medicine. she was part of a panel that advised the biden transition team on covid-19. she hosts a weekly podcast on the impact of coronavirus called epidemic. dr. gounder, it is good to see you again. i want to get your sense of this because you and i have been talking throughout the entire pandemic about the pattern of it. when we saw omicron start in south africa, we saw it a steep ramp up and then we saw a steep drop off. and seesaw that elsewhere. america s bigger. the geography is larger. it s more complicated. how do you process where we are in this continuum and how we re responding? i think we re going to see a spike up and spike back down here in the united states with respect to omicron transmission. but there are as you point out very important differences in terms of the demographics of countries like south africa, a much younger country. many of their immunocompromised
going to see a similar spike up and spiked backed down here in the united states with respect to omicron transmission. but there is, as you point out, some very important differences in terms of the demographics of country like south africa. a much younger country. many of their immunocompromised patients have hiv a.i.d.s., in this country. we have older people, not only do we have people with hiv and a.i.d.s. but also people who are highly immunosuppressed from associations with cancer, diseases, all the different medications that they may be taking. so we have a slightly different context in which the omicron variant is playing out here. what is your sense of people who are saying that this new variant is so contagious. and so many people are getting it that it is causing some people to think, hey, maybe i should get this and just get it