As world leaders seek to reassure an anxious world about the emergence of Omicron, Moderna’s CEO believes that vaccines will not have the same level of effectiveness against the new variant. Meanwhile, other major vaccine developers such as Oxford University maintain that it is still too early as yet to draw conclusions, and existing vaccines can be updated in a matter of months.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said that “in no world” would vaccines protect against Omicron at the same level as they did against Delta. He added that he thought it would be “material drop”, though data was still to come. However, the scientists he spoke to had all said “‘This is not going to be good’.” This is because 32 of the variant’s 50 mutations are on the Spike protein, which current vaccines are designed to target.
He noted the reduced effectiveness of existing vaccines against Delta, saying that scientists had not expected such a high level of mutation to emerge for another two to three years. His comments come in stark contrast to others who stress that there is no information yet to suggest that Omicron is any more serious than previous variants, or that vaccines are less effective against it.
Oxford University released a statement saying they were monitoring the situation, but stood ready to produce a new vaccine if necessary.
“Despite the appearance of new variants over the past year, vaccines have continued to provide very high levels of protection against severe disease and there is no evidence so far that Omicron is any different.
“However, we have the necessary tools and processes in place for rapid development of an updated COVID vaccine if it should be necessary.”
Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla said in an interview with CNBC that his company had already started work on an updated vaccine, which would be ready in 100 days.
In the Netherlands, scientists from the country’s National Institute of Public Health said that they had detected Omicron on flights that had arrived from Southern Africa before the official announcement of the discovery by South Africa. The country is now trying to locate and isolate some 5000 individuals who arrived in the country from the region.
