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Comment by geeB | Hacker News Reader

Question for people that understand mRNA vaccines: why does the third dose supposedly have the same exact formulation? The narrative in the beginning was that this new technology would allow for vaccines to be developed and manufactured in ~1 month, tailored to the variants (even claiming that cancer would be next). Why can't we have a vaccine that's more effective against the new variants?

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According to this [0] at least BioNTech/Pfizer seem to be developing a booster shot specifically targeting the Delta variant. But they do mention that they’ve just recently “manufactured” the mRNA so it’s probably still months from being approved and ready to be deployed.

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

I seem to recall that fda and maybe other regulatory agencies have said that approval of modified-payload mRNA vaccines will be quicker. I recall that Pfizer has tests for a delta variant shot underway and I (naively) hope they can include several mRNA sequences in the next booster. Otherwise, it’s just reloading the body’s antibody load. As the entire spike protein is presented, there’s no guarantee that each person’s antibodies are the same or even one variety. This differs from the monoclonal antibodies from Lilly and Regeneron which work as-is.

there is a lead time of 91 days from request to product to reformulate pfizer vaccine

My understanding is that Delta variant is much more infectious, but doesn't differ very much in ways that would make it less recognizable to your immune system. So your body doesn't have any issue knowing there's a problem it just has a harder time fighting it off.

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