Good News Everyone!

It appears that the effectiveness of the Johnson and Johnson Covid vaccine is the same as the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

Given that I got the J&J vaccine, because it was the only one that showed that it had no corn (maize) products in it, and my wife and kids have corn allergies.

This is also good news because the J&J vaccine has a one shot regime and can be stored at refrigerator temperatures, greatly simplifying vaccine distribution and administration:

Roughly 17 million Americans received the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine, only to be told later that it was the least protective of the options available in the United States. But new data suggest that the vaccine is now preventing infections, hospitalizations and deaths at least as well as the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

The reasons aren’t clear, and not all experts are convinced that the vaccine has vindicated itself. But the accumulating data nonetheless offer considerable reassurance to recipients of the vaccine and, if confirmed, have broad implications for its deployment in parts of the world.

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The Johnson & Johnson vaccine was billed as an attractive option for communities with limited access to health care, including some within the United States, because of its ease of delivery and mild side effects. But it has had a bumpy journey.

The shot seemed to produce a weaker initial immune response, and more people who got the single-dose vaccine had breakthrough infections, compared with those who got two doses of Pfizer or Moderna, the mRNA vaccines.

In April, federal health officials in the United States and in South Africa paused the J.&J. vaccine’s distribution as they examined reports of a rare blood-clotting disorder in women. Though both countries resumed the rollouts soon after, the vaccine’s reputation never fully recovered.

But the notion that the vaccine is inferior has grown outdated, some experts said: More recent data suggest that it has more than held its own against its competitors.

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Until last June, the cumulative data from the C.D.C. showed that immunization with the Moderna vaccine resulted in the lowest rates of breakthrough infections; those who got Johnson & Johnson saw the highest rates, with Pfizer-BioNTech somewhere in the middle.

During the summer months, the gaps — particularly between J.&J. and Pfizer — began to narrow. By now, all the vaccines seem to be performing about equally well against coronavirus infections; in fact, Johnson & Johnson appears to be holding up slightly better.

As of Jan. 22, the latest data available, unvaccinated people were 3.2 times as likely to become infected as those who received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine; they were 2.8 times as likely to become infected as those who received two doses of the Moderna vaccine and 2.4 times as likely as those with two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech. Overall, then, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine appeared to be somewhat more protective against infection than the two alternatives.

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Dr. Corey said the results jibe with his experience in H.I.V. research with the adenovirus that forms the backbone of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. “It has much longer durability than almost any other platform that we’ve ever worked with,” he said.

So it confers immunity for a longer period of time.

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The infection rate is now lower among people who got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine but did not get a booster. Still, the death rate is slightly higher, compared with that among those who got the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, Dr. Dean noted.

But the differences are not huge, and disappeared among those who got booster shots. The C.D.C.’s statistics on deaths only run through Jan. 1, and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine’s edge may only become apparent in data from February or March, said Dan Barouch, a virologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston who collaborated with Johnson & Johnson in the development of the vaccine.

In any case, get the f%$#ing vaccine, and when you can, get boosted.