Pacific time. We begin the hour with the coronavirus pandemic. Today cases, hospitalizations and deaths are up in almost every state. The number of new cases is up more than 64% this week according to the cdc. This week the new daily case average has surged to 66,000 a day, compared to 40,000 a week ago. New data from the cdc reveals it was concerned over breakthrough cases that prompted a reversal of the agency s mask guidance for vaccinated americans. The study behind the change shows threefourths of people infected in a massachusetts outbreak were vaccinated. The cdc says this suggests it is possible vaccinated people can still spread the virus. Nationwide, at least 125,000 fully vaccinated americans have tested positive for the virus according to data collected by nbc news. It is important to note that these cases though represent a total of less than. 08% of the fully vaccinated americans among us. Also new today, the fda is vowing on an allhandsondeck effort to get pfizer s covid
christmas eve and that s with testing shortages. and none of the data includes results from those at-home covid tests. the nation overall is averaging 200,000 new cases each day right now. also concerns are growing around the risks for children. there s still a lot we don t know about the severity of omicron and people without immunity like kids who haven t been vaccinated. what we do know is the number of child hospitalizations for covid have quadrupled in new york city in recent weeks. nbc s mike memoli is traveling with the president in delaware. also with us is an epidemiologist from fielding school of public health. mike, we ll start with you in delaware. what did president biden say about what he s doing to shore up testing supplies and hospital resources? reporter: the president touched down here in delaware in the last hour. he s expected to remain here for the holiday week. his last order of business in the white house for 2021 was the same order of business that h
emphasizing they re trying to reach out to passengers before they come to the airport so they know there is a cancellation or they know there is a delay, they won t come. so they re trying to reduce the bottlenecks. all of this is due to the covid numbers, employees calling out sick and to weather problems. looking ahead there in the forecast, there is some troublesome weather across the country in the coming week, and i think the numbers of covid cases are also rising slightly in places. if you put all that together, and with new year s coming, you would think there would be more travel as the week goes on. probably we re in the middle of this. i don t think we re at the end of it, we re not at the beginning of it, obviously, so we re probably in the middle of this. the best advice is to check with your airline before you go to the airport to make sure your flight is taking off, when it s taking off and if there is a delay or cancellation. this study of a fourth vaccine do
you probably have questions about omicron. we, do, too, and we don t have all the answers. let s lay out what we know and do not know about this thing. let s start with what we know. the w.h.o. says it is a very high global risk and consequences may be severe. but the south african doctor say symptoms so far have been extremely mild. here s what we don t know about this variant. how infectious is it? how quickly can it be translated? how serious is it? meaning, are people getting sicker? if you re fully vaxxed up, how protected are you? kelly, it is against this backdrop, the question marks of what we don t know and what little we do know that the president really tried to strike this reassuring tone in his remarks today that his administration is on top of this. reporter: very much so. looking the american people in the eye saying what resources he will bring to bear, those that are available now like vaccines and booster shots, and those that could be available down the l
But if you re able to get a surgical mask or a kn-95, or best yet, an n-95, that will certainly protect you better. all right, dr. celine gander, we appreciate all that expertise. i want to bring in chief medical officer of the system. doctor, thank you for being with us today. thank you for having me, lindsay. you said pennsylvania s health system was in the brink of collapse. what are you anticipating the next couple weeks as we get into this post-holiday potential surge? we have a critical situation right now in terms of capacity. our hospitals are currently at 106% of capacity. we have icu-level patients being taken care of in other places besides the icu. we have tremendously long waits in the emergency department. we re looking for that to get