Pfizer Inc Chief Executive Albert Bourla said on Thursday he expects younger teens will be eligible for the company's COVID-19 shot in the fall and elementary school children may have vaccines by year's end.
According to Education Ministry data, there were 13,733 students and 1,133 teaching staff members battling coronavirus which lead to the closure of many educational institutions.
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A 16-year-old girl at Cincinnati Children's Hospital was the first local teenager to receive an injection as part of the hospital's clinical trial of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Oct. 14, 2020
(Photo: Courtesy of Cincinnati Children's Hospital)
Bourla also added that Pfizer and its partner BioNTech SE will exceed their original global target for COVID-19 vaccines by as much as 20% this year, producing 2.3 billion to 2.4 billion doses.
"We will exceed clearly, this year, the 2 billion doses," Bourla said in an interview.
By the fourth quarter, the companies will be at a 3 billion dose a year run rate, and should be able to produce that much next year, he added.
Bourla said the company expects to be able to meet its commitment of supplying 120 million doses of its vaccine to the U.S. government by the end of March. That would require them to deliver another 60 million doses over the next three weeks.
"Those have already been manufactured" and are currently being tested for quality, he said.
"Unless a batch (of vaccine) fails, we will be able to provide them. Our track record is that our batches don't fail," he said.
On Wednesday, Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE said that real-world data from Israel suggests that their COVID-19 vaccine is 94% effective in preventing asymptomatic infections, meaning the vaccine could significantly reduce transmission.
The companies also said the latest analysis of the Israeli data shows the vaccine was 97% effective in preventing symptomatic disease, severe disease and death.
That is basically in line with the 95% efficacy Pfizer and BioNTech reported from the vaccine's late-stage clinical trial in December.