B a One Is More Transmissible Than B a Two

Andy brings Harvard epidemiologist Bill Hanage back to discuss what the US can expect to see with the new Omicron subvariant BA.2. How will our bump compare to what we’re seeing in Europe? And how will people navigate it with the nationwide relaxation of vaccine and mask mandates? Plus, they revisit some of their previous conversation about the original strain of Omicron from six weeks ago to see how well their predictions held up.

Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt. 

Follow Bill @BillHanage on Twitter.

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Check out these resources from today’s episode: 

• Here is the piece that Bill wrote with Marc Lipsitch back in February 2020 called ‘How to Report on the COVID-19 Outbreak Responsibly”: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-to-report-on-the-covid-19-outbreak-responsibly/
• Check out the paper Bill co-wrote in Cell about variants: https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(21)01374-X.pdf
• Read the David Leonhardt piece that Andy references in today’s episode: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/briefing/covid-risks-poll-americans.html
• Bill mentioned this paper that appeared in The Lancet about Omicron and Delta in the UK: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00462-7/fulltext
• Order free at-home COVID-19 tests through the USPS: https://special.usps.com/testkits
• Find a COVID-19 vaccine site near you: https://www.vaccines.gov/ 
• Order Andy’s book, Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250770165 

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