provide critical support to help relieve some of the drain and the strain on the health care system. and more relief. early indications suggest the omicron surge is starting to slow in a handful of northeastern cities such as new york and washington, d.c., that bianna got hit first with this. >> yeah. that is a promising sign. in moments, president biden will speak from the white house laying out his latest efforts to tackle the pandemic. then he'll be heading to capitol hill later this afternoon where he will make a direct appeal to senate democrats to take action on voting rights. this as house minority leader kevin mccarthy changes his tune, saying he will not cooperate with the committee investigating the capitol riot despite previously saying he'd do so. we begin this morning at the white house with president biden set to address the nation as covid hospitalizations hit record highs. >> cnn white house correspondent john harwood is following. john, the president expected among other things to announce the deployment of medical teams to help struggling hospitals. as you know, the white house, the administration very aware that this is affecting all parts of their agenda, popularity, the president's approval ratings. so how urgently are they trying to address these things? >> reporter: extremely urgently. as you indicated, getting control of the pandemic is key to everything president biden wants to do, and his administration is scrambling just like states, the health care system, hospitals are scrambling to keep up with omicron. we had gotten some good news as you indicated before, which is that lots of cases, some indication that the severity is milder and maybe it's peaking. but because of the incredible number of cases and the record hospitalizations that are taking place even with less severity, when you get that many people infected, you'll overload the health care system. president biden is announcing today with defense secretary lloyd austin, fema administrator criswell help for those states. they've deployed 800 personnel out to health care facilities around the country. today they're now saying another -- or last month he said there would be another 1,000 deployed, and today he'll talk about that. people are going to be deployed in six different states -- ohio, new york, michigan, rhode island, new mexico, and new jersey. that's on top of 14,000 national guard troops that have been deployed around the country. and vice president harris also spoke today on nbc about the arrival, they hope, soon, of the 500 million tests that the administration has been pledging to send out to american households. take a listen to the vice president. >> i think it's going to be by next week but soon. absolutely soon. and it is a matter of urgency for us. should we have done that sooner? >> we are doing it. >> but should we have done it sooner? >> we are doing it. >> reporter: we are doing it. we have not -- they have not done it yet. we know that there is a shortage of tests nationwide. everyone is trying to keep up with the unexpected demand that omicron has produced. and vice president harris says as soon as next week we'll see if they can meet that objective. >> john, the administration also pushing health insurance companies to provide at least eight at-home tests to families across the country a month as well. so, clearly they are trying to increase the effort as well. thank you so much, john harwood. while the omicron surge has driven covid infections, hospitalizations to record highs now in this pandemic, it does seem, looking at the data, to have already hit a peak -- look at those plateaus at the top, even downward trends, particularly in washington, in some cases in the east. new york trending down slightly. >> our chief medical correspondent sanjay gupta joins us to break it down. jim and i have been trying to find the optimism this morning and the glass half full perspective here given what we're seeing in the northeast and given what a doctor told us in the last hour, that wastewater in boston has gone down, the amount of coronavirus detected in wastewater has gone down significantly in the past few weeks. does that give you hope this is something we can see in other parts of the country relatively soon? >> yeah. i think so. i mean, just to cut to the chase, i think this is a cause for optimism here and those sort of broad surveillance testing like wastewater are really interesting because they give you sort of a broader view of what's happening in particular communities. but, you know, as we've seen throughout this pandemic, this is a pretty heterogeneous country, so you tend to get these rolling waves of ups and downs around the country. if you look at the united states as a whole, sort of the left side of the country still, you know, significant increases overall in new cases over the past week compared to the week before. then you can look to the right side of the country and it's a different picture. so hopefully we'll start to see the sort of lightening of the color throughout the country, but as you mentioned in new york, boston, d.c., those are place where is you have seemingly plateaued and now seeing a downward trend in overall cases. now, we've also seen this in other countries. the uk, for example. they've had a decline. they had a steep ascent and seemingly now on a steep descent as well. you can see the yellow line there. it's different in different places, though. two caveats. one is that, you know, in the united states we tend to plateau a bit longer than other countries in part because, you know, the overall, the country may be a bit older and they have more pre-existing conditions, so that puts people at higher risk overall. then what you and john harwood were talking about, the data is as good as the testing and we're still not testing enough. 