to. phil? >> a legend in every sense of the word. thanks so much. the omicron wave is rising. testing shortages with hospitals and schools struggling to stay open. plus an unvaccinated tennis star now held inside a detention hotel. novack djokovic, his freedom depends on an australian courtroom, and we're learning new details about the weeks leading up to his trip down under. >> and a dangerous and deadly flooding in the pacific northwest. some frightened people near seattle forced to wait on top of their cars for help. i'm phil mattingly in washington in for pamela brown tonight. you're in the "cnn newsroom." now, across the country this weekend hospitals are scrambling to deal with waves of people newly infected with the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus. an alarming spike in patients being admitted. hospitalizations now inching closer to the record set almost a year ago. and now adding to the alarm, the soaring number of american children hospitalized with covid. helping to drive that number, children under 5 who are too young to be vaccinated. many hospitals are facing a staffing crisis because covid is infecting their own staff. some states have deployed national guard troops seen here in protective gear trying to help fill the void. new york is the most recent state to mandate booster shots for health care workers. with child hospitalizations hitting record numbers across the country many states are also wrestling with the benefits and risks of in-person learning. new york's new mayor vows classrooms will remain open in the city public schools. >> we can't continue to stop our children from developing socially and acemdicly in the support they need. so we have to learn how to live with covid and live with covid in a safe way, and that's what i'm going to do. i'm not going to allow the hysteria to prevent the future of my children seeking a quality education and the development a sociologists are stating they need. >> doctor, in new york state the governor has ordered 40 hospitals to stop all nonurgent elective surgery for at least two weeks. they're basically rationing medical care amid this latest surge. what are you seeing at your hospital right now? are you having to turn any people away or limit who gets care based on what you're seeing with omicron? >> well, we certainly limit the places in which people can get care, and we're changing those places. we're holding people in the emergency department more than ever. now, michigan is coming off a massive delta wave. in our area we had six or seven weeks of every hospital being full in a two-hour radius of our emergency department consistently having over half of the beds with patients waiting either to be admitted and they were held for days or transferred to ambulances that didn't exist because they were driving other people around to places. so that whole system has been broken. we're coming out of that a little bit, but now with omicron we're seeing the numbers go up again. came into the day shift today with several people unvaccinated, high amounts of oxygen waiting to get transferred and us providing in patient care in a space where in patient care should not be provided. >> there's this kind of disturbing reality of a record number of kids under the age of 5 in hospitals. they have covid. they're still too young to get vaccinated. new hospital admissions for children under are already at a record level averaging nearly 800 per day. what do those numbers tell you about this specific variant? dr. davidson, you still there? so the question i wanted to ask was in the sense of what we're seeing with children right now, obviously we're seeing numbers we haven't seen before. the biggest concern is for kids who aren't vaccinated or eligible to get vaccinated. what are the numbers you're seeing in pediatric admissions telling you about this variant? we just lost him again. we'll see if we can swing back in a little bit. obviously this story isn't going away anytime soon. we will see whether dr. rob davidson can come back. but in the meantime, the surge of the highly contagious omicron variant has prompted nations around the world to tighten their existing measures and sometimes create new ones. let's check in with cnn correspondents around the globe. >> reporter: i'm ben wedemen in rome where the government has mandated all people over the age of 50 must be vaccinated. those who don't get vaccinated will face stiff fines and risk losing their salaries until they actually get the shot. germany is tightening its rules for the vaccinated, requiring that they show negative covid test results before entering bars, restaurants, cafes and other public venues. the only people exempted from these new rules are those who have received the booster. the british government is taking a softer approach. it isn't introducing any new anti-covid-19 measures, but it is having to deploy 200 members of the british military to london hospitals to help staff, many of whom have fallen ill with covid-19. >> reporter: in new delhi, and the health ministry has reported over 100 "news now" new cays of covid-19 friday, the highest since june last year. financial capital mumbai has reported over 20,000 new cases of the virus, the highest count for the city since the outbreak of the pandemic. health care workers are testing positive across big cities is a growing concern as covid-19 cases