New data suggest J. & J. vaccine works against Delta and recipients don't need a booster shot.

[JoanofArgh]

A single dose of the Covid-19 vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson is highly effective in preventing severe illness and death from the Delta and Beta variants of the coronavirus, data from a clinical trial in South Africa suggest.

The study is the first real-world test of the vaccine’s efficacy against Delta, a highly contagious variant of the virus surging across the United States and much of the world. South Africa’s Ministry of Health reported these preliminary results at a news conference on Friday. The data have not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal.

In the trial, called Sisonke, the researchers evaluated one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in nearly 500,000 health care workers, who are at high risk of Covid-19. The vaccine has an efficacy of up to 95 percent against death from the Delta variant, and up to 71 percent against hospitalization, the researchers reported. (The vaccine did slightly worse against the Beta variant, which is thought to be more adept at sidestepping the immune response than Delta.)

When so-called breakthrough infections did occur in vaccinated volunteers, they produced mild symptoms in 96 percent of the cases and resulted in severe disease or death in less than 0.05 percent, the study found. The trial ran from February to May of this year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/06/science/johnson-delta-vaccine-booster.html


This is interesting. The J & J vaccine protects better against the Delta than the Beta version of COVID.

[padah513]

1. Glad to hear it

My one and done Jinn & Juice,

[StarryNite]

2. This is really good news.

It seems like so little is ever said about the efficacy of the J&J compared to Moderna and Pfizer. Finally some good news for us J&Jers. Thank you for sharing.

[underpants]

3. Exactly

👍

[JoanofArgh]

6. We got the Pfizer because it was readily available at our community vaccination sites.

At the time the Walgreens, CVS and Sam's Club had Moderna but kept running out. If people can get fully vaccinated with just one shot , a lot of them might be more willing to get vaccinated.

[LisaL]

9. The article seems to be confusing working well (much better than nothing) with

not needing boosters.
J&J had lower efficacy compared to Pfizer and Moderna in clinical trials. As far as I can tell, it still holds (more people getting breakthrough infections (normalized by doses administered) than those vaccinated with Pfizer or Moderna).
Being able to get an mRNA booster is not a bad thing.

[StarryNite]

11. The safety of mix and match vaccinations has not been fully tested.

There are anecdotal cases of it working well and even being the safest way for all of us. But that theory isn't ready for primetime yet.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. I think "not needing boosters" came from this bit of the study which the NYT didn't explain

Link to tweet

1. #Sisonke data shows there is good durability for the protection that the #JnJ jab provides:
- Protection @ hospitalisation (65%) was the same 28 days after vaccination and 120 days after vaccination
2. Sisonke data shows, at this stage, no booster shot is required

(that 65% figure is the combined result against Beta and Delta)

[LisaL]

20. 65% is a pretty low number against hospitalization.

Showing durability isn't the same as not needing boosters.

[WHITT]

4. Apples and Alligators

Retry the testing six months later. That's the circumstances showing waning effectiveness in other vaccines.

[JoanofArgh]

7. Yep. I got Pfizer and am fully open to a booster when they become available .

[LisaL]

8. I got Moderna which is holding well, and I still want a booster.

Boost me up!

[LisaL]

5. J&J had almost double breakthrough cases (per 100,000) compared to Moderna in Oklahoma.

So claims like the OP article don't hold water. Works reasonably well is not the same as booster is not needed.

"Johnson & Johnson has the most at more than 102 breakthrough cases per 100,000.

Pfizer and Moderna are nearly neck and neck. Moderna, though, recorded the least amount of breakthrough cases at almost 57 cases per 100,000."

https://www.newson6.com/story/60f05713f4010b0bf64da8ca/number-of-breakthrough-cases-for-fully-vaccinated-people-remains-low-despite-rise-in-covid19-cases

[StarryNite]

10. This is the most recent on the J&J.

Tomorrow it could be different. COVID-19 is new and constantly changing. The vaccines for it are new. I don't think anybody knows for sure how long the efficacy will be for any of the vaccines at this point or how effective they will be for the next COVID variant. I consider this good news for the ones of us who got the J&J. I hope all the vaccines are effective and remain effective. In the meantime, I will keep on masking, lots of hand washing and hand sanitizer, and social distancing. Everybody stay safe!

