the higher prices as you flagged. online spending took the biggest hit as a share of overall spending, reporting a plunge of nearly 9% over the course of the month of december, suggesting it s actually higher prices, not so much omicron that is changing behavior. only two categories saw increases for the month. that was miscellaneous store retailers and building materials and gardening centers. otherwise we saw a decline across sectors. we certainly saw significant reports of the growth rising inflation at the end of last week. thank you. we ll see you again tomorrow. still ahead, how close are we to an omicron peek? dr. kavita patel joins us and the covid numbers that has us optimistic about where we re headed. way too early is back in just a minute. jooinks te te jooink
. this is a very difficult time during the surge. we re seeing high hospital rates as you mentioned and a strain in many hospitals around the country. the good news is there are parts of the country, new york in particular and parts of the northeast wrewhere we re starting to see a plateau and early decline. the entire country is not moving at the same pace. omicron started later in other parts of the country. the next few weeks will be tough. as the number of daily covid 189 cases tops 800,000 nationwide, that was u.s. surgeon general murthy warning we have not yet hit the omicron peek. joining us now, dr. kavita patel. she s a former obama white house policy director and we re happy to say an msnbc medical contributor. dr. patel, good morning. so great to see you. let s start from there, what we
crime and the effects of punishment. bret? bret: jonathan hunt live in los angeles. jonathan, thank you. president biden will talk about the past 12 months and what comes next during his first news conference of the new year tomorrow. it comes amid falling pull numbers and increasing criticism over several matters including his pandemic policies. here is white house correspondent jacqui heinrich. so help me god. on the eve of president biden s first full year in office americans will be able to finally order four free tests per household with today test.gov going live. we can t guarantee there won t be a bug or two but the best tech teams across the administration and postal service working hard to make this a success. the long shipping timeline 7 to 12 days first orders going out in late january may outrun the omicron peek. no way to collect data on at home positivity rates.