escaped death. today we remember harry reid s remarkable life. and a diplomatic follow-up. we re now learning president biden plans a thursday phone call with russia s vladimir putin. just moments ago at a white house coronavirus briefing, the nation s top health officials reminded us about complacency as covid cases are skyrocketing in the u.s. they said data overseas points to the new variant being less dangerous to vaccinated people, but its exact severity especially for children is still to be determined, and a contract for billions of free home tests is expected to be completed next week. health officials are also defending new guidance to allow people who test positive to leave isolation sooner if they don t have symptoms. the cdc director told cnn they re following the science but also human behavior. it really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate. we have seen relatively low rates of isolation for all of this pandemic, so we real
in the case of children. and a troubling sign, pediatric hospitalizations have jumped nearly 50% in the last week, approaching a peak not seen since september when the majority of covid cases were caused by the delta variant. and even these staggering numbers may not show the full picture. in miami and all around the country, people are lining up, some before dawn, to get tested. some are waiting hours, others scheduling days in advance. and for those lucky enough to find at-home tests, the positive results are not reported to the cdc. now the fda is raising doubts about those tests accuracy, especially with the omicron variant. cdc director richelle walensky says the nationwide shortage of tests was not driving the decision to cut the isolation period from ten to five but what the nation can tolerate. we re going to talk to elizabeth cohen. elizabeth, can you break down some of these numbers for us. jessica, let s take a look at what s happening with cases. we have surpas
we begin with the staggering covid numbers. the u.s. is now averaging more than 237,000 new daily cases, and several states are near all-time peak covid hospitalization levels. now the stark rise comes as the cdc announced it s cutting the recommended isolation period for asymptomatic infected americans in half. instead of staying away from other people for ten days the cdc says stay home for just five, that s if you re asymptomatic by day five. now the agency says the change is driven by data showing most covid transmission happens one to two days before someone has symptoms, and in a two to three days after. want to get straight to cnn medical correspondent elizabeth cohen. this is a major change. what kind of precipitated this? what precipitated is, phil, was the statistic you just gave where they said, look, if you re most symptomatic right before and two or three days after exposure, why are we keeping people out for ten days? they started to see we re losing doctors.
asymptomatic and if you keep wearing a mask. it is welcome news for industries struggling with staffing shortages amid the latest covid surge. airlines, hospitals, others all dealing with massive disruptions. several states are now nearing peak pandemic level hospitalizations. new infections fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant are rising rapidly. the u.s. now averaging over 237,000 cases a day. that represents a 66% jump over the last week. cnn s senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen is here now with more. elizabeth, some may be confused by this new cdc guidance. there s still a downforce. what does it all mean? first of all, people are confused because it s confusing. this guidance is extremely difficult to understand, and i think it s really going to be controversial. some people, experts i ve talked to said this is right way to go, others have said, hmm, this could be problematic, especially as schools go back into session next week. let s take a look
minister for a state visit. looking at pictures there now, india of course a critical ally to the united states at a time when relations with china are more strained. and then in the north atlantic ocean, a final push to findsubmersible, the big question this hour, have they run out of air. and we want to begin with that story, the critical deadline in the search for that submersible with five people on board that went missing on a voyage to the titanic. the u.s. coast guard estimates that oxygen may have run out as two new search vessels arrived this morning. we want to go right to tom costello. bring us up to date, where are we on search efforts this morning? reporter: absolutely. and from boston coast guard command center, here s the latest. we are now well past that 96-hour window when they thought air might start to just simply be gone, that it might be exhausted inside that sub. keep in mind, the sub went into the water sunday morning 8:00 a.m. or so, and so now we