in south africa in the past. i think this might offer some insights into the future. there s been these various waves of infection. look at the middle of the screen there. beta. beta became the dominant strain in south africa for a period of time. there was concern back then that it would be something that would become dominant around the world. it did not. i think that s an important data point. on the far right of the screen, when omicron starts to become the dominant strain? south africa, there was not a lot of competition at that point. they were in a quiet period in terms of viral spread, different than here in the united states and other places around the world where delta is clearly spreading and is dominant. will it outcompete delta? we don t know. there have been other examples where strains became dominant but it was not a foregone conclusion it would become dominant here. the big question, will existing vaccines protect us
dug down into some of the data, we see in the particular province this may have originated, the hospitalization rates have gone up. they re not nearly as high as at other times in the pandemic, but they have gone up at a time when hospitalization rates from respiratory diseases are typically coming down. does that mean anything? i don t know. that s the sort of data investigators will be looking at. then what does south africa mean to the rest of the world, meaning if this has become the dominant strain in south africa, that happened at a time there wasn t a lot of competition from delta. a very different picture in the united states where delta is far and i way the dominant strain. will it outcompete delta? we don t know yet just based on looking at south africa. that is really interesting. then one of the main questions of course is what is the impact that this variant has on the effectiveness of vaccines that we have currently, right? the ceo of moderna predicted to