Omicron variant requires adapted booster vaccination

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Virologist Florian Krammer of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York is less optimistic about the initial data on the Omicron variant. “It is spreading rapidly” and appears to be a good escape variant, he said. “So it’s very likely that it will need an Omikron-specific booster.” However, he said, there is evidence that convalescents and double-vaccinated people are at least further protected against severe courses.

Adapted booster for Krammer “very likely” needed
It looks like the new pathogen type may escape relatively well from an antibody response formed against earlier SARS-CoV-2 variants. Therapies using monoclonal antibodies also appear to be less effective against the new variant. The protection built up by the AstraZeneca vaccine could likely do very little against symptomatic courses, new data from the United Kingdom would indicate. After receiving booster vaccination with an mRNA vaccine, however, protection is about 70 percent, Krammer said.

“It doesn’t look much better” for those simply vaccinated with the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine. By the third prick, however, protection against symptomatic disease is back toward 75 percent, he said. “So there is some hope for people who get the booster doses,” the scientist said in an online presentation Monday evening organized by the Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES).

Don’t wait too long to get booster vaccine
A big question, he said, is when the first adapted mRNA vaccines will be available. However, Krammer believes people should get another vaccination with the matched vaccine no sooner than four months after the previous sting. Waiting longer to get a third or fourth sting is also not problematic, he said: “The booster still works.” But looking now at how quickly Omicron is already spreading in many countries, “now is a good time to get the booster if it’s been four to six months since the last vaccination.”

For children, he said, there is not yet a recommendation for booster vaccination. “I would still wait for the official recommendation here,” Krammer said. Children continue to have a lower likelihood of more severe courses and usually have a strong immune response to the first two vaccinations, he said.