he's an associate professor in microbiology at the university of reading of the u. k. he joins us up from there now. good to have you with a simon. as a microbiologist, what we're as you most about the o micron variant, the way it's growing, the very fast growth rate that we're seeing in the u. k. and around the world. that main stocks, any attempt to boost populations with immunity or even vaccinate them in the 1st place are lagging behind a virus which is spreading incredibly quickly. and of course, it takes about a week for, for a base or vaccine to start to get to stop because any appreciative immunity. so we really are in a situation where we are playing catch up all the time. is there any way to stay safe from this therein of the virus given its remarkable ability to spread, i mean vac season boosters help to prevent serious illness, but do things like mosques, social distancing, and hand washing all the things we've become used to have any impact on our ability to avoid it, will they probably have a small impact when you add them up together? you start to see mor

of an overview of everything that is happening with the on the corner variant by speaking with simon clark and associate professor in cellular microbiology at the university of reading here in the u. k. he joins us now. so thank you so much for joining us here on al jazeera, a lot of interesting studies have come out of america now. it's only been a month, as we've been saying, since it was 1st identified in south africa for a long time. we just didn't have the data, it seems now that a picture is emerging, a must a much more infectious, a variant, but perhaps a less deadly one. i. yeah. the, the data from the u. k is fairly small scale. it's only from infections younger people. so have to remember that caveat as well, but it's showing us initially at least a reduction in risk of going hospital of 50 percent, all the way down to half 2 thirds. but unfortunately, if you look at the numbers and you compare where we are today yesterday we were on the same days. now sir, we have 3 times as many infections and probably an awful lot more, which are, are very, very mild, are a soon to magic. so we could well end up with a situation where off dropping inability to cool seas is pulled the ot

of division of biomedical sciences and biomedical engineering at the university of reading. he explains how this outbreak is different from last year. we are definitely not in the same places we were 12 months ago. in the u. k least we actually have a much higher number of infections, but it's with a very of which has some reason, appears to be less fairly, less able to cause disease, at least in younger people, be so far the ones who have been infected by but that reduction inability to the might be to in some or in total, incomplete concrete, paul, to the fact that we've had a large scale vaccination program. and we know that the vaccines reduce your risk of getting seriously ill with other variance. and it's perfectly reasonable to see that it's playing paul with chrome as well. so is that probably the main reason why we are in a rather different place to, to where we were a year ago. i've got a got infection needs into all the populations and many really talking about people in their fourties up with not necessarily elderly people. then that situation might and i emphasize it might change and that's what will have to be watched if it's not changing. if indeed it is relatively low level in terms of strat