Well, good morning and welcome to Morning, Joe.

It's the day before the day before Christmas, Thursday, December 23rd.

It's great to have you all with us this morning along with Joe and me.

We have the host of way too early and White House Bureau Chief at Politico.

Don't go anywhere.

Jonathan Lemire.

Up early for us for way too early, of course.

And White House editor for Politico, Sam Stein is with us.

Sam, good to see you.

Let's get started.

There are promising signs in this current wave of

COVID-19. New research is adding to the body of evidence that the Omicron strain results in mild

or illness than previous strains like Delta and others. The research from Scotland, England,

and South Africa is still preliminary and shows the milder

cases may be due to immunity in the population studied, either from previous infections

or vaccinations.

The study is also found Omicron is sending fewer people to hospitals.

For example, the study in Scotland found that if

Omicron behaved like the Delta variant, researchers would have expected 47 people to have been

admitted to the hospital. But so far, that number is only 15. Officials in South Africa say

cases of the variant appear to be waning and could signal it's past its peak.

Let's pray.

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