it. that's it for us. let's turn it over to don lemon. don? we have breaking news tonight. this is "don lemon tonight." we're going to start with breaking news. three students dead at a school shooting in michigan. i need to tell you we're awaiting a press conference that's supposed to happen at any moment. you're looking now at the podium that is in oakland county, michigan. again, a press conference. we're expecting to hear from the sheriff there or the undersheriff, the shooting happening earlier today. three dead, another eight people injured. kids killed in their school. it's really happened far too many times but we cannot become numb to this and we'll continue reporting on all the breaking news. how many parents sent their kids off to school not knowing this is the last time they would see them alive. these are the questions that happen after we have these shootings. it is oxford high school in michigan. shots rang out. a 16-year-old boy, a 14-year-old

girl and a 17-year-old are dead in the shooting. another eight are injured. the shooting suspect is a 15-year-old boy. and we have some new video. this is from inside one of the classrooms. if you'll look at your screen, you'll see it now, as students and a teacher heard a voice from the hallway. then they waited. >> we're not taking that risk right now. >> i'm not sure if the person on the other side of the door was friendly or hostile. >> he said bro. >> they fled to safety .

>> slow down, you are fine. >> so, again, this is all happening in oakland county, michigan, and again, we are awaiting a press conference here, so i'm going to stretch a little bit until we get to it and bring in some of our correspondents soon. like i said, we cannot become numb to this. joe biden says his heart goes out to the grieving families tonight. watch this. >> i learned about a school shooting in michigan. as we learned the full details, my heart goes out to the families during the unimaginable grief of losing a loved one. >> the michigan governor gretchen whitmer also speaking out, tweeting, nobody should be afraid to go to work, to school or even their own home. in a news conference, her voice breaking, saying this. >> i think this is every parent's worst nightmare. >> certainly is. we'll get to our reporters in the field. we have folks working on it as we await this press conference. i'm going to bring in alexandra field. alexandra, thank you for joining

us. every parent's worst nightmare, the governor said there. three students dead tonight, eight others wounded. what do you know about this? >> look, don, you keep saying we can't get numb, but when you look at the video you showed, it's chilling. that's why we have to pay attention tonight to what other details emerge about this shooting. a 14-year-old, a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old who aren't coming home tonight because they went off to high school in america earlier today. seven other students who were shot and injured and then a teacher, also shot and injured. we know that the gunshots rang out in the middle of the school day. it was just before 1:00. 911 was flooded with phone calls, about 100 people calling in to report the active shooting situation. it all came and went in five minutes, don, and that is because schools all over america prepare and train for this. the response here, it was enormous. you had 25 different agencies rushing to respond. you had some 60 ambulances

showing up at oxford high school there to triage any patients who could be coming out, any of the victims who could be coming out of those doors. we do know that the suspected shooter, a 15-year-old sophomore at the high school, was taken under arrest without resisting. but by the time authorities reached him, they say he had already fired off 15, perhaps 20 shots. we know there was a deputy that was assigned full-time to this school. that deputy did assist in the apprehension of the suspected shooter. but even with this highly coordinated response, you still had eight people who were injured, three people who were killed in this period of just five minutes. and we're hearing a little bit more about what it was like to be inside the halls and the classroom of this high school, so many high schools in america. students talking about how that training kicked in. they barricaded inside the classrooms, they got under their desks, they tried to take cover. we heard one student earlier

tonight on cnn, don, talking about how students were trying to arm themselves with scissors and calculators. >> alex, we're going to go now to the sheriff in oakland. this is the undersheriff, michael mccabe. let's listen in. >> you guys all set? >> just a reminder again, if you have any phones or anything, please silence them, because this is streaming, and it picks up every little bit of noise, so appreciate that. obviously we're here for the worst kind of tragedy we've seen

across the country and we hoped and prayed it would never come to oakland county, but it has. it's visited itself on our community and certainly the first thoughts are prayers for the families and loved ones and friends that have been impacted by this unspeakable and unforgivable event. i'd like to speak in general about school safety. you know, the one upside is that our community, oakland county, specifically has prepared, i think, as well as any community in the nation. so the first point i'd like to make is sharing information. if you hear or see something, you've got to say something. whether it's okay to say or whether it's calling us directly or anonymously through a variety of methodologies, we need to know what you see and hear in case there is some credible information there.

