LINKOmicron is TEN TIMES better at punching through Covid vaccines
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Omicron is widely known to be more contagious than previous Covid strains but a graph showing by just how much reveals why scientists are still concerned about emerging variants.
In a highly secure clean room at the University of NSW's Kirby Institute, experts studied the strain at the beginning of Australia's Omicron wave in mid-December and found out just how adept the variant is at evading vaccines.
Their research found that the the Delta variant, even in a host with two vaccine doses or immunity from previous infection, was 60 per cent better at evading antibodies than the original virus found in Wuhan.
Omicron was 16.5 times better at evading immunity - 10 times more than Delta - explaining the massive surge in cases when it arrived in Australia.