surge in india. according to the revised travel guidelines by india's health ministry it's now mandatory for international passengers to home quarantine for seven days. >> reporter: i'm christy lustout in hong kong. as the chinese city of xi an enters its second week of lock down a second woman has suffered a miscarriage. the hospital told cnn they initially turned the first pregnant woman away because they were following government covid-19 rules. after that incident went viral local health officials were suspended, the director of the municipal health commission bowed and apologized, but for angry citizens saying it's not enough. >> reporter: ivan watson in hong kong. some senior government officials here in this city are issuing public apologies on their way into government quarantine. and this is after a bunch of lawmakers and top officials attended a crowded birthday party with more than 150 people in a spanish tapas restaurant monday night, days after the top health official in the city instructed residents to avoid large gatherings saying the city was on the fifth wave of covid infections. there have been at least two positive covid cases from the party goers. and now at least 19 lawmakers and the home affairs secretary and the head of the independent commission against corruption are all going to get a first-hand taste of government quarantine facilities. >> the pandemic continuing to touch every corner of the world including the sports world where the world's number one men's tennis player remains inside an australia detention hotel. novack djokovic must wait another 24 hours before he finds out if he's allowed to enter the country and defend his open title. i'll talk to an espn broadcaster about that. with much of president biden's policies stalled. tasted so good. gettir try centrum multigummies. dove 0% is different. we left aluminum out and put 48 hour freshness and 1 quarter moisturizers in. dove 0% aluminum deodorant lasting protection that's kinder on skin. 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>> there is a path. we just have to keep at it. and my hope is that even though there won't be a single republican vote to protect our freedom to vote that we're going to be able to do it with basically two of our democratic senators whose agreement we need to get. but this is all to say a continuation of the riots that we saw, the insurrection on january 6th. and just because we don't have rioters hanging from the rafters in the senate chambers doesn't mean there's not an all-out assault on our right to vote by republican controlled state legislatures all across the country. and that is why we to enact the freedom to vote act and the john lewis act. >> the president spoke passionally about january 6th but also touched on this issue when he spoke in the capitol. the vice president has as well. do you believe with his speech in atlanta, the white house clearly making this kind of a priority, that will be critical to shifting the positions of senators manchin and sinema? >> i think it all helps, and clearly when the president and vice president both focus on how important it is and critical it is to get the freedom to vote act done, yes, many of us have been focused on that for several months now. we need to let the people of our country know that there have been over 500 bills introduced by republican controlled legislatures. dozens of these bills are being passed that will restrict our freedom to vote. and literally it would be astounding to you the kind of legislation that would make it harder to vote by mail, preventing people from using drop boxes. and i think one of the worst aspects is enabling any voter to challenge any other voter's right to vote. and that's the kind of legislation that's being enacted all across the country. >> one of the questions is these bills have been out there. they've been proposed. some of them have been passed, not all of them. but the two critical senators here that need to change their mind in order to move something through with just democrats since republicans are unanimously opposed have indicated no willingness to shift their position on the filibuster. are you seeing something i'm not or we're not seeing publicly necessarily? >> the last time i talked to senator joe manchin which was just before our december break, he said that he supports a talking filibuster, so that is a big deal to me. and if we can work it out, that will end up a procedure that will enable a talking filibuster, then i think we can get things done. but the discussions are ongoing. and that is why it's so important that the president focuses on the need to protect our freedom to vote. >> one thing i wanted to ask you about there's a bit of a wild card here in that there's a bipartisan group of senators that have started meeting on a microaspect of this. is that a possible avenue to agreement you'd want to pursue, or are you concerned, perhaps that would take the focus off the overarching goal here? >> the republicans are pursuing the voting count act because that only happens every four years. meanwhile, they are very busy supporting the republican controlled legislatures who are very busy even as we speak to prevent all of us from voting. so it is more than a distraction. it's a tactic by a party that has absolutely no intention of protecting our freedom to vote. >> one of the things i want to ask you if