Hi, this is Newt. Did you know that you can listen to my Newt's World Podcast on the iHeart app?

The team at iHeart has created several new features on the app I wanted to share with you.

You can now auto-download new episodes of Newt's World to your device and also get notified

when new episodes are published. All you have to do is download the free iHeart app from

the app store and you can start listening to my Newt's World podcast from anywhere.

iHeart discover music, radio and podcast you'll love.

On this episode of Newt's World, the new Amacron variant of COVID, which was identified by

scientists and researchers in South Africa, has been widely reported and speculated about.

But what do we really know about it? Which has now been detected in 30 states and the District

of Columbia. Also, what do we need to know about the pandemic now? What about home testing kits?

Preventive therapies, vaccines and boosters for all age groups? How do we stay safe and still enjoy

the holidays together? Here to help answer some of our questions, but what we need to know,

I'm really pleased to welcome back my guest, Dr. Marty McCary. Dr. McCary is a surgical oncologist

and chief of the Johns Hopkins Island Transplant Center. He is a clinical lead for the Johns

Hopkins Cible Innovation Hub and serves as executive director of improving wisely,

a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project to lower healthcare costs in the United States.

He is the recipient of the 2020 Business Book of the Year Award for the Price Sweepay,

what broke American healthcare and how to fix it.

I want to thank you for joining me and it's a pleasure to have you on again. We last spoke in July

of 2020 and we talked about the cost of healthcare in your book, The Price Sweepay. But I want to

have you join me again to discuss the pandemic and what we need to know now going into the holidays.

So let's start with the Omicron variant. Where did it come from and how is it different from other

...