Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day three d
Speaker 1: and thirty three since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: Today's main story on the heels of developing near miraculous vaccines.
Speaker 1: Drugmakers are scrambling to make booster shots that can fight
Speaker 1: COVID nineteens dangerous new variants. But first, here's what happened
Speaker 1: in virus news today. Some cities in Asia and Europe
Speaker 1: that have endured strict lockdowns are gradually opening up. Hong
Speaker 1: Kong will double the number of people who can eat
Speaker 1: together at a restaurant if the virus remains contained over
Speaker 1: the lunar New Year. Officials who spoke in a a briefing
Speaker 1: on Wednesday said they would also open other venues like
Speaker 1: cinemas and beauty parlors next week. Germany's Angela Merkel proposed
Speaker 1: a gradual reopening today while arguing for the current restrictions
Speaker 1: to remain in place until early March. In Germany, disease
Speaker 1: rates have declined steadily since their December peak, but things
Speaker 1: aren't loosening up everywhere. The Japanese government is planning to
Speaker 1: keep its state of emergency in ten prefectures in place,
Speaker 1: despite earlier reports that it was considering lifting it in
Speaker 1: some areas. According to local broadcaster f n N, officials
Speaker 1: are maintaining restrictions to ease pressure on the medical system.
Speaker 1: Japan will start vaccinations by the middle of next week. Finally,
Speaker 1: Eli Lily combination antibody drug was cleared for emergency use
Speaker 1: by the US Food and Drug Administration. The drug will
Speaker 1: offer doctors a treatment option that is expected to help
Speaker 1: to combat mutations. The FDA authorized the treatment for use
Speaker 1: in COVID positive adults and children twelve and older who
Speaker 1: are at high risk of getting very sick from the disease.
Speaker 1: And now for today's main story. Just two months ago,
Speaker 1: the incredible performance of new vaccines from Moderna and Fighter
Speaker 1: had people cheering for an imminent end to the pandemic.
Speaker 1: But an onslaught of fast spreading and potentially dangerous mutations
Speaker 1: of the virus change that. So now, even as pharma
Speaker 1: companies ramp up production in the early stages of a
Speaker 1: massive rollout, they are racing to retool their vaccines ategies.
Speaker 1: I spoke to health reporter Robert Langrith, who reports that
Speaker 1: booster shots could give drugmakers a lucrative new revenue stream.
Speaker 1: What makes variants of COVID nineteen so problematic when it
Speaker 1: comes to how effective of vaccine might be, say a
Speaker 1: vaccine from MODERNA or Fiser. Yeah, so what's happening out there?
Speaker 1: As you know more than a hundred million people around
Speaker 1: the world who have gotten infected, that essentially means, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred million chances of mutation, and you accumeate enough
Speaker 1: chances to develop mutation, sometimes the virus will start to
Speaker 1: mutate and evolve in ways that are that are bad
Speaker 1: for us. One way that's happened is that in the
Speaker 1: UK's evolved to be more transmissible, and that is the
Speaker 1: B one one seven strains now rapidly spreading in the US.
Speaker 1: Now that strain seems the vaccines seem to be pretty
Speaker 1: effective against that string. But what people are really worried
Speaker 1: about are some mutations that have occurred in South Africa
Speaker 1: and then some similar ones in Brazil where the virus
Speaker 1: appear to have evolved in a way that may allow
Speaker 1: it to you know, partially escape the effects of current
Speaker 1: vaccines and the strain they're people they're most worried about.
