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just about half an hour from now, president biden is scheduled to speak about his administration's next steps in the fight against the pandemic, including sending central medical teams to hospitals in six states where hospitals have been overwhelmed. as covid runs rampant through schools and child hospitalizations rise, we look at what can be done to keep kids safe and in the classroom. we're also watching the u.s. supreme court, could be a big day, justices might release more rulings any moment now, among those we could see, the biden vaccination rule for businesses. we're also keeping an eye on capitol hill, where later today, president biden will appeal to senate democrats to change the rules to pass voting rights legislation, which now is looking challenged, to say the least. meantime, american and russian diplomats are wrapping up several days of talks aimed at easing tensions between russia and ukraine, but has anything changed? and the biden administration says it is making progress when it comes to reuniting families

separated by the trump administration. we've got some new numbers for you so we'll take a look at where things stand. let's start with the fight against the pandemic as we wait for the update from president biden this hour on his plan to ease the strain on hospitals. the crisis continues to grow more urgent with more than 785,000 new cases in the u.s. just on wednesday. for reference that's more than the entire population of seattle. the country surpassing 63 million cases just one day after reporting 62 million cases. joining me stephanie goss income new york and kerry sanders in miami lakes, florida and josh lederman is covering the white house for us. dr. natalie azar is a rheumatologist at nyu langone

center and msnbc medical contributor. lots to talk about. good to see all of you. josh, what about the president? what are we expecting him to announce and the president wants to potentially send millions of masks from the national stockpile straight to american houses. >> the big headline from the president's remarks in just about a half an hour, chris, will be these six teams that the federal government is going to be deploying to help relieve overwhelmed hospitals in new york, in new jersey, ohio, rhode island, michigan, and new mexico. cleveland clinic kate snow reports thousands of works are out because of omicron. the federal workers will be able to come in and basically back up those beleaguered staffers and health care workers at these six facilities. we should point out the federal government and the military have

been helping out for months with the covid relief effort but these are going to be the first teams deployed as part of a thousand additional troops that president biden announced would be coming in december. the white house really wanting to highlight how the federal government is taking action now because they know how concerned people are about what has seemed like an insufficient response so far and to that point, you mentioned the mask issue. the federal government now considering whether to actually send masks to people who might need them. the white house coronavirus task force coordinator saying yesterday that that is something that they are looking into, but in the meantime, the cdc not updating their guidance about whether or not people need to be using higher quality masks, like these kn95s or n95 mask. for now you need a multilayered mask tightly fitted around your face. >> health experts are urging people to upgrade their masks,

no matter what the cdc says it wants to recommend, that's what they're hearing from our experts, even from members of the administration's task force. >> not surprising with so many things in this pandemic, it is confusing. dr. walensky tried to address this in comments yesterday, and said the cdc is not going to update its guidance on masks but also added that the website, the information about masks on its website needed to be updated, and you also have to consider the logistics of this whole masking issue. n95s are great but they're only supposed to be used once. so sending a whole bunch of n95 masks out to americans isn't really going to help. what they probably need are these kn95s which are not as expensive but provide better protection in situations where they really need it, otherwise

as the director said any mask is better than no mask at all. chris? >> let me talk to you about that, dr. azar. yesterday i spent more than a little bit of time online looking for some kn95s, i'm running low. i ended up finding them. i had to literally time it for when they were going to release more of them. they cost a couple of bucks apiece. i can afford it, i'm fortunate. not everybody can afford it, not everybody can spend an hour online trying to figure out where to get the mask and double checking and making sure it is a legitimate mask. what do you say to people who want to dot right thing right now? >> i actually tweeted out this morning the new york city subway there was not one cloth mask that i could see. everybody was wearing a surgical mask. >> that's amazing. >> it really is. honestly, i didn't take a picture because i didn't want my phone taken away from me but it was really remarkable. new yorkers are fairly compliant group of people and they definitely got the memo that

