group but you cannot actively participate in it. we will have to see in the coming months whether that makes a fundamental difference on any trend that develops on extremism in the ranks. victor. barbara starr, thank you. top of the hour, i m victor blackwell, good to be with you. five days now until christmas, and the pandemic is taking what experts are calling a grim path forward. today the u.s. is averaging more than 130,000 new infections a day. that s a 10% increase over a week ago. new york, an early epicenter of the pandemic has seen record positive case numbers for three days in a row. mayor bill de blasio says he will decide this week whether to go forward with new york s famed new year s eve celebration in times square. cnn s jason carroll is with me now. what more are we learning from the mayor, also the governor today as they move forward on this new surge? the mayor is saying a couple of things. first and foremost, he said earlier today that there are no pl
at winter of severe illness and death. what the vice president says the white house didn t see the variants coming. meantime, spiking cases forcing holiday shows to shutter and up ending the return of live pro sports. i believe we re facing major cancellations. tonight, the country s top covid advisers reminding america science can and will save us. we have the tools to do it but we need the american people to do their part to protect themselves. we will win this war with this virus. i am pamela brown in washington. you re in the cnn newsroom this saturday. tonight, america on alert as covid surges ahead of the busy holiday week. president biden acknowledging the growing public concerns, now planning a speech on tuesday focusing on the omicron variant. with the new covid surge, holiday celebrations and everyday life are becoming more disrupted by the day. a short time ago we learned saturday night live cancelled the live studio audience for tonight. the radio
reported a heavily contagious strain of covid-19. the world health organization naming it omicron. so far there s fewer than 100 cases. it is sparking worldwide panic, spooking the stock market. biden pressed open why he s waiting until after the weekend to block people from coming in. we re going to be cautious, make sure there s no travel to and from south africa and six other countries in that region except for american citizens that are able to come back. we don t know a lot about the variant except that it s of great concern. seems to spread rapidly. why not do it now? why wait till monday? because that was the recommendation coming from my medical team. wait. aren t travel bans supposed to be racist? it wasn t long ago when democrats and the media denounced president trump for banning travel to and from china at the start of the pandemic and then candidate biden prom mythsed to shut down the virus. he was screaming about this the loudest. in moments like this,
black friday. a new and alarming coronavirus variant has been detected in south africa. officials are praerg to brief the world health organization. scientists are correspond because it spreads rapidly and shows the ability to evade immunity. there have been a spike in cases the last several days in south africa. it is known as b 11529 has been detected in israel and hong kong. the united kingdom banned flights from six african nations starting today. and the eu is confirming it also plans to halt all air travel from southern africa. cnn correspondent elizabeth cohen joins us with this top story. we know the world health organization is planning to meet today to discuss whether they should label this a variant of concern. so what are you expecting right now? reporter: i am expecting that they likely will label it a variant of concern. but i want to make something clear. variants and mutations happen often, all the time, actually. most of them come and go and we don t take
identified in south africa spreads rapidly and may show the ability to evade immunity and there s serious concerns that the covid advance evens may be less effective against this new strain. new covid cases meanwhile have surged in south africa in recent days. a growing number of countries, including the uk and france, are now banning travelers from south africa as well as neighboring countries. the variant has also been spotted already in belgium, hong kong and israel. the world health organization is warning it will take weeks to learn more details. all of this causing markets around the world to tumble. the u.s. markets included. they are down sharply. the dow jones industrial average, as you can see there, down roughly 1,000 points. so we ll start with this latest news out of south africa. that s where we find cnn s david mckenzie live in johannesburg. what are you hearing from south african health officials today? alex, just a short time ago the south african health mi