Moderna President Stephen Hoge said Wednesday that booster shots for the omicron variant could be ready for the U.S. by March.
The top infectious disease expert responded to accusations by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Over the past three weeks, there have been triple the cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations and deaths among unvaccinated people. The photo was taken by J. Scott Applewhite.
The images are from the same company.
Moderna has begun to develop an omicron-specific booster, as well as a multi-valent vaccine targeting omicron and three other coronaviruses, though that shot will take several more months.
The omicron booster could be approved in March, though the company would have to make the vaccine during testing.
The existing vaccines will be able to slow down if not completely stop, according to Hoge.
Fauci advised the public in a press conference Wednesday morning to get boosted now, as they may not need a variant-specific boost, though he said the Biden administration has been in contact with the pharmaceutical companies developing Covid-19 vaccines.
Fauci said that even though the vaccine isn't specifically targeted to the delta variant, it still protects against it even if it isn't specifically directed at it.
The key background.
The first documented case of the omicron variant in the US was reported in San Francisco. The person who recently returned from a trip to South Africa where the variant was first identified had not received a booster. Mild symptoms are currently being experienced by them. Fauci said it's too early to tell if the omicron variant is more deadly than the delta variant.
Pfizer and BioNTech are conducting clinical trials for an updated version of their vaccine that would target the full spike protein of the delta variant.