cloth are no longer appropriate. i'm surprised that dr. walensky said they won't make a formal upgrade or modification to their guidance. surgical masks are better than cloth but not great because of the loop, the opening on the side. the kn95 josh held up, this is what i'm using in the office, also a kf94. the kf95 is made in korea. the kn95s are made in china. the n95 is produced and manufactured in the u.s. and there you can definitely establish the authenticity of the n95 because it needs to have the nyosh clearly presented on the outside of the mask. for the two k products, chris, it's tough. i'm not throwing amazon under the bus but two weeks ago i need to get some kn95s for my family and realized they're probably not the legitimate ones. there is this website called

projectn95 that is a great resource for people to look to see to make sure they're getting the right product and also there is some guidance on cdc and fda's website about how to tell a counterfeit from an authentic one but again, they're not manufactured in the u.s., so if you're purchasing it, you need to make sure even if you are purchasing it on amazon that the seller is actually the right seller from the right place, so that you don't get stuck with something you think is protecting you but isn't. >> there's a lot of people who can't afford these masks, who may not be able to, don't even have internet connections or have the ability to spend time looking at these websites. kerry, that's not all masks. manufacturers are struggling to keep up with demand for tests. >> reporter: we just talked about the masks and also talking about the demand, which is far

out the supply. you can see in the back the boxes. i'm at demetech in miami lakes. 200 million masks that are there waiting for people to say i want those masks. a lot of it has been on us as consumers, not going after these masks, because remember, it was years ago we were told don't use these masks. these are for nurses and doctors, we got our sewing machines and bought the cloth masks from stores. are those masks available? they may not be available at the stores but they're certainly here and they're still making them. the other request he is the home test indicate kit. the store shelves are basically empty. prices are going up for these. what we've discovered is, with the 15 that are approved by the fda, the companies that are making these tests are working around the clock. that's what you see right here.

this is one of the shifts, they got here at 5:00 this morning and this is the test kit they're putting together, and that they're making available to folks, but even turning out a million tests a day, 30 million a month and abbott labs is doing 70 million a month, it's not keeping up with the demand. so as they're trying to do that, we come over here and come back to the question about these masks. this is where they make those n95 masks. i'll pick one up here, one of the n95 masks that they're making here at demitech and -- >> kerry, can i ask you to pause for a second? >> reporter: yes. go ahead. >> you can go back to that and where does it say what kind of mask it is and does it say where it's made? >> reporter: it's made in the united states. i'm going to do this here, i have this in my hand and hold it there. you can see the name demitech

made here and they are use, proud of this, american products. so they're saying one of the problems is people go online and not sure. this came from another country, maybe from china, somewhere else. is this really an n95? here because they have fda supervision they can't do anything other than provide the product that they say they're providing. if you're looking for a mask and you want to get an n95 mask and then you want to make sure it's an american made, it's a lot of work on the consumer side to try to find the mask that you want to wear. this is form fitting. it's hot. you can hear my voice is muffled as much as i'm speaking loudly and try to speak as clearly as possible. asking everybody to switch to this mask now after so many

people have gotten used to the irritation from one of the paper or cloth masks is going to be a big ask. that's what the medical authorities are telling us we need to do to stop the spread of omicron, which is different. no air comes out of the side here. one of the nurses explained you blow. it's almost like if you were scuba diving and checking your mass tock see there's no water leaking in there. make sure this has a perfect seal. wearing a paper mask and space on the edges there, that's where potentially you're shedding the omicron variant and sharing it with somebody else, which as we know, unlike delta, can happen quickly at a very short period of time and really when you're just passing somebody almost, that quickly. >> thank you for being there, kerry and thanks to the folks working there, get us more masks and tests. josh, let's talk more about testing. our colleague, craig melvin, asked the vice president for an update on the white house plan to send out half a billion tests to u.s. house holds.

