Two shots of Pfizer's Covid vaccine offers around 70 percent protection against severe disease from Omicron, according to Dr Ron Whelan, Head of the Discovery Covid19 task team in South Africa. The emergence of the highly mutated variant, first detected in South Africa last month, sparked fears that it could cause severe disease, be more contagious or could evade vaccines. SOUNDBITES of Dr Ron Whelan, head of the Discovery Covid19 task team