is that the secret service has more than 900 active investigations into this fraud right now and he says he's been working effectively with private sector financial institutions including paypal, to recover all of that stolen money back to you. >> quite a story and it's going to go on. thank you. that will do it for the exchange "power lunch" starts right now welcome to "power lunch. i'm melissa lee along with tyler mathisen here's what's ahead. bounceback stocks rebound after a three-day rout and the trucker shortage it is a critical missing link in the supply chain we'll talk to the ceo of a company that's trying to solve the company as the costs of empty trucks keeps climbing. and president biden scheduled to speak this hour on the fight against omicron.

we'll bring you his plan to battle the virus that is raging across this country. >> melissa, good to be with you from the secured bunker somewhere in northern new jersey stocks are at session highs as you see there. the dow industrials up 1.5%. s&p 500 up more than 1.5%. the dow being helped by nike it reported strong earnings. and boeing, which was named a top pick for 2022 by rbc s&p higher after its worst three days since september and the nasdaq is up about 2% or there abouts reopening plays, well, they are seeing some relief buying. delta, united, carnival, las vegas sands, they are all higher and the yield on the ten-year note also trading higher just under 1.5%, melissa, at this point >> quite a change from yesterday. that's for sure. you are looking here at a live picture of the white house where president biden will announce

new steps in the fight against the omicron variant. which is now the most dominant strain in the country. he's expected to begin speaking later this hour. let's go to meg with what we can expect >> hey, melissa. we are expecting to hear of course an increased focus on the difference between being vaccinated and unvaccinated. this is a message that has kind of shifted in the sort of severity of it, warning folks that if they are unvaccinated, they are still at very, very high risk from this new variant. beyond that, really focusing on three main areas in this new covid plan first one is hospitals deploying 1,000 troops during january and february to try to add support for hospitals. also increasing federal medical personnel to six different states they're expanding capacity through using fema at hospitals. also sending hundreds of ambulances and emergency medical teams, as well as supplies and ventilators. second is more access to free

testing by testing sites as well as purchasing 500 million rapid home tests that they say starting in january, americans will be able to order from a website for free to be delivered by mail to their houses. also using the defense production act to increase supply of these rapid tests which we know are hard to find finally of course, expanding vaccination capacity even further. this comes as we heard last night projections from the c dprcdc that omicron makes up 70% of newly diagnosed cases. even higher in some areas. if you look at this graph of cases, you are seeing the beginning of the spike there the seven-day average in daily cases went up by 10,000 from yesterday and today. we're now at 142,000 there were a lot of cases reported yesterday and the signature curve of omicron is a line that goes straight up this is cases. we're going to have to wait to see if severity follows. we hope it won't, but we'll hear more from the president today.

>> how quickly can they ramp up production of these tests? tgs impossible to get them at the local drugstore, but 500 million, that's a lot. >> it is, but we know the capacity is already, you know, around 200 million or slightly more per month so yes, how will they use the defense production act to do this we know there are limited numbers of suppliers of these tests. how will the supplies essentially be diverted and how much faster can they make them companies like abbott have increased their monthly output there's a lot of worries that yeah, this is going to happen in january, but we need tests now and 500 million sounds like a lot, but there are 330 million americans. >> thank you tyler. >> thanks. the big question for investors is whether the omicron variant will dent the economic recovery and if so, by how much steve liesman looking at the

latest high frequency data in his road back barometer. hey, steve >> hey, tyler. yeah, these are early days for measure, we are seeing the leading edge of what could go into a bigger impact from the omicron wave and it depends on how different industries, individuals and regions react. take a look back at our gauge. kind of edged down now standing 18% below the level for the same weekday in 2019 consumer spending measured by jpmorgan chase above the level of the prior two years, but standing two points below relative to where it was the day before thanksgiving. as of thanksgiving, air traffic had recovered to the point where it was 10% below 2019. seven-day average now registers 18% lower. moving on to the next chart, the u.s. was off to a strong start,