just in this past week, we've intervened in three different events. they were deemed not to be credible, but we check every one of those out. so it's critically important people understand that's not a burden to us, it's something we want you to do. call us if there is anybody talking about things, posting about things, writing anything. you need to let authorities know so there can be intervention. the first line of prevention is open communication. we're also hearing that there were rumors that somebody had heard or said something or knew something in advance. none of that came to us prior to today. so if we find out there was information, that's exactly the kind of thing we need to get and get looped into. in fact, we have a specific phone number set up.

if you have information about this case, whether it's previous information you're aware of or anything that's important or relevant, please let us know at 248-858-4911. or you can e-mail us at ocso, that stands for oakland county sheriff's office at oaklandgov.com. and we accept any anonymous tips on anything related to schools. second, it's important to note as we face things across country and here in oakland, training. we train regularly for active shooter scenarios and we have for years. in fact, we created a group called oak tack many years ago after the active shooter in mumbai, and all of the police agencies in oakland counties have trained together for just this scenario. and we looped in and have fire departments now that train with us and are partners in that same

activity, and all of that was very evident today. we've seen agencies train in our brand and township temporary training facility, and with a new training facility on the horizon, we intend to do more intensive training and train with every agency in oakland county, going forward as we have in the past but with more scenarios and more real world pressures, if you will. third, after other school shootings around the country, you saw in some scenarios where the officers or deputies didn't go in. they staged or they waited outside. after some of those scenarios were observed, i made it very clear to our staff, if they get there first, their job is to go in and neutralize the threat. if i get there first, i'm going in. if we get there together, we're both going in. there will be no staging.

i'm proud to say that's exactly what happened today. they went in and searched out the threat. they went to the gunshots. train, train, train is our mantra, and that also includes students, schools and staff. oxford has been one of those districts that's been proactive and has been training. we have literally trained hundreds of schools, businesses, as well as houses of worship. sad, but it's necessary. if you remember many, many years ago, we used to have students climb under the desks because of the potential threat of a nuclear attack. well, that's a very different threat we have to train to and be prepared for it. this kind of thing can happen anywhere, and sadly, it happened even in a sweet, quiet community like oxford. it can visit itself anywhere in america. no one is immune. but that training can, does and did, i believe, in this situation, save lives.

so specifically to this case. on november 30th, our dispatch center received in excess of 100 phone calls in a very short period of time. their professionalism in responding and handling calls and getting relevant information to get out to our deputies was a testimony to their excellence and professionalism. the high school has approximately 1800 students and cars were dispatched at 12:52 and arrived minutes later. within two minutes, two to three minutes of their arrival, they had a suspect in custody. the first deputies on scene were joined by about 100 other deputies from the sheriff's office, and shortly thereafter, almost another 200 from area agencies, including numerous fire departments. i'll give you a very detailed list of who showed up so you can understand the partnership and training that has gone into being prepared for a situation

like today. the deputies removed from the suspect a 9 millimeter 2022 pistol. it was loaded at the time and still contained seven round of ammunition. when they took it from him, he had a loaded firearm and he was coming down the hall. that, again, i believe, interrupted what potentially could have been seven more victims. arriving deputies and officers from other jurisdictions searched the school and evacuated injured students and staff, along with others that were uninjured but clearly panicked. responding deputies reverted to their active shooter training that we talked about already, deploying around the building and searching for additional assailants because at that point we didn't know if it was one or multiple assailants while rescuing victims with the assistance of our partner fire

service agencies. internal and external command posts were established. secondary searches were conducted along with securing the inside and outside perimeters. the fbi and msp bomb squad responded to assist and they checked a package that my canine unit, our explosive unit, had alerted to. more than likely the suspect had his weapons in that bag. there was nothing else in that bag that was dangerous. our office of special investigations and our forensic lab is currently processing the scene which is expected to take many, many hours and go all night long. i'm extremely proud of the deputies, our partners, the fire departments and ems for their intervening actions. as i mentioned, i believe they literally saved lives, having taken down the suspect with a loaded firearm still in the building. i also want to underscore the

impact on our team and any team that faces something like this and how proud i am of them and anyone else in these situations. one of our deputies, because of the severity of wounds, loaded up one of the children in his car, and sadly that child died in the car. one of our employees who was in the 911 center as part of the team taking the emergency calls had a relative killed in the attack. so this touches us all personally and deeply, and will for a long time. this wound will never go away. we understand that, but we also want the community to know that we're here for them and we will leave no stone unturned in determining all the things that led up to it and making sure that this investigation is full and complete before it's turned over to hold this individual accountable. as of right now, we have tragically lost three students, a 16-year-old male.

