Photo: Hendrik Schmidt/Pool (Getty Images) The arms race between the coronavirus and humanity continues to pick up steam. This week, Moderna announced that its modified vaccine meant to target a worrying variant first found in South Africa is now ready for testing. Pfizer/BioNTech is also set to test out their own contingency plan for new variants soon. Advertisement The variant discovered in South Africa last winter—known as B.1.351—has emerged as one of the most concerning to date. Like other recently discovered variants, such as B.1.1.7 (first found in the UK), B.1.351 is more transmissible than past strains of the virus. But B.1.351 has also shown more of an ability to evade a person’s immune response created by earlier infection or vaccination than other variants. Earlier this month, for instance, South Africa suspended its pending vaccination campaign with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, after early data suggested that it would only be minimally effective at preventing illness from B.1.351.