There's reason to believe that current vaccines are going to be 'quite effective' in combating the effects of the omicron strain, says Andy Slavitt.
Slavitt said it is possible that there would be updated vaccines available, if needed, in the next several months, before the omicron variant starts to spread meaningfully.Information compiled by Our World In Data
showed just around 44% of the world population has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19. But only a small percentage of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. Slavitt explained that it is still too early to tell how omicron will fare compared with the lethal delta strain. "We get to a point when we have a variant that replaces delta that is not serious or can be easily treated with medication, then that'll be a very new day for this pandemic. We can knock on wood that happens now, if it's not with omicron, it'll may be the next one," he said, adding that such a scenario could potentially turn Covid more akin to the common cold.
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