750,000 cases, 786,000 cases, probably closer to a couple million if you tested everyone that needed to be tested and reported those. so we've still got to take that into account as well. >> you've been doing some extensive reporting on the merits but the short supply of oral antiviral treatments for covid. what are you listening for from the president this hour? >> well, i would like to hear more about, you know, these therapeutics like paxlovid, the one from pfizer. this is one of those things where you realize this is 90% protective in terms of taking someone who's high risk and keeping them out of the hospital. it's an oral pill. you dent have to get-go into the hospital and get an infusion. the data is compelling and raises the question why don't we have more of this at this point. we're going to have 10 million doses of this in june, but we know that we're not likely to need them as much in june. the numbers are certainly going to come down between now and then a lot. right now we have about 160,000 doses. how are these decisions getting made? are there bets being made on potential therapeutics so that down the line we'll have more options like this? but then also, you know, i'm hoping that the president will talk more about testing. you just heard the vice president talk about that and these tests are going to go out. but it's going to sound crazy, but, you know, we should be at the point where we could be doing a billion or 2 billion tests a month. it sounds, you know, fantastical, but that was sort of the thinking back at the beginning of this pandemic that even by the summer of 2020 we might get to that point. right now, if things go as expected, we'll be closer to 400 million a month, which is a lot better, but still not nearly enough. look, we're not going to be in that position forever. we're not going to need to be doing testing that the level forever. but right now we're still in the middle of a viral storm, and if we want to slow the storm down as quickly as possible, we have to do more testing and have more therapeutics out there. >> always good to have you on. dr. sanjay gupta. this morning the top republican in the house joins a growing list of trump loyalists who are defying the january 6th committee. the panel wants to speak to how else minority leader kevin mccarthy. >> but mccarthy will not cooperate despite promises to do so early on. he says the committee's investigation is an abuse of power and illegitimate now. mccarthy's refusal, a complete 180. he said earlier and on the record on video he would cooperate. joining us to discuss where this all stands, where it goes, cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. jeffrey, it strikes me that this committee as it's done prior is leaving some bread crumbs as to what a focus, at least one focus of its criminal investigation here. in its letter to mccarthy, requesting his cooperation, the committee outlines many reported points of contact between trump and mccarthy before, during, and after the insurrection, including mccarthy telling mark meadows, then chief of staff, the scheme to affect the certifying of the votes was, quote, doomed to fail. is witness tampering at the center of this now? reading those bread crumbs. >> well, it's part of it. but kevin mccarthy is an enormously important witness for all sorts of reasons. witness tampering is only the end of the process. he is someone who was intimately involved and certainly knowledgeable about the plans to disrupt or stop the counting of electoral votes before january 6th, on january 6th, and after january 6th. all of those things are very worthy of investigation by the committee. witness tampering is only relevant because he knew so much about what was going on at the time. so he's obviously an important witness. but let's not kid ourselves at this point. he's not testifying. there is no way at this point the committee is going to get him to testify. and, you know, the committee is just going to have to make do with the information they can get. >> bianna, one question with witness tampering is what changed mccarthy, right? he said he was on board to cooperate, then he goes and meets trump. what happened in those conversations? >> very simple. the republican party changed. that obstruction of the committee's investigation has become an article of faith in the republican party. you know, way back on january 6th and 7th, you had mitch mcconnell, you had kevin mccarthy outraged about the president's behavior, about the riot, the insurrection at the capitol. what we have seen over the past year is the normalization, the tacit approval of what went on and the demonization of the people who are investigating insurrection rather than the people involved in the insurrection itself. so no one associated with donald trump who wants to stay associated with donald trump, is going to cooperate with this committee. >> jeffrey, people don't have to just take yours and our woord for it, right? just like they say what transpired on january 6th before their very eyes on television, that insurrection, they also heard kevin mccarthy and others, but stick