J.&J. Vaccine May Be Less Effective Against Delta, Study Suggests

[womanofthehills]

From today’s NYT’s.

The coronavirus vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson is much less effective against the Delta and Lambda variants than against the original virus, according to a new study posted online on Tuesday.

Although troubling, the findings result from experiments conducted with blood samples in a laboratory, and may not reflect the vaccine’s performance in the real world. But the conclusions add to evidence that the 13 million people inoculated with the J.&J. vaccine may need to receive a second dose — ideally of one of the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, the authors said.

The conclusions are at odds with those from smaller studies published by Johnson & Johnson earlier this month suggesting that a single dose of the vaccine is effective against the variant even eight months after inoculation.

The new study has not yet been peer reviewed nor published in a scientific journal. But it is consistent with observations that a single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine — which has a similar architecture to the J.&J. vaccine — shows only about 33 percent efficacy against symptomatic disease caused by the Delta variant.

[bamagal62]

1. Just waiting for someone to tell

Me I’m allowed the get another. I’ll be first in line!

[GPV]

2. I'm right behind you!

[Freddie]

3. Me too

Since the other ones are available everywhere now, would they know I had the J & J already? Or is this risky?

[bamagal62]

10. I've been told that some have been turned away.

If you used an insurance card, they know what you’ve had. I called CVS (went through the phone tree from hell) and they just kept repeating that they follow CDC guidelines. So, I never got a real answer.

[Freddie]

11. Got J & J thru my employer (a school district)

I’ll check my history in Blue Cross to see if it’s there. Don’t recall having to give them insurance info.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. There's a trial going on right now to look at the use of "mixed" vaccines

News Releases

Tuesday, June 1, 2021
NIH clinical trial evaluating mixed COVID-19 vaccine schedules begins

If you are interested in joining this trial, please visit clinicaltrials.gov and search identifier NCT04889209 for more information. Please DO NOT contact the NIAID News & Science Writing Branch.

The National Institutes of Health has started a Phase 1/2 clinical trial in which adult volunteers who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will receive booster doses of different COVID-19 vaccines to determine the safety and immunogenicity of mixed boosted regimens. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of NIH, is leading and funding the study through the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium, a clinical trials network that encompasses the Institute’s long-standing Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units (VTEUs).

“Although the vaccines currently authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration offer strong protection against COVID-19, we need to prepare for the possibility of needing booster shots to counter waning immunity and to keep pace with an evolving virus,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “The results of this trial are intended to inform public health policy decisions on the potential use of mixed vaccine schedules should booster doses be indicated.”

The trial is led by principal investigators Robert L. Atmar, M.D., at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and Kirsten E. Lyke, M.D., at the University of Maryland, College Park. It will include approximately 150 individuals who already have received one of the three COVID-19 vaccine regimens currently available under FDA Emergency Use Authorization in the United States: the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine (also referred to as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, or Ad26.COV2-S), the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine (also known as mRNA-1273), and the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (also known as (BNT162b2). Each vaccine group will enroll about 25 people ages 18 through 55 years and approximately 25 people age 56 years and older. Twelve to 20 weeks following their initial vaccination regimen, participants will receive a single booster dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine as part of the trial.

People who have not yet received an FDA authorized COVID-19 vaccine are also eligible to enroll in the trial in a separate cohort. Initially, these volunteers will receive the two-dose Moderna COVID-19 vaccine regimen and will be assigned to receive a booster dose of a vaccine about 12 to 20 weeks later.

The trial has an adaptive design and may add arms as vaccines are awarded EUA and/or variant lineage vaccines become available for evaluation.

All trial participants will be followed for one year after receiving their last vaccination as part of the study. They will be asked to complete telephone check-ins and various in-person follow up visits. Trial investigators will evaluate participants for safety and any side effects post-vaccination. Participants also will be asked to provide blood samples periodically so that trial investigators can evaluate immune responses against current circulating strains of SARS-CoV-2, as well as emerging variants. If trial participants develop laboratory-confirmed symptomatic COVID-19, investigators will perform genetic sequence analyses on the participant samples to see if a variant strain of SARS-CoV-2 caused the infection.

Initial trial results are expected in late summer 2021. For more information about the trial, including a list of enrollment locations, please visit clinicaltrials.gov and search identifier NCT04889209.

