporter: you heard that. it's almost unbearable. this is a man who's been doing this for 29 years. and he has never seen anything like this. and he is going through this with all of his staff. what he does for them is when they get to that point where they literally tell him i need help, i can't keep doing this, he will move them to another part of the hospital so that they get a bit of a break because in the covid unit, it is exhausting just to try not only to save the patient bus to keep the staff safe. just being there for an hour or so, it's exhausting to try to constantly remind yourself how virulent this is and how quickly that you can become infected too. on top of that, they have many, many people on ventilators. only about 25% of those folks that go on ventilation end up leaving that hospital alive. guys? >> sara, thank you so much for that. it is crushing to hear that from the hospital now two years into this pandemic. just how exhausted and emotional and broken down at this point. thank you for spotlighting that. let's move the new york. let's get another view for another hotspot in this wave from an epidemiologist and the director of cornell medical center for pandemic prevention and response in new york city. thanks for being here. what are the stories you're hearing from staff at this point in the pandemic? new york saw the worst of it. new york is seeing the worst of cases right now. but the exhaustion, just what are you hearing from staff now? >> yeah. thank you very much for having me on. i think the story that you just heard is the type of story that we're seeing in every hospital here in new york as well as around the city and the state. it's really -- we've had crisis on crisis in our health care system. we are seeing, you know, less bad news, which is that the percentage of people hospitalized with this infection appears to be far lower than previous waves. a lot of that is due to the impact of vaccinations. some is due to prior infection. but you can't underestimate the toll that our health care workers have been under. >> talking about the less bad news, i was curious about your take about the new studies in south africa and scotland showing there's a lower risk of hospitalization with omicron than other variants. is that good news? how do you read it? >> i do see it as good news because, you know, as we mentioned just now, our health care workers are under severe strain and crisis. of course your correspondent before said the exact problem that we face, which is that a small percentage of a very large number is still a large number. so we can't underestimate the fact that we are going to continue to have our hospitals have to take care of these very sick and ill patients for a long time. but at the same time, we also need to keep in perspective the fact that these large numbers of infections may not create the same level of crisis that we had even during our delta strain. >> and where do you think new york specifically is in terms of the -- we know hospitalizations generally, obviously, lag after infection. do you think -- do you have any confidence that the level of hospitalizations we're seeing now, which are up but not surging, that that is going to sustain? or are you still afraid of what could be coming? >> this virus always surprises us. the one thing i've learned in two years of managing this in the city and now in an academic role is we can't ever think we're ahead of it right now. i am heartened by the fact that our hospitalizations have not been surging beyond what we might have expected at this time. but we also have to be realistic that the virus has a way of surprising us. so we want to continue to plan for the worst, but i would say hope for best. >> yeah. one of the real glimmers of hope right now is the fda now authorizing now two antiviral treatments for covid, one from pfizer and then this morning one from merck. how much of a difference maker do you think these are going to be? >> you know, in the short term not very much because, again, we need to have the supply available and we need to have the systems to get them to people. over the long term, we have to accept the fact that this virus is now going to be with us forever, and so when you look at it from that time line, it's going to be a real game changer over the future. the single biggest bottleneck right now is going to be -- we can't give these medications to everybody. we want to give them to people who test positive. as you know, there is a real testing bottleneck, so we need to solve that problem first and also at the same time build the system to get people these treemtds, which may have a very big impact over the long term. >> your focus on pandemic prevention and response, i wanted to ask you about president biden's interview last night, his remarks about the administration's response. he says -- he at one point said nobody could have seen this coming. let me play how he put it to abc news. >> the vice president said in recent days that you didn't see delta coming, you didn't see omicron coming. how did you get it wrong? >> how did we get it wrong? nobody saw it coming. nobody in the whole world saw it coming. >> i know you each said this virus continues to surprise, but as a public health official, is that true that nobody saw this coming? >> well, unfortunately, it's not true. the reality is that even if we didn't know that a variant like omicron itself would emerge, we knew that delta was going to continue to cause a severe winter surge. this virus behaves just like the flu and causes seasonal surges. even without omicron, we would be in a difficult position. reality is all of the things we can do to stop omicron are things we would have needed to stop delta, and it's unfortunate we are again caught behind when we really should have learned two years from now we need to always stay ahead. >> dr. varma, thanks for your time. >> thanks very much. coming up, the house panel investigating january 6th wants to speak to a key republican lawmaker, now the second silting member of congress they are focused in on. what they want to know from jim jordan. and a community is rallying around a truck driver sen tension to 110 years in prison. now the district attorney is also stepping in. a live report next. .and dry, cr. new gold bond advanced healing ointment. restore healthy skin, with no sticky feeling. gold bond. champion your skin. ♪ ♪ (man) still asleep. 