at what went so wrong. and then, water, water everywhere, at least 300,000 people dealing with floods that have left entire communities under water and killed at least 17. welcome to "the lead." i'm jake tapper. our health lead. for the first time since taking office, president joe biden joined his covid team's regular call with the nation's governors telling state leaders, tell us what you need. this all comes as omicron cases surge nationwide. topping delta's peak. and the white house continues to struggle to address the testing supply shortage during the holidays. from miami to new york, kentucky to colorado, americans waiting, sometimes for hours, to find out if they test positive for covid. right now the u.s. is averaging close to 200,000 new covid cases every day. that's the highest number of cases on a daily rate since january 19th, 2021, before vaccinations, before boosters were widely available. perhaps some good news in all of this. hospitalizations, as of right now, are not rising as much as cases, but as cnn's tom foreman reports, dr. fauci says that could be next. particularly for the unvaccinated. >> you're highly protected. >> reporter: omicron is a cause for concern but not for panic. that was president biden's message to the nation's governors on the front lines of the health care battle. >> this is not like march of 2020. the beginning of the pandemic. we're prepared, and we know what it takes to save lives, protect people and keep schools and businesses open. >> reporter: with covid cases soaring, more than 2,000 flights were grounded worldwide and nearly 3,000 delayed in the u.s. just today. that's on top of thousands over the weekend. and flight crews keep calling in sick, even as holiday travelers keep coming. >> we actually changed our flight to a nonstop flight just to, in hopes of hopefully not having any cancellations. >> reporter: at sea, several cruise ships have been affected in some cases turned away from ports. in all dampening festivities. >> they weren't really enforcing masks until a lot of people started getting covid and then they were kind of enforcing masks more. i don't think i'll ever go on a cruise again honestly at this point. >> reporter: as the omicron variant rages, testing lines are stretching out and tests running short in some places. new york city is enforcing a covid vaccine mandate for private businesses. >> no one thinks this is the holiday season we were hoping for. but contrast it to last year. it's so much better. >> reporter: also better, hospitalizations are not rising as quickly as feared. and health officials are reconsidering the ten-day recommended isolation for people who test positive. >> 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. >> reporter: still, for now, the virus keeps hammering hospitals, patients and staffs alike. >> we have, as of this morning, 115 staff members out ill with covid. who have tested positive. >> reporter: even the holiday fun and games are getting shaky with five college football bowl games canceled or scrambling to find new teams as covid rips through locker rooms. brand-new rules allow for the championship itself to be delayed or decided by forfeit if necessary. although nobody wants that. >> everybody wants to play. >> the players are looking out for themselves. they really are. >> reporter: simply put, the pandemic once again has everything in flux despite most americans doing the right thing and getting vaccinated. and we have been living this way for a while. they predict the omicron winter surge could last six to eight weeks. jake? >> tom foreman, thanks. let's go to one of the testing sites with leyla santiago where miami residents have been waiting up to two hours for a test. is this the busiest you've seen this site? >> well, actually, jake, we just talked to someone who got a test. they had to wait three hours at this site. this is one of the busiest sites in south florida run by know me health. the health group plans to open four on five more testing sites in the coming days to try to meet that demand. they say they have enough when it comes to supplies for testing, twwhen it comes to workers. but they're still struggling to meet the challenge when it comes to the volume because of such high demand in testing. i spoke to the general manager. here's what he had to say. >> with the holidays right around the corner we knew there would be a surge and an increase. i don't think anyone predicted that between -- in comparing the delta, the peak of delta versus where we are today at our sites, we have seen a 50% increase in testing volumes. between those two. and we don't quite know if we're at peak yet with omicron. >> reporter: and jake, i also checked in with the florida hospital association. they say they're seeing hospitalizations relatively low increasing slowly, but they still have many beds to treat covid patients and non-covid patients in florida. >> are they worried at all about running out of tests? >> so i asked about supply, and they say at this point, while they don't know exactly when they will hit the peak for this omicron wave, the head of nomi health in florida says they are not concerned about supply when it comes to testing materials. they are working around the clock when it comes to their labs, but the supply is not a concern at this point. >> leyla