Philadelphia where today officials have reinstated their indoor mask mandate, and joining us now from philadelphia is dr. zeke emanuel, vice provost of global initiatives at the university of pennsylvania. welcome, great to see you. nice to be with you, andrea. so philadelphia is not the only city that s seeing a rising number of cases but it is i think the only one we know of that s reinstituting the indoor mask mandate. is that appropriate? i know it s being challenged in court. well, we ve got rises in the northeast, colorado, and a few other places, and there s no doubt we re seeing an up tick because of this ba.2 variant of omicron, and we re going to see more serious increases. we re at a low level, and, you know, we ve seen this story and movie before. and we have two main ways of preventing transmission, one are
laura: in other words, if you haven t been vaccinated, and just like when you got omicron, the first omicron, if you get this omicron sub variant, is it like a natural inoculation? and i m probably not saying that right. is it like getting protection because you are infected? the european health agency said in omicron infection of any type essentially works as a natural booster for an antecedent variant, whether that be wild type all the way through delta. once one has omicron, there s not chance for second infection. laura: this new study is being touted showing that seniors over the age of 60 or 65 get some benefit from a fourth shot. would you agree with that, or do you take that with a grain of salt? it doesn t look like it s worth it. there s two papers, one by a met and collects, dealing with
Doctor, i love that line. it s a coronavirus, is it not? and as it mutates, it leaves this new sub variant, it seems less maryland and more transmissible, which is kind of what you learned in med school, correct? remember, omicron is the most highly mutated form of the virus. it s the least maryland, but because there are so many mutations, there s an opportunity for sub variance, so majority one now, there s also xt xp and xf. these are all in the omicron family. patients get durable immunity once they have omicron and we now have papers from university of california berkeley, less than 1% chance of icu or death. some of the randomized trials, i ve been looking at them carefully on the vaccinations, many of the studies now report no hospitalizations, doesn t matter what arm you are in on the hospitalizations.
The beginning of the pandemic and deaths are plummeting. that s all good stuff. but this is a religion to these people. i ve been saying this for almost two years now. and like they have all along, there s always something to watch out for right around the corner. what we know about this variant is it is incredibly contagious, even more contagious than the original variant of omicron, and it, you know, caused a substantial spike in cases in europe. there are still americans who are not yet or boosted. and so when they get it, the consequences are still quite substantial. laura: joining me now is dr. peter mccullough, cardiologist and epidemiologist. right on cue yesterday the biden administration renewed another covid-19 public health emergency, this time for another three months. when will this end, and is this not fairly endemic at this point?
If we can get it to the whole world. if we look at the distribution. it is in richer countries and parts of africa and health care workers are not immunized and at risk if they go about their daily work trying to control the pandemic. i think there is optimism. there is optimism because the omicron wave appears to be waning in south africa. it appears we could understand more about it. it is optimism within the bounds of needing to take action and also the uncertainty that always surrounds this virus. i wonder where you stand on the variant of omicron. it may be weaker and less menacing variant. do you think this is good news and we will not get further or dangerous variants or is the jury still out on this? i think the jury has to be