you could take a listen to what congressman jim clyburn, obviously a close ally of president biden's, a leader in the house, the number three official democrat in the house, what he said about senator joe manchin to our jim acosta this afternoon. >> and he's still refusing to support it. so he has all the cover he needs to now step away and do what we need done, and that is provide the 49th vote and i hope the 50 vote will come along. >> he's talk about the fact senator manchin asked for time to put together a new kind of proposal, which he did, and said he could get republican support. he did not. it doesn't strike me senator manchin is looking for political cover, necessarily. but do you agree is the ball right now clearly in senator manchin's court here? >> there are two senators, democratic senators whose votes we're going to need in order for us to enact the freedom to vote act. so i'm very vocal about those two democratic senators will change their minds and recognize we're going to need to get the freedom to vote act done without a single republican, that any hope they may have we're going to bring along republicans that by now should be out the window because mitch mcconnell has made it absolutely clear that republicans will not lift a finger to protect our right to vote, our freedom to vote. so i hope that joe manchin and kyrsten sinema will be the 49th and 50th democrat who will enable us to vote and enact the freedom to vote act and the john lewis act. >> it's very true, leader mcconnell has made very clear he's opposed to this and trying to fight it tooth and nail. you said last month and you're a very quotable member of the united states senate always, but you said famously a 50-50 senate sucks, which i completely understand. but one of the questions i had when i saw that quote was you guys were able in a 50-50 senate to pass a $1.9 trillion covid relief plan, a $1.2 trillion infrastructure proposal. you've approved more judges in the first year of a presidency than any president since reagan. i think in the broader mood of the democratic party why it does it feel folks aren't happy right now or depressed given what you did in the first year? >> i'm really glad you mentioned the american rescue plan that enabled the -- the vaccinations to happen and a whole bunch of other things to support our families without a single republican voting for it. some of the other things that we are doing, the infrastructure bill got bipartisan support. great but we know the build back better is going to need to be done without a single republican vote. it's going to help our families lower cost, child care cost, prescription drug costs. housing cost is still really critical. and so that is still i would say on the table. but first and foremost we have to protect our freedom to vote. that is the -- i have such a sense of urgency about it that we need to get that done first and foremost. >> you mentioned the urgency. a lot of your colleagues have spoken in similar terms in terms of this stark moment the country is in. do you believe democracy itself is in danger of collapse when you look around right now? >> i'm not going to use the word like collapse because if we all make sure we're protecting and strengthening democracy it won't collapse, but there's no question democracy is under attack, and you have a former president still pushing the big lie leading to the january 6th insurrection and rioters. there is no question in my mind if they had found members of congress how hurt people would have been. there's no question in my mind there would have been a lot of injuries and deaths. it's that serious. so the big lie continues. that is why we need to push for freedom to vote. i feel like a broken record right now, but it's with that much sense of urgency that we know we have to get it done because democracy continues to be under attack even as we speak. >> yeah, it'll certainly be the primary focus when democrats return to washington, also for the president next week. senator mazy hirono as always thank you for your time. >> thank you. programming note here, john fareed zakaria. his new special begins tomorrow 9:00 p.m. eastern right here on cnn. tennis star novack djokovic sitting in a hotel room in australia tonight waiting to learn if he'll be kicked out of the country. but now there's a new twist in the case. coming up next. rlytes and half the sugar. ♪ pedialyte powder packs. feel better fast. maybe it's another refill at your favorite diner... or waiting for the 7:12 bus... or sunday afternoon in the produce aisle. these moments may not seem remarkable. but at pfizer, protecting the regular routine, and everyday drives us to reach for exceptional. working to impact hundreds of millions of lives... young and old. it's what we call, the pursuit of normal. ♪ ♪ shhh... you think she's still awake? 