with kevin mccarthy, in the days and hours after the fact say that this was trump's fault, part of his doing, and kevin mccarthy was broadcasting to others they had a very contentious phone conversation where the president said something along the lines of perhaps these people care more than you do. and he said who the blank do you think you're talking to? that changed and the committee will have to deem with it. in this our last hour, we had a guest saying this will go down to the courts. then, listen, we're up against a calendar with the midterms. >> you know, the answer is no, basically, i don't agree with that, because it's too late for the courts. it's the middle of january. they haven't even found kevin mccarthy in contempt. they haven't issued a subpoena much less found him in contempt. they would have to go to the justice department. they would have to, you know, go to the full house, go to the justice department. i mean, look at steve bannon. steve bannon is the only person they have moved against for criminal contempt, and the case against him, which is now a couple months old, is on a slow boat to nowhere. this is -- the idea that in the middle of january you can start pressuring people through the courts for investigation that's supposed to end in the fall, that's just a fantasy. and i think people need to recognize that for better or for worse that if people don't want to cooperate with this committee, there's nothing they can do about it at this point. that's a sad fact but it's true. >> and the delay strategy might be working. we do want to play for you what liz cheney, of course one of the members of the january 6th committee, had to say and get your reaction. have a listen. >> we know that leader mccarthy was pleading with the president to tell people to go home when police officers and oerps were being beaten here at the capitol. so, you know, i wish that he were a brave and honorable man. he's clearly trying to cover up what happened. he has an obligation to come forward. and we'll get to the truth. >> do they have enough evidence? can the committee get enough evidence to make that case not just politically but potentially criminally? >> well, i don't want to pretend that i know everything that the committee has doene. it is off an successful strategy to go to the next level down of people who were present in the room when conversations took place but weren't necessarily participants in the conversation. the committee is has apparently interview 3d 00 people, and we don't know what they have said to be sure, but, i mean, of course congresswoman cheney is correct that the minority leader, mccarthy, has relevant, important information, but he wants to be speaker of the house more than he wants to tell the truth to the committee. and his constituents, the republican members of the house, want him to defy the committee so that's what he's doing. >> his argument this is all politicized, i mean, this was his doing if that's the case because he had the opportunity to make it bipartisan, right, and he chose not to in terms of how this committee was structured an put together. jeffrey toobin, thank you. >> see ya. still to come, house lawmakers will soon cast their vote on democrats' voting rights legislation just hours before president biden heads to the capitol to put the heat on senate democrats to take action on election reform. plus, more than 150 republicans run for office using the former president's big lie as part of their campaign. our next guest says it would be like electing an arsonist to oversee the fire department. wow. as inflation hits a 39-year high in this country, we're going the take a closer look at what that means for your wallet as americans pay about $250 more for the same things they were buying a year ago. does it worry me? 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(birds chirping) ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ (phone beep) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (music quieter) ♪ (phone clicks) ♪ ♪ in joust moments house lawmakers will take a bill on a voting rights bill as they attempt to answer president biden's call for urgent action on the issue. >> manu raju joins us from capitol hill. manu, the conventional wisdom seems to be this fails. is that correct?? and if so, what happens next? >> reporter: it's going to fail, but it may take several days for it to play out. this is a multiday process aiming to maximize pressure on really two democratic senators, kyrsten sinema and joe manchin, so to change the rules of the united states senate in order to pass a sweeping measure to rewrite voting laws across the country and overturn a key aspect of the 1965 voting rights act. the house will pass its bill that includes these two proposals, these two vioting rights proposals. at that point, lit come to the center. that's where the big fight will happen. we expect republicans will filibuster this bill with 60 volts. no republicans are expected to vote for it. that means at that point, chuck schumer, the senate majority leader, will move to change the senate rules so he can advance by 50 democratic volts with kamala harris as the vice president breaking the tie and moving it on and eventually getting to president biden's desk. but there's a problem. manchin and sinema for months have resisted pressure to change the rules and say they're concerned that ultimately if they did that it would damage the institution and have harmful effects for