but it soon began to lag behind post thanksgiving increases seen in 2020 and 2019 and while the jeffries index is up, it shows the big drop came at the onset of the virus in the spring of 2020 it was a shallower drop where they operated last wirnter and the shallowest was the delta outbreak in the late summer and fall the hope is that the trend continues. one key, whether employers who have struggled to find workers are reluctant to fire, lessening the economic effects >> i know travel is back one thing that is curious to me is this week, in these days, i'm interested to find out how many cancellation travel agents and resorts, hotels and airlines are seeing this week because of the numbers on omicron so let's go back to the economic differences between this wave and previous ones. what are they? >> well, it may be tyler,

depends on what happens, we don't have a large federal stimulus bill in the works to help with this one the way we've had in some of the others. that would be one negative difference a positive though is how tough it's been for employers to find workers. maybe they'll hold on to their workers through this wave so we don't have a big surge in unemployment as a result of the wave and if it ends up being fast, it will work out for both employer and employee. one other aspect though, tyler, which i'm a little worried about is this. that a year ago, the wave delayed reopening. this time, we may set back reopening and have to undo it. so a lot of different factors. all really tied to how individuals and businesses and regions and governments react to the risk this time around. >> i think you just nailed one of the key points there. it is how region, it is region by region, state by state, locality by locality and there

does seem to be very little appetite among policymakers to go the full shutdown route so maybe we don't see that so this time around, the effects are, by that, at least a little bit mitigated. steve liesman, thanks. today a rally, yesterday, a selloff. it's been that kind of month our next guest says investors are being held hostage by the heightened uncertainty by omicron, but he says there are corners of the market that could do well in the weeks ahead mark, let's go right to the chase. what are the sectors that you think actually could weather whatever is in front of us reasonably well and maybe make me a little money? >> well, tyler, given the aforementioned concerns and the coronavirus and obviously a shifting monetary setting with regard to the federal reserve's taking a look at today's elevated rates of inflation and taking strides to perhaps begin to thwart its impact, overcoming

that is the fact we'll start 2022 with a very strong level of momentum economically. right now, the atlanta fed gdp now tracker showing 7.2% annualized growth here in the fourth quarter that leads me to believe that any kind of economic diminution as a consequence of the aforementioned will still leave the operating rate of the economy as a high level. therefore, areas that i think will remain prosperous include energy because of supply constraints by russia and opec a company like chevron should stand to benefit by the way, investors pick up a handsome yield in addition to that, stanley black and decker would be a beneficiary of right now, elevated capital expenditure contingents that are being responded to that spending is not only important to propel positive economic activity, but as well,

benefit those industrial type of names that should again by the recipient of that windfall last but not least, we continue to believe strongly in the theme of the housing market and its continued gains. not so much in price appreciation, but development. low inventory, high demand, and still reasonable housing prices in the aggregate gave them current levels of income gave us reasons to believe that a play like hxb, a broad-based diversified basket of not only home builders, but those companies related to the housing market, should benefit >> so we got oil and gas we got tools and we got home builders let's talk a little bit if you wouldn't mind, about how monetary policy might affect the economy. how much it is likely to retard inflation, if you think it is going to, how much it is likely, if you think it is, going to slow the economy because we have two forces here. one is that government isn't, or

the fed i should say, isn't going to be putting cash into the system by the purchase of bonds and two, it's pretty clear they're going to slowly incrementally start to raise interest rates >> no question about it. but let's remember where we're starting from. we're starting from zero bound interest rates so we're talking about less accommodation as opposed to tightening of the monetary setting. to get to a point where we would sort of define tight monetary policy, we would have to see the fed funds rate move up and toward what is estimated to be the neutral rate or the rate at which it balances growth against retarding that growth and that's around 2 to 2.25% according to current estimates. therefore, even if the fed begins to hike interest rates, right now, market participants are pricing in the prospects of three rate hikes in 2022, we think that might be a bit heavy handed we think perhaps we're likely to see the inflation rate that's

running high today subside somewhat in the back half of this year, perhaps allowing the fed to either defer its initial rate hike from the spring or summer to deeper in the fall or may only allow for the need for one or two rate hikes, which would be exceedingly supportive to risk assets and stock prices. >> right mark, have a great holiday season and if we dwoent don't see you before then, we'll see you next year. >> likewise, tyler, thank you. coming up, oppenheimer calls the flow of money into esg a climate rally and has identified some names that are top picks for 2022 and according to one wall street analyst, the gains may not last we'll see if our team agrees let's take a check on the nasdaq it's up more than 2% s&p just a point off session ow lchwi brit "perun" lle gh back ♪ ♪ ♪ digital transformation has failed to take off. because it hasn't removed the endless mundane work we all hate.

