According to early data published on Tuesday by the ONS, the triple-vaccinated are 4.5 times as likely to test positive for a probable Omicron infection than the unvaccinated. The double-vaccinated, meanwhile, are 2.3 times as likely to have a probable Omicron infection.
The data from the ONS Infection Survey, while provisional, adds support to the claim that the Omicron variant has significant vaccine evading ability.
Note that this is the probability of an infection being Omicron given a person is infected, so it doesn’t tell us how likely a person is to test positive in the first place. This means it doesn’t tell us that the vaccines are making things worse overall, only that they are making it much more likely that a vaccinated person is infected with Omicron than another variant. In other words, it is a measure of how well Omicron evades the vaccines compared to Delta. The fact that the triple-vaccinated are much more likely to be infected with Omicron than the double-vaccinated confirms this vaccine evading ability.
The data also doesn’t tell us anything about the severity of Omicron, or how well the vaccines continue to protect against serious disease.
It does mean, though, that the current Omicron outbreak is largely an epidemic of the vaccinated and is being driven, not by the unvaccinated, but by those who have been double and triple jabbed. Combined with the fact that Omicron has quickly grown to be the majority of new infections, it suggests the vaccinated are playing an outsize role in the current outbreak.