London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Pfizer Jab Provides Less Immunity To Omicron Than Other Variants

Pfizer Jab Provides Less Immunity To Omicron Than Other Variants

Researchers at the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban, South Africa, found omicron resulted in about a 40-fold reduction in levels of neutralizing antibodies produced by people who had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech SE shot.

Pfizer Inc.'s vaccine provides less immunity to the omicron variant than to other major versions of Covid-19, according to laboratory experiments that still indicated a third dose may help stop the highly mutated strain.

Researchers at the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban, South Africa, found omicron resulted in about a 40-fold reduction in levels of neutralizing antibodies produced by people who had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech SE shot, compared with the strain detected in China almost two years ago.

The loss of immune protection is "robust, but not complete," Alex Sigal, head of research at the laboratory, said in an online presentation of the first reported experiments gauging the effectiveness of the vaccine against the new variant.

"There will be more breakthrough" of vaccine-induced immunity, Sigal said. "A good booster probably would decrease your chance of infection, especially severe infection leading to more severe disease. People who haven't had a booster should get one, and people who have been previously infected should be vaccinated."

Representatives for Pfizer and BioNTech, makers of the first Covid vaccine cleared in the U.S., didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The study may add to the debate over whether tweaked, omicron-targeted vaccines will be needed soon to continue effectively fighting the pandemic. Moderna Inc. President Stephen Hoge has said there's a risk that existing vaccines will be less effective against the strain, although U.S. medical adviser Anthony Fauci said the severity of illness caused by the variant may be limited.

Omicron's rapid spread in South Africa has raised concern that the immune protection from vaccination or a previous bout of Covid-19 may be insufficient to stop reinfections or stem a fresh wave of cases and hospitalizations. The World Health Organization has warned omicron could fuel surges with "severe consequences" amid signs that it makes the coronavirus more transmissible.

Cautious Optimism


Still, the jump in cases in South Africa following omicron's emergence hasn't overwhelmed hospitals so far, prompting some cautious optimism that the new strain may cause mostly mild illness.

Since South Africa announced the discovery of omicron on Nov. 25, about 450 researchers globally have been working to isolate the variant from patient specimens, grow it in labs, verify its genomic sequence, and establish methods to test it in blood-plasma samples, according to the WHO.

The work in Sigal's lab involved testing 14 blood plasma samples collected from a dozen people who had been given a second Pfizer-BioNTech shot about a month earlier to gauge the concentration of antibodies needed to neutralize, or block, the virus. Levels of neutralizing antibodies against omicron were notably higher in a subset of participants who had a bout of Covid about a year earlier, Sigal said.

That's "promising," said John Wherry, director of the institute for immunology at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. It likely means an additional dose of the currently available vaccines would boost levels of neutralizing antibodies to omicron, though more data are needed to confirm that, he said.

The results are preliminary and exact levels of immune escape may change, Sigal said. The results, along with those from other labs studying the strain, will help determine whether existing Covid vaccines need to be altered to protect against omicron.

Sigal's laboratory was the first to isolate the beta variant, a strain of the coronavirus that was identified in South Africa in late 2020. He noted that omicron escapes antibody neutralization more readily than beta, which had been considered the most immune evasive of the variants of concern detected previously.

Comments

Oh ya 4 year ago
So the government and drug companies have a problem. 1st they must convince the unvaxxed to get the shot and then they must convince those already poisoned to take a booster or two because the original shots do not protect them. Wake up folks.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×