Moderna’s chief medical officer has said a brand new COVID-19 vaccine will not be available before early 2022 amid concerns about the potentially immunity evasive Omicron variant of coronavirus. First detected in South Africa earlier this month, Omicron has been listed as a “variant of concern” with a large number of mutations, “some of which are concerning,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

“We should know about the ability of the current vaccine to provide protection in the next couple of weeks, but the remarkable thing about the mRNA vaccines, Moderna platform is that we can move very fast,” Paul Burton said during an appearance on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.

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“If we have to make a brand new vaccine, I think that’s going to be early 2022 before that’s really going to be available in large quantities.”

Burton said Moderna had mobilized “hundreds of people here in the US and around the world”, as the WHO cautioned that “preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection with this variant.”

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“These mutations, at least 30 of them in the spike protein alone, nine of them known to be associated with immune escape, another 11 predicted to be associated with immune escape,” Burton said. “You bring those together I think this is a very concerning virus.”

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“I think the message now is if people are on the fence and you haven’t been vaccinated get vaccinated,” he said. “This is a dangerous looking virus, but I think we have many tools in our armamentarium now to be able to fight it so I’m optimistic.”

Moderna on Friday said it is “working rapidly” to test its current vaccine against the Omicron variant.

“Since early 2021, Moderna has advanced a comprehensive strategy to anticipate new variants of concern,” the company said in a news release. “The company has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to advance new candidates to clinical testing in 60 to 90 days.”