pamela brown tonight in washington, you re in the cnn newsroom. we begin this hour with a sobering reality on the covid pandemic. that viral blizzard the u.s. was warned about, it s here. the swift spread of the highly contagious omicron variant has pushed hospitalizations close to the record set almost a year ago, and the number of american children hospitalized with covid has soared to the highest level of the entire pandemic. helping drive that number, children under 5 who are too young to be vaccinated. many hospitals are facing a staffing crisis because covid is infecting their personnel. some states have deployed national guard troops seen here in the protective gear to help fill that void. new york is now the latest state to mandate booster shots for health care workers. a former member of president biden s covid-19 advisory board says the nation needs better long-term planning. unfortunately, if you vaccinate today the people who are unvaccinated who account for abo
be. we have so many more tools we re developing, and continue to develop that can contain covid and other strains of covid. the new normal is not going to be what it is now, it s going to be ber. now, remember, this comes at the end of a period that has seen new cases more than triple since christmas, and hospitalizations climb sharply. and it comes, tend of a week of confusing statements from the cdc and some damage control from the agency. also, clashes, confrontation, a lot of understandable angst over schools re-opening. also, the supreme court hearing oral arguments today on challenges to the administration s vaccine mandate for big businesses, as well as healthcare workers. there is a lot for the week. add to it, six former geysers to the president are now calling for new measures to move toward this or at least plan for this new normal. in a piece published yesterday in the journal of the american medical association, ezekiel emmanuel, see leen gounder, and michael o
down the economy as he toted the unemployment rate dropping to a new pandemic low. i hear republicans say today that my talking about this strong record shows that i don t understand, i don t understand a lot of people are still suffering they say. well, they are. or that i m not focused on inflation. malaryk. t they voted against the legislation that made it happen. i refuse to let them stand in the way of this recovery and my focus is on keeping this recovery strong and durable, not with standing republican obstruction. the president taking on the gop on the economy as he is facing skeptical conservative justice on his, justices i should say on his covid plan and vaccine mandates for large businesses. that as the republican party seems to locked into a never ending game of how low can you go? is exhibit a. ted cruz. who is now trying to backtrack after getting caught doing something that seems to be a cardinal sin in today s gop, telling the truth. we are approaching
hello, i am arthel neville. we await a pivotal supreme court decision on president biden s covid vaccine mandate. it s whether the federal government can force millions of workers to be vaccinated. justices hearing oral argument on measures involving two separate mandates, one for federally funded of care workers and one for large private businesses. first, lucas tomlinson live with more on president biden s new strategy and missing service. some medical experts think the silver lining to the new omicron violent immunity boost, president biden says things will get better despite record number of cases nationwide. i don t think covid is here to stay but having covid in the environment here and in the world is here to stay but public as we are dealing with it now is not here to stay, the new normal doesn t have to be, we have so many more tools we are developing continue to develop to contain covid and other strains. that s not what we heard in the campaign trail lea