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Does anyone know why they haven't released a Delta varient vaccine? Is seems that it would just involved we changing the mRNA sequence in a computer at the fact

Does anyone know why they haven't released a Delta varient vaccine? Is seems that it would just involved we changing the mRNA sequence in a computer at the factor, but I'm really just guessing. Also maybe it is considered a whole new vaccineand needs to go through approval again.

phreeza 5y ago
Probably because going through another round of certification is harder than using the existing vaccine as a booster, the hope being that this will already significantly improve delta resistance.
- darkerside 5y ago
  Why not both?
  - f6v 5y ago
    Because pharma companies don’t work for the public, but for the shareholders.
    - darkerside 5y ago
      And if they are first to develop a new Delta specific vaccine, they will be making their shareholders money hand over fist
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
inglor_cz 5y ago
Because it means rerunning the trials again. These requirements will have to be loosened for anti-Covid vaccines. They are tailored to other diseases, but SARS-CoV-2 mutates too fast. The flu vaccine has an exception, too, otherwise it wouldn't be possible to prepare the correct vaccine (against the expected dominant strain) on time.
- kingkawn 5y ago
  One bad autoimmune reaction from a poorly engineered vaccine and the whole society will boycott the mRNA vaccines forever after. Safety is higher priority to ongoing viability than speed.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Safety and speed must usually be balanced in a trade-off, and we are actually used to it, that is why people drive a car, even though it comes with a risk of dying or being maimed. I have no doubt that some kind of safety-related trials must be run on boosters and that they will be run, but they will likely only take weeks in the future, not months.
    - f6v 5y ago
      > but they will likely only take weeks in the future, not months. We need just one Jesse Gelsinger to shut the whole thing down.
      - inglor_cz 5y ago
        J.G. is a famous case and his death definitely delayed development for a decade or more, but it should be noted that when he died, the technology was extremely untested in humans. We now have a few hundred million people who got mRNA vaccine and had no trouble. I don't think that even after a death, mRNA would be completely toast. It has already proven its merit.
        bewaretheirs 5y ago
        mRNA? J.G.'s death involved an experimental modified adenovirus (the same family of viruses used as the vector for several non-mRNA COVID vaccines: Johnson & Johnson/Janssen, Astrazenica/Oxford, and Sputnik V).
        inglor_cz 5y ago
swalsh 5y ago
I think our approval processes haven't kept up with the technology. The existing vaccine is already approved, and boosters seem to have some beneficial affects.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  If the GOP weren't so foolish against vaccines, they could have made hay criticizing the slowness of the FDA.
  - myko 5y ago
    Being foolish against vaccines hasn't stopped conservative media from criticizing the speed of the FDA: https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1429946530782498818 https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1429946530782498818
f6v 5y ago
I’ve read somewhere that they don’t just take a sequence. There’re some tweaks they make to produce effective immune response. CureVac failed to produce a good vaccine for this reason. My take is that mRNA technology is being overhyped, although it’s a massive step up over other approaches.
- murgleburgle 5y ago
  CureVac probably failed because they used unmodified RNA base pairs. Both Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer use modified nucleosides such as N1-methyl-pseudouridine. Extracellular unmodified mRNA - which could arise from the lipid nanoparticles which contain the mRNA breaking down before transfection of cells - can trigger a deleterious innate immune reaction against said mRNA. This interferes with the desired immune recognition of the spike protein. The modified mRNA largely evades that undesired immune reaction. That's probably what sunk CureVac's vaccine.
linuxftw 5y ago
There's nothing to update. The mRNA allegedly encodes for the 'spike' protein, which is the infection vector. The theory at the time was that by targeting that protein specifically, if the virus were to mutate, it would loses it's ability to infect because it could no longer successfully bind to the ACE2 receptors. In practice, the efficacy is a fraction of what the trials stated it was. It didn't lose efficacy due to the delta variant, the manufacturers just lied about the efficacy by cherry picking the data. The only option they have now is to blame people's immune systems for lack of response, thus the 'boosters' are needed.
- f6v 5y ago
  Can you back that up?
cblconfederate 5y ago
Trials of the Delta vaccine have started https://fortune.com/2021/08/09/covid-vaccines-delta-variant-vaccine-biontech-pfizer/ https://fortune.com/2021/08/09/covid-vaccines-delta-variant-... IIRC these trials should last 3 months
bart_spoon 5y ago
One reason is because they've found that simply boosting with the original mRNA gives a massive spike in protection even against Delta, apparently on par with variant specific versions of the vaccine. Another is that recent studies are showing that natural infection provides much more comprehensive, long-lasting immunity against all variants than the vaccination does, while vaccination with the current vaccines offers much more immunity than individuals who have never been vaccinated or infected. So it would seem like the best course of action moving forward may be to vaccinate everyone possible initially to prime their immune systems and reduce the severity of the disease, and then allow Covid to run its course. Eventually vaccinated individuals will have break-through infections, gain the more durable natural immunity, and Covid will become a less serious, endemic virus more like the flu or cold. In short, we don't yet have a need for a Delta variant vaccine. That may not be true eventually, especially for future variants.
- bxrxdx 5y ago
  I haven't seen any research that says that infection acquired immunity is stronger or longer lasting than from vaccine. The opposite in fact.
  - exhilaration 5y ago
    This was posted last night https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28307224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28307224
    - ChoGGi 5y ago
      The first thread is commenting on the preprint status of that paper.
  - fab1an 5y ago
    Not an expert, but afaik there's been quite a few studies showing that natural immunity is superior to the vaccine-induced one - I'm also fairly sure that virologists have theorized to that end even before the data became available for the following reason: the vaccine is 100% focussed on detecting the spike protein, so changes to the spike can result in evasive variants. Natural immunity OTOH is developed against more sites of the virus and thus provide a more broad and robust response to variants, present and future.

