and of course, these mutations all sorta selected for those that are going to be more infectious or data are able to evade part of our immune system. so with this all the time, the only way to quote this actually is to get people vaccinated actually spread the virus. so sadly, of these viruses are popping up all the time. many of us who get infected will be infected with more than one variant anyway. and it's just a bit of a game in terms of chasing the genetics of the virus and trying to suppress these changes by dampening transmission. and the way you do that is by vaccination. so i hope we get to a phase where we don't have to exhaust the whole of the greek alphabet, but i only have 9 letters left. so given the, in the speed of the mutations, it looks like this may be the case and i read the the other day that it will, how we're going to zation is already contemplating naming you variance after the star constellation. so there's really unlimited potential there. and i know you said before that we will have to get used to living with this virus and we will

have to adapt it. but how long do you think it will take in being such and such an imposing constraint on the predictability of our lives? yeah, i think, i think we're, you know, we're learning about this all the time and i think it's going to take some time before it's settled. what we're saying, essentially in real world, illusory times, if you like, it's worth adapting to us. we've never seen anything like this before. buyers adapting johnson rather than adapting to the virus. well, bob was going to say how of human behavior does have to be taken into account to. so it is a 2 way street, and it's going to take some time for us to settle into a form of endemic invention. that's one of the fixture becomes more predictable, more seasonable, more manageable. and way, when you get to pandemic like this, you know, you can't think about an infection becoming endemic, more controllable, and to you grasp it worldwide. we'll see what we've learned from on record, which we should have realized. anyway, of course we did was it was,

it's important for governments to control and to cool off to what's going on in their own countries, unless you also are keeping them on what's going on elsewhere in the world. you'll never get a handle on this, hence this. what we heard all the time is mantra, if you like it, you know, we're all in this together when nobody safe until everybody is safe. and the whole issue of vaccine democracy, if you like, an equity is so important. now you mentioned already that every new variance seems to be more daring than the last. but i think only really looks like the special a whole they seem collection of some old mutation here plus some new ones that have we seen anything like this? is this the sort of be the scariest so far? is the scariest. because many of us hold the delta would be the sort of peak i did, i thought, well, you know, going to get a bar surely, any more transmissible than delta. and what's happened,

you got something which has popped up with more than 30 changes in that spite protein that we're all interested in. it's accumulated, all the mutations we've seen in different various, all in one virus. and that raises a very interesting issues about, you know, where did it come from in the 1st place? is it possible to get even more mutations? and what's going to happen in terms of disease severity and vaccine protection is suggesting that, you know, the virus has still got some way to go and will throw up. so most surprises. i am wondering how consistent is our, our understanding of the wires from one bear in to the next. i mean, i, you personally, how often do you have to revise what you have taken for granted about it? yeah, well, you know, we go, i think modern technology is a wonderful thing so that we can actually read the genome. great. and we can understand what some of these changes mean. so we know in our chronic accumulated changes that we know are associated was increased in sensitivity or trans miss

ability. and indeed with the ability to evade certain elements of the immune system . learning about this all the time. you know, we can, we can predict the structure of this by protein and how interact with so, so we already knew that there would be increased infective, 80 simply by the way, that despite proteins changes in the shape. and so that's come out now born out to be true, of course of both in both in real life as well as in laboratory studies in the same way we've just heard over the last 24 hours the there is a significant degree of immune evasion in terms of antibody responses, so we can predict, we can predict up to a point, but obviously we're only looking at one bit of the virus. it's important to stress that all this focus on want to be the virus is important. because this is how the virus gets into cells, and this is how the vaccines are working at the moment. but there are also things we need to be doing to increase the chances of better management as far as fi by

targeting other bits of the virus genome, not just to spite protein. now you mentioned that this last baron has been able to have you put it in a certain element of the immune system and in plain english as far as i can tell, it would be, it would mean that it can actually reach the back in just an unity and some doctors in south africa have already reported that they have quite a number of patients vaccinated patients who have contract expires. they have also noticed that the, the number of children and young adults to die is increasing. is, is that what you would normally expect from a virus? let's say, read it. i think it's i right with me years after it. it has originated, even supposed to be gaining in strength at this point. what is it all depends, what you mean by gaining strengths?

