Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has tested positive for Covid-19 for the second time in six weeks, despite being vaccinated four times. Bourla previously claimed that his company’s vaccine was “100% effective” in preventing coronavirus infection.
Bourla announced his diagnosis in a Twitter post on Saturday, stating that he was “feeling well and symptom free.” The pharma chief has received four doses – an initial two shots and two boosters – of his company’s mRNA vaccine, and said that he has not yet had Pfizer’s new bivalent booster shot, as he tested positive for Covid-19 already in August.
“While we’ve made great progress, the virus is still with us,” he added.
The latest booster, which is designed to target the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and its substrains, has not proven popular. Data released on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that only 1.5% of eligible people in the US have taken the jab three weeks after it was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The FDA authorized the bivalent booster vaccine despite the fact that it was never tested on humans, only laboratory mice.
Bourla treated his first case of Covid-19 with Paxlovid, an antiviral drug manufactured by Pfizer. US President Joe Biden and former White House coronavirus czar Anthony Fauci both experienced “rebound infections” when they treated their cases of the disease with Paxlovid earlier this summer.
Last year, Bourla claimed that a South African study had shown that Pfizer’s vaccine was “100% effective in preventing Covid-19 cases.”