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. >> i think we're seeing the rationalization of the group right now. we saw this money really start to impact valuation starting in late 2019 then really again in the middle of 2020 we saw it peak out really in january of this year and we've seen the rationalization through the balance of this year i think what's happening now with, you know, concerns around the lack of passage of the build back better bill with the group is that we're going to get back to fundamentals and i think with the group of the spacs now largely digested by the buy side, we're seeing folks really pick winners in this group and it's really the leaders in these categories so as we look at this capital being deployed, we're looking at folks with best practices from a management and technology perspective. we think that's going to drive stocks amongst the top 20 to 25% of the companies in this group to really take excess market share going forward. >> you've got a lot of names on your list, but i want to focus on a couple in particular that are down significantly on a very

up year in general for technology, it's high valuation technology in this space plug power is down 17% in year west port's down 56 year-to-date and i'm wondering what you see as a catalyst for these names in particular >> so both of those names are really leveraged to the hydrogen economy going forward. plug is really going to be a hydrogen fuel company as it leverages its fuel cell technology and west port is leveraging its high pressure direct technology into class seven trucks for internal combustion engines using hydrogen as a fuel part of what happens early stages in the technology development cycle is that you see valuations anticipate long-term growth then they start to rationalize as these businesses get more real we think that digestion really happens this year and right now, we're seeing bottom fishing. particularly with west port that's had hard rationalization around its core business that starts to become less of the

story next year as hydrogen really starts to take the mantle for those guys with plug, it's a lot of execution here they are growing out a large network of hydrogen fuel assets and we're just seeing the first part of that execution happen. >> what is institutional ownership of these two names like and should we expect sort of that money to come in because it's underowned perhaps? >> for plug, there's a wide range of folks that own this west port we think has been underappreciated here. largely from a market cap perspective as well as how the story is going to play out from a numbers perspective with the transition of its core business and so i think what we're seeing now, particularly in the last six weeks is a lot of interest in looking at new ideas for january 1. we think people are valuating where they want to put money to work as they close up the year and start fresh next year. it's going to be wide range from a strategy perspective and geographic perspective >> wouldn't be a conversation if

we didn't bring up tesla what are the katcatalysts there that bring up it >> really, this is about execution. what we're going to see as we get into 2022 is really who can make cars and who can't. tesla's demonstrated and ability to do that they also had their growing pains very publicly documented as we get into next year, we're going to see some of these start ups start to ramp up capacity and we'll have to see what margins look like for those folks. we'll also see the legacy companies really start to build evs and see how they sell through. at the same time, tesla's bringing up two new factories in berlin and austin. so we think as supply constraints ease a bit and we're seeing that start to happen here in the fourth quarter, that they should be in a good position to ramp volumes ahead of expeks tases and we think that really drives not only the short-term story, but the long-term story, which is about autonomy. in that part of the business, we're expecting them to roll

sout new features by the back half of next year and we think they're pushing hard to stay ahead of the competition, pushing into the level four type of autonomy and urban driving. >> good to see you tyler. >> thanks, melissa coming up, bob iger's exit interview. sitting down with david faber reflecting on his years leading with media power house after the break, we'll share his thoughts on the future of live sports streaming we'll be right back. about motorcycle insurance, and people love it. of course, they love the savings they're gonna get with geico, but... it goes beyond that. you. deserve. to save. ha — heard that before. you. deserve. to save. i know. i need you to hear me. you deserve to save. i deserve to save! i mean he has a way of making you feel...seen. bundle car and motorcycle insurance and save at geico.com.

