courtesy of santa and mrs. claus. that is all of the tonight, several developing stories as we come on the air. urgent covid concerns across the country tonight after millions of families gathered for christmas. fears the rapidly spreading omicron variant will fuel a surge on top of a surge. from charlotte to miami, testing lines are growing. pushing and shoving at this test distribution site in brooklyn. dr. anthony fauci today acknowledging the 500 million at-home tests the biden administration promised to send out next month won t arrive soon enough. saying we ve obviously got to do better. health experts now warn of an alarming rise of pediatric hospitalizations in some parts of the country. in new york city, the country s first vaccine mandate for private companies set to take effect. 1 in 60 people living in manhattan testing positive just this week. new outbreaks reported on cruise ships. tonight, the president s message
there is an alternative to debating whether we should be wearing masks again or be required to get a covid vaccine. we have 100 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who have not gotten vaccinated. if you want to end all of this back and forth, let s get the overwhelming proportion of the population vaccinated and all of this will go away. all of this will go away. dr. fauci says let s take a look at one of the states involved. you see the states in the southeast. louisiana, 37% of its population fully vaccinated. what happens when the vaccination rate is so low? this is what happens. in louisiana they call them parrishs. they might be counties where you live. all of louisiana s parrishs reporting high community
federal employees and contractors have to attest to vaccination status. all of this underscores the urgent moment the white house now finds itself in. if we don t solve covid, we don t get anything done in this administration. they re now back to trying to solve covid. the optimism of weeks ago seems to be missing. let s look more closely at some of the numbers. here s the main reason for it. look at this map right here. you see the red. that s high transmission. the gold, that s substantial transmission by county across the united states of america. two-thirds of the american population today covered by this revised masking guidelines that if you are indoors, you should wear a mask if you are in a place with high or substantial covid transmission. that is one of the reasons for the about face. 61,000 new infections reported yesterday. you go back a year ago, it was
on january 6th. congressman brooks argues he was acting in his official capacity as a member of congress when speaking to trump supporters on the ellipse. the doj says these comments were not within the scope of brooks duties as an elected official. today is the day american patriots start taking down names and kicking ass! appreciate your time today. see you tomorrow. ana cabrera picks up right now. hello and thanks for being with us. vaccinated or not, the cdc is now urging all americans to wear a mask indoors in areas with high or substantial covid transmission rates. now, that covers about two-thirds of countyies in the u.s. right now. not even 50% of americans are fully vaccinated. the reality is that america is