Omicron is beaten by boosters and the chance of getting ill reduced by 75%. But two jabs won’t prevent you from developing symptoms. The official analysis has shown that there have not been any Brits hospitalized with super-mutant strain.

  • Three doses of the drug will provide significantly greater immunity to severe illnesses and death, according to experts.
  • The most encouraging sign is that Omicron wave hospital admissions won’t surpass prior peaks.
  • The effectiveness of the 2nd dose against symptoms could drop to 40% in people who were given it three months earlier.

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Booster Covid jabs offer up to 75 per cent protection against mild disease caused by the super Omicron variant, official UK Government analysis revealed tonight.

Experts feel confident that three doses of the highly-evolved strain will give significantly better immunity.

Real-world testing revealed that people who received their second dose over three months could have a lower rate of effectiveness in symptomatic diseases.

Officials stress, however that two vaccines can still provide very high protection against serious illness. There is increasing optimism among Government scientists that Plan B will suffice to prevent a large number of deaths and hospitalizations.

Analysis by the UK Health Security Agency shows that there is no sign of an Omicron wave in hospital deaths and admissions. 

UKHSA stated that if current trends are maintained, Omicron infective diseases will reach one million by month’s end. 

UK Health Security Agency data shows that Omicron may now be behind 8.5 per cent of infections. The figures are based on the proportion of PCR tests failing to detect a specific gene, an early indicator of the variant. PCRs look for three genes to confirm a Covid infection, but with Omicron one is so mutated that they only pick up two of them

Omicron could be responsible for 8.5% of all infections according to data from the UK Health Security Agency. These figures were calculated based upon the percentage of PCR tests that failed to identify a particular gene. This is an indicator of the variant. Three genes are required to confirm Covid infections. But Omicron has only two.

Public Health Scotland estimates the new variant will be dominant next week, accounting for more than 50 per cent of all Covid cases, and make almost all new infections by the end of the year

Public Health Scotland predicts that the new variant, which accounts for almost half of all Covid infections, will rule next week.

Omicron makes up 13.3 per cent of Covid cases in Scotland and is doubling every two to three days

Omicron accounts for 13.3% of Covid case in Scotland. This figure is increasing by doubling every 2 to 3 days

These findings represent the first data outside of laboratory studies on Omicron protection. They also show a reduced level of Omicron neutralizing activity.

Early data from the real world suggest that Omicron may reduce mild disease protection after a two-dose initial vaccination, but boosters increased protection.

“These estimates are early and should not be taken lightly, but they suggest that there’s a higher risk of contracting the Omicron strain a few months later than the Delta strain,” Dr Mary Ramsay of the UKHSA Head of Immunisation said. She also stated that the protection against severe diseases was likely to continue to increase.

“The data suggests that this risk has been significantly decreased following the booster vaccine. I encourage everyone to get their booster as soon as they are eligible.

An analysis of 581 Omicron-positive people revealed that two doses each of AstraZeneca or Pfizer BioNTech provided lower protection than the ones they offer against Delta.

If the dose was increased with Pfizer vaccine it provided around 70% protection from symptomatic infections in people who had received AstraZeneca and 75% protection to those who had received Pfizer.

This compares with the estimated protection from infection by Delta after a booster of approximately 90%.

UKHSA reported that Omicron will account for at least 50% of COVID-19 infection cases in current trends by mid-December. Britain would have over one million by then. 

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