Could vaccines beat back Omicron? South African study offers first clues

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South African researchers have provided the first tentative answers to the question of how well vaccines currently in use may protect against Omicron, the new and highly mutated coronavirus variant.

Their findings, made public on Tuesday ahead of peer review, indicated the variant was significantly better at evading virus-fighting antibodies produced by the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine than previous strains. However, evasion was not complete and boosters could help increase protection, the findings suggested.