santiago in miami, thanks. let's bring in dr. ashish jha. there are now more cases of omicron than there were of delta at the height of the delta surge. but hospitalizations are less than 70% of what they were during the last peak around september. what does this tell you? >> jake, thanks for having me. back. two things. first of all, we're still early in the omicron surge. i think we're going to blow past our 250,000 number that we had last december which was our peak, probably double that, if not more. so we have a lot more infections to go. the issue is what you raise, which is our hospitalizations going to rise at the same rate? i think we have very good evidence it's not going to rise at the same rate. a lot of these infections are happening in vaccinated people and they are suffering relatively mild disease. and that's separation between infections and hospitalizations is essentially that's the transition we've been waiting for as we go from really an acute phase of this pandemic toward more endemic phase. >> do you agree with what the experts say that it could be another six to eight weeks for this omicron surge discipline that track with the data you've seen? >> it depends. really the only country we've got good data from so far is south africa which saw peak in about four weeks and started coming down. obviously, our country's immune profile is very different. a lot more people vaccinated. so we don't know how this is going to play out here. my hope is, it's more like 4 to 6 weeks, which has the peak then kind of in mid-january with infection numbers declining. but it's really a best guess at this moment. >> the infectious disease director at children's national hospital in d.c. says close to half the covid tests being performed are coming back positive. that includes children with symptoms and without symptoms. what does that tell you? >> it tells me this virus is really very widespread. particularly in washington, d.c. but it's not going to be in d.c. alone. we've seen new york, san francisco, other big cities. it's going to be all across the country. the fact that it's aasymptomati in some kids is great but there are still plenty of kids getting sick from this virus. one reason we've got to vaccinate our kids as well. >> the cdc says health care workers who are asymptomatic can return to work after seven days with a negative test, down from ten days. new york state says fully vaccinated asymptomatic can return to work five days after testing positive. dr. fauci was asked whether the isolation period to be shoernted for everyone. here's what he said. >> certainly we're considering it going beyond just health care workers because, you know, 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. >> what do you say to those who think it's taking too long for health experts to update their guidance and are forced to abide by old guidance that may not be as relevant especially with omicron? >> yeah, i totally agree with that, jake. i do think that it needs to be shoernted. i expect the cdc to come out, hopefully soon, with some new guidance on this. but that's what i'm expecting at this moment because the evidence is pretty clear. you don't need to be isolated for ten days if you've been infected, particularly if you've been vaccinated and boosted. much shorter isolation is fine. you're not going to be contagious. there are ways of mitigating it, which is mask wearing or negative antigen test which is what i've called for as a way to end an isolation earlier than ten days. >> testing continues to be a real challenge in this country. inexplicably given how much experts and people like you and me have been talking about the need to have testing all over the country as much as possible. fauci says he expects things to get better in january, but what happens until then? >> yeah, this is -- this is not where we should be two years into this pandemic. you know, look, i think the administration undervalued testing for much of 2021. they relied heavily on vaccinations, which of course are terrific and really, really important. but we did not build up the testing infrastructure we needed to manage this winter surge. and that means the next few weeks will be really tough and frustrating and rightly so for americans. the key issue is, can we finally once and for all get it fixed once we get into january, february. >> the data all suggests that if you are vaccinated and boosted, you have a much better chance of not only surviving covid but not having that intense a case of covid. what about how transmissible you might be? are people who are vaccinated and boosted less infectious if they catch it than somebody who is not vaccinated? >> it's a very good question. we know for other variants like delta and alpha or the original strain, that absolutely, if you were vaccinated, you're far less likely to transmit because you're much less contagious. i suspect what we're going to see with omicron is if you're boosted, you're going to be less likely to be contagious, less likely to be infected. we donts know for sure. we'll have to sort this out for omicron as we have every other variant. >> tell us how you live your life, the choices you choose to make. do you still go out in restaurants? do you go to a movie theater? do you have small gatherings with friends? you are someone that people