Vaccine news reports Reuters mark small victories at Omicron battle

By Pushkala Aripaka and Josephine Mason

LONDON (Reuters) – Two vaccine makers say their shots offer protection against Omicron, as UK data suggest it could cause proportionally fewer hospitalizations than Delta coronavirus variants, which supports the effects in South Africa.

Coronavirus infection has increased worldwide as Omicron has become very infectious, causing new restrictions in many countries. Officials at the World Health Organization say, however, that it is too early to draw firm conclusions about its virulence.

First identified last month in South Africa and Hong Kong, the variant is rapidly gaining popularity in much of western Europe, including the UK, where daily infections have risen to more than 100,000.

Early data indicated that Omicron was more resistant to vaccines developed before its inception. But there have been gradual increases in hospital admissions and deaths in the UK since Omicron was taken, the researchers said.

University of Edinburgh https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/scotland-reports-fewer-covid-19-hospitalizations-with-omicron-2021-12-22 Researchers tracked 22,205 patients infected with Omicron late they said the number of people hospitalized on Wednesday was 68% lower than expected, according to the rate of 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 say In the last two weeks, they have seen evidence of a 40% and 45% reduction in the risk of hospitalization with the Omicron Delta.

Raghib Ali, a leading member of clinical research at the University of Cambridge, said scientists had warned that with the rise in UK cases, even a small proportion of hospitalizations could overwhelm the healthcare system.

However, the UK data was encouraging and “could help justify the government’s decision not to extend restrictions on Christmas gatherings in England,” he said.

AstraZeneca (NASDAQ 🙂 https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/astrazeneca-shot-third-dose-works-against-omicron-study-2021-12-23 while on Thursday said three- the dose of its COVID-19 vaccine course provided protection against the variant, citing data from an Oxford University laboratory study.

The findings of the study, unpublished in a peer-reviewed medical journal, are consistent with Pfizer-BioNTech’s rivals and Modern (NASDAQ :).

AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria vaccine study showed that after a three-dose course, the levels of neutralization against Omicron were similar to those against Delta after two doses.

A few hours earlier, Novavax (NASDAQ 🙂 Inc. said the first data showed that its vaccine – approved by European Union regulators and the WHO for use this week but not yet approved by the United States – also triggered an immune response against Omicron.

THE DELTA IS ALSO EXPANDED

Financial markets welcomed signals that Omicron could be worse off than expected, with global stocks extended the rally on Thursday as safe haven bonds and currencies eased.

Beyond western Europe, the Delta variant continued to spread.

The number of coronavirus deaths in Russia, where officials said only 41 Omicron cases were detected this week, exceeded 600,000 on Thursday, Reuters estimates based on official data following the rise in Delta-related infections.

Only the United States and Brazil have reported more coronavirus deaths.

The Chinese city of Xian, where no case of Omicron has been detected, put its 13 million neighbors in a blockade as the number of daily COVID-19 infections transmitted at home rose for the sixth day in a row.

Data on hospitalizations in the UK were supported by a study released on Wednesday by the South African National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD).

But NICD researchers warned several.

“It is difficult to distinguish the relative contribution of high levels of immunity from the previous population to the lower severity of the disease seen compared to the lower inherent virulence,” they wrote.

Maria van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical director at COVID-19, also said that the UN agency did not have enough data to draw firm conclusions. Data on Omicron was still “mixed,” he said in a statement in Geneva on Wednesday.

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