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What is it about this variant that you've seen so far that has everybody so alarmed that the other variants we've had in between, delta and this one -- delta alarmed folks. this one alarmed folks. lambda and mu, for instance, hasn't. what makes omicron so concerning to you? >> right now what we have is we have the window into the mutations that are in this new variant, and they are troublesome in the fact that there are about 32 or more variants in that very important spike protein of the virus, which is the business end of the virus, and there's about ten or more of these mutations that are o...

Premise. i think a couple of key points over this next week or so -- we are going to know whether antibodies to our vaccine and the pfizer people, the moderna people, the j&j people will know if the antibodies to these different vaccines, especially after boosting are sufficient in order to neutralize the omicron vary yachbt. those are studies that are done in the laboratory, even with the omicron variant virus itself or with the pseudovirus constructs that's made. wool know that fairly quickly. the likelihood is there may be some reduction in its ability to neutralize the virus just like ther...

Variant. those variants were partially resistant to the vaccines, by no means completely. with individuals that have toledoses of mrna i'm sayses, i'm -- immunizations, i'm hopeful the vaccines will work well. we'll know that by the end of this coming week and after that we're looking at the vaccines the way you do it is you actually measure the antibody to the vaccine, either an experimental animal or in people who have been immunized and you see how well it neutralizes the virus or a pseudo virus version of it and we can know that pretty quickly. so we're hoping they that we'll know the answ...

The extent to which vaccines will be effective against this. i don't think there's panic on that front yet. third, you know, the other thing about these variants that have mutations in the spike protein, similar ones that we've seen before the b-13531 out of south africa, the lambda out of south america, those never really went anywhere. so it's not as if just because you have mutations in the spike protein that it spreads all over the world. the fact that we've identified this in hong kong and australia and europe, likely the united states. that doesn't mean necessarily that it's more transmi...

To collect the data. >> you're absolutely right, arthel, there's a lot we don't know. we will learn a lot more even by the end of this week, i think we'll know a lot more. here are the questions that i'm asking. number one, is this -- does this produce more severe disease than the variants that we've been experiencing, predominantly alpha and delta in the united states. i don't think so. it looks like it may be about the same. we're hearing some reports of mild disease, other reports out of south africa, saying they are seeing some severe disease. i think it will even out in the wash and look ...