An omicron-specific Covid vaccine will be ready by March but some experts warn it could be too late due to the variant's highly transmissible nature.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC on Monday that the company has already started manufacturing the vaccine that targets omicron and that it will be ready for distribution by the spring.
The vaccine was needed in December, according to Dr. William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center. Moss thinks that it is too late for the current omicron wave.
The targeted vaccine may not matter because everyone is going to be infectious, says Dr. Truelove.
According to the CDC, more than 85% of reported Covid cases were due to the omicron variant. Over 300,000 new cases of Covid were reported on Sunday.
Moss says that if an omicron-targeted vaccine had been available earlier, it might have been sufficient to prevent some of these illnesses. The assumption is that an omicron-specific booster would have high vaccine effectiveness against infections, but this is not known.
The vaccine developers could not make a targeted vaccine in time because the variant spread so quickly.
Pfizer CEO Bourla said it was not clear whether the new vaccine was needed or how it could be used.
With both Covid's and omicron's unpredictability, and with new variant likely to emerge, having a vaccine that targets omicron and other variant could be useful in some way.
Stephane Bancel told CNBC on Monday that Moderna is working on an omicron-specific booster, which will likely enter clinical trials soon.
Bancel said on Thursday that a fourth Covid shot may be needed in the fall as the effectiveness of boosters will likely decline over time.
Dr. Mark Sawyer, an infectious disease specialist at a hospital who served on the FDA advisory committee that approved Covid vaccines in 2020, says that the fall is plausible if a fourth vaccine shot is needed.
It makes sense to boost people in the fall becausepiratory illness is more common in the winter.
Israel has given out more than 250,000 fourth doses of medicine to people in need since January, according to The Times of Israel. The data from Israel shows that a fourth dose increases the amount of antibody in the body.
The fourth dose of Covid vaccine could be rolled out this week for people who are moderately to severely immunocompromised, according to The New York Times. The fourth dose was approved by the CDC.
It is still too early to say how that will be received by the general public. The impact of people receiving a third dose needs to be understood more fully.
Two doses aren't enough protection, one thing has become clear There is good evidence that the third dose provides more protection. Bourla said Monday that two shots are not enough against that variant.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of Monday, roughly 63% of the US population is fully vaccine-free. A booster dose has been given to only 36% of those people.
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