were going to have very slow ramp-up of those. are we going to look like at six months will have those available to nearly all americans who do continue to get covid? yes eventually we will get enough of. as you mention, a shortsighted plan. they did not anticipate there would be a greater need the entire focus was on vaccinations. the beauty of the antiviral medications as they are antivirus they work against any invariant, current variant any future variant we have yet to see emerge. the good news is we are seeing a rapid decline in cases right now in the united states. in the staggered states that got hit first. if you look at new york and washington d.c. there about 60% off their highs with cases. the interesting thing is receiving asynchronous epidemic were in the south we are seeing the declines almost near that of the north. that tells us the seasonality has been decoupled from
hurricane lane is dumping just a ton of rain on parts of hawaii s big island, nearly three feet has fallen in one spot, causing serious flooding, landslides, road closures, it is now a category one storm. it is south of honolulu, heading north slowly. nick watt is on oahu joining me with the latest. how are things looking? reporter: well, john, here in oahu, the rain is just starting within the past five or ten minutes. we re expecting the storm to get here within the next few hours and dump a lot of rain. as you mentioned, the big island got hit hard, got hit first, catastrophic flooding down there, up to 40 inches of rain in places. that s 4-0 inches. now the ground is just saturated. any more rain that falls is just a flash flood. now, some tourists down there had to be rescued from a rental home. further north in maui, the airport s still open but no
north slowly. nick watt is on oahu joining me with the latest. how are things looking? reporter: well, john, here in oahu, the rain is just starting within the past five or ten minutes. we re expecting the storm to get here within a next few hours and dump a lot of rain. as you mentioned big island got hit hard, got hit first, catastrophic flooding down there, up to 40 inches of rain in places. that s 4-0 inches. now the ground is just saturated. anymore rain that falls is just a flash flood. now, some tourists down there had to be rescued from a rental home. further north in maui, the airport s still open but no flights going in or out. and wildfires in maui, we don t know how they started but we know for sure the winds generated by this hurricane have been pushing those flames. one of the fires jumped a highway, more than 100 homes were evacuated. we are now just waiting for this storm to really hit oahu.
strengthen. we won t have a chance when it gets in the gulf to make more preparations. we are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. it approaches, i assure. we are in the direct line of this storm and are preparing for the worst. have evacuation orders been issued yet? for grand isle and the lower areas, you know the point of louisiana that sticks out in the gulf that got hit first by katrina, there is over a million dollars in levies being. they have no dirt or grass on them. we are concerned about the levees under construction because they will not take storm surge very long on the newly constructed levies. that is a big concern. what are worries me and you as well, the city of new orleans as you know they remember 2005