As the U.S. broke its single-day COVID case record with nearly 500,000 new confirmed cases on Wednesday, scientists revealed a bit of good news in the fight against the highly contagious Omicron variant. A new study conducted in South Africa has found that a booster shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine protects against severe illness from the powerful strain, perhaps even better than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. As reported by The New York Times, the study juxtaposed over 69,000 J&J vaccinated health care workers against the same amount of unvaccinated participants. The results concluded that two doses of the vaccine reduced hospitalization rates by 85 percent. In a corresponding study, the Pfizer vaccine reduced hospitalizations by 70 percent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the J&J shot can on rare occasion cause blood clots, though the treatment is in fact approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
