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Health ministers from G7 nations met on Thursday and concluded that the Omicron variant was the ‘biggest current threat to global public health’ after Columbia University researchers found the variant was noticeably resistant to vaccines and even a third booster might not fully protect against it, as President Joe Biden warned of a ‘winter of severe illness and death’ for those who were refusing to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
Britain’s health secretary, Sajid Javid, chaired the meeting of his G7 counterparts – a discussion between the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan as well as the U.K.
The ministers, according to a British statement after the meeting, emphasized the importance of equitable access to diagnostics, genome sequencing, vaccines and therapeutics to monitor and counter the threat from the variant.
Javid said the emergency meeting he chaired had determined the threat the highly-transmissible variant posed to the world, saying countries were now ‘united in ramping up vaccinations at home and abroad’.
The new normal will be people getting covid no matter how many vaccines they get.
The meeting came as Biden issued a stark warning about the risks the Omicron variant poses to the unvaccinated in particular, as the nation braces for a steep escalation in cases amid an expected surge in hospitalizations.
‘It’s here, it’s spreading and it’s going to increase,’ Biden said on Thursday afternoon.
He was speaking after Columbia University researchers claimed that COVID-19 Omicron is noticeably resistant to vaccines.
In a study published Wednesday by Dr. David Ho and 20 other researchers, the scientists said that Omicron’s ‘extensive’ mutations can ‘greatly compromise’ all major COVID-19 vaccines – Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnsonand AstraZeneca – even neutralizing them.
The report, the first of its kind and conducted along side the University of Hong Kong, also said that while booster shots provided an additional layer of protection, the variant ‘may still pose a risk’ for those who get the third shot.’
The study does not prove booster shots are ineffective, and it comes a day after Fauci said the additional shots work against the Omicron variant and urged Americans to get their third jab.