amazing. jerry, you ve got to see this. seen it. trust me, after 15 walks .it gets a little old. [thud] [clunk] [ding] ugh. hi there. i hope you all had a great thanksgiving, live at msnbc headquarters here in new york city, it is november 26th, black friday. and we have a lot to get to. we begin this hour with the latest on that dangerous heavily mutated covid strain stoking new fears from health experts around the globe. the variant was first detected in south africa in what is called the most significant variant we have had to date. the world health organization is holding an emergency meeting to
discuss what this could mean for transmissibility and vaccine efficacy. and dr. anthony fauci weighed in just a short time ago. well, certainly, there is a new variant that is now in south africa, that has some mutations that are raising some concern, particularly with regard to possibly transmissibility increase, and possibly evasion of immune response. we don t know that for sure right now. this is really something that is in motion, and we just arranged right now a discussion between our scientists and the south african scientists a little bit later in the morning. so a lot we don t know. but this news is making the markets nervous, dow futures are down 800 points, with travel business being especially hard hit. with me, more on this. nbc news foreign correspondent, and gary joins us live from a testing site in pennsylvania,
to our existing vaccines and i want you to take a listen to what the u.s. health secretary had to say about this. the early indications we have of the variant is that it may be more transmissible than the delta variant. and the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective against it. now, the u.k. has cut off travel from south africa and five other southern african nations in response to this. we re seeing similar measures across europe right now. here in israel, they ve already found one confirmed case of the new variant. the israeli prime minister saying we are on the threshold of an emergency situation. the israeli government is going further than what we ve seen in europe, chris, they are cutting off travel from almost all african nations right now, in response to this new variant emerging. so doctor, it s important to
transmissibility. and whether or not the sharp rise in south africa is truly due to this variant, we don t know, so i think, you know, a way of saying that there is a lot more we don t know than do know. the delta variant is by far the most transmissible we ve seen and it tack it takes a lot to out-compete delta and i m not panicking by any means but we have to be thoughtful and how rapidly it is transmitted and whether it is indeed more transmissible to delta, i m not confident of that yet and then if it does have some immuno-escape property, would it be partial in immuno-escape. so all of this is a consequence of not vaccinating the world and that s number one what we have to do on a global scale, here in the u.s., you have to make sure you re up to date on the your covid vaccines and if you ve not gotten that third immunization get it, and if you re infect and
say that this variant, at least according to dr. fauci, has not been detected in the u.s. but how concerned should we be? and what are you watching for? i think we should assume that it is likely in the u.s. by now since we tend to underperform in our ability to pick up various virus genomes so it wouldn t surprise me at all if it is already in the u.s. i think there s, now, before we press the panic button, i think there s a few things to consider. yes, it does have some immune escape properties, this variant, or at least it looks like it might but that s not what has been associated with high transmissibility. we ve had other immuno-scape variants before that have not really taken off. it s the part of the virus that s in the site that is of the greatest concern, that has given rise to alpha among an unvaccinated population in the u.k. in 2020 and gave rise to delta in india, in 2021, and so that s what i m looking out for, is the level of