question on signing up for a vaccine

[orleans]

i've been trying & trying to get a vaccine appointment (unsuccessfully)

tonight i found a one day only event for residents in my town.
they are only giving out johnson & johnson -- which was third on my preference list.

anyway, i got an appointment.

question is should i just do that and get it over with, or should i hold out for one of the other two brands and continue spinning my wheels and not getting an appointment?

illinois is opening up to anyone over 16 pretty soon so i feel like i'm gonna lose whatever slim chance i now have

thoughts on getting johnson & johnson?
(has anyone here gotten that one?)

[bottomofthehill]

1. Absolutely, the simple answer is Get the Vaccine

Protect yourself and others get the shot

[bottomofthehill]

2. Absolutely, the simple answer is Get the Vaccine

Protect yourself and others get the shot

[Laura PourMeADrink]

3. Have you tried Walmart CVS Walgreens or Sam's? All doing

vaccinations but you have to go to their individual websites to make an appointment. Google, for instance, "CVS covid vaccine". I had three in a week to pick from. But had to call their pharmacy directly to ask which vaccine they had.

I personally might not get J &J because lower efficacy. Others might disagree

[questionseverything]

4. Get the one that's available

[Kali]

5. get it

I would bet real money we are going to need to do these annually so there will be other shots coming.

[torius]

6. J&J is my first choice

I’m trying to get an appointment to get it, my state just opened to my age group. I’d rather just go once and get it over with.

[Nululu]

7. Get it when you can

It took weeks to find appointments for us. We would've taken anything.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. Take the first available vaccine

[TreasonousBastard]

9. Take what you can get. Waiting for what might be a slightly better one isn't worth it.

[Rhiannon12866]

10. Dr. Fauci said to get the one that you can get first, that's the priority

That's what I did, last Saturday. Congrats on getting an appointment, took a long time to reach my area, too

[StarryNite]

11. I got the J&J

It's the one I wanted. I got it at Costco. It's been 10 days since I got it and I'm glad I don't have to go back for another one.

[Solomon]

12. I wanted to get the J&J but had to take

the one available to me which was pfizer. Get whatever one you can.

[LisaL]

20. Pfizer is an excellent vaccine.

It appears to work against the variants too.
So you should be happy you got it.

[Dorian Gray]

13. Do it!!!

One and done! And you're adding to the pool of fully vaccinated.

(May I ask why you've put them third on your list? Is it because the efficacy numbers are lower? That's been explained as a result of testing later than the other two, when more variants were out and about. It will still provide you with greater immunity and an effective tool against covid!)


Addendum: Despite Moderna being last on my list -- because I personally know more people who had side effects with Moderna than the other two -- It's what I got. And my second appointment is in a few hours! And even if I go down with symptoms post vaccine, I'm so grateful for it that I may cry!

[Rhiannon12866]

15. Same here!

And I did think it was kinda cool when I learned that was also the one that Dr. Fauci got! I've known several people who also got the Moderna vaccine, some had a reaction and others had none at all. I didn't feel well that night and the next day, but I'm like you, I was just so grateful to have finally been able to get it!

[LisaL]

19. I got Moderna (first dose).

Pfizer was the one I wanted, but I went with what was available to me the soonest.
I didn't get side effects with the first dose other than a slightly sore arm for a bit. Let us know how your second turns out symptom wise.

[Ms. Toad]

23. J&J uses a different mechanism,

So the difference is far more likely to be related to the fact that it is an RNA vaccine, rather than an mRNA vaccine. AstraZenica (same mechanism as J&J) also has an effectiveness in the 70+% range, rather than the 95% range for the other two.

[LisaL]

25. Sputnik V has efficacy of over 90%, and it uses adenovirus in two doses.

NT

[Ms. Toad]

33. Yes, but . . .

it uses two different adenoviruses (unlike J&J and Astra Zeneca which use identical 1st and 2nd doses (in places where 2 doses are used)).

One of the concerns about using adenoviruses to deliver the spike protein is that subsequent doses using the same adenovirus will be less effective becasue of pre-existing immunity to the adenovirus used in the first dose. Sputnik V uses a different adenovirus for dose to in order to avoid that concern.

So comparing Sputnik to J&J and Astra Zenica is comparing apples to oranges.

[Tink41]

28. A flu shot is only 60% effective

I've had one every year and have never gotten horribly ill. I'd take whatever shot I could get. That is the current guidance based on the spreading much more contagious variants, get one before it gets you.
The effectiveness is not about preventing infection per say. It's to prevent death, and/or being hospitalized.

[Ms. Toad]

30. Actually it has been a decade since the flu shot was 60% effective

And then **just** 60%.

It has only been over 50% effective once since 2010-2011. The average effectiveness since the 2010-2011 flu season is 36%. One of the main reasons I don't get a flu shot.

What I care about most IS preventing infections. If you don't become infected, you don't spread it. If you become infected - you spread it.

Preventing serious illness or death is one goal, but that - alone - will not dig us out of this mess as long as people are still becoming infected, still spreading the disease - and more critical - still creating variants.

