roe v wade. plus millions in the skies and on the roads in the busiest travel day of the year. we will have a live report on that. we will have an amazing story of survival, a stowaway who made it through hours of subzero temperatures. that is ahead this hour as well. we want to start with the breaking news that has much of the world on edge. more countries have been added to the list of places with the omicron covid-19 variant. australia denmark have been added in the past hours. all of those cases linked to travelers who arrived from south africa. with these new cases new travel restrictions as well. israel is stopping entry from some african nations. nbc's saf sanchez has more. >> reporter: governments around the world are racing to bring in new measures to try to shut out or slow down the omicron variant. in just the last couple of hours morocco announcing it is halting all incoming flights into its territory. that is the toughest known restriction we have seen so far in an effort to shut out the variants. here in israel in just a couple of hour's time, all foreigners will be banned from coming into the country. that ban is going to last for two weeks. and it is a decision that is going to hurt the israeli economy. israel just reopened for tourism a couple of weeks ago. now it is shutting down once again. the fact that israel's government is pushing ahead with this decision shows just how determined they are to try to keep the variant out. meanwhile, in the netherlands, they have confirmed 13 cases of the omicron variant on passengers who flew in on those last two flights from south africa. on top of those omicron cases, they also found around 50 other people also testing positive for other forms of covid, which is raising real questions about airline security and who is able to get on planes right now. the uk has also confirmed a third case of omicron. they, too, are tightening their border controls. from now on, anyone landing in britain is going to have to go into self isolation for two days until they can produce a negative pcr test. so this is a very fast-moving picture. and it is a very difficult one for anyone who is trying to travel internationally right now to manage. >> raf sanchez for us. i want to turn to the white house's response, what is happening here on the ground. the president arriving about, in d.c. moments ago en route to a briefing with his covid response team and dr. fauci as well. nbc's josh letterman is in nantucket, massachusetts, where president biden was spending much of the holiday weekend. just departing there a couple of hours ago. the travel ban on eight african countries. we are obviously hearing this is happening across the world as well along with here going into effect tomorrow. tell us more about what we are hearing from inside this briefing. any readout as of yet? >> not as of yet. in fact, we are not exactly sure whether it has started as president biden just got back to the white house within the last few minutes. as he touched down at andrew's air force base, got off air force one, we did hear very briefly from president biden when he confirmed that his number one priority upon getting back to the white housa from his thanksgiving vacation is this briefing with dr. fauci and members of the coronavirus task force. the president indicating he might have more to say afterwards. we have not gotten any indication from the white house that president biden actually intends the come out and speaking today or anything like that. certainly possible that we would hear from the president in a written statement or on twitter, something like that. but the white house, very intent on showing that they are taking this very seriously, that they are not taking anything for granted, which is why president biden interrupted his thanksgiving holiday a few days ago to meet with advisers and decide to go ahead with those travel restrictions. we heard this morning from dr. anthony fauci before he headed to the white house for that briefing when he spoke on meet the press and discussed exactly why u.s. health officials are so concerned about the omicron variant. listen. >> it just kind of exploded in the sense that when you look in south africa, you were having a low level of infection. then all of a sudden there was this big spike. and when the south africans looked at it they said my goodness, this is a different virus. it is clearly giving the indication it has the capability of transmitting rapidly. that's the thing that's causing us now to be concerned. >> so in addition to those travel restrictions taking effect tomorrow, yasmin, there is a number of other things the white house is doing. they are staying in very close contact with public health authorities in south africa and these other countries. but they are also talking to the big pharmaceutical companies because they have been telling us that moderna and pfizer are already working to see if they can create boosters that would be more responsive specifically to the omicron variant. that's of course going to take several months at a minimum before it could be rolled out to the public. the white house also working with the medical and public health authorities to figure out what they can determine quickly about the new variants that are part of -- the new variations that are part of this variant to see whether it is more transmissible, whether it is more severe in terms of health implications, and of course, whether the vaccines that we already have are going to be effective. one other thing we should note, even though they are putting these travel restrictions into employs, dr. fauci and