The Omicron Variant and Vaccine Efficacy

With early data in on the Omicron variant, biotechnology analyst Matthew Harrison takes us through where we stand on vaccine efficacy headed into the winter.

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Andrew Sheets Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Chief Cross-Asset Strategist for Morgan Stanley Research.

Matthew Harrison And I'm Matthew Harrison, Biotechnology Analyst.

Andrew Sheets And on this special edition of the podcast, we'll be talking about updates on the Omicron variant and vaccine efficacy. It's Wednesday, December 8th at 4:00 p.m. in London.

Matthew Harrison And it's 11:00 a.m. in New York.

Andrew Sheets So, Matt, it's great to talk to you again. We've had a lot of small pieces of data come out recently on the Omicron variant and its ability or not to evade vaccines. What's the latest and what do we know?

Matthew Harrison So, we've had three studies published so far. I would caution that the samples are small, and we have to take them as that, but we do have some interesting trends developing. So, the first one is: most of the data has demonstrated a substantial drop in what are called 'neutralizing titers' against two doses of the vaccine. And so that unfortunately means that protection against symptomatic infection for people that have had two doses of the vaccine is quite limited. We don't know exactly what, but it's definitely below or at 50%. What we've also learned is that a third dose can help restore some of that protection. We don't know the durability of that dose and we don't know how much protection it restores, but it does restore some protection. I think importantly, though, one of the things to remember is that most of the globe has only had two doses. And as we run through this potential spread of Omicron over the next few months, most of the globe will continue to only have two doses. So that data on two doses does suggest that there can be substantial reinfection risk for those that have had the vaccine.

Andrew Sheets So Matthew, you know, when we're thinking about these numbers and we think about vaccine efficacy, maybe dropping to 50%, what does that mean in terms of the risks versus current variants and then the risks if you're not vaccinated at all?

Matthew Harrison Right. So, I think there are two important things that I would say. So, the first is, what we're talking about here is symptomatic infection. Some of the other data that's come out has been on T cells. T cells are the second component of your immune system. They help kill virus once it's already infected in cells, and the T cell data looks like there remains substantial protection driven by T cells. And so, I think what that says is even though we're seeing substantial drops in protection against symptomatic infection, my hope continues to be based on these data and other data we've looked at, that protection against severe outcomes such as hospitalization and death could remain quite high.

Andrew Sheets So that seems quite important for both the public health outcomes. And then, as would follow the impact in the economy, is that it might be more likely that somebody with two shots of a vaccination regime would get some form of COVID, would show symptoms, but it might be still much less likely that they would end up in the hospital with severe cases, as the vaccines would still help the body protect against those more extreme outcomes.

Matthew Harrison That is my hope and based on the data that we're seeing so far, I would note, as we talked about at the beginning, that all of these studies that we're seeing come out right now are preliminary. You know, my hope is over the course of the next week or so, we're going to have a lot broader data set available to answer many of the questions we're talking about. And so, we're still going to have to, take our time with this because we don't have complete information yet.

Matthew Harrison So, Andrew, one of the questions I've been thinking about here is, and you touched on it in some of the questions you were asking me, is how does the market handle a substantial increase in the number of infections, but maybe a lower proportion of those infections ending up with severe disease than we've seen in previous waves?

Andrew Sheets Yeah, thanks Matthew. So look, I think this distinction between, you know, any case of COVID that shows symptoms and a case of COVID that results in somebody being hospitalized, you know, that is a pretty big distinction. And again, it's quite possible to see headlines and get quite worried about headlines that you know this variant evades vaccines and kind of to think that, "oh, then vaccines are powerless to stop it" when you know, I think as your research has rightly highlighted, if the vaccines can still provide a powerful mitigant against the most severe cases against hospitalizations, and you can still avoid some of the most severe public health outcomes that really would force much bigger restrictions. And those are the types of things that would really slow economic activity and really disrupt the economy, in addition to obviously having a really tragic impact on human life. So I think that distinction is important.

Andrew Sheets We obviously, as you mentioned, it's early and we need to watch it in terms of just more cases, you know, evolving again, I think we have to see how public health officials react to that. How do consumers react to it? Does it impact consumer behavior around the holidays? And you know, we do think U.S. economic activity and European economic activity are pretty strong at the moment, so they have some cushion. But obviously it needs to be monitored.

Andrew Sheets I think the other economy we need to watch is China, which is operating with a zero COVID policy. So, a quite restrictive policy trying to prevent any COVID cases. You know, if the indications are that we are dealing with now two more contagious variants: the Delta variant, and the Omicron variant, you know, there's a question of, does that complicate any sort of zero COVID strategy when you are dealing with a more contagious virus? And that's another big economic story that we have to keep our eye on.

Matthew Harrison Andrew, that's great. Thanks for taking the time to chat today.

Andrew Sheets Matt, always great to talk to you.

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