Your trusted source

There will be a return to normal life within a year, Pfizer CEO and Chairman Albert Bourla said on Sunday, adding that it’s likely annual Covid vaccination shots will be necessary, CNBC reported.

“Within a year I think we will be able to come back to normal life,” Bourla said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”

Returning to normal life will have caveats, he said: “I don’t think that this means that the variants will not continue coming, and I don’t think that this means that we should be able to live our lives without having vaccinations,” Bourla said. “But that, again, remains to be seen.”

Bourla’s prediction about when normal life will resume is in keeping with that of Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel. “As of today, in a year, I assume,” Bancel told the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung, according to Reuters on Thursday, when asked for his estimate of a return to normal life.

In order to make that happen, Pfizer’s Bourla suggested it is likely annual coronavirus vaccine shots will be needed.

“The most likely scenario for me is that, because the virus is spread all over the world, that it will continue seeing new variants that are coming out,” Bourla said. “Also we will have vaccines that they will last at least a year, and I think the most likely scenario is annual vaccination, but we don’t know really, we need to wait and see the data.”

On Friday, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky authorized the distribution of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 booster shots for those in high-risk occupational and institutional settings, a move that overruled an advisory panel. Walensky approved distributing the booster shots to older Americans and adults with underlying medical conditions at least six months after their first series of shots, in line with the advisory panel.