The CEO of the Covid-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna warned Wednesday that the coronavirus that has shut down the global economy and frustrated as well as overburdened hospitals will remain “forever.”
Public health officials and infectious disease specialists have said that there is a good chance that Covid-19 will be an existing disease, meaning it will be available to communities at all times, even though it may be at a lower level than it is now.
‘SARS-CoV-2 Is Not Going Away’
Moderna chief executive Stephane Bancel appeared to have admitted Wednesday that Covid-19 would be eaten, saying “SARS-CoV-2 is not going away.”
“We are going to live with this virus, we think, forever,” he said during a panel discussion at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference.
Health officials will have to keep looking for new strains of the virus, so scientists could develop vaccines to combat it, he said. Investigators in Ohio said Wednesday they discovered two new strains that may have originated in the U.S. and that one of them soon became widespread in Columbus, Ohio, within three weeks in late December and early January.
Pfizer researchers say the BioNTech vaccine appears to be effective in the important mutations which took place in the UK virus and the diversity found in South Africa.
Vaccine Roll Out
The Modern vaccine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in Americans 18 years of age and older. Additional studies still need to be completed in children, and their immune system may respond differently to vaccines than to adults.
U.S. officials are racing to distribute doses of both vaccines, but it will likely take months before the U.S. can vaccinate enough people to achieve herd immunity, meaning the virus won’t have enough new hosts to spread. Still, Bancel said Wednesday he expects the U.S. will be one of the first large countries to achieve “sufficient protection” against the virus.
There are already four coronaviruses spread around the world, but they are not as contagious or deadly as Covid-19, according to the World Health Organization.
Synopsis
- Stephane Bancel, CEO of Covid-19 vaccine maker Moderna, warned Wednesday that the virus will be around “forever.”
- Public health officials and infectious disease experts have said there is a high likelihood that Covid-19 will become an endemic disease, meaning it will be present at all times, though likely at lower levels than it is now.
- “SARS-CoV-2 is not going away,” Bancel said during a panel discussion at the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference.