here's your cnbc news update calling omicron a formidable opponent and eric adams is postponing his inauguration ceremony adams says the health of everyone involved needs to be prioritized. in maine, the national guard is helping a hospital reopen that has been closed for two months they will help monitor patients and welcome visitors

and andrew lloyd webber is devastated because his new musical is suspending performances the cast says it's incredibly difficult to keep making last minute decisions based on covid test results he says it's the right zis and promises his show will reopen when it's safe to do so. hopefully sooner rather than later. safe to do so, right back over to you guys. >> it's really true. the hardest thing is going from day-to-day and making decisions one then you reverse and so forth. so i think sir andrew has got it right. bob iger leaving disney. he ran the company for 15 years before turning it over to bob chapek last year david faber conducted an exit interview with iger and david joins us now i want to ask you about one of the biggest challenges facing his successor, cable television,

and especially espn. >> exactly it's funny, in 2005 when iger took over, espn was a growth engine for disney and it would be for at least the next decade, but since then, that engine has been sputtering a bit as we know given the changes that had taken place in the linear television ecosystem, if we can call it that but that doesn't stop iger from believing that sports is still a very powerful property >> sports is not going away. live sports consumption on what i'll call a television experience, even if the television is connected very differently than the traditional television was in my opinion is a growth business sports consumption, interest in live sports because of how exciting it is and how unpredictable it is. so i think being in that space is still very valuable but

you've got to go where the consumer is going and the question i guess really bob will deal with, is dealing with, do you accelerate that or do you try to accelerate it or hold back as long as you possibly can. it's not a decision i'll make, but i happen to believe the future of espn is bright if it can make that successful migration into the new platforms. >> new platforms, tyler, of course the espn plus being a key one. rights also becoming an important issue there in terms of the negotiations with the various sports, not networks, sports sassociations, the nfl, nba, and the like because of course, you have to be able to kind of have more flexibility in terms of bringing them to a streaming audience >> how do you make money, david, in the world of streaming, espn, like hey, like a cnbc, we have

benefitted from the dual revenue stream of subscriptions through cable operators and advertising. that's how espn became the giant it was i think commanded the highest subscription rates as those cable people cut the cord and those subscription volumes go down, how do they replace that in the world of streaming? where does that second revenue stream come from >> that's the key question and it's one we've been asking of iger and chapek for years now, specifically since august when they said we're starting to see the slightest erosion. thest a good point because so many people are subsidizing because they don't watch sports. it's a higher price point. you hope you're going to be able to aggregate enough eyeballs so you can almost equal what the revenue number was and advertising can be a part of whatever that offering is and will be. so that's the hope, but your

point is a very good one not to mention, and we did get into this as well in the interview, that you're competing against the likes of amazon and perhaps others that have unlimited ability to pay whatever they want for those sports rights because it's not even their main business >> no, that's right. and they have other revenue streams, whether it's cloud or selling merchandise to subsidize that david, thank you very much and may i observe that on camera there were the two most ageless men in television. neither of you has aged a day. damn you love it. >> i love you though you're the best. good liar. >> see you, man. melissa agrees i know >> just add carl in there and you've got the top three ahead, we are awaiting president biden to make some comments on the resent surge of covid. up next, the growing problem with driverless trucks and no, we aren't talking about

autonomous vehicles. the truck driver shortage is getting worse. we'll share new data when "power lunc rur h"etns h"etns ♪ ♪ ♪ digital transformation has failed to take off. because it hasn't removed the endless mundane work we all hate. ♪ ♪ ♪ automation can solve that by taking on repetitive tasks for us. unleash your potential. uipath. reboot work.

90 minutes left in the

trading day. one of the key points for the supply chain, the trucker shortage we begin with bob pisani with stocks close to session high, bob. >> in fact, we are right at session highs, melissa thanks very much so the bulls are regaining control of the tape. what's interesting is the reflation trade is back a little bit. not a lot of new news on this, but what do i mean by reflation trade? i'm talking industrials like caterpillar, energy like chevron, and financial stocks like american express and jpmorgan we've got a yield curve steepening today wow. that's nice news so these are all what we call cyclical stocks and are leaders. they were weak a couple of days concerns that they might get hit along with tech. that's not happening speaking of tech, big cap tech, micron, those terrific earnings there, but overall bouncing back here for some of the big cap names that were weak recently. i think the ones you want to watch is the other tech names out there. the twitters a lot of these names, secondary tech names, they're at double