[padah513]

12. +1000

[Upthevibe]

13. As a recipient of the J & J Vaccine.....

I'm happy to hear this news.

[Pobeka]

14. Paywall. But, WTH does "up to 95", "up to 71" percent mean?

Sounds like weasel words to me, but it may be legit if I could read the article.

I have given many gifts to folks with a value "up to $1000".

[JoanofArgh]

15. Here's the link to the study. The article didn't really go into it.

http://sisonkestudy.samrc.ac.za/


The article also said that laboratory tests on J & J have been mixed and that some places like San Francisco have been offering Pfizer or Moderna boosters .

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. 71% against hospitalization is not that good, compared to Pfizer or AstraZeneca

the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 96% effective against hospitalisation after 2 doses
the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is 92% effective against hospitalisation after 2 doses

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vaccines-highly-effective-against-hospitalisation-from-delta-variant

So if you started with 4 groups with equal populations, and from the unvaccinated group, 100 were hospitalized, then 4 from the fully vaccinated Pfizer group would be, 8 from the fully vaccinated AstraZeneca group, and 29 from the J&J group.

[JoanofArgh]

17. Thanks for posting.

[LisaL]

19. Exactly.

How can one make a conclusion that boosters are not needed based on these numbers?

[WHITT]

21. Right

It's like saying six months ago that someone who got the Pfizer vaccine didn't need a booster. Of course they didn't. Now they do.

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. But (see #18) they do know that the effect of the J&J vaccine is not yet fading

so it's not like a comparison of the Pfizer vaccine 6 months later. And there hasn't yet been a study showing real-world effectiveness of Pfizer is fading (antibody levels are, but that doesn't automatically mean protection is).

[WHITT]

25. Pfizer

says their vaccine's effectiveness has declined and continues to decline.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. They said the decline was 'gradual'

This is about efficacy against "laboratory-confirmed COVID-19", rather than severe illness or hospitalization (the whole study only had 31 severe cases, of which only 1 was in a vaccinated patient, so they can't measure that against time):

Conclusion With up to 6 months of follow-up and despite a gradually declining trend in vaccine efficacy, BNT162b2 had a favorable safety profile and was highly efficacious in preventing COVID-19.
...
Efficacy peaked at 96.2% during the interval from 7 days to under 2 months post-dose 2, and declined gradually to 83.7% from 4 months post-dose 2 to the data cut-off, an average decline of ∼6% every 2 months. Ongoing follow-up is needed to understand persistence of the vaccine effect over time, the need for booster dosing, and timing of such a dose. Most participants who initially received placebo have now been immunized with BNT162b2, ending the placebo-controlled part of the study. Nevertheless, ongoing observation of participants through up to 2 years in this study, together with real-world effectiveness data,14-17 will determine whether a booster is likely to be beneficial after a longer interval. Booster trials to evaluate safety and immunogenicity of BNT162b2 are underway to prepare for this possibility.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261159v1.full-text

Pfizer is marketing widespread booster doses heavily, but so far the CDC is only talking about using them for immunocompromised people.

[WHITT]

27. Yep, I Posted That Info Quite A While Back

Stay Tuned.

We'll have to start age-related, original-date related boosters soon.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. They couldn't say "boosters are needed" because they haven't studied the effect of boosters

J&J was intended to be a 1 dose vaccine; they can't just assume that a 2nd dose would significantly improve its results against Delta. They know that the results aren't fading with time; perhaps a 2nd dose would work, like it does with AstraZeneca, to improve the result. But that just isn't known yet.

[LisaL]

23. mRNA booster is the one that people presumably should be getting, not another dose of J&J.

San Francisco is allowing J&J recipients to get either Pfizer or Moderna shot, which they are calling a "supplemental" dose.