Moderna Inc. CEO Stephane Bancel said on Monday that his company aims to be able to produce two to three billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine this year, as "a lot of capacity is coming online" in the first quarter of 2022. Speaking at the World Economic Forum, he said Moderna is working on a single shot that would combine yearly boosters against the flu, COVID-19 and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). He predicted that, in the "best-case scenario," the shot will be available in some countries in the fall of 2023.
Meanwhile, White House Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci said COVID-19 can become endemic "only if we don't get another variant that eludes the immune response" triggered by existing variants. "It is an open question whether Omicron will be the 'live virus vaccination' everyone is hoping for," Fauci added.
