there s a lot of work that is ongoing in south africa and in other countries to better characterize the variant itself in terms of transmissibility, in terms of severity, and any impact on our counter measures like the use of diagnostics, therapeutics or vaccines. cnn has a team of correspondents covering this breaking news for us. we have david mckenzie in south africa, pete muntean is tracking this at the airports. let s begin with arlette saenz in nantucket with the president. what does the president want americans to know about this new variant at this hour. reporter: president biden is trying to show they are tangkin this coronavirus variant seriously, and is enacting the travel restrictions to keep people safe. the president released a statement saying that he was briefed this morning by anthony fauci as top medical adviser and after those discussions they determined that this was the appropriate course, to ban travel from south africa and seven other nations in tha
Coming from my medical team. what do you say to questions about whether bans create an incentive not to come forward with new variants, if you re penalized to do so. that s ridiculous, because you can t hide the variants. it s not like someone can hide the fact there s a new variant. more kafrcareful now going i the holidays. every american has not been vaccinated, should be responsible and get vaccinated ages 5 years and up, number one. number two, everyone eligible for booster shots should get the booster shot immediately upon being eligible. that is the minimum that everyone should be doing. you know, we always talk about whether this is about freedom, i think it s a patriotic responsibility. mr. president, have you asked especially with the new appointments? i have talked to the fed
There s a lot of work that is ongoing in south africa and in other countries to better characterize the variant itself in terms of transmissibility, in terms of severity, and any impact on our counter measures like the use of diagnostics, therapeutics or vaccines. cnn has a team of correspondents covering this breaking news for us. we have david mckenzie in south africa, pete muntean is tracking this at the airports. let s begin with arlette saenz in nantucket with the president. what does the president want americans to know about this new variant at this hour. reporter: president biden is trying to show they are tangkin this coronavirus variant seriously, and is enacting the travel restrictions to keep people safe. the president released a statement saying that he was briefed this morning by anthony fauci as top medical adviser and after those discussions they determined that this was the appropriate course, to ban travel from south africa and seven other nations in that area. i
Be for other reasons as well, not just because it s more transmissible, but the speed with which it has taken off is really unlike anything we have seen before. so you think it s more transmissible than the delta variant. do you think that it causes more severe disease? well, we don t know that it s more transmissible. that s what we re worried about, and we think it might be. on severity of disease, we have no idea, no data at all one way or the other. we don t know. we will get more information on that in the next few weeks. how long do you think it will take for us to know if this variant responds to our current vaccines? well, look, i don t think we re going to see a situation where the vaccines will be rendered useless. i think that s exceedingly unlikely. the question is there a tiny hit to vaccine efficacy, or is there a large hit. i think we ll get some preliminar preliminary data probably in the next few days when we get data back on basically what is
About a whole range, monetary policies and inflation. and i have confidence that appointees that i have made, and going to have three more are going to reflect that concern. when do you make those appointments, sir? i am concerned. look, we support ukraine easte s integrity, ukraine s ability to govern itself, and we object to anything remotely. are you going to? in all probability. mr. president, are you thinking of any new mandates since your others were caught in court? no. not at the moment. thank you. thank you, sir. happy thanksgiving. we have been listening to president biden there on his vacation in nantucket, talking about the breaking news of today, including this new variant, this new coronavirus