you made reference to antiviral. the fda approved new antivirals, why haven t there been push to use them? it feels like they are sticking to just vaccine and not talking antivirals at all? doctor: because there s not enough of antivirals yet to go around. the pfizer antiviral and merck antiviral are limited quantity. it s usually high-risk individuals because there s not enough doses out there. as we get into the late winter and into the spring they ll be more doses and become more routine drug that can be used to keep people out of the hospital. i just wished we had more of it because it is such a path-breaking drug. mike: one issue that got a lot of attention vaccinated people that contracted omicron, here is dr. rochelle walensky today. that is true, it s infecting them at a lower rate and importantly those people who are vaccinated and affected in omicron are not the ones that
coming to the fore. how important is the testing aspect in this battle? testing is going to be really important for the foreseeable future, because people want to know their status. they want to know, is it safe for me to be around other people? is it safe for me to go to this event? and as we get more of the pfizer antiviral, we want people to be tested very promptly so they can be linked to treatment. testing will be something that s with us for some time. hopefully we expand it and include other things like influenza and mono and rsv so we can take this momentum for home testing and transform the way infectious diseases are diagnosed. doctor, you spent some time over the weekend at a hospital. what have you seen there? what we re seeing is that hospitals have a lot more covid patients than they did just three weeks ago. however, they re of a different caliber. we see a lot of incidental infections. in the past, everybody that was there, that was covid postwas
on. what both ari and morgan have said is largely right. i think our christmas season, the celebratory aspects of it have been notched down a bit in light of all that we are dealing with. i look at some of the positives. 72% of americans, 18 and older are vaccinated a year ago today less than 1% were. 32% of americans are boosted and that pace of boosting has gone up as we unfortunately have faced the omicron battle. ari is right though. the administration should have done a better job with regard to testing and it sounds like they realize they are behind the ball and i give president biden great credit for acknowledging that and saying we have to do better. back now and understand how much our nerves are a little rattled and how the community bond and national bond is a little strained as we head into the season around all of this. i think the real thing i m excited mostly about is what you asked there last and morgan commented upon. we may have a game changer in pfizer antiviral. w