Pfizer CEO: 2 shots ‘offer very limited protection, if any’

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla acknowledged Monday that two doses of the vaccine his company produces with BioNTech “offer very limited protection, if any” against the dominant omicron variant.

Adding a third dose, he said in an interview with Yahoo Finance, provides “reasonable protection against hospitalization and deaths.”

“Against death, very good (protection), and less protection against infection,” the Pfizer chief added.

In a separate interview Monday, with CNBC, Bourla said the current COVID-19 mRNA vaccines “don’t have the safety profile that we hoped we can achieve with this technology.”

He said the pharmaceutical giant is working on a new vaccine “that will cover omicron as well.”

Bourla told Yahoo Finance “we are awaiting the final results” of clinical trials, but “it will be ready in March.”

However, the latest data indicate the omicron may already have peaked in some areas, including in New York City, one month after the first case was identified, Bloomberg News reported Monday. – READ MORE