police chase. now we re learning the gunman was spouting extremist, violent views online. welcome to the lead. i m jake tapper. we start with our health lead and the biden administration s top doctor is on the defensive somewhat today amid a growing chorus of concern and complaints about the cdc s shortened recommended isolation period for some people who catch covid. on cnn this morning, the cdc director dr. rochelle walensky said several areas of science backed their decision but admitted the changes were partially driven by americans being fed up and refusing to follow the longer ten-day guideline already in place. in just moments, dr. anthony fauci will join us live to discuss all of this and much more. but we re going to start with tom foreman who takes a closer look at how hospitals are preparing for a possible surge of patients as omicron cases explode. the white house expects to sign a contract for a half billion at-home covid texts next week to help americans t
covid surge we ve ever seen, the cdc director defending the decision to cut isolation time in half for asymptomatic infected people. it really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate. if we can get them to isolate, we do want to make sure they re isolating in those first five days when they re maximally infectious. reporter: the cdc arguing 85% to 90% of transmission occurs in the first five days of symptom onset. still, the new guidance is drawing fierce debate among health experts. there is absolutely no data that i m aware about with the omicron variant that puts people coming out of isolation five days after they were first diagnosed with the virus. the purpose was that given the wave, the extraordinary unprecedented wave of infections that we are experiencing now and will certainly experience more of in the next few weeks, that there is the danger that there will be so many people who are being isolated who are asymptomatic for the f
Major story today, the scramble to contain the rapidly exploding omicron variant. today the white house announced it had deployed federal teams across the country from new york to wisconsin to arizona to new mexico. these paramedics and military health experts are working in overwhelmed hospitals. they are administering vaccines, delivering ventilators, setting up new testing sites. we know cases are growing much faster than hospitalizations or deaths, at least as of now. but health officials worry that those other numbers, those latter numbers will also keep climbing. just in the last week the number of people hospitalized with covid is up 21%. and the average number of people dying per day from covid just over 1500 a day, almost all of them not fully vaccinated. that number is 18% higher. cnn s alexandra field starts us off with the growing concerns about this new surge. this was the moment we needed to make that decision. reporter: facing the biggest