The pivot from masking and social distancing, to vaccination, and now back to masking and social distancing because the jab is useless, is sadly hilarious.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/covid-19-eg-5-new-brunswick-omicron-variant-1.6936179
"Globally, there has been a steady increase in the proportion of EG.5 reported," the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a recent risk evaluation.
"While EG.5 has shown increased prevalence, growth advantage, and immune escape properties, there have been no reported changes in disease severity to date."
It's unclear what protection current vaccines offer against the new variant, said Iris Gorfinkel, a family doctor and vaccine researcher in Toronto.
But a recent review of 40 studies from the Journal of the American Medical Association found bivalent vaccines, whether by Pfizer or Moderna, were 40 per cent effective at preventing symptomatic Omicron, she said.
"The problem? It doesn't last. You turn the clock six months forward, it's only 13 per cent effective."
The bivalents are even better at preventing hospitalizations, at 62 per cent among those with a normal immune system, said Gorfinkel. Two months after getting the shot, however, the effectiveness drops to 50 per cent.
"That means 50 per cent of people could still become hospitalized even after having had the bivalent vaccine," she said, noting only one in four Canadians have had a bivalent. "And if somebody's immune-compromised, it's even less effective."
So people should not rely on vaccination or protection from a previous infection alone, said Gorfinkel. "Masking in health-care facilities, air filtration, hand washing, staying at home when sick — all of that remains critical in our armamentarium to prevent sicknesses, especially come the fall."