nation in the long term. nevertheless, joe biden is coming up to capitol hill today to try to convince democrats to change their minds and convince those two democrats. and kamala harris this morning also made a plea for her members to come on board and also seemed to take a bit of a shot at joe manchin. >> i will not absolve the 50 republicans in the united states senate from responsibility for upholding one of the most basic and important tenets of our democracy, which is free and fair elections and access to the ballot for all eligible voters. >> what about senator manchin? what about senator cinema? >> i don't think anyone should be resolved from their responsibility for preserving and protecting our democracy when they took an oath to protect and defend our constitution. >> reporter: manchin and sinema have had a number of conversations with democrats, meeting with them for months including yesterday and expected today, but again, no movement there. i'm told they are still opposed to changing the rules along party lines or even lowering the 60-vote threshold sinema has demanded. they keep with with the filibuster. so joe biden is coming to the hill. unlikely it will change much. >> at this point, so many people, including former presidents and oprah have made appeals to them. not sure what it will take to get them to that point at this time. it's not just voting rights on the line across the country. according to "the washington post," there are more than 160 republican candidates who have embraced former president trump's false claims that the 2020 election fraud that are now running for statewide positions that would give them authority over future elections. our next guest warns that this year democracy itself will be on the ballot as a result of this. colorado's secretary of state janet griswold joins us now. thanks for taking the time this morning. >> good morning, jim. >> this is significant because this was part of the trump failed plan in 2020 to overturn the election, which was to apply pressure to state election officials to just lie, right, and overturn election results. the effort, then, okay, let's put friendly folks in those positions so if that happens again they will lie and overturn results here. you've called this akin to electing someone who is an arsonist to oversee the fire department. how widespread is this now? >> well, unfortunately, it is very widespread. you know, my job as secretary of state is to make sure that every eligible voter, republican, democrat, and independent alike, has access to safe and secure elections. but we're seeing extremist candidates run for secretary of state in every swing state where there's a race to further suppress the vote, to push this information and ultimately to tilt potential future elections in the favor of their party. but it's not just that. we're also seeing extremist insiders like steve bannon recruit election deniers into local election administration, and there's a door wide open because there is so much vitriol that many election workers are throwing up their hands and saying i did not sign up for death threats in administering elections. this is code red for them. >> you the state of colorado had this, an insider attack to try to change results. tell us what that was and what you've done about it. >> well, colorado had the first big insider threat for the nation, not to change results but to undermine election systems from within. so the mason county clerk compromised voting equipment, working if you can believe it with it seems to be qanon and the pillow guy to try to prove big lie. i was there. we decertified the voting equipment, and i asked my republican opponent from 2018 to oversee that election in 2021. this issue is moving again. i issued another order in this matter on monday and then a grand jury was just impaneled this morning. >> colorado, of course, is a state, you might call it a purple one, republicans and democrats in senior positions there. are you finding republican allies in your efforts here? because there are republicans who are willing to stand up to the big lie, more likely on the senate side nationally than on the house side. but are you finding republican allies at the state level? >> absolutely. there's good republicans in this fight with us. i think they're largely in the states at this point. like i said, my former opponent from 2018 agreed to oversee an election after a big lie county clerk tried to undermine security. however, this corrosiveness of the big lie, it is seeping into the states. colorado saw five bills to suppress the vote last legislative session. we killed them all. we are seeing fake audits across the nation, over 500 bills across the nation to take away americans' freedom. we are at a code red for democracy, attacks on election administration are at every level, and it's such an important conversation today because i do hope the u.s. senate realizes that the dire straits the country is in and puts their political ambition aside to save american democracy. >> i want to ask you about redistricting because that was another concern going into this cycle following the most recent consensus, concern that there would be major gop gains. there are some democrats who looked a how it's ended up and say it's basically been a wash. a frankly that's because some blue states have been very aggressive withdrawing their districts as red ones. is this basically where we are when it comes to redistricting and