but the president said yesterday that he doesn't think covid as we know it is here to stay. listen. >> i don't think covid is here to stay. having covid in the environment here and in the world is probably here to stay, but covid as we're dealing with it now is not here to stay. the new normal doesn't have to be -- we have so many more tools we're developing and continuing to develop that'll contain covid and other strains of covid. finish. david: dr. ahmed is a senior fellow at the independent women's forum. doctor, great to see you again, thank you for being here. we'll get to the mixed messages in just a minute. but first of all on omicron itself, we saw in south africa that it was kind of like a wildfire. it burned very quickly through the population but burned out fairly quickly as well. is the same likely to happen here or has it begun happening already? >> so south africa gives us a