enough day continues right now. ♪ and welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. it is monday, december 27th. i'm kaitlan collins in with john avlon this morning. >> good morning. the extraordinarily contagious omicron variant is surging across the u.s. cases are likely to climb much higher. years into this pandemic, testing is still a major challenge. now with lines around the block at testing sites and shortages of at-home tests at drug stores. there is some promising news as dr. anthony fauci expects things will improve next month. >> testing much more extensively than we have. even in a situation where you have people who are vaccinated or boosted. we've obviously got to do better. i think things will improve greatly as we get into john. that doesn't help us today and tomorrow. >> dr. fauci will join us here on "new day" in just a few minutes. as omicron cases are surging, health experts are waiting to see if hospitalizations will too. right now they are about 70% less than the last peak around september. millions of americans still unvaccinated are at the greatest risk of severe illness and death from the omicron variant. it's those cases that could overwhelm the country's already overwhelmed health systems. over the holiday weekend, millions of people around the world dealing with mass airline cases as staff and crew called out sick. some of the groundings were caused by bad weather and maintenance, several airlines acknowledged the impact of the current wave of cases. >> imagine thinking we are going to travel. you get here and it's canceled. >> today, more than 2,000 more flights have been canceled globally, including more than 600 in the united states alone. nadia row mayor roy live at hartsfield jackson in atlanta with the latest. nadia. >> reporter: well, good morning, john. and it is so busy at the airport today. it's only gotten busier from friday to saturday to sunday now to today with so many people trying to get out, get back home after the holidays. 700 flights canceled before 6:00 a.m. you can imagine that ripple effect it will have. we spoke to so many travelers who said they were checking their phones fran lickly hope their flights weren't canceled. >> i guess i'm one of the lucky ones. yeah. it makes you a little nervous. you see somebody get canceled kind of thing. i might be one of them. what do i do now? it all worked out for me at least. i feel bad for those who it didn't work out for. >> when did you come in, how has covid impacted that? >> i actually came in the 24th. i'm from salt lake city, another delta hub. i think that may have something to do with how excellent it was. i left early. i'm leaving at a later time now. yeah. i just came to see family for a couple days and heading back to snow. . >> reporter: i interviewed a man from paris. he's in atlanta now. the last christmas the borders were closed. so he had to take three legs to try to get back to paris to see his family. he was hoping his flight wouldn't be canceled. mostly international travelers. and there have been delays because of weather cancellations as well. >> so frustrating for folks. nadia romero, thank you very much. i can't believe i'm saying this, but we are now entering our third year of the coronavirus pandemic. vaccinations and new therapeutics are putting us in a much different position. omicron is the dominant variant in the u.s. joining us now to discuss is dr. leana wen, cnn medical analyst and former baltimore city health commissioner. dr. wen, thank you for joining us this morning. the idea of stepping back and looking at this is entering year three of this pandemic. are you surprised this is still where we are here in the united states? >> i think if we rewind back to 2020, i don't think any of us would have predicted that. we are entering year three, as you said, kaitlan. i think the end of the pandemic phase is in sight. we need three things to be in place. vaccines for young children. i have two kids under five. we are not returning back to our lives until our kids are better protected. we need oral pills. we have two pills to treat covid. but we need them to be widely available. the third thing we need to end this pandemic phase so we are able to live with covid is much more rapid testing. we keep talking about testing, but ultimately it is what is going to help us, are we infectious at this point in time. that way we can separate ourselves from others. and have widespread free available testing that is given by the federal government the way it is in other countries. >> no question about it. testing under 5s. oral testing. and more testing, oral pills to help treat this. it seems hospitalizations so far have been lower with the surge. does that give you an idea of the relative severity and the ability for us to return to normalcy as well. >> when it comes to individuals who are vaccinated and boosted as well. this statistic definitely gives me a lot of hope. what we are seeing out of south africa, israel, and the uk is people wore h vaccinated and boosted by and large have mild symptoms, or if any symptoms at all. many people test positive but are asymptomatic. the individuals that are vaccinated and boosted, we should feel pretty secure if we are to contract omicron, chances are we will do just fine. the problem is as a society we should be concerned. for those individuals who are unvaccinated, yes, many of them will be fine. but some will become severely ill. and because of how many people are catching omicron, we are really facing a dire situation with our hospitals that suffered substantial burnout, worker shortages. many people who have waited because of the pandemic to get their medical needs taken care of. so these hospitals were already overwhelmed prior to omicron. now they will really be stretched. as a society we should be concerned even as individuals we should be pretty well assured we will be protected due to vaccines and boosters. >> yeah. millions of americans still unvaccinated. i do