NIAID conducts and supports research — at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide — to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®

###

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-evaluating-mixed-covid-19-vaccine-schedules-begins

[mucifer]

4. 98-99% of the deaths in hospitals are from unvaxxed So how could J and J not be working?

[womanofthehills]

5. Look what is happening in Cape Cod

Cape Cod is weathering a surge in Covid Cases at the height of tourism season - including many among vaccinated.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cape-cod-is-weathering-a-surge-in-covid-cases-at-the-height-of-tourism-season--including-many-among-vaccinated-people/ar-AAMnaH8

And Israel has started jabbing people with Pfizer’s Delta booster because according to their Minister of Health, Pfizer’s vaccine protection dropped to 64% and many vaxed are getting Covid.

So far in my county in NM, the Delta has not hit us - as we have many days with 0 cases for the whole county.

[retread]

9. "... Pfizer's Delta booster..." Link??? Last I read Pfizer is still working on a booster, Delto or

otherwise and Israel was using a regular Pfizer for a 3rd shot for the immunocompromised.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. The only thing measured in actual people in the OP is 'symptomatic disease'

The excerpts aren't particularly helpful on defining 'effective'. The 2 dose AstraZeneca jabs cut symptomatic disease from the Delta variant by 64%, and hospitalization by 92%. So that's "less effective" than against symptomatic disease with the 'original' version of covid, but it still gives significant benefit, especially against severe disease (and thus death). It still "works".

Also remember that the US "98-99%" figure is from all variants, and, I think, including some time ago, when Delta wasn't very common in the US.

[BGBD]

15. Because

The JJ vaccinated population is small. 13 million is what, like 4% of the US population? Even with less effectiveness than the others, it'll have only a very small effect on total numbers. Since it is still significantly better than unvaccinated, that effect is even lower.

[DFW]

6. A friend of mine from NY is in this situation

We usually see him when we come to the States in the summer. Since he’s not here, I emailed him. He and his family are at home in quarantine. They all got the J&J vaccine months ago. Now they tested positive for Delta. He said the symptoms weren’t too severe, but I also haven’t heard anything further from him in almost a week.

[bullwinkle428]

12. A large number of my co-workers received the J&J as a company-sponsored

mass-vax event, around a week after I'd received my first Pfizer in March. I still feel fairly confident about my own level of protection, but am wondering how safe they're all feeling right now.

[pinkstarburst]

13. We are worried about this

Husband got the J&J vaccine and we don't feel he is fully protected. Pharmacies will not let you get the Pfizer or Moderna if you've already gotten J&J.

I'm very disappointed in Biden/the CDC that they have all but forgotten about all the Americans who got the J&J shot and are now at risk. It was only a small percentage (most got one of the RNA shots) but those people deserve to be fully protected against the new variants, especially since they followed instructions and got vaccinated.

[Moosepoop]

14. Experts say we shouldn't worry about the results

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-vaccine-booster-johnson-jj-covid-study-effectiveness-2021-7

Johnson & Johnson's vaccine produced fewer antibodies against Delta compared with other shots in an experiment. Experts say we shouldn't worry about the results.

*snip*

Eric Topol, professor of Molecular Medicine at the Scripps Research Institute, said on Twitter Tuesday that the antibody response with J&J's vaccine was above the threshold "for concern."

"There's also the T cell response," he added. The T cell response is another aspect of the immune system — it is harder to study in the lab, but is thought to be crucial to protect against variants. The NYU team didn't examine this in their study.

Peter Chin-Hong, professor of infectious disease at University of California, San Francisco, told ABC10 News that "you can't necessarily extrapolate laboratory-based studies to what happens in real life," citing J&J's performance against the Beta variant.

The same NYU study showed that the J&J vaccine's antibody response against Beta variant, first found in South Africa, was 6.5 times lower than against the original variant. But in humans, J&J's vaccine was 64% effective at preventing moderate to severe disease in its South Africa trials, when 95% infections were caused by the Beta variant.

I got the J&J shot, and was worried by the recent study. But this has me a bit less worried.

[Wounded Bear]

17. We need the media to stop pushing these half assed "studies"...

that have no clinical data behind them.

[bluecollar2]

18. More shitty journalism from the American press

Buried in the last paragraph....

"The new study has not yet been peer reviewed nor published in a scientific journal"