Hey there beautiful people welcome to fan time the podcast for all those complex and complicated conversations about the great areas in our lives. I have recently broken up with Omari on for obvious reasons.

Wow okay sorry that that threw me was it expecting that one and I am trivial Anderson coming up on the show today we are getting into a good conversation about gentrification with a couple special guests.

But first we're going to get into our past popcorn this week which is all about the Omicron on micron variant situation back in the day by which I mean back in March we did a special episode all about Miss funky cova Dina with nurse Alice Benjamin and Dr. Darian Sutton so y'all know we are proponents of getting the jab over here in these streets.

Well there is a new variant taking the spotlight from Miss Delta like Dina Jones and dream girls they're calling it Omicron Omicron Omicron all of the words okay or as a whole lot of black folks are saying the Omari on variant which works just as well.

So here to help answer some questions and give us the low down and tell us if we need to hoard toilet paper again we have another smart medical provider Dr. James Simmons welcome to Phantai.

Well thank you first of all I love that I'm taking over for Dr. Darian and Alice like Dina like I'm the new kid on the block because y'all brought the heavy hitters Alice and Darian do not play you don't play either.

I try but I'm just trying to live up to them they were great and we know that you do fantastic work which is why we ask you to be here today so thank you so much for offering us a little bit of your time today.

Yeah thank you I'm happy to be here.

So let's get started I guess I first want to ask what we we don't still know a lot about Miss Omicron from what I'm reading in the news and the little videos that you do on Instagram right.

And so talk to us about what we do know right now and how concerned we we should or should not be right about this moment.

So this is a really sticky question because you know I as as you said you watch some of those videos and I'm sort of on the campaign kind of like Alison Darian and a lot of other medical professionals too.

I'm in the don't panic zone right like everybody calm down pump your brakes get educated pay attention to it but don't panic.

And that's sort of for multiple reasons I will say though at least as of the time of this recording we are up to I took notes.

1,653 confirmed cases worldwide at 55 countries and 19 US states which really means it's an all 393 or however many countries there are now so this this thing is everywhere.

What remains to be seen now is is this going to take over as the primary variance like Delta did right so we had alpha there's beta and gamma in different parts of the world that never really materialized but delta.

She was like I'm it I'm beyond saying taken over the whole world everyone's going to know who I am and we do right that's why we had a summer surge that's why we had more covid that's why there were different back you know mask mandates all this different kind of stuff.

Because we thought we had gotten rid of it with alpha delta popped up and now we have omari on and there's a lot that remains to be seen about a marion it's it's kind of scary how much we don't know yet.

I one number one I feel bad for omari on the musician not the the covid but also felt bad for delta airlines because they will not reference it as delta ever they always call it like the technical name which is always players to me.

Talk to me about vaccination and boosters and I know that like I know I'm getting the booster shot this week and I'm like is this going to do anything is this going to be worth it like how are you looking at boosters and omari.

Oh omarosa omarosa I haven't heard that one yet that's good I know I felt bad for omari on early on to because those two we were on it those memes were out in the day right day after Thanksgiving.

Omacron as it is officially pronounced so listen vaccines are a really kind of interesting thing because what we don't know no yet and what is concerning scientists and and providers like myself is how well are these vaccines going to protect against Omacron.

So right now you're probably hearing a lot of anecdotal reports right oh it's super super contagious and I mean super contagious that much we're pretty sure about but what we don't know yet because it is a lagging indicator

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