In a new study from South Africa, where the Omicron variant first emerged earlier this month, a booster shot of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was found to be 84% effective at preventing hospitalization, researchers said on Thursday.
The study involved South African healthcare workers who contracted the Omicron variant. “The real-world study, which has not been peer-reviewed, was based on a second dose of the J&J vaccine administered to 69,092 healthcare workers between November 15 and December 20,” the Daily Mail reported.
“An initial course of inoculation has been shown to offer greatly reduced protection against Omicron, particularly against infection. However, several studies have suggested that a booster dose still provides significant protection against severe illness,” the U.K. paper said.
“Even before you factor in the increased infectiousness of Omicron, we have to remember that healthcare workers on the frontlines are at a greatly increased risk of being affected by COVID-19 in the first place,” said Glenda E. Gray, president and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council, which conducted the study. “We are therefore encouraged to see that boosting with the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine regimen provides strong protection in a challenging real-world setting where there is an elevated risk of exposure – not just to COVID-19, but to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.”
Last week, Moderna announced that its booster shot of the coronavirus vaccine significantly raises the level of antibodies to battle the Omicron variant.
The pharmaceutical company’s testing shows that “the currently authorized booster dose of 50 micrograms — half the dose given for primary immunization — increased the level of antibodies by roughly 37-fold, the company said,” according to the New York Times. “A full dose of 100 micrograms was even more powerful, raising antibody levels about 83-fold compared with pre-boost levels, Moderna said.”
The company did say, however, that its booster shot “produced side effects comparable to those seen after the two-dose primary series. But the dose of 100 micrograms showed slightly more frequent adverse reactions relative to the authorized 50-microgram dose,” said the Times.
Earlier this month, Pfizer and BioNTech, who jointly produce coronavirus vaccines, announced that their booster shot also increases the level of antibodies against Omicron. But the Mail said “another South African-based study showed that a first round of inoculation with two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine had been less effective in South Africa at keeping people infected with the virus out of hospital since the Omicron variant emerged last month.”
Meanwhile, another recent study of early data about the Omicron variant has found that the most common symptoms are akin to the common cold.
The ZOE COVID Symptoms Study, which has been tracking symptoms reported by participants using a smartphone app, reported that the top five symptoms for Omicron are runny nose, headache, fatigue (mild or severe), sneezing, and sore throat. The data were collected between December 3 and 10 in London.
The new strain differs from previous strains, which often brought high fevers, a heavy cough, and the loss of smell. “Hopefully people now recognize the cold-like symptoms which appear to be the predominant feature of Omicron. These are the changes that will slow the spread of the virus,” ZOE lead scientist Tim Spector said in a news release.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent, and ran the Drudge Report from 2010 to 2015. Send tips to [email protected].