really need to look out for south africans to actually could see is the chair of the south africa medical association and they practicing general practitioner that she says while i'm a crohn's driving infections are going up. symptoms do not yet appear to be severe . once we are seeing a parameter house level and again reach the bulk of the patients for now or as you today doesn't seem more deadly. it seems just very foss, brady, the sometimes that we are seeing the vaccine. i did and vaccine i did, but i through infectious, re infectious or mile. we are not saying that they will not be severe. severe questions. we still need to see the 1st, the placid and vaccine i did was go more, but these were chronic disease coming into the parameter, healthcare space. we don't really see them so they might be much more m. c and suffering from severe disease, but totally the sanity, the picture, the so much do we need to be worried because we never know which patients will get severe did the for now that the author will only be available, going forward and even increase in our hearts we don't, but it's more in t

the national chair of south africa's medical association, one of the first doctors to be treating patientsho were sickened with the omicron variant. doctor,s thank you so much for joining us this morning or this afternoon in your case. first, can you give us an update on the patients you're seeing. are you still seeing mild symptoms, or has that advanced? >> thank you. and good evening to you all. in south africa, it is good afternoon. thank you for asking. yes. let me give you a brief overview of the past few days of the patients i have seen. i have made some stats of my 64 patients that i have seen recently. 37 not vaccinated. two with recurring infections. yes, the question that you asked of pfizer, 19 reinfections with pfizer. the two reinfections i'm talking about is patients that had covid before and got it again. it has nothing to do with vaccines. i saw seven breakthrough infections. i had two patients reinfected, had covid before, had been fully vaccinated. in the beginning we saw more males. now now the ratio is exactly the same. 32 males, 32 females. we do not vaccinate children

delta variant which seems to be more serious than omicron that's what the head of the south africa can medical associationd there. and people now almost two serious in are just taking their own decisions what's best for them and especially what's best for their kids. we can't get back to a place where kids are shut down and schools are -- parents will not tolerate it. >> dana: it's not going to happen, greg. they also know politically it can't happen because they will continue to go down. >> greg: this isn't australia. we run the country, americans run america. in australia the government runs that country. they don't have a second amendment because they have to do what the australian government tells them to. that doesn't happen here. if you look at this particular variant already circulating, no serious cases and no cases that involve hospitalizations, what are all of these things? they are variables. those variables are ignored in the reporting, i'm going to quote, scott adams it's been a while. his theory of -- single -- it's single variable thinking. so if you read the headlines right now. first case

south africa and scotland offer some hope that the new strain may travel fast but may not be as dangerous as everyone fears. joining me now is the chair of south africa -- the south african medical associationor being here. in scotland, i want to ask you about this pair of studies and what poem should take from it. in skopt land think found the risk of hospitalization was two-thirds lower with only kroin than with delta and the south african study they said people were 70% 208 0s pes lease likely to. does that is machine up >> yes, the south african studies actually confirm what we are seeing. i would go fwurt and say 93% vaccinated and are if we work at the majority of cases and this is dib out off 106 patients, only one patient was admitted with pneumonia, and it was only recently two days ago. so, again, also, when you spoke with colleagues in the icus, is it seems to be, again, about nine out of ten. so the -- the 87, is closer now to 90%. so as scotland carries on and goes forward, i would also see thenally. >>> and one question raised does the good news of this being less severe outweigh the bad news of how contagious this variant is? how do you see it? >> well, again, you know, 53 ye

doctor angelique the chairman of the south african medical association who spotted the omicron variant said what we are seeing clinically in south africa and remember i'm at the epicenter of this. it is extremely mild for u.s. these are mild cases. the ceo of moderna, the first pharmaceutical company to produce a covid vaccine said he predicts material drop in the effectiveness of the vaccine against omicron variant. that was before today's news. what is changing as we speak. we welcome the moderna chairman and cofounder. great to have you this is an important interview i want our investors an audience to hear. tell us what you know about the efficacy of your vaccine at moderna against the variant. >> thank you for having me. since we learned of this challenge last week of a moderna we've been working very intensely on getting as much data as we can using the serum from vaccinated subjects to see whether the antibody binding has beginning anyway. this will take a couple of weeks to get enough data that we can say anything definitive, right now were in the early phases gathering the data and unfortunately i will not be able to add more

