CVS Concerned About Demand For COVID-19 Vaccines Fading In 2022
According to its Q4 earnings release on Wednesday, CVS Health Corp administered 59 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines at their pharmacies nationwide in 2021, but interest in COVID-19 vaccines is expected to fall in 2022.
CNBC reports that in an earnings call Wednesday, CVS’ Chief Financial Officer Shawn Guertin says that their 2022 forecast assumes that there will not be a fourth COVID-19 shot, booster, or another surge of coronavirus cases nationwide.
“We expect the contribution of COVID-19 vaccines to be more heavily weighted to the first half of the year,” he said on the call.
At the start of the Omicron wave, many vaccine manufacturers touted a variant-specific vaccine. However, it does not look like rolling that out now will be necessary.
If that is true, then interest in the U.S. COVID-19 vaccination campaign is likely to drop in 2022. Ashtyn Evans, an analyst with Edward Jones, also pointed out to CNBC that CVS is exiting the COVID-19 pandemic “with a higher customer base” than when the pandemic started.
Continuing that growth outside of pandemic conditions may be tricky, which is why CVS did not raise its outlook for 2022. Guertin said that CVS expects a decline between 70-80% in the volume of vaccines.
Though younger populations are becoming eligible for the vaccine, that may not be enough to drive interest in 2022.
“Given that CVS maintained the ’22 guidance range despite the large Covid benefit this quarter, in our view, the Covid benefit is likely to moderate,” Steve Valiquette, an analyst at Barclays, told The Wall Street Journal.
COVID-19 over the past two years, now going on three, has been mentioned as uncertainty in many forward-looking statements in a variety of industries and for many companies around the world.
No one knows what is going to happen next as the pandemic as 6 million deaths globally are predicted within the coming months, and another variant could come within days or weeks.
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