response team. nationwide, cases climbing quickly, hospitalizations reaching peaks we have not seen since the early days of this pandemic. and more unvaccinated americans are dying. i'll talk to two doctors in two different states experiencing the same tsunami of hospitalizations. we're not even at the worst of the surge in omicron yet. also this hour, the balance of power in washington at a tipping point. it could all boil down to newly redrawn state maps ahead of the 2022 midterms. right now in north carolina a panel of judges hearing a case that could be a major boon for republicans. how it's dialing up pressure on democrats to pass voting rights legislation. also, just days from the anniversary of january 6th, the state of extremism in our country. a closer look at what people who were at the u.s. capitol that day have been up to in their hometowns since the insurrection. here's a hint. more culture wars. >> we want to start with the latest on this pandemic and the current rise in covid cases and hospitalizations nationwide. with us, nbc chief white house correspondent peter alexander, heidi przybyla and dr. gupta. there are at the people's house, the president set to meet with his covid response team just a few hours from now. how is the white house strategy changing to meet this new phase in the pandemic? >> reporter: let's start with a snapshot of this phase of the pandemic. the cdc within the last few minutes announce right now that 95% of the covid cases in this country are from the omicron variant. just 5% of them believed to be from the delta variant. now, obviously this comes amid that rapid surge of cases we've seen around the country with the country hitting new highs. the white house insists that the focus should not be on case counts, but hospitalizations and deaths. the white house has said that the desire of those vaccines is to try to limit severe illness. as a function ofcases being so high, hospitalizations have gone up as well. hospitalizations now in 20 states have reached a high. certainly there are alarming numbers as it relates to children as well. the president will be briefed by his covid response team this afternoon, expected to make some remarks. he's going to learn a little bit more about the effort to try to direct resources to states right now and likely to be asking questions about the testing situation right now, the white house saying it wanted to provide 500 million tests to americans, but that contract to be signed in the course of the next couple weeks. it's likely that number 500 million tests will not be available this month. it may be a matter of marks. >> dr. gupta, let's talk about the cdc announcement shortening the time between the initial vaccination and the booster shot for pfizer. they've also agreed to expand booster shots for immuno compromised children aged 5-11. >> for all the parents watching out there, it just goes to show that that third dose for kids is safe. i can't tell you how many conversations i've had with parents of young children who worried about side effects like myocarditis. this announcement today by the cdc, immuno compromised children often feel unseen. they can get their formal access on that third shot, so really good news, especially because, as you know, across zip codes in this country there are different policies on masks and vaccine mandates for teachers. this is really the only way parents can empower themselves to keep their kids safe. >> nbc's stephanie gosk is following the dramatic rise in covid hospitalizations we're seeing among our children. >> reporter: across the country the vast majority of students are back in in-person classes. new numbers from the american academy of pediatrics show just how fast covid case numbers are rising among children. in the week before christmas, pediatric covid cases reached nearly 200,000. troubling numbers show an even more dramatic statistic. the very next week a 60% jump of children getting covid, nearly 300,000. the case numbers are leading to record hospitalizations of children with covid in nine different states. while some of those children are being treated for other conditions when they test positive, doctors say a significant number are getting serious cases of covid. >> covid in a very short period of time has become one of the leading medical causes of death for children in this country. so i think it's about time that we stopped downplaying the significance of covid for children. >> reporter: the omicron variant is even having an impact on the unborn. holy cross in fort lauderdale is shutting down its maternity ward because of a surge in cases among hospital staff. at the texas children's hospital, there were zero pediatric cases when december began. now there are 70. >> today's hospitalization numbers have surpassed our peak of patients during the recent delta surge. >> reporter: the problem, say health experts, low vaccination rates for young children. >> we are beginning to vaccinated our 5-11 year olds. when you look at who's been in the hospital, it's actually those 5-11 year olds who have not yet received the vaccine. >> reporter: the fda authorized booster doses for children ages 