A study of 211,000 COVID-19 cases and 78,000 Omicron variant cases found that the vaccine is only 33% effective at preventing infection by 70% effective at preventing hospitalization.
That more or less confirms earlier guesses that Omicron has more vaccine escape and is less deadly. However, it’s possible that Omicron can kill more people because Omicron is 5 times more transmissible than the COVID-19 Delta variant.
Read Omicron variant more resistant to vaccine but causes less severe covid, major South African study concludes from The Washington Post.
See also:
- Unlike the Delta variant, vaccine escape of the Omicron variant is very real. Previous coverage of Delta suffered from base rate fallacy.
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Remote Work Hasn’t Prevented People from Getting Omicron
While remote work is obviously better for reducing exposure to COVID-19 than going to the office, the rapid increase in Omicron cases shows that remote work has little impact on reducing Omicron case counts. Anecdotally, several people I’ve worked with over the last two weeks have gotten it—all vaccinated and working from home.