Omicron: Pfizer vaccine ‘up to 40 times less effective’ against mutant variant but jabs ‘DO shield against strain’

THE PFIZER coronavirus vaccine could be up to 40 TIMES less effective against Omicron rather than the original Covid strain, new tests have shown.

The super mutant Covid strain has been sweeping across the globe after South Africa first alerted the world to it on November 23.

Experts already discovered that people who have previously been infected with Covid may catch Omicron.

But now lab tests have discovered that the Pfizer vaccine is not as successful at fighting off the new strain compared to others.

Professor Alex Sigal, virologist at the Africa Health Research Institute, who led the reserach said on Twitter there was “a very large drop” in neutralization of the Omicron variant relative to an earlier strain of Covid. 

However, despite the doom and gloom – the tests also still prove that vaccines do work.

The lab tested blood from 12 people who had been vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, according to a manuscript posted on the website for his lab. 

The preliminary data in the manuscript has not yet been peer reviewed.

Blood from five out of six people who had been vaccinated as well as previously infected with COVID-19 still neutralized the Omicron variant, the manuscript said.

According to the manuscript, they observed a 41-fold decline in levels of neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron variant.

Sigal said on Twitter that figure is likely to be adjusted after his lab does more experiments.

The Omicron variant, first detected in southern Africa last month, has triggered alarms globally of another surge in infections, with more than two dozen countries from Japan to the United States reporting cases.

The World Health Organisation on Nov. 26 classified it as a “variant of concern” but said there was no evidence to support the need for new vaccines specifically designed to tackle the Omicron variant with its many mutations.