Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Tuesday it would be a “big mistake” for patients to begin using his company’s upcoming Covid-19 pill as a substitute for its three-dose vaccine.

Pfizer has said its upcoming pill, Paxlovid, is 89 percent effective at preventing “hospitalization and death” in those who contract Covid-19. “If people see this news and think, ‘I don’t need to get vaccinated or boosted anymore, I can just take this pill,’ what do you say to that?” CNN’s Kate Bolduan asked Bourla in an afternoon interview.

“I’m afraid that there will be some people who will think like that,” the Greek-American CEO replied. “It’s a very big mistake. In fact, vaccines are needed. Vaccines [are] the primary frontier that you should be using to stop the disease. The goal is not to get sick and then hopefully have a medicine that can save you. The goal is not to get sick. And not only you not to get sick, but to prevent sickness from your kids, even that you get sick and then you transfer that to your mothers, to your fathers, to your parents. It’s very important that people will take the vaccines, and for those that are unfortunate, that despite that or because they didn’t take the vaccines, they’re sick, of course now we have something that will save a lot of lives.”

Asked by Bolduan whether all three doses of his company’s vaccine — including its booster shot — were required to be “fully” vaccinated, Bourla replied in the affirmative, and said he believed it should be “official.”

“I think so,” Bourla said. “Everybody, in reality, thinks so. I think [the] time has come to make an official stance on that.”

Watch above via CNN.

The post Pfizer CEO Warns Patients Not to Opt Out of Vaccine After Release of Covid-19 Pill: ‘A Very Big Mistake’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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