Omicron: Moderna CEO doubtful on efficacy of current vaccines against new COVID variant

Stephane Bancel, the founding CEO of US drugmaker Moderna said the company's current vaccine may be less effective against the recently discovered COVID-19 variant, Omicron, in an interview with The Financial Times, British media reported on Tuesday.

According to the Moderna chief, it will take over two-three weeks to "exactly figure out" the effect of the vaccine on the Omicron variant. He said that calculating the severity of the disease will take over a month. "There is no world, I think, where the effectiveness is the same level…we had with Delta," The Guardian quoted Bancel as telling The Financial Times.

The Moderna chief believes that drug companies are currently struggling to choose whether their focus should be on the newer variant or the existing COVID variants. He suggested that the elderly who had contracted the coronavirus might need booster jabs to deal with the newer variants. He added that "it would be dangerous to move Moderna’s entire production capacity to an Omicron-specific jab."

Notably, in the third week of November, scientists in South Africa identified a heavily mutated strain of the coronavirus - B.1.1529 - named Omicron by the World Health Organization (WHO) which categorised it as a Variant of Concern. The WHO also sent a delegation of experts to collaborate with scientists to speed up the action needed to curb the spread of the infection. Despite swift action, the Omicron strain has infected people in several countries, including Australia, the UK, Spain, and Japan.

Stock market dips following Bancel's remarks

Meanwhile, the high number of variations on the Omicron spike protein, which the virus uses to infect human cells, and the rapid spread of the variant in South Africa suggest current vaccines would not be powerful, predicting a material drop in the effectiveness, The Guardian reported.

As reports of the Moderna CEO's statement went viral on media platforms, stocks dipped drastically on Tuesday. The Standard and Poor (S&P) 500 gave back 0.6%, the Nasdaq slipped 0.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.9%. European markets were also modestly lower. 

Notably, on November 27, Saturday, the stocks of crude oil fell about 13% after the WHO announcement, triggering worries about the arrival of another slowdown in the period of two years. Apart from the energy sector, airline stocks too suffered a massive downfall since the WHO announcement. As per AP, airline stocks quickly sold off, with United Airlines dropping 9.6% and American Airlines falling 8.8% on Saturday.

(Image: AP)