because what we're seeing here is a virus that is more infectious. and because he has some degree of capacity to don't around the immune system, it's infecting people who either previously and be infected and other variant or indeed have been fully vaccinated. a lot of people. so the coming out however, are suggesting and is only suggestion that a lot of this infection is model disease and it's possible. but what we're seeing with this overcome variant is a virus that is gaining infectiousness, but as a consequence of vaccination, etc, is losing some of its strengths in terms of inducing disease. it's virulence one of the things we hoped originally by analogy with some of the viruses that might happen, although it's controversial, is as a virus adapt to up what is it becomes more infectious? it may become less harmful. now whether this is the case or not, we don't recall, we don't know, but it certainly much more infectious. and a lot of the early recalls are suggesting that even with full or boosted

vaccination, you can still get mild disease or perhaps not severe disease. it may be a totally ignorant question on my part, but with an age on virus like common 19, is there any difference between boxing community, let's say your community an indication, the latter one doesn't really matter which there in your body has, has bow before you come across on a crime, you know, this could have been a day to actually include some recent day to the suggest that if you've been previously infected with whatever their end and you then get vaccinated, you have a better immune response. that's not surprising because depending on the vaccine, most of these vaccines have a little bit of the, of the virus, they just have the spy protein. of course, there are some vaccines that all using the whole virus. and of course, you can understand is quite easy. the if your body see the whole virus is saying other bits, not just, not just despite the body's immune system response to a much broader array of different bits of the varsity. some of these are,

some of these bits are more concerned the less changed since in the, on the chrome variant, the nuclear protein, another protein, this, in the, in the virus is, has only 4 full changes, not 30 changes. so one of the things is quite interesting about all of this is we understand more about the immune response more about how the vaccines are working. if you think about incorporating some of these other bits of the virus in these vaccines, and that's why there's little to talk at the moment about adapting, rapidly adapting the m already vaccines. not only to cope with the spike changes in all the combo ops to include other bits of arista on, changed as much speaking about the way there is work. i understand that it's too early to same as relying on your professional and intuition. i know that they are for vaccine approved in south africa and are in a one t a non replicating bio vector once and,

and in an activated one who decides is do you think i am a crown would be more likely to reach 1st? that's a very, very difficult question. as i said earlier, i think i think attenuated vaccines may give a may give better protection. but i think what we've learned, we've known for years about vaccines is mixing and matching vaccines works really well. so, so called heterozygous vaccination. so if you, for instance, had one of the attenuated vaccines followed by an m r a vaccine, you're lucky to get a much better immune response. at the moment it's really difficult because what we're trying to do is almost do experiments in the real well, we know these vaccines a safe and have been approved and work. and the most important thing of all of calls is to protect against severe disease. today's a very important day for the u. k. the world because today marks one year since the vaccine was the 1st use of an approved vaccine was injected actually somebody locally in the hospital where i work by coincidence,

in coventry in the u. k. moment keena was given the 1st dose a year ago today, and of course the hope there and it was, it was that we can protect against severe disease. and that's what we've seen or all around the world. the most important thing obviously, is that we are ahead of the game a year into the, into, into vaccination. and it was a bit of a risk. we didn't know that vaccines would work. we just didn't know that, that we'd be able to protect, but be able to protect against severe disease is really important. and i think what we're going to see, what the pandemic has cost tract, if you like, is the development of new approaches to vaccines. you can develop these in a way that is rapid, but also more effective. now the new variance was 1st attacked in bus one and then i spread through south african before making it crossing into the northern hemisphere. how much you, geography, and the sort of host population,

