Covid-19 roundup: Study sug­gests Omi­cron vari­ant could es­cape pro­tec­tion of Pfiz­er/BioN­Tech vac­cine; Serum In­sti­tute pre­pares launch of No­vavax shot for chil­dren — re­port

A new pri­vate study by South Africa’s largest in­sur­er, Dis­cov­ery Health, sug­gests that Pfiz­er and BioN­Tech’s Covid-19 vac­cine is just 33% ef­fec­tive against in­fec­tions by the Omi­cron vari­ant.

How­ev­er, the vari­ant ap­pears to cause less se­vere dis­ease, the com­pa­ny re­port­ed. The da­ta, based on 211,000 pos­i­tive Covid cas­es, showed that risk of hos­pi­tal­iza­tion was 29% low­er than in South Africa’s first wave back in mid-2020.

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