Category: Vaccine
UKHSA Technical Briefing 31, dated 10th December 2021
“If Omicron continues to grow at the present rate, Omicron is projected to reach parity with Delta in mid-December.” More...
UKHSA bombshell: Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against the Omicron variant
“Among those who had received 2 doses of [AstraZeneca], there was NO protective effect of vaccination against symptomatic disease with Omicron from 15 weeks after the second dose.” More...
Vaccines: Pfizer CEO says fourth dose of vaccine may be needed sooner than expected
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Wednesday that people might need a fourth Covid-19 shot sooner than expected after preliminary research shows the new Omicron variant can undermine protective antibodies generated by the vaccine the company developed with BioNTech. More...
UKHSA updated risk assessment for Omicron variant, 8th December 2021
The UK government has updated its risk assessment for the Omicron variant today. More...
UK: Boris Johnson announces new restrictions to combat bad press Omicron
Boris Johnson has announced new Covid restrictions for the UK today to combat the spread of the Omicron variant in the country. More...
Preprint: Omicron incompletely escapes immunity induced by the Pfizer vaccine
Laboratory research from South Africa strongly suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant escapes antibody immunity induced by the Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty) vaccine, but that considerable immunity is retained in people who were both vaccinated and previously infected. More...
Norway: “situation is more worrying now than in previous pandemic waves”
“The threat from Omicron is enormous”. NIPH director Camilla Stoltenberg says the Omicron variant of the coronavirus can cause a lot of infection and disease, “perhaps more than before in the pandemic”. More...
Norway: “The number of corona inpatients who need intensive care is higher than before, and it seems to be increasing”
“The death toll has increased week by week now… we are falling behind in the fight against infection,” said the chief physician at the University Hospital of Northern Norway, Mats Gilbert. More...
Spain: Malaga hospital christmas party superspreader – nearly 70 medics infected
Everyone who was infected had antigen tests or third booster jabs before the party. More...
FFP2 masks more effective at preventing Covid infection than vaccines
Max Planck: “When both wear a surgical mask, while the infectious is speaking, the very conservative upper bound remains below 30% after 1h, but, when both wear a well-fitting FFP2 mask, it is 0.4%”
We find, for a typical SARS-CoV-2 viral load and infectious dose, that social distancing alone, even at 3m between two speaking individuals, leads to an upper bound of 90% for risk of infection after a few minutes. More...