Pfizer Says Omicron Can Beat 2 Vaccine Doses But A Third Shot Will 'Neutralize' It
Early lab results are in about the new COVID variant.
Pfizer and BioNTech say a third dose of their current vaccine offers much better protection against the new Omicron variant than the first two doses.
That’s according to preliminary lab studies that the vaccine makers reported on Wednesday, two weeks after Omicron first set off international alarm bells for its potential to beat vaccines.
Pfizer says two doses of its vaccine "may not be sufficient to protect against infection with the Omicron variant," although vaccinated people "may still be protected against severe forms of the disease."
However, a third dose of the same vaccine was able to "neutralize" the Omicron variant, according to Pfizer's study. Protection went up "25-fold compared to two doses," Pfizer said in a release.
Public health officials first sounded the alarm about Omicron in South Africa late last month, and the World Health Organization moved quickly to give it a name and label it a variant of concern.
Vaccine makers such as Pfizer and Moderna have also been racing to find out if their vaccines work against this new variant, which is heavily mutated when compared to other variants.
Early studies out of South Africa suggest that the variant is more transmissible and better and reinfecting people than other variants, the New York Times reports. There are also signs that symptoms might be less severe, although doctors say it's still too early to know for sure.
Pfizer's findings match one the latest studies out of South Africa, which found that Omicron can partially get through someone's defences if they've had two shots, but not if they've had three.
"This is not a variant that has completely escaped," the study's lead doctor, Alex Sigal of the Africa Health Research Institute, told CNN. "It certainly escapes. It is certainly bad. But it looks to me like there are ways of dealing with it."
The variant has been detected in dozens of countries, including the United States and Canada, since late last month. Travel rules have tightened up but that hasn't stopped cases from shooting up around the world.
Pfizer says it's working on an adapted version of its vaccine to offer even better protection against Omicron.