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* AstraZeneca, Novavax say their shots protect from Omicron
* UK data suggests fewer hospitalisations than from Delta
* Don't extrapolate from similar SAfrican data -African CDC
* WHO also urged caution about drawing firm conclusions
* Biden moves too little, too late for Omicron-experts
By James Macharia Chege and Josephine Mason
JOHANNESBURG/LONDON, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Two vaccine makers
said their shots protected against Omicron as UK data suggested
it may cause proportionally fewer hospital cases than the Delta
coronavirus variant, though public health experts warned the
battle against COVID-19 was far from over.
Similarly encouraging signs about hospitalisation rates
emerged from South Africa on Wednesday, but the head of a
leading African health agency joined the World Health
Organization in cautioning that it was too soon to draw broad
conclusions.
"Let's be careful not to extrapolate what we are seeing in
South Africa across the continent, or across the world," Africa
Centres for Disease Control (CDC) chief John Nkengasong told a
media briefing.
Coronavirus infections have soared wherever highly
infectious Omicron has spread, triggering new restrictions in
many countries.
First identified last month in southern Africa and Hong
Kong, the variant is becoming dominant in much of Europe
including Britain https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/englands-covid-19-prevalence-reaches-record-1-45-people-ons-2021-12-23,
where daily new infections have soared beyond 100,000.
In France, daily coronavirus cases - currently close to
90,000 - could rise into the hundreds of thousands in January, a
scientific adviser to President Emmanuel Macron said on
Thursday, while Germany reported its first Omicron death.
In Italy, the first Western country to be hit by the
pandemic last year, the National Health Institute said Omicron
would soon predominate, while Greece banned public Christmas
festivities to curb its spread. Both countries also made outdoor
mask-wearing mandatory.
But increases in hospitalisations and deaths in South Africa
and Britain since Omicron took hold appear to have been only
gradual, and AstraZeneca https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/astrazeneca-shot-third-dose-works-against-omicron-study-2021-12-23
and Novavax https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/novavax-says-covid-vaccine-boosts-response-omicron-variant-2021-12-22
joined other vaccine manufacturers in saying their
shots protect against it.
University of Edinburgh https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/scotland-reports-fewer-covid-19-hospitalizations-with-omicron-2021-12-22
researchers who tracked 22,205 Omicron patients said on
Wednesday the number who needed to be hospitalised was 68% lower
than they would have expected, based on the rate in patients
with Delta.
Imperial College London https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/hospital-stay-risk-omicron-is-40-45-lower-than-delta-uk-study-2021-12-22
researchers reported evidence of a comparable 40%-45% reduction
in hospitalisation risk.
'DON'T OVER-INTERPRET'
Raghib Ali, senior clinical research associate at the
University of Cambridge, said scientists had warned that, with
the surge in UK cases, even a small proportion of
hospitalisations could overwhelm the healthcare system.
However, the data was encouraging and "may help justify the
government's decision not to expand restrictions on social
gathering over Christmas in England", he said.
The UK data supported Wednesday's findings from South
Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).
A separate South African government-backed study, yet to be
peer-reviewed, on health workers given the Johnson & Johnson
vaccine identified "clear and early de-coupling" of
hospitalisation from Omicron cases compared with Delta.
However, the CDC's Nkengasong said the NICD data, suggesting
Omicron was 70%-80% less severe than Delta, should be
interpreted "with a lot of caution".
"This is early days and public health practice is local," he
said, adding that particular factors such as the young median
age of the South African population could be in play.
On Wednesday, the WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, Maria
van Kerkhove, said data on Omicron was still too "messy" to draw
firm conclusions.
Case data on the spread of Omicron due later on Thursday
from the UK Health Security Agency is expected to offer further
clues as to its severity.
VACCINE HOPES
AstraZeneca said a three-course dose of its COVID-19 vaccine
offered protection against the variant, citing data from an
Oxford University lab study.
Findings from the study, yet to be published in a
peer-reviewed medical journal, matched those from rivals
Pfizer-BioNTech, and Moderna.
Hours earlier, Novavax Inc. said early data showed
its vaccine - authorised for use by the European Union and WHO
but yet to be approved by the United States - also generated an
immune response against Omicron.
In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration
authorised Merck & Co's antiviral pill for COVID-19 for
certain high-risk adult patients, a day after giving the
go-ahead to a similar treatment from Pfizer Inc for
high-risk patients above the age of 12.
But President Joe Biden's steps to backstop hospitals and
distribute coronavirus test kits are too little too late to stem
a surge of Omicron-related infections over Christmas, health
experts said.
A day after Biden outlined plans to distribute 500 million
at-home coronavirus test kits, Anne Rimoin, a UCLA professor of
epidemiology, praised his focus on testing.
"Unfortunately, it’s late in coming and will be a small drop
in the bucket compared to the tsunami of cases on the horizon,"
she said.
Wall Street's main indexes opened higher on Thursday after
data suggesting Omicron is less severe than feared.
But the older Delta variant continues to spread.
The coronavirus death toll in Russia, where officials had
detected only 41 Omicron cases, passed 600,000 on Thursday,
Reuters calculations based on official data showed, after a
surge of Delta-linked infections.
Only the United States and Brazil have recorded more
coronavirus deaths.
In India, where daily infections hit close to 7,500 on
Thursday with just 23 Omicron cases, Prime Minister Narendra
Modi was to meet with state chiefs to discuss how counter a
possible Omicron surge ahead of the festive season.
Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus:
open https://tmsnrt.rs/2FThSv7 in an external browser.
Eikon users can click https://apac1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/cms/?navid=1063154666
for a case tracker.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux around the world; Writing by John
Stonestreet; Editing by Catherine Evans, Edmund Blair, Mark
Heinrich and Nick Macfie)
