Wholesale prices are up nearly 10% over the past year.

The Labor Department released new numbers for January on Tuesday.

Wholesale prices rose 1% from December to January, but 9.7% from January 2021 to January 2022.

Prices for goods increased more than prices for services.

Final demand energy prices rose 2.5% in January.

Food had an increase of 1.6%.

Supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, other pandemic-related issues have made it difficult for manufacturers to meet demand.

This has contributed a sharp increase in consumer prices.

The new numbers come as the Federal Reserve plans to raise interest rates in March.

Citi economists expect a 50-basis-point hike.

HIGHGATE, Vt. — For Jason Gagne, maple syrup is more than a topping. It's a lifestyle.

"It's not just for pancakes anymore," he said.

Gange runs his family farm, Gange Maple, and he's right. The use of maple has expanded.

"People use it in baking, cooking, they love it in their drinks at night," he said. "You can put it anywhere."

For Gagne and thousands of other maple producers in the Northeast, that expansion happened rapidly during the pandemic.

"COVID found that more people were eating maple syrup at home," Gagne said. "When the restaurants all closed, the consumption of maple syrup went up."

Gagne says demand went up about 25% — and it's up everywhere.

The Québec Maple Syrup Producers (QMSP) recently released around 50 million pounds of maple syrup from its strategic reserve in November to try and keep up with demand.

"Demand for maple syrup has been booming in 2020 and 2021," the QMSP said in a statement. "Businesses, noting the average-only harvest in Canada and the United States, responded by increasing their orders, necessitating QMSP's withdrawals from the Reserve."

Experts in the American maple industry say the country won't run out of syrup any time soon.

"There's still plenty of maple syrup to go around, there's not really a shortage of maple syrup," Gagne said.

Experts say tapping into a strategic reserve is pretty normal for agriculture economies.

"Typically, these reserves are in place in order to balance supply and demand and pricing," said Jack Buffington, who runs the supply chain program at the University of Denver. "A lot of times in agriculture and farming, it relates to pricing,"

Buffington says specific food shortages likely aren't as serious as they may seem, unlike the shortages affecting some other commodities.

"There's some commodities where this really matters: Oil semiconductors, aluminum, copper. Commodities that are critical," Buffington said. "This is really the lifeblood of how our supplies chains work."

Maple may not move the needle on a national level, but it's the heartbeat of the economy for thousands of producers in the Northeast and their families.

"The family's been making maple syrup pretty much as long as anybody can remember, from my grandfather and going back to his parents," Gange said. "We've grown from when we started here from maybe 1,500 trees that we tap, and now we have over 22,000 here."

Gange knows farmers don't farm for the money. They do it because they love what they do.

With demand for travel nurses through the roof, staffing agencies and nurses are feeling the pressure.

“I've been a nurse for 10 years, I've never seen anything like this before, said emergency room nurse Abigael Kaszar. “And it's, I mean, it's just something for the books. It's just crazy.”

Kaszar works through Aya Healthcare and she was at three hospitals over the past year, including one in New York City at the height of the area’s virus outbreak.

Kaszar says she's always keeping an eye on open ER positions. At the end of spring, there were a couple hundred. Now, there are over 4,000.

Another staffing agency, Travel Nurse Across America, tells us their requests from facilities are up 175% year over year.

The agency says it's because hospitals want staff that can jump right in.

“Being able to go from one hospital to another, and to understand and learn the different policy and procedure very, very quickly is difficult. And so these nurses are very talented and can come in and start working on a dime,” said Jill Eliassen, VP of Clinical Services at Travel Nurse Across America.

Kaszar is now at a hospital in California, where she says the ER is just overwhelmed.

COVID-19 patients who get discharged can't always go home, but other facilities they'd normally go to are full, so they stay in the hospital longer. The intensive care unit fills up too.

Patients who have nowhere else to go trickle down to the ER, which still has ambulances and other new patients coming in.

All of this is happening while hospitals are trying to isolate COVID-19 patients from others.

