the other thing is they have sub optimal immunisation rates in some of the highest risk populations in china, so they need to be a majorfocus. and then coming back to the. sorry just on that point that seems an extraordinary, an anomaly, really, within china that that is allowed to happen, because if they want to impose certain restrictions as they have done with isolating people and locking down why can t they impose the insistence that they have vaccines? well, they are. again, even before draconian mandates or strict mandates, there are a lot of things in the toolbox of public health entities, including in china, for example, soft mandates, meaning requiring vaccination for certain activities, and countries like france have
well, i think right now, most western countries are focused on mitigating the impact of this virus and i think that s a reasonable strategy based on where most western countries find themselves and, frankly, most countries other than china and new zealand, find themselves. i think that s a reasonable approach for now, to mitigate the impact of this variant. after this is down, i think there should be a serious consideration for controlling it to the extent globally that we are not surprised by newer variants, and that s only going to happen when there are substantially higher immunisation rates everywhere. returning to 0micron, should we be looking at a similar trajectory to south africa in other countries? well, probably. i think we are reasonably sure that the rise will be almost as sharp.
consideration for controlling it to the extent globally that we are not surprised by your variance, and that is going to happen when there are substantially higher immunisation rates everywhere. returning to 0micron, should we be looking at a similar trajectory to south africa and other countries? other countries? probably. i think we other countries? probably. i think we are other countries? probably. i think we are reasonably - other countries? probably. i| think we are reasonably sure that the rise will be almost as sharp. i do think there will be a decline or a plateau toward the end of january and early february in countries like the us, canada, uk, maybe uk will be a bit earlier than that, but these are pretty high rates, and it is like a flash flood. 99% of the stream remains low flow or empty, but then the flash flood comes in, it has pretty substantial
are fears that the vaccines could be less effective against this new strain. our medical editor fergus walsh has the latest. from what we do know there s a significant number of mutations, perhaps double the number of mutations that we have seen in the delta variant. and that would suggest that it may well be more transmissible and the current vaccines that we have may well be less effective.> so much to get into here, let s talk to colin furness, epidemiologist at the university of toronto. how worried should we be? it how worried should we be? it is too early to how worried should we be? it is too early to say. how worried should we be? it 3 too early to say. immunisation rates in south africa are quite low. about a0%. so variant could do very well and they re not necessarily do well elsewhere. it is too early to say. the number of mutations is worrisome in terms of vaccine invasion but we just don t know. is it going to be more violent? i think it will be prudent but wejust viol