WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:04.160 JUDY WOODRUFF: As the Omicron variant is spreading rapidly, top federal health 00:04.160 --> 00:09.160 officials warn it could bring a massive wave of new infections to the U.S. as early as January. 00:11.120 --> 00:12.480 John Yang has our report. 00:12.480 --> 00:17.480 JOHN YANG: Judy, there are now confirmed cases of Omicron in at least 36 states. 00:18.400 --> 00:23.200 The CDC estimates the new variant represents about 3 percent of positive U.S. cases. 00:23.760 --> 00:28.760 Dr. Saad Omer is an epidemiologist and the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health. 00:29.280 --> 00:30.880 Dr. Omer, thanks so much for being with us. 00:32.320 --> 00:37.320 Given what we know about Omicron, or, maybe more important, what we don't know, how concerned 00:38.560 --> 00:43.560 should people be about it, and how -- and should we expect Omicron to become the dominant strain? 00:44.720 --> 00:47.440 DR. SAAD OMER, Director, Yale Institute for Global Health: So, here's what we know. 00:47.440 --> 00:52.440 We know that it is a highly infectious strain. We know that it evades immunity, especially 00:57.600 --> 01:02.600 by two doses of the vaccines we use, but we also know that it responds to three doses. 01:05.360 --> 01:09.200 So people have better protection with three doses of vaccine. 01:09.200 --> 01:14.200 What we don't know is how severe it will be. So there are two ways of looking at severity. You 01:16.000 --> 01:21.000 look at severity at the individual level. It seems there are very early signals that there may be 01:22.560 --> 01:27.560 sort of at least the same or less severity per infection. But at the population level, 01:28.480 --> 01:33.480 if something is more infectious, it's three times more infectious 01:34.160 --> 01:39.040 and half as severe, it will still produce more hospitalizations. 01:39.040 --> 01:44.040 So I'm just giving you an example, so there - - that, from a public health perspective, 01:47.600 --> 01:50.800 public health authorities should absolutely be on alert. 01:51.600 --> 01:56.600 From individual perspectives, we have a lot of self-efficacy. We can -- we're not helpless in the 01:59.120 --> 02:04.120 face of this new variant. We can get vaccinated and boosted. We can take other precautions 02:06.400 --> 02:11.120 in the interest of public health and personal protection, like testing before gatherings, 02:11.120 --> 02:16.088 including family gatherings, like wearing masks, like having good ventilation, et cetera. 02:16.088 --> 02:21.088 JOHN YANG: Given what you said, that it may be more contagious, but less severe, but that 02:21.440 --> 02:26.440 will still result in a lot of hospitalizations, how worried are you about what apparently the 02:26.880 --> 02:31.880 CDC talks about as the worst-case scenario, the triple whammy of Omicron, Delta and seasonal flu? 02:34.800 --> 02:37.360 DR. SAAD OMER: We may see a mixed picture. 02:37.360 --> 02:42.360 Influenza, this is a season where people are mixing. So, for the last couple of seasons, 02:43.840 --> 02:48.840 what has happened is, especially last season, there was a lot of social distancing that 02:48.960 --> 02:53.520 people had due to COVID. Therefore, you didn't get that big a wave of influence. 02:53.520 --> 02:58.520 So, it is a possibility, but it's not a certainty. So there is some stochasticity. So, there is 02:59.920 --> 03:04.920 an element of chance still there. We are still learning about this variant, but also, 03:06.000 --> 03:10.480 again, as I said, we are not helpless bystanders in the face of this virus. 03:10.480 --> 03:15.480 JOHN YANG: You have talked and written a lot about misinformation, about the role of misinformation 03:16.320 --> 03:21.320 in what's going on. What's your prescription to fight that? 03:21.360 --> 03:23.840 DR. SAAD OMER: Well, that's a really good question. 03:23.840 --> 03:28.840 So, I think the prescription to fight that is, first of all, at the 03:30.880 --> 03:35.880 overall government level, there are a lot -- a lot of interventions governments can do, 03:36.480 --> 03:40.720 including the U.S. government. There's a really nice surgeon general's report that 03:40.720 --> 03:45.720 actually lays out a road map for responding to misinformation and disinformation 03:46.320 --> 03:49.760 at various levels, from the federal to the state to the local government. 03:49.760 --> 03:53.760 So, without going into the details of that report, that's a good recipe for that. 03:53.760 --> 03:58.560 At the individual level, what we can do is, for our friends and family, 03:58.560 --> 04:03.560 to make sure that they have access to the right information. So, the second thing is, 04:06.560 --> 04:11.560 we should be argumentative. The third thing is, we should lead with facts and empathy, rather than 04:15.760 --> 04:20.760 our instinct to correct the disinformation and, by doing so, repeating the disinformation. 04:22.400 --> 04:27.400 And then the last thing is to have a long engagement with our loved ones who have 04:29.600 --> 04:34.600 misinformation or disinformation readily accessible, rather than the expectation that, 04:35.120 --> 04:40.120 in one righteous conversation, we're going to convert people to the cause of vaccination and 04:43.040 --> 04:47.280 actually sort of remove them all to the - - from the all the exposure they have 04:47.920 --> 04:51.920 to misinformation and disinformation around COVID and vaccines specifically. 04:51.920 --> 04:56.560 JOHN YANG: Dr. Saad Omer of the Yale Institute for Global Health, thank you very much. 04:56.560 --> 05:01.560 DR. SAAD OMER: My pleasure.