jegerrymandering? >> well, colorado adopted independent redistricting. >> you're different, yes, for sure. >> we're different. but we are seeing, you know, the tools being used to attack democracy from every side. i think extreme republicans have really leenled in. it's not just redistricting. it's not just voter suppression, not just attacking election administration. fr frankly, this all roots to political corruption, which means money and politics. that's why i've been such an ardent supporter of reforming how money flows in politics because ultimately so many elected officials are working for big corporations and doing whatever they need to do to listen to who funds them instead of their people. i think that's one of the reasons we are where we are. >> janet griswold from louisville, colorado. i did not know there was a louisville, colorado. great to have you. >> thank you. jim, pronounced definitely here. >> sorry. my mom is from kentucky. i'll get that wrong. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> glad we got that straightened out, jim. the armorer from the movie "rust" is filing her own lawsuit after that shooting on set. who she's blaming for the fatal incident is up next. and a look at other events we're watching today. san francisco was a beacon of hope for my family to reach the middle class, and i've been helping others ever since. when the pandemic hit bilal was right there, helping restaurant workers make ends meet. in the obama administration, bilal worked tirelessly on innovative policies. the status quo isn't working. bilal is the best shot we have for meaningful change. i'm bilal mahmood, and i know our city can become a beacon of hope once again. we're carvana, the company who invented car vending machines and buying a car 100% online. now we've created a brand-new way for you to sell your car. whether it's a year old or a few years old. we wanna buy your 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responded to the armorer's request to attend a training days before the shooting. let's bring in cnn's lucy kafanov for more. lucy, as jim said, alarming and disturbing allegations in this complaint. >> reporter: that's right. a lot of allegations in this lawsuit filed on wednesday. hanna gutierrez reed accuses the weapons fire for that low-budget western of making false representations. the suit alleges that he supplied a mismarked box of ammunition containing live rounds in a box that was labeled "dummies" even though it contained seven live rounds mixed in with 43 dummies. she also said on the day of the shooting she and other prop assistants handled the guns out of the safe. she remembers cleaning the gun baldwin had used, placed what she thought was another round from that dummy ammo box, and then spun the cylinder for the assistant director dave halls, showing him what she thought were loaded blank rounds. the armorer said halls told her the gun was not going to be used for the scene or the rehearrehe so he left the gun on the set and attended to other duties. halls was supposed to alert her if anyone else used the gun because she was required to reinspect it. about 15 minutes later, she claims that halls gave the firearm to baldwin and shouted "cold gun," which signified that firearm was empty or contained blank rounds. let me read you a portion of the complaint. "had hanna been called back in she would have reinspected the gun again and instructed alec on safe gun practice which was her standard practice and under circumstances when baldwin did not respond to her request for a training and the gun had been out of her possession for 15 minutes." now, gutierrez reed also alleged that kenny tried to shift the blame on to her and that the ammo business owner has tampered with the ongoing investigation. cnn has reached out to seth kenny, to alec baldwin, as well as the attorney for halls for comment but did not immediately hear back, guys. >> remarkable development here. it will be interesting if they can present evidence of that allegation. lucy kafanov, thanks very much. from food to used cars to gas, inflation is wreaking havoc on many americans' budgets. a look at what exactly is fueling the inflation right the most is coming up. just ask your cvs pharmacist. we search for savings for you. from coupons to lower costs options. plus, earn up to $50 extra bucks rewards each year just for filling at cvs pharmacy. 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matching your job description. president biden on his administration's response to the omicron surge. let's listen in. >> -- and our fema director for joining me today. we were joking earlier, not really joking, when you need something done, call in the military. fema will make sure it gets done. look, we're about to get a covid-19 briefing from military medical teams on the ground in arizona, michigan, and new york. they're part of a major deployment of our nation's armed forces to help hospitals across the country manage this surge in the omicron virus. surge. has an impact on hospitals. like all health care workers, they are heroes and i'm grateful for what they do. but before we begin, i want to provide an update on our fight against covid-19 and announce new steps. first the update. i know we're all frustrated as we enter this new year. the omicron variant is causing millions of cases and record hospitalizations. i've been saying that as we remain in this pandemic -- this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. i