“It's just very busy and these people are just so sick, and it's a really big challenge keeping up. It's an emotional challenge, it's sad and it's scary and it's, I mean, so many of these infections were preventable. You feel so much regret and you feel sad for these people,” said Kaszar.

Travel Nurse Across America is encouraging short breaks between contracts because their nurses are getting burnt out.

“These nurses are also having to be psychiatrists and counselors and support for family members that are in a hospital due to COVID and aren't able to be with their loved ones,” said Kathy Kerstiens, Sr. VP of Client Services at Travel Nurse Across America.

The agency thinks the demand for travel nurses won't let up until at least mid-summer, when they can finally get more relief.

COVINGTON, Ky. —

As the delta variant continues to rise, more people than ever are waiting in line over an hour for something no one really wants – a COVID-19 test.

At the Gravity Diagnostic’s testing site in Covington, cars were lined up though the old IRS parking lot and around the outside of it Monday.

“My granddaughter, she’s not feeling well,” said one woman coming into the drive-through site.

“My daughter, from the school they say she maybe was exposed to some kid with COVID. So, we have to take a test for her,” said another woman in line.

The Gravity site gives the gold standard PCR tests. People usually get results by midnight the same day they took the test.

“I think we’ve all been surprised by how delta has changed things in the last six or eight weeks,” said Gravity Diagnostics CEO Tony Remington. “There’s a lot of peace of mind testing for just people going back to school, back to work, going to a Bengals game, going to a concert.”

Remington said the test sites have been so busy, they’ve opened new drive-through sites at Northern Kentucky University, in Ludlow and at Buttermilk Pike for St. Elizabeth Hospital. Gravity is also opening up several other sites around Kentucky and Indiana.

Take-home COVID-19 test kits are also available over the counter at many drug stores, if you can find them.

The cost is about $24.00, but many stores are sold out right now.

The over-the-counter tests kits are fast, but not as accurate as the PCR tests.

Hamilton County Libraries are also giving free take-home tests as long as the last.

“There are differences in the tests. The take-home tests are considered a screening vs a diagnostic test,” said the Health Collaborative’s Tiffany Mattingly.

Mattingly said the key is keeping people from going to emergency rooms to get a test.

“The prediction of where we’re going to peak is really difficult to anticipate. Right now, we know that we’re still climbing,” Mattingly said.

CINCINNATI —

A Silverton dad said he spent hours on Wednesday in search of a COVID-19 test for a child, but he said it was no easy task.

He said many places were busy, with lines, and some had no appointments.

Derek Drifmeyer said he offered to help a friend whose 11-year-old daughter was feeling pretty lousy.

Little did he know, it would turn into an hours-long trip for a test.

"I felt bad for her. We're driving all over town trying to find a place to get a test and she's sick, just wants to be at home resting," Drifmeyer said.

He said finding a COVID-19 test for his friend's daughter took more than four hours, starting at about 10 a.m.

"Went to Walgreens to buy a test. Found out that they were sold out of the take-home tests. Tried to schedule a test with CVS. Every location I tried, it was booked up. Same with Walgreens," Drifmeyer said.

After trying an urgent care, where people were waiting in line for a test, Drifmeyer said they were eventually able to get a test at her primary care provider in a garage.

The Ohio Department of Health said it is expanding testing as demand soars.

"We also continue to see rising numbers of Ohioans tested for COVID-19 and increasing positivity rates now hovering at a seven-day average 13.3 percent. Testing is an important strategy to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. If you're concerned that you might have COVID there are many options for testing," Ohio Chief Medical Officer Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff said. "In addition to being able to get a test at many pharmacies and community providers, we've also partnered with many of our libraries and local health departments, where you can pick up a free, rapid BinaxNOW test, which can be administered from the comfort of your home with the help of a telehealth provider."

Vanderhoff said demand for testing is high, so he urged everyone to make sure a test is available by searching a map on the Ohio Coronavirus website to find a provider.

At the same time, officials warn that emergency rooms are not for routine testing.

