Pfizer’s Bourla: Frequent Covid Boosters “Not a Good Scenario”

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Saturday said people getting COVID-19 booster shots every four to five months is “not a good scenario” and argued that an annual vaccine would be a better approach to fighting the virus.

Bourla told the Hebrew publication N12 News in an exclusive interview that the best way to combat COVID-19 is a vaccine that can be administered every year, not with boosters received every few months, according to Reuters.

Covid booster shots every 4 or 5 months not good says Bourla

“This will not be a good scenario,” he said when asked about people getting booster shots every four to five months, per the wire service. “What I’m hoping [is] that we will have a vaccine that you will have to do once a year.”

“Once a year – it is easier to convince people to do it. It is easier for people to remember,” he continued. “So from a public health perspective, it is an ideal situation.”

In December Bourla, a Thessaloniki native who left Greece at the age of 34 to pursue a career in the pharmaceuticals industry, was named CEO of the year by CNN Business.

In the interview, he also said Pfizer was working on a vaccine that could combat omicron.

“I do not know if we will have to use it, but we are working on the vaccine. We will know if it is the best solution only after we see the data,” he said. “We know we will be able to mass-produce the vaccine, if necessary because we are already building the infrastructure for production.”

Vaccine to counter all virus strains

Bourla said Pfizer was seeking to create a vaccine that could counter omicron in addition to other strains of the virus “that could be a solution.”

President Biden’s chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, said last November he hopes that if enough people get boosted, Americans “will not necessarily need” to get vaccinated every six months to a year.

“We would hope – and this is something that we’re looking at very carefully – that that third shot with the mRNA [vaccine] not only boosts you way up but increases the durability so that you will not necessarily need it every six months or a year,” he said.

Pfizer rolled out its vaccine in late 2020 on emergency approval and in 2021, it became the only vaccine-maker to win full approval from the FDA. Pfizer is also the only company with authorization to give boosters to those aged 12 to 17 for the COVID-19 vaccine.

Last week, the French biotech firm Valneva said that early studies show its Covid vaccine is effective against Omicron and it might be able to deliver doses to the European public in April.

Officials from Valneva released a statement to the public on Wednesday that indicated its preliminary studies showed that three doses of its inactivated coronavirus vaccine candidate “neutralized” the Omicron variant.