5-13. some parents hope the extra dose of protection will help their kids stay in school. >> i just would like it if everybody felt confident in the booster and all the kids got vaccinated. i don't only want my kids to be safe. >> reporter: families facing difficult choices in the weeks ahead. later today the president will be meeting with his covid response team to talk about resources and case numbers. then he's going to be addressing the nation. back to you. >> heidi we just heard about the record number of children hospitalized with covid. i know you've been following the massive numbers of teachers calling out sick with covid. >> we've found that a number of the largest school districts are reporting up to 10% of their staff calling out sick. nationwide that breaks down to about 2100 k-12 schools that will close for in-person learning this week at least part of the week. syracuse, cincinnati, miami, it's pretty much all over the country. they say they've never experienced anything quite like this, specifically schools unable to open due to staffing shortages. administrators having to become substitute teachers. florida one of the states with a ban on mask mandates. >> today was very chaotic. there were administrators deployed that were out covering classes. there were offices that were completely closed because they used all staff and available personnel to watch and monitor kids. it's not conducive for education. >> craig, i also talked to the head of the national education association, who said to expect rolling shutdowns, due to the wave of infection off of christmas. be warned. officials are also expecting a new years spike. the one redeeming thing is that educators are hoping that this just gives the public a jolt about how severe the staffing issues really are in ducation. about 35% of school staff positions nationwide remain unfilled. >> dr. gupta, since the start of this pandemic we've been hearing how children tend to not get as sick with this virus as adults. it would seem as if now we're seeing record numbers of cases and hospitalizations among children. how concerned are you that we're seeing more kids testing positive and hospitalized for the virus? >> craig, this is vital reporting, because even though the share of children testing positive has been roughly the same from the very beginning of 2021, about 20%, that number is much larger. more people are testing positive, more kids, more kids ending up in the hospital. every viewer needs to recollection i'm an adult pulmonologist. there are more critical beds across the country that can care for adults than for kids. usually pediatric icus have far fewer beds. the capacity is much smaller. parents really need to take that seriously. it breaks my heart to know that parents still do not realize the value proposition of getting the vaccine for their kids 5-11. vaccine is the only way to keep your kid out of the hospital and to not risk having to fight for an icu bed, because those are in scarce supply. >> is there part of you that surmises perhaps with this most recent surge and the sheer number of people already infected in this country, that this most recent surge could be the last wave of the virus? or is that too optimistic? >> no, i don't. despite the bleakness here, the next 8 to 12 weeks will be grim across america, largely among the unvaccinated. yet, by the end of march i expect we're going to have a sense of hope that we're going to be past the worst of it. cold and flu season is going to be out of the way as well. omicron is going to impart some degree of crossover immunity for those who in the future get infected with a variant. that's the hope. hopefully we're going to see a different outlook come april 1st. >> let's end on hopeful then. thank you, sir, as always. the other big story this morning, we're keeping our eyes on quite the frustrating situation that continues to play out on i-95 in virginia just south of washington, d.c. and people along a 50-mile stretch have been stuck in their cars for hours in the freezing cold, overnight and through this morning after a huge winter storm slammed the area. virginia's governor says crews are working to clear downed trees and disabled vehicles and to reroute drivers. joining me now, one of those stranded drivers. justin beal is driving from florida to maine. he's been 75 miles south of washington on i-95 for 17 hours. justin, i can't even imagine. what have you been doing in your car for 17 hours? how have you been passing the time? >> luckily for me, i'm not alone. my girlfriend is with me. we've been streaming netflix, eating food and making friends that we're stuck with here on i-95. it's been an adventure, to say the very least. >> how about gas and food? >> lucky for us we spent the holidays with my family in south florida, who decided to give us with some gift baskets that we've been munching on for the last couple of days. we just really lucked out that we actually filled up the car maybe about 10 or 15 miles before we hit the dead stop right outside of fredericksburg. we were fortunate enough to be in a better position than most when it came to fuel. >> are you moving at all right now? >> yes. right