Pharma giants Pfizer and Omicron have designed vaccine boosters that target the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus and has shown significant effect with a stronger immune response. Reports say that the vaccines have been designed to focus and target the original BA.1 subvariant of Omicron, but some of the initial results have suggested that they could be effective against the other dominant variants including the BA.4 and BA.5 strains.
Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer in a statement said that based on the data, they have two strong Omicron-verified candidates that show a substantially higher immune response against the Omicron that they have seen till date. The journal has mentioned that the new modified boosters helped by increasing the neutralizing antibody levels from 9.1 to 10.9 times and would depend on the dose that is administered. Although the results of the study have not yet been published or reviewed.
AS per a new report , nearly 67 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated and just 32 percent of them are boosted. Moreover, people who might be interested in getting another booster might be much lower. It was in the month of January, when 20 percent of Americans said that COVID was the biggest problem, the country is facing, but now the number has gone down to just four percent.
Getting a booster shot was said to provide a better protection against the Omicron variant that was considered as highly contagious and transmissible. Although, it was noticed that there were much less hospitalizations and severe cases of the Omicron variant but it continued to be highly transmissible. Majority of people who contracted the Omicron variant of COVID complained of minimum or mild symptoms and a very few people had to be hospitalized. More studies have revealed that the severity of COVID has gone down significantly and is causing fewer complications with less hospitalizations.
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