The UK Health Security Agency said that the Omicron variant is emerging in the whole region of the Kingdom. As a result, it could be the dominant strain across the state within days, ABC News reported on Saturday.
Recent data from the UK confirms that Omicron is more transmissible than the previous variants. In addition, it showed that Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines are less effective against the Omicron strain.
Therefore, a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine could be the key to resisting the new variant.
On Friday, the early analysis of Omicron and Delta cases in the UK revealed that three doses of the Pfizer vaccine could be the key against Omicron.
The new analysis revealed that two Pfizer vaccine doses are not enough to protect against the Omicron variant, so, adding the third vaccine dose provided more than 75% protection.
In addition, it succeeded in preventing the symptoms of COVID-19 by 75%.
Secretary of the State, Michael Gove, warned the UK of the "deeply concerning situation," adding, "Action is absolutely required, and as new data comes in we will consider what action we do require to take in the face of that data."
The positive impact of the third COVID-19 vaccine dose was also mentioned by the latest lap study conducted in South Africa. The study found that Pfizer vaccine antibodies became 40 times weaker against the Omicron strain.
It is worthy to mention that almost 22 million persons received third or booster vaccine doses.
The UK reported more than 448 cases with the recently emerged variant, reaching the total number of Omicron cases in the UK to 1265.
On the other hand, the total number of Covid-19 cases reported on Friday was 58,194 which is the highest number since 9 January.
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