is this is not a true vaccine effectiveness study. this is a laboratory experiment where what you do is take blood from individuals who have been vaccinated and you confirm that it neutralizes the virus that it was intended for in the laboratory and you compare those virus neutralizing antibodies to the omicron variant, and what it shows is not surprising that it confirms that people who have gotten two doses of the pfizer vaccine indeed neutralized the original but there a special drop in the neutralizing antibodies 40 fold. that may seem like an extraordinary amount but in virology, we deal in log values so the partial good news is that the antibodies didn t disappear entirely or a 1,000 fold decrease so theres
unknown, dr. anthony fauci urged americans not to get complacent. we ve really got to be careful before we make any determinations that it is less severe or really doesn t cause any severe illness comparable to delta. reporter: the new variant has now been detected in at least 18 states including louisiana where 17 n covid s were discoveren a norwegian cruiseline ship that just returned to port sunday. all crew was required to have vaccinated. a south african crew member was thought to have the omicron variant. is there any data to show how effective our current vaccines are when it comes to omicron. all vaccines have shown some degree of cross protection in terms of virus neutralizing antibodies so i suspect the same will be true of omicron. reporter: dr. peter hotez says vaccination remains the best protection.
this since the beginning, since january, february, that when you gave those first two doses so close together, you guaranteed that immunity would wane and would require a third immunization in order to give you that 30-fold rise in virus neutralizing antibodies and provide immune responses. that s not what s happening. it should have been messaged from the beginning it was a three-dose vaccine. i m not convinced we ll need bosters every year. it could be three and done. as dr. fauci points out, we won t know till we know. but i have some optimism that three doses may be adequate for this right now. interesting. good to see you, dr. hotez. thanks. thank you. coming up for us, russia warning of a return to military confrontation over ukraine as the united states tells moscow that there will be serious consequences if they move the invade ukraine again. the very latest from the region
30 to 40-fold rise in your virus neutralizing antibodies. and we know from other partial vaccine resistant variants like the beta variant that was first identified in south africa last year and the lambda variant, when you have high virus neutralizing antibodies, you have spillover or cross protection against the variant of concern. i am hoping that for those people who have had that third immunization, that that will be the case, they won t get infected or sick from the omicron variant. what may have happened in this individual that tony alluded to, although i wasn t too clear on the specifics, this individual may have gotten two doses and subsequently had waning immunity. and those individuals should be considered partially protected against a highly a partial vaccine resistant variant like omicron. and i think this is the pattern that we re going to see, katy.
0 the president was asked about this earlier this week and he said that had not been recommended to him. you re his chief medical adviser. do you think that s something the country should adopt? i m not so sure we should say that should be a requirement. we have 60 million people in this country who are not vaccinated, who are eligible to be vaccinated. let s get them vaccinated, let s get the people who are vaccinated boosted, let s get the children vaccinated. that s where we want to go as opposed to a requirement. reporter: some people say you have extinguished many of your options to get those people vaccinated and this is one of the ways, as the osha mandate is held up in court, this would be a way to get more people you know, that s a possibility. but for the people who are listening to this, we talk about why it s important to get vaccinated. i think what s happening now is another example of why it s important for people to get vaccinated who have not been vaccinated, b