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Pfizer CEO Hints at Annual Covid Vaccine Booster Roll-Outs
The CEO of the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer says he believes life will return to normal “within a year” – but his vision of ‘normal’ involves “annual re-vaccinations” against Covid. MailOnline has the story.
“Finally, Moderna’s CEO said this week that the pandemic is on course to be over in about a year. Do you agree with that?” ABC This Week host George Stephanapoulos asked [Albert] Bourla on Sunday.
“I agree that, within a year, I think we will be able to come back to normal life,” he concurred.
“I don’t think that this means that variants will not be continuing coming,” Bourla countered. “And I don’t think that this means that we should be able to live our lives without having vaccinations, basically. But that’s – again, remains to be seen.”
He said that the most likely outcome is that people will need to continue to get Covid booster vaccines annually, similar to how people get the flu shot each year to protect against the most likely variant of the influenza virus that year.
“The most likely scenario for me, it is that, because the virus is spread all over the world, that we will continue seeing new variants that are coming out,” he said. “And, also, we will have vaccines that – they will last at least a year.”
“And I think the most likely scenario – it is annual re-vaccinations. But we don’t know, really. We need to wait and see the data,” the pharmaceutical company chief added.
Pfizer is the only company of the three who were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Covid vaccines in the U.S. that has also been approved for a booster.
The booster shot, however, was only permitted by the FDA to be distributed to elderly people – those 65 and older – and high-risk individuals, like those with autoimmune disorders.
The Centers for Disease Control overruled on Friday the advisory panel’s decision, allowing the booster to be distributed for other high-risk individuals, including those who live or work in high contact areas. …
Morningstar analyst Karen Andersen expects boosters alone to bring in about $26 billion in global sales next year for Pfizer and BioNTech and around $14 billion for Moderna if they’re endorsed for nearly all Americans.
Pfizer’s stock price shot up from $30.99 on March 8th, 2020 – days before the World Health Organisation declared Covid a global pandemic – to $43.94 today.
Worth reading in full.