look up to. he wants to avoid getting covid. what are some of the things that you do? >> sure. so i have gatherings with friends in our home. everybody who comes in is vaccinated and boosted. i don't worry so much about the little kids, if they're over 5, they're all vaccinated as well. i've gone to a concert. i went to the boston holiday pops. everybody was masked and we needed to show a vaccine. restaurants that don't have a vaccine mandate, i've been largely avoiding. i just don't want to sit next to an unvaccinated person for two hours unmasked. that's a personal choice that i've made. i don't think it would be incredibly risky, but if i can avoid those situations, i like to do it. >> we just wrapped one holiday with a lot of families across the u.s. gathered. new year's eve is just a few days from now. do you expect to see even more of a surge in infections? a new year's crowd is different from a christmas crowd. christmas crowd tends to be smaller, people you know, family, new year's crowd can be a much bigger party. do you think that that will cause rates to go up? >> i do. that's just been our experience. we saw it certainly after last new year's eve. we've seen it after other gatherings, other holidays we see a big spike. so i'm worried about that. if we had ubiquitous testing i'd make sure everybody at the party is tested. keep the party a little bit smaller than usual. it's going to be harder without those tests available. so i am a little bit worried about what's going to happen over new year's eve weekend. >> dr. ashish jha, thank you. good to see you. we'll check in with a doctor who runs a new york e.r. why what they are seeing could be next for what the rest of the country will go through. plus, new details in the tragic death of a 14-year-old girl. police body camera about to be revealed filling in the picture of the police officer's fatal stray bullet we're told. stay with us. is getting even more personal. ahh! the new ww personalpoints program is particular to you. you can eat pizza. you can even eat this, if you want to. and these... in the same... i mean, not at the same time, i wouldn't do them at the same time. no two plans are the same. when can i start? join today for 50% off at ww.com. hurry, offer ends december 27th. what if you could see the details of your great-grandparents wedding day... ...or the record that welcomed your great-grandmother to the world. your family story is waiting to be discovered, and now you can search for those fascinating details for free—at ancestry. in our health lead, as the united states braces for an increase in hospitalizations because of the highly contagious omicron variant, new york is giving us an i recalearly warni. the northwell hospital system in long island is seeing a 73% spike in covid hospitalizations. 73% in just one week. let's bring in the emergency department co-chair at northwell's long island jewish medical center in new hyde park, dr. fred davis. thanks for joining us. what are you seeing in your emergency department right now? >> thank you for having me. i think one of the interesting things we're starting to see during this surge, it's been very different than the first surge. during the first surge we saw a maurgei majority of the patients were covid. this time sicker patients with delayed care because of the different surges that went on and now we're starting to see a number of patients presenting with very low acuity, very minimal symptoms coming in to the emergency department to get tested. >> oh, interesting. of the people being rushed into the hospital with serious covid, which is doesn't sound like is a tremendous percentage, but of the people being rushed into the system with serious covid, can you describe them in any trends? are they unvaccinated? older? underlying conditions? >> i think the majority of the patients that we're seeing that are coming down with more of the serious symptoms, those having difficulty breathing, requiring oxygen supplementation, the majority of them remain unvaccinated. we are still seeing some breakthrough. but those tend to not be as sick as those that are unvaccinated. >> so what is the biggest strain in your hospital right now? >> i think there's a number of things we look at. both the volume which is coming in, both seeing the patients that are critically ill, requiring emergency care, but also seeing a significant increase after the holiday, the recent holidays of those coming in with minimal symptoms presenting to the emergency departments in order to get tested. >> and how are you and your fellow doctors and nurses and health support staff dealing with this most recent wave that's starting for any number of reasons because of the burnout. you must -- many of you must be experiencing because of two years of this. and also just psychologically treating so many people who had the option to get vaccinated but have not. >> i think there's always the fear in the back of our mind of what we all went through during that first phase and how horrific it was and having to deal with a lot of really sick patients that became sick very quickly. i think what's helped us through that is we've developed that family, kind of do that in any hospital setting but particularly the emergency department we bond together. to really tackle those difficult situations together