Hey short waivers, Erin Scott here. While we in the US are seeing Omicron cases drop precipitously,

other countries are seeing an uptick. Science correspondent Alison Aubrey is one of our trusty

guides to where this country stands with COVID. She spoke with Morning Editions A Martina's

on Monday about what the rise in cases elsewhere means for the US, how the US is looking to

sewage of all things to detect any rise in infections here, and the status of COVID relief funding.

This piece was edited by Jane Greenhalsh and produced for shortwave by Giselle Grayson.

Thanks for listening.

It's Morning Edition from NPR News. I'm Layla Faudel in Levy,

Ukraine. I'm Amy Martinez in Culver City, California. The Omicron outbreak has slowed

so dramatically in the US that many people talk about COVID in the past tense,

but the assumption that it's over doesn't square with what's happening in the UK where cases

from the fast growing Omicron sub variant to be a two have been rising along with hospitalizations.

And there are some signs in the US could see some bumps in cases as well. NPR's Alison Aubrey

joins us now. Alison, so how significant is this outbreak in the UK?

Good morning, A. Well, daily case counts have more than doubled over the last few weeks throughout

the UK. Hospitalizations are on the upswing and the country has documented a slight increase in

deaths too. Now throughout the pandemic, the US has tended to be a few weeks behind Great Britain

following the same pattern. So this has led to concern. The US could see a bit of a boost to

Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke about the BA2 variant on ABC yesterday.

It has a degree of transmission advantage over the original Omicron, but not a multifold advantage.

So the bottom line is we likely will see an uptick in cases as we've seen in the European

countries, particularly the UK, where they've had the same situation as we've had now.

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