The big question for me is: what's the difference in the RNA fragment targeted by the Moderna vs. the RNA targeted by the Pfizer one? is there any overlap? mostly overlap?
What I'm really asking of course is are they complementary? or essentially the same thing? will it make sense having both? how fast will the virus mutate once these vaccines are ubiquitous?
It's not so much that - I guess what I'm trying to get at is a couple of things:
-whether applying some combination vaccines to a population will reduce the R value more than just one
-whether applying some combination vaccines to a population will provide more resistance to virus mutation
I guess it depends on whether they target different portions of the spike protein, the same portion, or the whole thing - if you're going after a small portion you essentially get to wildcard the rest of the protein, if you're doing the whole thing it's very specific and simple mutations will defeat it
I would guess we'll never find out the answer to that one, as it's unlikely to be studied in any rigorous way. But my guess is that it would reduce the R value a bit, but maybe not very much, since the immune system is likely to say "oh, that again, well we already know how to fight that", rather than generating a new type of antibody. But that opinion is worth everything you paid for it. : )
It's important information for the people planning epidemic responses, especially on behalf of governments (assuming you have a government that cares about responding to the epidemic).
Getting you R down as fast as possible is the thing that's going to really stop the epidemic in the large (rather than just in your body) and that's what this sort of information is useful for
... assuming the get into your cell and attach to a ribosome and manufacture a sufficient number of covid spike proteins to before they are denatured ...
What I'm really asking of course is are they complementary? or essentially the same thing? will it make sense having both? how fast will the virus mutate once these vaccines are ubiquitous?