princess cruise ship. clinicians there were among the first in the nation to develop their own in-house coronavirus test. and joining me now is infectious disease specialist dr. james lawler. he s the co-executive director of the global center for health security at the university of nebraska medical center. doctor, thank you so much for joining us here. so as i just mentioned, your hospital is widely considered one of the best-prepared hospitals to deal with covid in terms of pandemic-specific training and infectious disease equipment. so looking at what s happening in the uk now, record cases, the hospital system again under strain, how prepared are you for a possible huge surge due to the omicron variant? well, we re already experiencing a large surge with delta variant across nebraska and much of the midwest of the u.s. so we re not in a very good position to get additional patients either from omicron or from seasonal influenza, which