let's listen to that. >> the 500 million tests that have been ordered, sent to every american, do we know when those are going out? >> shortly. they've been ordered, i have to look at the current information, i think it's going to be by next week but soon. absolutely soon, and it say matter of urgency for us. >> should we have done that sooner? >> we are doing it. >> should we have done it sooner? >> we are doing it. >> josh, she said she thought it might be by next week. manufacturers said that's a lofty goal. the white house is suggesting next week might be a little optimistic. tell us where they are with this. >> vice president harris apparently was not prepared with the answer to that question. took a guess and turned out to be wrong. the white house saying the tests will be distributed by the end of next week they anticipate having received all of the tests they have working through

contracts to purchase too distribute them. an update in the last few minutes, half a billion number is now 1 billion. president biden is announcing today when he has remarks in less than half an hour or so an additional 500 million tests that he has directed his team to order. so that will be in addition to the 500 million we already knew about and as everyone has been sort of wondering, what good is 500 million tests when we have 330 million americans, these tests are a snapshot in time. might tell you if you're contagious now but not tomorrow or the day before. people may need to be testing regularly. there's a big question as the time line has been slowly coming into focus about when the first tests would go out about whether more would be coming, whether americans would be able to order multiple tests. biden has asked his team to try to acquire an additional half

billion tests in addition to the first half billion that are expected to go out starting later this month according to the white house. chris? >> dr. adhar, we all know that messaging has been a problem for the administration and cdc going back to the beginning of this pandemic and we know it's confusing and things are constantly changing. what are the messages we've heard from a couple of administration officials, including anthony fauci, we've heard pretty much everybody may end up getting covid at one time or another. we just saw west virginia's governor double vaccinated, boosted, a republican who has frankly told people to get vaccinated, to get boosted, is now pretty sick. they say he's not doing great. he's not hospitalized about you not doing great. are you worried the messages, everybody's going to get it. i hear from smart people, everybody's going to get it. i assume i'll get it. i'm not going crazy about the rules and regulations and trying to find masks.

is there a problem there with saying well, everybody going to get it anyway? >> yes, i think that messaging was unfortunate from janet woodcock and dr. fauci modified that, everyone will be exposed which i absolutely agreed with. i said for pretty much two years i'd never invite the virus into my body. i'm going to do everything i can to avoid getting it, but if i do, then i'm hopeful that my vaccination status and boosting status and overall underlying health status will protect me from severe disease. when we hear cases about people who are boosted who are doing poorly and very sick, we know nothing about their underlying medical history. we don't know how good a response their bodies make to the vaccine for a number of different reasons, what underlying medical conditions to pre-dispose them to disease despite vaccination. let me be clear, in spite of the fact that yes, again, in a lot

of people, the omicron infection especially if you've been boosted and vaccinated will be mild, that is certainly not the case for everybody. we don't know yet about the incidence of long covid associated with the omicron variant, and remember that even if you, yourself, don't get severely ill, you could absolutely pass it on to somebody who will not do as well and could succumb to the virus. this is still not a cold. there are going to be many, many breakthrough infections for the unfortunate that will unfortunately end up becoming a severe illness and even leading to mortality. >> dr. natalie azar, stephanie gosk, kerry sanders, josh lederman, great information. thank you so much. coming up, president biden set to meet with senate democrats on capitol hill over voting rights. former president obama is backing him up right now. you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports." you're watching "jose diaz-balart reports.

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just the innovation and courage to lead. join me. now to capitol hill and the latest on the fight over voting rights. president biden heading back to capitol hill today to rally senate democrats to support voting rights legislation and change senate rules to make that happen. democrats will try to use legislative maneuver to bring those bills to the senate floor for debate but right now, they don't have the votes to advance those bills or change senate rules. despite that, vice president kamala harris insisted in an exclusive interview with craig melvin the fight is not over.

