Thread by @DrEricDing

BREAKING—“Deeply concerning”—Two doses of a Covid vaccine are not enough to stop you catching the Omicron variant, UK scientists warn. Early analysis showed the vaccines were less effective at stopping #Omicron. But a third booster prevents 75% symptoms.🧵 bbc.com/news/health-59…

2) Meanwhile, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, who chaired a meeting with first ministers of the devolved nations this afternoon, warned the UK faces a "deeply concerning situation".

3) Meanwhile, the government says it is updating its guidance for care homes in England - limiting the number of visitors allowed per resident, and increasing testing "in order to balance the current Covid-19 risk".

4) “One of the main concerns since the heavily-mutated Omicron variant first emerged was that it would make vaccines less effective.
The UK Health Security Agency said vaccines were still likely to offer good protection against severe Covid that needed hospital treatment.

5) Scientists analysed data from 581 Omicron cases and thousands of Delta cases.
The analysis is based on limited data, but showed a dramatic drop in effectiveness for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and a significant drop off for two doses of Pfizer.

6) The 75% protection against Covid symptoms after a booster is not as high as against previous variants.
So far around 22 million have received a booster dose, but even if everyone was boosted the lower vaccine effectiveness would still leave millions of people susceptible.

7) The real-world data backs up laboratory studies that showed a 40-fold reduction in the ability of antibodies from double-vaccinated people to take out the virus. There is optimism that vaccines will still keep many people out of hospital even if more do get Covid.

8) we should not become blasé about the #Omicron variant “being milder” — there is no good data that proves that. They don’t age adjust or vaccine adjust or infection adjust and don’t followup long enough to know yet.

https://twitter.com/MaritsaGeorgiou/status/1469365939820924930

9) U.K.’s Health Security Agency forecasted this week, Omicron could account for the majority of the country’s Covid-19 cases in two to four weeks.
“Omicron is displaying a growth advantage over Delta,” the agency said Wednesday — with “high confidence.”
gov.uk/government/new…

10) Just how bad is UK 🇬🇧 #OmicronVariant surge right now? Doubling time is ~2 days! That’s much faster than even South Africa doubling time for #omicron.

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1469160200083025923

11) UK went up 10x in #Omicron prevalence in just 10 days. SA meanwhile hit 99% in just a month. Both really bad trajectories.

12) The research comes amid concern about the growing numbers of Omicron cases in the UK. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has warned of a "tsunami" of cases as she tightened Covid isolation rules and encouraged people to cancel Christmas party plans. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla…

13) if 3 vaccine doses are key to contain #Omicron… Then @CDCgov @US_FDA please define fully vaccinated as 3 doses and shorten the interval between 2nd and 3rd dose to 3 months, says @AliHMokdad. I agree.

14) “The rapid surge in Omicron cases was already hinting that the variant was getting around some of the protection given by vaccine.

bbc.com/news/health-59…

15) It is estimated that the number of Omicron cases is doubling every 2-3 days.
The UKHSA estimates that more than half of all cases will be Omicron by the mid-December and that if growth continues unabated there will be more than 100,000 cases a day by the end of the month.

16) Dr Mary Ramsay, the head of immunisation at the UKHSA, said: "These early estimates should be treated with caution but they indicate that a few months after the second jab, there is a greater risk of catching the Omicron variant compared to Delta strain."

17) Why do I feel like many of us are in denial about #Omicron? I get we are all tired. I’m so darn tired. But #COVID19 doesn’t get “tired”— the virus has an evolutionary drive to mutate and play dodgeball with our immune system. We must be vigilant and keep up. Don’t be blasé.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1468698084632842250

18) not just UK, rest of Europe also isn’t going so well on the #COVID19 front. And this is even before #Omicron shows up in full force.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1469419371416231936

19) Let’s compare old May wave (blue) versus the new #Omicron wave (in orange) of hospitalizations by age group in Tshwane epicenter. Notice how disproportionately it’s sending over 6x more kids age 0-4 to hospital in the first two weeks of each wave. 👀

20) welp… here is the brutally honest full data from the UK study on #Omicron vaccine effectiveness. Read thread 🧵 below 👇

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1469601149573603328