is doing something similar. translation: we will ban all entries of foreign - nationals from all over- the world as of november 30. there s no doubt that the world has reacted quicker than it did when the delta variant emerged in india earlier this year. g7 ministers have met online and agreed to share information from their surveillance systems, but the fact remains that large parts of the world do not have the technology they need to track this variant. naomi grimley, bbc news. scientists are now in a race to establish whether the new variant is more transmissible than the current delta variant and whether it causes more severe disease. they ll also be assessing its impact on the effectiveness of vaccines. our medical editor, fergus walsh, has more. afteralpha, beta, gamma, delta comes omicron, which scientists think could be
protection from the vaccines that have already been given out and have been administered to about 70% of americans. because it is sufficiently different in terms of its spelling of it spike protein. well that spike protein no longer will be recognized by your antibodies. i brought along my little show-and-tell here. remember this virus? and those things sticking out there, those spike proteins, are what the vaccine is designed to get your immune system to recognize. and your immune system is very good at that. especially that of a booster. the concern would be the spike shape shifted just enough in omicron that no longer, with the vaccine antibodies, be sufficient to recognize it. now, before anybody gets to worried about that. let me say, in every other instance, with other variants, alpha, beta, gamma, delta, the vaccines are working really well. and especially people who get a booster,. there is something about that that both boost the level of antibodies but also the breath
fergus walsh has more. afteralpha, beta, gamma, delta comes omicron, which scientists think could be the worst variant yet. so, is omicron more transmissible? it appears to be driving a rise in infections in south africa, but it s too early to be certain what s happening as cases only started increasing ten days ago from a very low level. the world health organization said omicron shows why the world needs a new global agreement on how to prevent, prepare and respond to pandemics. we should all be wide awake to the threat of this virus. but omicron s very emergence is another reminder that, although many of us might think we are done with covid i9, it s not done with us.