Moderna boss predicts current vaccines may be less effective against Omicron covid
by Julia Kollewe, Graeme Wearden and Peter Beaumont from on (#5SGZV)
Stock markets dip as CEO questions efficacy but others move to calm fears about risk of serious illness
The chief executive of the US drugmaker Moderna has predicted that existing vaccines will be less effective against Omicron than they have been against the Delta coronavirus variant, a comment that sharply lowered global stock markets.
Stephane Bancel said it would take two weeks to get data on how the existing vaccines performed against the new Covid variant and whether it caused severe disease - but it would take several months to tweak vaccines to tackle it.
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