Pfizer CEO says they can tackle new variants in 95 days

By Alex Glenn • Published: 25 Aug 2021 • 9:54

Valencian parents denounce the authorities for vaccinating their son without consent. Credit: Pixabay

Pfizer CEO says they can tackle new variants in 95 days, but that a vaccine resistant strain of the coronavirus is “likely” to appear.

Albert Bourla, the CEO for Pfizer spoke out on Tuesday, August 24, and said that he believes that the possibility of a vaccine resistant strain appearing is “likely”. He has said that Pfizer are constantly working with new variants as they crop up across the world, and that they would be able to create a vaccine capable of handling a resistant strain in only 95 days, according to Fox News.

‘Every time that a variant appears in the world, our scientists are getting their hands around it,’ said Bourla.

‘And they are researching to see if this variant can escape the protection of our vaccine. We haven’t identified any yet, but we believe that it is likely that one day, one of them will emerge.’

‘We have built a process that within 95 days from the day that we identify a variant as a variant of concern, we will be able to have a vaccine tailor-made against this variant.’

Other experts believe that a vaccine resistant strain is very unlikely though. Speaking to the Telegraph, Angela Rasmussen, a virologist from Canada’s University of Saskatchewan said: “It would require so many mutations in the spike protein that this virus wouldn’t ‘work’ anymore”.

In other coronavirus news, over 1000 revellers who partied at the Latitude festival tested positive for Covid. Sadly, festivalgoers who attended a festival intended to track the spread of the coronavirus tested positive after the event.

The Latitude Festival took part in the Government’s Events Research Programme, and saw around 40,000 festivalgoers enjoy the event which was held in Suffolk and ran from July 22 to July 25. All event goes had to prove that they had either been fully vaccinated or had to provide a negative coronavirus test.

The event was heavily monitored but according to data released by the Suffolk County Council 1,051 people tested positive for the coronavirus shortly after the event. According to Council data over 600 people were infected at the festival while over 400 people were already infected when they attended the event.

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