plus, get holiday gifts for everyone on your list with great deals on fan favorites from today. join over a million members by signing up for free on the xfinity app. our thanks. your rewards. good morning to you. i m jessica dean. welcome to cnn holiday news. a new and alarming coronavirus variant with an unusually high number of mutations causing it to spread rapidly has now sparked concern among experts around the world. this variant also showing the ability to evade immunity. it was first detected in south
but i expect that you ll see the case move forward. we will see how it all plays out. michel moore, we appreciate you making the time. hope you had a good thanksgiving. had a great one. great to be with you. thanks. thanks again. we want to thank you for joining us today. i m jessica dean. cnn s alex marpar is picking up after a break. have a great rest of your day.
supply chain issues and higher prices affect the holiday shopping season? cnn business correspondent alison kosik is outside macy s in new york city. what are you seeing this morning? reporter: good morning, jessica. it s feeling pretty festive this morning in harold square where macy s is. the holiday lights are out, the windows are adorned with holiday displays and people are shopping at this historic department store. this will be a historic shopping period as well because we are paying the most in 30 years for so many items. but still, people are out here shopping. the retail federation says holiday spending is expected to break records this year with consumers shelling out anywhere between $843 billion to $859 billion by the time the holiday shopping season is over. today is black friday, the unofficial start of the holiday season. 108 million people are expected to shop today, and 60% of them
fauci told cnn earlier today. first of all, you want to find out if, in fact, it does evade the vaccines that we re doing. i mean, there s always the possibility of doing what the uk has done, namely, block travel from south africa and related countries. we don t know know that. that s something you think about and get prepared to do. you re prepared to do everything you need to do to protect the american public. but you want to make sure there s a basis for doing that, and there s what we re doing right now. dr. fauci also has emphasized the importance of getting boosters, which are now available to everyone over the age of 18, 18 and older. it s interesting to note there was another variant, the beta variant, first spotted in south africa towards the end of last year. there was a lot of worry about that one too, but it never sort of went on the world stage. it was in a smattering of countries. it never became like delta.