bottoms. today compared to two weeks earlier, a new bottom yesterday. so twitter, paypal, spotify. ark innovation was $90 seven, eight sessions ago now it's bounced back to 98. that's a good sign defensive stocks has been leaders recently i'm talking about the cokes and pepsis of the world. you notice they're flat. what we're getting is rotation into the reflation names out of some of the defensive names that had dominated recently this is a very good sign of confidence will we get a rally? remember, it's the last five days of the year and first two of the new year so it starts next week, but it's still debated. you have to believe a lot of things you have to believe that omicron is contagious, but not as dangerous. carnival had good things to say about their bookings the fed, are they going to be less aggressive on inflation if omicron is like the bulls want it to be, then the answer may be yes and that may be one

reason we're seeing the yield curve steepen. finally, that fiscal stimulus, it looked dead, but the bulls say we might get a smaller package. so maybe there's some reason to be optimistic about a santa claus rally. >> bob mentioned yields are rising today we've seen about a ten basis point jump in the past 24 hours. rick santelli is tracking the action rick >> we certainly have one of the things that reversed that just a bit was the 20-year auction, which was very, very strong i gave it an a plus. straight up 1:00 eastern prices rallied, yields fell and it wasn't necessarily equal along the curve, which gives bob's comment about steepening some force power everybody's talking about steepening today look at a two-year you can hardly pick out serious movement at 1:00 eastern back to the curve. october 1st. this is one of the go-to curve trades people pay attention to

and it is spacesy. meaning it's building a foundation to steepen from there's a lot more steepening talk than there is steepening, but that is a formation and many are thinking that for the rest of 2021, we'll see the long end spring to life and it has to some extent. not only here, overseas as well. look at a two-day chart of ten-year bunds over the last two day, about ten bases point movement from minus 40 to minus 30 and it's on pace for its highest yield close at minus 30 minus .30% since omicron right after thanksgiving almost one month melissa lee, back to you >> rick santelli, thank you. oil, that's rebounding also along with everything else today. pippa stevens is watching the final trades >> oil's roller coaster ride continuing the omicron situation and just how much of a demand impact it will have remains fluid so the

volatility we've seen recently is likely here to stay for the time being wti finishing the day at $71.19. brent is at $74.02 for a fwan of 3.5% oil is sharply below the multiyear highs it hit at the end of october and jd securities noting that they'll remain under pressure until we get clarity on governments. nat gas is up today about 1% as it tries to regain the $4 mark in europe, gas futures are surging once again with futures in the uk jumping 22% today alone. this is pushing electricity prices to a record high after a record high. russia probing exports among the factors that is boosting those prices >> thank you shifting gears to america's labor crisis the trucking industry short an estimated 80,000 drivers and counting let's welcome in jill.

her firm is part of true blue, which trades under tbi jill, great to have you with us. we heard about the trucker shortage from even before the pandemic so what is the primary cause of it at this point and why is it so acute right now >> hi, melissa thanks for having us on. driver shortage has been a problem that has plagued the industry for many years. i've been in this industry for over 25 years and each year, it seems to be more difficult to find drivers obviously, the pandemic has exposed the problem even more as many drivers have taken early retirement and the truck driving schools closing during the pandemic caused 40% fewer drivers trained last year. so with the tight labor market and the increasing average age of truck drivers, it's no surprise that the driver shortage is predicted to continue to increase over the next decade.

>> oh, i hadn't even thought about the driving schools closing as part of the reason. that's really interesting. jill, i'm wondering to get drivers back, even some of those newly retired ones back into the workforce, how much is pay going up, if it is >> pay has gone up significantly this year. i'm seeing industry news anywhere from 20 to 40%. at center line, we've raised wages on average 26% in year so pay is a number one factor and what drivers are saying is the number one thing that's going to attract them to our organization >> the supply chain issues, we've heard about them, but i'm wondering if there's any sort of silver lining if there's fewer goods to transport could be a little bit of reprieve for the shortage >> actually, it's not. the inventory supply, we're expecting to see it to get better as months go on and

