Moderna’s (NASDAQ:MRNA) CEO Stephane Bancel said it’s "reasonable" to assume that we may be approaching the final stages of the pandemic.
"I think that is a reasonable scenario," he told the media when asked about views that the COVID-19 pandemic may now be in its final stages.
"There’s an 80% chance that as omicron evolves or SarsCov-2 virus evolves, we are going to see less and less virulent viruses," he said Wednesday.
He also said there’s another "20% scenario where we see a next mutation, which is more virulent than omicron.
"I think we got lucky as a world that omicron was not very virulent, but still we are seeing thousands of people dying every day around the planet because of omicron," he said.
According to the World Health Organization, there were 15.47 million new cases reported in the last seven days worldwide, and 73,162 deaths in the same period.
Some studies have shown that while the omicron variant appears more contagious, it generally doesn’t make people as sick as the delta strain does.
Health officials have also highlighted that omicron’s threat may be fading.
But the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned in January that it’s dangerous to assume the pandemic is approaching its endgame. In fact, he said it’s "nowhere near over," and cautioned that new variants will likely emerge as omicron spreads rapidly across the globe.
MRNA shares began Wednesday down $4.51, or 3%, to $146.62.
