Modern CEO says 4th vaccine dose may be needed to control a future wave of Covid ‘hidden’ variants

The number of Covid cases in the United States continues to decline steadily, and while some countries elsewhere are facing recent increases in cases, government officials are reassuring Americans that there will be no more waves this spring.

Yet America’s most profitable vaccine manufacturers are pushing for a fourth vaccine to become available and insist it is needed.

Earlier this month, Moderna submitted data to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to launch a fourth-dose vaccine for all US adults. The move was unexpected, especially since CEO Stephane Bancel had previously said that a new dose probably wouldn’t be needed until after the drop.

CNBC’s Bancel debuted on Thursday squeak boxrejecting previous predictions and now claiming that the next wave of the virus could hit America “very soon”.

His comments came as the US posted 30,733 cases per day, a 4% drop last week and a 95% drop from the Omicron peak in mid-January. However, there are signs that this may soon be reversed, as nine states have seen an increase in the number of cases over the past two weeks.

Even in the UK, cases have started to flare up in recent weeks after numbers have plummeted for weeks. The US is often a few weeks behind the UK, leaving US officials very wary of the same fate as the state.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert at the time and a generally more cautious voice during the pandemic, reassured Americans on Wednesday that the number of cases could rise slightly, but that a large-scale increase as experienced is unlikely. United States during the winter.

“Many countries around the world already have some of the 4th dose tests in high-risk people,” Bancel said.

“There’s a huge wave of BA.2 variants in Europe right now, as many public health experts say it should start very soon in the US.”

However, a growing list of experts says otherwise.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a slight increase,” Fauci said at a Washington Post event this week.

“Unless something changes drastically, I don’t really see a big wave coming.”

Experts at Harvard University said the latent variant BA.2, which is believed to be the cause of the recent increase in the number of cases, would likely be the start of a wave in America if it were short-lived.

“There’s really no evidence in the region of an increase in cases or deaths that matches this increase in BA.2 infections that we’re seeing,” said Bronwyn MacInnis, director of genomic pathogen surveillance at the Harvard Broad Institute. , in the Harvard Journal this week.

Named for its ability to evade detection by certain sequencing methods, the “hidden” variant is considered the most contagious version of Covid to date, but is as mild as Omciron’s BA.1 version from last year. .

According to the latest data released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), BA.2 represents 35% of active Covid cases in the United States, where BA.1 is still dominant.

However, the share of BA.2 Covid infections in America is increasing, with the variant accounting for only 23% of cases in the previous week.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel (left) said on Thursday morning that Americans need a fourth COVID-19 vaccine to protect themselves from an impending virus wave. Dr. Anthony Fauci (right), one of the more cautious voices during the pandemic, does not believe the rise in Covid cases will turn into a full wave

Although it has not yet had a major impact on the number of cases, data from abroad, cited by Bancel, raise some concerns.

Some countries that had been declining in cases for months, such as the UK, France and Denmark, saw the number of infections suddenly spike last week. Cases appear to have stabilized in these countries and growth has stalled for now.

Internationally, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported last week that there were more than 12 million cases of Covid-19 worldwide, up 7% from the previous week.

However, the death toll fell 23% to just under 33,000, another sign of the virus’s declining death toll.

The increase in cases has been concentrated entirely in the Western Pacific, where the daily number of infections increased by 23% last week. In Europe, infections stabilized after a slight 2% increase last week.

Deaths in the US on Thursday remain low, falling below 1,000 a day for the first time since August and up 18% last week.

Even if the number of cases remains low, a fourth dose may still be unavoidable. Fauci, Bancel and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla are among those who say an additional dose has been on the way for months, and Bourla even says annual doses will be needed over the next decade to keep the pandemic under control.

While the injections are considered safe and effective by health authorities around the world and likely saved millions of lives last year, Pfizer and Moderna’s goals in launching the vaccine are not exactly humane.

Each company has made billions of dollars selling vaccines in the United States and other countries around the world.

Pfizer, its partners BioNTech, and Moderna estimate total sales of $50 billion in COVID-19 vaccine sales this year, and those numbers will increase when the fourth dose is approved.

Shortly before Moderna filed its application, Pfizer filed with the FDA for approval of a fourth Covid vaccine for Americans aged 65 and over.

Both companies hope to launch vaccines for young children in the near future. Currently, Moderna’s shot is only available to adults in the United States, while Pfizer’s is for ages five and up.

Moderna on Wednesday announced that it has successfully completed Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials for the injection of COVID-19 in children aged six months to 17 years.

Injections of up to a quarter of adults were found to be approximately 40% effective in preventing infection from the Omicron variant, compared to the levels of protection it offered to adults.

“We’re really excited about the data because we’ve reached the primary endpoint, which is neutralization of antibodies in adults, with boosters, which is just as good as what we’ve seen in adolescents,” Bancel said. Said.

However, not all experts agree that vaccines for these young children are necessary to end the pandemic.

Children are at low risk of COVID-19 with an ever-growing body of data showing that they are not as affected as adults.

The CDC reports that children are responsible for less than only 0.1% of Covid deaths in the United States since the start of the pandemic.

A University of Utah study last year found that 50% of pediatric Covid cases are asymptomatic. The study was done before the milder variant of Omicron appeared, which means that children now have a lower risk of experiencing symptoms.

A study done in Germany shows that in adults they only release 25% of virus particles.

Data released by New York state officials late last month also showed that the injection was only 12% effective in preventing Covid infection for children ages five to 11.

There are also concerns about myocarditis, which is more limited in young recipients of Moderna than with other vaccines.

Last year, European countries such as Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark and France restricted or stopped the use of the Moderna injection in people aged 30 and younger who feared that recipients could develop a rare heart infection.

Instead, authorities in these countries recommended that young people get the Pfizer vaccine.

However, Pfizer has faced some difficulties in getting its vaccine available among younger age groups.

The company had to shift its Covid vaccination regimen for young children to two doses of three, as doses as small as three micrograms are almost completely ineffective in three- and four-year-olds.

The New York City-based company has submitted data to regulators for the Covid vaccine in children under the age of five, although the approval process was halted earlier this year.