want to get your take, dr. wen, on a new move by the cdc, shortening the isolation period for health care workers, shortening from 10 days to 7 days. is that something you think they should do for the general public? . >> absolutely. when it comes to health care workers, this was done out of necessarily. they are having trouble getting ers icus and other wards staffed. some think it is pretty unfair. they are being targeted as front line workers who have to bear the brunt of this pandemic. and frankly the science is there. we should have a test to return policy the way we are having test to stay in our schools. why not have kids get a test. ask if they test negative, they are able to return back to work or otherwise exit out of isolation. many people don't want to test positive and be stranded, unable to strafl back. ten days is a really long period of time. it's unnecessary. if you test negative after five days, why shouldn't you be able to exit isolation. i hope that is something the federal government acts on really quickly to maintain our critical infrastructure but also help to actually incentivize testing. otherwise, people will not get tested and that will prolong the pandemic. >> incentives are key to all of this. we are getting a lot of data, but there is still a lot we don't know. how long do people main contagious and what other open questions you have right now. >> yeah. that is an important question and one that we need to get better answers to. it came from research that was done quite a while ago, specifically in unvaccinated people and before omicron. the reason this is important is it appears that vaccinated people clear the virus a lot faster compared to unvaccinated people. omicron, the incubation is shorter. it passes through your system much faster. we really need to see the data. do not let perfect be the enemy of the good. if people are not getting tested for fear of testing positive, if you shorten the isolation period you might convince a lot more people to get tested and comply with isolation as opposed to the situation we're in now. that is a big open question that i would hope the federal government does not wait until they get perfect data. sometimes if you wait for perfect to be the enemy of the good, you are really prolonging how long this pandemic will last compared to the endemic phase. >> it is going into effect today in new york city as well. thank you for joining us this morning. ahead, dr. anthony fauci is going to join us live. as coronavirus cases are surging once again, what could be done to slow the spread. and coming up, why right-wing circles are pushing back against former president trump over them telling the truth about vaccines. plus, congresswoman debbie dingell sharing a disturbing voice mail she got from a stranger years after a threat to her family. if you have postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high risk for fracture, now might not be the best time to ask yourself... 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yep. lou! mom said she could save up to $400 on her wireless bill by switching to xfinity internet and mobile. with nationwide 5g at no extra cost. and lou! on the most reliable network, lou! smart kid, bill. oh oh so true. and now, the moon christmas special. gotta go! take the savings challenge at xfinitymobile.com/mysavings or visit an xfinity store to learn how our switch squad makes switching fast and easy this holiday season. former president trump is under fire from the far right for finally telling the truth. that's following comments he made recently defending the effectiveness of vaccines. here's right-wing commentator and normally dependable trump allies candace owens after trump insisted to her that vaccines work. >> you oftentimes forget how old trump is. he comes from a generation -- i've seen other people who are older have the exact same perspective. they came before tv, internet, before conducting independent research, you know, and everything that they read in a newspaper that was pitched to them that they believed that was a reality. i believe also that he only reads the mainstream media news, believe it or not. i do not believe trump reads or par takes in any other news sources. i don't believe trump is on the internet. >> cleanup on aisle trump. joining meer roll lewis and kristen powers. what does this backlash against trump from the far right say about his base of support, as well as the war against the virus and some of the shifting fault lines? >> what it says about his base, john, some of them i think are recognizing there's more at stake here than supporting the president and going down whatever path of bravado and b.s. that he wants to hand out to them. it may work as politics but in reality there's a lot at stake when you talk about individual families, people who have seen what happened at their local hospital and the filling up of the icus. so they're not necessarily going to sort of run down this path with him. so he finds it now difficult to inject a note of truth into the torrent of lies that led him be of his own making. >> it is unbelievable to watch them talk about this and him pushing back saying the truth about vaccines, boosters and what it means for options. she's not the only one of course to talk about this in the aftermath. >> emergency christmas day warning to president trump. you are either completely ignorant about the so-called vaccine gene therapy that you helped ram through with operation warp speed, or you are one of the most evil men who has ever lived to push this toxic poison on the public, and to attack your constituents when they simply try to save their lives and the lives of others. >> we should repeat, trump was quite literally telling the truth about vaccines when he was pushing back on candace owens. are you surprised, though, to see what she is saying in the aftermath of this and what alex jones is saying about this? >> not really. you really can't put the genie back in the