14 ms·

Why haven’t they updated the vaccine? I thought one of the major benefits of this technology was the ease with which you can modify them.

lordlimecat 5y ago
In the case of the mRNA vaccines (e.g. Pfizer) it is the spike protein targeted, and that has a hard time effectively mutating because most changes to it make it less infectious. Other aspects of the virus may change but the spike so far has been relatively stable.
SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
Pfizer are on it (1). They estimate that it takes around 3 months. Which actually is really easy. And the others are following suit in similar timeframes (2) The hard part is deciding if this variant is the one that you're going to vaccinate against for a year or more. That takes data, which also takes time. 1) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/26/biontech-says-it-could-tweak-covid-vaccine-in-100-days-if-needed https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/26/biontech-say... 2) https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/moderna-exec-says-company-could-have-omicron-booster-ready-march-2021-12-01/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/omicron-oxford-covid-astrazeneca-cnbc-b1966749.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/omicron-oxford-covid-a...
- londons_explore 5y ago
  Each successful varient tends to be the ancestor of the next successful varient. That means if you develop a vaccine against any successful varient today, it will be a closer match than one made last year.
  - makomk 5y ago
    As I understand it, none of the existing major variants is an ancestor of Omicron - their closest common ancestor is quite a way back in the pandemic. Alpha and Delta weren't particularly closely related either.
- hammock 5y ago
  Is there a good reason that they haven't updated their vaccine for Delta, which has been out for much longer than 3 months? Over 99% of cases in the US are Delta now, which the original jab wasn't designed for.
  - pseudalopex 5y ago
    Boosting with the original vaccine was effective for delta.
    - hammock 5y ago
      We do have a Delta-specific jab though that has gone through trials. Why not release it for sale? Just to save the government money on all the older jobs they already bought and haven't used?
      - ViViDboarder 5y ago
        Not just that, but distribution and whether or not you are ready to push for every person to get the updated one or not. People will fatigue from having to keep up, especially if only a month after their last shot there is a “new” one for a new variant, and then omicron comes out and a “new” one for that. You could end up with far more boosters than actually needed at which point people will get confused or mentally burnt out on it. I think there are some sound reasons for not jumping on updated vaccines for every variant and only ones that the original doesn’t appear sufficient for.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    > Delta now, which the original jab wasn't designed for. Current vaccines have still been "highly effective" against Delta, so I think that's why this hasn't been done: there's no point in using the big guns now when the existing weapon works well, and you might really need the big gun soon (and you can't know when). So it's better to keep it in reserve. The question now is, is Omicron "it" ?
    - 5y ago
- fullstop 5y ago
  How long does it take to ramp up production? I'm at 6 months and a few days since my 2nd shot. Do I get a booster now or wait a few months in hope of an updated one?
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    Get a booster when you can, it is worth it. I had mine last week. We don't know if and when there will be an omicron-specific jab, and a mRNA 3rd dose cuts your chances of bad outcome (severe illness, hospitalisation) from omicron or previous variants to a lot lower than 2 doses ever did. https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1458020957457731585 https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1458020957457731585 https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1460191035531878405 https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1460191035531878405
    - fullstop 5y ago
