Dr. Peter Hotez has informed the public on the impact of COVID-19 in the United States, its variants, and the vaccinations to fight them since the beginning of the pandemic, so when Omicron started to gain traction in the news, host Molly Jong-Fast invited him on to The New Abnormal to tell us about it, and quick.
Is it something to worry about? The answer isn’t simple, but Dr. Hotez has some promising predictions.
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“If you have a very high amount of virus-neutralizing antibodies, either because you’ve got a third immunization or because you’ve been infected or have recovered and then got vaccinated, I think there’s a good possibility [of being protected],” he explains.
The same way that the vaccines have protected against the other variants, which are still around, he predicts they will protect against Omicron—but there’s a catch.
It comes down to whether the vaccines will be just as effective against Omicron, compared to Delta for example.
“I mean, Delta is a pretty high bar. It’s a pretty transmissible variant,” says Dr. Hotez—and the vaccines worked there, which is why he doesn’t think we’ll need Omicron-specific booster shots.
He also calls Rand Paul and his obsession with herd immunity “weird,” and totally obliterates that argument.
James Carville also joins the show and breaks down the comms strategy that would give Biden and the Dems an edge in the media (and maybe on Fox News) and ponders a scary thought with Molly: What would you do if your kid worked for Majorie Taylor Greene?
Plus! Daily Beast media reporter Zach Petrizzo explains why Mike Lindell staged a protest against Fox, and why right-wingers like Sebastian Gorka and Charlie Kirk have a bone to pick with the MyPillow guy.
Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