the names of the deceased, families have been notified. he died in the patrol car on the way to the hospital. a 14-year-old female and a 17-year-old female. another eight people were injured, seven students and one teacher. victim number four is a 15-year-old male. he's in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the head. victim number five is a 14-year-old male with serious condition, jaw and head gunshot wounds. number six is a 17-year-old female. she's stable with a neck gunshot wound. a 15-year-old male, stable, with a gunshot wound to the leg, left leg. a 17-year-old male, stable condition with a hip gunshot wound. the 47-year-old teacher who has

been thankfully discharged. he had a left shoulder gunshot wound that appears to have been a grazing wound. tragically we have a 14-year-old female who is in critical condition with chest and neck gunshot wounds, and she's currently on a ventilator after surgery. it's looking very tough for this young girl. our eleventh victim is a 17-year-old female. she's in critical condition with a chest gunshot wound as well. there are multiple non-life-threatening injuries from students as they were rushing out of the building, obviously evacuating. they got hurt. most of them were treated and released at a predetermined staging area, and thanks for assisting with that and reuniting students with their parents. on scene counseling with

our chaplains were made available to staff, students and certainly families. i have assigned a deputy to each of the victims' families to be with them as long as necessary so they ensure they get the information they need, the comfort they need and the protection they deserve. as i mentioned, we have the suspect in custody. he's a 15-year-old male sophomore, a resident of oxford village. he was not injured and he's currently lodged at children's village on campus here. homicide and attempted homicide with the approval of the on-duty probate court referee. we cannot identify him at this point because he's a juvenile, and he has not been charged as an adult, so there is no ability to identify him at this point. with his parents present, he has declined to speak and they have hired an attorney.

so there is no conversation going on and no cooperation at that level. a preliminary investigation revealed that the weapon used in the shooting was purchased on november 26th, four days ago, by the boy's father. the gun had 15-round magazines. we found two of them. there allegedly was three that was purchased and that he had. the crime scene unit, our forensic lab is on scene processing a huge crime scene. more than likely that magazine will be found there. at least 12 rounds, we know, that's a preliminary number based on casings observed on the ground and part of the active scene that they're now processing. so there is a lot of stuff that we've seen on social media and

different chatter and different rumors. i would caution people not to spread stuff unless it comes from us, because some of the stuff we've seen has absolutely no connection or relevance to this case. and it's hurtful to the community and the families that see some of that. so let's try to be respectful of that, and we'll release as much information as we can as soon as we can that won't jeopardize any potential prosecution. i'm joined by a specialist that was from mcclaren oakland. she can answer -- i'm sorry, i don't know your -- >> dr. gardner. >> -- dr. gardner. she can answer your questions about any medical conditions. thank you all for being here. with that i guess i'll throw it

open to questions, and i'll answer what i can, but frustrating to you, i'm sure, we're not going to completely divulge our case, because it's an ongoing case. >> can you tell us about anything you found at his house? >> i don't think they've done an inventory of that. a search warrant was executed at the suspect's home. i know that we have seized a phone and we're in the process of examining whatever was seized. >> were there any threats made by this gunman prior to the incident that maybe this would happen? >> there was nothing that came to us about prior concerns and threats. that's part of the investigation that we have hundreds of people working. >> is this his first year attending oxford high? did he go to a different school before? i know kids were out due to covid last year. >> he's a sophomore. i honestly don't have the answer whether he was there as a freshman. we can try and run that down for

you. >> did the suspect surrender to officers as they approached him? >> as they were coming down the hall, they saw him. he put his hands up and they took a gun and took him into custody. >> did he say anything? >> no. >> do you have any indication why the father bought a gun four days ago? >> as i said, they're not talking to us. >> sheriff, you mentioned a social media post. there appears to be one we've seen of a suspect with a picture of a gun posted. can you tell us about that at all? >> it's our understanding that this was a recent weapon purchase. he had been shooting with it and posted pictures of a target and a weapon. that's all part of what's being looked at. we're going to do a deep dive on the social media and all the activities of this young man. >> the gun you described appears to be the same weapon? >> it does, yes.

