It will take a fourth dose to protect against omicron. This has been pointed out by Ugür Sahin, founder of BionTech, the German subsidiary of Pfizer, in statements that the German media ‘Der Spiegel’ has collected. Sahin assures that the third dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 serves to contain the virus, but that a short time later it will be necessary to administer one more. In addition, he advocates advancing the third puncture three months after receiving the complete guideline.
Specifically, the head of the German pharmaceutical company has indicated that “if omicron continues to spread as it seems, it would be scientifically advisable to apply a third dose after three months”. In this sense, Ugür Sahin has warned that the complete regimen -that is, after the second dose-, does not provide sufficient immunity against this variant, although a third or refreshment will do so: “According to the provisional data available to us, the three doses neutralize the virus“.
However, he added that it must be taken into account that “in a relatively close range” a fourth dose will be required. Preliminary studies in laboratories, according to a statement released this Thursday by BioNTech and Pfizer, advanced that probably two doses of the vaccine do not provide sufficient protection against the omicron variant, although all the data regarding the impact of this new strain and its consequences on the population they are preliminary.
In any case, the pharmaceutical firms pointed out that a group of patients who had received two doses of the COVID vaccine showed 25 times less efficacy against omicron than against the virus in its previous variant. These preliminary data also indicated that “protection improves with a third dose of our vaccine,” according to that joint statement.
In Spain, at the moment, more than 91% of the target population already has the complete guideline. What’s more, nearly 72% of those over 70 have already had the third booster dose (4.9 million people). The communities with the best pace in terms of the reinforcement dose for the elderly are Navarra -with 87.2% -, Galicia -with 86.9% – and Asturias -with 85.6% -. The most lagging behind are the Canary Islands -with 57.4% -, Valencian Community -with 61.6% – and Catalonia -with 62.7% -.
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
