LONDON, (Reuters) – Two vaccine companies claimed their shots provided protection against Omicron. British data suggests that it could result in fewer hospitalisations for the Delta coronavirus variant. This supports conclusions made in South Africa.

Coronavirus infections rose dramatically in large areas of the world after the Omicron variant, which is highly infectious, spread. New curbs have been implemented in several countries. However, officials from the World Health Organization stressed that there is no way to know for sure if it has any virulence.

This variant was discovered in Southern Africa, Hong Kong and Hong Kong. The strain quickly rose in popularity in Britain, where the number of infections has soared to over 100,000 per day.

Initial data indicated that Omicron had a higher resistance to vaccinations than the ones it was able to resist. Research revealed that Omicron’s effects on the number of deaths and hospitalisations in Britain have been slower than expected.

University of Edinburgh researchers, who followed 22,205 Omicron infected people on Wednesday night, said they were 68% more likely to need hospitalization than they had expected based upon the Delta infection rate.

Researchers at Imperial College London said that they have seen evidence of an Omicron hospitalization risk reduction of 40% to 45% in comparison to Delta over the past two weeks.

AstraZeneca (NASDAQ) said that the three-course COVID-19 vaccine provided protection from the variant. It cited data from an Oxford University laboratory study.

This study was published in peer-reviewed medical journals. It showed that Omicron antibody levels after booster shots were greater than those of people infected by COVID-19 and had recovered from it naturally.

Hours earlier, Novavax (NASDAQ:) Inc stated that early data had shown its vaccine triggered an immune reaction against Omicron.

Two-dose, protein-based Novovax vaccine has been approved for use by the WHO and European Union regulators. However, it has not been approved by the United States.

The rally in global shares continued on Thursday, while currencies and safe-haven bond prices eased. This was despite the positive signs from markets that Omicron version of COVID-19 could be less severe then feared.

An analysis by South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases – NICD, supporting the UK data regarding hospitalizations has been released Wednesday.

However, NICD researchers have included some caveats.

They wrote that it was difficult to determine the contribution of the high level of immunity in the past population versus the intrinsically lower virulence of the observed lower severity of disease.

Maria van Kerkhove from WHO, the technical lead for COVID-19 at WHO, said that there was not enough information to support firm conclusions by U.N. agencies.

According to Omicron’s data, it was still in “messy,” according to Geneva Briefing on Wednesday.

Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: open https://tmsnrt.rs/2FThSv7 in an external browser.