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Comment by netsharc | Hacker News Reader

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netsharc·

Geezus christ, what a terrible title, "Omicron-containing"?!?!

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They seem to be quoting Moderna wording:

https://twitter.com/moderna_tx/status/1534493335209095170

https://investors.modernatx.com/news/news-details/2022/Moder...

Thanks for pointing that out, but it doesn't make the wording any less awful. What were they thinking?

"Omicron Aware"? "Omicron Targeting"? "Omicron Specific"? It's not even like the vaccine contains a weakened version of the virus, it's completely synthetic.

Right, just pointing out it wasn't editorializing. Moderna is the one framing it that way.

Probably means the "NIH spike" updated with Omicron genes (or parts of them? I don't know for sure.) The "NIH spike" is "full-length ... pre-fusion stabilised conformation variant (K986P and V987P) of the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome 2, GenBank: MN908947.3) spike (S) glycoprotein" according to the WHO. It is used by all current US vaccines, including NovaVax. I know Pfizer does other things to the "NIH spike" gene, including codon optimization, flanking 5 and 3 prime untranslated regions, 3 prime poly(A) tail, with all uridine replaced with N1-methylpseudouridine. They also have the secret lipid nanoparticle formulation, that not even the FDA advisors know about.

Sure, but why not "Omicron-aware" or something less alarmist?

Omicron-targeting would be much better.

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