Early evidence shows a “clear” drop in the effectiveness of current Covid-19 vaccines against the Omicron variant of coronavirus, according to the head of the European drugs regulator, who said it will take time to reach a consensus on whether variant-targeted vaccines will be needed.
Limited research findings suggest a drop in antibody counts when two shots are pitted against Omicron for mRNA vaccines, and also for adenovirus-based vaccines such as those from Oxford/AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson.
“The data coming in . . . it’s not at all definitive, there are very small numbers, [but] it’s clear that there is a drop in effectiveness,” Emer Cooke, executive director of the European Medicines Agency, told the Financial Times. “How much, we don’t know.”