There are still many uncertainties around the Omicron variant, which has been causing the planet to panic for nearly a week.
Among the questions still unresolved, that of the effectiveness of current vaccines.
According to the managing director of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, interviewed by the Financial Times, “vaccines will be less effective against Omicron” than against other forms of the virus.
According to him, this "significant drop" is linked to "many mutations in the Spike protein", the protein on which the vaccine acts.
Read also Omicron variant: transmissibility, symptoms, vaccine resistance ... All that is still unknown
Worse, according to him, it will be "months before the pharmaceutical industries can manufacture specific doses on a large scale".
"It's not going to be good"
“All the scientists I've spoken to say,
it's not going to be good,
” the Moderna boss told The Financial Times.
"It is obviously a worrying variant" but "it will take time" to know how the vaccine reacts, for his part, qualified Professor Arnaud Fontanet, on France Inter this Tuesday morning.
"We do not yet have information on the effectiveness of vaccines," confirmed government spokesman Gabriel Attal on Europe 1 on the same day.
This Monday, the director of Pfizer, Scott Gottlieb, wanted to be reassuring.
"There is a reasonable degree of confidence in the fact that with a vaccination schedule of at least three doses ... The patient will have a fairly good protection against this variant," he explained on CNBC.
