do you think omicron is more contagious than delta? we don t know whether it can compete with delta. we ve had occasions we thought a variant was going to take over in the united states. remember beta, b.1.3.5.1, it never took off because delta was so incredibly effective at spreading that it couldn t compete. we don t know what omicron looks like if it gets to our country. i hope it doesn t but it s fairly likely we ll see cases. will it be able to compete or fizzle? do you think it s already here in the united states? we have no evidence that it is. we will find out. cdc is looking at tens of thousands of isolates every week. we ll find out if it s here. big picture, dr. collins, does the new variant set us back in our efforts to end this pandemic once and for all? it s certainly not good news. we don t know yet how much of an
people with mild illness anyway. we don t know. we think it s more contagious when you look at how rapidly it spread through multiple districts in south africa. it has the earmarks of being likely to spread from one person to another. that was one of the things that got everybody so concerned about delta, it was more contagious than the original novel coronavirus. do you think omicron is more contagious than delta? we don t know yet. it certainly shows the signs of being able to spread quickly. what we don t know is whether it can compete with delta. we ve had occasions we thought a variant was going to take over in the united states. remember beta, b1351, it never took off because delta was so incredibly effective at spreading that it couldn t compete. we don t know what omicron looks like if it gets to our country. i hope it doesn t but it s fairly likely we ll see cases. will it be able to compete or fizzle? do you think it s already here in the united states?