now is the most we've actually moved. what the state police just had us do while i'm on the phone with you is we're trying to go northbound back to maine. what they just had us do was keep driving north and we just switched over to go back southbound on 95. we're moving, just in the opposite direction of the direction we want to go. >> how long have you been dating the young lady? >> we've been together about 3 years. >> and you've been stuck in a car for 17 hours. this could have gone either way. >> we're still here. i'm able to talk to you on the phone so that's pretty promising, i think. >> what have officials told you about getting back to maine? >> good question. the only thing i've been able to get is either through twitter or the vdot website. everything we're getting is no timeline. nobody knows exactly when northbound traffic is going to resume. all we can do is just stay hopeful that some things are going to happen to really open that up. what makes us nervous as we're all locked up and stuff, you're seeing older folks in cars, there's abandoned cars, there's young people, animals, things like that. we're hoping there's some kind of emergency management plan from governor northam or the federal government. >> i'm glad you're okay. it sounds like you've got provisions there. i'm glad your long time girlfriend is doing well. keep us posted. best of luck. >> thank you for having us. >> wow, 17 hours. can you imagine? coming up, i quit. brand new numbers showing even more american workers are saying good-bye to their jobs. stephanie ruhle standing by to explain why so many people are giving their notice and what it all means for our economy. and a key fight playing out in a north carolina courtroom. why some experts argue that state's new congressional maps could give republicans an outsized amount of power. and they are sicker, they are younger and it is scary. that's what one new hampshire doctor says about the new covid patients overwhelming her hospital. why she is saying this was all preventible and it is making her mad. making her mad. >> i've not ever seen a patient here in the icu who's been fully vaccinated with a booster, not one. this doesn't have to happen and i'm told it's going to get worse. n and i'm told it's going to get worse. not caused by a heart valve problem. so if there's a better treatment than warfarin that's a trail i want to take. eliquis. eliquis reduces stroke risk better than warfarin. and has less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis has both. don't stop taking 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just have to navigate the world so that a foster child isn't doing it solo. you just have to stand up for a kid who isn't fluent in bureaucracy, or maybe not in their own emotions. so show up, however you can, for the foster kids who need it most— at helpfosterchildren.com this morning the great resignation continues. the first week of the new year numbers just in from the bureau of labor statistics show a whopping 4.5 million people in this country quit their jobs in november. the industry is saying the biggest losses include foot and hospitality, health care, transportation and warehousing. nbc news senior business correspondent stephanie ruhle joins me now to break down this new report and what it all means for the economy. steph, what do these numbers tell us? what could it suggest about where things are headed as this pandemic rages on? >> that last segment, that poor guy has been trapped in a car with his girlfriend for 19 hours, okay? he can't go use the restroom. both of their breath probably stinks and you're all how's it going? they probably want to run for the hills. they're trapped in a car and you're on national tv getting up in his grill. i quit you. >> i was trying to help the guy. >> the guy's praying for a restroom any minute now. so you think you're going to get engaged on this trip. you are done. i'm quitting you. let's talk about all the people who are quitting. it's no surprise we saw an enormous amount of people working in retail, in restaurants, in hospitality quitting their jobs. this full notion that they're saying i'm making so much money or the government's helping me, i'm going to go sit down at home. think about what those people have to face. people that have those jobs where they have covid expose -- exposure. consumers around the country are arguing about not wearing masks. imagine if you are a ticketing agent, a customer service person in the airline industry and someone who had a flight cancelled had to wait ten hours to talk to you. many of those people are experiencing so much rage and anger from consumers, they are quitting. but not just quitting. we're seeing a labor shift where more a people are moving to jobs in distribution centers where they don't have to interface with customers, where people are wearing masks, where there is social distancing. if you work in a lot of these jobs, you know you have increased covid exposure. there is this great resignation, but it's also a shift. >> do they come back, rejoin the traditional workforce at some point? if so, what's it take? >> it's too soon to tell. one positive