After months of researching and conducting trials to create a vaccine with optimal effectiveness, pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna began rolling out the covid-19 vaccine in early December. Although vaccines from both companies have been proven to be highly effective, one of the biggest complaints is the need for two doses which has caused vaccine shortages at a much quicker rate than anticipated. The reason vaccine shortages have been occurring is that many states have held onto half of the supply that they’ve been given in order to give them out to those awaiting their second dose.
A third company, Johnson and Johnson, began testing their own vaccine in early June and entered the third and final stages of its clinical trial in September. They recently submitted an application to the FDA for emergency use authorization as results have seemed to be promising and they’re ready to move ahead with mass distribution in the upcoming months.
Many individuals have wondered which vaccine is better or if they should get any vaccine at all. What sets the Johnson and Johnson vaccine apart from the rest on the market is that it only requires one dose, which avoids the hassle of coordinating second doses for individuals within 21 days. But what does one dose ultimately mean, is it still as effective as the other vaccines? Here’s what we know about the J&J vaccine so far.
For starters, The Johnson & Johnson vaccine differs from the composition of both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines which store the instructions in single-stranded RNA while the Johnson & Johnson uses double-stranded DNA. In other words, Pfizer and Moderna have created a vaccine with messenger RNA which means there is no live virus within the vaccine but only small portions of the viral sequence to produce spike proteins that create immune responses. Johnson and Johnson however added material from the coronavirus to another virus, Adenovirus 26, which typically causes common cold symptoms and although it can enter cells it cannot cause illness.
In terms of efficacy, Johnson and Johnson’s final results have concluded that their vaccine has 66 percent efficacy at preventing mild infections and 85 percent efficacy towards more serious cases. Although Pfizer and Moderna have higher efficacy rates of around 95 percent regarding symptomatic cases and 100 percent efficacy towards severe infection, all three vaccines have proven to be 100 percent effective at preventing death and hospitalization.
One of the biggest upsides of the J&J vaccine is that it is cut out for widespread distribution since it’s only a single shot and is much easier to store since it only requires regular refrigeration temperatures and can be stored for up to 3 months. Another upside is that once these vaccines start rolling out twice as many people would be able to get vaccinated as opposed to a two-dose vaccine and would help stop the spread of the virus at a much quicker rate.
While Johnson and Johnson await FDA approval, they have continued to study variants of the virus in other areas of the world and expect to distribute 100 million doses of the vaccine within the U.S. by summer. Many experts claim that any type of protection is better than none and this vaccine can prove to be just as successful as the others in the grand scheme of things.
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