because so many drivers have exited the profession or we haven't attracted enough new drivers, there is going to be a significant shortage and continued increase on the demand for truck drivers in the foreseeable future >> companies say we're looking for drivers. what do you tell the companies they need to do in order to get them what are the winning sort of inticements for companies to offer? >> yeah, the winning strategy is obviously competitive pay. that's key benefits but drivers are also looking for flexibility in hours, great equipment, and they're also looking for more work life balance. so companies offering local routes are definitely at a competitive advantage. >> are there certain industries that you can sort of tap and say, hey, you're doing this right now, but maybe you want to think about driving specifically

for a truck company because it's better pay or more flexible et cetera >> yeah. we're, the good news, some good news that came with this pandemic is that there's been a resurgence on how incredibly optimistic this profession is, right. you're getting that, a truck driver everybody is now zoned in on gee, 71% of our goods get here by truck driving and because there's more press on it, it's driving more and more people into the profession, which is great. obviously, looking to have more women enter the industry there's been a lot of focus on that on bringing that trend into the industry so i think there's a lot of opportunities that people are now seeing that truck driving isn't just being away from home for weeks on end that it does offer a competitive

wage and that there is more flexibility. there is more local routes there is more career path for truck drivers now. >> all right, jill, great to get your perspective thank you very much. tyler? >> thank you very much, melissa. bye bye baba that stock down big this year along with other chinese internet names and atlantic equities is growing even more bearish, saying there's still room to fall our trading nation team will discuss that and we are still awaiting live comments from the white house and president biden 'lout covid and some other thgs wel bring you that when it happens. ♪♪ care. it has the power to change the way we see things. ♪♪ it inspires us to go further. ♪♪ it has our back.

and goes out of its way to help. ♪♪ when you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. truist. born to care. let's go straight to president biden delivering remarks on covid >> as we head into christmas we weekend, i want to answer your questions about the rising number of covid-19 cases and i want to start by acknowledging how tired, worried, and frustrated i know you are. i know how you're feeling. for many of you, this will be the first or second christmas where you look across the table and there will be an empty kitchen chair there. tens of millions have gotten sick we have all experienced upheaval

in our lives, but while covid has been a tough adversary, we've shown we're tougher. tougher because we have the power of science and vaccines that prevent illness and save lives and tougher because of our resolve so that let me answer some questions out the steps the vice president and i are taking to prepare for the rising number of cases experts tell us we can expect through the weeks ahead. first, how concerned should you be about omicron, which is now the dominant variant in this country and happened so quickly? the answer is straightforward. if you're not fully vaccinated, you have good reason to be concerned. you're at a high risk of getting sick and if you get sick, you're likely to spread it to others including friends and family the unvaccinated have a significantly high risk of ending up in the hospital or even dying almost everyone who has died

from covid-19 in the past many months has been unvaccinated unvaccinated among the majority of americans who are fully vaccinated and especially if you've gotten the booster shot, that third shot, you have much, much less reason to worry you have a high degree of protection against severe illness. because omicron spreads so easily, we'll see some fully vaccinated people get covid. potentially in large numbers positive cases in every office, even here in the white house among the vaccinated among the vaccinated omicron. but these cases are highly unlikely to lead to serious illness. the vaccinated people who get covid may get ill, but they're protected from severe illness and death. that's why you should still remain village lent. according to our doctors, even if you're fully vaccinated, you

should wear a mask when indoors and public settings. wearing a mask provides extra protection for you and those around you i know some americans are wondering if you can safely celebrate the holidays with your family and friends the answer is yes, you can if you and those you celebrate with are vaccinated. particularly if you've gotten your booster shot. if you are vaccinated and follow the precautions we all know well, you should feel comfortable celebrating christmas and theholidays as you planned. you know you've done the right thing. you can enjoy the holiday season thanks to the progress on vaccinations this fall, we've gone from nearly 90 million adults in july who had not even started the vaccination progress to fewer than 40 million a day still too many down from 90 to 40 all these people who have not been vaccinated, you have an obligation to yourselves to your families and quite

frankly, to your country get vaccinated now it's free. it's convenient. i promise you, it saves lives. i honest to god believe it's your patriotic duty. another question folks are asking is what can you do to make yourself and your family feel safe and be safe? the answer is simple get your booster shot. wear a mask. our doctors have made it clear booster shots provide the strongest of protections unfortunately, we still have tens of millions of people who are eligible for the booster shot and haven't gotten it they've gotten the first two shots, but not the booster folks, the booster shots are free and widely available. over 60 million americans including 62 million seniors, our most vulnerable group, have

