need to have society not disrupted, this was a good choice. meanwhile the number of new covid cases keeps climbing. the seven day average for new cases nationwide hitting levels we haven t seen since back in january when vaccinations still weren t widely available. joining me now from delaware, mike memoli, and in washington, d.c. where daily cases are ten times higher than just two weeks ago, and emergency room dr. spencer is with us. and mike, we ll start with you. the cdc s updated guidance on isolation and guarantee teams, cutting to five days from ten. and how much pressure was on the administration to adjust these guidelines and how are they messaging it now? reporter: yeah, i really want to highlight one word that you heard specifically from dr. fauci there in that interview with kristen welker yesterday, it was that word balance. it has been clear as the biden administration has been sort of coordinating its covid response over the last few months in particular, t
Because they can t field a team because many of their players have covid-19. and there is frustration over all of this, a lot of frustration both people here in this testing line in southeast d.c., this line stretches back as far as i can see down the street. and also frustration over the amount of testing or lack thereof that people think is available here in the city. pcr tests are increasing and the availability at locations of the pcr tests is increasing. and so is the rapid testing. but mayor bowser says that she s ordered a million rapid tests but they won t be here until january at the earliest. so mike, let s talk about that. any update on when in january those free at-home tests will be available? is the administration giving anymore details about how we ll roll them out, what the time line looks like? reporter: yeah, the short answer is no. we had that announcement from the president last week.
But firs, shaq brewster is joining us from a hospital where military personnel are on site. i understand that 20 person team from the navy was dispatched there over the holiday weekend. how are they helping and what else do indiana hospitals need right now? reporter: these are medical professionals that are essentially embedding with the doctors here at this hospital. we re talking about doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists all going in, helping them in the surge right now. and i want you to listen to what a doctor is telling me about what they are experiencing inside the hospital. listen here. we re up pure patient numbers, we re up over 120%, 130% across our hospitals. so the pure patient number burden is higher than ever. in addition to that, we have about 400 team members quarantined or either have covid or quarantined from exposures across the community. so them coming in and being able to partner, take care of that many more patients is a big
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