People who have received two doses of the Covid vaccine will have far less protection from the Omicron variant than they did against the Delta variant.
That's the conclusion of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) after analysing data surrounding Omicron.
It means that people around the UK are being urged to get a third booster jab, reports The Express.
While those with just two jabs will not have as much protection as they did against Delta, the research suggests that getting a third dose of the vaccine can increase its effectiveness to between 70% and 75%.
In a statement the UKHSA said: "The preliminary data showed effectiveness against the new variant appears to increase considerably in the early period after a booster dose, providing around 70-75% protection against symptomatic infection.
"Due to the early nature of the findings, all estimates are subject to significant uncertainty and are subject to change.
"Vaccine effectiveness against severe disease from Omicron is not yet known but is expected to be significantly higher than protection against symptomatic disease," the statement continued, adding "data on this won't be available for several weeks".
Reports from the ZOE Covid app, which logs submissions from millions of users across the UK, suggest that Omicron is able to evade vaccine-induced antibodies.
Professor Tim Spector, professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King's College London, who heads up the Zoe Covid study app explained in a video that a number of people who attended a birthday party caught Omicron and suffered from a number of symptoms.
Speaking in a video, he said: "A regular ZOE user entertained a 60th birthday party gathering with 18 guests," he began.
"All of them had taken lateral flow tests prior to the gathering. On Sunday they were informed that one of the guests - who happened to be a teacher - had tested positive and the following week 16 out of 18 had fallen ill in some way.
"They were subsequently informed by NHS test and trace that it was Omicron or probable Omicron and they were waiting to get the genetic sequencing confirmations."
Those infected with the virus suffered from a number of symptoms including "nausea, slight temperature, sore throats and headaches"
However, none of those at the birthday party were hospitalised due to the Omicron suggesting that being vaccinated lessened the effect of the virus.
