Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe on a Tuesday morning.

It is December 28th, just four days until we flip the calendar to a new year.

I'm Willie Geist.

Joe and Mika have the morning off.

And joining our conversation, MSNC contributor, bestselling author,

Katty Kay, and the host of Way Too Early

and White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. Good morning to you both. Happy almost

New Year to you. Let's dive right in. The CDC is out with some new guidelines on COVID,

shortening the recommended isolation and quarantine times for those who test positive or who are exposed to the virus.

This comes as the fast-spreading Omicron variant puts pressure on hospitals, airlines, and other businesses amid a serious shortfall of available tests.

NBC News correspondent Sam Brock has more.

A sea change in policy from the CDC, cutting the recommended

quarantine time in half for all Americans infected with COVID-19. From 10 days down to five,

provided their asymptomatic and wear masks around others for five more days. This says testing for the

virus reaches a crisis point. By five o'clock in the morning, the lines in South Florida

were already forming with the prospect of free COVID testing kits lowering thousands.

What are you seeing in store shelves right now? Oh, empty. Empty everywhere. Every pharmacy you go to.

They were all in stock. They're all fine, but I guess they all disappeared in a matter of three days.

Like, they just weren't there. At this library in Miami-Dade County, you're looking at two

different lines right now. This is for free testing kits. This one is for testing on-site. Both of them

snake around the building in both directions with no end in sight. It's a Miami microcosm of a national crisis,

chaos in line from New York to Charlotte to Dallas. President Biden pressed on the inadequate supply.

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