By Becky Morton.
The news is from the BBC.
The image is from the same source.
One of the creators of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine warned that future Pandemics could be more lethal than the current Covid crisis.
Dame Sarah Gilbert said that there needed to be more funding for the preparation for a Pandemic.
She said vaccines could be less effective against the Omicron variant.
Dame Sarah said that people should be cautious.
She said that this will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives. The next one could be worse. It could be more lethal.
"We cannot allow a situation where we have gone through all we have gone through, and then find that the economic losses we have sustained mean that there is still no funding for pandemic preparedness," she said.
The knowledge we have gained and the advances we have made must not be lost.
She said that the Omicron variant had a spikeProtein that was known to increase the transmissibility of the virus.
There are additional changes that may mean that the vaccine is less effective in preventing Omicron infections.
We should be cautious and slow down the spread of this new variant until we know more.
Dame Sarah said reduced protection against infections and mild disease would not mean reduced protection against severe illness and death.
She called for rapid progress in delivering vaccines and medicines to become the norm.
She said there was no reason why a universal flu jab couldn't be developed.
Travelers heading to the UK will have to take a Covid test before they leave in order to limit the spread of the Omicron.
Travelers aged 12 and over will have to show proof of a negative test no earlier than 48 hours before departure.
Nigeria has been added to the travel red list after a number of Omicron cases were linked to the country.
A scientist advising the government said the travel rule changes were a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Prof Mark Woolhouse said that the new rules were too late to make a difference to the Omicron variant in the UK.
Prof Woolhouse told Andrew Marr that Omicron was spreading rapidly in the UK and if trends continued in South Africa.
There were 86 new cases of the Omicron variant recorded by the UK on Sunday. There were over 43 thousand cases and 54 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronaviruses test.
When Covid first appeared in China, Dame Sarah began designing a coronaviruses vaccine.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca jab is used in more than 170 countries.
The Richard Dimbleby lecture features influential speakers from academia, arts and business.
The 44th Richard Dimbleby Lecture will be broadcast on Monday, December 6th at 23:05.
There are vaccines for coronaviruses.
Sarah Gilbert is a person.
A coronaviruses epidemic.