immunological status, and matter in terms of producing the new variance. i'm asking because despite the relax reluctance to associate the new there isn't any given country b, china, the u. k. brazil, india. we have quite a few variants which originated in specific countries, and there's not a single one that originated in russia, not that i'm calling for it, but that's, that's an interesting question to ponder. why some countries do get the same invitations and honest. no. yeah. anybody in fact he's generating musicians. this has been studied in the context of cove is really and people who are in a compromise. so we know there are 2 things going on here. is partly to do with the proportion of your population that's fascinated osi in south africa. and that those countries in south africa there are but it to be low levels of o vaccine coverage. but also where we,

where this has been looked at in detail and where mutations similar to the mutations we're seeing in, on recall, other products have been demonstrated in a, in a person is actually in people who are immunocompromised, these individuals have sometimes very prolonged infections. so normally we clear and infection like crone of ours, within a week or so, it clears from our bodies. we call 10 days. sometimes these people are in a compromise, will have an affection for more than a 100 days, and they become a breeding ground to variance to develop. and that's where you see some of these more severe barrett's, if they spread into. if these viruses spread into a, a population that's fully vaccinate to the company can't go much further. even on recon actually might have been more restrict it if the population in south africa was mostly vaccinated, i think is a complex mix actually of the immune competence of an individual and the immune protection of a population. ok, well dr. young, we have to take a very short break right now, but we will be back in just

a few moments. ah ah, join me every thursday on the alex salmon. sure. i'll be speaking together from the world politics. sport, business. i'm sure business. i'll see you then. mm. a. she is not a battery video don't. michelle. pretty much be with can sure the coordinates with the blue, your skin. yeah. versus with, from washington to boise and like you to form

a visa that the, you know much doubtfully with figured out those very much. and i spoke with the launch a ah, who welcome rituals, of course with lawrence young. ever religious at the university of 40 to young, many of your colleagues are in favor of st. border control measures in the, in an effort to stand this brad of been you varian. but i've also heard an alternative

hypothesis does make fonts contagious. nature may actually be a blessing in disguise because if it is allowed to spread widely and rapidly may 1st told the development of the new mutations. is that reasonable or is it too big of a risk to task this to position in real life? and with real life, well the to do so on. so really what is a border control? we know he's very difficult when you've got a virus particularly infectious off your it's a while to do the genome analysis. once you identify and you there, it's usually it's, it's, it's spread beyond the original country and that's the nature of infectious disease and the nature of these days of international travel. so what's the, what's the purpose of having a severely restricting life to you and from south africa as in most countries around the world. and i'm not sure there's any value in doing that. now to be frank, unless you're really straight because as countries like australia or i know i've

got friends in hong kong where quarantine is so straight and testing is so straight that you just, you know, that that's the way they control. it's very hard to do that in other countries. so i think there's a question. what else? i think it's really important that we support south africa. we don't cut off south africa, them having done such great work in sequencing the virus, etc. they need support as for the spread of this, of course it looks like it will come compete out. delta. we're seeing that already in the u. k. we predicted will overtake delta if, and it's a big if, if this variance is associated with more disease in fully vaccinated individuals, then that could be a good thing. the worry we have of calls is that always be a small number of the population. either unvaccinated or whose response to vaccines are not great, and they will get poorly and, and that, and the small proportion of a large population of effect individuals could put enormous burden on health care

system. and what we're concerned about is protecting our health care assistance from being overwhelmed at the moment that isn't the case in south africa. if you look at the number of people who are hospitalized, that's pop. but people tend to be staying in the hospital for a short period. and what's really interesting is if you compare the data at the same time, in terms of number of cases, when they had the delta wave in south africa, they had for moment, far more people in intensive care at that stage. and they do now. so this will bose well but will be, who are all the courses because we're looking at the data it comes in. the hope is that this will result in more mild disease. and he's, that's the case. then you can say, well actually perhaps it's not cops, it's not such a bad thing. i've read some reports that trying to have identified a special sort of self version of on the one that can be detected by a standard p r test. and it would only be in the through genetic testing if that's

