Two doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine provide 70 per cent protection against being admitted to hospital with the Omicron coronavirus variant, according to the first real-world analysis of protection against severe disease with the new strain in South Africa.
But the defence offered against Omicron is lower than the 93 per cent protection provided against the Delta variant, the report from Discovery Health, the largest private healthcare provider in South Africa found.
The study also showed that rates of severe disease had been lower during the early phase of the country’s Omicron wave than during the same period in previous surges. The study has not been submitted for peer review.