others warning us that doesn't mean we should expect not to have omicron here. officials saying it is just a matter of time before that virus enters the united states if it is not already here, yasmin. >> josh letterman, thank you. with that i want to bring in dr. peter hotez to help us understand as much as we can about the omicron variant. easy at texas children's hospital and dean the american college of medicine. let's tick through a couple of things. what do we me about the people who tested positive for this variant? do we know if these people were vaccinated? if it is more transmissible, if it is more deadly? >> a couple of things about this. first of all, the fact that this omicron variant is popping up in multiple european cuss, australia, and quite likely the united states in itself is not a cause for alarm. pretty much every variant we have done through over the last two years by the time we find it it is already in several countries. in that sense it is in the same playbook. it sounds alarming because leaders are saying oh, my god, it's here. that's to be expected. doesn't mean it is accelerating there. second, what we have seen in terms of severity of illness, we have limited information. we are hearing reports all over the place, some saying it is not severe at all. others saying yes, we are seeing hospitalized cases in south africa. the likelihood is from what we've seen this variant is probably going to be similar to the others. we don't know that for certain but i think we should go on that premise. i think a couple of key points over this next week or so -- we are going to know whether antibodies to our vaccine and the pfizer people, the moderna people, the j&j people will know if the antibodies to these different vaccines, especially after boosting are sufficient in order to neutralize the omicron vary yachbt. those are studies that are done in the laboratory, even with the omicron variant virus itself or with the pseudovirus constructs that's made. wool know that fairly quickly. the likelihood is there may be some reduction in its ability to neutralize the virus just like there was for the variant out of south africa last year, to the lambda. but still stump sufficient activity. i don't know that for certain but i think that's a likely snare know, that's going to roll out over the next week or two. best thing you can do, get fully immunized and boosted because it will raise your antibodies making it more likely they are going to cover this variant. lastly, regarding how transmissible it is, it has really only accelerated in one province in south africa, the one that is most crowded. it didn't mean it is going to accelerate in other places. i know it is frustrating. but if we take the perspective we get have a another one or two weeks we will know more about it. right now, the delta wave is about to accelerate here in the united states in the winter. it's already going up in the upper midwest. no matter whether you are concerned about delta or concerned about omicron, it's the same playbook for now, which is get your third i am municipalization if you haven't yet. if you are out sick months from the second one. get your j&j dose. if you have been infected and recovered, get vaccinated because that's going to build in greater resilience against the variants and vaccinate your if they are eligible. >> a few questions i have in the few minutes we have left. is it time for airlines to mandate vaccines for air travel? >> i think it makes a let of sense. it makes more sense than travel bans which we know haven't been effective. travel bans haven't been effective since the beginning of this pam when we were wringing our hans happened about travel bans to china. then the virus came in from southern europe to ignite the horrible epidemic in new york city in the spring of 2020. absolutely, vaccine mandates are a far more effective way to combat this virus. >> then when it comes to young charn age 2s-5 or 6 months and up -- young children 2-5 or 6 months and up, when will testing be done? >> i don't expect it to happen before the end of the year or emergency use authorization. sometimes you get surprised. i would say in the first quarter of 2022. we tend to be more conservative with the younger kids than with other populations but i think that's the kind of time frame we are talking about. >> dr. peter hotez, as always thank you for your expertise on this. we very much appreciate it during this time. i want to go to capitol hill where the senate will be back in session tomorrow with a laundry list of deadlines on their played before year's end. their to-do list includes funding the government, raising the debt limit, passing the military spending bill, and pezzing president biden's build back better better. i think the overarching question here, how are they going to do it? >> to make things more sbg we are working with two lists. one is a list with hard deadlines attached. a must-do list of items the senate must pass and finish by the end of the year. the other is a wish list, things that democrats want to get done. build back better falls under that ladder. on the president's infrastructure package, we have been hearing all week from democrats who say, listen, it is too important to fail. but right now in the house-passed version we know there are three to four outstanding issues n the senate they need all 50 democrats on board for it to pass. those issues include paid family live leave and making sure that millionaires don't walk away with tax cuts from these bills something senators like bernie sanders certainly want to avoid. amy klobuchar laid it out on abc