South African Analysis Finds Vaccination Only 30% Effective Against Omicron

An analysis released Tuesday from South Africa revealed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is only 30% effective at preventing infection from the Omicron variant.

The analysis of South African COVID-19 patients infected with the Omicron variant stated that "the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination provides 70% protection against severe complications of COVID-19 requiring hospitalisation, and 33% protection against COVID-19 infection, during the current Omicron wave."

Discovery Health, South Africa's largest insurance administrator, and the South African Medical Research Council released the analysis.

Additional findings from the analysis show that while Pfizer's vaccine was 93% effective at preventing hospitalization from the Delta variant. The findings also show that the same vaccination is only 70% effective at preventing hospitalization from the Omicron variant. While 70% is still a good level of protection, the analysis shows that Pfizer's vaccines are about 20% less effective against preventing hospitalization from the Omicron variant than the Delta variant.

Though the analysis was limited to studying the effectiveness of Pfizer's vaccine, the results would likely hold true for the rest of the vaccines, including AstraZeneca's vaccine and Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine. The findings line up with what many experts had known about the Omicron variant — that it is milder but more vaccine-resistant, and it is more contagious.

While this analysis answers a lot of questions about the effectiveness of vaccines at protecting against the Omicron variant, both in terms of contracting the virus and preventing hospitalization, questions still remain. Specifically, there are questions about whether another booster shot will be required to mitigate the spread of and hospitalizations due to Omicron.

The analysis comes out as the U.K. reported the first death from the Omicron variant on Monday. British health officials warned that the Omicron variant was spreading quickly and that hospitalizations and deaths are expected to sharply increase in the coming weeks.

As Omicron cases rise in the U.S., an analysis in November by the Wall Street Journal confirmed that there have been more deaths in 2021 from COVID-19 than there were in 2020, with a spike in cases expected over the holidays. So far the U.S. leads the world with 50 million recorded cases and approaching 800,000 deaths.