      I'll likely do that. For what it's worth I was not eligible for a booster where I live until very recently.
    - timr 5y ago
      > Get a booster when you can, it is worth it. If you are under 65 and not immune compromised, there's essentially no evidence for this claim. If you are either of those things, there's some evidence that it takes your risk of severe illness (already low after vaccination), and divides it by another factor of ~20 [0]. That's great, but it's a tiny absolute effect, and we shouldn't over-sell it. If you're under 65, there's essentially no evidence supporting widespread use of boosters, and the CDC ACIP was against recommending it for all people [1] (but was ignored by politicians). The WHO continues to ask rich countries not to give boosters to healthy young people, given lack of evidence and supply constraints. [2] Not incidentally: your two tweets discuss infection, not severe illness. All current evidence is that you're well-protected against severe disease after two shots. Paper in the lancet as of last week found that boosters had a marginal impact on cellular immunity, with the primary benefit being antibody response. [3] Again, fine, but we know that antibody response wanes over time. It's completely unsurprising that you'd have more antibodies two weeks after vaccination. You'll have far lower antibodies 9 months from your third dose, too. [0] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114255 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114255 [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7044e2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7044e2.htm [2] https://www.who.int/news/item/04-10-2021-interim-statement-on-booster-doses-for-covid-19-vaccination https://www.who.int/news/item/04-10-2021-interim-statement-o... [3]https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02717-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... > a mRNA 3rd dose cuts your chances of bad outcome (severe illness, hospitalisation) from omicron or previous variants to a lot lower than 2 doses ever did. Literally no evidence for this statement. We simply don't know anything about Omicron and boosters. This is why this press release from Pfizer is on the front page of HN right now.
detaro 5y ago
Previously it wasn't deemed necessary (i.e. the original design was good and universal enough), for Omicron as far as I know tests are running, depending on how that goes and how countries decide to treat the regulatory part of updating it we might see an adjusted one now. (EDIT: "universal enough": we don't want a vaccine extremely optimized for a variant, but one that has a good chance to work well against other/new variants too, so there's a balance if a improvement against one variant makes it worse overall) EDIT 2: apparently some small trials for modified variants are also running for Delta, so I guess this statement needs to be modified and it wasn't considered justified to rush out a new anti-delta variant, but testing is done so the findings can be used for upgrades.
CountDrewku 5y ago
They already have a Delta variant vaccine. You can probably guess why they haven't released it. Feel free to unflag me now- https://www.businessinsider.com/omicron-specific-booster-shot-planned-by-moderna-for-new-coronavirus-variant-2021-11?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/omicron-specific-booster-sho...
christrowe 5y ago
They can definitely update the vaccine but it's not easy as 1 2 3 then good to go.
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
I thin an appropriate analogy to your question is the question "Why haven't you written your masterpiece novel? I thought one of the major benefits of a computer is the ease with which you can write and publish anything."
tootie 5y ago
Not an expert, but I think the problem is in the testing and distribution. Just from a public health POV, it's hard enough tracking who is getting doses of what and all the public communication about what to do that it really needs and deal with hate tweets from Rand Paul. Synthesizing the vaccine could possibly be done in a week.
lobocinza 5y ago
That page says they are working on it and expect to have it ready for use in 100 days including the design and manufacturing but not approval.