>> did the shooting start in the classroom and spill out into the hallway or was the student in class or -- >> the problem for us is we can't get too specific on that, because they're just now beginning to process it. we'll learn more as they process the scene or where maybe it started. we also have a tremendous amount of video footage that will be in the school. oxford is very proactive with cameras, so our detectives are going to have to really deep dive all those video cameras and review exactly what, where and when. the only information i had was he came out of a bathroom with the weapon, and i don't know where he went first. >> sheriff, just to be clear on the social media once more. some students have said that they've seen -- that they had seen some threats on social media, and some had reported those to authorities. can you say whether that happened or not? >> i would love them to contact us, because we got none of it. i can tell you that nothing came

to the sheriff's office and nothing came to our school liaison in the school. >> they sent out an e-mail saying there was no threat. we have seen an e-mail like that that the school sent out. >> we've been kind of busy -- >> that was november 11. that related to an incident out of state. >> that was a different one we investigated. that's a completely different one. there's a lot of cross polllation for some folks. there was one with a deer head that had nothing to do with today. that's why i'm saying, please ask us. that turned out to be nothing. it was actually in a different school, it had nothing to do with oxford and we were able to determine that. they sent out the letter and said there is no threat. >> i got too many. >> there are a lot of people saying this 15-year-old boy was bullied.

is there anything that leads you to believe he was having trouble at school, any disciplinary action before today? >> we don't have anything on that. we have had no contact with that young man. have had nothing to suggest there were disciplinary problems with him at the school. that's part of our investigation, to determine what happened prior to this event, and if some signs were missed, how were they missed and why. >> sheriff, you mentioned you have had no contact with this individual. can you say if any law enforcement, whether it be oxford police, have had any contact with this suspect? >> i'm not aware any law enforcement agency had any contact or information that he was a concern or threat. we have not been told that by any agency. social media says different things, but that's part of the investigation. >> at this juncture, has the department or any authorities received any credible tips as

any possible warning signs? >> nothing at the moment, no. and he hasn't spoken, and obviously that's the best place to get motive. but he is under a lawyer with his parents' refusal to allow him to talk to us. >> was he charged? >> once we complete the totality of our investigation and wrap up every loose end, that will be presented to the prosecutor for charging determination. >> sheriff, what about the victims? were they targeted? was it totally random? >> that will be part of the investigation. we don't know where he went first or why. he didn't tell us, so we're going to have hundreds and hundreds of hours reviewing the videos of the school to look at his movements to see if there is any pattern to it or if there is any past history to it. that's all stuff we've got to look into. >> are there metal detectors at the school? >> there are no metal detectors. >> you mentioned he came out of

a bathroom? >> no, he came out with a handgun. >> was that seen on surveillance video? >> yes. >> was the suspect trying to get into classrooms where students were barricaded, pretending to be an officer? >> we're told that's the case. we've got literally thousands of interviews to do. they were in lockdown. that goes to the training. the school district had been trained, the students and teachers had been trained going in a lockdown. how you go into a lockdown is critically important. one of the things we brought back to our agency after i got a very detailed debrief on parkland is what you call the safe portion of a classroom when you're in lockdown but can't be seen. all those things are what we taught different school districts. they went into lockdown, i know they barricaded doors.

in terms of whether he was doing that, that will be part of what we investigate. >> how brave were the students? >> i think everyone was brave in this situation and they reacted with the training and wh wherewithal that saved lives. tragically we lost lives and some were seriously hurt. had there not been intervention by our deputies with seven rounds in the weapon and the students and teachers locking themselves down and barricading doors, we might be -- if it's possible, in a worse situation. >> do we expect arraignment as early as tomorrow? >> it's hard to say. we've got to get enough of the basics done before the prosecutor can make an informed charging decision. >> what are the chances the parents could face any charges? >> that will all be up to the prosecutor. ultimately we're going to present everything, how it played out, and whatever applicable thing, i presume

they'll charge. we certainly want it charged. >> do you have a timeline for when the investigation will be complete? >> i can't even guess. i don't know what they're going to find in the school. it's going to take a tremendous amount of work to go through the school evidentiary, our forensic and our crime lab, and it's going to take hundreds of hours to go through videos, then we have to individually interview everyone that was in the school. so you can kind of see the herculean task that is ahead. >> what do you want families and students to be focusing on doing as they're not in school and processing on what just happened? >> first, reach out for support. if you are in that school or you're feeling trauma, or if you're feeling any kind of depression or anxiety, that's nothing to be ashamed of. it's normal.