phreeza 5y ago

Probably because going through another round of certification is harder than using the existing vaccine as a booster, the hope being that this will already significantly improve delta resistance.

darkerside 5y ago
Why not both?
- f6v 5y ago
  Because pharma companies don’t work for the public, but for the shareholders.
  - darkerside 5y ago
    And if they are first to develop a new Delta specific vaccine, they will be making their shareholders money hand over fist

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

inglor_cz 5y ago

Because it means rerunning the trials again. These requirements will have to be loosened for anti-Covid vaccines. They are tailored to other diseases, but SARS-CoV-2 mutates too fast. The flu vaccine has an exception, too, otherwise it wouldn't be possible to prepare the correct vaccine (against the expected dominant strain) on time.

kingkawn 5y ago
One bad autoimmune reaction from a poorly engineered vaccine and the whole society will boycott the mRNA vaccines forever after. Safety is higher priority to ongoing viability than speed.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Safety and speed must usually be balanced in a trade-off, and we are actually used to it, that is why people drive a car, even though it comes with a risk of dying or being maimed. I have no doubt that some kind of safety-related trials must be run on boosters and that they will be run, but they will likely only take weeks in the future, not months.
  - f6v 5y ago
    > but they will likely only take weeks in the future, not months. We need just one Jesse Gelsinger to shut the whole thing down.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      J.G. is a famous case and his death definitely delayed development for a decade or more, but it should be noted that when he died, the technology was extremely untested in humans. We now have a few hundred million people who got mRNA vaccine and had no trouble. I don't think that even after a death, mRNA would be completely toast. It has already proven its merit.
      - bewaretheirs 5y ago
        mRNA? J.G.'s death involved an experimental modified adenovirus (the same family of viruses used as the vector for several non-mRNA COVID vaccines: Johnson & Johnson/Janssen, Astrazenica/Oxford, and Sputnik V).
        inglor_cz 5y ago

swalsh 5y ago

I think our approval processes haven't kept up with the technology. The existing vaccine is already approved, and boosters seem to have some beneficial affects.

pfdietz 5y ago
If the GOP weren't so foolish against vaccines, they could have made hay criticizing the slowness of the FDA.
- myko 5y ago
  Being foolish against vaccines hasn't stopped conservative media from criticizing the speed of the FDA: https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1429946530782498818 https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1429946530782498818

f6v 5y ago

I’ve read somewhere that they don’t just take a sequence. There’re some tweaks they make to produce effective immune response. CureVac failed to produce a good vaccine for this reason. My take is that mRNA technology is being overhyped, although it’s a massive step up over other approaches.

murgleburgle 5y ago
CureVac probably failed because they used unmodified RNA base pairs. Both Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer use modified nucleosides such as N1-methyl-pseudouridine. Extracellular unmodified mRNA - which could arise from the lipid nanoparticles which contain the mRNA breaking down before transfection of cells - can trigger a deleterious innate immune reaction against said mRNA. This interferes with the desired immune recognition of the spike protein. The modified mRNA largely evades that undesired immune reaction. That's probably what sunk CureVac's vaccine.

linuxftw 5y ago

There's nothing to update. The mRNA allegedly encodes for the 'spike' protein, which is the infection vector. The theory at the time was that by targeting that protein specifically, if the virus were to mutate, it would loses it's ability to infect because it could no longer successfully bind to the ACE2 receptors. In practice, the efficacy is a fraction of what the trials stated it was. It didn't lose efficacy due to the delta variant, the manufacturers just lied about the efficacy by cherry picking the data. The only option they have now is to blame people's immune systems for lack of response, thus the 'boosters' are needed.

f6v 5y ago
Can you back that up?

cblconfederate 5y ago

Trials of the Delta vaccine have started https://fortune.com/2021/08/09/covid-vaccines-delta-variant-vaccine-biontech-pfizer/ https://fortune.com/2021/08/09/covid-vaccines-delta-variant-... IIRC these trials should last 3 months

bart_spoon 5y ago

One reason is because they've found that simply boosting with the original mRNA gives a massive spike in protection even against Delta, apparently on par with variant specific versions of the vaccine. Another is that recent studies are showing that natural infection provides much more comprehensive, long-lasting immunity against all variants than the vaccination does, while vaccination with the current vaccines offers much more immunity than individuals who have never been vaccinated or infected. So it would seem like the best course of action moving forward may be to vaccinate everyone possible initially to prime their immune systems and reduce the severity of the disease, and then allow Covid to run its course. Eventually vaccinated individuals will have break-through infections, gain the more durable natural immunity, and Covid will become a less serious, endemic virus more like the flu or cold. In short, we don't yet have a need for a Delta variant vaccine. That may not be true eventually, especially for future variants.

bxrxdx 5y ago
I haven't seen any research that says that infection acquired immunity is stronger or longer lasting than from vaccine. The opposite in fact.
- exhilaration 5y ago
  This was posted last night https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28307224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28307224
  - ChoGGi 5y ago
    The first thread is commenting on the preprint status of that paper.
- fab1an 5y ago
  Not an expert, but afaik there's been quite a few studies showing that natural immunity is superior to the vaccine-induced one - I'm also fairly sure that virologists have theorized to that end even before the data became available for the following reason: the vaccine is 100% focussed on detecting the spike protein, so changes to the spike can result in evasive variants. Natural immunity OTOH is developed against more sites of the virus and thus provide a more broad and robust response to variants, present and future.