covid variant. the evaporate was first detected in south africa. already, it has prompted the uk to suspend all flights from six african nations. this morning, dr. anthony fauci was asked if it s possible the new variant is already in the u.s. you know, of course. anything is possible. we don t know that. there s no indication that it is right now. it seems to have been restricted. there were some cases that originated in south africa and that went to bot botswana. that s the reason why we re getting together to try to get the precise molecular makeup of it, so you can actually test for it. that s something that will take a little bit to put the appropriate materials together to do that. but we are in very active communication with our south african colleague scientists. yeah, there s a lot going on just today in reaction to this. joining me now with more, nbc news correspondent, gabe gutierrez. nbc news foreign correspondent, rav sanchez in tel aviv, who s
it went to botswana. people traveled and found out they were infected and had gone to hong kong. there s a lot of travel. that s the reason why we are getting together then to try to get the precise mow electrical hrar makeup of it so you could test for it. that is something to put the appropriate materials together to do that. we are in very active communication with our south african colleague scientists. so explain to us the questions and the concerns about how this might evade immunity. there are so many mutations on the spike protein, which is what a vaccine, the vaccines we have are designed to hit. the question is now going to be, right, is that spike protein still permeable when it comes to the vaccine. . that s what we re going to be finding out. because when you look at a mutation, it can give you a hint