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Setting. it s an important one for sure. the study didn t measure the efficacy of the modified booster, which it actually reduces the risk of disease or severity. it measured the level of neutralizing antibody response in people. i give that by way of only asking, are you concerned at all that this is not going to, do you have any concerns about this holding up against actual exposure? no, look, i don t, kate. we ve seen from so many studies here in the united states in the setting, united kingdom, hsa data, the spike vax vaccine, not only does it hold up extremely well against delta, which we know is not around so much now, but certainly even against omicron, it has protection of 85% to 95% against severe disease and death. so i think now with this new variant adapted vaccine, with ....
Our vaccine, which clearly, is in this one, is important because it s so far removed from the original ancestral virus that having antibodies against it not only protects against omicron but gives you good surround for these new omicron sub variants and that may come along. i think it s very important, and i think people should be reassured for that. i would say though, i think what we ve been able to show here as well is that the moderna platform can really respond very quickly. it s taken seven months to get here, but we ve been very cautious, very rigorous in our testing. i think now, given the hundreds of millions of people that have been dosed with our vaccine around the world, we know it s a very safe, very effective. we could even speed that up. so i think having omicron as a component of that vaccine. it s important, but i think we ....
Those antibody levels that i mentioned in the thousands, i think we re really going to see excellent protection against symptomatic disease and certainly against severe disease as well. in general, though, there is a lot of concern that just the virus is simply evolving faster than vaccines are keeping up, just in general. the ability, i guess, to update vaccines to target it and that s what you re kind of getting at here, trying to be able to get ahead of it a little bit. what is the chance that by the time this new vaccine, assuming it becomes approved, what s the chance that we ll already be facing a new variant not named covid requiring yet another update to the vaccine? yeah, so pi or zeta. i don t think it s impossible. the virus is showing us it s able to make massive evolutionary leaps, omicron, for example, shows us that. i think though, kate, having omicron is a fundamental part of ....
Question, if we get a vaccine that contains omicron, will it be effective? will it neutralize the virus and i think we now have definitive evidence that with this moderna vaccine, we can. we can neutralize omicron, and we ve lived for the last seven months with constant evolution of the virus. highly infectious. it s certainly not mild. it s severe. i think we now have a vaccine that s adapted. it s new. this is not the vaccine that we brought out 2.5 years ago. we need a new one that s adapted to the new variants. i think we have it now and it will allow us to get a jump on this virus and start protecting people. you think this, are you confident this now puts you on track for an annual covid shot when i know a lot of people have been talking about, do we get to the place where the protection can last you through the season, last you a year so it becomes an ....
New this morning, moderna announcing its updated covid booster shot offers a stronger immune response against the omicron variant than the original vaccine. this updated vaccine is called to target two strains of covid. the original strain and the omicron variant. the cdc reports that omicron and its sub variants account for 100% of covid cases in the united states. moderna said its modified booster shot could be available as soon as this summer. joining me right now is moderna s chief medical officer, dr. paul burton. good to see you here. i read this with great interest. i know a ton of people did. you haven t released data on this new study but you feel this is a fundamental turning point in the fight against this virus. why? i do, kate. good morning, thanks for having me. seven months ago, the omicron virus burst on to the world and i think we ve all asked the ....