Life could return to ‘normal’ next winter

One of the scientists behind Pfizer-BioNTech’s promising COVID-19 vaccine candidate says the potential cure could bring the world back to “normal” by next winter.

BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin said on Sunday that if high vaccination rates were achieved by the end of next year, the course of the pandemic could be changed, the BBC reported.

“I have no doubts that this will happen, because a number of vaccine companies have been asked to increase the supply, and so that we can have a normal winter next year,” Sahin said.

Sahin said the goal was to deliver hundreds of millions of doses worldwide by spring, which could “already start to have an impact” by preventing people from getting sick with the virus.

“The greatest impact will be [not] arrive until summer. Summer will help us anyway because the infection rate will go down, ”he said.

“What is absolutely essential is that we get a high vaccination rate until or before the fall. [or] next winter.

He said it was “extremely relieving” to receive the recent news that preliminary results indicated the vaccine was over 90% effective.

“We now know that our vaccine works, and most likely other vaccines will work as well,” Sahin said.

“So this is really a message that not only changes the way we develop vaccines, but also increases the likelihood that we can get this pandemic under control.”