How does the Moderna vaccine compare?

Since it’s based basically on the same mRNA technology (and has the same reported efficacy) I would assume it works as well as the Pfizer one. No hard data to back this up, though.

This is a false assumption as they have different mRNA instructions. As you point out, wait until there is data and treat the vaccines independently.

> This is a false assumption as they have different mRNA instructions

Depending on what you mean by “mRNA instructions” that might not be the case. Both vaccine mRNAs encode exactly the same variant of the spike protein.

yes, but no. while it’s technically the same protein, the way it was optimized differs (not by much but it’s different). the vaccine itself has the instructions to produce something that resembles the spike protein (to which your immune system goes in overdrive and generates antibodies)

> while it’s technically the same protein

Not technically, it’s actually the same protein/polypeptide sequence in both cases, 100% identical, including the proline mutations that stabilize the prefusion conformation. You can check that easily by translating and aligning in silico both coding RNA sequences.

> the way it was optimized differs (not by much but it’s different)

I’m assuming that you’re referring to the codon optimization step that the RNA sequences underwent. While both coding sequences were optimized differently, this has no effect on the final protein product.

https://github.com/NAalytics/Assemblies-of-putative-SARS-CoV...

I’m not gonna go into how the virus was sequenced or what the process to generate the vaccine was, but in this case, I believe your claim of being 100% identical is wrong.