>> why has the administration not been able to get senate democrats on board? >> we are not giving up. >> the question was why has it taken -- >> you're acting as though it's over. it's not over. >> so it's going to happen by monday? >> i'm saying it's not over and we don't give up. we don't give and we will not give up. >> former president barack obama added his voice to the debate writing his first op-ed since leaving office nearly five years to join calls to change the rules to pass voting rights legislation. joining us to talk about it, nbc news capitol hill corresponent leigh ann caldwell and sam stein. they wanted to finish it by martin luther king, jr., day, monday. how do we expect things to play out in the next couple of days? >> reporter: hey, chris, the clock is ticking.

in order to help him meet that deadline, president joe biden is coming to the capitol today to have lunch with senate democrat s and has an audience of a few, manchin and sinema, those uncomfortable with changing senate rules to pass voting rights legislation. this attempt by joe biden to rally and unify democrats is something that they hope is going to work. we heard vice president kamala harris say that they're not not giving up yet. ultimately it's very difficult because these negotiations have been going on for weeks if not months and joe manchin and kyrsten sinema haven't budged. >> there were never going to be republicans on board. after the president gave his speech and made the push for voting rights passionately, here's what mitch mcconnell had to say. take a listen. >> look, i've known, liked and

personally respected joe biden for many years. the president's rant, rant yesterday was incoherent, incorrect, and beneath his office. >> so i respect him but he was incoherent and beneath his office. where does that leave the president with the democrats? what the president going to say or do to change the equation? >> not sure there's much more to say or do. the question is a technical one. do you want to change the senate rules through the procedure known as the nuclear option, which is you change the rules for 50 votes and if so, what would the rules encompass? voting rights act just want to say look, we want to create a carve-out so any voting rights legislation is not privy to the 60 vote threshold for a filibuster. other rules changes you can get but that's the holy grail otherwise you don't get legislation passed.

joe manchin has been fine with different rule changes, for instance having a talking filibuster or demanding that you have enough members there to on the floor at all times to block the legislation. that won't get legislation passed. not much more the president can say. he has able to twist arms. he's done that for weeks and hasn't made progress. >> kevin mccarthy and the january 6th committee, what is going on with that, sam? >> mccarthy is not going to participate in a voluntary request to talk to the committee. earlier he said he would be fine talking to them. when will the committee make findings public? we've seen dribs and drabs from text messages from fox news hosts. mccarthy's involvement was likely not going to happen. the question is who else has talked, what records have they possessed and when will the public start to see them?

>> sam stein, leigh ann caldwell, thank you both. oregon is calling in more national guard members to aleve nate the pressure on hospitals there, fueled of course by the omicron variant. governor brown requested an additional 700 troops be deployed to hospitals across the state adding to the 500 called off last week. jacob ward joins me now. what are hospitals facing in oregon right now? >> chris, the oregon health authority reports cases as of tuesday were over 700 and that means an increase of about 35. from the prior day, seems to have part of what led governor kate brown to call up the new surge of oregon national guardsmen. hospitals are under tremendous strain and because of that new case count, she's had to pull in this additional 700 people on top of the 500 she brought in before for a total she wrote of more than 1,200 to oregon

hospitals. this comes of course as a majority of oregon adults have been vaccinated but only roughly 35% have been boosted, which may be part of the numbers here, and of course, this is one of many states calling in the national guard to help with hospital shortages. we've seen california, new jersey and oregon do this very same thing, chris. >> again, california also facing those staffing shortages so state officials announced a policy change that apparently has the health care industry a little bit up in arms. give us the details on that. >> yes, the idea that we would get to a place where california department of public health officials are saying where you are positive as a health worker, but asymptomatic, then you may be able to come to work. that's a new threshold. the emergency policy is designed to hopefully keep the staffing shortages from overwhelming the system. california department of public

health says if you are asymptomatic but test positive and there is no other option a health care provider can ask you to come in and put you as a health care worker only together with positive covid-19 patients, not with the rest of the patients. of course, many critics of this policy coming forward the red head of the southern california health workers union saying this is dangerous. you look at chemotherapy patients or immunocompromised patients this dangerous but california department of public health say this is emergency measure and in theory to put at symptomatic but positive health care workers together with covid-19 patients. >> california now having the debate some other states have already had. jacob ward, thank you. tributes continue to pour in for singing legend ronnie spector. her family says she passed after a short battle with cancer. spec for loved the ronettes. the band toured with the rolling

