anderson. >> nick watt, i appreciate it., the second new york police department officer who was shot while responding to a domestic incident in harlem last week died today. officers mora and rivera were both shot and killed after a suspected gunman opened fire in a harlem apartment. the suspect tried to run away but was confronted and shot by a third officer who was on the scene. both men were just two of five new york police department officers who have been shot in the first month of 2022. we'll be right back. you're a one-man stitchwork master. but your staffing plan needs to go up a size. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire like pulsing, electric shocks, sharp, stabbing pains, or an intense burning sensation. what is this nightmare? it's how some people describe... shingles. a painful, blistering rash that could interrupt your life for weeks. forget social events and weekend getaways. if you've had

>> nick watt, thanks. this with baltimore police commissioner michael harrison. we should note you tested positive a couple of weeks ago. how are you feeling? >> well, first of all, thank you for having me. i'm feeling great. my family travelled to our home city of new orleans over the christmas holidays and on the day we were supposed to return on the 28th, i believe, 27th, i began to feel symptoms and got tested the next day and tested positive. my symptoms, my wife tested positive also but our symptoms were very mild. only for about three or four days and then we began to recover really quickly and then i, of course, worked remotely the next week and stayed home as a precaution. and then went back to work this past monday. feeling great now. so residue, no lasting side effects, but thank you. >> last week your department spokeswoman said more than 300 baltimore police officers and other employees were quarantined because of covid. that's roughly 12% of your force. how has that impacted your department a

nick watt, thank you. >>> two families are pleading for help after their loved ones disappeared afterh in panama this month. the wreckage has still not been found. i'll talk to the son of one missing woman as he's asking the u.s. government to get involved in the search for his mother. >> and a look at some of the other events that we're watching today. from the very first touch, pampers, the #1 pediatrician recommended brand, helps keep baby's skin drier and healthier. so every touch will protect like the first. pampers i always had a connection to my grandfather... i always wanted to learn more about him. i discovered some very interesting documents on ancestry. this is the uh registration card for the draft for world war two. and this is his signature which blew me away. being able to... make my grandfather real... not just a memory... is priceless. his legacy...lives on. what can i du with less asthma? with dupixent, i can du more....beginners' yoga. namaste... ...surprise parties. aww, you guys. dupixent helps prevent asthma attacks... ...for 3!... ...so i can du more of the thin

>> nick watt in los angeles, thank you so much.rever. the s.a.t. is making major changes to the college entrance exam. stay with us. bout my goals and the foods i love. i like that the ww personalpoints plan is built just for me. don't pay until spring. join today at ww.com offer ends january 30th. (ringing) - hey kaleb, what's up? how you doing? - hey, i'm good, guess what, i just had my 13th surgery. - really? i just had my 17th surgery. - well, you beat me. - well, i am a little bit older than you. - yeah it's true. how are you doing? - i'm doing good. i'm encouraged by seeing how people are coming together to help each other during times like these. - kind of like how shriners hospitals for children is there for us. imagine if i couldn't get my surgery. who knows what would have happened. - same for me. i know my shriners hospitals family will continue to take care kids like us who need them most all because of caring people like you. - like me? - no, the people watching us right now at home. - oh, those people. hi people. - ka

cnn's nick watt with that. >> reporter: this administration placed all of their eggs in vaccination. >> reporter: there are doctors who agree with those democratic senators, that the biden administration has been too reactive to omicron, not proactive. >> we saw south africa getting ravaged with this virus. we knew it was highly transmissible, but we didn't ramp up our testing capacity. >> reporter: reasons to be cheerful, west virginia's governor is feeling better saying, without question, the fact that i chose to get vaccinated and boosted saved my life. that's all there is to it. and this was the map beginning of last week. cases rising rapidly almost everywhere except maine. today there's a lot less deep red. most of the northeast looking better. >> i'm very encouraged that case counts are dropping now in this area unmistakably. >> reporter: still nationwide averaging nearly 800,000 new infections every day. there are now twice as many new infections a day than there are people getting their first vaccine shot. walgreens and cvs now temporarily closing some stores on weekends due

