The head of BioNTech, coronavirus vaccine partner to pharmaceutical company Pfizer, has a message for people amid the emergence of the omicron variant: Don’t panic.
“Our message is: Don’t freak out, the plan remains the same: Speed up the administration of a third booster shot,” Sahin said Tuesday.
Although it is possible that omicron may prove better than the delta variant at evading antibodies, Sahin said, it is too early to say whether the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine would need to be adjusted. Billions of doses have been administered globally.
“Whether or not we will need extra protection by an adapted vaccine, this remains to be seen, later,” Sahin said.
This is a notably different tone from that taken by Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel, who on Tuesday predicted “a material drop” in protection by existing vaccines at combating omicron compared with previous variants of the virus. “All the scientists I’ve talked to … [say], ‘This is not going to be good,’ ” he said.
Bancel told the Financial Times that it would take months for pharmaceutical companies to manufacture variant-specific doses to address omicron, as public health officials and vaccine makers worldwide hasten to examine the impact of the largely unknown variant.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which makes a popular antibody cocktail used as a treatment for covid-19 patients, also warned this week that the therapy could be less effective against the omicron variant.
However, World Health Organization officials in Europe said Wednesday that there was no evidence so far to suggest that vaccines would be less effective against omicron.
They also said it was more likely that vaccine makers would need to adjust rather than overhaul existing vaccines to combat the omicron variant.