Scientists have finally answered the question of which vaccine protects against Omicron. Israeli researchers said on Saturday that three injections of Pfizer / BioNTech provided significant protection against the new version of the coronavirus, Reuters reported.
The findings were similar to those presented by BioNTech and Pfizer earlier in the week. According to them, booster needles can be key to protection against infection from the newly identified variant.
The study was conducted by Sheba Medical Center and the Central Virology Laboratory of the Ministry of Health. It compares the blood of 20 people who received two doses of the vaccine 5-6 months earlier with the same number of people who received a booster a month ago.
“People who received the second dose 5 or 6 months ago have no ability to neutralize against Omicron. Although they have some against Delta (strain),” said Gili Regev-Yochai, director of infectious diseases at Sheba Reporters.
“The good news is that the booster dose increases about a hundredfold. There is significant protection for the booster dose. It is lower than the neutralizing ability against Delta, about four times lower,” she said.
The Israeli team said it worked with the actual virus while companies used what is known as a pseudo-virus that was bioengineered to have Omicron’s distinctive mutations.
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