for restrictions, closing schools, universal masking and quarantine, we will in this perpetuity forever because of influenza, there s a whole host of respiratory pathogens, this one is heavily stigmatized and we got memories when the cases were higher but people should feel good about their immunity. paul: controversy bring up at home rapid test, pcr tests and the administration is rushing out to try to address the shortage, how serious do you think this is is a failure of government or should we even be concerned about testing? it s been debated among experts whether or not a universal testing program is something we should be doing, i happen to think there s value in testing but we don t do so with influenza each year, test coming out is about 150 million a month
vaccinate or test. at least one company, ghebreyesus, has already suspended its policy requiring employees be vaccinated or tested. but demand for at-home rapid test has never been higher. so this has been 24/7 now for weeks. ron gutman, co-c.e.o. of the company that makes the ongo test, showed us the around-the-clock operation at one of its manufacturing facilities. people have seen the consequences of not knowing if they are infected or not, and i think people are more aware of the value of being tested regularly. we want to keep schools open. we want people to go back to work, and we want to do it safely. reporter: and the c.d.c. just updated its masking guidance, stopping short of recommending a specific mask, but instead telling americans they should wear the most protective mask they can that fits well and will be worn consistently. in the meantime, the white house announced u.s. households will be able to order up to four rapid tests starting wednesday
mother alabama calling on a hixy fit that trump turned on their base. we ll talk about that political twist there. the basics of coronavirus, the highly contagious of the same time less severe omicron variant continues as we discuss in covid cases and increase testing over the holidays uncovered 200,000 infections per day. in new york state, more than 400,000 people tested and not including the rapid home rapid test. one and eighth of those came back positive. nearly 50,000 new cases on sunday, breaking the record it sets the day before. florida reported nearly 33,000 new cases on christmas day. also broke its record from the
were going to be seen regular use of this medication at least for the next few weeks, maybe even a month so that won t help us in our current search for it. it makes treatment faster an less expensive because patients can take it themselves at home instead of having to go into a medical setting for injection o iv. meanwhile, during an interview with the abc news, biden admitted that while progress ha been made in the fight to contain the virus, there is still plenty of work to do. nothing has been good enough but look where we are. last christmas we are in the situation where we had emergenc rooms that were filled. we had serious backups and hospitals that we re causing great difficulties freight were in the situation now where we have 200 million people fully vaccinated. as you probably have heard b now, the administration will purchase $500 million at home rapid test beginning next month
how is it affecting you and your house and the tens of thousands of people in america coping right now. you heard it right. we are excited about going home to mississippi eating shrimp poe boys and gumbo and having turkey with my parents. my son was going to bring his girlfriend, introduce him to his grandparents. we followed the protocols. he came home. we were masked. before we got into the plane before he walked into the house we wanted him to take a rapid antigen test. we had one of those tests and it came back positive. christmas is canceled. we are not having it. the family is not going to meet in mississippi as it were. what we are trying to do is figure out how we are going to do it virtually. the point is we had the home rapid test. we realized that somebody was positive we didn t want to