Former White House adviser Slavitt: vaccines for the new COVID-19 strain will be ready by the summer
Vaccines for the new SARS-CoV strain 2 Omicron will be ready by the summer of 2022. This opinion was expressed by ex-adviser to the working group on combating COVID-19 at the White House Andy Slavitt on Twitter.
He explained that pharmaceutical companies, in particular Pfizer and Moderna, need 100 days to develop vaccines against the new variant of the coronavirus. He also noted that production, approval and distribution take time. According to the expert, it will take about two weeks to evaluate the effectiveness of mRNA-based vaccines.
“If we start in early December, then new vaccines will be available to the whole world by summer,” concluded Slavitt. >
The first reports of infection with a new strain in South Africa, Botswana and Hong Kong appeared on November 24. Later, news about the discovery of another variant of the evolution of COVID-19 appeared in Israel and Belgium. The WHO expressed concern about the new strain. According to scientists, B.1.1.529 has more mutations than is known to science about other anxiety-causing variants.