Pfizer slashes revenue estimates as Covid vaccine sales slump

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, under CEO Albert Bourla, has cut its earnings projections as the demand for Covid vaccines and treatments is not what they had expected. Shares dropped as the rollout for the latest Covid booster did not meet crowds of exuberant folks eager to get their fourth, fifth, or sixth jab.

Pfizer had been expecting $67-70 billion in sales, but now that number has dropped to $58-$61 billion instead. That revenue projection cut, Pfizer said per CNBC, was "solely due to its Covid products." The Biden administration pushed the new vaccines over the summer. CNN went so far as to say that it was time to break out facemasks in precaution of a new Covid wave.

It's not just in the realm of vaccines, either, but in Covid treatments across the board. The company had anticipated big gains for their Covid treatment products, too, like Paxlovid. Yet their anticipated revenue on that front has also been cut by $7 billion.

Much of this is due to the decline in interest in Covid vaccines in general. The rollout of the most recent Covid booster in September came with much fanfare from government officials like President Joe Biden and others who posted videos of themselves smiling after getting the shot. But that hasn't translated into a desire to get the jab on behalf of the American people.

Less Americans have sought a fresh shot, and less people who have contracted Covid have sought treatment. CNBC says that this has to do with the prevalence of previous vaccinations and infections, leading to milder cases for many.

However, there has also been an extended backlash not only against Covid restrictions enacted by governments, like Biden's administration, but the seeming falsehoods that were perpetrated by the government and its pharmaceutical industry cohorts.

When the vaccine was first rolled out under Biden, complete with emergency use authorizations from the Food and Drug Administration, Biden and others in his government made the claim that those who took the vaccine would not get Covid.

This turned out to not be true. Additionally, concerns that there were side effects to the vaccine took root on social media, and the government's attempts to downplay those concerns fell on deaf ears.

Pfizer created the mRNA vaccine in 2020. Their work was not part of Operation Warp Speed, which was a Trump administration initiative to generate many different kinds of vaccines for Covid in the hopes that at least one of them would prove up to the challenge. Pfizer was the first out of the gate with the vaccine, which has turned out to be different than a traditional vaccine in that boosters are recommended every 6 months or so.