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>> well, trust me, phil, you're not the only one who's confused because this story just keeps -- we're peeling away layer after layer in the last couple of days. so here's where it stands right now as we speak. novack djokovic assumed that when he got clearance he got this so-called medical exemption to be able to get into the country of australia unvaccinated and compete at the australian open he was good to go. when he tweeted out a picture -- i'm sorry on instagram he put a picture of himself on his way to australia this then created a political firestorm down under in australia because the federal government said wait a second you may have gotten a visa to play in the tournament and to participate in the event in melbourne, which is the state of victoria, but to get into the country you need to clear the federal system, the border patrol. and according to the border patrol and the federal government being unvaccinated and even if you had covid in the last six months is not reason to get a visa to get into the country. in fact, you'd have to quarantine for 14 days, which by the way, phil, many of the players did last year at the beginning of this pandemic. as you know the australian citizenry has gone through lockdown after lockdown. they're over 90% vaccinated, the people eligible for it. so they're not really in the mood to let someone in the country that's been unvaccinated particularly one that's bringing this kind of attention. so it turned into what i believe has been a political firestorm between the federal government and the state government and tennis australia which oversees the tournament. the they work closely with the victorian government. when the prime minister saw he had the citizenry of australia on his side i believe that's when he took action and they held novack djokovic at the border, and he's now stuck in -- it's a hotel but it's more like a detention center. >> yeah, and i think another layer djokovic claims he tested positive on december 16th. that's after the december 10th deadline. he appeared at a public event honoring him in his home country i think the next day. what i'm trying to figure outright now is what's his status right now and from a public health perspective how should he be viewing this moment? >> well, his status, phil, i would say a precarious at best. and here's why. because as you said according to the released documents is this 35-page appeal put forth by his lawyers, the appeal is going to happen sunday night our time, monday morning in australia. in that djokovic claims to have tested positive for covid december 16th. now, in order to apply for the visa you would have had to do that according to the materials sent out by tennis australia to the players by december 10th. so there's a couple possibilities here, phil. one, that his covid test is not correct. okay, that is fraudulent. of course if that's the case this is a major, major problem for novack djokovic. now, the other side of it if he did test positive december 16th then he was seen in public multiple times in the day or two following that shaking hands, giving speeches, appearing at a panel discussion, so of course not abiding by what he was supposed to be doing, assuming he had tested positive. many people are questioning whether or not that covid test was legitimate, and that may be why the border patrol stopped him at melbourne airport. we will find out all too soon, and his appeal apparently, phil, will be live online. so i hope they've got the bandwidth to be able to handle that. >> it's going to crash a site or two. one thing i'm trying to figure out in this moment in time everyone is always immediately blaming one side or the other. social media goes crazy, we all decide who the hero is, the enemy is to some degree. when you look at this granting the information clearly there's still a lot to learn here, but who should be to blame here? is it on the player? is it novack djokovic, tennis australia, the organizer of the australian open? is it the politics here i? i'm trying to figure out where this is supposed to land. >> phil, check, check, check all the boxes. you've got to get the green tick box to get into australia through your visa application. let's start with djokovic. novack djokovic made a decision, it's his right to make a decision not to be vaccinated. when you do that you're going to run into these types of difficulties, and i predict this will continue throughout the rest of this year as it relates to his tennis career and trying to break the records he currently holds. and then you say tennis australia who runs the tournament sort of acts as a go between between the players and the government, i believe they've overstepped their bounds. they're known as a player friendly tournament over the years. they've done a great job doing that. i believe they took that a little too far. then you can say how come the state government of victoria and the federal government weren't working more closely? if as the federal government says you can't get into the country unvaccinated even with a positive test and not have to deal with the quarantine, don't you think they should have known that and they should have communicated that with each other before novack djokovic and others got on the plane? how about -- not as well-known from the czech republic. she got into the country with a similar exemption. she played a tournament already in australia, then when djokovic issue came up they reanalyzed her visa, terminated it. she's stuck in the same hotel, call it detention center, as novack djokovic. at the end of the day, phil, there's plenty of blame to go around. >> so to take off your now lawyer border policy international relations hat for a minute and put on your tennis analyst hat, what does it mean for the sport? you mention the majors record obviously right now which everyone is watching. if he's deported from