as a team. and i think we've learned to lean on each other during this time and while we fear that this is something that's just starting, we also know that we can get through it because we got through something just as bad if not worse. >> what are some signs for the people out there who get covid and have symptoms. what's a sign for them that it's time to go to the emergency room? are oximeters that measure blod oxygen levels, you can pick them up at cvs or walgreens is that the best indicator? >> that's a great point. one of the things we want to do is we don't want to overutilize resources that are out there so that those that need them have access to them. and that is one of the ways to really check to see how sick somebody is. many cases from an emergency standpoint, what we're looking at is, are you requiring extra oxygen? do you need oxygen outside of what you're able to breathe in? a pulse ox, which is easily accessible now is one of the best ways to look at that. we also look for how hard it is to breathe. when people say they're having short of breath and breathing very quickly, that also suggests your body is working hard through this to possibly need extra resources to help with that care. >> so if i remember correctly, the very first covid vaccination administered in the united states was at your hospital. so give us a 30,000-foot view of that hopeful moment to where we are now. >> yeah, i think that was a moment in time that we saw a break. dealing with the volume of which we were seeing of really sick patients that continued to come in without anything that we could do to really prevent a lot of that. i think having and seeing that first vaccination being given, gave us hope to even get us to this point where we are today where we have vaccinations and booster shots. and shots for children. i think it was a moment. >> there's an opinion article in "the times" warning about policy failures in the n failures. hospitals gave dire warnings of code black meaning they are running out of beds. some patients were transferred to germany and omicron up to 15% of infections is expected to cause another spike. but haven't we learned enough in the last two years to avoid stop/start lockdown as a gust reaction pandemic response? so policymakers here like to say they are, quote, following the science. do you think the u.s. should go into a full lockdown or what is your opinion? >> i think we learned from our past experiences, and i think that there's times when that was needed. however, as we are starting to see now and as we move forward and try to predict this ever-changing virus, i think we've seen that most of what we're learning from either south africa or even what we're seeing currently in our own hospitals is that this variant of omicron seems to be less severe. those aren't requiring as much of the hospitalizations as we saw during the alpha variant. and i think that's really where we're concerned. we're not straining the resources of the hospitals at this point to really necessitate those things. >> dr. fred davis, thank you and thank you for what you and your fellow health care workers do. we really appreciate it. >> thank you. is a breakup what democrats need to ultimately come back together? a new idea looking to find the votes to deliver president biden's big economic agagenda. that's next. 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(carolers) ♪better♪ (kate) because everyone deserves better. throughout history i've observed markets shaped by the intentional and unforeseeable. for investors who can navigate this landscape, leveraging gold, a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns. moving is a handful. no kidding! fortunately, xfinity makes moving easy. easy? -easy? switch your xfinity services to your new address online in about a minute. that was easy. i know, right? and even save with special offers just for movers. really? yep! so while you handle that, you can keep your internet and all those shows you love, and save money while you're at it with special offers just for movers at xfinity.com/moving. in our politics lead, some democratic optimism today saying they might be able to pass build back better after all. one democratic senators is the party is considering breaking that massive social safety net bill into smaller pieces to try to get it across the finish line. jessica dean is live on capitol hill for us. is there any momentum behind this idea of breaking up the bill and wouldn't that require ten senate republicans to join them? >> that is exactly right, jake. that's where this plan gets really complicated, and it's hard to have a lot of optimism for that particular path forward. to date, there's been no outreach of support, very, very, very little, on any of these issues. and as we head into 2022, which is now just five days away, we're going into an election year where republicans are not going to want to help out democrats, not give them a win. so to parcel this out into smaller individual items and try to pass it through with ten republican votes is extremely difficult. so then what is the other option? we heard from senator ben carden earlier today on air and he talked about potentially they can slim down this bill and get it to the point joe manchin would be on board with it. the fact remains the vast majority of senate