STAT+: Pharmalittle: Moderna CEO cautions Covid shots will be less effective against Omicron; Pfizer predicts new vaccine for the variant in 100 days

Rise and shine, everyone, another busy day is on the way. We can tell because the official mascot is itching to bound about the Pharmalot grounds in search of varmint and the official and unofficial to-do lists are growing longer. But what can you do? The world, such as it is, keeps spinning. So to brace ourselves, we are brewing cups of stimulation. Our choice today, for those tracking this sort of thing, is butter pecan, a smooth and aromatic favorite. Meanwhile, we have once again assembled a few items of interest for you in hopes that your journey goes well today. As always, please do keep in touch, and stay safe. …

Moderna (MRNA) predicts that existing Covid-19 vaccines will be less effective against Omicron than they have been against the Delta version, sending global stock markets sharply lower, The Guardian writes. Moderna chief executive officer Stéphane Bancel says while it would take two weeks to get data on how the existing vaccines perform against the new Covid variant – and whether it causes severe disease – it would take several months to tweak the current vaccines to tackle Omicron. “There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level … we had with Delta.” But he warned it would be risky to shift Moderna’s entire production capacity to an Omicron-specific jab.

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