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ask your health care provider today about once-weekly ozempic®. oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! you may pay as little as $25 for a 3-month prescription. new today, the house select committee investigating january 6th requests a second sitting member of congress come speak with them. this time it's republican congressman jim jordan. jordan says he's reviewing the letter but nothing beyond that yet. and this is the same jim jordan who kevin mccarthy wanted to assign to sit on that committee and he's now a central figure in what the committee is investigating. the odds are that jordan refuses to speak to him voluntarily. how likely will they subpoena a sitting member of congress? >> reporter: that could be on the table pause that would be an escalation of the house's pursuit. even with this, just asking jordan to talk, that's already an escalation of what the house is trying to get at, and the reason we know the house right now, the colleagues of jim jordan and also of republican scott perry from pennsylvania, those are the two people the house wants to talk to, the house select committee is gathering information and wanting to gather information from them because jordan was a person who they know now was in touch with trump on january 6th and also that he sent a text message on january 5th to the white house chief of staff, mark meadows, when he was trying to share a legal theory that the white house was looking at about whether mike pence, the vice president at the time, could stop the certification of the electoral college vote in congress. obviously, that's what the insurrectionists were also trying to do. here's what jordan said when he was asked about this request for him to speak to the house select committee yesterday. that is what he said. >> we just got the letter today, brian. we'll review the letter, but i've got to be honest with you, i have real concerns about any committee that will take a document and alter it and present it to the american people completely misleading them like they did last week. it turns out it looks like it wasn't just one document they did this with. it was other text messages as well. so i have real concerns with that. >> reporter: we don't know why he thinks this is out of context, but he has told cnn previously he has nothing to hide. >> thanks so much. a fourth hour of jury deliberations is under way in the trial of former police officer kim potter. the jury has spent over 24 hours considering the case against potter, who is charged with two counts of manslaughter in the death of daunte wright. on tuesday, the jury raised concerns that they may be headed towards deadlock, yet all day yesterday it was silence from the jury room. adrienne broaddus is live for us once again from minneapolis tracking this. adrienne, what's happening so far today? >> reporter: kate, good morning. so far silence this morning as well, and a lot of folks are wondering if the jury does not reach a verdict by the end of today, what will happen. well, the judge indicated during jury selection that she wants this jury and the attorneys to spend time with their families during the holidays. so if no verdict is reached by the end of today, we've been told the jury will not deliberate friday, which is christmas eve, they will not deliberate saturday, which is christmas, and they will not deliberate on sunday, but deliberations would resume on monday. so it appears this jury is being thoughtful going through all of the evidence and the testimony that they heard from eight days. keep in mind, they heard from 33 witnesses, eight called by the defense. the remaining called by the prosecution. and there was a question on tuesday. members of the jury, as you mentioned, wanted to know what steps they should take if they were unable to reach a consensus. the judge instructed them to continue to deliberate with the view in mind toward reaching an agreement. kate? >> adrienne, thank you so much. we'll watch this today. also developing this morning, a colorado district attorney is asking a judge to reconsider the sentence of a truck driver involved in a deadly 2019 crash. rogel aguilero me der roese was sentenced to 110 years in prison after calling a fiery 28-car pileup you see there. this killed four people and injured in others. he said the brakes in his semi truck failed traveling on the interstate and nearly 5 million people have signed a petition asking people to reconsider what they have called an extreme sentence. lucy kavanaugh is joining us now. what is the d.a. doing now? >> reporter: that's right, kate. a lot of attention online and within the state of colorado. the d.a. isn't necessarily trying to overturn this conviction but rather to allow the court greater flexibility than that initial sentencing. here's why. colorado has these mandatory minimum sentencing laws that basically require sentences for each count to be served consecutively rather than concurrently. that is how those 27 counts turn into more an a century in prison, a sentence twice as long as some murder convicts. the judge who sentenced him even said, "if i had the discretion, it would not be my sentence." the jury representing med medeiros -- the attorney representing him. >> i know it has been heartbreaking for everyone inv involved. >> so that was medeiros himself, who was emotional at the hearing. his attorney says the laws need to change. let's see if we have that sound bite. >> our system here at this building has created a situation where a judge at their own discretion who