This Thanksgiving weekend many in the world were reacting to the latest, heavily-mutated Covid-19 variant first detected in Botswana. On Friday, the World Health Organization called the new strain - Omicron - a variant of concern.

There’s a lot we don’t know about this new strain, even as countries around the world are scrambling to get ahead of it with travel bans. But last night, Canada confirmed the first two North American cases of the variant in Ontario.

Guests: Dr. Namandje N. Bumpus, Director of the Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at Johns Hopkins Medicine; and Axios' Sara Fischer and Dave Lawler.

Credits: Axios Today is produced in partnership with Pushkin Industries. The team includes Niala Boodhoo, Sara Kehaulani Goo, Julia Redpath, Alexandra Botti, Nuria Marquez Martinez, Alex Sugiura, Sabeena Singhani, Lydia McMullen-Laird, David Toledo and Jayk Cherry. Music is composed by Evan Viola. You can reach us at [email protected]. You can text questions, comments and story ideas to Niala as a text or voice memo to 202-918-4893.