[Carth]

Covid: New Omicron variant not a disaster, says Sage scientist

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59442141

Asked whether people should be fearful of the new variant, Prof Semple - who sits on the UK government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies - told BBC Breakfast: "This is not a disaster, and the headlines from some of my colleagues saying 'this is horrendous' I think are hugely overstating the situation.

Like Prof Semple, Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, expressed cautious optimism that existing vaccines could be effective at preventing serious disease from the Omicron variant. . .

He told the Today programme that while it would still be weeks until scientists properly understood the effects of Omicron's mutations, most of them were similar to those seen in other variants. . . "Despite those mutations existing in other variants, the vaccines have continued to prevent serious disease as we've moved through Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta," he said.

. . "It's extremely unlikely that a reboot of a pandemic in a vaccinated population like we saw last year is going to happen."