democrats, and that's 49 out of 50, want to see build back better passed but the question is what will joe manchin accept and is there anything that would be acceptable to him that is slimmed down that they can get over the finish line with just those democratic votes? and that's what we just don't know yet. >> jessica deeran, thanks. here to discuss, congressman jason crow of colorado. i heard you had a recent bout of covid and i'm glad you're feeling better. what do you think about breaking up build back better into smaller pieces to get senator manchin or even ten republicans on board to get it passed that way? >> hi, jake. good to be back. first of all, we should recognize that the entire bill in its entirety remains extremely popular with the american people. people love it. when you explain what it does over 70% of americans support it. so i think we have to continue to stay focused on trying to pass that bill or a substantially similar bill. i haven't been around congress for that long but i've been around long enough to know things can come back to life and be rean mated. we'll see what happens after the new year, discussions with joe manchin. if we can't get the bill in its entirety passed we have to look at options to get separate pieces of that passed. and that is challenging. no doubt about it. >> so if you pare it down a bit or at least enough to get senator manchin on board, is that even possible? is there a version of this that manchin would support? i guess he doesn't support extending the child tax credits the way some progressives want. is there legislation that progressives can support that manchin would support? >> well, i think what we have to do is make the case to senator manchin that west virginia and west virginians will benefit from this. from the extension of medicare and dental benefits, child care benefits, transition support for coal minors to -- housing support, all the things in it are things that his constituents, my constituents, people across the country will benefit. so we have to focus, i think, less on the dollar amount because when we hear this talked about, they say, oh, this is a spending bill. well, this isn't a spending bill. this is a bill for working families. this is a health care bill. it's a jobs bill. it is a build back better bill. that's what it needs to do. we need to focus the discussion around what it does and what it is we need to have it do for the american people instead of looking at the dollar amounts. >> so the house progressive caucus is calling on president biden to push forward some parts of this bill through executive action. do you think that's the right way forward? >> i think we should look at that. certainly there are elements of this that we can get done under executive action and if the republicans in the house and senate are going to lock up and not do anything, not even do the things their constituents overwhelmingly want them to do, just because it's election year politics then we need to look at what the president can do through executive action to get things done because we have the support of the american people. it always comes back to that. we have the support of the american people. this is what president biden campaigned on. this is what we all campaigned on and we have to make sure we're delivering because people expect that. now if republicans, people on the other side of the aisle are trying to make both arguments. they're trying to say, you can't pass this bill because it will be unpopular if you do. it's too expensive and at the same time if you don't pass this bill you'll be penalized at the ballot box. people want this bill. they know it's paid for. they know it's actually going to reduce inflationary stresses. they know that it's what the country needs to take us into the 21st century. >> i want to ask you about the latest out of afghanistan where, obviously, you deployed as an army ranger. the taliban told cnn that they've dissolved the country's independent election committee and its state ministries for peace and parliamentary affairs saying there was no longer a need for them. what was your reaction to that when you heard that news? >> well, the taliban continues to move in the wrong direction which is not a surprise to me or you or anyone who else has been paying attention to the taliban for many decades now. but we have to stay focused on the people of afghanistan. we fought and died, spilled american blood, spent american treasure not for the taliban to counter terrorism, which we still have to do but also to help the afghan people achieve peace and some prosperity. we cannot give up on the afghan people who are looking at a disastrous famine right now. they want to have democracy and they have to be willing to fight for it in the future but we have to get them through this winter. that's why i led a letter along with several of my colleagues, a bi bipartisan effort that outlines a way to provide aid directly to the afghan people without providing support to the taliban. there's a way to get this done and we continue to push the administration to get it done. >> it's a real humanitarian crisis unfolding there. is the biden administration doing enough? >> we continue to push them to do more. we think there's a way to put financial structures in place to allow some money to flow