Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said on Sunday that a fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine will be necessary to continue to help keep hospitalizations manageable and sicknesses more mild.
"Right now, the way that we have seen, it is necessary, a fourth booster right now. The protection that you are getting from the third, it is good enough, actually quite good for hospitalizations and deaths," Bourla told CBS's "Face the Nation."
"It's not that good against infections but doesn't last very long. But we are just submitting those data to the FDA, and then we will see what the experts also will say outside Pfizer," he added.
Asked if he expects to be able to avoid the same confusion over booster shots that came about when the third vaccine dose was being deployed, Bourla replied, "I think so. And I think right now we need to be very well coordinated, CDC, FDA and the industry so that we are all providing to the American people and to the world a cohesive picture rather than confusion."
The Pfizer CEO reiterated his company's goal of creating a vaccine effective against all variants of COVID-19 for longer periods of time.
"We are working very diligently right now ... to make not only a vaccine that will protect against all variants, including omicron, but also something that can protect for at least a year," he said. "And if we be able to achieve that, then I think it is very easy to follow and remember so that we can go back to really the way used to live."
Pfizer and BioNTech recently began enrollment for a clinical trial to test the safety and immune response of their Omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine in adults aged up to 55.
In January, Bourla said that the vaccine that targets the Omicron variant of COVID-19 will be ready in March, and the company has already begun manufacturing the doses. The Pfizer CEO said the vaccine will also target the other variants that are circulating.
Bourla said in November that three doses of the Pfizer vaccine would remain effective even against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, but added that a new vaccine specifically made to combat the new strain could be ready in 100 days.