a problem from the very beginning, right? increased testing wasn t a focus. it was a problem from the beginning but, remember, what december we sent 180 million of the rapid tests out. that a year ago that we were able to do this. but that s enough for like half of america to have one test. they were never sent to american homes. we all remember the long testing lines, the drive-through testing places and a year later. we just had this report that came out on friday from the how is that said basically that there was guidance and pressure to change testing guidance so that amountic people didn t get tested to reduce the number of cases positive that would be out there so i just don t want, you know, a white-washing of the history but that s a problem. not only is the report byteses but your reporting of the sorority completely incorrect about what the report
president s address and afterwards as well. thank. what a difference a day makes. yesterday as we went to air, you ll recall the latest cdc breakdown showed the delta variant accounted for the vast majority of cases other in the u.s. today the cdc s updated numbers show a complete flip. omicron is now making up almost three out of four new infections nationwide. the entire trajectory of the pandemic changing overnight for americans. let s bring in cnn medical correspondent ecohen. elizabeth, experts knew omicron would eventually be dominant. did they know would happen so fast? break it down for us. reporter: i m not sure that they knew that it would happen quite this fast. this has really been incredible. we remember when the so-called uk variant, that s what it was called at the time, when that took over. that was fast. when delta took over, that was fast t.wasn t as fast as this. let take a look at what happened has happened just in the past two weeks.
if you look at the week ending december 4th.07% of new cases new cases of covid in the u.s. were of the omicron variant. december 11th that went up to 12.6%. by december 18th, as you said, nearly three out of four new cases were omicron. that is a jump from less than 1% to 73% in less than two weeks, and in some places it s even more than 73%. the cdc says in these pockets, in the northwest and in the southeast, in these 12 states, it s actually more than 95%, more than 95% of new cases are omicron. aprila? and we ve also learned of the first death now from the omicron variant here in the u.s. tell bus that. reporter: right, this is a man from houston in his 50s. he was unvaccinated which is not surprising. we know the unvaccinated get much more sick or much more likely to die from omicron, and he also had underlying health
we are seeing a bigup upsurge in cases. thankfully in general they are more mild and thankfully the health care system is well positioned to deal with it. but it s a tough few weeks and we need to understand that and do everything possible to address that. getting vaccinated, getting booster shots is something the mayor has continuously pushed. and this afternoon, anna, he also announced what the city is offering is a $100 incentive for all the people out here in the city who have gotten vaccine shots to get booster shots. a $100 krennive to get a booster at a city site from now until january 31st. anna. all such deja vu, thank you for your reporting. let s get invieth from guests, dr. carlos del rio, associate emery school of medicine. we are seeing the lock lines for testing here in new york city and other parts of the country. how is this still happening?
be overwhelmed if gatherings get out of hand. she s also warning everyone to ditch the cloth masks saying they are aren t effective enough right now. most canadians are restricted to having ten people or less their homes over the holidays but situation is most acute in quebec where cases continue to rise dramatically, and that province has now closed bars, movie theaters, casinos. it is sending some schoolchildren home early for the holidays, and it says the situation right now there is critical. reporter: i m ben wedeman north of rome. in cities across europe, including landon, paris and rome, public holiday festivities are being cancelled as a wave of covid, including the highly contagious omicron variant, sweeps across the continent. france is seeing the highest number of severely ill covid patients since may of this year,