smarty santini he's now. a long way to recovery we're pleased to say and she told us that the situation is a breaking point we're stuck now we were running low on oxygen on supplies on you know all the respiratory drugs definitely bad definitely staff we don't have enough staff we are beyond stretched we have patients in overflow overflow overflow areas that were never intended to have patients other hospitals are setting out makeshift units outside of the hospital our government they blew it also they could have released the defense production act and ramped up the production of p.p. and all the other supplies that we need and they didn't do that so the whole the whole nations in a big big predicament of how we're going to be able to treat patients safely and give them the care that they need while a officials have issued a safe at home order to try and stop the virus gatherings for anything other than emergencies and political religious purposes are banned most non-essential companies have been forced to sh

marsha santini went on to again blame public recklessness for the rapid spread of the virus. i can't even imagine what it be like to be a governor right now the state. especially california california is a powerhouse right it's got the 6th largest economy in the world and. the fact that you know businesses are shutting down you have a lot of very vocal californians and and they were giving him a tremendous amount of pressure to open up and i understand that but you could open up safely and people just weren't big saving why i would drive by bars and people would have their masks off and there be it be densely densely crowded and then you hear people like running out homes and having parties where there's 1000 people there so it's the public it's us it's the ignorance of the human being we continue to. defy the recommendations of the c.d.c. we continue to gather and i understand how important holidays are there just as important for me i haven't seen my family in minds it's terribly serious and people need to understand that you have to be careful and it doesn't matter your ag

. >> a risk too high from those fighting from the front lines including er nurse marcia santini who herself became infectedness we have tro take care of one-- i can't talk. we have to take care of one another. >> many more of those front line workers are getting caught in the astonishing threat of covid. right now it's believed one in 80 people in l.a. county is infected. >> lilia luciannea in los angeles, thank you. >> this weekend some 265,000 wreaths were placed at graves in arlington, national cemetery it happened at indiana's fairview cemetery too. it is part of the volunteer wreaths across america effort to place wreathes at veteran's graves, at some 2100 locations in all 50 states. >> now to a special santa in the spirit of the season. ups driver anthony gation kin has delivered countless packages on his route in suburban richmond, virginia, throughout these troubled times and does it with a smile. so this past week neighbors surprised anthony by lining the street to show their appreciation. and as you can see, anthony got a little emotional there. well, state ahead on the cbs weeken

hospital employees like marcia santini are now out sick struggling with covid. >> this was like someone punched me in the gut and ripped my heart out. >> there is a new study which shows a majority of kids with coronavirus got it from their family, not were their classmates. dr. anthony fauci says he's hopeful that an overwhelming majority of americans will take the vaccine when it becomes widely available this spring. >> we will get a vail or umbrella of herd immunity over the population. >> and finally after battling covid-19 since november and giving bert while in the hospital, natalie herera finally got to go home this week to hold her one month old baby boy felipe for the very first time. we just arrived in fresno, california, and here in the central part of the state the biggest hospital has run out of icu beds. you know there is another way to think about how the pfizer vaccine works, dr. tom frieden says the mrna in pfizer vaccine is like an email, it goes to your immune system, says what the virus looks like and gives instructions on how to kill it and then like a snapchat mess

but i said i've got to go to some of these things with them so they just don't think i turned great santini i on what they did so i went down and i can't tell you how heartened i was by the vibe in the street where i did about you i'm old as the new but what were bill closer than we are we kids and when i was a kid there was there was such cliques mad there was hoods there was jocks there were squares and never the twain shall meet when i was down in austin for south by southwest i dug the fellowship there i saw the kids who were welcomed in the clacks that my generation were not i think it is getting better so well at you know those kinds of. constants are really great because they draw a people who are passionate for music and i think austin is an anomaly i mean it is a very cold playing. nice petri dish. and but i think you know look i'm glad you had a great experience and i do think that today's generation for the most part with some exceptions that. don't. you now are aren't open minded i think a lot of kids are more colorblind to racial different ness and much more open to that in you

live but many experts believe even with vaccines before things get better they may get worse marcia santini is a nurse in los angeles she says that even with protection she got the virus and warns that more trouble could be on the way it's going to take a lot of time before we could vaccinate everyone and we don't necessarily just get vaccinated it goes away adding to the problems a new variant of covert 1000 has been found in the u.k. and it is rapidly making its way around the world to. little through the whole genome sequencing we have confirmed you can balance the corona virus in 3 people who entered south korea on december 22nd aside from south korea among others japan france spain italy norway canada jordan and south africa have all found people with a variant on their territories the world health organization says that there is no need to panic the u.k. has reported that this new vine and transmits more easily but that he's annoyed be done so far that it's more likely to cause if it is ordered more tightly to. wu is working with scientists to understand how these genetic changes affe

marsha santini, a nurse at ucla who is now infected. >> this is like someone punched me in the gut andart out. i'm thinking how could this happen? we were so careful. want people to know this is not a picnic in the park at all. you know, if you have mild symptoms, thank god. thank god. i get severe pain in different parts of my body. i have now lost my taste, smell, i have a lot of gi type symptoms. >> joining me now, barbara ferrer, director of l.a. department of public health. thank you so much for joining me. record number of cases, hospitalizations, deaths in your county. is this a post holiday surge or is there something more? >> thanks so much, dana. this is a post holiday surge, that doesn't need to be. i think when we think about is this something more, this is a lot of inter mingling that needed to happen, but it did happen and it created for us an enormous increase in our cases. yesterday, we reported 22,000 new cases, it included about 7,000 backlog lab reports. even at 15,000 new cases a day, that's overwhelming our health care system at this point. and continues to overwhe

including er nurse, marsha santini who was infected. >> we have to take care of -- i can't talk.o take care of one another. >> many more of those front line workers are getting caught in the astonishing spread of covid, right now, it's believed 1 in 80 people in l.a. county is infected. >> for us in los angeles tonight. thank you. as the pandemic continues its deadly assault this season, typically defined by joy, it's increasingly defined by grief. here is cbs's michael george. ♪ >> a bell at washington's national cathedral, tolling 300 times. one signal for every 1,000 people in this country who have died from covid-19. charlie jackson, an army veteran was lost on may 17th. >> i took him to the va hospital and that was my last time seeing him aalive. >> his wife was unable to be with her husband for the last three weeks of his life. she said thanksgiving was painful. >> it was horrible. we did what we could to get through as a family and when we sat down for dinner he would normally bless the food and carve the turkey and he was not there to do any of that. and it's just unfair.