Interesting interview with Dr. Francis Collins on Face the Nation
DR. FRANCIS COLLINS (Director, National Institutes of Health): [Omicron] is a brand-new version, and it is so different that it has the properties to potentially be invasive of the vaccines and the other measures that we've taken. I'm glad to say it's not totally successful at that.
A big message for today is, if you've had vaccines and a booster, you're very well-protected against Omicron causing you severe disease. So, anybody listening to this who's in that 60 percent of Americans who are eligible for a booster, but haven't yet gotten one, this is the week to do it. Do not wait.
What do we know about Omicron? We know that it's very contagious. You saw what happened in South Africa initially, then in Europe and now in the U.S. It's doubling about every two to four days, and we're going to see that number of cases go up pretty steeply over the course of the next couple of weeks.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
You predicted a few days ago we could see a million cases a day of Omicron infection. Is the health system prepared?
DR. FRANCIS COLLINS: Big question is, are those million cases going to be sick enough to need health care and especially hospitalization? This is a big remaining question, Margaret, is this virus actually not quite as capable of causing severe disease? There are some encouraging signs in South Africa that there's not as much in the way of hospitalization, even though the virus just ran crazy through the area around Johannesburg. But that's their population. Ours may be different. I don't know what this virus will do to somebody who's unvaccinated and maybe has a medical condition or is over 65. Just sort of holding our breath to see how severe the cases will be.
(snip)
MARGARET BRENNAN: ... hear, though, is that there's really only one of the available monoclonal antibodies that seems to be effective for those who are sick with COVID. What does that mean in terms of taking tools out of the tool chest? Do we have enough supply of the only one that works? If someone gets sick, do they need to ask for it by name?
DR. FRANCIS COLLINS: Yes, that's a really good question. It is the GSK Vir monoclonal antibody that still sticks to the spike protein that Omicron has. Remember this -- I'm holding up my virus here. Those spikes are what the antibody has to stick to, and the Omicron version of the spike is just different enough that some of the other monoclonals don't stick. This one does. There is a big push to increase the production of those. And, obviously, we're going to have to be careful to save that particular monoclonal for the people at really high risk, because they're the ones who are going to benefit most from it.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/full-transcript-face-the-nation-12-19-2021/
and scroll down