[mapme]

No, looks like it is easy to modify existing mRNA vaccines slightly and give booster shots

>“Every time a new variant comes up we should be able to test whether or not [our vaccine] is effective,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told Bloomberg news. “Once we discover something that is not as effective, we will very, very quickly be able to produce a booster dose that will be a small variation to the current vaccine.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.timesofisrael.com/pfizer-mo...

[Andaith]

You then have to manufacture enough doses and distribute them. It's still a nightmare.

[perl4ever]

I remember reading somewhere a claim that the initial development of the (a?) mRNA vaccine was basically over a weekend; the testing and scaling to manufacture took the rest of the time.

[eddyg]

True; it was ready in January. Proving it is safe definitely takes times.

> By the time the first American death was announced a month later, the vaccine had already been manufactured and shipped to the National Institutes of Health for the beginning of its Phase I clinical trial.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vac...

[xiphias2]

A big part of the safety concerns were about the lipid layer outside the mRNA triggering autoimmune reaction, which doesn't need to change, so changing only the mRNA data should be relatively safe.