LONDON – The EMA has changed its stance on booster doses of the Pfizer Inc./Biontech SE COVID-19 vaccine and said they “may now be considered” at least six months after the second dose for people ages 18 and over.

More than 21 months since the SARS-CoV-2 virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, the questions just keep coming, and the longer they go unanswered, the more divisive the opinions become. Controversies over the efficacy of current vaccines, over whether boosters are necessary for the general population, over the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for young children, over how to distribute the shrinking supply of highly effective monoclonal antibodies, and over how the virus originated in the first place – all of these looming questions have created a firestorm of uncertainty that will not stop burning.

When the SARS-CoV-2 virus first emerged in the U.S., the knee-jerk reaction by biopharma researchers was to make the best vaccines and therapeutics possible and to do so quickly. Since then, the number of those that have entered development has reached 1,001, more than for any other viral infection aside from HIV.