this morning. >> i break it down into a mini series. the first part is the defense bill, and a bridge to the budget. vast majority of senators support that, we'll get that done. second thing, the debt ceiling. if the republicans want to scrooge out on us and increase people's interest rates and make it hard to make car payments, go ahead, make that case. we are going to stop them from doing that. finally, what we just talked about, the build back better bill. we can get this done. >> the rules committee chairwoman there talking about this as a mini series while she and other democrats hope they can get to the finale in time. she went on to talk about their voting rights legislation, something she has beenworking on, it is important to the democratic party. the democrats are hoping to finish while they still control the house, the senate and the white house before mid terms kick into high gear. we also have items that need to be passed on a bipartisan mapper. the defense bill, the military funding bill they pass every year and making sure the government stays open and the lights stay on in this building that deadline is next friday. >> thank you, julie, for wrapping that all up. coming up at 4:00, florida congresswoman debby wasserman schultz joins me live with her take on the build back better bill heading to the senate. what is most important to her constituents and what she is expecting from the process. still ahead, in just a matter of day thes the supreme court will hear arguments that could shift the state of reproductive rights across this country. why a miss mess abortion ban made to it the highest court in the land. and how it takes direct aim at roe v wade. in the spotlight today w the two co-hosts of the boom lawyer podcast, eye manny gandhi and jessica. brk. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. superpowers from a spider bite? 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the federal -- captured federal judiciary. >> uh-huh. >> because, like you said, you know, no federal court has upheld this bill. no federal court has ever ruled a law like this on its face constitutional, even though we've let texas's six-week ban take effect. and so, you know, that's like super villain stuff to say we are going the lose a bunch of times before we win big. and we have to just sit and have patience there. like, there are a lot of attorneys and advocates who would have been like, you know what, even the fifth circuit isn't on our side, folks, let's find a different thing. this plan didn't come up with -- it is not like the anti-choice community like they have a bucket load of plans you pick a new one out. you capture federal legislatures and you capture the federal courts. and that's how you get to a direct challenge for roe versus wade. >> joining me now, imani gandy and jessica mason pieklo. co-hosts of the boom lawyer podcast. i listened to your podcast this morning on my run. it was exciting to listen to the way in which both of you communicate with each other. thank you for that. i learned a lot as well. jessica, let me start with you on this one. i thought one of the most interesting points -- one of the many interesting points during the podcast was the makeup of the court and how different it was now versus 2018 when this law was first established in mississippi. >> right. >> it is completely, basically, opposite. >> it really is. i think it speaks to the long game conservatives have played when it comes to abortion rights and challenge to roe versus wade. this law was passed in 2018. now several years later no federal court has upheld it. we are faced with the possibility that the supreme court will let it take effect. how did we get here? a series of judicial appointments is how. >> in 2018, i recalled writing an article about the law being pasted. at the end of the article much to my chagrin i wrote previability abortions will remain as they are unless trump stacks the federal judiciary. what happened? trump stacked the federal judiciary. >> you see this as a test case? >> it is a test case of sort the way the movement came together to pick mississippi and decide they were going the decide to see whether or not abortions made controversial. i don't see this as a whole. it is sort of stage one of the end game. the next stage is going to be whether or not fertilized eggs should have constitutional rights like you and i do, that alive breathing human people do. >> what justices, jessica, are you going to be watching? obviously, we know of the three trump-appointed justices, kauchb, amy coney barrett, gorsuch as well. then there is also clarence thomas who we know is very opposed to roe v wade. >> yeah. it will be really interesting the see what justice thomas does in the arguments. historically, justice thomas has taken not a very active role in questioning during case. but because of covid and the court is closed to the public it changed the format of things and it has made justice thomas very much more engaged in arguments. given the topic, given that it is about apportion and coming out of mississippi, i expect he will have some things to say. same with justice alito. i do think it is going to be interesting to see the dynamic between justices kavanaugh and chief justice roberts here. we know chief justice roberts is not a friend to abortion rights. he has never voted substantively in favor of abortion rights. all of his votes in favor of upholding precedent have just been that. the conservatives in reality don't need him on his side. he could join the liberals in dissenting on this case and the conservatives could still win. i do think we need to be very clear-eyed about the fact there is an antiabortion majority on the supreme court and they have their sights set on this case for a reason. so tea leaf reading about which conservative might switch sides -- we can do that but i think we need to be very, very real about the fact that even if the supreme court were to side with jackson women's health organization in this case, the status quo is unacceptable. that means there is one abortion clinic in the state of mississippi that means the texas six-week ban is still on the books. none of this is acceptable even as a win for abortion rights advocates. >> 15-week -- they are basically arguing 15 weeks is viability here, imani. 