There are plenty of folks around the world who are growing ever more sick and tired of this never-ending coronavirus pandemic and, specifically, the ways in which the mainstream media has used every twist and turn of the tale to further entrench us in the waning pandemic.
For instance: Omicron, the new variant out of South Africa, has proven to be extremely “mild” according to the doctors who’ve been treating it. Heck, even the normally-gloomy Dr. Anthony Fauci has been downplaying the severity of this mutation.
Despite this, the big COVID-19 news on Wednesday was out of Pfizer, with the company pushing for those who’ve received what was once-considered full vaccination against the virus to get more shots.
Preliminary lab studies show two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine may not provide sufficient protection against the Omicron coronavirus variant, but three doses are able to neutralize it, the companies said in a news release on Wednesday.
Samples from people who had two doses of the Covid-19 vaccine saw, on average, a more than 25-fold reduction in neutralization ability against the Omicron variant than the earlier virus, “indicating that two doses of BNT162b2 may not be sufficient to protect against infection with the Omicron variant,” the companies said.
The companies said two doses may still provide protection against severe disease.
“Although two doses of the vaccine may still offer protection against severe disease caused by the Omicron strain, it’s clear from these preliminary data that protection is improved with a third dose of our vaccine,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement. “Ensuring as many people as possible are fully vaccinated with the first two dose series and a booster remains the best course of action to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
The news will almost certainly irk Americans in particular, with a large portion of the overall population unwilling to risk the side effects of these vaccinations at all, let alone go above and beyond the original recommendations.
