I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Monday, November 29th.

Yes, a new COVID variant was identified over Thanksgiving weekend and given the name Omicron. The public health

analysts said not to panic, but nobody told the financial analysts. The Dow dropped 900 points on

Friday before the variant even got its name. The Dow is up a little so far today as cooler

heads prevail. There are no identified cases in New York, at least as of

when we went on the air, but Governor Kathy Hokel declared a state of emergency that would allow her

to order hospital staffing and treatment priorities if necessary. The U.S. and the EU banned

most travelers from southern Africa, where the first clusters were identified,

but it's already in Europe and probably here. Israel and Morocco have each banned all foreigners

from anywhere entering their countries. So let's talk about the science and the policy responses

with New York Times science and global health correspondent

of Perva Mandivili.

The wording of the headlines in her two articles this weekend say a lot.

Scientists are studying whether Omicron leads to severe illness.

And the other one, will the vaccine stop?

Omicron.

Scientists are racing to find out. In other words,

there's a lot we don't know. And better that we acknowledge that. Apurva, we always appreciate

when you come on. Welcome back to WNYC. Thank you, Brian. Always a pleasure.

Omicron is a Greek letter for people wondering, like Delta, what makes the World Health Organization decide

a COVID variant that we don't know this severity of yet is worthy of a Greek letter?

Well, in this case, Omicron has a lot of mutations that make scientists worry. It has about 50 new

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