gotten their booster shots i got mine as soon as they were available and just the other day, former president trump announced he had gotten his booster shot maybe one of the few things he and i agree on people with booster shots are highly protected join them. join us. it's been six months or more since my second shot it's been six months since your second shot and i got my booster, you can get yours today if it's been six months or more. another question folks are asking, are we going back to march 2020 not march 2021, but march 2020 when the pandemic first hit. that's what i keep getting asked. the answer is absolutely no. no there are three big differences between then and now one, number one. first one. more than 200 million americans have been fully vaccinated in march, 2020, no one was fully

vaccinated with that means is today, a case of covid-19 for a fully vaccinated and boosted person would most likely mean no symptoms or mild ones similar to common respiratory viruses over 200 million americans should have peace of mind that they did not have in march of 2020 they're protected from hospitalization, from death. second point, we're prepared today for what's coming. in march of 2020, we were not ready. today, we stockpiled enough gowns, masks, and ventilators to deal with the surges among the unvaccinated today, we're ready and as i'll explain in a few minutes, we're going to be reenforcing our hospitals, helping them. number three, we know a lot more today than we did back in march of 2020.

for example, last year, we thought the only way to keep your children safe was to close our schools. today, we know more and we have more resources to keep those schools open you can get 5 to 11-year-olds vaccinated it's what we didn't have until last month today, we don't have to shut down schools because of a case of covid-19. now if a student tests positive, other students can take the test and stay in the classroom if they're not infected rather than closing the school or having to quarantine we can keep our k-12 schools open that's exactly what we should be doing. so folks, let me summarize we should all be concerned about omicron. not panicked if you're fully vaccinated, and especially if you got your booster shot, you are highly protected. and if you're unvaccinated, you're at a higher risk of getting severely ill from

covid-19, getting hospitalized and even dying so the best thing to do is to get fully vaccinated and get your booster shot and know this is not march of 2020 200 million people are fully vaccinated we're prepared we know more just have to stay focused. that's where about the additional steps i'm ordering today to take on what is coming. i know you heard a lot of this in the news already. three weeks ago, i laid out a covid-19 action plan for this winter we prepared us for this moment today, we're making the plan even stronger. first, we're setting up our vaccination and booster efforts, stepping it up significantly in the past two weeks we have seen the highest vaccination rates since last spring. and we aren't as vaccinated as a country as we should be, though. that's why we have added 10,000

new vaccination sites on top of the 80,000 sites that are already -- that we already had in place even more will open in january there are some parts of this country where people are very eager to get their booster where it's harder to get an appointment. excuse me. so starting this week, i'll be deploying hundreds more vaccinators and more sites to help get the booster shots in people's arms. i have ordered fema, the federal emergency management agency, to stand up new pop-up vaccination clinics all across the country where you can get that booster shot we have opened -- excuse me -- we have opened fema vaccination sites in washington state and new mexico recently as cases have increased, and today, i'm directing fema to stand up new sites in areas where there is a high demand. these steps are going to help us add more and more booster

appointments just over the next few weeks. i also want to say a word to parents. if your children are not vaccinated, please get them vaccinated if you're a parent understandably who waited to see how the first shots went with other kids before getting your own kid vaccinated, you can stop waiting. 6 million children in our country ages 5 to 11 are vaccinated get your children protected today, now for those parents out there who have a child who is too young to be vaccinated, that is under the age of 5, i know this can still be a scary time. one thing, one thing you can and must do while we await vaccines for children under 5, get yourself fully vaccinated and boosted. as well as those around you. your children, your caregivers, your siblings. it's critical to mask up in

indoor public places we know our youngest children have only really been impacted by serious covid cases -- covid-19 cases but they can be further protected if they're surrounded by vaccinated people again, to folks who are not vaccinated, you might think you're putting only yourself at risk, that it's your choice, your choice is not just a choice about you. it affects other people. you're putting other people at risk your loved ones, your friends, neighbors, strangers you run into your choice can be the difference between life or death. the longer the virus is around, the more likely variants form. they may be deadlier than the ones that have come before let me say again and again and again and again, please get vaccinated it's the only responsible thing to do. those who are not vaccinated are

