given what we know about the trans missability advantage of omicron, we've seen that in africa with the spikes that are going up. once it gets in there, it will likely under the radar be spreading no matter what you do to keep people out or not. that's the way viruss work. we saw that happen with delta. i do hope that omicron doesn't have that kind of advantage, particularly if it turns out to be serious. the good news you mentioned is even though you can't make a full extrapolation on a small number of cases, we don't see severe disease. >> neil: doctor, many times we talked in the past, you talk about -- you follow the science. you acknowledge the science can change. first you dissuaded the public from buying masks back in the