EXCERPT:
MCLAUGHLIN: “Joe, it’s more of what we’ve seen all week since before the Christmas holiday. Long lines, hours long wait. This particular testing site, I’ve actually been tested here a couple of times and just easy breezy, was able to drive in, get a test and go. Now it’s appointment only. A lot of other testing sites are doing that too to try to control the line and congestion. Some of those lines are wrapping into the street and disrupting traffic. Police needing to come and sort of control the situation. And that’s, you know, it’s happy new year to you, but we are in the third year of this pandemic. And just seeing daily case numbers break pandemic records. Some new numbers, the NBC news tally showing we see more than 54.5 million cases since the start of the pandemic here in the U.S. and more than 820,000 deaths. In North Carolina, more than 1.5 million cases. Nearly 20,000 deaths. 33 states in D.C. showing some percentage increase over the past 14 days.”