go across now to Professor Stanley, Parliament professor of microbiology and immunology. He is Corona virus expert as well, joining us from the U. S. At this point. Thank you very much. Professor. Parliament for speaking with us China, Japan, the U. S. Brazil, France Just some of the countries that are now seeing a massive surge in Cove. It cases once again is covered. 19 making a comeback as it were globally. Yes. So I think that this is has been the concern along that during this period of time there would be an increase in the number of covert 19 cases. I think that they one that's in China is very similar to the one that's been circulating in every other country in the world. They're all called part of the omicron variants, and they're all changes from the original one that was found last November in 2021. The big thing about China is that China be quiz if its initial policies does not have any pre existing immunity to the fire. Is so. In other words, most of the people in China have never been infected or vaccinated against SARS cov to Varis. So this p F seven variant is wrecking havoc in the country. Because of this problem and the rest of the world, most people been vaccinated affected already so that this is an important infection. One shen minimise it. But the Omar crime variant in general has caused West severe symptoms and the other variants of officers cov two of the cove it 19 Paris. So I think the one is that true of the United States right now that there are a high number of cases but less severity. Yes, that I think experience say, that many, many cases in there of West severity again because people been vaccinated, it infected already. What do we know exactly about the BF seven a McCrone variant? Is it more infectious? Is it likely to sort of multiply at a much faster rate, even if it's not terribly severe? I think if that's Paris side to that, each of these, um, a crown variance has had an increased ability to transmit from person to person, but without causing as severe diseases. We saw row Iran, Professor Parkman. We have heard from the chief also saying that it's watching the China situation with grave concern Is there a concern that perhaps we could see so the virus mutate further, given that this, this is, is a largely unvaccinated or partially vaccinated population, and there is a an ahh McCrone variant that is now sort of proliferating widely. What consequences could this have for the rest of the world? Yes, So I think that we have to pay attention. So we don't know yet if there's going to be any bed counter, any additional bad consequences, because the virus is very similar to the variant that we have circulating everywhere in the world already. So whether because is so many cases in China dopey new mutations we don't know so far, there's no evidence that a brand new variant which would be the biggest concern because remember omicron came out of we don't know where exactly, but it had a huge number of changes. We have not seen that with the mutation with the virus in China. And I think sequencing as India's doing is a very good thing to keep a cap of this. Yes, absolutely. And that advised to continue sequencing all positive cases going out quite strongly from the central government. So we hope you know that's going to pay dividends. But Professor Parliament, before we let you go one last question in terms of sort of precautions to take. Should everyone then go back to a mask mandate to social distancing. Are we likely to see sort of international travel perhaps come down? You know, what are the likely scenarios in the days ahead? I think that all the things you said a reasonable and possible I think mayor scale certainly in my country is not going to be mandated, I don't think. And I think the other thing to point out is, at least in a war of the worlds influencer infections in arson infections, respiratory since official Paris is circulating at the same time. So that's all the more reason to be careful and patches one can avoid contact with. People are sick. I personally avoid large gatherings and we're a mask office just for those reasons. Is that going to be hard to do, though, given that we're sort of in the wake of Christmas festivities and the New Year coming up as well, how you want to keep people away from each other at this time? I think by being sensible. So of some party is coming for a Christmas celebration and has a sick whether the flu are is faithful or covert 19 or something else that will come. One just has to be smart about this. If you have been all the person over the people in a lot of parts of the world who are getting sick with this virus now are people who are over 80 years of age. People have poor immune systems and people have never been vaccinated or infected. So the rest of us with the infection, specially SARS Kofi to borrow all of these are not percent infections worth avoiding. But they're the populations that I just mentioned to, really, the ones we have to worry that and and you would say then that vaccination is still a crucial need. At this point, anyone who hasn't had their vaccines of boosters should be doing so immediately. That's the address. So I still think it's true. We can see that in China without any vaccination or infection people. The country's doing very poorly in this likely to be lots of deaths