mean by this right now both vaccinated and unvaccinated people are testing positive, but what happens after that could not be more different. if vaccinated people test positive, they overwhelmingly have no symptoms at owl or they have mild symptoms. the you're unvaccinated, if they test positive, you are 17 times more likely to get hospitalized. as a result, they're crowding the hospitals, leaving little room for anyone else who might have a heart attack or an injury in an automobile accident or any injury at all. and, yes, the unvaccinated are dying from covid-19. but here's the deal. because we've fully vaccinated nearly 210 million americans, the majority of the country is safe from severe covid-19 consequences. that's why even as the number of cases among the vaccinated americans go up, deaths are down dramatically from last winter. for example, before the vaccination requirements the united states -- united airlines was averaging one employee dieing a week from covid-19. after implementing this requirement, it's led to 99% of its employees being vaccinated, united had 3,6 00 employees test positive but zero hospitalizations. zero deaths in over eight weeks. but as long as we have tens of millions of people who will not get vaccinated, we'll have full hospitals and needless deaths. so the single most important thing to determine your outcome in this pandemic is getting vaccinated. if you're not vaccinated, the 210 million american people who are vaccinated are in danger. if you are vaccinated, join the more than 80 million americans who have gotten the booster shot with the strongest protection possible. vaccines are safe. they're free. and they're widely available. do it today for the safety of yourself, you kids, and the country. i don't like to outline the next steps we're taking against -- i like to outline the next steps we're taking against the omicron variant. vaccinations are obviously the most important thing we're doing. but they're not the only important thing. first, masking. masking. masking is an important tool to control the spread of covid-19. when you're indoors in public places, you should wear the mask. and there are a lot -- you know, lots of different kinds of masks out there. the centers for disease control, the cdc, says that wearing a well-fitting mask of any of them is certainly better than not wearing a mask over your nose. it's about one third of americans reporting that don't wear a mask at all.-third of americans reporting that don't wear a mask at all. as i've said in the last two years, please wear a mask. i think it's part of your patriotic duty. it's not that comfortable, it's a pain in the neck, but i've taken every action i can as president to require people to wear masks in federal buildings and on airplanes and trains because they're going across state lines. i've made sure that our doctors and nurses and first responders have the masks they need. never again we're going to have our nurses using homemade masks and garbage bags over their clothing for hospital people that don't have the gowns. we more than tripled our stockpile on the most protected, specialized n-95 mask since coming into office. this is going to make sure that there will be an ample supply of health care workers and first responders. we also helped make sure that high quality masks are widely available and ample supply, affordable prices sold online and in stores, but i know for some americans the mask is not always affordable or convenient to get. so next week we'll announce how we are making high quality masks available to american people for free. you know, i know we all wish that we could finally be done with wearing a mask. i get it. but they're a really important tool to stop the spread, especially of a highly transmittable omicron variant. so please, please wear the mask. second, testing. we're seeing real improvement in testing. when i got here, we were doing 2 million tests a day. now -- and it's changed. none of these tests were at home or rap i would tests. this month, it's estimated that we will hit approximately 15 million tests a day and we'll have over 375 million at-home rapid tests in january alone. that's huge leap. we've invoked the defense production act as early as last february to ramp up production. and we're on track. we're on track to roll out a website next week where you can order free tests, ship to your home. and in addition to the 500 million, half a billion tests that are in the process of being acquired to ship to you home for free, today i'm directing my team to procure an additional 500 million more tests to distribute for free. a billion tests in total to meet future demand. we'll continue to work with the retailers and online retailers to increase availability. for those who want an immediate test, we continue to add fema testing sites so there are more than -- more free in-person testing sites. for those of you with insurance, you can get reimbursed for eight tests a month. for those without insurance, we have over 20,000 free testing sites all around the country. you can find the nearing testing sites for you by googling covid test near me. google covid test near me. to lead our federal program, i've tapped -- i home i pronounce it -- dr. inglesby. correct? he's one of the world's leading infectious disease experts, and i'm grateful for his willingness to help us tackle this challenge. the third thing. today we'll discuss our hospital response efforts. just since