australia unable to defend his title, potentially break the record here what does it mean for tennis? >> can you say world class debacle, phil? that's what it means. it's a shame because djokovic has been an unbelievable player helping the australians through their bush fire that happened in the last year, won the tournament nine times. he's an incredible player. he's done a lot of good in his career. he's had some controversy in his career. some of that is on his own shoulders, but he's played in his career with that bit of a chip on his shoulder which is part of his greatness. overall you want to see the best players going up against each other. i predict there'll be record ratings for the rostrailian open this year particularly if djokovic plays. can you imagine that scene if he goes from court of law to center court at the australian open? if i'm a betting man, which i'm not, and this situation has taken so many twists and turns i find it unrealistic he's going to win this appeal and be on the court and he'll have to leave australia on his own. that would be a darn, darn shame. >> somehow you've made me understand this better which the ultimate testament to you given everything we're seeing right now. thank you so much my friend. i appreciate it. >> my father who's a lawyer, may he rest in peace, would be proud of me. thank you, phil. >> no question about it. all right, there's new talk of a possible deal or deal making between the u.s. and russia ahead of the high level talks that are about to begin. the latest from washington is next. you're in the cnn newsroom. wi*á season after season. ace your immune support with centrum. now with a new look! why does walgreens offer prescription copays as low as zero dollars? 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optimism, a bit of expectation setting right now. what's your read from talking to officials? >> reporter: they're hoping they can find some kind of window here to deter russian president vladimir putin from launching an invasion into ukraine. they're saying in these bilateral talks with the russians they do see some areas of overlap. they see some area wheres the u.s. can offer certain things to the russians as long as it's reciprocal by the russian side as well that could perhaps diffuse tensions in the region. among those things are discussions about missile deployments in europe. the russians have long complained that if the united states places missiles, for example, inside ukraine then that would be a red line for russia. of course the united states has said repeatedly they have no intention of doing so, but this is one area where they they think they can make some progress. another one u.s. and nato military exercises in europe. the u.s. says they're willing to discuss potentially placing restrictions on those exercises and scaling them back in accordance with russian concerns about those exercises happening so close to their borders. of course, that would have to be returned as well by the russians who had been conducting what the u.s. has said are very provocative exercises along their borders. russia again they they can do pretty much whatever they want as long as it's inside their borders. really the u.s. is hoping they can find some way to move forward with russia in a collaborative process that will diffuse tensions and hopefully get them to move those forces back from the ukraine ian borde but it's still a long way from what the russians want which is that commitment nato will not expand further east, will not include ukraine as a member ever. >> a commitment the biden administration bilaterally can't actually make given the fact nato is a large group operation. administration officials you walked through potential carrots here. there are definitely real sticks, too. officials telling cnn they're prepared to impose harsh economic sanctions if russia invades ukraine. they've been detailed about the scale of these. what specifically are they talking about? >> yes, so they want russia to know what exactly the u.s. and its allies are prepared to do if they move forward with that invasion. those include really harsh export control measures, things like blocking the sale and export of u.s. microtechnology to russia in ways that could impact it's critical sectors. you need microchips, for example, pretty much to build anything in the technological sector. and that is something they hope will try to deter putin from making any kind of moves here because of how it would impact the russian economy, its advancement in the technological sector. also considering sanctions on the russian -- major russian financial institutions, russia's energy sector. there are a lot of options on the table here, but one of the big things they're also taking into consideration is how those sanctions will reverberate across the global economy. because a lot of the sanctions they are considering could have a negative ippalmpact on the european economy and boom rang back to the u.s. especially in an election year that's not something administration officials want to see. they've been have discussions how to mitigate that potential spill over effect. they are making clear to russia if there is an invasion here they'll have no choice but to implement sanctions much stronger than russia saw in 2014 when it annexed crimea. >> a very busy couple of days ahead for you. from flooding to freezing