However, continued studies will reveal more about these mutations and potential impact the drugs may have on their viral replication.” Do current monoclonal antibody (MAbs) treatments still work for people infected with the omicron variant?
“I have not seen any data so far,” Bollinger says, “that would suggest that these drugs would work less well for omicron than for any of the other variants. Two other antiviral drugs, one from Merck and one from Pfizer, are under FDA review to see if they, too, can be authorized. Remdesivir is the only such antiviral drug currently authorized for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat COVID-19. Some antiviral drugs work by limiting a virus’ ability to make copies of itself (replicate) in the body. We will know more in the coming weeks about how well the rapid at-home tests perform to detect the new variant.ĭo the current antiviral drugs still work on omicron? The available commercial diagnostic PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and antigen COVID tests still appear to work to identify the omicron variant. “I am also confident that if we find that the current vaccines are not providing optimal protection against severe disease or death due to this variant, we will be able to quickly modify the current vaccines to address omicron.” Does the omicron variant show up on COVID tests? “In the weeks ahead, we will learn more about how well the antibodies induced by the current vaccinations can neutralize the omicron variant in the laboratory.
“My own expectation is that being fully vaccinated, including boosters, will still provide a reduced risk of hospitalization and death,” Bollinger says. We will know more about this in the coming weeks.” Do the COVID vaccines still work and reduce the risk of severe illness?Īccording to Bollinger and Ray, this is the most important question, and with so little data, a lot is still unknown. “But, so far, the answer appears to be no. “For omicron, there are very limited data on this,” Bollinger says. Does omicron cause more severe COVID-19 illness?
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