to the situation in south africa, which is of course, witnessing an increase in the number of covert cases. dr. angelica co, etc, is the chair of the south african medical association, and the practicing general practitioner, based in pretoria sch, joins us live from there. good to have you with us. so data seems to still be evolving when it comes to army kron. what do we know today about whether it is significantly more infectious than the delta strain? good morning from south africa. good question. yes, it is quite transmissible. it's important to understand that our data, yes, that i showed that our total cases wants to $11500.00 and that is fine with a detection rate or $24.00 proceed. so i again, confirmed this morning with my, according to the amendment, we are in the if the same tech and to we audit what we call frontline proficient has family practitioners means we see the patients that come from your community on whom, again, with my colleagues we still see, miles guy says, this is not a lot of i me shoes. i think in the whole group they was city at me shows and that ease at if you look at the amount of patients be seeing it in not a huge amount of i'm not

south africa are seeing. let's take a look at dr. angelique coats yay, the chair of the south african medical association. >> -- still protect against severe disease. as the disease patterns we're seeing are mild on these people that's been vaccinated. >> again, this is way better than people thought it might be. this is a variant with a lot of mutations. people feared the vaccines might not do much at all. it turns out they're actually doing, not perfectly, but they're doing pretty well. jim? >> certainly a lot better than not having the vaccine at all. elizabeth, thanks for breaking it down for us. also with us this morning, dr. carlos del rio, executive associate dean of emory university school of medicine in atlanta. as we've looked at what we've learned this morning, one of the things that stood out to me, we heard from the head of pfizer saying maybe we need to look at boosters coming a little sooner and also one of the doctors out of south africa who has been one of the first doctors to treat omicron patients, she said based on omicron infections she saw that perhaps three months instead of six would make more sense for a boo

south africa. and joining us now from south africa is a doctor who is treating patients sickened by omicron. the vice chair of the south african medical association can you tell us what you are seeing in terms of transmissibility and severity when you are seeing patients. >> good morning to you. thank you for having me on your program. what is happening, what we see on the ground is that we are seeing younger patients and we are seeing minor cases of omicron. the people that are being hospitalized largely unvaccinated, about 90% of those are unvaccinated. but there is a very few number of people who are getting admitted because our health care system is not under pressure. it is not that widespread in our provinces. obviously, we are still getting that information as to the spread of this omicron in the country. it is not what it is touted to be out there. the south african government has not put the country under any federal restrictions. like i said, there is nothing much that we see beyond what we have seen with the delta variant. >> so let me ask you about that. as we spoke yesterday with one of your colleagues, dr. coseer, she was talking ab

>> well, the numbers are not being accurately represented, and in south africa, the head of the south african medical associationom 22 to 109 over two weeks in the city and any of those people are hospitalized with covid, not for covid. lawrence: you're exactly right, doctor i'm sorry we're having issues with your audio hopefully we can get that figured out, but i think it goes to the core issue that is happening in florida is like they are pushing back against this governor as well as the healthcare professionals for them doing their job. dr. makary, i wish we had more time but we'll circle back with you later, thank you so much, sir. all right, sorry about that. that's the beauty of live television. the biden administration is taking its fight over the trump remain in mexico policy all the way to the supreme court. lara trump on what the move might mean for the american people and actor rob schneider has a special thank you for a group of officers who came to his aid. we'll talk to him about how these arizona officers saved the day. that's next on fox & friends. we hit the bike trails every weekend shinges doe