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♪ got my heart ♪ ♪ got my soul ♪ ♪ got my mouth ♪ ♪ i got life ♪ just now 33 past the hour. and any minute now, we'll get an update from president biden on the national fight against the omicron variant as the recent surge of infections has left schools across the country fighting to stay open. in connecticut, the education association asked teachers to wear black in a call for stronger safety measures such as masks and at-home tests as covid continues to run rampant through classrooms. joining success ron allen in waterbury connecticut and a professor of pediatrics at children's hospital of

philadelphia, good to see both of you. ron, walk us through what you're hearing from the educators. >> it's a scramble and a strain and every day is a little different. that's what we're hearing, it's very difficult these days to be a teacher, very difficult to be a student, because of just the shortages of staff and shortages with bus drivers in the morning school day trying to have extracurricular activities after school. waterbury a half day system in the middle school and high school so they can have a full day of classes for the younger k to 8 kids who need more time in class. the walk-in as it was called yesterday teachers wearing black was an act of frustration. teachers need masks, tests so they can feel safe. here is the head of the teachers union talking about her

concerns. take a listen. >> if you're pulling your teachers to their very, very limits, there's only so much they have to give so my concern is that if this situation doesn't turn, we're in a circumstance where there's not enough bodies in the room. we'll hear people out or they'll have covid. in either situation you end up with educators who aren't able to get the job done. they are working incredible hours committed fully to their students but getting tired. we're half way through the second week and one of the reasons for the blackout was people were telling me, i feel like there's nothing i can do to draw attention to this. i'm frustrated. i'm tired and i don't feel like i have any place to go. >> so they were trying to get attention and got continue. there have been responses from superintendents from parents across the state.

we understand how can we help, make this work because again, the goal everybody seems to have in mind is trying to keep kids in class, where they are safest and where they are learning. it's a question of how do you do that? how do you pull all this together? every day is a struggle. one bit of good news is that the numbers overall here the positivity rates in connecticut like in other states in the northeast at least are leveling off if not declining. it looks positive but then it turns. bottom line it's a day-to-day thing as everybody tries to figure out the best ways to keep kids in cool and learning. chris? >> dr.offet, one is to get more people vaccinated. a pediatrician described the low vaccination rate among kids and accompanying rising hospitalizations as a gut punch. the numbers that shocked me. kids ages 5 to 11, big

difference state to state. as of tuesday, just over 17% overall are fully vaccinated in that age group. vermont pretty high, 48%. california just shy of 19%. mississippi only 5%. but overall, on tuesday, just over 17% fully vaccinated, dr. offet. where are we going wrong? is this a messaging? what do we need to do to fix this, to get more kids vaccinated? >> we talk about how important it is for children to be in school. we talk about how important it is to have on site education to have the socialization but don't act like it. overall in the united states about 25% of children between 5 and 11 years of age have been vaccinated. overall in the united states about 50% of children between 12 to 15 va been vaccinated. the vaccination protects children. we talk about how we want to make sure the schools are safe and we don't vaccinate a majority of the children. it doesn't make any sense or we