doesn't want to issue a sentence has had to issue that sentence. we hope to achieve is reforms. that's really what this is all about. we have to reform a system that is creating a situation where we are creating more victims of our justice system. we have to do that now. >> a lot of people are calling for those calls for reform. there were small protests in colorado this week. more than 4.7 million signatures asking colorado's governor to reduce the sentence or grant clemency. kim kardashian tweeted that colorado laws need to be changed. the governor's office is telling cnn it is reviewing the clemency request. >> lucy, thanks for that. appreciate it. coming up for us, new covid restrictions are going into effect across the country for indoor public places. up next, the impact those restrictions and the new omicron wave could have on already hard-hit restaurants. happy holidays from lexus. get 1.9% apr financing on the 2022 es 350. ♪ ♪ fresh flavors... classic dishes... ♪ and a new seat at the table. ♪ as a professional bull-rider i'm used to taking chances. but when it comes to my insurance i don't. i use liberty mutual, they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. wooo, yeaa, woooooo and, by switching you could even save 665 dollars. hey tex, can someone else get a turn? 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is this time different or is it not? >> well, kate, first of all, thanks for having me on. you know, it is -- it's very much a struggle for restaurants. even if we're not faced with closures, many restaurants are hanging on by a thread. this is december. this is their super bowl month. and people are having to close because staff are getting covid, reservations are down because guests are afraid to go out. even if there isn't a mandate to close your restaurants, you're seeing a decrease in numbers. >> it's already happening. it's real and it is happen lg. even before omicron, bobby, i was thinking about this, restaurants were already facing challenges, right. a national labor shortage, inflation raising prices across the board and more. what is the biggest challenge among them right now? >> well, the biggest challenge right now is -- and you've listed those, kate. there are so many challenges we're facing, so many headwinds. many restaurants are holding on by a tleld because of the last 18 months. just because you see a couple friday nights where -- checking the covid variant, people are losing reservations. there's also a staffing issue. once you get one or two employees test positive for covid, it's hard to say ohm. you don't have the staff to stay open and you're forced to close. when we close, it's not taking your laptop home and working from home. you give up tens of thousands of dollars of food product and spoilage when you have to close those restaurants. we need a lifeline. there's a chance for that with the restaurant revitalization fund if we could get that refunded. >> i wanted to ask you about that because you successfully advocated and lobbied congress to get some relief for independent restaurants in that big covid relief package signed into law earlier this year. what impact did that have? >> well, it depends if you were one of the winners or losers, kate, because what happened was we successfully got into the package, but it was at $28.5 billion, and we needed about three times that. so there were 200,000-plus restaurants that applied and didn't get it. so what happened, because of the lack of whole funding, you had some winners and some losers. could have been two restaurants side by side on the same street in main street america, one got a package, one didn't. there's 200,000 of them holding on by a thread right now, hoping that we can refund the restaurant revitalization fund. of those 200,000, we're seeing a study of about 86% of those restaurants might not make it through the spring. so it's really dire. yes, we were successful getting a portion, but we needed the whole funding. >> that's really scary because everyone really thought, oh, we got through it and then in 2021, things started getting better and it was coming back, right? and now to think that we're still looking at all of these potential closures you laid out as could happen in the spring. it's soul crushing, quite frankly, to see this again. i will say one thing i've been interested in asking you about is we've seen a lot of innovation with restaurants in this pandemic, how they serve food, how they deliver food in a new way. do you think the industry has changed, i don't know, maybe permanently from what it had to deal with through covid? >> well, i'm a positive person and i always want to look on the bright side, and i think you're right, kate. there have been some positives. there has been some great change. i know in my company alone, with our 200 employees, we really have been able to take this and look forward and try to build a better ship. that's important. hopefully, we can get the restaurant revitalization fund refunded, get those 200,000 restaurants that are in dire need to the other side, and hopefully we have a better industry. >> good to see you, bobby. thanks for coming on. >> great, have a great holiday. thanks for having me on. >> you too. thanks you so much. coming up for us, one of the biggest holdups in the negotiations over the build back better bill has become the child tax care credit. millions of families will see these enhanced payments stop. their new reality now. that's next. 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. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list event. 