that up, south africa is one of the few countries on the continent where cases are down compared to last week. they have fallening more than 20%. the head of the south african medical association says this fourth wave was steeper but much shorter than previous waves. hospital admissions and deaths have also been significantly lower. so for more on that encouraging statement, we're joined now from nairobi, kenya. good to see you, larry. many are taking comfort from this information. do experts there know why infections are suddenly falling? >> rosemary, the experts think this is because of two factors. one is that more people in the population have been infected. and two, that vaccination numbers are going up. so you're see population immunity. that might explain why in just a month, south africa came from a slow number of cases to a huge peak, and now have dropped off and quite fast. so for instance, in the middle of november, south africa had about 5,000 or so daily average cases. it's shot up to about 10,000 daily average cases. and then way higher than that. and now back down again. i spent two weeks reporting in south africa at the height of this crisis, and right now, the

associate jeffrey epstein. >>> mourningers are gathering in south africa to pay their respects to the late archbishop desmond tutu, whose body is now lying in state. ♪ ♪ >>> so medical call 2021 the year of the vaccine, a chance for people to protect themselves against the coronavirus pandemic. but the year is coming to a close with an average of more than a million new infections a day right around the globe. that is an all-time high. the u.s. is also breaking records for the first time, averaging more than 300,000 new cases a day. johns hopkins reports as well that close to 490,000 cases were reported on wednesday alone. we should point out, of course, that number is the result of a lag in reporting over the christmas holidays, but it is a staggering toll nonetheless. the centers for disease control and prevention is now forecasting 44,000 new covid deaths over the next month. now, the cdc also projects those fatalities will rise most quickly in early january, then tapering off later in the 3407b89. -- month. >>> more u.s. states are employing the national guard to support health care workers, especially with testing and vaccination efforts. tom foreman has the da

south africa is one of few countries where cases are down compared to last week. they have fallen by more than 20%. the head of the south african medical association says this fourth wave was steeper but much shorter than previous waves. hospital admissions and deaths have thankfully been significantly lower. >>> let's get more on this encouraging statement from nairobi, kenya. larry, finally we have some positive news of sorts to bring. talk us through what the scientific researchers have found and how it compares to previous variants here. >> reporter: that's right, isa. scientists in south africa think this is a positive scientific. we need this bit of good bit of news in the pandemic. scientists say they believe south africa is now past the peak of the omicron wave. now, to be clear, this peak was much steeper according to one expert speaking to cnn, but significantly shorter. what does that mean? it took half the time compared to previous waves to get to its peak. so if you compare to the beta variant or delta variant, it took a longer time. the omicron variant peaked faster, but didn't last long. we are seeing case numbers drop which include

angelique coetzee from the south african medical association, has been giving evidence to parliament's science and technology committee about omicron. south africarotection against hospitalisation from the omicron variant. the study looked at more than 200,000 positive covid test results in a three—week period — of which almost 80,000 were suspected but not confirmed to be omicron cases. the initial results, released by a large private health insurance company, also showed that two doses provided 33 percent protection against infection. peter openshaw is an immunologist at imperial college london — and a member of the uk vaccine network. he gave us his reaction to the findings. this is a really interesting report, i think we have to regard it as preliminary. we haven't actually seen any draft manuscript, this isjust a news report, but i think it fits with what we have been assuming, which is that the rather disappointing results from the laboratory testing of antibody levels have not been completely reflected by the real—world protection that has been seen against hospitalisations. so, a couple of doses of the pfizer/biontech are giving a pretty

south africa shows omicron is not causing a spike in hospitalizations. doctor patrice harris ceo and founder of emad and former president of the american medical associationssessment of what you know about the omicron variant. >> thank you so much for having me, and as you say we don't have all the information. all of the information we have now is early. early insight tells a-- as it might be more transmissible, but i think we need to wait until we have more complete data. in the meantime, we are seeing an increase in hospitalization due to delta delta has not gone away, so we need to stay focused due to things we know work. vaccinations, masking where appropriate, ventilation and certainly testing and testing protocols. it is repetition, but we can do the things that we know work to minimize spread of the delta variant and be ready and be prepared for the omicron variant to. maria: so, the number of confirmed cases jumping back to over 100,000 for the first time in two months. what are your thoughts on the way the reaction has been to this new variant as well as where we are in covid right now? are we doing what you think we should be doing >> i think c