[LisaL]

32. J&J also prevents asymptomatic infections. Efficacy of that was 74%.

NT

[Ms. Toad]

34. I hadn't seen any testing of J&J for prevention of disease -

but you're correct - but the efficacy is stlll lower.

I still have a preference for the more effective Pfizer & Moderna. (But I am less concerned that the rush to get any vaccine in arms will leave us without the ability to create herd immunity.)

[honest.abe]

14. Of course get it if that's the first one available.

I got the j&j about 3 weeks ago. That was the first one available for me. I actually preferred jj since it’s one and done!

[USALiberal]

16. Really???? Yes get it!!!!!!! Nt

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. The Johnson & Johnson one is as fully effective as the other two.

Plus, it's one and done.

I got lucky in that it was the J&J shot available when I got notification from my state DOH to register for a shot. I would just as happily taken either of the other two.

[LisaL]

18. If its very hard to find Pfizer or Mderna you probably don't want to wait.

Cases are going up and variants are spreading. You can get infected while you wait.

[Ms. Toad]

22. Personally - I would wait.

The effectiveness is significantly lower AND there is no evidence yet that J&J prevents disease (as opposed to severe infection). There is evidence that the mRNA vaccines actually prevent disease.

So - based on current evidence, the choice is a matter of personal health - NOT of public health (since, so far, vaccines are still hard to come by. If you don't take the appoinment someone else will).

If I was younger, with no pre-existing conditions - I might consider J&J. If I lived or worked in settings that I felt posed considerable personal risks I might consider J&J - just to increase my personal protection.

But I have pre-existing conditions so I wanted the best protection.

While my spouse is emotionally incapable of consistently wearing a mask, at the time I was making my choice I had the ability to stay relatively distant from her (sleeping in a separate room, running a HEPA air purifier that was effective to the size necessary to be filtered), and I am extremely consistent in wearing my mask. So the additional time I would be condinuing doing what I've been doing was no big risk.

I said in advance I was going to make a choice. I was ridiculed for it with the same kind of knee-jerk responses you are getting. But the reality is that I was able to find an appointment for the preferred vaccine for myself on the day after my group was eligible (I waited for the one two days later to put it on a weekend). I was similarly able to find an appointment for my daughter the day after her group was eligible.

If you want to make a choice, keep trying. If you have CVS stores near you - they are pretty easy to make an appointment with. At least in our area, they dump large chunks of appointments at relatively random times. The appear to have dumped the group I found an appointment in at about 9:30 AM on a Tuesday. They dumped the batch I found my daughter's appointment in at around 1:00 AM on a Thursday. Their batches tend to be for 3-4 days and - at least in our locale - simultaneously in 3 stores in a 50-mile radius.

[LisaL]

24. Not exactly accurate.

J&J also prevents asymptomatic infections.

"Not only is the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine able to prevent the symptoms of the disease, it is also able to curb person-to-person transmission, according to data released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on February 26."

https://www.verywellhealth.com/johnson-and-johnson-covid-19-vaccine-slashes-transmission-rates-5114945

[orleans]

40. thank you nt

[Tink41]

26. Daughter had J&J

Any of the 3 take and be done with it. I'd read a breakdown as far as effectiveness of them all. A flu shot is 60% effective. J&J is 65 I believe. All of them will absolutely prevent serious infection, complications, hospital. DEATH! I had Pfizer a week after hers. My first choice would have been J&J as one and done, but I had no choice, appointment to get it was the driving force.

[LisaL]

27. J&J totally makes sense for younger, healthier people.

I personally wanted a higher efficacy, as I have pre-existing conditions.

[Tink41]

29. The efficacy of preventing death is the same for all!

[LisaL]

31. Death isn't the only thing one might want to prevent.

NT

[USALiberal]

38. LOL, ok! nt

[WCIL]

35. I am in Adams County

and our site is currently open to any Illinois resident age 16 and over. Pfizer vaccines are being reserved for 16 and 17 year olds, and everyone else is getting Johnson and Johnson. My son and his girlfriend came down from Chicago for it. They were vaccinated on Saturday afternoon. My son had fever and chills starting at 2 am, which lasted all of Sunday. A bit of nausea. Woke up Monday feeling fine. His girlfriend had no effects at all.

I got Pfizer when I got mine back in February, but I would have taken anything.

[LisaL]

36. Pfizer is the only vaccine approved right now for those 16-17.

So I guess it makes sense to reserve it for those age groups, as they are not allowed to get any other vaccines at the moment. What happened to Moderna in your county?

[WCIL]

39. We got some

my friend's husband got Moderna when the vaccines started here. There was no choice - you got what they had. Some days they had primarily Pfizer, some days primarily Moderna. Everyone I know except this one man got either Pfizer or J & J.

[Tanuki]

37. Dr. Fauci has been quite clear in recommending that a person take

whichever one of the 3 vaccines is most readily available to them, ASAP.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/02/28/fauci-all-three-covid-vaccines-highly-effective-urges-people-to-take-available-shot.html