Speaker 1: Uh as to be one three one strain in UH
Speaker 1: South Africa, and in some trials so far where vaccines
Speaker 1: from both Johnson and Johnson and the vaccines from novavacts
Speaker 1: have been tested in South African patients recently that their
Speaker 1: vaccines were less effective in South Africa where that variant
Speaker 1: is common. Now, we don't have direct data on this
Speaker 1: from the Maderna and Fiser vaccines. What we do have
Speaker 1: is data, kind of lab data suggesting that those vaccines
Speaker 1: won't generate as high levels of antibodies against UH, this
Speaker 1: vaccine partially evading strain. Both Maderna and Fightsers still think
Speaker 1: their vaccines will be effective, but they may not be
Speaker 1: you know, quite as powerfully effective. So if it does
Speaker 1: turn out that they are not as effective as they
Speaker 1: had hoped against some of these variants, what are the
Speaker 1: options for drug makers going forward with this problem? The
Speaker 1: problem is the worry is as you know, these these
Speaker 1: these more people get vaccinated with existing vaccines and these
Speaker 1: strains start to spread. You know, these strains could be
Speaker 1: selected for and spread even more widely. And then there's
Speaker 1: an additional worry that there could be you know, they
Speaker 1: could accumulate addition mutations that allow them to even further
Speaker 1: and more more significantly escape the vaccines effects. You know,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a nightmare scenario, kind of a total
Speaker 1: escape Australia of the virus which doesn't exist here. But
Speaker 1: that's kind of the worry. So what companies are you
Speaker 1: know starting to retool and think about, you know, how
Speaker 1: to come up with potential either new versions of vaccines
Speaker 1: to account for these new strains or booster shots, uh
Speaker 1: that account for the rains will be at on the
Speaker 1: top of the existing vaccines, say six or twelve months
Speaker 1: down the line. Now, Maderna has announced that it is gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, work on some booster shots shot studies, including
Speaker 1: one particularly you know, developed for the South Africa strain,
Speaker 1: the fisor CEO Albert bord Law. He said in a
Speaker 1: call with investors in February two. He said it was
Speaker 1: increasingly likely that these mutations, uh, you know, there's gonna
Speaker 1: likely to be booster shots in the in the future
Speaker 1: and kind of like a long term market for these vaccines, which,
Speaker 1: of course, uh you know what's bad I guess for
Speaker 1: the world in some ways is potentially good for drug makers.
Speaker 1: Good that means drug makers will have products to sell.
Speaker 1: These vaccines is not just some kind of a one
Speaker 1: time thing. They'll products to sell in the future. So
Speaker 1: how long do we expect it will take for these
Speaker 1: booster shots to be developed and made available. Good thing
Speaker 1: about messenger RNA is a revised versions of vaccine can
Speaker 1: be developed quite quickly because it's a technology involves you know,
Speaker 1: synthetic chemistry, doesn't evolve growing anything, growing viruses in cells
Speaker 1: or proteins in a lab at the synthetic chemistry, so
Speaker 1: that that can be done faster. That's good news. The
Speaker 1: tricky part is that it's an evolving situation, and you know,
Speaker 1: you don't want to develop a booster shot that turns
Speaker 1: out to be obsolete a few months now. You want
Speaker 1: to kind of figure out what the main strains that
Speaker 1: are emerging that have reduced efficacy and you know, developed
Speaker 1: new versions of the vaccines against those. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of a tricky thing because we need to get consensus
Speaker 1: and kind of what's happening out there. So it's an
Speaker 1: evolving situation. The FDA Food and Drug Administration has indicated
Speaker 1: is that you know it's going to allow companies if
Speaker 1: we do need booster shots or your second generation versions
Speaker 1: of the vaccines it's gonna allow companies to move much faster.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna have to do trials, efficacy trials and
Speaker 1: thousands of thousands of patients like to do the first time.
Speaker 1: There's going to be kind of streamline process based on
Speaker 1: what we've learned from the first round of vaccine. So
Speaker 1: these studies should go much faster. I mean overall, if
Speaker 1: not a cause for panic, but it doesn't cause for concern.
