RE: Omicron12 Dec 2021 18:15
Bloomberg had their report
,President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser said that the omicron variant appears able to evade vaccines and some Covid-19 treatments, but that a booster shot can increase protection.
“It appears to be able to evade some of the immune protection of things like monoclonal antibodies, convalescent plasma and the antibodies that are induced by vaccines,” Anthony Fauci said on ABC’s “This Week.” “That’s the sobering news.”
“The somewhat encouraging news is that preliminary data show that when you get a booster, for example, a third shot of an mRNA, it raises the level of protection high enough that it then does do well against” omicron.
He also said that, so far, illness caused by omicron appears to be less severe, though he called that “preliminary data.” The variant is spreading rapidly in places like South Africa and the U.K., but there have been few reports of serious illness or hospitalization. The variant has caused no deaths in the EU area, European health officials said Saturday.