'The Five' on Biden's COVID 'debacle,' Amazon's Alexa troubles

'The Five' panel react to an Amazon Alexa instructing a child to stick a penny in an electrical outlet. This is a rush transcript from "The Five," December 30, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. It's five o'clock in New York City, and this is The Five. The White House desperately trying to clean up President Biden's COVID debacle. As America hits a record number of new cases, the commander-in- chief failing to live up to his promise to shut down the virus as people wait hours in lines while states struggle with testing shortages. The president still has not signed the contract to send Americans millions of at-home tests, and he is bragging about a new test making facility that won't even be ready until -- listen to this -- 2024. And so much for following the science, the CDC is now cutting isolation period for people with COVID in half. But not to make us safer. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The reason is that now that we have such an overwhelming volume of cases coming in, many of which are without symptoms, there is the danger that this is going to have a really negative impact on our ability to really get society to function properly. So, the CDC made a decision to balance what is good for public health at the same time as keeping the society running. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL: It really had a lot to do with what we thought people would be able to tolerate. We really want to make sure that we have guidance in this moment where we were going to have a lot of disease that could be adhered to, that people were willing to adhere to and that spoke specifically to when people were maximally infectious. So, it really spoke to both behaviors as well as what people were able to do. MCENANY (on camera): President Biden is also being accused of sabotaging a key, life-saving treatment. Florida surgeon general claims the Biden administration has been, quote, "actively preventing monoclonal antibody treatments as states are running out of that therapeutic." Republicans are not happy about it. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): In Texas, we are one of those states that doesn't have these monoclonal antibodies anymore. We have been complaining to the administration about how these formulas are distributed.