temperatures, next the wicked winter weather affecting tens of millions of people tonight. so when she moved in with us, a new kitchen became part of our financial plan. ♪ i want to make the most of every meal we have together. ♪ at northwestern mutual, our version of financial planning helps you live your dreams today. find a northwestern mutual 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tank next to the house making things even more perilous. a woman who was also inside the house managed to get out on her own while fire crews worked to put out the fire and bring the trapped man to safety. now, seattle isn't the only area seeing dangerous weather. a tornado watch is in effect right now for southeast texas, including the city of houston. several small twisters have already been reported. on top of that, more than 60 million people are under winter weather advisories across the midwest and northeastern u.s. meteorologist gene norman is tracking all of this from the cnn weather center. what are you seeing right now. >> it's been a busy saturday. just a little bit of light spotty shower activity especially along the coast. nevertheless, the flood warnings are still in effect in the highlighted green areas, simply because they're starting to slowly recede. more rain tuesday and wednesday could make them rise again. seattle, they have been soggy to start the year. six of the first eight days of 2022, they have had over 4 inches of rain. in the whole month of january, they averaged a little over 5. they're off to a wet start and the month hasn't gotten going yet. let's shift gears to the tornado watch. for texas, the houston area, the fourth largest city in the world getting hammered by big storms today, including a confirmed tornado and there's a tornado warning right now. this purple area just to the east of cleveland has the potential tornados. we'll be tracking that as well. we move up this line, and we'll see that it will continue to push off into the southeast, mississippi, alabama, georgia. you could see some rough weather on your sunday so keep that in mind. no watches posted yet, but keep us tuned in to make sure that if that does change, you will know about it. further up the line of storms, we have a really nasty situation. rain falling into very cold ground. that's called freezing rain. it's freezing on contact, already slippery roads around chicago. around anypindian lis. they could see a mix of rain and ice. in fact, the ice claccumulation could be a quarter to a 1/2 inch. we're concerned about trees getting weighed down, power lines, if you're in the areas of pennsylvania, central new york, into the overnight hours into tomorrow, please be careful, try to stay off the roads if you can. a busy, busy saturday here in the weather center, phil. >> yeah, busy, indeed, but gene, i feel like every day at this point in time is busy for you. gene norman, thanks as always my friend. bad weather is part of the problem causing havoc at u.s. airports. soaring covid cases are making it difficult to keep staff in place, in the air. 1,200 flights in the u.s. have been cancelled, thousands more delayed. as pete muntean reports, things aren't likely to get better anytime soon. >> it's winter weather along with airline worker shortages that have led to a perfect storm of cancellations nationwide. the latest figures from flight aware show that u.s. airlines have cancelled more than 27,000 flights since christmas eve. cancellations so bad this week in atlanta that travelers waited hours to get their checked bags back. >> i went to try to talk to someone about my bags, and they just said that they would try their best to get it on my flight, and that was basically all i heard about my bag. >> this is maddening for everybody. >> reporter: industry analyst says it is unlikely that airlines around the cancellations corner this month. an untold number of airline workers are calling out sick. either because they have been exposed to or infected with coronavirus. >> the random nature of omicron means that you don't know which of your employees are going to get sick. while airlines are trying to take steps to reduce the impact, there's no way they can get to an absolute zero proof level of being disrupted. >> reporter: alaska airlines is the latest carrier to trim its flight schedule, proactively cancelling 10% of january flights citing the continued impacts of omicron and unprecedented employee sick calls. similar moves have been made by jet blue and delta. southwest air lines cancelled 500 flights on friday for the third day in a row. it was so cold that its denver hub on thursday that it actually temporarily halted riarrivals f a time. good news, this time of year is a slow time for the airlines. even still, about a million and a half people are flying each day. pete muntean, cnn, reagan national airport. parents are suing the teachers union in chicago. they're trying to get those teachers back into their classrooms. i'll talk live with one woman from chicago about why she thinks her kids should be back in school, despite the omicron surge. not only do centrum multigummies taste great. they help support your immune defenses, too. because a healthy life. starts with a healthy immune system. with vitamins c and d, and zinc. getting out there has never tasted so good. try centrum multigummies. the 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