Page 29 - Alpha Variant News Today

Variants. the issue was raised. what is your take? >> it is really not the presidents fault that hes had 200,000 americans who needlessly lost their lives because we were defiant of getting vaccines. they refused vaccines. i mean, that is clearly the fault of the aggression coming from the far right from members of the congress, conservative news outlets, the far-right think tanks. they helped create that monster. but the one piece that is -- i dont want to say disingenuous, that would be unfair...

Choice, well be as cautious as we can, weve been vaccinated, theres no convincing the ones who will not be vaccinated, so society is going to begin the ending of this by starting to live their life among the virus. what do you think of that? >> i would say thats a fairly high risk strategy, katy. in some ways we may be somewhat lucky in that the omicron variant may turn out to be less virulent, cause less severe disease than previous ones. what if that wasnt the case, what if not only it had the...

As researchers attempt to demystify Omicron, the latest variant of coronavirus, a theory is gaining ground that the mutated strain might have a connection with HIV in its origin.

The Ministry of Health, Wellness and Elderly Affairs received notification from the Caribbean Public Health Agency CARPHA of 19 new cases...

>> every day it gets harder. starting us off tonight is dr. d peter hotez. hes the dean of the natural school of tropical medicine at baylor college of medicine. dr. hotez, how bad is this surge going to get? >> its not looking good, zerlina, unfortunately. we were hoping that we had about a four- to six-week window when we identified the surge in the united kingdom before it came to the u.s. thats what happened with the alpha variant and the delta variant. its so transmissible, its hitting us m...

The sake of public health, both medical and mental? >> it is important to understand that omicron is different because it is so much more contagious. it has a r not value estimated 8. what does that mean? one infected person can spread to up to 8 or 9 other people knowing that information. it is important we all understand whether youre vaccinated or unvaccinated were all at risk of picking it up. just a matter who will have severe complications, who will have no symptoms at all. so we can all c...

Wave weve seen greater transmissibility. following the original lineage that came out of central china, the alpha variant was more transmissible with that. delta out-competed alpha and was more transmissible. now omicron is more transmissible than delta. were getting up to transmissibility matching measles. measles can linger in aerosols in the air for periods of time. thats what makes me very concerned about this big firestorm well see among omicron. im also worried about the kids. in south afr...

Living this crisis for so long. >> every day it gets harder. starting us off tonight is dr. peter hotez. hes the dean of the natural school of medicine. dr. hotez, how bad is this surge going to get? >> its not looking good, zerlina, unfortunately. we were hoping that we had about a four- to six-week window when we identified the surge in the united kingdom before it came to the u.s. thats what happened with the alpha variant and the delta variant. its so transmissible, its hitting us much soone...

The -- the law of exponential numbers. but how fast will this surge hit us? >> you know, erin, when we knew that omicron was going to be a problem in the united kingdom for both the alpha variant and the delta variant, we had about a four-to-six-week window before that big rise in the uk translated over across the atlantic to the u.s. now, its happening over a couple of weeks. so, what it means is that were -- in the past, we might have thought that that means that were going to see the big surg...

Positive this week. these students were fully vaccinated. school says most of the cases are the omicron variant. how contagious is this variant and how effective are the vaccines against it, sir? >> some tough news today. first of all, that 800,000 number is not slowing. were headed for a million american deaths by the first quarter of next year of 2022 tragically because of so many people refusing vaccinations. so park that one and then now we have the fact the omicron variant is rising faster ...