the new one, i am worried. i m worried. we don t know what the new variant s like. what the symptoms are, i how bad the symptoms are. how it could affect us now and it makes you really scared. at their laboratory here in durban the scientists who first identified the omicron variant are racing to unlock its secrets, and now the first hints are emerging of what the mutations on the virus mean. i think the epidemiological evidence is that we think you re more likely to get reinfected if you ve had covid before, so that is because of the mutations on the spike protein. we don t know much about transmissibility but i think looking at the mutational formation we think it may be more transmissible than even delta. in terms of clinical problems, we have no evidence that this is a more severe virus than let s say delta, alpha, or even beta.
is a more severe virus than let s say delta, alpha, or even beta. that bears repeating. although hospital admissions are rising sharply here, it won t be at all clear at least for another week or two whether the omicron variant is more severe, more dangerous. in the meantime, above all in rural south africa, another problem lurks vaccine hesitancy. this builder tells a visiting health worker that he won t get a jab even with the new wave of infections. do you find it frustrating, people saying no? it is frustrating because we believe that if all of us have already had vaccinated, we will be safe. as this virus spreads fast now across south africa the real problem here is not a lack of vaccines, it s the fact that younger people seem very reluctant to get a jab, which is where these
i think the epidemiological evidence is that we think you re more likely to get reinfected if you ve had covid before, so that is because of the mutations on the spike protein. we don t know much about transmissibility but i think looking at the mutational formation we think it may be more transmissible than even delta. in terms of clinical problems, we have no evidence that this is a more severe virus than let s say delta, alpha, or even beta. that bears repeating. although hospital admissions are rising sharply here, it won t be at all clear at least for another week or two whether the omicron variant is more severe, more dangerous. in the meantime, above all in rural south africa, another problem lurks vaccine hesitancy. this builder tells a visiting health worker that he won t get
we don t know much about transmissibility but i think looking at the mutational formation we think it may be more transmissible than even delta. in terms of clinical problems, we have no evidence that this is a more severe virus than let s say delta, alpha, or even beta. that bears repeating. although hospital admissions are rising sharply here, it won t be at all clear at least for another week or two whether the omicron variant is more severe, more dangerous. in the meantime, above all in rural south africa, another problem lurks vaccine hesitancy. this builder tells a visiting health worker that he won t get a jab even with the new wave of infections. do you find it frustrating, people saying no? it is frustrating because we believe that if all of us have already had vaccinated, we will be safe.
in terms of clinical problems, j we have no evidence that this is a more severe virus than let s say delta, alpha, or even beta. | that bears repeating. although hospital admissions are rising sharply here, it won t be at all clear at least for another week or two whether the omicron variant is more severe, more dangerous. in the meantime, above all in rural south africa, another problem lurks vaccine hesitancy. this builder tells a visiting health worker that he won t get a jab even with the new wave of infections. do you find it frustrating, people saying no? it is frustrating because we believe that if all of us have already had vaccinated, we will be safe. as this virus spreads fast now across south africa the real problem here is not a lack of vaccines, it s the fact that younger people