because there's a liquidity crisis. it's really an economic crisis driving the famine. we need to increase liquidity, make sure that we prop up the economy. there is money that's willing to flow. it just can't because of the sanctions regime. we have to continue to ease some of those sanctions in a way that does not help the taliban but does help the afghan people and there's a way to do that that we've outlined in our letter. there's more to be done. >> today president biden signed the ndaa, the defense funding bill, which includes a multi-year independent afghan war commission to look at the war in afghanistan after the u.s. military withdrawal. what are the biggest questions you want answered by that commission? >> i want to have answered, the penultimate question is, how did we let this happen? 20 years of war. thousands of american lives, tens of thousands wounded, tons of american families that have had their life altered and we've had general after general, administration after administration, republican administration, democratic administration, multiple congresses that always said we could do this. we can just -- if we had more troops, more soldiers if we pushed more, we could do it. we weren't going to be able to do it. and we should have known that a long time ago. not in the way we were trying to do it. why don't we take a step back as a nation and say, how can we stop this cycle of these decades-long wars? how can we do this very different? there's got to be a very different model for ensuring our national security, for promoting democracy overseas but not doing it using the military as our primary tool. i believe there is a new model that can be found and i'd like a robust conversation with this commission with the american people about what does a new national security and foreign policy look like for the decades to come p. jason crow, thank you so much. good to see you. happy new year to you, sir. an innocent 14-year-old girl killed while in a store dressing room. new body cam video could shed light on the police officer who fired that fatal shot. stay with us. do your eyes bother you? my eyes feel like a combo of stressed, dry and sandpaper. strypaper? luckily, there's biotrue hydration boost eye drops. biotrue uses naturally inspired ingredients. and no preservatives. try biotrue! a must in your medicine cabinet! less sick days! cold coming on? zicam is the #1 cold shortening brand! highly recommend it! zifans love zicam's unique zinc formula. it shortens colds! zicam. zinc that cold! you're a one-man stitchwork master. but your staffing plan needs to go up a size. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire - love you. have a good day, behave yourself. - like she goes to work at three in the afternoon and sometimes gets off at midnight. she works a lot, a whole lot. - we don't get to eat in the early morning. we just wait until we get to the school. so yeah. - right now, here in america, millions of kids like victoria and andre live with hunger. and the need to help them has never been greater. when you join your friends, neighbors, and me to support no kid hungry you'll help hungry kids get the food they need. - if we want to take care of our children, then, we have to feed them. - your gift of just 63 cents a day, only $19 a month, at helpnokidhungry.org. right now. will help provide healthy meals and hope. - we want to our children to grow and thrive and to just not have to worry and face themselves with the struggles that we endure. nobody wants that for their children. - like if these programs didn't exist, me and aj, we wouldn't probably get lunch at all. - please call or go online right now with your gift of just $19 a month. and when you use your credit card, you'll receive this limited edition, t-shirt, to show you're part of the team that's helping feed kids and change lives. - if you're coming in hungry, there's no way you can listen to me, teach, do this activity, work with this group. so starting their day with breakfast and ending their day with this big, beautiful snack is pretty incredible. - whether kids are learning at school or at home, your support will ensure they get the healthy meals they need to thrive. because when you help feed kids, you feed their hopes, their dreams and futures. kids need you now more than ever. so please call this number right now to join me in helping hungry kids. or go online to helpnokidhungry.org and help feed hungry kids today. in our national lead, authorities have now identified the 14-year-old girl killed while in a dressing room with her mother in los angeles. valentina peralta was fatally struck by a round believed to have been fired by an lapd officer. the incident happened after they responded to multiple calls about a possible shooting in progress. los angeles police say they plan to release body cam video of the incident today. cnn's josh campbell joins us live from los angeles. what is the department saying about the shooting? >> well, tragic and devastating, jake is how the police chief is describing that incident. this happened last thursday. authorities received reports of a 911 calls of an attack in progress at this department store. as officers were on their way to a, arriving, that call was elevated to possible shots fired. as officers arrived, they encountered a female bleeding. a