get here, they knew it was going to be here, but to buy this country some time to get prepared and to get as many people vaccinated and then boosted as possible before it did get here. so far, they are trying to contain the spread. but it does likely appear, according to health officials, that the cat was always going to be out of the bag on this. joining me now to discuss further is nbc news white house correspondent monica alba, nbc news correspondent erin mclaughlin from los angeles, nbc news medical correspondent dr. john torres, and the co-director for the center for vaccine development at texas children s hospital, dr. peter hotez. dr. hotez, what is your reaction to what we just heard from dr. fauci? as you said, katy, this was both predicted and predictable. and the point is, it s not a cause for alarm, really, because if you think about it, just about every variant that we ve seen since the beginning of this pandemic, the way it s worked is, by the time we identify the
but the mistake people would make is to say, let me wait and see if we get one. if you re eligible to get boosted, get boosted right now. reporter: there is screening in place for international travel but we ve seen how quickly variants can spread once they reach our shores. does the science not suggest there should at minimum be a testing requirement for domestic air travel? and if not, why not? again, these kind of things we always talk about and consider. but right now, i m not so sure we need a testing for air travel in this country. i always get back to the fact that people should wind up getting vaccinated and boosted if they re eligible for a boost. i keep coming back to that because that s really the solution to this problem. reporter: two quick ones. a moderna executive has said in the past couple of days that this variant appears threatening and may demand new vaccines. what do you make of those remarks that seem a lot more alarmist than the
30 to 40-fold rise in your virus neutralizing antibodies. and we know from other partial vaccine resistant variants like the beta variant that was first identified in south africa last year and the lambda variant, when you have high virus neutralizing antibodies, you have spillover or cross protection against the variant of concern. i am hoping that for those people who have had that third immunization, that that will be the case, they won t get infected or sick from the omicron variant. what may have happened in this individual that tony alluded to, although i wasn t too clear on the specifics, this individual may have gotten two doses and subsequently had waning immunity. and those individuals should be considered partially protected against a highly a partial vaccine resistant variant like omicron. and i think this is the pattern that we re going to see, katy.
0 the president was asked about this earlier this week and he said that had not been recommended to him. you re his chief medical adviser. do you think that s something the country should adopt? i m not so sure we should say that should be a requirement. we have 60 million people in this country who are not vaccinated, who are eligible to be vaccinated. let s get them vaccinated, let s get the people who are vaccinated boosted, let s get the children vaccinated. that s where we want to go as opposed to a requirement. reporter: some people say you have extinguished many of your options to get those people vaccinated and this is one of the ways, as the osha mandate is held up in court, this would be a way to get more people you know, that s a possibility. but for the people who are listening to this, we talk about why it s important to get vaccinated. i think what s happening now is another example of why it s important for people to get vaccinated who have not been vaccinated, b
As the World Health Organization announces that omircon has been classified as a “variant of concern,” many are asking about the difference between this.