No need for Omicron-specific boosters currently, Fauci says

Booster doses of currently available Covid-19 vaccines work against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and there appears to be no need for variant-specific boosters, top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday.

“Our booster vaccine regimens work against Omicron. At this point, there is no need for a variant-specific booster,” Fauci told reporters at a White House briefing.

He said the neutralising activity of two doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine is “substantially low” against Omicron, citing data from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of which he is director.

“However, if you look at two weeks post the third dose, note the substantial degree of elevation of the neutralizing title; well within the range of neutralizing Omicron,” he said of the study’s findings, on which Moderna collaborated with the NIAID.

BioNTech and Pfizer said last week that a three-shot course of their vaccine was able to neutralize Omicron in a laboratory test, but two doses resulted in significantly lower neutralizing antibodies.

J&J has yet to release any of its own data about how its vaccine performs against the new coronavirus strain.