BANGKOK (NNT) - According to CNBC, Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla said Pfizer has already started working on a new Covid-19 vaccine specifically made to target the Omicron variant in case the existing vaccines are not effective against the strain.

 

He stressed that the current vaccines are effective against the coronavirus but may be less effective when it comes to the Omicron strain.

 

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical global leaders like Johnson & Johnson and Moderna also announced that they are working on vaccines to deal with Omicron.

 

On Monday, the World Health Organization warned the new Omicron variant poses a "very high" risk globally.

 

Alber Bourla added the current vaccine is very effective against Delta and he was also confident that the recently unveiled antiviral pill made by Pfizer would be effective against Omicron by cutting the hospitalization rate and fatality rate by almost 90 percent.

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2021-11-30

 

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Let's hope that this new variant is less virulent and causes hardly any symptoms.  

 

Getting a little tired of this 2 years in.  

Of course they all will be.

 

But it's quite a long process to make it through to the point where the masses are being vaccinated, and by that time a new variant will be well established.

 

No reason not to do it of course.

Omicron from the Greek alphabet,  derived from the Phoenician letter 'ayin',

'The all seeing eye'

Omicron virus announced 666 days after the the original covid announcement.

666 the number of the Beast.

Spooky or what.

2 hours ago, Blumpie said:

Let's hope that this new variant is less virulent and causes hardly any symptoms.  

 

Getting a little tired of this 2 years in.  

I'm totally with you on the 'getting tired' thing.

 

Had my third, booster shot couple of weeks ago, felt like c%%p for a day thinking well I guess it was worth it.

Then along came Omicron and the whole question of whether the current vaccines will be effective came into play

 

This must be a virus on steroids! Back in the day, the 1918 Spanish flu killed millions, but in a world before vaccines had burnt itself out within two years. This damn thing seems determined to stick around!

49 minutes ago, talahtnut said:

Omicron from the Greek alphabet,  derived from the Phoenician letter 'ayin',

'The all seeing eye'

Omicron virus announced 666 days after the the original covid announcement.

666 the number of the Beast.

Spooky or what.

Not really ,but it reminded me that it has been a long time since i watched Iron maiden.

So now it's time again ????

Pfizer will be bigger than Apple in a few years the way it's going.

Got to get the sales target bonus locked in

Cha Ching $$$$$$$$$$

Post from an unapproved source and reply reported and removed. 

 

9 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

the 1918 Spanish flu killed millions, but in a world before vaccines had burnt itself out within two years. This damn thing seems determined to stick around!

World population was 1.7 billion and estimated deaths of between 17 to 50 million

Same stuff, different labels on the bottles.....ka-ching$$$$

10 hours ago, talahtnut said:

Omicron from the Greek alphabet,  derived from the Phoenician letter 'ayin',

'The all seeing eye'

Omicron virus announced 666 days after the the original covid announcement.

666 the number of the Beast.

Spooky or what.

No

Haven't they consulted the Thai virologists yet? I thought mix and match was the solution here.

 

Seriously though, new vaccines to be developed for new strains? $$$$$ Sounds like everyone is using this pandemic for their own ends now. From governments to corporations to various loony fringe groups. Hop onto the Covid train. Choo Choo...

 

Maybe no coincidence that Omicron is an anagram of Moronic. 

Everyone talking about about these vast corporate Pharma companies like they are some sort of benevolent charity organization..

The same companies that started the opioid crisis that killed and addicted 100's of thousands in the US alone, synthesizing heroin (Oxycontin, Fentanyl, etc.) and being allowed (FDA, CDC, Congress, etc) to prescribe essentially end-of-life cancer medication to people suffering from erm, headaches. They corrupted every organization supposedly protecting public health along the way. That was well over a decade ago.. They got away with it, and made amazing profits.

Imagine the power, political influence (massive lobbying), and money that they have now. But it's all about "saving lives", eh?

Hopefully a bit of positive news

 

New data to show that Paxlovid (the Pfizer anti-Covid pill) overrides concerns about variants

 

Our in vitro data suggest that the efficacy of specific Mpro inhibitors such as PF-07321332 is not compromised in current COVID-19 variants.

 

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.11.28.470226v1

Pfizer and the other big Pharma companies must be finding it difficult to provide accurate financial forecasts to their directors given the fact that the governments of the world are providing them with so many new business opportunities.

 

And I bet Pfizer have even advised governments not to provide their own vaseline this time - it'll be provide on the house for such valuable repeat customers with a no-limit line of credit.

10 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

This must be a virus on steroids! Back in the day, the 1918 Spanish flu killed millions, but in a world before vaccines had burnt itself out within two years. This damn thing seems determined to stick around!

A lot less global movement back then.

11 hours ago, talahtnut said:

Omicron from the Greek alphabet,  derived from the Phoenician letter 'ayin',

'The all seeing eye'

Omicron virus announced 666 days after the the original covid announcement.

666 the number of the Beast.

Spooky or what.

Omicron..............its also an anagram of Moronic

 

spooky or what................

Edited December 1, 20214 yr by thaiflyer1

14 minutes ago, Gsxrnz said:

Pfizer and the other big Pharma companies must be finding it difficult to provide accurate financial forecasts to their directors given the fact that the governments of the world are providing them with so many new business opportunities.

 

And I bet Pfizer have even advised governments not to provide their own vaseline this time - it'll be provide on the house for such valuable repeat customers with a no-limit line of credit.

Different companies, different views.

 

AstraZeneca said the success of its vaccine remained undiminished. “Vaxzevria has been shown to be effective against all SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and Covid-19, in both clinical trials in up to 60,000 participants and from real world evidence in hundreds of thousands of people that have been vaccinated in over 170 countries.”