35 million. that's how many families have lost their enhanced child tax care credit for next year. this is one of the central issues holding up negotiations on capitol hill over the build back better bill. but the families impacted, they say washington has no idea what the reality is every day. cnn's vanessa yurkevich has the story. >> a window into the lopez family reveals christmas cheer. >> i feel like the chocolate is gone. i wonder where it went. >> reporter: but come new year's they'll face a tough financial reality along with 35 million other families. >> we were at a tight budget already, and with this being, like, removed, it's going to be even a tighter budget. >> reporter: the mom referring to the enhanced child tax credit as congress failed to pass build back better in time to extend these critical benefits into next year, up to $3,600 per child. the lopez family was receiving $800 a month for their three children under 9. what does $800 a month mean to you? >> it's enough to get us by just because the price of food went up, gas went up, so i feel that that has helped us a lot. and we looked forward to that. we try to stretch it as much as we can. >> reporter: how far does it get you? >> just a couple days before the next one. >> reporter: checks were coming, monthly giving families income they could count on. last month's checks kept 3.8 million children out of poverty. what is the plan? >> at this point, i don't know. >> reporter: single mom katherine curran will likely have to take a second job to support her teenaged son and daughter, something she did when they were younger. >> to not be able to watch his games because on weekends i was working. to not be there for him, that was statement a little difficult. >> reporter: she's also getting a master's in psychology, just months away from graduating this spring, hoping it will further her career and increase her salary. >> it's going to be really difficult to do that and then also possibly take on a second job. >> reporter: the $500 a month in tax credits help with rising costs, making it easier to drive her daughter, isabella, to routine doctor visits for her complex heart condition. >> we had to spend time getting there and getting back. the extras like taking time off of work and everything, it adds up. >> reporter: the child tax credit is popular along party lines. 75% of democrats support it and so do 41% of republicans, which makes its failure in congress even more puzzling for these families. >> i feel that if they were put in our shoes for a couple of days, their decisions would be different just because we don't have that freedom to spend that money the way we want to. we have to spend our money planned, paycheck by paycheck. >> vanessa yurkevich, cnn, red bank, new jersey. vanessa, thank you for that reporting. i want to show you video you should see. new body camera video released capturing the unbelievable moment deputies find and rescue two infants in kentucky in a bathtub after their home was destroyed and they were swept up in the deadly tornado outbreak earlier this month. >> we got the -- i think a 15-month-old. can you send med center? >> they'll try to get them to you. >> here you go. >> is she okay? >> good there. no cuts on the leg. >> you can hear that faint cry of one of the children has deputies discover them. their grandmother says as the tornado approached she put them in the tub for safety with a blanket, pillow, and a bible. the children were just 15 months and 3 months old. one was taken to the hospital for treatment of a head injury, but they are both alive. thank god. it is unbelievable the things that we see. still ahead for us, as omicron cases soar, many school districts are now debating a return to remote learning. is that the right call? one public health expert says absolutely not. he's our guest. visibly diminish wrinkled skin in... crepe corrector lotion... only from gold bond. - [announcer] this is baby fatima. when she arrived at a local hospital, sick and malnourished, she was too weak to even stand. - i work in here 24/7 to save the lives of innocent children that are admitted for different complications of malnutrition. - [announcer] but with urgent medical treatment and nutritious food: this is fatima just days later. that's how fast a child can recover from severe malnutrition if they receive care they need in time. right now, children are hungry and in danger. you can make a difference this holiday season, when you call or go online to: givetosave.org. for only $10 a month, just 33 cents a day, you can help children like fatima and change their lives. the need to help is more urgent than ever before, and we need your help to give children their best chance at life. this is the land where fatima's family now lives, but with help from monthly donors like you, parents all over the world are transforming their land, their lives and their children's futures. when you join us as a monthly donor today, you'll help ensure that children get the food, medicine, care and protection they need. so please call or go online to givetosave.org with your gift of $10 a month, just 33 cents a day. and when you use your credit card, you'll receive this special save the children tote bag to show you're joining thousands of other caring people who are changing children's lives. and thanks to special government grants, every dollar you give can have up to 10 times the impact to help children grow and thrive. you can make a difference this holiday season, when you join save the children as a monthly donor. - when they come here, we treat them. medical treatment, nutritional.. the food, everything is free. - [announcer] imagine how much your support will mean to children and families who benefit from your kindness. support that can even save the life of a child like fatima. so many children and families need help this holiday season. so please, call or go online to givetosave.org to help save lives. (vo) singing, or speaking. reason, or fun. daring, or thoughtful. sensitive, or strong. progress isn't either or progress is everything. with omicron cases surging, many school districts are now debating returning to remote learning after winter break, and right now there are more than 700 schools or districts that either closed early due to covid or already have shifted to remote learning, and according to a company that tracks school operations during the pandemic, that's