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Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel warned on Wednesday that the coronavirus “is not going away” and that the world will have to live with it “forever”.
“We are going to live with this virus, we think, forever,” Bancel said.
Bancel made the remark while speaking at the JPMorgan Healthcare conference, CNBC reports. He said health officials will always need to be on the lookout for new variants of COVID-19 for new vaccines to be produced and for “SARS-CoV-2 will not go away.”
Several new variants have been detected, including one from the UK being significantly more infectious. The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that a distinct new variant had also been detected in Japan.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said of the new variants: “The more the virus spreads, the higher the risk of further changes in the virus. In particular, the transmissibility of some variants of the virus appears to increase. . “
Moderna’s two-dose vaccine has been shown in vaccine trials to provide approximately 95% immunity against the coronavirus. Moderna officials told the JPMorgan Healthcare conference on Tuesday that the vaccine is expected to provide immunity for at least a year.
Moderna chief medical officer Tal Zaks said the biotech company would consider whether a third booster vaccine would prolong the immunity offered by the vaccine.
“We believe there is an opportunity to boost, especially those at high risk, if you need it,” Zaks said.
As CNBC notes, the WHO currently states that there are four endemic coronaviruses in the world, but none are as contagious as SARS-CoV-2.
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