imago
In Germany, the booster vaccinations are running at full speed, while in Israel even partly already a 4th vaccination against Covid-19 is administered. Now the head of the vaccine manufacturer Moderna has spoken out. According to Stephane Bancel, a 4th vaccination in autumn 2022 will probably not be avoidable.
Moderna chief gives forecast
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Meanwhile, the Corona pandemic has held the world in a tight grip for more than two years. While the situation was fairly relaxed last summer, at the moment, thanks to the Omikron variant, there is a red alert everywhere. First countries like Israel have started to vaccinate vulnerable people already for the 4th time. At the same time, many details of the third vaccinations have not yet been clarified. Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel has now commented on the administration of a possible fourth dose. “Assuming Omikron is an acceleration into the endemic phase, I still believe we will need boosters in the fall of 2022 and beyond,” Bancel had predicted Thursday while attending a Goldman Sachs virtual conference. Although Bancel suspects that the Omikron variant will infect nearly all those who have not yet contracted the disease or been vaccinated, he said, it remains to be seen how long that protection will then last. Because also in the future there will probably be further mutations of the virus.
Protection of the booster vaccination will probably be sufficient until spring
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People who got a booster vaccination toward the end of last year can expect to have good protection against infection until at least early spring. Shortly after the new Omikron variant was discovered, Moderna began adapting its vaccine to the new variant as a precautionary measure. “We have multivalent candidates that have already been optimized for earlier variants such as Beta or Delta and are already in clinical trials,” Moderna’s managing director for Germany, Gerald Wiegand, told Deutsche-Presse-Agentur. “That’s where data has already come together.” Meanwhile, AstraZeneca and Biontech are also working on a vaccine adapted to Omikron.