Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said people will “likely” need a booster dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of getting fully vaccinated. His comments were made public Thursday but were taped April 1. Bourla said it’s possible people will need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus annually.“A likely scenario is that there will be likely a need for a third dose, somewhere between six and 12 months and then from there, there will be an annual revaccination, but all of that needs to be confirmed. And again, the variants will play a key role,” he told CNBC’s Bertha Coombs during an event with CVS Health. “It is extremely important to suppress the pool of people that can be susceptible to the virus,” Bourla said. The comment comes after Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky told CNBC in February that people may need to get vaccinated against Covid-19 annually, just like seasonal flu shots.
Researchers still don’t know how long protection against the virus lasts once someone has been fully vaccinated.Pfizer said earlier this month that its Covid-19 vaccine was more than 91% effective at protecting against the coronavirus and more than 95% effective against severe disease up to six months after the second dose. Moderna’s vaccine, which uses technology similar to Pfizer’s, was also shown to be highly effective at six months.Pfizer’s data was based on more than 12,000 vaccinated participants. However, researchers say more data is still needed to determine whether protection lasts after six months.
Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Remains on Pause as CDC Panel Requests More Information
An advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declined to make any new recommendations on the use of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, which will remain paused as the investigation into rare reports of severe blood clots continues. Many of the experts on the committee said they did not have enough information at this time to make a decision, particularly while the other two Covid-19 vaccines authorized in the U.S. are widely available and have no such safety concerns.
It will be at least a week until the panel is scheduled to reconvene. “We do need to better understand the risk, which we know is going to be very rare, very low, but we really don’t know exactly how low,” or how best to treat the cases, Dr. Beth Bell, a member of the advisory panel and a clinical professor in the department of global health at the University of Washington in Seattle, said during the meeting Wednesday. Most experts agreed that the continued pause on Johnson & Johnson’s use should not be indefinite, and would like to reconvene within the coming weeks to make a decision.