A registered nurse applies a dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Larry Hammers, a worker at the hospital.
The vaccine maker could roll out a reformulated vaccine against the omicron coronaviruses early next year, according to the Chief Medical Officer of Moderna.
It is not clear if current Covid vaccinations will provide protection against the new variant that has begun to spread around the globe.
Burton said on the Andrew Marr Show that the Moderna vaccine platform can move very fast and that we should know about the ability of the current vaccine to provide protection in the next couple of weeks.
If we have to make a brand new vaccine, I think it will be early 2022, before we have large quantities of it.
The World Health Organization has classified Omicron as a "variant of concern", meaning it is more infectious, more resistant to vaccines, and more skilled at evading public health measures. The variant has 30 changes to the spikeProtein that allow the virus to enter the body. The officials warned that many of the changes could lead to increased resistance to the vaccines and limit their effectiveness.
The vaccine maker made hundreds of workers come to work on Thanksgiving to study the new variant.
Burton said that current vaccines could provide some protection. Unvaccinated people should get vaccinations or get booster shots if they are eligible.
