it does add in another layer of information and detail that we excuse me that we didn t have before. omar al bayoumy, allegedly a student living in l.a. who the fbi and other excuse me and other agencies believe could have been a saudi agent was handing money, helping with finances, with lodging, with transport, with flights for two saudi nationals who arrived in l.a. who didn t have a command of english. these were two of the hijackers who went on to attack the pentagon. hazmi and khalid al mithar. the details they are releasing about that are certainly giving encouragement to the families of victims who feel there are a number of bombshell revelations here that highlight the connections of the saudi government to this plot and attack. so my takeaway when we look at this and get that information, it s perhaps some solace and help to the families. it s just something that the saudis are saying that they are happy to see. they are talking about, you know, they are sa
dr. fauci. there s a tenant that everybody knows in virology. there s a likelihood you will get another variant that could, i m not saying it will, that could be more problematic than the delta. now, dr. fauci strongly supports vaccine mandates once the vaccines earns full approval from the fda which is something that could happen this month. this morning cases are rising sharply in the united states driven by the delta variant. the average daily number of cases is now at more than 100,000 for the first time since february. hospitalizations continue to rise as well to more than 66,000. one out of every five people hospitalized in the u.s. is in florida right now. cases and hospitalizations there are setting new records daily. even more troubling the state is seeing an alarming number of sick children. one florida doctor says that children s hospitals are overwhelmed while republican governor ron desantis resists calls to allow schools that want to to require masks in th
strategy. comes less than a week after the omicron variant was first identified in south africa and on a day we learned what had been expected that omicron is here. we knew that it was just a matter of time before the first case of omicron would be detected in the united states. and as you know, we know, i have been saying it and my colleagues on the medical team and others have been saying it. we know what we need to do to protect people. get vaccinated, if you re not already vaccinated. get boosted. that first patient, a traveler from south africa, who is now in california is said to be isolated and experiencing mild symptoms. dr. fauci joins us in our next hour for a special cnn covid town hall. right now, i want to go to cnn s kaitlan collins with her new reporting there the white house. so what are the president and his team doing tonight in response to this first-known case? well, anderson, ever since south african scientists last week told them they thought that
right now, i want to go to cnn s kaitlan collins with her new reporting from the white house. so what are the president and his team doing tonight in response to this first-known case? well, anderson, ever since south african scientists last week told them they thought that this could be a more concerning variant than some of the other ones that you have seen, the president and his team have basically been meeting nonstop. whether that s within the agencies, people meeting and talking about how they are going to respond to this. or the president meeting with his medical team directly. they have had hours on ends of meetings where he has been peppering them with questions about the data here, the timeline of when they are going to know more to those big questions, like how severe of disease this could cause or whether or not it evades vaccines because the president has been clear that he wants to know more. and of course, anderson, today it was the day that his medical team
positive for covid-19 earlier than we knew, just three days before his first debate with joe biden. we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. we begin with omicron variant. the omicron variant s spread to the united states. let s go immediately to our chief white house correspondent kaitlan collins. what are you learning about the omicron patient in california? yeah, wolf, the california governor says this person started feeling mild symptoms on november 25th, three days later they took a covid test and the next day got a positive result. after that it only took 30 hours for the scientists at the university of california in san francisco to figure out it was omicron. it s what scientists were bracing for. we knew that it was just a matter of time. reporter: the omicron variant now in the united states. this is the first confirmed case of covid-19 caused by the omicron variant dete