South Africa’s brilliant scientific community has begun testing the efficacy of the current vaccines against the Omicron strain of the coronavirus.
Omicron has been reported in a dozen countries since first being detected by scientists in South Africa, which caused the international community to completely overreact at the news and saw the UK, among others, reintroduce travel bans to the country.
Professor Penny Moore at the University of the Witwatersrand and the National Institute for Communicable Disease (NICD) said her team would be working with the Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNtech and Johnson & Johnson vaccines to test how effective they would be against Omicron.
If it is found to provide little or no protection against the strain, Pfizer and Moderna have both claimed they would be able to produce a new vaccine to fight the virus within 100 days and would be available in early 2022.
Meanwhile, Aspen announced an agreement to sell its own branded Covid-19 vaccine to African governments. Aspen brokered the deal with Johnson & Johnson and will sell the vaccine under the name of Aspenovax.
There really is no excuse left to not get vaccinated.
Here’s a roundup of interesting opinions, analysis, and editorials:
Omicron’s message: We need a combined strategy to treat AIDS and vaccinate against Covid – Daily Maverick
EUSEBIUS MCKAISER | Don’t be a selfish git — get vaccinated – Sunday Times Daily (Register to read)
MONDLI GUNGUBELE: Full vaccination is the only alternative to lockdowns — there is no other way – Business Day
HILARY JOFFE: SA shoots itself in the foot with bungled messaging on Omicron discovery – Business Day (Subscribe to read)
Mandy Wiener | No time to waste in introducing vaccine mandates unless we want to repeat cycle again – News24 (Subscribe to read)
Omicron: Instead of praising SA scientists, the world goes mad – The Citizen