thanksgiving, over 800 military and other federal emergency personnel have been deployed to 24 states, tribes, and territories including over 350 military doctors, nurses, and medics, helping staff the hospitals who are in short supply. this is on top of more than 14,000 national guard members that are activated in 49 states. these deployments are fully paid for by the federal government. we've shipped personal protective kwmt, gloves, masks to protect frontline health care workers. we've shipped more treatments of covid-19, which includes antiviral pills, than at any point in this pandemic. in addition, i've directed fema to work with every state, territory and the district of columbia to make sure they have enough hospital bed capacity. today i'm announcing our next deploit of six additional federal medical teams, a total of more than 120 military medical personnel to six hard-hit states -- michigan, new york, new jersey, ohio, rhode island. let me close with this. it's been a long road. but what's clear as we get through this when everybody does their part, no matter where you live, no matter your political party, we've got to fight this together. unfortunately, the military stepping up, as they always do, there are others sitting on the sidelines. if you haven't gotten vaccinated, do it. personal choice impacts us all. our hospitals, our countries. i make a special appeal to social media companies and outlets, please get rid of the misinformation and disinformation on your shows. it has to stop. covid-19 is one of the most formidable diseases america has ever faced. we've got work together, not against each other. we're america. we can do this. for the military medical teams on the ground, thank you for all you're doing. i'll stop here so we can get the briefing started. thank you for taking the time. >> mr. president, do you have a message for vaccinated americans who wonder why they have to continue to restrict their activities with health officials saying most americans will get covid at some point? >> folks, we'll talk about that later. come on. >> why should americans trust the administration with -- >> are voting rights -- >> thank you so much. appreciate it. >> mr. president -- >> and you've been listening to president biden lay out measures that the administration is taking to combat the omicron surge. we heard him talk about the need for more masks in this country, something that the administration is working on, delivering free higher quality masks to the public, and some news was made there in addition to the 500 million at-home tests that are going to be sent out as soon as next week, the president said an additional 500 million, so a total of 1 billion tests, in the coming weeks will be distributed to the public. clearly a lot of pressure to get more testing out. but, jim, no denying it. his main focus from the start to the end there was those who were unvaccinated, blaming them for the surge that we're seeing in hospitals that are being so overwhelmed right now that military personnel are being sent out. >> he said we're america, we can do this, but it requires effort, vaccination and also wearing the mask. we have sanjay gupta with us. sanjay, he spoke to the point we referenced when we spoke to you earlier, which was getting more antiviral pills, treatments out to people, shipping them out. based on that answer, did that give you the answer you were looking for? >> there are still some questions on how that plays out. when it comes to the therapeutics like paxlovid, this antiviral pill, very effective, more effective even than something people have heard of, tamiflu, for the flu. again, this oral pill you take at home. you don't have to go to the hospital. it requires a fair amount of production, talking to the people who are producing these types of therapeutics. there's lot that goes into it. it can take six to nine months to produce that. it's tough to ship it out unless you started that production process half a year to nine months ago. so exactly how that might speed things up i think is still a little bit unclear. but it's good that those three big topics -- masks, potentially free masks he said going out as early as next week. what does that mean? they come in the mail? you have to pick them up? the testing, the goal is 500 million tests a month. that's more than we're doing. probably still not enough, though. i hate to say that because it's so much better, yet, you know, we talked about the fact that every american could potentially test themselves twice a week. if you're thinking about, that you're talking about 600 million tests a week, roughly, as opposed to 500 million in a month. then as you mentioned the therapeutics, you know, angle is something i think we need to hear more exactly how that's going to play out. he did mention at the end, as well, i don't know if you caught it at the end, making an appeal to really cult down on misinformation in various media channels. so i think that was an important message as well because there is still a lot of misinformation about the value of vaccines and masks and all those things. >> mis and disinformation that affects people's health and endangers their lives. sanjay gupta, so good to have you to break it all down. thanks to all of you for joining us today on yet another busy news day. i'm jim sciutto. >> i'm bianna golodryga. "at this hour" with kate bolduan starts after a quick break. ctio. 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