omicron variant. todd: dr. marty makary joins us now. you had a weekend to process all of this. what do we need to know about omicron? well, we re going to continue to see variants overseas for decades to come and we shouldn t panic. we shouldn t shut things down. this variant appears to be encompassed by immunity. at least it s highly likely. our track record with variants suggests there s nothing to worry about. all 2,000 plus variants that have happened with the covid-19 virus have been encompassed by natural and vaccinated immunity. carley: i was reading this fox news.com, the south african doctor who first alerted the world to this variant now says that she is seeing symptoms that are unusual but mild. mild is very good. do you know what unusual symptoms she is referring to? and if the symptoms are mild why is everybody for lack of a better term freaking out about this? carley, dr. coatsy, she is
0 reports. andrea is on assignment. i m chris jansing. we re following that breaking news from the white house. president biden addressing the nation this hour after a second meeting with his covid response team in just two days. highlighting the urgency the administration is feeling to learn everything they can about the concerning new coronavirus variant omicron with confirmed cases already at our northern aborter in ontario, canada. there are still a number of things we don t know about this variant with the white house releasing a statement sunday saying dr. fauci believes it will take up to two weeks to get answers on omicron s transmissibility, severity and other characteristics. the big question for nearly 200 million fully vaccinated americans, will their vaccine hold up against this new strain. fauci this morning urging eligible americans to not let fears over omicron s impact stop them from getting their booster shots. i would strongly suggest you get boosted now and not w
health experts, meanwhile, are warning that omicron variant may already be here in the u.s. there s no way that it s in this many countries across the world, and it has not made it here into our shores. now that we have our eyes open for it, it s probably going to be days until we find it and confirm that there are cases here in the u.s. right now, there are studies to test how well covid vaccines work against this new strain, but with a high number of mutations the doctors say with the little we know about this variant is, quote, very worrying. we shouldn t panic just yet. the most important thing is to study the virus. just because this virus is more contagious, doesn t necessarily mean that it s more dangerous. now the cdc hasn t confirmed any cases of this new strain here in the u.s., but we know the delta variant is still out there and causing a lot of problems.
by it and certainly the administration will also focus on curving the spread of it if it does make its way here to u.s. thank you so much for your excellent reporting staying on top of this fast moving story. joining me with more on the merging threat of omicron, primary care specialist and public health expert. welcome. thank you so much for being with us. thank you sdp. it seems how much protection will the vaccines provide against the variant. we heard a lot about dozens of mutations on the spike proteins. can you translate that for lay folks and how much do we know about the protection people may have if they have been vaccinated. i take the whole position we shouldn t panic just yet. the most important thing is to study the virus. just because it s more contagious, doesn t necessarily
and the first performance feature largely intact although there may be some declines there especially in those of high age. the problem is we re losing that second performance feature. and that is why we have to still mask up we think when we re vaccinated. the problem is accelerating, i think that we ll have to go back to universal mask recommendations. the president is not wrong, he gave information based on what we knew at the time and delta is a game changer. but again, we shouldn t panic but recognize that, one, we have to vaccinate the south otherwise we ll be in dire straits and we have to give serious consideration to a third mrna immunization. so with delta and what it has done to what we to our overall vaccine efficacy, how