93% of abortions are performed before 14 weeks in the state of mississippi. 75% of abortions performed before ten weeks in the state. you think about if, in fact, this is a ruling in favor of dobbs how far this viability benchmark could go, despite the numbers that we see. >> the problem with sort of identifying the number of weeks gestations that abortions are available in mississippi is because mississippi has spent years chipping away at abortion access and actually had the gal to say n connection with the dobbs case, while they were trying to energy the undue burden standard which is a standard that says you can't place an obstacle in the way of a person seeking an abortion. mississippi wants, or asked the court to apply that standard to its 15-week ban. the problem is that the court has already said, categorically, that 15-week bans are unconstitutional. previability abortion bans are unconstitutional. so there is no need for the court to go into any sort of undue burden analysis. there is no need to look at whether or not abortions are available after a certain weeks gestation in mississippi because, yes, jackson women's health organization does not perform abortions past 16 weeks because they can't because mississippi has made it impossible to. so any idea that a 15-week ban being upheld by the court is going to be a compromise or inure to abortion patients is absolutely false. if we are going to talk about the court siding with mississippi that would mean the court is undoing 50 years of precedent. there is no way to get around that or make it sound better. that's just what the court will have to do in order to uphold this law. >> imani gandy, jessica mason pieklo, we are going to be covering this all week. we appreciate your voices on this very much. make sure to tune into boom lawyer wherever you get your podcasts. new episodes drop every single monday. coming up at 4:00, alexis mcgill johnson of planned parenthood and npr's nina totenberg will be joining me. up next, surviving subzero temperatures in the wheel bed of an american airlines flight from guatemala to zimbabwe. after this. guatemala to zimbabwe. after this are you one of the millions of americans who experience occasional bloating, gas or abdominal discomfort? 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nbc's steven romo. thank you for joining us on this. how busy is the airport looking now and in the hours leading up to your hit? and how are airports around the country handling these travel numbers? >> yeah, it has been busy here at la guardia. since we have been here the past few hours the security line has schedulely grown. the people i am talking to say it is pretty much what they expected. they are calling it a bit of a blast from the past, from prepandemic numbers that stands the test of the data we are about to show you. 53.4 million people are traveling this holiday. that's according to triple a. 48 million by car, 4.2 million expected to fly. that's a 5% difference, 5% fewer than the travelers we saw back in 2019, of course, before the pandemic started. one thing that several people have mentioned here is the new variant of the coronavirus. omicron. they are talking about it. but of course their travel plans, most of them were already set by the time they heard about the virus. that couldn't stop them. they had to make their way back home. here's what some of them had to tell us a bit earlier. >> there is always going to be something new, apparently. that's what happened with the delta variant, now it is happening again with this new variant. i hope people will go back to normal. people are masking and getting their vaccines. >> i have my booster scheduled for this week. everyone has been wearing masks. i feel pretty safe so far. >> reporter: it's still sort of a wait and see for many people how they are going the handle travel moving forward. i asked about christmas or new year's travel plans. they say it is too early to make those plans because they are not sure how the variant is going to play out. meanwhile, things at la guardia are busy. that's no surprise. but they seem to be moving smoothly. that's the best news all of these could hear as they try to make their way home after the thanksgiving holiday. >> glad to hear things are moving smoothly. sometimes at la guardia airport, things are not so smooth. good news there. nbc's steven romo. thank you. stow in the skies. stunning new video shows a 26-year-old man from guatemala who stowed away in an aircraft's landing gear bay during a flight that lasted more than two hours. the man you see here sitting on the tarmac was found alive shortly after the american airlines 737 landed at miami international airplane. a spokesperson for u.s. customs and border protection said in a statement, the individual was evaluated by emergency medical services and take tony a hospital for medical assessment. persons are taking extreme risks when they try to