causing hospitals to overrun, become overrun again i just spoke with the governor of new york. every covid-19 hospital means someone with a heart attack, cancer, other serious illness, may not get that bed and that life-saving care they need in the hospital look, let me give it to you straight again omicron is serious, potentially deadly business for unvaccinated people let me be clear. thanks to the prior administration and our scientific community, america is one of the first countries to get the vaccine. thanks to my administration and the hard work of americans, we led a rollout that made america among the world leaders in getting shots in arms. the uptake slowed this summer. the unvaccinated are responsible for their own choices. those choices have been fueled

by dangerous misinformation on cable tv and social media. you know, these companies and personalities are making money by peddling lies and allows disinformation that can kill their own customers and supporters it's wrong it's immoral i call on the purveyoroffs of l and misinformation to stop it. stop it now. one of the other things we know that has to be done is mor testing. as omicron spreads easily, especially among the unvaccinated, it's critically important we know who's infected that means we need more testing. on that score, we're now where we should be yes, we have over 20,000 free testing sites. yes, we have used the defense production act and spent $3 billion to greatly expand the number of at-home tests available for purchase online and at your local pharmacy

and yes, we made sure insurance covers the pcr test you get at the hospital or doctor's office. starting next month, private insurance will also cover at-home testing. so you can order a test online and get reimbursed we're providing access to free at-home tests for those who may have insurance as well may not have insurance, i should say, as well but it's not enough. we have to do more we have to do better and we will. starting this week, the federal government will set up emergency testing sites in areas that need additional testing capacity. before christmas, the first several of these federal testing sites will be up and running in new york city. with many more to come this free testing is going to help reduce the waiting lines, the time you have to stand there, and sometimes it's an hour or more we're going to continue to add

federal testing sites where needed, so if you want an immediate test, there will be a place where you can go get it. we also need to do better with at-home testing. announcing today the federal government will purchase one half billion addition at-home rapid tests with delivery starting in january. we'll be giving these tests to americans for free, and we'll have websites where you can get them delivered to your home. we have arranged for it to be easier for you to find free covid testing site near you on google just enter covid tests near me, and google search will find a number of different locations nearby where you can get tested. we're going to continue to use the defense production act as we did earlier this month to make sure we're producing as many tests and as quickly as

possible the bottom line is it's a lot better than it was, and we're taking even more steps to make it easier to get tested and get tested for free. next, we're preparing hospitals for what's coming. those 40 unvaccinated adults have a good chance of getting covid-19 and some of you will get very sick that will mean hospitals will get extremely stressed, extremely stressed again both in terms of equipment, as well as personnel to care for those who get sick that's why my administration has stockpiled and prepositioned millions of gowns and gloves, masks and ventilators. we call it ppp we're ready to send them immediately to any state that needs more in addition, i have directed the pentagon to mobilize an additional 1,000 troops to be deployed to help staff local hospitals and expand capacity.

that's 1,000 military doctors, nurses, and medics we have already started moving military -- excuse me -- medical teams. they have already landed in wisconsin and indiana this week. this is on top of 300 federal medical personnel that are now on the ground, having deployed since we learned about omicron look, while we know staffing is the biggest need for hospitals, some may need more beds as well. we're prepared i have directed fema to activate the national response center to begin deploying teams now to buy additional hospital beds, we have begun to construct emergency capacities near hospitals in parking garages and nearby buildings to be ready if needed and the federal government is paying for all of this, period, all of it. further, fema will deploy hundreds of ambulances and ems

crews so that if one hospital fills up, we can transport patients to beds elsewhere this week, we'll send dozens of ambulances to new york and maine because the covid is spreading very rapidly to help transport patients our doctors, nurses, hospital staff have gone above and beyond during this pandemic the strain and stress is real, i really mean it it's real. and we'll have their backs, though we have to let them know we have their backs. finally, we're making sure that covid-19 no longer closes businesses or schools. last week, a federal court reinstated my administration's vaccination or test. vaccination or test rule for businesses with more than 100 employees. the rule requires employers with 100 hoar more employees to protect their workers on site and indoors with a requirement they get vaccinated or tested

each week or