the case. is there a possibility or other forms? are there a variance of the iris sort of spreading around undetected because many countries are now trying to detect on the front that usually standard b, c r test just doesn't. yeah. so, so you know that this was, becomes an issue of semantics on what you, what would you call a variance variance? because all the, while these are a sublet ages, are there are changes all the wall and you can map all of these. and so how do you define when a, what all these changes become another variance? so the loss of variance circulating to walk. also, we just have to be concerned about the ones that are more transmissible, and that's why you know, make surveillance is so important. i agree with you that was, it's possible to actually quite rapidly modify the pcl test if you want to take to particular areas. it's also really important that you have high levels of genomics of items around the world. some countries don't do that to the south africa doing really well with other countries in the develop. well, do that well, but you know,

let's, we're going to handle this elsewhere. i think that's going to be really important. and again, it's another reason why the, well, the more develop, well, it should be supporting genomics of items in other countries. because this is an important way to keep a handle on what's going on to make sure that if any nasty variance are popping up, we identify the early, well, you know, the surveillance and intelligence usually come together and given the level of attention international tensions in the world, you know, in russia, the west of been china and the united states is in china and india as a host of other countries. i can imagine that there could be some use in santa horn or incentive, i guess, sharing certain information with other countries, especially those countries will identify openly as an adversary from your vantage

point. how free is common response and surveillance that you've been such and such an advocate for how free it is from or bad all politics? yeah, i know it because we've seen this certainly with the global rollout. so vaccination, as i said earlier, you can understand, you don't want to read particular people, but we do have a responsibility. the rest of the world politics is always going to get in the way . have you said that you know, the world health organization that are really good job in supporting other countries? as far as i'm aware, most countries been very open, around sharing data. what we don't want to do as we see in the last week or so, is penalize a country like south africa being very open about the data that they provide. and what we hope from what we anticipate is that other countries are going to be just as open when they get data that demonstrates new variance popping up. and i think

on the whole, data sharing has been from the beginning. this has been a real testimony to the global interaction, and so the responsibility that we will have across the world to work together to combat. and there's a good idea when trying to 1st release the sequence very, you know, that was, that was the, that was the starting gun to being able to develop a vaccine without that. we've been in a lot of trouble. so i think that has been open, but i also oversee politics. siding inevitably gets in the way occasionally. well, one area where politics gets in the way there natalie is. of course the introduction and the recognition of fascination certificate. if you were to come to moscow or i were to go to london and we would be treated as a major, how has a despite perhaps i think we just do you see that as a problem or is that perhaps some unknown silver lining there as well? as you know, i think there's

a real issue here about the requirements for approval of drugs and approval of vaccines and the data that's needed to support that and what type of rigorous are approaches. we have to make sure that when we are approving vaccines, they are recognized in different countries. and so we don't end up with the situation that we're facing at the moment. and along with that, i think is how the different agencies around the world are working. and again, i come back to the fact that it will hopefully help organization is really important and trying to pull this all together. so we might have all these different regulatory requirements in different countries, but we need to unify more. i think this is going to be one. there are many, many lessons are going to come out of this plan to make. i'm going to help us prepare the next for the next time. i think one of these is how do we unite so that we can work together internationally. we can approve developments vaccines tests internationally. perhaps that hasn't worked as well this time and it's something we need to fix. now there's one question that's been bothering me from the beginning

of the malays and it is very intense. there are specific focus on anti comments, protection b vaccination or mask wearing social distancing, etc. as opposed to 4 to find your by overall immunity being conscious, being disciplined about your daily house choices. maybe my own that i can logical defense and you know, they decide to have some semblance control over the fire is that i was wondering, in your personal, you, in your professional, your how much does 11, lifestyle influence he's or her chances of contracting and combating the buyers yeah. he was a lot about that. we learned a lot about the differences in relation to disease outcomes in different populations. i. e ethnic differences in the way people responded and how that might have led to some problems with the way different communities have been supported or