ask for help. we've got chaplains available, we have access to counseling and psychiatric assistance. that is normal. we encourage people not to be afraid of seeking help. when you're in a traumatic situation, lots of times you need help forward. so we would encourage them to get that, not shy away from it, talk to their kids about it, what they're feeling. get them the help they need and let them know that it is normal to feel this way, that it is punishing to be in a situation where you have that danger around you. i've been in a lot of terrible situations and seen a lot of deaths. and it never becomes normal. and if you've never been around it, it's even worse. >> that is the sheriff of oakland county, michael bouchard there, having a press conference, close to the end. there are other people who will take questions, a mental health person. we're learning a 15-year-old

acquired a gun. according to the sheriff it was bought a couple days ago, on november 26, by the boy's father. the boy is 15 years old. they said when they encountered the young man in the school, the folks who arrived, the police officers who arrived on the scene, they encountered him in the hallway with a loaded pistol, a sig sauer 9 millimeter loaded pistol. they say he came out of the bathroom. that's how it started, when he came out of the bathroom. by the time authorities got there, they said he was in the hall. they met him. he was walking down the hall with a loaded gun. he raised his arms and surrendered to them. carrying that loaded weapon. he is in custody. he is with his parents. his parents have told him not to talk to police. they've hired an attorney. they also said because he is a 15-year-old, they cannot identify him.

they can't identify him because he's a juvenile and he's not been charged as an adult, but whatever. we have a young person, 15 or 16 years old, a teenager, who got ahold of a weapon that his father bought just three or four days ago. they talk about the injuries of the folks. obviously, three people are dead here. a 16-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old. there are a number of folks injured, including a teacher. there is a 47-year-old teacher, 17-year-old. a 14-year-old, 18-year-old, and those are the extent of people who were shot and killed and injured in this. so many more details. our reporters are on the scene, and i also want to bring in fbi assistant director -- former fbi assistant director chris weker. chris, i got a note from one of my colleagues, josh campbell, who is following along with me and sending me notes here.

he said what strikes him is the kid's accuracy with the weapon, that he fired 12 rounds and that he hit 11 people, three of them dead, eight injured. he seems to be pretty accurate with a gun. does that stick out to you in this situation? >> that is the first thing that came to mind when i first read about it. i had read 15 to 20 shots, and when you see and hear about the 11 very serious injuries and the three deaths, that's pretty good shooting, i hate to say, and we now find out that he posted that he was training somewhere, firing that weapon that had only been bought four days earlier by his dad the day after thanksgiving. such an unspeakable, heartbreaking tragedy, don. a lot of things come to mind here about whether there was some red flags and the undersheriff seemed to be alluding to that at the very beginning of this press

conference, where he sort of started off with, if you see something, say something, and there is a lot of internet chatter about there being some forewarnings, so it will be interesting to see if some of that bears out. >> again, looking at my notes here, he said, look, they have a training facility. he said they have trained, sadly, but i guess it's good because at least they had the training and said they had to do it at schools, places of worship and businesses because these things happen now. even with that, you still have three people who died and many more who were injured. >> yeah, the training part, i do school security assessments, and you look at all different aspects, especially on the prevention side, but also very much on the reaction side and how to react to an active shooter. you need to have active listening on the part of the

teachers, the other students, the counselors to see if there is any red flags, you know, things that are precursors to this active shooter, and they had a robust response. it sounds like that's exactly what happened here. they had a very big response. unlike parkland, they went straight to the shooter, got him neutralized. it's almost impossible in the first seconds and minutes to prevent someone from opening fire unless you put magnetometers in every hallway and every entrance. they had a school resource officer there. they did a lot of things right. i'm going to be focusing on whether there were the early warning indicators, whether other students, parents, counselors, teachers picked up on anything and whether there was some warning here. >> he had a lot of ammo left, because apparently he had 15-round magazines, three of