right now a sliver of good news as cnn's nick watt reports. cases appear to be peaking in some places such as new york which means case counts could soon be coming down. >> omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody. >> it's finding and infecting nearly three quarters of a million americans on average every day. at united, 3,000 staff have covid right now. the airline forced to trim schedules. more than 800 lapd staff now in quarantine. >> we are very -- >> reporter: chicago's mayor just tested positive. so did west virginia's governor. i'm thankful to the lord above that i've been vaccinated. i've been boosted. that being said, i feel extremely unwell at this point. the omicron surge appears now to be peaking in parts of the northeast. >> over the past week, covid-19 cases have remained extremely high. but they may be starting to plateau. >> we are not at the end, but i wanted to say this is, to me, a glimmer of hope. a glimmer of hope in a time we despera

nick watt, thank you very much for that report. >>> dr. rob davidson is going to join us now. he's an emergency room physician in michigan. also the executive director of the committee to protect healthcare. great to see you. this is a major paradigm shift, i think, from what we're hearing from public officials. it used to be avoid getting covid at all costs. stay indoors if you must. then the vaccines came and now it's, most people are going to get covid and if you're vaccinated, you're probably going to be able to avoid hospitalization and death. >> yeah. and i think what dr. fauci really said is most people will come in contact with covid and the risk of getting infected if you're vaccinated is still about 5 to 7 times lower than if you're unvaccinated and if you get infected, the risk is another seven times lower and the risk of dying is about 15 times lower. so everything tells us if you are vaccinated, those multilayers of protection against severe disease, but even getting infected in the first place, are still there. public health isn't black and white, unfortunately,

nick watt, cnn, los angeles. >>> still ahead right here on cnn, diplomacy gives way to the drum beat of war. we'll have the stark assessments from three days of failed talks to ease tensions between russia and ukraine. >>> plus, a further fall from grace for britain's prince andrew. why buckingham palace is stripping him of his roles. >>> u.s. national security adviser jake sullivan says the threat of a russian invasion of ukraine remains high. now, that bleak assessment comes after a week of disappointing talks across three european countries. russia's deputy foreign minister said negotiators have hit a dead end and he saw no reason to restart the same discussions. and the u.s. envoy went even further. listen. >> at the present time, we're facing a crisis in european security. the drum beat of war is sounding loud and the rhetoric has gotten rather shrill. we have seen a massive and unprecedented buildup of russian forces. tens of thousands, now close to 100,000 combat-ready forces on the international border with ukraine, we have seen all of the advanced weaponry, artillery systems

>> nick watt, thanks so much. joining us now live to discuss, cnn chief medical correspondent dr.n is sending a new wave of military medical teams to try to help hospitals in six states. health care systems nationwide are facing staffing shortages. are military teams a last resort in a medical crisis? have you ever seen anything like this before? >> well, we've seen it quite a bit over the last couple years, right, jake? even since thanksgiving there's been 800 military personnel deployed in 24 different states trying to provide relief, triage patients, and decompress emergency rooms. i mean, when hospitals become overwhelmed that is the issue. emergency rooms are full. they don't have beds for patients to go. you can't take new patients in. they can help with some of those basic things. typically freeing up resources, staff to be able to do some of the more life saving or critical sort of jobs that these patients are requiring. so, yeah. i've seen it. typically used to seeing it in the middle of conflict zones. we saw these types of things happening after hurricane katrina for ex

>> nick watt, thanks. >>> let's bring in medical analyst dr. jonathan reiner. the white house rolled out its free at-home testing site today. a limit of four per household and it will take a couple of weeks before the tests get to people's doorsteps. will this effort ultimately make any sort of dent in the pandemic? >> well, maybe not for this big omicron surge, but going forward, yes. i think tests are critical -- a critical tool to help us get back to normal. it's how we are going to be able to understand whether that tickle in your throat is just a tickle in your throat or whether it's covid. and whether you need to stay home. it's a tool to allow you to go visit your friends on saturday night which is what we and our friends did before we met this past weekend. so it's going to be critical to have tests in every home. it would have been wonderful for us to have had this months ago, but here we are and i'm glad the administration is doing this. but for most people they won't be able to get these tests until the beginning of february and i encourage everyone

wolf. >> nick watt reporting for us. and thank you very much. >>> let's bring in our pandemic experts right now. dr. paul offit is a member of the fda vaccine advisory committee and ounlor of the very important book "you bet your life." you're also joined by dr. aila stanford from the black doctors covid-19 consortium. thank you to both of you for joining us. dr. offit, do you agree with the assessment that the omicron surge appears to be peaking in the northeast right now, is relief on the way? >> i think so. if you look for the united kingdom or denmark which are a couple of weeks ahead of us, it does look like things are going to get better quickly and new york city thinks you get a sense of peaking and coming down. that is the situation in south africa. so i do think we'll get past this quickly. i do disagree with the notion that all of us should be resigned to getting omicron. the term that virologists used to describe circulating viruses is wildlife, like out of control. do everything you can to avoid the virus. re

