Shabir Madhi, professor of vaccinology at the University of Witwatersrand, is a vaccine expert who has worked on COVID-19 vaccine trials in South Africa. He recalls that when he first saw the sequencing data on omicron, he was fairly optimistic that the immunity built up by vaccines and past waves of infections would protect more people against severe disease. And he was right. “We’ve seen a dramatic decoupling of infections, hospitalisations and death,” says Madhi, in the latest episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast.

Madhi and his colleague Jinal Bhiman, Principal Medical Scientist at National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in South Africa spoke to us about their discovery of omicron. But Madhi is also critical of initial scepticism in many parts of the world about the early data coming out of South Africa, which he describes as a “manifestation of cultural imperialism”.

Joining our regular podcast presenters Gemma Ware and Daniel Merino for this episode is Ozayr Patel, digital editor for The Conversation based in Johannesburg. Also coming out of South Africa we have a report on a study showing that the herbal tea rooibos may help stave off anxiety – a cup or two of that could be just the job if you’ve had a big weekend, as another report we carry (from the UK) into “hangxiety” indicates that significant numbers feel extremely anxious when they have a hangover.

Elsewhere our colleagues in Canada have been providing rolling coverage of the “freedom convoy” that has brought roads and city centres to a standstill over the past couple of weeks. All their articles on the movement can be found here.