# Coronavirus general discussion and chit-chat

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-general-discussion-and-chit-chat/917903>\
**Category:** The Quarantine Zone\
**Tags:** covid-quarantine\
**Created:** [August 12, 2020, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-general-discussion-and-chit-chat/917903 "2020-08-12T17:29:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 741

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**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\
**Post date:** [September 19, 2021, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-general-discussion-and-chit-chat/917903/741 "2021-09-19T18:16:04Z")

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> [@Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Thread - 2021 Breaking News](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2021-breaking-news/929428/2600):
>
> If using 3 times as much active ingredient is all that’s needed to make the vaccine more effective why didn’t Pfizer do it? Heck, why didn’t they use 15 or 20 times as much active ingredient?

Answering this here, so as not to clutter the breaking news thread:

Moderna tested (at least) 3 doses in mice, which differed by factors of 10. The middle dose looked good enough, so they tested that (100µg) as well as 25µg and 250µg in humans. You can see some of the results in this video. (I’ve edited, and probably replaced all the “mg” with “µg”, but originally said: Um, I don’t know how to print a “mu” in this software. Read all my “mg” as micrograms, not milligrams.)

> **[New Subject Offering: "COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 and the Pandemic"](https://biology.mit.edu/undergraduate/current-students/subject-offerings/covid-19-sars-cov-2-and-the-pandemic-fall-2020/)**
>
> In Fall 2020, all MIT students and the general public are welcome to join Professors Richard Young and Facundo Batista as they discuss the science of the pandemic during this new class.

The stuff about doses starts just after 30 minutes in, with mouse data, and some results of the human trials can be seen starting at 34:38. They found 100µg better than 10µg. At 40 minutes, you can see that 100µg worked better than 25µg, (especially for neutralizing antibodies, and also for persistence of antibodies) but 250µg looked about the same as 100µg. So they went with 100µg.

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