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Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said this week that due to the efficacy of the vaccine potentially waning over time, a fourth booster could be required before the fall of 2022.
Bancel made the proclamation at a Goldman-Sachs-organized healthcare conference, noting that his company is working on a booster shot dedicated to combating the Omicron variant of the virus, which will likely be made available within the next two months.
According to recent studies, booster doses are approximately 75 percent effective in preventing symptomatic infections two weeks after a shot is received; however, its efficacy wanes dramatically between five to 10 weeks later.
"I will be surprised when we get that data in the coming weeks that it’s holding nicely over time — I would expect that it’s not going to hold great,” he said. “I still believe we’re going to need boosters in the fall of ’22 and forward.”
The country has seen an unprecedented surge of new COVID-19 cases, as the country contends with the highly-transmissible Omicron variant, which has spread rapidly, though symptoms have largely been mild for those who contract the virus.
Nationwide, the seven-day average is now more than 574,000 new cases daily as states have seen a record number of new infections being reported.
“We have been saying that we believe first this virus is not going away,” Bancel said. “We’re going to have to live with it.”
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