A study reveals that the booster mild Omicron provides up to 75% protection

Booster COVID-19 vaccine shots give an estimated 70 percent to 75 percent protection against mild disease from the new Omicron variant, according to the UK Health Security Agency, citing initial findings from a real-world study.

 

The early real-world data suggest that while Omicron could greatly reduce the protection against mild disease from an initial two-dose vaccination course, boosters restored the protection to an extent.

 

“These early estimates should be treated with caution but they indicate that a few months after the second jab, there is a greater risk of catching the Omicron variant compared to Delta strain,” Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation at the UKHSA said on Friday, adding that protection against severe disease was expected to remain higher.

 

In an analysis of 581 people with confirmed Omicron, two doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines provided much lower levels of protection against symptomatic infection compared with what they provide against Delta.