man was beating her with a bicycle chain. authorities made contact with that suspect and something caused one of the officers to open fire on that suspect. he was shot and killed. however, when authorities did a sweep of the building looking for other potential victims they found something truly heartbreaking. take a listen. >> the call was upgraded to possible shots fired. officers encountered the suspect and during that encounter an officer-involved shooting occurred. we found a hole in the wall, and behind a -- the dry wall, solid wall that you can't see behind, we went behind it. it was the dressing room. and what we did is we were able to locate a 14-year-old female who was found deceased in that dressing room. preliminarily, we believe that round was an officer's round. >> truly devastating there. this 14-year-old girl shot and killed by a stray round fired by one of those officers. i want to show you a memorial that's been set up at that department store. members of the community bringing in cards and flowers and balloons to remember that 14-year-old girl. we are awaiting any moment for the lapd to release a series of videos, as well as 911 audio and cctv footage from inside that store that day, jake. we're hoping that will provide us some answers to some of these key questions about what the officer saw when that officer opened fire. killing that suspect and, obviously, resulting in the tragic death of this 14-year-old girl. >> i understand the california attorney general has also announced an investigation into this tragic incident? >> that's right. the state's attorney general has launched a team of state investigators to come and do an independent review of the incident. this follows a law signed last year by california governor gavin newsom which requires the state ag's toffice to investigae any incident in which a person dies. those results will be handed over to the state's special prosecutor's office. they'll determine if any charges are warranted. >> josh campbell, thanks so much. streets and houses under water in nearly 40 cities. these massive floods are washing away lives. we'll have the dramatic images coming up. plus, following breaking news. the cdc announced big changes to the isolation period for some people who test positive for covid. stay with us. i lost 26 pounds and i feel incredible. with the new personalpoints program, i answer questions about my goals and the foods i love. i like that the ww personalpoints plan is built just for me. join today for 50% off at ww.com. hurry, offer ends december 27th. in our earth matters series, massive glooding in brazil has concerns grow more could be on the way. nearly 40 cities in the northeastern part of the country have been affected leaving 18 people dead and tens of thousands homeless. the rain causing two dams to burst over the weekend threatening the region with additional flooding and landslides. matt rivers is joining us. what are authorities saying about the danger of more flooding? >> well, they are saying it's a distinget possibility because it's still raining, jake, in many parts much the state in northeastern brazil most affected. and the interesting thing about all of this rain is that it's really been going back weeks now. you're talking about rainfall that's been torrential basically since november and so it built up and built up and built up, which eventually caused the culmination, these two dams to burst over the weekend. and that just inundated many of these communities with a flood of water that they simply have never seen before. one of the mayors of these towns said in his 50 years living in this one city he's never seen anything like this. and the video shows you how inundated some of these parts are with water. you're talking about hundreds of thousands of people in the state being affected. at least 35,000 people have had to leave their homes as a result of this. at least 18 people dead going back to november. 280 injured. but, of course, that's not the full picture because authorities can't reach a lot of these places that have been so inundated so quickly with so much water. authorities still trying to get a broader picture of what's happening here. but what's happened so far is just horrific. >> what do experts and authorities there have to say about whether or not climate change is impacting this at all in terms of the extreme flooding? >> i had a conversation with our cnn meteorological team who said there's no doubt these extreme events can be caused by climate change. if you talk to officials in brazil, the mayor of one of the hardest hit towns directly attributes what's happening right now to climate change. he said unfortunately water is often a gift from god but he said in this case, our actions causing climate change has made this happen. he said this has never happened before and climate change is happening now so clearly these things are correlated in his opinion. and this rain is going to continue, jake in some parts of the state there would be 100 millimeters or four inches of rain that will fall over the next 24 to 48 hours, which means that as bad as this has been so far, it might get worse as the next days continue. >> matt rivers, thank you so much. in our national lead, we note the passing of a legendary u.s. warrior and counterterrorism operator, richard