conceal themselves in confined spaces such as an aircraft. nbc's ryan nelson hit and run has more. >> reporter: videos show the 26-year-old man sitting on the ground as airport workers try to give him water. the man surviving the trip, a flight of about two and a half hours. he was taken to jackson memorial hospital. this attorney says he may be facing an expedited order of removal. >> at that point, if he's, in fact, a person who is trying to flee persecution and wants to request asylum, he will be granted a interview. but more than likely he will be detained. an nbc investigators and pilot willard shepard says based on the flight data the temperature in the gare well dropped by more than 100 degrees while the plane was flying. >> this person was in there a time period probably about two hours where they were subjected to subzero temperatures. >> former american airlines pilot wayne zizcal said he once flew a plane with a stowaway on board. >> we had an airplane, an airbus out of santo domingo to san juan, and san juan to orlando. in the middle of the summer. someone in the wheel well survived the trip. >> reporter: the faa says 129 people worldwide have tried to stowaway this the wheel wells or other parts of the plane. of the 129, 100 died from their injuries. beyond freezing temperatures, discal explains what makes stowing away so dangerous. >> lose consciousness because of lack of oxygen, or hypothermia or any of those things. and when the gear comes back down, they fall out. they are not wedged in properly or they don't hold on to something properly, and they fall out of the airplane to their death. usually, this is a very tragic thing. >> reporter: the incident also raising security questions. >> no person without access to an airline ramp should be able to walk out on the ramp and get close to any of these airplanes. much less being able to get up into the landing gear area of one of them. >> that was nbc south florida's ryan nelson reporting. more covid concerns. we will take a close look at the impact the unvaccinated are having on our health care system by talking with a michigan doctor who sees it firsthand. >> so, you know, if we are waiting for the system to break, at least around here, it's broken. you know, we are hanging on for dear life. this... is the planning effect. this is how 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already be here. one state seeing soaring case is michigan. infections have risen a staggering 86%. according to officials, hospitals are 85% full with at least eight at 100% capacity. joining me now from michigan is dr. robert davidson, an meghan markle room physician. thank you for joining us on this. here is how the president of spectrum health west, a michigan hospital, explains it. they don't have a darker color than red in terms of its current hospital status. he asked if we are in the red now, where are we going to be in two weeks? where will we be at this point, from what you are seeing in the hospitals, doctor, in two weeks? >> we don't know. we are already at such a bad point, i can't imagine it getting worse. our hospital -- i am at a small critical access hospital also in west michigan. we have 20 in-patient beds. every bed is someone with covid-19. i think one of those people have has a vaccine series but was more than six months from their last dose when they came down with the virus, so would have qualified for a booster. this is absolutely a disease of the unvaccinated. this is a wave of the unvaccinated. and this crisis is completely because of unvaccinated people flooding into the hospitals. it keeps coming. last night i worked. and another handful of people coming in with covid, several being admitted. being admitted means sitting in the er for 24 or 48 hours waiting for a bed to open up somewhere within a few hours. it is pretty bad. >> how quickly did this ramp up? >> it was like a slow burn starting early november, ends of october. we had people coming in quite sick. then in the last two weeks it just shot up. if you look at graphs across the state, certainly in west michigan, unfortunately we are the leading edge of this and continue to lead the state with numbers of cases. the federal government is sending in health care teams this coming week to rep help relieve some of the strain. i am going to try to pick up an icu shift. i have done a couple of them over the last couple of weeks. i hadn't done icu in the last couple of years because i am an emergency doc. everyone trying to do what they can do get us through. >> right now the unvaccinated make up 75% of cases, 75% of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the 30 days ending with november 5th. according the your health department, 54% of michiganers are fully vaccinated trailing the national figure of 59%. you tweeted about this. you tweeted about treating especially folks in the hospital that are unvaccinated, how frustrating it is for you as a physician. but knowing, though, it is your job to try and save them. >> yeah. i mean, it is frustrating. in talking with staff, it's frustrating in the moment, right? but in the moment, when someone is extremely sick -- i had someone in their 30s with a child who is 3 months old and their wife saying good-bye to them. someone who came in unvaccinated with symptoms and died within ten years. our staff was get gutted. one of the nurses i worked with every day for the past ten years who said after every shift that week she went home and cried in her car. misinformation is spreading -- zuk zuk allowing it, tucker and hannity telling people about it every day. ivermectin doesn't work. people are