push back on mask mandates. it's not that hard. it's really frustrating, also someone who works in a hospital, when we see children come into our hospital and seeing a lot of children come into our hospital over 5 years of age virtually none are vaccinated nor their parents nor siblings vaccinated. we are not going to boost our way out of this pandemic, not going to test our way out of this pandemic. we're going to vaccinate ourselves out of this pandemics aother countries have. israel has vaccination rates over 90%, average about four or five deaths a day in a country 30 times smaller than ours, about 130 deaths in this country a day which is exponentially less than what we're having. it's not that hard to figure this out. vaccinate your children. >> we're expecting to hear from the president any minute. doctor, i might have to interrupt you. i'll just warn you about than do you think we're at the point the people who are going to get vaccinated are vaccinated, that the people will vaccinate their kid, there is secret sauce we

haven't cooked in yet? >> i think we've given up and that's a mistake. we focus tirelessly on booster dosing when we should focus on dosing and watching dr. sanford in philadelphia go into an african american community and increase rates that has to happen at the local level and completely possible but it's not happening. >> wf to vaccinate ourselves as you point out, our way out of this. the white house has promised a pretty steadily monthly stream, 5 million rapid tests and 5 million pcr tests in k to 12 schools in states that applied for them. there are 48 million students k to 12 in the u.s. and that doesn't even count teachers, staff, all of that. is that important? would you like to see more in the meantime, if nothing else to say to teachers, you know we're trying to make this work environment as safe as it can

be. >> it offers something. every year an influenza vaccine causes children to come into hospital. it protects against moderate to severe disease but not protecting against mild or asymptomatic infection. if we tested everybody to see despite being vaccinated they are pcr positive, we'd be surprised how much we're seeing. vaccines are not good preventing milder asymptomatic infection. prevention against mild illness is not something we typically do for viruses. it's frustrating and i'm sure tiring for public health workers. >> dr. paul off it, thank you. your time something impeccable. the president is coming to the podium. let's take a listen. >> good morning everyone. i want to begin by thanking the

secretary of defense and our fema director for joining me today. we were joking earlier when you need something done, all the military. fee may will make sure it gets done. look, we're about to get a covid-19 briefing from military medical teams on the ground in arizona, michigan and new york. they're part of a major deployment of our nation's armed forces to help hospitals across the country manage this surge of the omicron virus. surge, have an impact on hospitals. like all health care workers, they are heroes and i'm grateful for what they do. i want to provide an update on our fight against covid-19 and announce new steps. first the update. i know we're all frustrated as we enter this new year. the omicron variant is causing

millions of cases and record hospitalizations. i've been saying that as we remain in this pandemic, this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. vaccinated and unvaccinated people are testing positive. what happens after that could not be more different. if vaccinated people test positive they're overwhelmingly having no symptoms at all or mild symptoms. if you're unvax namted if they test positive you are 17 times more likely to get hospitalized. as a result, they're crowding the hospitals leaving little room for anyone else who might have a heart attack or an injury in an automobile accident or any injury at all. the unvaccinated are dying from covid-19 but here's the deal. because we fully vaccinated nearly 210 million americans the majority of the country is safe from severe covid-19

consequences. that's why peen as the number of cases among the vaccinated americans go up, deaths are down dramatically from last winter. before the vaccination requirements in the united states, excuse me, united airlines was averaging one employee dying a week from covid-19. after imlemting this requirement, it's led to 99% of its employees being vaccinated. united had 3,600 employees test positive but zero hospitalizations. zero deaths in over eight weeks. but as long as we have tens of millions of people who will not get vaccinated we have full hospitals and needless deaths. the single most important thing to determine your outcome in this pandemic is getting vaccinated. if you're not vaccinated, join the nearly 210 million american people who are vaccinated.