thing that we are seeing especially with bigger companies, you are seeing more employees have a bigger say, more power in places like kellogg, amazon, starbucks over the last month, these big companies that really could dictate what their workers had to do, their hours, their pay. those employers are losing power to the workers because they need to keep those workers. the one problem, even though we're seeing wages go up, they're not going up as quickly as inflation. >> stephanie ruhle, good to see you. thank you. when we come back, a legal fight that could factor into which party controls the next congress. one expert describing north carolina's new congressional maps as being, quote, very carefully optimized for republicans. why this case could be fuelled for democrats' push for national voting rights legislation. first, though, new year, new name. 18 months after retiring its old name and logo, the washington football team announced in a video just posted a few hours ago that it is almost ready to share its new name and its new look. and its new look age is just a number. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. i always had a connection to my grandfather... i always wanted to learn more about him. i 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closely. jane in 2020, republicans won less than 50% of the vote in statewide races but they secured 8 of 13 congressional seats. explain the arguments being made so far in court and why this case matters so much. >> yeah. the fact that republicans would get ten seats out of 14 in the next district, voting rights add voe cases say is evidence the districts have been rigged for partisan advantage. they're arguing that essentially it's statistically improbable that would get the districts republicans enacted unless you were seeking a severe partisan advantage. they've used data and maps to show that while you might get one or two of these districts that had a strong partisan advantage, the fact that you got all 14 to do what republicans would want, which is win at many elections, is statistically improbable. it affects the kind of numbers you are left. gerrymandering tends to icrease poll raization. you tend to have someone who's one polar opposite of the party. look at north carolina's 11 district. a decade ago it was represented by a blue dog democrat. today it's represented by madison cawthorn, one of the most conservative members of congress. that's what gerrymandeing does. it tends to elect candidates who can really appeal in a very partisan primary. >> you can look at other states all over this country where gerrymandering is real. jane, thank you. meanwhile this morning, five missing teenage girls are thankfully back home and safe thanks to a massive operation in the new orleans area. the months long operation spanned multiple agencies including the new orleans police department and the louisiana state police. the ages of the victims range from 14 to 17 years old. in all, some 30 suspects were rounded up. 17 of those suspects are charged with felony sex offender registration violations. inside our nation's hospitals during this covid surge, i'll talk to two doctors next. one of them describes the patients in her icu as sicker, younger and without preexisting conditions. what they expect, next, on the pandemic front lines. y expect, e pandemic front lines are the facs of listerine. the face of millions of germs zapped in seconds. the face of clean. the face of whoa! some are of intensity, others joy. all are of... various: ahhh... listerine. feel the whoa! ♪ got my hair ♪ all are of... various: ♪ got my head ♪ ♪ got my brains ♪ ♪ got my ears ♪ ♪ got my heart ♪ ♪ got my soul ♪ ♪ got my mouth ♪ ♪ i got life ♪ right now the most visual reminder of the explosion of omicron in our country is these massive lines of folks waiting for a test. this is a line of cars at toyota stadium in frisco, texas, monday. there's also climbing hospitalization numbers. ew jersey now at may 2020 levels. in new hampshire at one hospital, quote, there are so many sick patients, the hospital opened a surge icu on the fifth floor and now the state is making contingency plans for what they call a disruption in postmortem care. more bodies than the hospital morgue can hold. joining me now is a doctor from that hospital, dr. laura mcfee. also with us is dr. daniel varga, the chief physician executive for hackensack meridian health in new jersey. you warned our affiliate last week that hospitalizations in new jersey would likely eclipse the pandemic era high from april 2020 this month. crisis planning underway at your hospital, as i understand it. how bad could it get? >> it's difficult to say. there is clearly a big uptick. we've probably seen an increase of three to four times the seven-day rolling average of new cases. we've been over 25,000 three or four times in the last few days, which were numbers higher than we were seeing back in 2020. similarly, our hospitalizations have gone up about the same amount over that period of time. so if the trend continues as it is right now, we could well see the kind of 7,000 to 9,000 hospitalizations that a lot of the models are predicting. that