them, and i think he only used one, right? so he had a lot of ammunition left. many more people could have been injured. sadly, the number of people who were injured and the number of people were killed, but he had a lot of ammunition. >> it could have been a lot worse. i initially thought maybe he had to do at least one magazine change, but it sounds like maybe that's not the case. i have a gun that holds six -- that holds 20 rounds. there may be extended magazines for those, but it could have been a lot worse. it sounds to me like the sheriff's department and the school resource officer responded rapidly. again, it's impossible not to compare this to parkland. it's ironic that trial is coming up pretty soon for that deputy who didn't respond right away. this sounds to me like they trained effectively and they responded effectively. again, i always go back to the

prevention side of it, though, and whether there was some early indicators. >> they're asking people for information. they're also saying that they've executed a search warrant. they said they've seized a phone, at least from the suspect's home. what are investigators looking for now, chris? >> they're looking for motive, they're looking for did he communicate to others? they're looking very closely at his social network, if you will, to see what he was posting, who he was posting to on instagram, twitter, facebook, you name it, all the different social media sites that these high schoolers use. again, they will have to interview pretty much everybody at that school to piece together what actually happened, who he went to first. was he targeting somebody or something and, more importantly, or equally important, was there a triggering event that caused this to happen? was that visible and apparent to others?

>> chris, i thank you. i'm sorry that we have to speech under such circumstances, but sadly this is the breaking news. chris swecker, thank you. i appreciate it. don't go far. the producers are listening to the control room in this press conference, and if any new information comes out, we will bring it to you. i want to bring in rob guzanic. his daughter attends oxford high school. i'm sorry for what you and your community are going through tonight. your daughter is a special needs student at the high school. what happened as you heard about the shooting there? >> first of all, it was like as the sheriff said, he said all the emergency services from all the surrounding communities were just rushing to oxford. it was nothing but sirens for at least 45 minutes once the text went out from the school that there was a lockdown at the school.

it was a very surreal event happening at that school. i hope no community ever has to go through this. but it was -- it was just unbelievable the amount of kids that were, you know, running out of the school, coming through the field and the houses and coming to an area where we were waiting. there was a group of parents that were across the street from the school that, you know, basically you could tell the shock and trauma in these kids who were all trying to describe what was going on inside the school, what they saw. >> how is your daughter doing? >> my daughter, she's a strong gal. she's doing pretty well. i want to say it was really outstanding the work that her special needs teacher of the classes, mrs. daziko, mrs. stahl

and the para that started today did a great job of getting them in the teachers' office and locking them in that office, because from what i was told, the shooting started right outside the special needs classroom. >> i can imagine the panic and the fear that strikes when you hear something like this and a parent arriving. when you got there, what did you see? >> the police set up a perimeter about a quarter mile from the high school. all we saw, in the area that i was at, there was at least 15 ems vehicles staged there. the police had the school cordoned off and just plenty of police helicopters and medical helicopters arriving to take the injured away. >> mr. guzani, thank you. i appreciate you joining us. i'm sorry we had to speak under these circumstances, the same thing i told chris swecker. i appreciate you talking to us. you take care, okay?

>> thank you. we're going to continue to follow the situation happening in oakland county, michigan. three young people dead. eight others injured, including a teacher, more that are injured, but it is a sad situation. we'll continue to follow this breaking news story coming out of michigan, the school shooting today. we'll be right back. new vicks vapostick. strong soothing vapors... help comfort your loved ones. for chest, neck, and back. it goes on clear. no mess just soothing comfort.

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the biden administration with stricter travel restrictions for everyone coming to the u.s. the omicron variant has been identified in at least 20 countries. the testing showed that the vaccine protected against the omicron variant. joining me now is dr. sanjay gupta. this news tonight out of israel seems encouraging. is there reason to be optimistic? how do you read this? >> yeah, i think there is reason to be optimistic, because it's sort of following a pattern that we are hearing. israel is saying this, that the vaccines do appear to be protective. we also heard this in south africa, don. they got some 60 million people living there.

