Yes, he's back. COVID is back with inventions. We didn't show

after show about COVID for a very long time for very obvious reasons

because we were in the midst of a terrible pandemic because of

course, never went away. And perhaps the fact that people

included myself didn't do more shows for many weeks was a sign of a

broader complacency. Omicron is, of course, something

and words experts about the Greek alphabet, obviously,

more than familiar with, but a week and a half ago, none of us

obviously knew what Omicron was about. And now it's, of course,

going to define news events for the coming weeks and months

in all likelihood. We've got a great show today, which is going to unpack

exactly where things start with Omicron. How serious a threat is it?

What's the data telling us at the moment? You know, what kind of

measures should be taken? Are we going to head for some sort of

lockdown? Now it's interesting. The polling consistently has

throughout much of the crisis shown the public a quite hard line of very

pro lockdown. That isn't the case at the moment at all.

People are very weary about obviously the very authoritarian measures

that have been necessary to protect public health. But nonetheless, at

the moment, there isn't public support for lockdown according to the

polling, but of course that could change if the data changes and Omicron

represents a genuine threat here. But we're going to talk about that

...