cnn's nick watt joins us next for a look at the rising crime in los angeles. [ coughing and sneezingack fast with alka seltzer plus. with 25% more concentrated power. alka-seltzer plus. ♪ oh, what a relief it is ♪ so fast! also try for cough, mucus & congestion. hey lily, i need a new wireless plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this. your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, like asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee. yeah i should've just led with that. with at&t business. you can pick the best plan for each employee and get the best deals on every smart phone. yep, it's go time with wireless on the most reliable network. ok, that jump was crazy! but what's crazier? you get unlimited for just 30 bucks. nice! but mine has 5g included. wait! 5g included? yup, even these guys get it. nice ride, by the way. and the icing on the cake? saving up to 400 bucks? exactly. wait, shouldn't you be navi

>> nick watt, thanks so much. >>> joining us to discuss, michael osterholm. thanks for joining us.o you've developed a bit of a reputation for being the voice of doom and gloom. not that i should note -- not that your dire predictions have been proven wrong throughout this pandemic. let me ask you. are you seeing any signs of hope at this stage of the pandemic? >> well, of course, the news of the cases peaking out and potentially starting to drop in the northeast is very good news. but i think, if anything, i hope my predictions have been reality based and time tested. and i said five weeks ago that we'd be hitting this viral blizzard, which as we are now in. and i think we still have four more weeks probably as a nation where we're going to see very high levels of cases. we'll see major, major challenges in our health care system and as a country, the economy, as we know it. i'm not talking about money economy. i'm talking about critical services, food, pharmaceutical drugs, et cetera will be severely challenged. >> you know that there are many states in the country, generally red

cnn's nick watt has more with the latest efforts to get it under control. >> the covid forecast is improvingeporter: in new york, average daily infections plummeted about 40% in just a week. >> the challenge is that the entire country is not moving at the same pace. the omicron wave started later in other parts of the country so we shouldn't expect a national peak in the next coming days. the next few weeks will be tough. >> reporter: after christmas nationwide we were averaging 200,000 new infections every day as omicron took hold. >> is that a number that you think could reach half a million soon? >> you know, it's possible, kaitlan, i don't think it will b you never can tell. >> reporter: saturday infections topped 800,000 for the for the. look at that graph, this is record territory. previous waves not even close. >> we're almost there. i really do think within the next say three, to four to five weeks you're going to see a dramatic decline in the incidents of this illness, and presumably next winter we'll see somewhat of a surge less than this surge. >> reporter: the cdc says the affect

nick watt, thank you very much.e on this, i want to go straight to diane, labor market expert, and chief economist at grand thornton. so, anne, how much of a threat oh are these labor shortages that we're seeing right now to the u.s. economy? >> well, it's really, fairly large. what we are seeing is a mimicked, um, sort of mandated lockdown. it is mimicking that because we have such acute labor shortages, and so many people out sick, at the same time, that it's basically locking down the economy. we have seen restaurants shut down. we have seen theaters shut down. you noted all the disruptions you saw but what's so different about the original lockdowns is, of course, these aren't as targeted. and they are really hitting into essential services in a way that we have not seen before. the shortages of hospital staff coming on -- on the back of, already, record-high rates in the health-care sector. burnout is really high. and then, you add on top of it, as much as 15% at some hospitals that are out sick. this really is

more tonight from cnn's nick watt. >> reporter: downtown los angeles.e being stolen from trains. that trash is the aftermath. >> what the hell is going on? it looked like a third world country. >> reporter: what the hell is going on? well, union pacific blames in large part l.a.'s newish woke-ish district attorney, elected in the wake of george floyd's murder and flanked for his one-year anniversary presser by progressive d.a.'s from around the country. >> we have set a path for ourselves to turn around the criminal legal system in this country. >> reporter: gascon has ordered his deputy d.a.'s no under 18s charged as adults, no more three strikes. and in many cases, do not even prosecute most misdemeanors like trespassing and don't seek more prison time if guns or gangs are involved. all he says to make the system -- >> more humane, more equitable. >> reporter: but union pacific is now actually asking the d.a. to rethink his reforms because of this. they claim more than 100 arrests have been made, but apparently not one prosecution. >> they did not pre

