The CEO of pharmaceutical giant Moderna says the effectiveness of the current coronavirus vaccines likely drops when it comes to fighting the new strain Omicron
The news comes as the boss of Pfizer says the medical giant will be able to produce an updated version of the vaccine within 100 days.
The new COVID variant that was first discovered in South Africa has scientists and officials around the world back on edge. Now deemed a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Omicron variant could potentially spread more easily than Delta—and that’s not the only worry.
Some virus experts have also warned that this new variant could be more likely to evade the body’s immune response from both vaccination and natural infection than previous COVID variants due to a record number of mutations.
Omicron has not yet been reported in the U.S., and it’s still unclear how vaccine resistant it will be, but vaccine manufacturers are already getting ready to battle the variant.
This is a developing story – more to come.
