How effective covid vaccines are against the new Omicron variant will be known in a few days, as urgent studies to understand that have already begun, Ana-Maria Henao-Restrepo, World Health Organization’s (WHO) scientist, said late Wednesday.

Key quotes

Some 450 researchers around the world have begun work to isolate the highly mutated variant from patient specimens, grow it in the lab, verify its genomic sequence, and establish methods to test it in blood-plasma samples,

“They hope that this will happen within days, but I think we should not put pressure that it should happen within three days -- we should say it will happen within the next two weeks.”

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