The upbeat message from AstraZeneca came as Dr Paul Burton, chief medical officer at rival US vaccine maker Moderna, admitted that Omicron was “very concerning” and “dangerous”. But he said its jab too would stay effective, adding: “We have many tools.”

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1528416/omicron-variant-pharma-companies-vaccine-jab-covid

Question is how can they work on another vaccine when they are still trying to work out what has caused this new strain WHO stated it would take at least two months to come up with a solution 

10 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

I'm totally with you on the 'getting tired' thing.

 

Had my third, booster shot couple of weeks ago, felt like c%%p for a day thinking well I guess it was worth it.

Then along came Omicron and the whole question of whether the current vaccines will be effective came into play

 

This must be a virus on steroids! Back in the day, the 1918 Spanish flu killed millions, but in a world before vaccines had burnt itself out within two years. This damn thing seems determined to stick around!

Well according to science forums/articles Covid 19 is going to be around for a considerable time yet, or perhaps follow the same trait as 'flu' etc. The problem is with its mutation capability and that mainly depends on the protein spikes. The spikes are responsible for attaching to human cells and in most cases it's the spikes that can mutate or the number of spikes increase (Omicron has more spikes than Delta) The amino acids in the proteins change position via some reaction and produce a mutated spike. Depending on how many amino acids change position, the number of mutations can (mathematically) run into billions (and much more at the top end). However, how many of those mutations result in a active spike or an inert one, remains to be seen. (with a 13 (10 being distinct) a.acid sequence and a protein length of around 1250+ one can play around with the maths, ha! Mine is just a broad outline and member placnx has more knowledge of the situation than I)

I find it amazing that they can look at a virus and make a vaccine like making a key for a lock.  

2 hours ago, huangnon said:

The same companies that started the opioid crisis that killed and addicted 100's of thousands in the US alone, synthesizing heroin (Oxycontin, Fentanyl, etc.)

Yes they are hardly saints but then again who is.  The biggest obstacle to controlling the drug companies is the government because the lobbyists for the drug companies control what the government rules are.  Oh, just have the government run the pharmaceutical companies.  Well if you want zero profit motivation therefore no innovation that would be great.  Also you think that "corruption" in terms of what gets produced or approved would not happen if the government controlled it. 

The drug companies did indeed invent things like Oxycontin.  However it was the government who allowed that product to be sold.  So who is at fault?  The drug does have some beneficial use to those suffering from chronic pain.  It was its misuse that caused the problem.  That is no different than those who abuse sedatives, pain relievers, alcohol, diuretics, cigarettes, or even glue.  Having big pharma controlling drug production has it negatives.  The alternative of having big government is worse since it concentrates everything under single control.  



 

16 hours ago, Blumpie said:

Let's hope that this new variant is less virulent and causes hardly any symptoms.  

 

Getting a little tired of this 2 years in.  

With eradication apparently off the table, Ideally a variant would be highly contagious but not cause serious illness. That would allow it to be the dominant strain while being relatively harmless.

Curious that when it came naming this new COViD variant—the WHO skipped over the subsequent Greek letters “nu” and “Xi”.  WHO explained that they wanted to avoid offending a large group of people.

Nu Xi variant sounds OK with me…

$$$ Cha-Ching ฿฿฿

17 hours ago, GinBoy2 said:

I'm totally with you on the 'getting tired' thing.

 

Had my third, booster shot couple of weeks ago, felt like c%%p for a day thinking well I guess it was worth it.

Then along came Omicron and the whole question of whether the current vaccines will be effective came into play

 

This must be a virus on steroids! Back in the day, the 1918 Spanish flu killed millions, but in a world before vaccines had burnt itself out within two years. This damn thing seems determined to stick around!

1918 everyone stuck together and wore masks so the virus died out with less hosts.  2021  hosts live and thrive on stupidity 

I read one opinion from a virologist/epidemiologist in relation to Omicron in that with regards to admittedly only early data, Omicron, although allegedly a lot more infectious, may have less severe symptoms. 

He said this could be a good thing if a highly virulent strain like this dominated, as it could rapidly spread and help cause COVID to naturally die off (words to that effect). 

 

So, from my layman understanding, a very infectious COVID strain with very mild symptoms that was allowed to spread could be the way to wipe this thing out.  

3 hours ago, Longwood50 said:

Yes they are hardly saints but then again who is.  The biggest obstacle to controlling the drug companies is the government because the lobbyists for the drug companies control what the government rules are.  Oh, just have the government run the pharmaceutical companies.  Well if you want zero profit motivation therefore no innovation that would be great.  Also you think that "corruption" in terms of what gets produced or approved would not happen if the government controlled it. 

The drug companies did indeed invent things like Oxycontin.  However it was the government who allowed that product to be sold.  So who is at fault?  The drug does have some beneficial use to those suffering from chronic pain.  It was its misuse that caused the problem.  That is no different than those who abuse sedatives, pain relievers, alcohol, diuretics, cigarettes, or even glue.  Having big pharma controlling drug production has it negatives.  The alternative of having big government is worse since it concentrates everything under single control.  


 

Understand what you're saying and agree to a certain extent. Big Pharma and any other corporation is driven by profit which is fair enough.

With the opioid crisis though, they (specifically Perdue Pharma with Oxycontin) became legalized heroin dealers, citing (their own) bogus conditions like "breakthrough pain" to massively ramp up dose size. They created a dependency.

The incentive to lobby Govt to mandate forever 'boosters' as a reaction to "variants" to make every single person in the world similarly dependent on them must be very appealing all round, at that level. I imagine.