A new study by South Africa’s leading private healthcare provider, Discovery Health, highlighted evidence that strongly suggests Omicron results in a typically mild illness, irrespective of age or level of prior immunity.

The study is reportedly the largest real-world assessment of the Omicron variant to date, with over 211 000 positive COVID-19 test results, 41% from adult members who had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Approximately 78 000 of these positive COVID-19 test results were attributed to Omicron infections, over the period November 15 to December 7.

Encouragingly, the Discovery Health study also shows that vaccinated individuals who have received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine have 70% protection against hospital admission. Whilst protection against hospital admission reduced from the highs of 93% in South Africa’s Delta-driven variant, 70% is still regarded as very good protection.

Other key findings from the study include:

• Rates of South African hospitalisations due to COVID remain low, despite very high Omicron infection levels.
• Numbers of patients in South Africa requiring either oxygen or ventilation due to COVID remain low.
• Two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination provides 70% protection against severe complications of COVID-19 requiring hospitalisation, and 33% protection against COVID-19 infection during the current Omicron wave.
• Risk of hospital admission among adults diagnosed with COVID-19 is 29% lower for

Omicron variant infection compared with D614G infection in South Africa’s first wave in mid-

2020, after adjusting for vaccination status

The implications of the study are that the red list travel restrictions in the UK and across the EU are now redundant due to the low risk presented by Omicron and the high rates of community transmission across the region.

Hospitalisations are likely to remain low in the current wave, irrespective of antibody levels and the impact is likely to be even more modest in countries with high vaccination rates

President of the South African Medical Research Council, Professor Glenda Gray, said: “We are extremely encouraged by the results of Discovery Health’s analysis. It is extremely important to be able to demonstrate to the public that in a real-world setting – in the presence of a highly transmissible new COVID-19 variant – the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine provides good protection against severe disease and hospitalisation.”