paul whelan. but let s get right to the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases for now, and chief medical adviser to the president, dr. anthony fauci. it s so good to have you lack on the show. and dr. fauci, i m going to put you to work again as we start this interview because state officials are urging americans to get vaccinated before gathering for the holidays, as cases of covid-19 are soaring nationwide. according to the cdc, 30,000 people currently in the hospital have tested positive for covid. up 30% since thanksgiving. and the average daily covid death rate is now 426. a nearly 62% increase from last week. health officials say the current tripledemic of rising covid, flu, and rsv cases, along with an over extended health care
i think that s a potential concern but it has to be weighed by the fact that we are keeping the health care work force at work. with a boost, if you are three or four months out from the first boost, the effectiveness declines from 70 or 75% down to 30 or 40%. i have advocate asked written a piece in the l.a. times recommending that for health care workers as a temporary means to bump up their neutralizing antibodies to keep them in the work force. then the he is rally government extended it not only the health care workers and also to those over 60 and 70. they are going back and forth. the longer we deliberate, the further this wave goes on and the less likely that s going to happen. i am not seeing a lot of appetite coming out of atlanta and washington to make that happen. i think if we had done it a month ago when we knew omicron was coming it could have been
recovered from the previous surge. there is so much health care that we re providing from people that delayed their care during previous surges because of covid. there are so many delayed surgeries and treatments and on top of that, we had so many health care workers quit during the past two years. you know, we lost about 20% of our health care work force and that hemorrhage out of this work force continues and so we re short staffed and that means we have beds but they re not staffed beds. we simply cannot accommodate much more. patients that would be in the hospital are staying in the e.r. and patients in the e.r. are seen in the triage and waiting room. no matter the surge, even if it s much milder and it doesn t create as many cases, whatever cases it causes is causing us to be more crowded and we are less able to give good care. on top of that, omicron is spreading so rapidly, health care workers are still getting
hospital but they are being knocked out of the work force because they are at home. also the fact that paxlovid won t be here in time, testing won t be here in time and the fact that two out of our three monoclonal antibodies simply don t work against the omicron variant. there are a lot of concerns that i have. we have got to take more aggressive measures to keep our health care work force in the work force. well, that s not exactly have a holly jol christmas there, doctor. but i think it s you know, we are always for the bracing truth here and hearing it from people with your standing and credibility. shannon, that is also something the white house doesn t want the hear. the biden administration yesterday gave more ground yesterday with david muir in acknowledging some of the short falls. how tough a pill is that for the white house to swallow, so to speak, maybe not using the right metaphor here.
i think we have to it s always best to assume worst case scenario. get ready for a surge in hospitalizations, and get our health care work force ready. it s not the same in the united states situation as it is in the u.k. and south africa. the past two years for our health care workers have been devastating. we need to thank them every day. sam in florida, cases are up 500%. obviously there s been a dramatic rise in the number of people getting tested. are we seeing a rise until the number of people getting vaccinated. please say yes. reporter: so the best marks actually are not in florida. it s about 63% of all eligible floridians who are fully vaccinated, more than like 80 to 90 in some of the more populous counties, miami-dade, broward, for example, the problem is the percentage of people who have gotten boosted is still underneath 20%. that is not what you want to see, and i m standing right now at this vaccination and testing