marsinco was the first commander of navy s.e.a.l. team 6. the faumously secret unit kille osama bin laden. he was a combat war veteran and helped form s.e.a.l. team 6 in 1980 after the u.s. military's failed attempt to rescue u.s. hostages in iran. at the time the navy had only two s.e.a.l. teams. marcinko named is s.e.a.l. team 6 to make them think they had more special operations teams that they knew about. he led them through 1983 and he retired from the navy in 1989. his son tells "the new york times" that he died saturday with the family believes was a heart attack. he was 81 years old. may his memory be a blessing. we're tracking breaking news. the cdc just announcing they are shortening the isolation period for some people if they meet certain conditions after they've contracted covid. what you need to know. that's next. and if you are trying to fly home from your holiday trip, you better pack your patience. covid causing havoc with the airlines. stay with us. 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(carolers) ♪better♪ (kate) because everyone deserves better. inner voice (kombucha brewer): as a new small business owner, i find it useful to dramatically stare out of the window... ...so that no one knows i'm secretly terrified inside. inner voice (sneaker shop owner): i'm using hand gestures and pointing... ...so no one can tell i'm unsure about my business finances. inner voice (furniture maker): i'm constantly nodding... ...because i know everything about furniture... ...but with the business side... ...i'm feeling a little lost. quickbooks can help. an easy way to get paid, pay your staff and know where your business stands. new business? no problem. yeah. success starts with intuit quickbooks. throughout history i've observed markets shaped by the intentional and unforeseeable. for investors who can navigate this landscape, leveraging gold, a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns. how not to be a hero: because that's the last thing they need you to be. you don't have to save the day. you just have to navigate the world so that a foster child isn't doing it solo. you just have to stand up for a kid who isn't fluent in bureaucracy, or maybe not in their own emotions. so show up, however you can, for the foster kids who need it most— at helpfosterchildren.com this is cnn breaking news. >> welcome to "the lead." i'm jake tapper. breaking news in our health lead. moments ago the centers for disease control and prevention announced it is shortening the isolation period for americans who test positive for coronavirus. reducing it from ten days to five as long as one is asymptomatic at that point. the cdc says the changes are driven by science, which shows that the majority of covid transmission happens in the first few days of illness. this announcement comes just hours after president biden finally conceded publicly what's been obvious since 2020. the federal government first under trump, now under him, has not done nearly enough to scale up testing to provide the safest way possible for americans to live our lives. right now in some parts of the country, americans are waiting hours to find out if they're positive. and as alexandra field reports nearly 200,000 americans are testing positive each and every day. >> certainly going to continue to see a surge for a while. i hope we peak and come down quickly. >> reporter: the strain of omicron's surge already being felt by many. >> i think we're going to see, you know, half a million cases per day easy some time over the next week, week to ten days. >> reporter: as infections spread rapidly, health officials still believe those who are vaccinated and boosted should remain well protected from severe disease but there are consequences affecting everyone. >> we still have tens of millions of unvaccinated people. and we're seeing hospitalizations rise. it means hospitals and some places are going to get overrun. >> reporter: president biden announcing last week the federal government is deploying hundreds of fema ambulances and ems crews and mobilizing a thousand more military doctors, nurses and medics to help staff hospitals overwhelmed by the surge. >> we have, as of this morning, 115 staff members out ill with covid who have tested positive. >> reporter: federal emergency response teams are already working to ease the burden on health care workers in colorado, michigan, minnesota, vermont, new hampshire and new mexico. as covid-related staffing shortages cripple even more industries. new york city now running fewer subway trains with too many workers out sick and airlines are at their busiest time of year leaving even more passengers stranded just about everywhere. domestically a thousand more flights canceled today, more than 2,500 globally. >> the reason that our flight was canceled was because of lack of flight attendants. so, yeah, on delta. i guess it's sad. it's really sad. >> reporter: four cruise ships with reported cases of covid were turned away from their ports of call. in all too familiar reminder of when it all started. sports are not immune either. the military bowl and the fenway bowl among the latest games canceled. as more holiday plans get scrapped this year, the struggle to get covid tests just too real. and a busy site in mia

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