managed. and indeed messaged as a messaging is very important to populations. we've learned a lot about what we knew for years, which is the impact of co morbidities. so not only about social deprivation, but also about things like obesity and diabetes. and this is put into sharp focus, the need for not only individual responsibility, but governments to support the development of more preventative measures and more information to allow people to understand the personal responsibility that you just mentioned about our own health and how we need to control that and i think perhaps people didn't realize before they suddenly realized now that the other factors in their life of the lifestyle factors are really influencing the way you respond to this infection. and again, it's another i keep mentioning the same thing is another wake up call actually for taking personal responsibility for your health. but also for the government, i think messaging and supporting better individuals who are in situations where

they are economically or socially deprived. we've known about these health inequalities for many years, and sadly, a pandemic like this shines a big a lot on those inequalities. and see, i'm very quickly if i mentioned the importance of messaging and from the very beginning of the spend down a fascination and community or heralded as the main weapons against the virus. and that also produced a certain pushback, not only in terms of faxing hasn't been say, countries including russia now with a full blown that in rejection. and it only gets stronger. and you can sign that the on the con, darian ability to breach some of that back in and use community may actually, yeah, you know, provide some more arguments to the anti back community that they are going to, you know, feel a little bit involved in spreading the message?

yes you, i think there is an issue because there are 2 groups of people that are very sort of hard line, anti faxes and will ever you do. you'll never persuade them of the enormous benefit of vaccines for more than 9200 years. we've seen the enormous benefits, but i think those people are never going to be persuaded. then there was a vaccine hesitant. i think what we've seen and what particularly seeing in central and eastern european countries is a very, very high level of vaccine hesitancy. and this often comes from a mistrust in the government, and i think this is a big problem. it's having confidence in your government and in the messaging from your government about about the need to be vaccinated, the need to, to adopt certain behavioral changes. and it, again, it demonstrates how important that sort of social contract is with governments. and it's a very difficult thing to fix. my view is rather than co rather than sort of coerced by mandating vaccination, we're hearing about this now in certain european countries like like a like austria, that you really do need to bring people along with you and that you,

if you try and force people to do things that can be counter productive, but i think a lot of this is about how clear the message has been and how clear the evidence that you produce is and how to justify that is to your population. but they have to have trust in the government if that don't have that, then this will not work. maybe they also have something to do with the notion of personal responsibility. and if no messaging is working, maybe government should allow me to take its course as cruel as it may sound. but i think people are rarely learn from somebody else's mistakes. they only come to their senses when they encounter danger and, and die me get life. but we have more time to discuss that any more. thank you very much for being with us today. thank you very much. and thank you for watching hope this year again next week and will depart a

with me ah, a survival guide, a at the federal reserve. there you don't forget about it. oh no. it's a recreation came when we get the rest and 7 years a year. what kind of report to what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy even foundation, let it be an arms race is on offense, bearing dramatic development only personally and getting to resist. i don't see how

that strategy will be successfully, very critical of time. time to sit down and talk i have often said transparency for the powerful privacy for the bell this but it cares about privacy where people care about is power. julian hassan just become a symbol of the battle. the privacy information is power. that's what's going on in the war issue, struggle with the governments and corporations to want to keep information secret and others who the democratic rights should be pushed forward. and people have a right to know what their parents are doing. watch how assange helped shift the conversation around transparency. come see what that battle has done to him. i feel like julian's life might be coming to an end. we are in a conflict situation with the largest, most powerful employer in such

a situation. it's remarkable to survive ah, in the stores, he shake the week here in our tea tensions spire, labor, ukrainian ship, that approach russian waters without authorization, something moscow, his slammed is provocative and threatening. or service are described as a dark day for journalism, jude in the san support, his lashire to the london high court for a link to allow his possible extradition to the united states. yet another hearing is now needed to decide whose faith this is not a case that is being fought on the basis of more. this is an absolute travis deal. any legal crosses and devastating tornadoes tear through parts of the united states with tests in kentucky alone. there to be more 70 ah.