welcome back. russia s economy continues to get squeezed by those western nations with the sanctions the latest move being a ban on all russian aircraft in u.s. airspace. moscow s stock exchange won t be open on wednesday either, a move that comes as multiple major companies like apple, boeing, exxonmobil suspend business with the country. but the economic blows aren t exclusive to russia. the dow plunging nearly 600 points on tuesday as the price of u.s. oil topped $102 a barrel for the first time since 2014. it s even higher at the moment. now in his state of the union address, the u.s. president reassuring americans that despite fears of surging gasoline prices due to russia s control of oil stores, things would be okay. anna stewart joins me now from london with more.
breakthrough infections, the vaccine should protect the vaccinated from severe illness. tonight authorities reminding americans a booster might be the best protection saying antibody levels are higher after the third shot. we know from every variant that we have dealt with that the more neutralizing antibodies you have on board, the more effective those vaccines are against variants. and we expect, even if it s not perfect, certainly the more neutralizing antibodies, the fact that you re boosted, the greater protection you can have. reporter: dr. anthony fauci ecoing that point just today. particularly when you boost it, you get a level so high, that even if the mutations of various variants diminish that level of protection, you re still within the range of some degree of protection. continuing to saying there
trend seen during the delta wave. but after some doctors reported omicron symptoms in south africa are mild, dr. anthony fauci cautioning that it s too soon to draw conclusions. the physicians, mostly private physicians, who ve been seeing patients, are seeing that they appear to be a less of a severity of illness. most of those are many younger individuals. we believe that it is too soon to tell what the level of severity is. reporter: the white house today reassuring americans that if necessary, it would take about three months for vaccines makers to update the vaccine for omicron and get shots into arms. the estimate of a few months is all inclusive. reporter: just hours after moderna s ceo warned the vaccines will be less effective at tackling omicron, saying all the scientists i ve talked to say this is not going to be good, the founder of pfizer s partner biontech said even if the variant brings more
carley: the federal reserve, the omicron variant. griff jenkins has more on this important front. trying to resolve the mystery of the no show, strengthening the supply chain, they cancel the remarks explaining biden wanted more time to meet with visiting business leaders, it address the emerging of a variant in fears that more lockdowns were coming. if people were vaccinated there is no need for lockdowns. reassuring americans the supply-chain crisis and spiking inflation.
joining us now to discuss all of this is dr. jorge rodriguez, board certified internal medicine search and viral researcher. dr. rodriguez, let s just start with what we heard from the president, his words, his plan, urging vaccinations and boosters, reassuring americans that his team is already preparing, if needed, for contingency plans if the current vaccines don t work as well against this variant. what do you think about president biden s approach right now? well, i think that the words were very reassuring, but i want the public to realize that this is something that is of concern this. variant has mutations that have been part of other you mootations and variants, and if they are sort of synergistic, if they work together, it could be a variant that is both very effective in the way that it spreads and perhaps more dangerous. now, again, we don t know that, but, you know, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. what i think is most important about what he said is the