Drugmaker Moderna’s CEO set off fresh alarm bells in financial markets on Tuesday after he warned that COVID-19 vaccines were unlikely to be as effective against the Omicron variant as they have been against the Delta version.
Crude oil futures shed more than a dollar, the Australian currency hit a year low, and Nikkei gave up gains as Stéphane Bancel’s comments spurred fears that vaccine resistance could lead to more sickness and hospitalizations, prolonging the pandemic. “There is no world, I think, where (the effectiveness) is the same level . . .
we had with Delta,” Moderna CEO Bancel told the Financial Times in an interview. “I think it’s going to be a material drop. I just don’t know how much because we need to wait for the data.