diminution of protection and a degree of immune evasion, you still, from experience that we have with delta, can make a reasonable conclusion that you would not eliminate all protection against this particular variant. and that s the reason why we don t know what that degree of diminution of protection is going to be, but we know that when you boost somebody, you elevate your level of protection very high, and we are hoping, and i think with good reason, to feel good that there will be some degree of protection. cnn international correspondent david mckenzie is tracking the many developments for us from south africa. what s happening there, david? reporter: alisyn, there is lots that is unknown about the virus, but here in south africa, they re very concerned about those many mutations and despite all the unknowns or perhaps because of it, the world has shut its borders to this region. the coronavirus testing center in johannesburg, the omicron variant is already dominant
This country, not less, because we have 120 million americans who have now gone past their six months since they were originally vaccinated, and each day, they become more and more susceptible to now getting infected, and we re only boosting about 35 million of those 120 million. so, this is a real challenge. here are the numbers, doctor, our latest numbers. only 12% in the u.s. of the population who has been vaccinated has received the booster or i guess 12% of the entire population. so, you know, we call it a booster. is it time to start calling this a three-shot regimen? absolutely. early on, i was a bit critical, and others were as well, of calling it a booster in the first place, because it suggests it s just an added bonus. this is part of the necessity of being fully immunized. i will tell you, we are hanging on for dear life with the delta variant ripping through west michigan and all of michigan, in fact. our hospitals are full, and every day, the only people we re seeing
In new york. thank you so much for being with us. let s start here with just the preface for all of this conversation. there s a lot that we don t know. of course, we ve got you because you know more than we do about omicron. you ve seen these variants, these mutations, i should say, before, but what makes omicron so concerning? well, what makes omicron so concerning at this point is that the decombination of mutations that all appear together in this particular spike variant, so many but not all of those mutations we have seen individually or in some combinations before in other variants. this is really the first time we ve seen so many of them together in a single variant, and that s what is likely to confer sort of a slightly elevated degree of resistance to the vaccines that we ve been receiving. so, let s talk about the vaccines. we just heard there from phil s
Who believe these things, and it s within the last few days of their life that they are still reiterating some of these lies. yeah. i mean, you know, people who specifically say, when you ask about the vaccine, i don t approve. someone who a little bit ago had said they re suggesting we re trying to give them covid with the vaccine. someone who when we were giving them decadron, the steroid that helps survival in people getting admitted, was, you know, yelled at the nurse, said, that isn t that vaccine you re giving me. that will kill me. and so these people who are doing this are as much a part of this pandemic as any variant we could ever imagine, because they are leaving entire swaths of this country, almost 60% of the people in my county that i served for 20 years, unprotected against the original strain, against delta, omicron, and whatever else may come. and those people are paying with their lives. it s really unfortunate. dr. davidson, you have shared with us, i mean, how o
newsroom, i m alisyn camerota. i m victor blackwell, good to be with you. a short time ago, the white house laid out its plan for the omicron variant. the president s message is that omicron is a cause for concern but not for panic, and dr. anthony fauci said the variant has been detected in 20 countries but not yet in the u.s. experts expect this highly mutated variant may spread more easily and have some resistance to vaccines. scientists are now working to find out. the first data could be known in about a week. meanwhile, travel bans continue to multiply against south africa. the u.s. and at least 70 other nations have banned entry by foreign nationals coming from countries in southern africa. the white house covid response team says the u.s. has far more tools today to fight variants than this time last year and is urging everyone eligible to get a booster. so, when we say that although these mutations suggest a