would be a case count higher than we saw in april of 2020. it's a very different patient population in terms of severity, but it's still a lot of numbers. >> it sounds like you're saying that the patients aren't as severe as they were in april of 2020. there's simply more of them. >> that's exactly the case. kind of what we're generally seeing is about three times as transmissible and about one-third as severe. so that still ends up with about the same number of cases when you look at that. that's a good thing. it still taxes the hospital's capacity constraints, but it's a scenario where a lot of the folks we're seeing are shorter lengths of stay, need a few days of care in the hospital, then they can go back home, not like we saw back in april of 2020 where we were having folks for weeks in the hospital, the vast majority in icus and on ventilators. we're only about 15% in the icu and about 6% on vents right now. obviously a very different type of severity. >> dr. mcfee, i mentioned what's happening at your hospital at elliot hospital. you told our affiliate the patients are sicker, younger and many without preexisting conditions. what are they telling you once they're in the hospital? >> you know, i hope that we get to the place where dr. varga is right now. we're not seeing that in new hampshire. right now we have more covid patients in the icu than we ever have since the beginning of this pandemic. our icu is full and we've had to create a second icu just to take care of the other patients. the patients that are coming in, i think they generally didn't think they would be sick or this sick from covid. a lot of them are younger and a lot of them don't have preexisting conditions and have been healthy before coming to the hospital. a lot of them are remorseful, they're scared, they're really worried. but i think a lot of them honestly didn't think they would get this sick. >> in terms of where we are in january of 2022 with regards to the treatment tools that we have that we did not have at the start of the pandemic, have those been especially helpful there in new hampshire? >> there are certain treatments we do now that we didn't do at the beginning of the pandemic. it really doesn't change the overall course all that much once a patient is so sick on a ventilator. these patients still are on ventilators often times for weeks. we do have some medications and ventilator strategies that help. but unfortunately it's not a cure-all and despite the measures we do, a lot of patients are still dying. i don't think our outcomes are all that better than they were at the beginning of the pandemic. the patients we're seeing are sicker than they were at the beginning. they have higher complication rates. i don't think all that much has changed with what we have to offer. >> on a personal note, dr. mcvee, how are you and your colleagues holding up there? >> i mentioned it before. we're all pulling extra shifts. we are all taking care of more patients than we ever have. we're tired and frustrated that we're still in this situation because i don't think we need to be here. i think the majority of this is preventible. there's definitely that sense. but we come to work every day and take care of our patients as if they were our own family members. the days that we're angry and frustrated, there's just as many days that we're sad that this is still happening, sad to see young patients with families being destroyed. there's a lot of emotions that are happening amongst everybody here. >> we appreciate all that you're doing. thanks for your time this morning. hundreds of people have been arrested since the january 6th deadly insurrection on the capitol. but what about the others who were there that day? we've got some new reporting about what they did when they got back to their hometowns, next. to their hometowns, next aabout customization. that's why i love liberty mutual. they customize my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. how about a throwback? ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay 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and you are involved in ongoing discussions, as you just mentioned, with your colleagues. there must be s openness? >> there's basically the need for us to protect democracy as we know it and the senate as it has operated for 232 years are extremely, extremely high bars we must be very careful for being willing to cross those. i'm talking. i'm not agreeing to any of this. i want to talk and see all the options we have open. that's what we're looking at. they're bringing all the experts in, what type of options, what we can do. we've talked about talking filibuster. we continue to talk about this, very interesting. we talk about motion to proceed. we talk about also the ability to restore some privileges to the committees. they have some weights. i think these are things republicans and democrats both could and should agree on. so we want to talk to everybody. i want to engage everybody. i'm just not doing it from one side. for us to go it alone no matter what side does, it ends upcoming back at you pretty hard. i was there in 2013, i was there in 2017 when the judges