It is still debated how effective the existing vaccines would have against the new variant of the coronavirus.
One of the founders of BioNTech, who together with Pfizer produced one of the first vaccines against coronavirus, said that the existing vaccines do work against the new omicron variant, so there is no need to panic.
In an interview with the newspaper The Wall Street Journal, Ugur Sahin indicated that the task that must be done is the one that has already been implemented: speed up the vaccination and the application of the booster.
“Our message is don’t panic, the plan remains the same: speed up the administration of a third booster shot,” said Sahin.
For the expert, this new variant could elude vaccine antibodies, causing infection and, therefore, causing more infections. However, you are most likely still vulnerable to immune cells that destroy the virus when it enters the body. This would allow a high level of efficiency to be maintained.
“Even as an escape variant, the virus will hardly be able to completely evade T cells,” Sahin added, referring to cells that are a second level of immune response and that protect against severe disease.
Vaccinated people have been seen to have mild symptoms with this variant; therefore, Sahin is optimistic. Something different from what the director of the Moderna company, which also manufactures a messenger RNA coronavirus vaccine, similar to that of Pfizer-BioNTech, had mentioned before, Stéphane Bancel, that the effectiveness of the vaccines would fall against the variant omicron. (I)
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