"We need to be able to provide our community with the very best, efficient and quick care for acute conditions," Premier Health System Chief Medical Officer Dr. Marc Belcastro said.

Drifmeyer said the entire COVID-19 situation is frustrating.

He said people should wear masks, get vaccinated if they can and keep trying for a test.

"We were doing well with COVID the numbers were down and people got pretty lax and now they're shooting back up," Drifmeyer said.

He also said he recovered from a breakthrough case himself about a month or so ago.

Walgreens did not respond to our request for comment.

CVS Health told us testing has been in high demand, but stores have been able to keep up with it in most locations.

A spokesman told us people can purchase at-home COVID-19 tests over the counter, limited to six per person, or they can be purchased online and delivered to their door in 24 to 48 hours.

CVS Health provided this statement to WLWT:

"Daily COVID-19 testing volume is currently running ahead of average daily volume year-to-date, and significantly ahead of average daily volume in the second quarter. COVID-19 home test kits are the top-selling item in our stores.

We continue to be able to meet the demand for COVID-19 testing in most locations, even with increasing numbers of patients seeking out tests at one of our nearly 5,000 CVS Pharmacy locations across the country offering testing with same day and future day appointments in most geographies. Patients are encouraged to schedule an appointment on CVS.com or the CVS Pharmacy app, where they have the option to seek either a rapid COVID-19 test, with results available within hours, or a COVID-19 test at the pharmacy drive-thru windows. The self-swab collected at the CVS Pharmacy drive-thru window is processed by an independent, third-party lab and those results are generally available within 1-2 days."

CVS Health said it has also established a new partnership to expand the availability of at-home COVID-19 testing kits in 7,000 of its stores as of last week.

According to CVS Health, it is partnering with Quidel Corporation to make its "non-prescription QuickVue® At-Home OTC COVID-19 Test" available at thousands of locations across the United States and online.

CVS said the packages contain two self-administered rapid antigen tests.

CINCINNATI —

Army reservist Kaue Costa is turning his military skills into cash.

“Instead of staying at home I can just get an education and open up opportunities for me,” Costa said.

At 23, Costa sees a need he knows how to fill and is making it his own mission to capitalize by going to truck driving school. He already learned to drive trucks in the military when he joined the reserves during the COVID-19 pandemic last year.

“They definitely said they needed more (truck drivers) especially for all the work they do for the country. And with everything shut down they needed stuff to get around and everyone, every company at least definitely realized their worth,” Costa said.

At Butler Tech, the raw numbers of drivers needed is bigger than a rig itself.

"So, we're at 300,000 long haul drivers now when we need 450,000,” CDL training manager at Butler Tech Tim Reynolds said.

A total of 150,000 more drivers are needed on the road. Retirements and a year of not needing as many products delivered slowed the industry to a near halt. Now, getting back in gear to get you that gas and other goods won't happen overnight.

“A year ago we wouldn't have to wait on the product which now we're waiting on the product getting to the refinery, getting it processed and turned into gas and getting it to the customer,” Reynolds said.

Not to mention more training is needed to drive a hazardous materials truck for things like gas. Thus, prolonging windows for gas deliveries at stations from 24 hours to 48 hours.

Drivers are coming down the pike, but we all will have to wait patiently. Butler Tech is having a record year for student applications.

“This has been our busiest year. So, we've been here seven years. It's been our busiest year and phones keep ringing off the hook,” Reynolds said.

For students like Kaue Costa, he says he's ready to hit the road.

“I’m a father to a 5-year-old. Any chance, any skill set I can add to my repertoire, I’m going to do it. If it's going to help me in the future I’m gonna do it,” Costa said.

Butler Tech offers a 5-week program to get your commercial driver’s license. One week will be in class and the other four training will be in the truck at practice sites. Reynolds says, right now, most new drivers are leaving school with a job in hand and making a minimum of $50,000 dollars their first year.

Butler Tech is also in the process of preparing for new federal guidelines on CDL trainers to make sure the students they are training are more prepared and make the roads even safer.