national hospital are testing positive. all told, an average of more than 300 children are being hospitalized each day. that s not because current variants are uniquely targeting them but because we see children who are hospitalized because of covid or in the icu because of covid. they are all unvaccinated. parents are unvaccinated, siblings are unvaccinated. reporter: others fear the return to school next week could be even worse. i think that what we are gaeigae going to see is once children going to school, within a week or two of schools opening is when we are going to see our highest numbers. reporter: amid the winter weather, the pandemic is roaring across the country with over a quarter million new cases now diagnosed daily. that s a record. this omicron variant is such a game-changer, in terms of its high, high transmissibility. it s like this big virus blizzard. reporter: hospitalizations are only about half of what they were last winter, but some state
variant as they are to older strains. this, as hospitals, schools, transportation networks, and other institutions are scrambling to cope with all of it. a lot to talk about tonight. cnn s tom foreman starts us off. reporter: nationwide, hospitalizations of children with covid are up. on average, nearly 50% in just one week. new york city has seen pediatric admissions jump to five times what they were. in washington, d.c., half the kids coming to children s national hospital are testing positive. all told, an average of more than 300 children are being hospitalized each day. that s not because current variants are uniquely targeting them but because we see children who are hospitalized because of covid or in the icu because of covid. they are all unvaccinated. they are unvaccinated. parents are unvaccinated, siblings are unvaccinated. reporter: others fear the return to school next week could be even worse. i think that what we are going to see is once children go b
administration is taking a closer look at the effectiveness of at-home antigen tests. the tests are still beneficial. our reporters are covering the developments from london to beijing. tom foreman has our lead story, reporting in from washington. reporter: nationwide, hospitalizations of children with covid are up, on average, nearly 50% in just one week. new york city is seeing pediatric admissions jump to five-times what they were. in washington, d.c., half the kids coming to children s national hospital are testing positive. all told, an average of more than 300 children are being hospitalized each day. that s not because current variants are uniquely targeting them but because we see children that are hospitalized because of covid, or icu because of covid, they re unvaccinated. they re unvaccinated, the parents are unvaccinated, the siblings are unvaccinated. reporter: others fear the return to school next week could be even worse. i think what we re going to s
hospitalizations worldwide nationwide, rather. spearheading legislation in congress for three decades, we look back at the legacy of one of america s post powerful politicians, senator harry reid. they promised to protect women s rights. the new taliban law restricts them even more. announcer: live from london, this is cnn newsroom with max foster. it s wednesday, december the 29th. our new worries over the omicron surge could make weeks ahead difficult for hospital workers across the united states. joe biden s covid team says the country is in for a tough january. i suspect by the end of january things will peak, and there s no question that january will be filled with a lot of short-term challenges, hospital beds shortages, it s tough to handle this many cases at once. but i think if there is a silver lining, it s that when it comes out fast it s likely to go down even more quickly. well, the u.s. is averaging more than 265,000 cases a day over the past week.
omicron, they re not perfect. but to bottom line it, basing this on what dr. fauci said this morning, they are still useful. imperfect but useful. let s talk about what they re good for and what they re not quite as useful for. if this test says that you have covid, then you almost certainly have covid. if the test says you don t have covid, that s where you get more questions. now, the folks at abbott labs, they make the test widely used in the united states. we reached out to them. this is what they had to say. we ve conducted lab analyses and tests on the omicron variant from live virus including those from the first u.s. omicron case at equivalent sensitivity as other variants. that led us to think, hmm, how good has it been in general? this is the data on the cdc s website. let s pretend that you have covid. we know you have covid because you took a pcr test. we know you have covid and you have symptoms. the rapid test is going to be wrong 35% of the time. it s going to