Marcos López Hoyos
Scientific Director of the Valdecilla Health Research Institute (IDIVAL) and Professor of Immunology at the University of Cantabria
These are the first data that have just come out, not peer-reviewed, but published. This is not the case with the Pfizer note, of which I have only seen one figure pointing to the need for a third dose to combat the omicron variant.
All the data point to a lower neutralising capacity of the antibodies generated both by infection with the Wuhan ancestral variant and by the different types of vaccines tested. Not all situations are tested in all parallel studies, but all of them show a lower neutralising capacity against omicron from 5 to 40% depending on the case.
This would imply a higher infectivity of the variant even in vaccinated and previously infected individuals. Even in the vaccinated infected (hybrid immunity), protection also drops somewhat, although less than in the vaccinated or infected alone.