bottle. what trump unleash looked can't suddenly be undone. you have people who have been out there parroting this line, telling followers this is the case. they're not going to say, aopts, we were wrong. how stupid would they look. and i guess when you listen to candace owens, she lives in a world where you are supposed to get medical information on obscure websites on the internet. even donald trump doesn't subscribe to. he is basically saying what is true. she is saying he doesn't know that because he's old and doesn't spend his time going down rabbit holes on the internet to get medical information. it is such an alternate universe. i don't think it can be undone. even if he wanted to pull it back, i don't think he can. errol, congresswoman debbie dingell was on with dana sh and shared this voice mail left to her recently. have a listen. >> you god damn old senile [ bleep ]. you're as old and ugly as biden. you ought to get the [ bleep ] off the planet. you [ bleep ] foul [ bleep ]. they ought to [ bleep ] try you for treason, [ bleep ]. you and every one of your scum bag [ bleep ] friends. i hope your family dies in front of you. i try to god, if you've got any children. >> she said she receives these regularly after her husband, congressman john dingell, passed away. does airing these help break the fever? >> i don't know about the last part, unfortunately. this is a case of radicalization of american politics, the poisoning of american politics. this is the same state, let's remember, where there was a plot broken up. one man pleaded guilty and is now serving in prison to kidnap governor whitmer. there was a backup plan to hold a week-long trial and kill members of the michigan legislature. there is a streak out there that is very dangerous. you showed us a sample of it. people should take it seriously. fbi, homeland security have been warning about this two decades now. this is a real problem, not made up. this is something we have to confront as a nation. when lawmakers are being threatened in the way you just displayed, we should all be alarmed >> kirsten, what do you think? >> oh, i was like, wow, this is really -- i don't get the vase nails. i get the emails. i said, wow, these are my people. the thing is that anybody who is in the public eye in the trump era can tell you, especially having been on tv pre-trump era, something really happened after he came into office where these kinds of, you know, emails and voice messages have become pretty commonplace for a lot of people, i think particularly for women who are on tv. and any time in the public eye, if you're a member of congress. debbie dingell, you have to remember, is not a particularly controversial person. she's a moderate democrat from a mid-western state. trump attacked her husband. who was also a pretty uncontroversial person. because trump attacks him, this is what happens. it is 100% about donald trump. and something is qualitatively different. the kinds of things that i receive now on a regular almost daily basis maybe happened once a year before, right. so, again, what i was saying earlier, trump has unleashed something this this country that can't be put back in the bottle. as errol was saying, this is something that has been identified, hatred and vitt jol as a serious problem. most people don't act on the things they say. but what happens when they do, in the case of the governor from michigan. >> thank you very much. hope you had a wonderful christmas with juan knee ta and noah. up next, nasa just launched its most powerful telescope ever. how it could help solve some of space's biggest mysteries. and how spider-man became the billion dollar man. >> the world tries to make you choose. when it comes to autism, finding the right words can be tough. finding understanding doesn't have to be. together, we can create a kinder, more inclusive world for the millions of people on the autism spectrum. go to autismspeaks.org my nunormal? 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>> well, the telescope still has a long way to go. getting off the ground is very important. it is very scary to get into orbit. once it is in space it has to undergo tests, deploy certain things like the antenna, solar ray and make it to l-2 la grange point. we're a little bit premature. we're not even close to science data yet. so one step at a time. >> and of course the launch of this was amazing to watch. i was in alabama for christmas. i actually got up at 6:20 to watch this. i know astronomies across the globe are watching this. it took a while to get here. this is something they thought would launch several years ago. it seemed to go right up until the last minute, the launch in and of itself, the delays, whether it was going to actually happen before going forward on christmas day, right? . >> that's right. yeah. so the delays, you know, one way you could look at a delay, it's horrible. you're overscheduled, you're over budget. what plagued the telescope for the full duration of its history. you want to make sure you do this right. the stresses of launch are severe. the gets all shaken up. and then severely accelerated and shaken up. so if any tiny little piece comes loose, you have destroyed the billions you put into this thing. you absolutely want to be incredibly careful and make sure everything is going just right. but now we're at the precipice of a science bonanza. there is a reason so much time and effort went into this telescope. not to mention human hours and money. >> just to put the science bonanza in perspective here, what really blows my mind is this will give us the ability to look effectively back in time to the early days of our galaxy, our solar system, the universe. tell folks how that works. because that is just mind boggling. >> it is. it really, really is. it's mind boggling that we as humans could even do this. we construct these very careful models of the universe based on well-established science. and what we look for are observational predictions of