Analysis reveals how much faster Omicron spreads and evades the immune system compared with the previous variant.
Vaccination reduces the risk of catching or transmitting the Delta and Omicron variants. But vaccines are less effective against Omicron.
Researchers at the UK Health Security Agency analysed data on 51,281 people who tested positive for Omicron or Delta between 5 and 11 December 2021 and their 151,592 close contacts. That difference is even more striking outside the home — people infected with Delta spread the infection to roughly 4% of people they came in contact with outside their home, whereas those with Omicron passed it to 8% of people, so the risk more than doubled. Omicron’s transmission advantage is more apparent outside the household because even with fewer opportunities for repeated and prolonged exposure to the virus, the risk of catching it is more than double compared to Delta, says Kilpatrick.
If someone had received three vaccine doses, they were also about twice as likely to pass Omicron on to another household member than they were Delta .The data also show that a third vaccine dose had a marginal beneficial effect on transmission of both variants compared to only two doses, although this effect was larger for Delta than it was for Omicron.
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