J&J Vaccine and ThoughtsResult on the J&J Vaccine are out as of this morning, and while it's not the home-run we all would have liked, I would consider it a solid triple.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: 1) J&J said Friday that in the U.S. and seven other countries, the single-shot vaccine was 66% effective overall at preventing moderate to severe illness, and much more protective -- 85% -- against the most serious symptoms. There was some geographic variation. The vaccine worked better in the U.S. -- 72% effective against moderate to severe COVID-19 -- compared to 57% in South Africa, where it was up against an easier-to-spread mutated virus.
2) After day 28, no one who got vaccinated needed hospitalization or died regardless of whether they were exposed to "regular COVID or these particularly nasty variants," Mammen said. When the vaccinated did become infected, they had a milder illness.
To put this all into perspelctive, the regular flu vaccine efficacy year over year ranges between 40% and 60%, so the J&J is significantly better. As for the variants, I think they're going to prove more daunting for all vaccines, and that's why we're already seeing companies such as Pfizer talking "booster shot", with the required time to tweek being about 6 weeks.
The BIGGEST gain I think is that they are saying NO ONE needed hospitalization 28 days after receiving the vaccine. Now THAT is a massive win, because at worst, if you get any symtoms at all, they will be much moore alligned to getting the flu on any given year and maybe needing a day or two to recover, variants included.
Imho, the J&J vaccine will certainly receive fastrack approval, and will be another huge dent towards bringing Covid under control.