Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House Chief Medical Adviser, has spoken of his confidence that existing vaccines will be able to effectively target the Omicron variant, and that a new booster jab created to specifically fight this new strain is not needed. However, Fauci has said that pharmaceutical companies will produce vaccines that are variant-specific regardless. RT has the story.
“I’m not so sure that we’re going to have to get a variant-specific boost vaccine to get an adequate protection from Omicron,” Fauci told the health news website STAT on Friday. “Because if you look at protection against variants, it appears to relate to the level of immunity and the breadth of the immunity that any given vaccine can instil on you.”
While some experts have expressed concerns that the Omicron variant of the Covid is better able to evade the current crop of vaccines, Fauci has continued to place his faith in these shots. So too has Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, though he has claimed that a fourth dose may be needed to combat the new strain.
“With Omicron we need to wait and see because we have very little information. We may need [the fourth dose] faster,” he told CNBC this week.
While Fauci said that an Omicron-specific booster likely won’t be needed, he did add that drug companies like Pfizer “are going to be making variant-specific boosters.”
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