that science. if that happened, and this must have happened, let's go and look for it. we had a gap in our ability to observe. we have been able to observe the leftover light, as we called it, from the big bang, which goes back to 400,000 years after the universe began, 13 phoeupb 8 billion-year-old universe. and this era is known as the dark ages. this is when eventually the first galaxies form, the first storms form. you have to have enough light-collecting capacity, which means a really large mirror, and you have to be looking in the right wavelength regime. unlike hubbell, this is infrared. as space is expanding, it gets stretched out by the same amount that spacex panned while the light was traveling through it. so that means light that left the source as visible light, by the time that reaches us, it's a longer wavelength. infrared. >> that is so cool. >> it is going to be so cool. it will be a lot of work for the team on this. i believe i read it is 12-hour shifts, which is going to be around the clock. we will be watching closely to see what happens and what we learn from this. hakeem, thank you for joining us on such an exciting launch. . >> thank you for having me and happy new year. . >> happy new year. spider-man has a new claim to fame this morning, no way home. the latest installment has managed to spin something no other movie has been able to produce since the pandemic began. take a look. >> hello, peter. you're not peter parker. >> i'm sorry. what was your name again? >> dr. otto octavius. . >> that translates to a web of $1 billion in box office receipts. let's bring in host of "reliable sources", brian stelter. brian, what do you make of this? >> good morning. yes, it is the first billion dollar movie of the pandemic. to achieve that in only 10 days. this is a combination of kphefbg and global, international sales. it made half a billion in america and the other half in other areas of the world. it is a major pivot point of this pandemic. one, film quality. if it's a really good movie, super hero movie, people are willing to go to the theaters. and number two, the incredible box office receipts show covid fatigue. many people wanting to get back to the movie theaters. same reason we are seeing restaurants and bars and other places packed. people want to get back to norm normality. if there is a movie worthy of seeing, they will go to the theater. . >> mr. brian, thank you very much, my friend. be well. >> thanks. all right. well, exactly how dangerous is this new omicron variant? dr. anthony fauci will be joining us live in a few minutes. what's the strategy for the biden agenda after a key senator shot down his build back better plan. we will hear what he thinks is going to happen from a senate democrat. ♪ baby got back by sir mix-a-lot ♪ unlimited cashback match... only from discover. we're a different kind of dentistry. one who believes in doing anything it takes to make dentistry work for your life. so we offer a complete exam and x-rays free to new patients without insurance - everyday. plus, patients get 20% off their treatment plan. we're on your corner and in your corner every step of the way. because your anything is our everything. aspen dental. anything to make you smile. book today at aspendental.com, walk in, or call 1-800-aspendental. nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: try hypnosis... or... quit cold turkey. kidding me?! instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette this is elodia. she's a recording artist. 1 of 10 million people that comcast has connected to affordable internet in the last 10 years. and this is emmanuel, a future recording artist, and one of the millions of students we're connecting throughout the next 10. through projectup, comcast is committing $1 billion so millions more students, past... and present, can continue to get the tools they need to build a future of unlimited possibilities. the sunshine state of florida receiving an unwelcomed christmas gift of the largest single-day increase of new covid-19 cases since the pandemic game. get this, more than 32,000 people tested positive on christmas day alone, breaking the previous record set on christmas eve. overall, florida's case numbers went up over 330% last week as compared to the week before. miami-dade county is one of the hottest spots in the state with a positivity rate over 16%. joining me to discuss this is dan gelber. good to see you. in your county in early october, you said the weekly daily averages were 300 cases per day. just over to 1,600. what do you say local government can do and what do you need from the state and federal government to get it done? >> well, as most people know our state leaders have been more interested really in stopping people from having to get the vaccine than they have in urging them to get it. so there's very little we can do. we can't require masks in private industry and public sector cannot require vaccines. what we can do is get people access to testing. we have a city run, as well as many other testing sites. thousands are getting tested every day. a lot of people are checking to make sure before they go to events that they are not positive. actually this morning we are starting to give out free testing kits, three per household while supplies last to help them get tested. but there's not a lot you can do right now in the state of florida to stop the surge. it is an unquestioned surge in both positives and hospitalizations. >> well, that is very positive news, what you just said, that you will be sending three home testing kids free to folks in your city. that's a major step forward. what are you seeing on the ground that you think needs to get more national attention. how are hospitalizations? how are case rates among the young, for example? >> well, it's interesting. there were 30 people a day checking into a dade county hospital a week ago. now it is 100 to 200. i know people said this omicron is not as hurtful to people, but it is sending