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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> as effective as the original two-dose shot and prevents for the same duration

We're giving boosters of a vaccine developed against the Beta variant. That's better than nothing. But it's inefficient against Delta.

Pfizer/BioNTech are working on a Delta-specific booster [1]. If we can get approvals rolling faster without compromising safety, it might mean being able to release variant-specific boosters earlier in their transmission cycle.

[1] https://investors.biontech.de/news-releases/news-release-det...

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> If we can get approvals rolling faster without compromising safety, it might mean being able to release variant-specific boosters earlier in their transmission cycle.

This is basically it. We'd need an approval process similar to what exists for flu shots today. I'm not versed on what that process is, but if that can happen with covid, it'll be the biggest batch of red tape cut.

pfizer and moderna have essentially filed for rolling submissions. the biggest impediment to vaccines stopping the virus is morons not getting the vaccine.

Yeah, dang morons not getting the not-yet-available booster shot!

I mean, those dang morons not getting the available vaccine which does nothing for transmission of the current viral variant! Eesh, well that doesn’t hold water either...

Ugh this is too complicated, let’s just blame the unvaccinated anyways mmkay?

The question is how useful variant-specific boosters are at this point in time, though. As I understand it there are two things working against them. Firstly, one of the main ways Delta seems to beat vaccination is by replicating more efficiency before the immune system can respond, and tailoring the vaccine more specifically to it won't really help with that. Secondly, a booster for a very similar variant might just boost the existing immune response for the previous variant rather than creating new, more specific antibodies ("original antigenic sin") - this is apparently one factor limiting the effectiveness of flu vaccines.

As to whether the current batch of mRNA vaccines are "inefficient" against delta, the science is far from settled.

There are no changes to the mRNA vaccines composition in the booster. Moderna has been testing a lower "dosage" of the booster at 50 mcg vs. 100mcg for the current vaccine, but other than that it's the same stuff it's always been.

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