Oh, good. The head of mega pharmaceutical company Pfizer says our lives can go back to normal.
If we get vaccinated annually, things may calm down — in maybe 10 years.
“We will have perfectly normal lives, with just injection maybe once a year,” Pfizer chairman and CEO Albert Bourla told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday. “And the pill that in case we are sick will help us make it more flu-like rather than a life-threatening disease.”
“Here the situation has been deteriorated because of the omicron, which had a very quick ramp-up,” Bourla additionally told Yahoo Finance on Monday. “It is a disease that manifests a little bit less in terms of mildness. I mean, it’s more mild. But, you know, because of the higher infectious rates, still, the hospitals, in absolute numbers, are going much higher in terms of severe disease, ICUs’ occupation, et cetera, et cetera.
“So — and we know that the two doses of the vaccine offer very limited protection, if any. The three doses, with the booster, they offer reasonable protection against hospitalization and deaths.”
So the return to normalcy we were long ago promised if we took a few shots seems to have evaporated. Because it looks like the shots by Pfizer and others are not working as well against omicron as planned.
Although he said could not predict the future of COVID with certainty, Bourla told CNBC, “I believe it will continue to be present because it’s spread everywhere and because both natural infection and vaccinations seem to produce not very durable immune protection, so it’s going to be coming again and again.
“But we can have it perfectly controlled … hopefully, with annual revaccination and with pills available and with our ability to stay constantly ahead of the virus because we can produce very fast, we can make the newest version 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 over the vaccine, but it will be more and more effective as the virus mutates.”
Pfizer is in for the long haul.
“I doubt that we will reach a level — because you will have everyone vaccinated and everyone, all the rest of the people, diseased — [that] we will control [COVID], say, within the next 10 years this virus will continue to be present,” Bourla said.
Note Bourla’s language — two kinds of people in the world, the vaccinated and the diseased. Life will be rosy, if we just get a COVID shot like a flu shot, according to Bourla.
Already we’re constantly told to get a flu shot. (By the way, whatever happened to the flu?) Flu shots, of course, are often unable to keep up with the latest strain, resulting in an army always fighting the last war.
But there’s a lot more to COVID vaccinations compared to a routine flu shot. What about the draconian mandates? Will they still apply?
Interestingly, the new language for COVID vaccine compliance is “keeping your vaccinations up to date” as opposed to the finite amount of receiving two jabs and maybe a booster.
So will an annual COVID shot, with its attendant documentation, be needed to keep one’s job, dine out in New York or — as has been rumbled by presidential adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci — ride an airplane?
Will President Joe Biden continue to scold us year after year (hopefully not for too many more) if we’re not current?
This is the best of all worlds for companies like Pfizer, which boasts a $215 billion market capitalization and has found a means to keep people attached to its product, and for power-hungry government officials for whom COVID is ideal.
Oh, and another thing. If you’re aiming for the impossible like eliminating a SARS virus, why not swing for the fences?
Fauci, before a U.S. Senate hearing Tuesday, called for the development of “a pan-coronavirus vaccine, namely one that would be effective against all SARS-COVID-2 variants, and ultimately against all coronaviruses,” according to the U.K.’s Independent.
The theoretical vaccine would even attack diseases related to coronaviruses, such as the common cold.
Wow! Finally! Not only do we once again get a normal life, but we’ll also be cured of getting colds.
No wonder there is growing skepticism of the ongoing pretenses, broken promises and contradictions of public health officials and their associates in Big Pharma.
We are helping you, they say. We are doing the impossible. Take our help. Or else!
Sadly, their lost credibility will undercut people’s trust in areas of needed health intervention.
But on the positive side, it may spur more people to educate themselves and find doctors less concerned about pushing vaccination as a one-size-fits-all fix but more focused on patients improving their health through long-recognized aspects of nutrition, exercise, stress reduction and more.
Modern medicine works seeming miracles and there’s a lot to be thankful for. But it also works a lot of profits. And we know where the love of money can lead.