Many people may be wondering how well the #COVID19Vaccines work against the #Omicron variant, which is the dominant strain in Manitoba, and globally at this time. (1/13)
Quick summary: 2 doses is not preventing Omicron infection as well as we all hoped it would. The booster is still beneficial to reduce the risk of infection. Most importantly, the mRNA vaccines remain strong at preventing hospitalization and ICU admission due to Omicron. (2/13)
Letβs start with some good news. Multiple studies from Ontario, England and South Africa have shown that Moderna and Pfizer still provide strong protection against Omicron hospitalization and ICU admission (from 70% to >95% depending on the study). (3/13)
Manitoba is so far seeing the same thing, where people who are not fully vaccinated are 26 times more likely to end up in the ICU compared to unvaccinated people. (4/13)
Here is some more good news: Omicron is less likely to cause severe disease than Delta. (5/13)
Studies from Ontario, England, Scotland and South Africa all showed that hospital admissions were between 40% and 80% lower with Omicron even after accounting for differences in vaccine status. (6/13)
They also noted that the length of stay in hospital was shorter and hospitalized patients were less likely to end up on a ventilator. (7/13)
But, here is the bad news: Omicron spreads much more easily. You just need to look at our daily case counts or the line ups at the test sites to see that this happening here. Ontario found that each case infects 4 times more people than each Delta case did. (8/13)
In addition, 2 doses of the vaccine are not nearly as effective at preventing infections than they were against other variants. South Africa reported that 2 doses only had 33% effectiveness at preventing Omicron infection. Ontario is reporting even lower numbers. (9/13)
So, this means that there are a lot more people at risk of getting the infections. And with the number of infections being so high, even a less severe disease is still going to cause too many hospitalizations. (10/13)
Iβll end with one last piece of good news. The booster works. Five different antibody studies showed that the booster greatly increased the number of antibodies in the blood, effectively neutralizing the Omicron variant. (11/13)
In the real world, Scotland and Denmark found that getting a booster increased your protection against Omicron infection by 55-57% compared to someone with 2 doses. England reported vaccine effectiveness of 77% for the booster compared to being unvaccinated. (12/13)
Now the remaining question is, how long does the booster protect us? And that one, we just donβt know yet. Omicron is new, so we will need more time for researchers to determine how long the increased protection remains in place. (13/13)
π€¦πΌββοΈtypo on my part here. People not fully vaccinated are 26 times more likely to end up in the ICU compared to VACCINATED people.
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