the white house and the administration certainly could have done more earlier to work with the private sector to create a more stable demand by putting in large-volume orders. then finally on the back end, you have the private sector, everyone from walmart to health care systems that are misinterpreting willfully misinterpreting the cdc isolation guidance saying, glow have to go back to work at five days. that guidance is to indicate who is infectious, contagious, a threat to others, not when you re well enough to go back to work. very quickly, zeke, are we ready for the next variant? we weren t ready for omicron. are we ready for the next one? i think we have to prepare more and get better get more vaccines out there, more tests, but also better air quality. people have to wear better masks and be more scrupulous about it. if it s like omicron where we re not that infectious, i think
jeff. thank you, doctors. and with that, let s open it up for some questions. all right. we have been watching and listening to the white house covid-19 response briefing. we just heard from dr. fauci there, and before that dr. walensky who runs the cdc. i want to bring in a doctor from st. joseph health. he is a professor of medicine at rutgers and new york medical college, also the author of immunity strong . he s been listening to the briefing with us. doctor, we ve heard a lot about the cdc isolation guidance. this morning the cdc announcing that the guidance to now to say that covid people can in general leave isolation after five days if they re free of symptoms, but they can use happened antigen tests around day five of isolation, but only if they want to.
and me in new orleans. and also these guys. anderson cooper and andy cohen. they ll be here in new york. so join all of us for a very festive cnn new year s eve. it s going to start friday at 8:00 p.m. eastern only here on cnn. i will also see you tomorrow. the lead with jake tapper starts right now. a new warning from children s hospitals. the lead starts right now. in one pediatric hospital they are seeing a 1,000% increase in the number of kids testing positive for covid compared with the delta surge. but does that necessarily mean serious illness for those kids? does it mean hospitalization or worse? a pediarician from that hospital is here to explain. and if you are confused by the new cdc isolation guidance, you are hardly alone. some health experts bashing the cdc and the biden administration about what they say is really