these four steps, get vaccinated and get boosted if you re eligible, wear a mask, stay home when you re sick and take a test if you have symptoms or are looking for greater, extra reassurance before you gather with others. with that, thank you. i will now turn things over to dr. fauci. thank you very much, dr. walensky. what i d like to do over the next couple minutes is talk about the omicron variant and some concerns particularly in the area of severity of disease, if i can have the first slide. i m going to focus predominantly on severity, but let me make a few comments to underscore many of the things that dr. walensky said. first of all, without a doubt, unequivocally, we are dealing with a highly, highly transmissible variant that spreads rapidly. the data are overwhelming in that regard. number two, immune evasion. oechl cron evades vaccine