Hello im Brianna Keilar alongside john avlon. Good morning. Happy friday. Good morning to you. Happy friday indeed. Good morning to our viewers in the United States and around the world. It is friday, july 23rd. And alabamas republican governor says it bluntly, it is time to start blaming the unvaccinated, she says, for the current state of the pandemic. Despite a lifesaving shot being available to every american 12 and older. In the past 30 days, coronavirus cases around the country have nearly quadrupled. Hospitalizations almost doubling. And most of those by people who refuse to get vaccinated. And if outbreaks among unvaccinated players hit nfl teams this season the league may force them to forfeit the game. Covid or not, the olympics are officially under way this morning in tokyo after a year of delays and uncertainty. First Lady Jill Biden is there meeting with Japans Emperor and shes one of 950 vips invited to attend the opening Ceremonies Today in a mostly empty stadium because
Today. Cnn chief white House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins joins us now from cornwall, england. Lets start with the vaccines. The president says this half A Billion doses come with No Strings Attached . Reporter yeah, thats kind of been the white Houses Line as theyve been talking about what their Vaccine Sharing Plan is going to be, because thats obviously a jab at other countries that have tried to trade political favors for sharing vaccines, but this does come amid some questions and even some criticism of what was the actual u. S. s plan going to be. That is what World Leaders wanted to know and the White House knew that they should have expected President Biden to get pressed on that by other World Leaders as he is on his first trip abroad, and so thats why i think this timing of this announcement is certainly no coincidence with the president announcing that the u. S. Has bought and is going to donate half A Billion pfizer vaccines. Now, a lot of those are going to go out this ye
biden on it tomorrow. of course, anderson there s questions for the president president facing this. one of those that we asked today or tried to ask him, the new cdc guidance that shortens the isolation period if you tested positive from ten days to five days if you have no symptoms or they are resolving according to the language from the cdc, today i asked him if he thought it should come with a testing recommendation. you saw the doctors saying they believed it should, not just saying you can leave the isolation period as long as you are wearing a mask. which is what the current guidance is. he said that he will talk about it later on, whether he talks about it, or will address it is yet to be seen. there s a shortage of at home tests and pcr tests are are tat are taking five days. is the white house going to do anything about it? the plan that the president has, that is supposed to happen this month in january, to distribute half a billion tests for free to people t
covid-19 team. it s an important update, given that it s about the omicron variant and the latest data on it. and what we are seeing play out across the nation. not just with the disruption, and the data and what it s looking like with hospitals and you will hear from president biden on it tomorrow. of course, anderson there s questions for the president president facing this. one of those that we asked today or tried to ask him, the new cdc guidance that shortens the isolation period if you tested positive from ten days to five days if you have no symptoms or they are resolving according to the language from the cdc, today i asked him if he thought it should come with a testing recommendation. you saw the doctors saying they believed it should, not just saying you can leave the isolation period as long as you are wearing a mask. which is what the current guidance is. he said that he will talk about it later on, whether he talks about it, or will address it is yet to be seen.
dose. the changes are part of an effort to prevent further disruptions to daily life. it comes as the omicron variant is leading to a major surge across america. the u.s. is now averaging 237,000 new cases a day, approaching the all-time high of 251,000 last january. hospitalizations continue to climb, now 71,000. pandemic hospitalization records in four states have hit their all-time peak. and the number of americans killed by covid is nearing 1,500 a day. cnn s elizabeth cohen joining us now to explain these new cdc guidelines. i have to say, elizabeth, i had to read those guidelines four to five times. i think i understand much of it, but i m really glad you re here to make sense of it for us. reporter: and they are so confusing. i read them over way more than that, talked to my producer, called one of cnn s mad cal analysts. he didn t know the answer. the v he got someone else. all of us got together. these are difficult to understand. it s unfortunate that the cdc guid