The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus could lead to more infections among vaccinated people, according to several scientists, but some said there were reasons to believe the shots would protect against severe disease.

While the new variant might evade the antibodies generated in reaction to the vaccines, the virus will likely remain vulnerable to immune cells that destroy it once it enters the body, said Ugur Sahin, co-founder of BioNTech SE, which sells a Covid-19 shot with partner Pfizer Inc.

“Our message is: Don’t freak out, the plan remains the same: Speed up the administration of a third booster shot,” Dr. Sahin said in an interview Tuesday.

It will take a couple of weeks for scientists working for the main vaccine makers to determine through laboratory tests whether antibodies generated by the existing shots are effective against the new variant. Later on, data collected from patients will reveal how often vaccinated people infected with Omicron go on to experience mild or severe Covid-19 cases.

So far, there are few confirmed infections involving the new variant, making it difficult to generalize findings from these cases, especially since it can take weeks for Covid-19 patients to develop severe symptoms after they become infected.

Still, based on current knowledge about the mechanisms behind the vaccines and the biology of variants, Dr. Sahin said he assumed that immunized people would have a high level of protection against severe disease even if infected by the Omicron variant. [Continue reading…]

CNN reports:

The United States’ first confirmed case of the Omicron coronavirus variant has been identified in California.

In a White House news briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the case was in an individual who traveled from South Africa on November 22 and tested positive for Covid-19 on November 29.

That individual, Fauci said, is self-quarantining and close contacts have tested negative for the coronavirus so far.

The person was fully vaccinated and is experiencing “mild symptoms, which are improving at this point,” Fauci said.

Asked by CNN whether that person had a booster shot, Fauci said, “To my knowledge, no.”

The California and San Francisco public health departments confirmed the case was caused by the Omicron variant through genomic sequencing conducted at the University of California at San Francisco, and the sequence was confirmed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [Continue reading…]