Data indicate omicron is milder, better at evading vaccines

JOHANNESBURG (AP):

The Omicron variant is offering more hints about what it may have in store as it spreads around the globe: A highly transmissible virus that may cause less severe disease, and one that can be slowed – but not stopped – by today’s vaccines.

An analysis Tuesday of data from South Africa, where the new variant is driving a surge in infections, suggests the Pfizer vaccine offers less defence against infection from Omicron and reduced, but still good, protection from hospitalisation.

The findings are preliminary and have not been peer-reviewed – the gold standard in scientific research – but they line up with other early data about Omicron’s behaviour, including that it seems to be more easily spread from person to person.

Still, some experts cautioned that it’s too soon to draw conclusions since the variant is still quite new and hospitalisations can lag weeks behind infections.

When Omicron reaches broader populations more useful information will emerge, said Dr David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“To date, Omicron has disproportionately infected young adults – people who probably have more social contacts and are more likely to attend large gatherings,” Dowdy said. Young adults may be more likely to be sick without knowing it, have more intense exposures and experience milder disease, he said.

“At the end of the day, our society needs to learn how to wait, rather than either panicking or dismissing early findings,” Dowdy said.

US health officials estimate that a small, but growing proportion of new COVID-19 infections are due to Omicron, and that the rise is particularly dramatic in some places.

Two weeks ago, Omicron accounted for less than 0.5 per cent of the coronaviruses that were genetically sequenced in the US. That rose to about three per cent last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday.

But it varies from place to place, and is as high as 13 per cent in the New York/New Jersey area, according to the agency.