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Store. could a series of smash and dash robberies keep people away? good morning and welcome to a special thanksgiving friday edition of early start. i m christine romans. laura jarrett has the day off. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. we have reports this morning from hong kong, california, france, istanbul, capitol hill, rome and virginia as only we can. but we start with breaking news this morning from johannesburg. serious concern about a new coronavirus variant detected in south africa. scientists worried because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people. remember, lower vaccination rates allow the virus to mutate more easily. every unvaccinated person is a host for a new variant. this morning infections in south africa are dramatically up. markets ricochetting around the world. tokyo, shanghai, all down sharply. europe has opened up down sharply as well. in the u.s. stock index futures ....
Pointing to a very dim session here in the u.s. david mackenzie is live on the ground in johannesburg with the latest. david, what do we know? reporter: well, christine, here s what we know, and it s important to stress what we do not know. what we know is this variant which hasn t yet been designated as a variant of concern is very troubling, say scientists. it has many mutations, more than 30 of them on the key spike protein of the virus, which means some of them are known to scientists, some of them are not known to scientists. there are early indications here in south africa and in the region that this is rapidly taking over the delta variant. south africa is currently in a pretty good part of its pandemic, but this alarm was rung very quickly because of the potential danger of this variant, which we do not know, is whether it can escape immunity. there are some worrying signs it could. and more importantly possibly whether it can escape the ....
So critical hours and days ahead. christine? absolutely. all right, david mackenzie, we know you ll stay on it. very important there is a lot we do not know about this variant. so it is the uncertainty that is what is really roiling global markets now. global markets thanks, david. it is a shortened trading session in the u.s. because of the holiday. that could exacerbate some of the response here. you ve got u.s. stock index futures down sharply here. they had been down as much as 5%. now they re off that just a little bit. markets in asia you can see and europe all tumbling on this news. again, markets hate uncertainty. financial markets tend to fall when there is uncertainty and there is nothing more uncertain than what goes forward here with this variant found in south after kafrmt we ll continue to keep an eye on that this morning. meanwhile, the federal government is sending military doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists to michigan to help the state cope with one of t ....
Starting to ban or red list parts of the african continent because of this worrying new variant. here s what we know. this variant, which doesn t yet have a designation by the w.h.o., the science is just so new, shows many mutations, more than 30 in a key spike protein of the covid-19 virus which could be worrying. scientists say they worry it could be more transmissible, that it might breakthrough some level of immunity. at this stage they believe that existing vaccines should be effective against severe disease and death, but frankly they don t know. and over the next few weeks they ll be working around the world at labs to try and test whether the vaccines will be effective. but because of the worry of the possible impact of this as it spreads quickly from a relatively low base here in south africa is these bands coming in. the next thing that needs to happen is to really get a sense of how bad this variant is. ....
Possible. early start continues right now. good morning. this is early start this friday morning. i m christine romans. just about 30 minutes past the hour. breaking this morning, a new coronavirus variant detected in south africa and it is triggering a lot of concern among health experts and investors because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people. remember, the virus meutates moe quickly in populations with lower vaccination rates. this morning covid infections in south africa are way up and stocks around the world are way down. david mackenzie is live in johannesburg. david, what are we hearing now about travel bans? this thing really escalated overnight. reporter: well, christine, yes, the travel bans are happening and they are hard to keep up with. all over the world, including the united kingdom, parts of europe, countries in asia are ....