people to the hospital in pretty large numbers. obviously you're ennduring some pain if you get it. the other thing is if it continues in this trajectory, it will challenge our hospital system. i think the thing i tell everybody, and it's a very simple message, is please get the boost. one piece of fact that is very important, of all the people checking into the hospital in my county, about 65 to 70% are unvaccinated. but only about 3% to 4% are people who have gotten the booster shot. so if you have your booster shot, if you're current on your vaccine, it's really unlikely you're going to ens dure the worst impact of this virus. that is pretty important. we urge everyone to get the vaccine. we have sites everywhere. we go to people's homes. there are still some who are miss informed or feel it is a political statement not to get the vaccine, which of course is absurd. but it's very hurtful to them and others. >> no question about it. 34 3% in your county are from folks who have been boosted. it could save off hospitalization, as you just said. how are you handling the situation operationally? >> well, we don't have a whole lot of control over it. the cruise lines and the governor have been in a fight about whether they can require vaccine mandates as all our private industry have. there's not a whole lot we can do. there's not a whole lot we can do in florida because the legislature and governor have outlined vaccine mandates and outlawed even mask mandates in certain areas by government and elsewhere. we are powerless other than letting people know there is an easy way to get vaccinated and easy way to get tested. at this point that's all we're able to do. >> do you think governor desantis has effectively made this pandemic worst in your city? >> there's no question that, you know, by deciding that we're going to try to get immunity by letting the herd catch the virus has lengthened the virus and allowed these variants to sort of come back. i don't think there's any question florida has handled it poorly. we are usually between 7th or 12th with the worst mortality rate for covid in the country. and these spikes come almost entirely without any ability to control them. we handle hurricanes much differently. we get-together and say the same thing. for whatever reason our governor and legislature have decided they are going to champion not taking the virus rather than urging people to take the virus. that's sort of nuts to me. in a the golden et out of this. for some reason we have made it a political statement when frankly we require vaccines of children in schools. with he do a whole lot of things to tell people they have to protect themselves and others. for some reason this has become a political statement. there is no question that making it a political statement is making them sicker. >> florida suffering more deaths from covid than the persons who died during the vietnam war. mayor gelber, thank you so much. >> yeah. we will speak live with draft aen thoepb fauci about this fast-spreading omicron variant. that keeps on... going? 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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. with quality that's guaranteed for life, bath fitter doesn't just fit your bath, it fits your high standards. why have over two million people welcomed bath fitter into their homes? it just fits. call now or visit bathfitter.com to book your free consultation. as we enter the third year now of the coronavirus pandemic, cases are on the rise yet again because of omicron but exactly how dangerous is the new variant? joining us is president biden's chief medical adviser on covid-19, dr. anthony fauci. thank you for joining us this morning. we're seeing this huge wave of omicron cases in south africa appears to be decreasing just as quickly as it grew. do you think that will happen in the united states or are you expecting a potential surge in nationwide hospitalizations? >> we're certainly going to continue to see a surge for a while. i fully expect it will turn around. i hope it turns around as sharply as what we've seen in south africa. i went over the data with our south african colleagues a day or two ago and the increase of particularly in haotang province turned around rapidly and came down. we thought it was the particular province but now we're starting to see it in all the different provinces. i hope we peak and come down quickly. the other thing that's going on as you probably know, it looks like the degree of severity of the disease is considerably less than they experienced with delta. we're seeing inklings of that now in the united states. the uk is also seeing that. i do hope that we do have the net effect a diminution in the severity. yesterday we had 214,000 cases, even with the diminution and severity we still could have a surge on hospitals particularly among the unvaccinated which they're really worried about. >> 214,000 cases. is that a number you think could reach half a million soon? >> you know, it's possible, kaitlyn. i don't think it will but you never can tell. it depends. there are so many things that we can do to mitigate against that. the thing we keep talking about is that if you're not vaccinated, get vaccinated but importantly boosters are really looming as something very, very important because if you look at the data particularly with omicron, the protection against infection and severe disease goes way, way down with omicron, but when you get a boost, it brings it right back almost to the level where it was before, so boosters are always good for any variant, but particularly for omicron, if you're vaccinated and not yet boosted and your time comes for getting boosted, please get boosted. it will make all the difference to prevent you from getting severe disease. >> the cdc says health care workers asymptomatic can go back to work after seven days if they have a negative test result. is this something the government is considering shortening for everyone, given