What if this new variant is resistant to vaccines?
Not going to speculate. Avoid the media hype, take a deep breath and let's wait for the word from real experts.

Omicron: How worried should we be?
Scientists are closely watching a new variant - but there are few clear answers.

It is early days and the confirmed cases are still mostly concentrated in one province in South Africa, but there are hints it may have spread further.
Immediately there are questions around how quickly the new variant spreads, its ability to bypass some of the protection given by vaccines and what should be done about it.
There is a lot of speculation, but there are very few clear answers.
There have been many examples of variants that have seemed scary on paper, but came to nothing. The Beta variant was at the top of people's concerns at the beginning of the year because it was the best at escaping the immune system. But in the end it was the faster-spreading Delta that took over the world.
This variant seems to give quirky results (known as an S-gene dropout) in the standard tests and that can be used to track the variant without doing a full genetic analysis.
That suggests 90% of cases in Gauteng may already be this variant and it "may already be present in most provinces" in South Africa.
But this does not tell us whether it spreads faster than Delta, is any more severe or to what extent it can evade the immune protection that comes from vaccination.
It also does not tell us how well the variant will spread in countries with much higher vaccination rates than the 24% of South Africa that is fully vaccinated, although large numbers of people in the country have had Covid.
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