Omicron Unlikely to Cause Severe Illness in Vaccinated People, BioNTech Founder Says

Several scientists said the new Omicron strain of SARS-CoV-2 could lead to more infections among vaccinated people, but some suggested there were reasons to believe the shots would protect against severe disease, reported The Wall Street Journal.

Ugur Sahin, co-founder of BioNTech, which sells a COVID-19 vaccine with Pfizer, said that while Omicron 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.

"Our message is: Don't freak out, the plan remains the same: Speed up the administration of a third booster shot," Sahin remarked on Tuesday.

He noted that the currently prevalent Delta variant has proven more adept at infecting vaccinated people than earlier strains, but those people mostly experience only mild symptoms.

"Our belief [that the vaccines work against Omicron] is rooted in science: If a virus achieves immune escape, it achieves it against antibodies, but there is the second level of immune response that protects from severe disease—the T-cells," Sahin said.

That means that, even if the vaccines are shown to be less effective at neutralizing the Omicron variant, they could still offer good protection against severe disease and death, Sahin added, stressing that it would take time for patient data to confirm this.