# Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Thread - 2021 Breaking News **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [January 1, 2021, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2021-breaking-news/929428 "2021-01-01T08:03:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 424
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2021, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2021-breaking-news/929428/424 "2021-02-03T13:51:13Z")
BMJ article: **[Covid-19: Moderna plans booster doses to counter variants](https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n232)** > In the first approach Moderna said that it would see whether a third “booster dose” of the current mRNA-1273 vaccine added to the approved two dose regimen would further increase neutralising titres against the emerging variants. > > In a second approach the company said that it had developed a booster vaccine candidate called mRNA-1273.351 against the emerging South African variant. It said that it was beginning phase I studies in the US to see whether this modified vaccine with variant specific proteins would increase the immunological effect. > > In an interview with _The BMJ_ earlier this month Andrew Pollard, a leader of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine trials, explained that modifying the vaccine was not complicated. “For the RNA vaccines and the viral vectors it’s relatively straightforward, because you just have to synthesise a new bit of DNA in our case—or RNA in [the Pfizer and Moderna] cases—and then insert that into the new vaccine. Then there’s a bit of work to do to manufacture the new vaccine, which is a reasonably heavy lift. But the same processes would be used.” It’s an article rather than a paper, so it’s aimed at the lay reader. j --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2021-breaking-news/929428)._