came back. i don't think i don't think any happy about that. >> they are the same. they take more than a 51 vote threshold. there has been talks about three fifths of those people. it doesn't set a precedent, and we have done that before. so we're looking at all of the historical things we have done in 232 years. i want to be open and fair and i keep an open mind about it. and everybody should have make sure that they're people are accurate. when the final vote comes in, at least i have another shot knowing it was done right. >> i just want to ask two questions at once. you said and it seems like you're saying this again, you would not be open to changes the rules without republican buy in? >> that is my preference. >> that is my preference, you know, i have to exhaust everything in my about. >> and can you talk about where you are right now? and what your conversations are? >> there are no conversations. i think it is basically i was very clear. i feel as strong today as i did then, the unknown with the code, here we are, we can't even go -- it is 95 and 95. there is different concerns that we have right now inflation is still a concern. and there is political unrest, and i think the president has been doing a job to talk to putin and calm things down and bring things down. these are all expensive challenges, and that is the conversation on that. >> the standard on the child tax credit, are you a hard know on ensuring. >> it is still there as i remember. >> you have no income tax obligations. >> i have been very clear on that i think there should be a work requirement and that means you follow that, the only way you know that is if you file a 1099, so i have been very clear on that. >> is that -- i guess that has been postponed. people are having a hart time coming in, so i'll be going to a meeting to find out what that entails. >> are you open to starting -- you know, i never turned down talks with anybody. i really event. i was very clear on where i stand, and i thought it was time to do that rather than just continue on and on as we have for 5.5 months. i changed from the first day when i talk to leader schumer on that and everyone has been working on that in the best good faith they can. and i'm having a difficult time understanding where we are, and where our country is. and the concerns that we have. >> for a child tax credit, is there a work requirement for the build back better package? the bottom line is if you have a credit that means you have earnings. >> and you have earnings and you can't do that until you have liabilities. and if you have that you an off set of the credit. we're still in place until 2025. the $2,000. people think it is all gone by the wayside but that has not happened. >> how flexible are your views on the child care tax credit? >> would you prefer they shelve build back better until the next congress? >> say they have shelved build back better all together? >> well, i mean, we'll have to see what they're desires are and what the priorities are right now. they feel strongly about that and i respect that and it is just a different of opinion. doing the thing that's have been proposed. it is one being a vice president making a deciding vote and our care discuss is pretty -- it goes from one end of the spectrum to the other. and i'm sure they understand that. >> senator. >> the electoral act, and would you support build back better? >> i'm going to not talk about build back better any more. i think i have been very clear on that. there is no negotiations going on at this time. there is a lot of things that were very, i think, well intended, and there was a lot of things that were a pretty far reach on things and some of the delicate things that i don't tend to do anything, whatever i can do to unite and bring people together and that means you have to work harder. >> what is the comfort level with the climate provisions? >> there is a lot of good things in that. there is clean technologies and a clean environment, and i think we have to know. we have to have a transition the defense for more of a cleaner and you do it by creating new technology that's are the renewal that's we have. hydrogen i have been big on hydrogen, on nuclear, and basically making sure that fossils are used in a clean fashion. and in america we do it better than most countries. >> so you're not as concerned? >> i think the climb thing -- >> are you going to vote yes to imposed sanctions when that vote comes up. >> i have not thought about that. >> thank you all. merry christmas, happy new year. >> i am putting my mask back on and i did not break the rules. >> there you have it. a masked senator joemanchin on voting rights legislation and then getting rid of the 60 vote threshold to pass something. and a little build back better. andrea mitchell report starts next. starts next we've still got the best moves you've ever seen good for you, but shingles doesn't care. because 1 in 3 people will get shingles, you need protection. but, no matter how healthy you feel, your immune system declines as you age increasing your risk for getting shingles. so, what can protect you? 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