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00:00Is the head of the CDC is her job in jeopardy this morning because of the communication that we've seen. Well I can't really comment on on her job in jeopardy with the administration. I do think that they really need to do more coordination across the government across the administration. And the CDC leader has important roles to play in that. But it isn't and shouldn't be the cheap voice of the policy decision. She needs really to be the scientific surveillance data driven voice. And I think that that as we all know we've been living through an enormous surge with the very infectious virus. The guidance has changed. It needs to change. But the communications from the administration as a whole. Well and challenging. This is critical because the United Kingdom has provided leadership by Jihye Lee seen as a general statement PCR. Are you suggesting in the coming hours or may I say days that will you'll see the US follow suit and jettison PCR certitude. Well that I don't know for sure that that is going to happen. I think that there is some evidence that's emerging about some of the tests not picking up a micron. And we have to remember that the way that Omicron was first really detected in South Africa was because of its variance on PCR testing there. It's just such a very variant virus. Their early studies that are suggesting the rapid tests may not pick it up as efficiently are not yet peer reviewed and they're relatively small. But that's something we're really paying close attention to because of course people are relying on rapid testing at home to make all kinds of decisions. Dr. Byer how close are we from your estimations of getting more rapid tests and making them available since this does seem to be the key aspect. Kind of locking the hands of the CDC to recommend that everybody get these before they emerge from isolation. Yeah yeah. We were concerned a couple of weeks ago that the increase in testing and the availability and the administration's plan to make them free and more widely available was not going to happen in time to deal with the holidays. And the post holiday curves that we're seeing. And unfortunately that's exactly what's happened. So the estimate is roughly that by the third or fourth week of January we should be coming out of this testing shortage. But that again is not going to be in time to deal with the post holiday waves of infection that we're seeing. So we're going to have about two weeks where people are still going to be frustrated. We won't have enough tests. I don't just mean there are gonna be critical. Forgive me for jumping in sir because when have a couple of minutes left. You've touched on I think the heart of the problem for a lot of people when they listen to the CDC. Am I listening to the science or am I listening to some version some convoluted version of behavioral psychology at the very start of this pandemic. We would tell the mass when not useful because we didn't have that many mass. And now we're being told we don't need to test out of isolation. And lo and behold we don't have many tests. And I'm trying to work out where the policy is shaped by scarce results resources or science. Which one is it. Doctor is this policy dictated by scarce resources or science. Well I'm afraid you're quite right that it's a mixed picture. And that that I think is part of the challenge with the communications. You want it to be driven by science. But there also has been as kind of try to balance the administration has been trying to balance what the American people will tolerate. And you know a great example of this is that Tom alluded earlier to our lower testing rates than other countries. That is really true. We're still only at about 60 to 63 percent fully vaccinated. So what do we do about mandating which many people would say the science supports or the politics of mandating vaccines in this country are very challenging. And so that balance is what you expect an administration and government to do. But what we want to see from the CDC of course is not that they are taking those political calculations but rather that they are really looking at what what is the best evidence and tracking that evidence as it changes and communicating that indeed there are going to be changes like we've seen with Micron. It is way more infectious probably twice as infectious as Delta. But it does appear to be producing less serious disease. The hospitals are jammed. We are back on emergency standing here in Maryland and in Baltimore. But the icy use are not as crowded and the people in intensive care are unvaccinated. That hasn't changed. That's still the science.

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Hospitals Jammed, But ICUs Less Crowded: Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Professor Chris Beyrer discusses Covid-19 messaging and concerns about PCR testing and the availability of rapid testing. The Bloomberg School of Public Health is supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. (Source: Getty Images North America)

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