lordlimecat 5y ago

In the case of the mRNA vaccines (e.g. Pfizer) it is the spike protein targeted, and that has a hard time effectively mutating because most changes to it make it less infectious. Other aspects of the virus may change but the spike so far has been relatively stable.

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago

Pfizer are on it (1). They estimate that it takes around 3 months. Which actually is really easy. And the others are following suit in similar timeframes (2) The hard part is deciding if this variant is the one that you're going to vaccinate against for a year or more. That takes data, which also takes time. 1) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/26/biontech-says-it-could-tweak-covid-vaccine-in-100-days-if-needed https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/26/biontech-say... 2) https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/moderna-exec-says-company-could-have-omicron-booster-ready-march-2021-12-01/ https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/omicron-oxford-covid-astrazeneca-cnbc-b1966749.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/omicron-oxford-covid-a...

londons_explore 5y ago
Each successful varient tends to be the ancestor of the next successful varient. That means if you develop a vaccine against any successful varient today, it will be a closer match than one made last year.
- makomk 5y ago
  As I understand it, none of the existing major variants is an ancestor of Omicron - their closest common ancestor is quite a way back in the pandemic. Alpha and Delta weren't particularly closely related either.
hammock 5y ago
Is there a good reason that they haven't updated their vaccine for Delta, which has been out for much longer than 3 months? Over 99% of cases in the US are Delta now, which the original jab wasn't designed for.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Boosting with the original vaccine was effective for delta.
  - hammock 5y ago
    We do have a Delta-specific jab though that has gone through trials. Why not release it for sale? Just to save the government money on all the older jobs they already bought and haven't used?
    - ViViDboarder 5y ago
      Not just that, but distribution and whether or not you are ready to push for every person to get the updated one or not. People will fatigue from having to keep up, especially if only a month after their last shot there is a “new” one for a new variant, and then omicron comes out and a “new” one for that. You could end up with far more boosters than actually needed at which point people will get confused or mentally burnt out on it. I think there are some sound reasons for not jumping on updated vaccines for every variant and only ones that the original doesn’t appear sufficient for.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  > Delta now, which the original jab wasn't designed for. Current vaccines have still been "highly effective" against Delta, so I think that's why this hasn't been done: there's no point in using the big guns now when the existing weapon works well, and you might really need the big gun soon (and you can't know when). So it's better to keep it in reserve. The question now is, is Omicron "it" ?
  - 5y ago
fullstop 5y ago
How long does it take to ramp up production? I'm at 6 months and a few days since my 2nd shot. Do I get a booster now or wait a few months in hope of an updated one?
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  Get a booster when you can, it is worth it. I had mine last week. We don't know if and when there will be an omicron-specific jab, and a mRNA 3rd dose cuts your chances of bad outcome (severe illness, hospitalisation) from omicron or previous variants to a lot lower than 2 doses ever did. https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1458020957457731585 https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1458020957457731585 https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1460191035531878405 https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1460191035531878405
  - fullstop 5y ago
    I'll likely do that. For what it's worth I was not eligible for a booster where I live until very recently.
  - timr 5y ago
    > Get a booster when you can, it is worth it. If you are under 65 and not immune compromised, there's essentially no evidence for this claim. If you are either of those things, there's some evidence that it takes your risk of severe illness (already low after vaccination), and divides it by another factor of ~20 [0]. That's great, but it's a tiny absolute effect, and we shouldn't over-sell it. If you're under 65, there's essentially no evidence supporting widespread use of boosters, and the CDC ACIP was against recommending it for all people [1] (but was ignored by politicians). The WHO continues to ask rich countries not to give boosters to healthy young people, given lack of evidence and supply constraints. [2] Not incidentally: your two tweets discuss infection, not severe illness. All current evidence is that you're well-protected against severe disease after two shots. Paper in the lancet as of last week found that boosters had a marginal impact on cellular immunity, with the primary benefit being antibody response. [3] Again, fine, but we know that antibody response wanes over time. It's completely unsurprising that you'd have more antibodies two weeks after vaccination. You'll have far lower antibodies 9 months from your third dose, too. [0] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114255 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114255 [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7044e2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7044e2.htm [2] https://www.who.int/news/item/04-10-2021-interim-statement-on-booster-doses-for-covid-19-vaccination https://www.who.int/news/item/04-10-2021-interim-statement-o... [3]https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02717-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... > a mRNA 3rd dose cuts your chances of bad outcome (severe illness, hospitalisation) from omicron or previous variants to a lot lower than 2 doses ever did. Literally no evidence for this statement. We simply don't know anything about Omicron and boosters. This is why this press release from Pfizer is on the front page of HN right now.

detaro 5y ago

Previously it wasn't deemed necessary (i.e. the original design was good and universal enough), for Omicron as far as I know tests are running, depending on how that goes and how countries decide to treat the regulatory part of updating it we might see an adjusted one now. (EDIT: "universal enough": we don't want a vaccine extremely optimized for a variant, but one that has a good chance to work well against other/new variants too, so there's a balance if a improvement against one variant makes it worse overall) EDIT 2: apparently some small trials for modified variants are also running for Delta, so I guess this statement needs to be modified and it wasn't considered justified to rush out a new anti-delta variant, but testing is done so the findings can be used for upgrades.

CountDrewku 5y ago

They already have a Delta variant vaccine. You can probably guess why they haven't released it. Feel free to unflag me now- https://www.businessinsider.com/omicron-specific-booster-shot-planned-by-moderna-for-new-coronavirus-variant-2021-11?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/omicron-specific-booster-sho...

christrowe 5y ago

They can definitely update the vaccine but it's not easy as 1 2 3 then good to go.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago

I thin an appropriate analogy to your question is the question "Why haven't you written your masterpiece novel? I thought one of the major benefits of a computer is the ease with which you can write and publish anything."

tootie 5y ago

Not an expert, but I think the problem is in the testing and distribution. Just from a public health POV, it's hard enough tracking who is getting doses of what and all the public communication about what to do that it really needs and deal with hate tweets from Rand Paul. Synthesizing the vaccine could possibly be done in a week.

lobocinza 5y ago

That page says they are working on it and expect to have it ready for use in 100 days including the design and manufacturing but not approval.