layered mission strategies. and there s been many critics, and i think it came to a fever pitch within the past few weeks. folks like bernie sanders, jacky rosen from nevada, saying that the government needs to step in and leverage its bulk purchasing powers on behalf of the american people to lower costs and increase access. there s still more that some would like them to do, like recognizing all of the rapid tests that are recognized in europe as well. but for now, this is a major step forward and something that even allies have been calling for for quite some time, jose. yeah, heidi. and dr. varon, covid hospitalizations are up 77% over the last two weeks in your state. walk us through some of the conditions health care workers in your state are facing now. well, i mean, as you well know, everybody is tired. i mean, we re exhausted. we ve been working nonstop, and one of the things that s
it s much more likely you re going to see that number go back up from 95% back up to 99%. reporter: and not only on schools, craig, but the big shift here is the approach by this administration within the past week that i want to point out which is with the free masks and the free testing, this is a big shift in the federal government using the bulk purchasing powers on behalf of the american people. all right. heidi, thank you. doctor, stand by. president biden just spent a few minutes talking about clarifying, if you will, the comments he made with regards to russia and ukraine. any assembled russian unites move across the ukrainian border, that s invasion. and met with coordinated and economic response. we ve laid it out clearly for president putin. but there is no doubt, let there
immense pressure ever since the trump administration to leverage its bulk purchasing powers, and finally, they re doing that. take a listen. so these tests will help us with omicron. but they will also help us in the period of time beyond omicron. we re going to need to have testing capacity for the long run and this program will help people meet their testing needs, meet community testing needs for the long-term. so he told me that the masks will begin to ship out to the pharmacies and community centers, the same places where you got your shots, where you get your testing. at the end of this week and hopefully access will be available sometime next week. i asked them if there were priorities groups of people who should get the masks. he said no. we think the supply is substantial enough that anybody who wants one can get one. it is still an open question. how many masks per person? all the things still kind of out there as questions and how often