Biden Covid Czar Tells TODAY Show He’s ‘Not Overly Concerned’ By Recent Rise in New Variant

Dr. Ashish Jha appeared on the Today Show Monday morning and tamped down any excessive concern over a recent rise in Covid-19 infections due to a new variant known as BA.2.

Anyone paying reasonably close attention to the news has seen a recent uptick in reports of political figures testing positive for Covid lately. A recent event at a recent Gridiron Dinner appears to have been something of a “super spreader” though mandatory vaccinations for attendees have made the threat of the contagion much less severe. 72 attendees have thus far tested positive, including many elected officials.

Savannah Guthrie addressed the recent rise in infections and asked Dr. Jha “how are you about this BA.2 subvariant. Are we in the midst of another surge?”

“I’m not overly concerned right now,” the newly appointed Covid Czar replied.  “Case numbers are rising — BA.2 — we were expecting this because we saw this in Europe a few weeks ago.”

“But the good news is we’re coming off still very low infection numbers. Hospitalizations are the lowest they have been in the entire pandemic. so we’ve got to watch this very carefully, obviously, I never like to see infections rising,” he continued. “I think we’ve got to be careful but I don’t think this is a moment where we have to be excessively concerned.”

Guthrie then pressed her guest on the mandate for public transport, which is set to expire next week, as well as masks in schools. On both issues, Dr. Jha demurred to CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky but offered that his office intends to collaborate with her office on these decisions.

Watch above via NBC.