Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Early Lab Work Heightens Worry Omicron Resists Antibodies
CNN: Omicron Variant Partly Evades Pfizer Vaccine's Protection, Study Shows
The Omicron coronavirus variant partly escapes the protection offered by the Pfizer vaccine, but people who have been previously infected and then vaccinated are likely to be well protected, researchers working in South Africa reported Tuesday. Boosters are also likely to protect people, Alex Sigal of the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban, who led the study team, told CNN. It's the first experiment to directly look at how the Omicron virus might behave in vaccinated people. (Fox, 12/8)
The Washington Post: First Lab Results Show Omicron Has ‘Much More Extensive Escape’ From Antibodies Than Previous Variants
The first in-depth laboratory study of the omicron variant of the coronavirus offers a mixed bag of bad news and good news. The bad: This variant is extremely slippery. It eludes a great deal of the protection provided by disease-fighting antibodies. That means people who previously recovered from a bout of covid-19 could be reinfected. And people who have been vaccinated could suffer breakthrough infections. But the findings of the study, which tested the omicron variant of the coronavirus against the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, aren’t entirely bleak. The study, released Tuesday, found that even if the power of vaccines is diminished in the face of omicron, there’s still some protection afforded against the virus. And it suggests that booster shots could be key in the battle with the variant. (Johnson and Achenbach, 12/7)
Stat: First, Small Study Suggests Omicron Is A Larger Threat To Covid-19 Immunity
The scientists found that, overall, there was a 41-fold reduction in neutralization against Omicron compared to an early form of the coronavirus, a substantial drop but not necessarily a devastating one. And, the researchers noted, “the escape was not complete.” Notably, five of the participants, all of whom had been previously infected, maintained “relatively high neutralization [levels] with Omicron.” That suggests, the authors and outside experts said, that previous infection combined with vaccination, or primary vaccination combined with booster doses, can amp up the body’s neutralizing power even against a variant as evolved as Omicron. (Joseph and Branswell, 12/7)
Bloomberg: Covid Antibody Tests Offer Early Hint That Booster Vaccine May Counter Omicron
The magnitude of the drop in neutralizing antibodies against omicron could indicate a need for omicron-matched vaccines, though other considerations may play a role, said Stephen Goldstein, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Larger studies looking at neutralizing antibodies from people immunized with other vaccines are also needed, he said. (Gale, 12/8)