Speaker 1: And I just want to kind of break down the
Speaker 1: US a little bit more, you know, just in terms
Speaker 1: of how booster shots might work. Is it possible that,
Speaker 1: for example, any of the drugmakers moderna advisor, Johnson and
Speaker 1: Johnson whatnot, would develop a booster shot and that would
Speaker 1: be linked to combat, say just the South Africa variant,
Speaker 1: or could a booster shot address a number of different
Speaker 1: variants of COVID nineteen. Yeah, and so there's a few
Speaker 1: possibilities you know out there. You know, Yes, one, as
Speaker 1: you developed there's one strain that's worriesome of you develop
Speaker 1: a new new booster shots just against a strain like
Speaker 1: just against South Africa. And another possibility is that, hey,
Speaker 1: there's like two or three strains are kind of worried
Speaker 1: about vaccines might not be quite effective against circulating the world,
Speaker 1: say three months from now, and we want a booster
Speaker 1: shot that kind of accounts for all three of them,
Speaker 1: or a new in the new second generation vaccine that
Speaker 1: accounts for all three of them. And then and the
Speaker 1: authorities and powers that be, you know that public authorities
Speaker 1: get together and kind of agree what strange should be
Speaker 1: in a new vaccine or a new booster shot. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what happens now each year with the
Speaker 1: food vaccine, and there are you know, comparisons being made
Speaker 1: like to that. Now, coronavirus you know doesn't mutated the
Speaker 1: rate that the flu does. But you know, another hand,
Speaker 1: we've liked to spread a lot and a lot of
Speaker 1: people getting a lot of chances to mutake. So you
Speaker 1: know what happens with the flu is you know each year,
Speaker 1: you know, authority trying to kind of consent some consensus
Speaker 1: and you know what strains are going to be circulating
Speaker 1: a most prominent a few months from now, and then
Speaker 1: the design a vaccine on that basis, and something similar
Speaker 1: you know, could be done for booster shots for you know,
Speaker 1: coronavirus vaccines and booster shots in the future, So there
Speaker 1: is a thought out there. It seems increasingly likely, you know,
Speaker 1: there's not going to be a one and done situation
Speaker 1: the vaccine. There's a good chance we'll need some kind
Speaker 1: of booster shots in the future, especially if these vaccine
Speaker 1: evading strains become more prominent. And what's not clear right
Speaker 1: now is how often when the booster shots is this
Speaker 1: because you know, it has the virus stomach mostly significant
Speaker 1: mutaining is going to do already and we've already seen
Speaker 1: the bad stuff or some more bad stuff to come.
Speaker 1: That's kind of a mystery. And then you know, how
Speaker 1: how long will protection lasts and start to fade with
Speaker 1: existing vaccines. That's not clear at all. So it's just
Speaker 1: not clear at all to the extent we need booster
Speaker 1: shots how frequently they will be, whether it be just
Speaker 1: like once, it will be like every few years, or
Speaker 1: you know, worst case scenario, every year, and that's that's
Speaker 1: simply unclear at this point. So how might this effect
Speaker 1: someone who is still considering whether to be inoculated right
Speaker 1: now or whether they should wait for these later generation
Speaker 1: vaccines that might be more effective against variants. One thing,
Speaker 1: you know, I do want to note is that by
Speaker 1: no means there's a reason in the US to put
Speaker 1: off getting a vaccine or delay getting a vaccine. The
Speaker 1: vaccines we have here are still, you know, highly effective
Speaker 1: against most of the extrains that are that are circulating
Speaker 1: in the US, and the sooner you can get vaccinated,
Speaker 1: the better, and that would really really help. So this
Speaker 1: is but this is by no means a reason not
Speaker 1: to get inoculated in the US. If you have an appointment,
Speaker 1: did you go rush out and do it for your sure?
Speaker 1: That was Robert Langrath. And that's it for our show today.
Speaker 1: For coverage of the outbreak from one and twenty bureaus
Speaker 1: around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and
Speaker 1: if you like the show, please leave us a review
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Speaker 1: way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The
Speaker 1: Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Top for foreheads Magnus
Speaker 1: Henrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported
Speaker 1: by Robert Langrith. Original music by Leo Citron. Our editors
Speaker 1: are Rick Shine and Francesca Levi. Francesco Levy is Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: head of podcasts, Thanks for listening, lest