Stéphane Bancel, the CEO of Moderna, said in an interview published Tuesday that current vaccines for COVID-19 will likely be much less effective against the new omicron variant.
“I think it’s going to be a material drop,” he told the Financial Times. “I just don’t know how much because we need to wait for the data.”
The Financial Times reported that a recent Stanford study found the Moderna jab 56.6% effective against infection from the Delta variant.
President Biden said the variant is a “cause for concern, not a cause for panic.”
He said he is not considering any widespread U.S. lockdown and instead urged mask-wearing and vaccinations, even as a federal judge blocked his administration from enforcing a requirement that thousands of health care workers in 10 states get the shot.