but right now we still don't know enough about severity to truly understand it. it appears not to be any more severe than the original omicron strain. but we have to remember that this increased transmissibility does lead to more cases. more cases does lead to more hospitalizations and inevitably more deaths. >> yeah. sadly so. and of course we are also seeing a steep decline in covid cases across the u.s., with some experts suggesting this is the most optimistic sign they've seen in a long time. do you agree with that assessment? and when do you think we'll see an end to this pandemic? >> well, rosemary, i am very heartened by seeing this collapse in the number of cases. it means that we're going to be over this surge probably in the near future although this new variant is probably going to extend that runway a little bit longer before we get completely over this surge. but we can't lose track of the point that we're probably going to see other variants. we have not vaccinated the rest