telling people it does. those are the people are there. the frustration is real but the empathy is still there. it is hard to know how long it will be there but we keep trying. >> how long until the michigan hospitals reach the peak of this pandemic? >> right now for us it is the peak. we are at another peak. unfortunately, we are at the highest covid census in our system and in our hospital than we have ever been. compared to previous ones it is a lot different. i remember it naive lee in march when we had a peak here in michigan high fiving when our shift had ended when i had no covid patients, my partner and i said maybe we are through this, people will get vaccinated, letting out a sigh of relief. and the previous one before that, the one before that, we didn't have vaccines. we were frustrated with the anti-maskers and people threatening to kill our governor over mandates. we didn't have vaccines. now we do. we were caught offguard. we thought we would be better off than this. our county is only 42% vaccinated. the surrounding counties are around 50%. we are lower than the state average, which is lower than the national average. it is showing up in the ern the icus, for weeks and months on end. it feels different in your gut. and the anger and frustration is a little bit more. >> dr. davidson, thank you for taking the time, and for all the work that you are doing. thank you. >> thanks, yasmin. all right, still ahead, everybody, a hollow victory. our next guest explains why a big win for victims of the charlottesville unite the right rally back in 2017 doesn't fell like one. msnbc pin columnist jarvis day bury joins me after the break. ♪ so light 'em up, up, up light 'em up, up, up ♪ ♪ light 'em up, 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to what happens in charlotteston, south carolina, the shooting of those nine victims at the emmanuel ame church by dylann roof. and you point to a journal entry from dylann roof talking about his motivation was to start a race war. >> yeah, and i think that's -- >> i want to read this -- yeah, i want the read this part for folks, because i think it is really good and then i want you to comment on it. given what happened in charlottesville, given what happened at the u.s. capitol on gist, given what happened in kenosha, given how republican controlled legislative bodies are wiping out black's political strength and impeding black people's access to the ballot box, who is to say that roof did not succeed? >> yes. a very depressing think to think about and contemplate. i am generally optimistic, but this leaves me feeling cynical. when you look around and consider the aspect what is a race war? i think we think of that as building being spilled in the streets. but i think we are finding now you can fight a race war in state capitals, by blocking access to the ballot. you can feis a race war by redistricting your district in such a way that black people's political strength is diluted. i don't want us to be excited that, yea, $25 million is going to go to the plaintiffs without taking a more panoramic view of what is happening in our country. >> in a way you feel like even what was kind of lost seems to the alt right and the white nationalists in charlottesville, they have subsequently gained. you wrote, on august 12th -- you are refer to the statue that was taken do you would soon be gone and black strength would be looted. that a white person would tote a gun to a rally and kill a couple of while people it is not likely they would have accepted that change. >> i would like to hear a person argue against that. if you had said we will trade you your monument for black people being blocked from the ballot box or we will trade you a statue for basically a validation of open warfare in the streets, who wouldn't take that? i think, again, we need to tamp down the excitement. is it a good thing that they were found culpable? yes. it is a very, very good thing. but at the same time that's just one little discrete battle in a much larger war. i think it is imperative that we keep our eyes on that entire war. >> jarvis, it's a great piece. thank you. if you want to read it, you can find it at msnbc.com. coming up in our next hour, everybody, the fight for reproductive rights. a deep dive into the crucial case headed to the supreme court that could eliminate a woman's right to choose. the legendary nina totenberg breaks down what to expect in the first major challenge to roe v wade under the conservative majority, and planned parenthood ceo and president alexis mcgill johnson will way in on the real impact for women across the country. and bow bert backlash. where she won't be censured over her remarks about her muslim colleague. we'll be right back. we'll 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from countries in southern africa in the wake of a new covid variant. >> when you diminish or stop or block travel it is to give you time to do thing, to get us better prepared, to rev up on the vac nation, to be really ready for something for something that may not actually be a big deal. but we want to make sure that we are prepared for the worst. >> tomorrow will also see the senate back in session, beginning a sprint to the finish on a number of items including the debt ceiling, and of course the centerpiece of the president's economic agenda, the build back better bill. >> i believe we are going to get build back better done by christmas. we need to get it done. it will make a difference in so many american lives. >> making things more affordable for families, that means bringing down the cost of prescription drugs. to me, t