Ugur Sahin, the co-founder of BioNTech, warned the current winter "will be hard," but the next one could be much smoother "if everything continues to go well" with his company's coronavirus vaccine candidate.
Sahin told the BBC on Sunday that the vaccine, which is being co-developed with Pfizer and was found to be 90 percent effective in an interim trial analysis, likely won't immediately bring down infection numbers if it's unveiled later this year, but he believes "we could have a normal winter" in 2021. The plan, he said, is to deliver 300 million doses worldwide by April, which should begin to curb the spread of the virus, and after that it will be "absolutely essential" to "get a high vaccination rate before autumn/winter next year."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
5 cleverly clashing cartoons about the presidential debateCartoons Artists take on a deepfake debate, winners and losers, and more
-
The Pélicot case: a horror exposedTalking Point This case is unusually horrifying, but the misogyny that enabled is chillingly common
-
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: pure 'nostalgia bait'Talking Point Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder return for sequel to the 1988 cult classic
-
Amazon ending 'Just Walk Out' grocery checkoutSpeed Read In its place, the company will let customers scan while they shop with Amazon Dash Cart
-
Justice Department bites Apple with iPhone suitSpeed Read The lawsuit alleges that the tech company monopolized the smartphone industry
-
House votes to force TikTok to sell or face US banspeed read The House passed a bill to ban TikTok on national security grounds unless it sells to a non-Chinese company
-
Apple kills its secret electric car projectSpeed Read Many of the people from Project Titan are being reassigned to work on generative AI
-
Cellphone use may be lowering sperm countSpeed Read Electromagnetic radiation could be affecting male fertility
-
Nasa reveals first findings from asteroid that could explain origins of lifeSpeed Read Sample from Bennu has been found to contain an abundance of water and carbon
-
NYPD to monitor Labor Day parties using surveillance dronesSpeed Read
-
Elon Musk announces change to Twitter logoSpeed Read