cnn's nick watt reports, some public health experts are saying this yardstick needs to change. >> i will be shocked if this is stopped. >> i don't see this going away. >> okay. so can when can we return to normalish life? live with covid-19? lift restrictions? right now cdc bench mark is 10 or fewer cases per 100,000 in a week. and all those red counties are now at 100 plus. ten times too high. >> we may need to rethink that with this new omicron strain. we may stall out around 20. that may be the point when we have to consider withdrawing these measures. >> because omicron is more contagious but generally causes less severe disease. >> we need to move away from the pandemic and we ask the president to help have clear guidelines on how we can return to a greater state of normality. >> tomorrow, san francisco, among most covid cautious cities, will slightly ease its strict indoor mask mandate. across the country, average new case counts are falling fast. down 39% from the omicron peak. hospitalizations also falling. >> look what is happening in the u.k. now. it started to come down really

nick watt is out front live in santa monica and, nick, you know, it is incredible when you see ron desantis and eric adams both saying hell no, we are keeping our schools open because there are school districts across this country delaying return to schools right now. i know you are get news of yet another one tonight. >> yeah, los angeles school district just pushed back re-opening by a day and they are also now insisting that everyone -- staff and students -- return a negative test before they set foot back on campus. you know, erin, throughout this pandemic, we have been talking about surges, hot spots, and different parts of the country. game of whack a mole. this is now very different. this virus is everywhere. omicron is now everywhere. 49 states showing significant rise in cases. only maine right now is holding steady. >> we have never seen these numbers before. >> reporter: a new york city teachers union estimates maybe a quarter of its teachers could be out sick. requested this semester start online, no, said the box fresh mayor. he has confidence in testing. >> we are going to kee

but as nick watt reports, it's far from a national trend. >> the covid forecast is improving. looking better. the covid clouds are parting. >> reporter: in new york, average daily infections plummeted about 40% in just a week. >> the challenge is that not the entire country is not moving at the same pace. the omicron wave started later in other parts of the country so we shouldn't expect a national peak in the next coming days. next few weeks will be tough. >> reporter: just after christmas nationwide we were averaging a little over 200,000 new infections every day as omicron took hold. >> is that a number that you think could reach half a million soon? >> you know, it's possible. i don't think it will, but you never really can tell. >> reporter: saturday, average daily infections topped 800,000 for the first time. look at that graph. this is record territory. previous waves, not even close. >> we're almost there. i really do think within the next three to four to five weeks you'll see a dramatic decline in the instance of this illness and presumably next winter we'll see some

live doppler 7 showing you the dense fog advisory until 10 nick watt this morning, for good reason.re going to press into closer into the north bay where we have the issues, novato down to a quarter-mile in the zero miles in petaluma. it doesn't get worse than that. thick fog on parts of 101 and highway 37 as you head toward napa, quarter-mile visibility there. same story in santa rosa. livermore is not underneath the advisory, but you still have issues.do aerilect in this rio a chilly start to the day, we are in the 40's. san francisco at 49, 43 in santa rosa. much cooler inland, livermore with fog coming in. 10:00 a.m., still seeing issues with low clouds around the bay shoreline. it is not until midday into the afternoon cloud cover is going to lift for a lot of sunshine later today. high-pressure and control, meaning the storm track is well north of the region, keeping us dry. morning focht a sunshine, upper 50's to low 60's. -- fog to sunshine. today is warmer than yesterday. tonight, fog redeveloped in the north bay, temperatures in the low to mid 40's into thursday. the seven

nick valencia reports on an epidemic of gunfire on new orleans highways. >> reporter: new orleans on alert as the city has been experiencing a steady uptick in highway shootings. 34-year-old whitney wattsns according to police and family members. one of her children was in the car when the shooting occurred. police say watts was pronounced dead at the scene. her family is devastated. >> i'm going with her daughter and my son's daughter. i get a call on the phone saying my daughter is dead, my daughter got shot. you don't bury your children. >> reporter: last weekend another shooting happened on interstate 10, this time killing a 52-year-old man and injuring a 45-year-old woman according to politician. police were investigating a nearby incident when they heard gunshots just after 3:00 a.m. on sunday. responding officers found the two victims in the car. a new orleans police department is asking the public to come forward with any and all information. no suspects or motives have been identified in either shooting. since january 2021, there have been over 30 interstate shootings in louisiana according to the new orleans police department. interstate highway shootings have been on a stead