about 16.5 million have been vaccinated only, so a small percentage. what they're seeing in terms of people who tested positive, they are the unvaccinated. so that's another sign that the vaccinations seem to be effective. we'll get more data on that. they'll do lab tests where they put the omicron in a test tube with the blood of vaccinated people and see what happens. do the antibodies neutralize the virus or not? in about two weeks we'll have a clear answer of just how effective the vaccines are, but all indicators are they're still very protective. >> i hope they're right in israel. i hope it's right they do protect against this variant. the cdc director is saying they're expanding surveillance of four big u.s. airports to look for omicron, sanjay. will they be able to find cases and contact trace to contain omicron? what should we be bracing for as

this goes? >> well, you know, this whole idea of the testing and tracing, you know, the things we talked about two years ago in the beginning of all this, we never really got to that point. we still, in this country, we're doing about a million and a half tests per day. you may remember, don, the road to recovery sort of counted on getting 20 million to 30 million tests per day. we're not anywhere close to that, and it's not really a surprise to me that we have not found evidence of omicron in the united states yet, but that doesn't mean it's not here, and it's probably already spreading. i don't think this is going to be a question of, hey, look, we're going to specifically contain, get our hands around omicron. i think what the message is, going back to what we're seeing out of israel and south africa, the unvaccinated percentage of people in this country, if they have been considering this at all, now is the time to go get vaccinated. because it can be protective,

not only against delta, which is the biggest concern in the united states, but also it looks increasingly against omicron as well. that's got to be the message, and get boosted if you qualify at this point as well, six months out from the pfizer or moderna vaccines. >> i've been want to go talk to you about this, sanjay, because obviously the president has been saying you shouldn't be panicked, but we should be concerned. one of the first doctors to treat omicron cases in south africa telling cnn most cases are, quote, extremely mild. you looked into this reporting. what do you have? >> this is interesting. first of all, if you just look at what's happening in south africa, as you know, their calendar, their climate right now is late spring. it's past flu season, so this is the trend we've seen since the last several months. this is one of the lowest vaccinated places in the world, don, so when you look at this, keep that in mind.

that first wave and then it gets quiet, right? lots of infection-acquired immunity. but it only lasts a few months because then you get the beta wave, then it gets quiet, then delta. this tells two stories, what you're seeing here. first the idea of infection-acquired immunity, which is a big topic of conversation. it doesn't last that long. that's what that south african data tells us. but the far right of the screen tells you something as well. before omicron really popped onto the scene here, it was quiet in south africa. it was late spring. omicron didn't have anything to compete against. so we're not sure, even though omicron has become the dominant strain in south africa, we're not sure that it will compete against delta here because it hasn't had to have a footrace against delta in south africa. but then when you look at hospital data, i looked specifically at gauteng province, the numbers are going up. it's a quiet period but the numbers have gone up.

this is a kor ration, not -- correlation, not causation, but is this potentially related to this new variant? potentially. and that's the sort of data these investigators are going to be looking at. >> sanjay, my next question, maybe in a few weeks it will be moot unless they get information from the israeli studies, but now i hear several people anxious over whether they should get their boosters now, if we might need an omicron specific booster in the next few months. what's your advice about that and how to stay calm amid the uncertainty brought on by the new variants? >> i think there should be a lot of solace for people who are vaccinated right now in terms of what we're seeing. that should hopefully keep people calm. i would say do not wait for a potential booster down the line. two reasons. first of all, there was also delta-specific boosters, you may remember. there was even beta-specific boosters that were being trialed. scientists decided we don't need them because the existing vaccines worked really well, and that may be the case here. in the united states, far and

away delta is still the larger concern. do not put off getting the booster because it can be so effective as we're seeing from the data against delta, which is still circulating robustly, but also potentially against omicron in the future. so do not put off that. i'll say something else, don. just basic nonfarm suit cal interventions. you go into a location where you don't know people's vaccination status, it's not time to get rid of these masks. you can buy high quality, high filtration masks now. buy them. carry them with you. if you do that, they can be very helpful no matter what the variant is. >> we talked about you today because we were planning a trip to get up here. maybe you should get here fast and just mask up on the airplane and you'll be fine. by the way, it was pretty cold here in new york last night, and that masked helped me on my way home because it keeps you

warmer. >> ancillary benefits. >> sanjay, you answered a lot of questions tonight but tomorrow you're going to be answering more questions. we thank you. sanjay is going to be joining anderson tomorrow. they're going to be joined by dr. anthony fauci for an all new cnn global town hall. it's called coronavirus facts and fears. it's live tomorrow night at 9:00. again our thanks to sanjay.

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