On the first day of the #HierWirdGeimpft (Getvaccinated Here) Covid-19 vaccination campaign, Doctor Hardtmann held a needle with the vaccine Moderna in a temporary vaccination center inside the Excursion boat Alexander von Humboldt.
Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, said on Monday that it will take months to develop and ship a vaccine that targets the omicron variant of the virus.
A higher dose of the company's booster shot could be ready sooner.
The higher dose could be done right away, but it will be months before the variant is ready to ship in large quantities, according to Bancel.
Moderna believes that the omicron variant is highly infectious, but it will take at least two weeks to determine how much the mutations have impacted the efficacy of the vaccines currently on the market.
He said that if the vaccine dropped too much, they might decide to give a higher dose to people at high risk, and the elderly should get a fourth dose.
The World Health Organization said in a paper that omicron has more than 30 different variations on the spike protein. According to the paper, these genes are associated with higher transmission and possibly reduced protection.
Omicron was first identified in South Africa. The variant is already spreading around the world. He pointed to flights that arrived in AmAmsterdam from South Africa on Friday in which 61 passengers tested positive for Covid. According to the Dutch National Institute for Public Health, at least 13 of them have the omicron strain.
Bancel said that it is already present in most countries. Most countries that have direct flights from South Africa in the last seven to 10 days already have cases in their country that they may not be aware of.
Non-citizens who have traveled to South Africa and seven other nations in the past 14 days are not allowed into the U.S. The European Union and the United Kingdom have similar travel restrictions.
The worst day of the year was Friday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 905 points, or 2.51%.
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