People need to exercise caution regarding premature assessments of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus, says the chair of Israel\u2019s advisory council of experts.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Ran Balicer reiterated his opinion that the next two weeks will be full of opinions, personal impressions, incomplete and ambiguous data regarding the new variant.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome will say it\u2019s a serious problem, worse than expected, others will take us in exactly the other direction. In the meantime, it was important to `stay the course\u2019 until truly scientifically reliable data are available. We have heard different assessments from the heads of Moderna and Pfizer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moderna chief Stephane Bancel had expressed skepticism about the efficacy of previous vaccines against Omicron, while Pfizer chief Albert Bourla spoke of possible reduced efficacy.<\/p>\n
He said it\u2019s normal in the first few weeks after a new variant emerges that everything is still nebulous, that you can\u2019t make any firm statements yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really have to be patient\u201d said the Israeli expert.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People need to exercise caution regarding premature assessments of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus, says the chair of Israel\u2019s advisory council of experts. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Ran Balicer reiterated his opinion that the next two weeks will be full of opinions, personal impressions, incomplete and ambiguous data regarding the new variant. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":1754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[238],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-foreign"],"yoast_head":"\n