if you are vaccinated join the nearly 80 million americans who have gotten the booster shot with the strongest protection. vaccines are safe. they're free and they're widely available so do it today for the sake of your kids and the sake of the country. i don't like to you know, outline the next steps we're taking against, i like to outline the next steps we're taking against the omicron variant. vaccinations are the most important thing we're doing with you not the only important thing. first, maskinging. masking is an important tool to control the spread of covid-19 and when you're indoors in public place, you should wear the mask. there are a lot, you know, lots of different kinds of masks out there. the center for disease control and prevention the cdc worrying

a well-fitting mask of any of them is certainly better than not wearing a mask. if it's well-fitting. over your nose. it's about one-third of americans report they don't wear a mask at all. as i've said in the last two years, please wear a mask. i think it's part of your patriotic duty. it's not that comfortable. it's a pain in the neck. but i've taken ever action i can as president to require people to wear a mass income federal buildings, on airplanes and trains because they cross state lines. i made sure our doctors and nurses and first responders have the masks they need. never again have our nurses use homemade masks and garr bag bags because they don't have the gowns. we have the specialized n95

masks since coming into office. this makes sure there will be an ample supply of health care workers and first responders. also make sure high-quality masks are widely available in ample supply affordable prices sold online and in stores. for some americans the mask is not always affordable or convenient to get, so next week, we'll announce how we are making high quality masks available to american people, the american people for free. i know we all wish that we could finally be done with wearing masks. i get it. but they're an important tool to stop the spread of a highly trance missable omicron variant. transmissible omicron variant. so please, please wear the mask. second, testing. we're seeing real improvement in testing. when i got here, we were going through 2 million tests a day.

now and this changed, none of these tests were at home or rapid tests. this month it's estimated we will hit approximately 15 million tests a day and have over 375 million at-home rapid tests in january alone. that's a huge leap. we've taken a number of steps including invoking the defense production act as early as last february to ramp up production. we're on track, we're on track to roll out a website next week where you can order free tests shipped to your home, and in addition to the 500 million, half a billion tests that are in the process of being acquired to ship to your homes for free, today i'm directing my team to procure an additional 500 million more tests to distribute for free. 1 billion tests in total to meet

future demand. and we'll continue to work with the retailers and online retailers to increase availability. for those who want an immediate test, we continue to add fema testing sites so that there are more than, more free in-person testing sites. for those of you with insurance, you can get reimbursed for eight tests a month. for those without insurance, we have over 20,000 free testing sites all around the country. you can find the nearest testing sites for you by googling covid test near me. google "covid test near me." to lead our program i tapped dr. tom -- i hope i pronounce it,

engelsman, engelsby, correct, is that right, and he's one of the world's leading infectious disease efforts and third we'll discuss our hospital response efforts today. just since thanksgiving over 800 military and other federal emergency personnel have been deployed to 24 states, tribes and territories, including over 350 military doctors, nurses and medics, helping staff hospitals that are in short supply. this is on top of more than 14,000 national guard members that are activated in 49 states. these deployments in my direction and thanks to the american rescue plan are fully paid for by the federal government. we've shipped over 5.5 million pieces of personal protective equipment, gloves, gowns, masks, to protect front line health care workers.

we're shipping more treatments of covid-19, which includes anti viral pills than at any point during this pandemic. in addition i've directed fema to work with every state territory in the district of columbia to make sure they have enough hospital bed capacity. today, i'm total of more than 1 military personnel to six hard-hit states. michigan, new york, new jersey, ohio, rhode island. let me close with this. it's been a long road, but what's clear as we get through this when everybody does their part. no matter where you live. no matter your political party. we've got to fight this together. unfortunately, while the military is stepping up as they always do, there are others sitting on the sidelines and we're standing in the way. if you haven't gotten vaccinated, do it. personal choice impacts us all. our hospitals, our countries.

