deteriorating faster and they younger on average than in the 1st 2 waves let's talk about that now with ravindra gupta he's professor of clinical microbiology at cambridge university good to have you with us so let's let's start 1st of all with the average age in this report we heard that it's mainly down to the fact that the older generations are vaccinated by now is that all there is to it. yes i certainly think that there will be an element of the fact that the elderly are protected with vaccines of course in the 1st wave the elderly who also very vulnerable so certain proportion of the most vulnerable may have been affected diet so that leaves a small fraction of susceptible elderly individuals and and they're all that is probably part of the explanation but they can't speak the whole truth because we know that this is a phenomenon that we see in many parts of the world even in pots where the vaccination rate is much higher so there has to be something else to it. yes but of course the priority is of call is based potentially and it's been a factor because. in previous waves there may have been a