>> brennan: liz palmer in london, thank you. we're joined now by former f.d.a. commissioner dr. gottlieb. he is also a pfizer board member and he joins us from westport, connecticut. i even tripped up on your name. my goodness, i haven't seen you in a few weeks. now i just need to get your perspective of what this new variant means. should we be concerned abot a wave? >> doctor: well, look, i don't think we're going to see a big wave of infection, but we'll see some uptake f where we are ra right now. right now we have nine cases per 100,000 cases. there are about 20,000 people currently hospitalized. i think we're going to continue to see low levels of infection through this summer. but before we get there, i think we'll see some tick-up in infection. there are indications that the u u.k. is peaking. it is probably 30% to 40% more transmissible than the omicron variant that became here. people are going out more, and some declining immunity from people who were boosted a long time ago. we're relying on that immunity and that isn't as pronounced. so we'll see an increase in infe