This is a recurrent question which answer changes over the months. Will the pandemic end? And if so, when? Interviewed on that matter by Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel has an idea. He says the Covid-19 pandemic will be over in a year, in the second semester of 2022. And the laboratory director has arguments: “If you look at the industry-wide expansion of production capacities over the past six months, enough doses should be available by the middle of next year so that everyone on this earth can be vaccinated”.
“Those who do not get vaccinated will immunize themselves naturally, because the Delta variant is so contagious. In this way we will end up in a situation similar to that of the flu”, he added.
This past July, Moderna French CEO already said the Covid-19 “pandemic period will be over by the end of 2022”, adding “the virus will not disappear from the planet”.
Still in the interview for Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Moderna CEO also addresses booster shots and says he is working on the development of “a yearly booster covering all respiratory diseases of a viral origin”.
Stéphane Bancel goes further, comparing this vision of Moderna to an iPhone: “Every year, we will adapt to the year’s strain” and “every year, we want to add more viruses like one adds an application to an iPhone”. He thinks combined vaccines will be available in 2023 on the market.
