COVID-19 booster necessary to confront ‘fast-spreading’ variant, Saudi health officials say

JEDDAH: The Saudi Ministry of Health has issued reassurances that a booster shot against the omicron variant can help people avoid the acute complications the virus can cause.
In a joint press conference with the Interior Ministry and the Saudi Public Health Authority on Sunday, Health Ministry spokesman Mohammed Al-Abd Al-Aly said that the world is registering huge numbers of COVID-19 infections and the current wave of the virus is the highest since the outbreak of the pandemic. He said that this is mainly down to the rapid spread of the omicron variant.
The spokesman said that the pandemic wave is accelerating rapidly in Saudi Arabia, with the numbers doubling every four to five days.
“We expect there will be more and more cases in the coming stage of the pandemic. However, the acceleration of these numbers may slow if we comply with the precautionary measures in all our activities,” he said.
Al-Aly said 69 people were in a critical condition with COVID-19 symptoms. “It is important here to say that most of the critical cases are people who have not completed their vaccinations. For that reason, we highly recommend that people should promptly take the vaccines,” he said.
More than 51 million vaccine doses had been administered in the Kingdom, and 23.1 million people had received two doses, Al-Aly said. There was evidence that a third “booster” shot was effective against the omicron variant.
Patients who had recovered from the disease should also take a booster, Al-Aly said, because immunity acquired after an infection was less effective against variants than vaccines.
In the UAE, there were 2,600 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, and three deaths. Daily infections rose above 2,000 on Dec. 29, after having fallen below 100 in October.
The UAE has banned non-vaccinated citizens from traveling abroad from Jan. 10, and fully
vaccinated citizens also require a booster to be eligible to travel.
The latest daily figures are still below a peak of nearly 4,000 in the UAE last January, and a record of over 4,700 in Saudi Arabia in June 2020.
There is evidence that while the omicron variant is more transmissible than previous strains of the virus, it is less likely to cause serious illness or death.