Sharjah24 – AFP: No one knows how effective vaccines will be in stopping people catching the newly discovered and fast-spreading Omicron variant of Covid-19 or how well they will protect against severe illness.
Lab tests are under way to determine vaccine efficacy against Omicron with results expected within weeks.
In the meantime the Delta variant remains dominant and experts, governments and vaccine makers are urging people to take advantage of booster jabs where they are available.
Delta has proved able to evade vaccine defences against transmission better than the Alpha, Beta and Gamma Covid variants.
But jabs have remained highly effective at preventing severe illness from Delta, lowering the risk of overwhelming hospital resources.
With Delta still dominant in Europe, some countries are trying to accelerate their third jab campaigns.
Lab tests to measure Omicron's vulnerability to the vaccines in use today are under way, a process that should yield results in two to three weeks.
Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna each say they have begun work on a new version of their vaccine specifically targeting Omicron -- in case existing jabs don't work against it.
When Delta arrived on the scene, Pfizer developed a jab especially for the variant but never rolled it out.
Pfizer has promised a new vaccine within 100 days but the roll-out will take far longer and won't be in place before spring, Canard said.
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