almost double the week before. the dark purple you see there, the circles, indicate the most recent school disruptions. several big universities, including harvard, ucla, duke, are also shifting to remote, but is closing schools the right choice at this point in the pandemic? one expert in public health says no. in a "new york times" op-ed the director of harvard's healthy buildings program learned we learned our lesson last year. do not close our schools. joining me now is the author of that piece joseph allen. good to see you again. you're very direct. you write this. you write, let me get it to make sure i'm quoting you correctly. the risk of severe outcomes to kids from coronavirus infection is low, and the risk to kids from being out of school are high. you also say schools should never close. what is the key then to keeping risk low instead of shutting schools when you're looking at this surge? >> yeah. thanks for having me back on, kate. it's good to see you again. let's start with the harms first and then we'll get to the low rusk to kids. there's a slippery slope happening here, this conversation that we're just going to close schools for a little bit and it's going to be okay. i want to remind people what happened when we close schools and the cost of doing that last year. in new york city, for example, just three months of school closures, they found an underreporting of child mal treatment by 8,000 cases, 8,000 cases of neglect and abuse that weren't reported. schools are our first look into problems that are happening at home. when they extrap hate to the country, 300,000 cases in three months. we also see steep losses in learning, drops in math and reading. students are five months behind so the costs are real and a lot longer than that, but let's talk about the risk to kids because that's been consistent since the beginning of the pandemic. mercifully and thankfully the risk has been low. hospitalization rate for kids is still 1 in 100,000. the death rate 1 to 2 per million, so thankfully kids are at low risk. the american academy of pediatrics just called this out two weeks ago. they said hospitalizations and death for children is quote, unquote uncommon so we have to balance these risks. we're so focused on covid that we've ignored all the other risks and harms that we've seen from kids being out of school for an entire year. >> how do you get it right? i know you are the king of ventilation? how do you get it right though? what's the key? what's the fix to make sure that they are safe-that they -- to help them stay open the whole time? >> yeah, absolutely. ventilation filtration has been key from day one in the pandemic. yelling it out. open the window even a little bit, even in areas that are cold. let's talk about the best tool that we have and that's the advantages own. all kids should be vaccinated who are eligible. school-aged kids. they are vaccinated. these vaccines are safe and effective. also, all adults in the school must be vaccinated. there's no excuse for not having that at this point. when they have mandated vaccines for adults like new york city did, they have pushed it over 95% vaccinated, same thing in l.a. inexcusable at this point not to have adults vaccinated. i also want to remind people for that benefit. if you're not vaccinated, majority of the benefit kicks in within a woke or two, 10 or 12 days after the first dose. same thing if you're vaccinated and not boosted. the benefits of the booster kicks within days so there's still time to do the basic things. if you have a ventilation problem, no excuse at this point. it's dangerous, the dange dominoes are starting to fall with kids out of school. >> you talk about basic thing, easy things. a cornerstone of most school covid strategies, most public health strategies has been masking. i was really surprised to read that you say that you think masks in school should be voluntary, not mandatory. how can that be in the midst of a surge like we're seeing now? >> yeah. i think the reality is in the 2022 playbook we have the tools to keep us safe. people have had access to these haves, evens. all kids should be vaccinated and kids have access to the vaccine and anyone who doesn't feel protected enough should and can continue to wear a high efficiency mask. if you're vaccinated and wearing an n-95 mask, one of the high grade masks, that's about as low risk as anything can you do in your life. we have the tools to meet everyone's quote, unquote acceptable level of risk. i think it should be mandatory at this point. i think we've ignored the harms of doing this, and we think kids are endlessly resilient but you're coming up on two years, two years of school totally disrupted. the earliest learners second graders have never been in class, learning to read never in class without income a mask and without their toettcher in a mask. we're underestimating the cost of the long-term closures and as schools start to close, they think they are going to close for two weeks and we saw what happened last longer. they stay closed for a lot longer. >> always make me think. good to have you on. >> merry christmas, kate. >> same to you. the second christmas with the covid pandemic and looks a lot like pre-pandemic christmas travel and a look ahead at what's expected to be the busiest holiday travel day this season. that's next. we're carvana, the company who invented car vending machines and buying a car 100% online. now we've created a brand-new way for you to sell your car. whether it's a year old or a few years old. we wanna buy your car. so go to carvana and enter your license plate answer a few questions. and our techno wizardry calculates your car's value and gives you a real offer in seconds. when you're ready, we'll come to you, pay you on the spot and pick up your car, that's it. so ditch the old way of selling your car, and say hello to the new way at carvana. deon, hand it over. now how does that make you feel? 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