you've seen other countries do that? >> well, it's going -- certainly we're considering it going beyond just health care workers because there are a lot of people in society that are essential for the smooth running of the infrastructure of our society, so the idea about cutting down the period of quarantine for people who have been exposed and perhaps the period of isolation for people who have been infected is something that is under i would say serious consideration. >> okay, serious consideration, and i know this comes as today that's under consideration. president biden is also going to be joining that call that the white house covid team has with the nation's governors. they say it's to hear directly about their concerns when it comes to the new variant and a lot of that has to do with testing and treatment and we've seen a shortage of those rapid at-home tests lately across the nation and so i'm wondering at what point will we be here in the united states where anyone and everyone can walk into a drugstore and get an at-home test? >> kaitlyn, as you know, i've been talking about this for some time now about flooding the system with testing, so that it's the situation that you just described, anyone, any time can get a test. i believe as we get into january into the first couple of weeks in january with the 500 million tests that the president is putting out there as well as putting online the capability of essentially ordering tests and having them delivered to your home and setting up 10,000 to 20,000 testing centers throughout the country particularly in those cities that are having high surges, so things are going to change substantially in the first couple of weeks and as we get into the middle of january. >> i think it's welcome news that things would change in january but that does miss what a critical period right now where people are traveling to see family, hoping to get together for the holidays for new year's eve so why aren't we there right now testing? >> you know, testing has always been an issue, kaitlyn, that has been problematic. it has been compounded by the situation of the high demands. be we had a conflation of high demands because of the concern about omicron, which is a justifiable concern, but the high demand that was triggered by the holiday season, people getting ready to travel, getting ready to mix with family members and friends has been a very, very strong run on testing, and you know, obviously not making any excuses for it, we should have had more tests available but hopefully now as we get into the first couple of weeks in january, that will get much better. >> i do want to ask you about a treatment as well that the fda authorized last week the first pill for covid-19 which is a very highly effective defense against severe illness which is obviously great news but the white house says there's only going to be 265 treatment courses of pfizer available next month. so how long do you think it's going to take until that pill is widely available to everyone in the united states? >> well, we have an order and a commitment for 10 million treatment courses. that unfortunately, kaitlyn, is going to take a few months before we get to that number and the reason is that the synthetic process of making this is very complicated and a multistep process that is very difficult to cut down on the time frame of getting high quantities. we are going to do everything we can, including the defense production act, to try and see if we can actually get this at a higher level. we are not sure what we can do and how much time we can cut off on that but certainly it needs to be done, because it is a highly, highly effective therapy. 90% protection from progression to hospitalizations and death. >> yes, and the defense production act that you mention there had is where the government can compel private companies to help them ramp up production of something like that. i do wonder, we are approaching new year's eve at the end of this week. a lot of people have got event and gatherings planned. i know you said it's okay to be with friends and family if you're vaccinated and boosted but what is your advice to people about larger settings for new year's parties? >> kaitlyn, i would stay away from that. i have been telling people consistently that if you're vaccinated and boosted and you have a family setting in the home with family and relatives but when you're talking about a new year's eve party, we have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating, you do not know the status of their vaccination, i would recommend strongly stay away from that this year. there will be other years to do that, but not this year. >> not this year, that's good information. i do have one more question for you. you are an adviser to president biden now, of course. you previously were an adviser when it came to president trump when he was in office in the beginning of this pandemic, and you've seen surely by now this exchange that he had with candace owens talking about the truth on vaccines and boosters and how it can keep people out of the hospital from dying. i'm wondering what you made of that, given it's been this right-wing backlash ever since the former president made those comments? >> well, i mean, i'm glad that the former president trump is now talking about why it's important to get vaccinated. i was stunned by the fact that's doing that, and he's getting booed in some places for doing that, which means that you know, poisoning the well early on about, even not being enthusiastic or outright not pushing vaccines and discouraging vaccines now has the lingering effect and even when you come out and say go get vaccinated, some of the people that have been following his every word and what he does are now pushing back and not listening, which is, really tells you the strength of the divisiveness in our society which i've always said to me is the biggest stumbling block about getting this pandemic under control. it really is