i make a special appeal to social media companies and media outlets. please deal with the misinformation and disinformation on your shows. it has to stop. covid-19 is one of the most formidable enemies america has ever faced. we've got to work together. not against each other. we're america. we can do this. so the military medical teams on the ground, thank you for everything you're doing. i'll stop here so we can get to the briefing started. but thank you for taking the time. >> reporter: do you have a message for vaccinated americans who are wondering why they should continue to restrict their activities even though officials say most americans will get covid? >> folks, we'll talk about that later. >> reporter: why should americans trust your administration -- >> reporter: do you think

republicans -- >> we're waiting to see if the president is going to answer any of the questions being directed to him. let's see. it looks like -- >> me too. >> we'll start in one minute. >> all right. doctor, let me go to you while we're waiting to see if the president is answering any questions. it seems like they're talking about a website to order tests for americans. they're promising the higher quality masks. they're talking about the expansion of their hospital response efforts. what do you make of what the president had to say about the latest from the white house trying to deal with this omicron

surge and what didn't you hear that you wish you would have? >> here's what i would say. if you look at last winter when we had far fewer people vaccinated and far fewer people who were naturally infected, nonetheless, you start to see a clear decline in hospitalizations and deaths by mid february. this was last year. it's a winter virus. that's true this year, too. omicron like always variants is a winter virus. so you, i suspect, within the next two weeks, four weeks, will clearly see likely a decline in the instance of the virus in terms of causing hospitalizations and deaths. it's a little late, actually, to bring testing in now. the simplest way to do this is one, get vaccinated. two, when you're outside or when you're inside anywhere with other people, wear a mask. and i think it makes sense that what the president said earlier. if you're vaccinated and you have a mild illness, and you become asymptomatic, i think you

can reasonably assume you're shedding a minimal amount of virus, if at all, and then just go out into the real world again and wear a mask. so stay inside if you're sick, and then once you have no more symptoms, wear a mask inside. and wear a mask inside anyway. i think that would make it easier. but we're almost through this. we're not going to have to do this the next six months, just probably for the next four weeks at the longest. so just hang in there. we're almost there. >> let me ask you a very normal question that i hear from people. i'm vaccinated. i'm boosted. i wear my mask. but in new york state, for example, they check when you into into a restaurant. they make sure that you're vaccinated and boosted and you go out to dinner. can you see a broadway show? >> yes. i mean, philadelphia also. they make sure you're vaccinated, not boosted, but i think that's fair. it is your social responsibility to be vaccinated. if you're going to benefit from

things in society like eating and going to broadway shows, you should participate in society by vaccinating. it's not your right as an american citizen to catch and transmit a potentially fatal infection. this notion of personal freedoms and bodily autonomy doesn't apply to contagious diseases. i think it's fair to have that requirement. remember, nothing is perfect. no vaccine is perfect. and so even if you're vaccinated or boosted, you still could possibly be hospitalized or killed by the virus. you're chances are dramatically less. >> we have thirty-seconds left. the president started by saying we're all frustrated. does the white house feel like they're continuing to play catchup, or do they feel they're starting to get ahead of this? >> the president describing there, how this has been a long road on covid. you got the sense of how this has been a long road for the president and white house officials who really wanted to be starting year two of the biden presidency able to focus on other things. the omicron and covid clearly still the top priority.

they do feel like they are putting into place the kinds of programs that are going to deal with the shortages we're having on testing, dealing with potentially giving masks to americans, something the president talked about there, making sure people have access for free to high-quality masks but a lot of open questions about how they're going to be able to do this and a lot of frustration you can see from the president just like from so many americans. >> thank you to both of you. that wraps up this hour. coming up after a quick break, craig melvin with the exclusive interview with vice president kamala harris. her message to the millions frustrated with how hard it is to get covid tests and much more. and much and much moreited yell) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health.

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crest advanced gum restore. detoxifies below the gumline... and restores by helping heal gums in as little as 7 days. crest. the #1 toothpaste brand in america. good thursday morning to you. craig melvin here at msnbc world head quarters in new york city. this hour big updates by the president and vice president on critical issues that face our country. president biden just addressed this pandemic at a moment where cases and hospitalizations are hitting new unprecedented highs. we learned two things from the president a few minutes ago. first his administration plans to announce next week just how it will make the high quality masks free and available to all americans. and secondly, he's working to secure 500 million more cov