Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial • Hacker News Board

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#191

Post by matteotom » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:11 AM UTC

interestica wrote: post #182

Exmoor wrote: post #30

I suspect the title was abbreviated to fit HN length requirements, but it cut out perhaps the most important part. This data is for a single shot. There is an ongoing trial for boosting with a second shot down the line, but having a single shot that's known to be effective at eliminating the disease and extremely effective at reducing severe cases and hospitalizations is a game changer. We can vaccinate lower risk po…

What is the optimal vaccination strategy? So far, it just seems like we're following "vaccinate healthcare workers and the most vulnerable" and that, on the surface, seems intuitive. But is there some other sort of algorithm that can determine the best way to reduce overall transmission the fastest? Random vaccinations? Targeted groups in different regions? Double shots for vulnerable before single shots for others?…

One strategy, which wouldn't be applicable to most places in the United States right now, is to target a couple levels of potential contacts of every case. So when a person tests positive, you vaccinate all their contacts, and then all those people's contacts, and you can be pretty sure to have broken that line of transmission.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#192

Post by sdeep27 » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:16 AM UTC

tpmx wrote: post #122

The mRNA vaccines are obviously the gold standard, they're what you want, if you're in a position to pick. The traditional vaccines, like this one and the Astra Zeneca one appear to be efficient at preventing hospitalization/death. That's great - it will ease the extreme load on the hospitals, and also reduce deaths greatly. What I'm concerned about is the long-term chronical diseases that's been reported ( https://w…

Such confidence about "gold standard" is hard to justify without ANY studies on mRNA long-term effects (how could there be > this is brand new vaccine technology and delivery).

I would actually argue it is "safer" to take a more traditional vaccine (which have a long history of safety studies, including longer-term one) than an untested (in the long-term sense) mRNA vaccine, given equal efficacies. So, maybe not the J&J if we can truly compare % efficacies given with the mRNA ones (as others have noted, they might not be comparable as different measures were used), but give what we know I would pick the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine over the mRNA ones.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#193

Post by matteotom » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:16 AM UTC

lurkmurk wrote: post #60

Is there some resource that compares all the vaccines, an article or a blog post? I would guess that a vast majority of people don't have time/knowledge to look into official reports. One big table with different companies, number of people in trials, results etc. would be nice. For example, what I just found out is that Moderna is actually not 95% effective on all age groups but on 18-65 [1]. Back to J&J. How old we…

It's not exactly a table, but NYT has a vaccine tracker with much of this information https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus...

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#194

Post by jimbob45 » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

sdeep27 wrote: post #192

tpmx wrote: post #122

The mRNA vaccines are obviously the gold standard, they're what you want, if you're in a position to pick. The traditional vaccines, like this one and the Astra Zeneca one appear to be efficient at preventing hospitalization/death. That's great - it will ease the extreme load on the hospitals, and also reduce deaths greatly. What I'm concerned about is the long-term chronical diseases that's been reported ( https://w…

Such confidence about "gold standard" is hard to justify without ANY studies on mRNA long-term effects (how could there be > this is brand new vaccine technology and delivery). I would actually argue it is "safer" to take a more traditional vaccine (which have a long history of safety studies, including longer-term one) than an untested (in the long-term sense) mRNA vaccine, given equal efficacies. So, maybe not the…

This is my thought process as well but currently the J&J and AZ vaccines are somewhat hard to come by and a vaccine is better than no vaccine.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#195

Post by triceratops » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

_Understated_ wrote: post #99

akuchling wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But most people are unhealthy, with one condition or another. It's misleading to throw out most of the population and then say "but look how small the numbers are for the sliver that's left!"

That's not an argument... Healthy is subjective but when you say it like that then, yes, everyone has something. However, there are a bunch of things that will greatly increase your chances of dying from COVID: diabetes, obesity, cancer, immune-related illnesses so this is what I am referring to. It's fair to say that people with one or more of those (not an exhaustive list) are "unhealthy". So, it's not misleading:…

A fairly large slice of under-70s have diabetes, obesity or cancer.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#196

Post by Exmoor » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:26 AM UTC

interestica wrote: post #182

Exmoor wrote: post #30

I suspect the title was abbreviated to fit HN length requirements, but it cut out perhaps the most important part. This data is for a single shot. There is an ongoing trial for boosting with a second shot down the line, but having a single shot that's known to be effective at eliminating the disease and extremely effective at reducing severe cases and hospitalizations is a game changer. We can vaccinate lower risk po…

What is the optimal vaccination strategy? So far, it just seems like we're following "vaccinate healthcare workers and the most vulnerable" and that, on the surface, seems intuitive. But is there some other sort of algorithm that can determine the best way to reduce overall transmission the fastest? Random vaccinations? Targeted groups in different regions? Double shots for vulnerable before single shots for others?…

Since you asked, my layman's strategy would be to keep prioritizing the groups at most risk of negative consequences to get the mRNA vaccines and open a second "lane" with less stringent requirements to get a shot of the J&J vaccine. So right now where I live, healthcare workers and people 65+ can get the vaccine and it looks like it'll be another month before they add more eligibility. Perhaps you would open up another lane to say, frontline workers (retail, teachers, etc.) so they can get the J&J vaccine right now or wait until the eligibility for the mRNA vaccine gets relaxed to them. Upside is this gets the most at-risk individuals access to significant protection the quickest. Downside is that forego "really good" protection for "amazing" protection and get sick while they're waiting.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#197

Post by timr » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:28 AM UTC

angry_octet wrote: post #131

gojomo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some think the Adenovirus-vetor vaccines have more risk of certain side-effects, especially if (by chance or a prior vaccination) the person was previously infected by a related Adenovirus. By contrast, the mRNA vaccines do the same thing in the end - get your cells to appear infected & emit the target spike proteins – in the narrowest possible way, via a subset of the changes an Adenovirus infection causes.

As I understand it, the risk is not to do with the adenovirus but with the use of PEG (polyethylene glycol) or similar analogues, to make the active ingredient last longer, which may cause an allergic reaction[1] to sensitized people. The AZ vaccine does not use PEG (nor J&J, Novovax IIRC). The complication with the adenovirus carrier is that you immune system may attack the carrier so effectively that you don't get…

There are a number of direct risks related to the Adenovirus itself. Multiple adenovirus vaccine programs have been scrapped over the years because of these issues:

https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/Adenoviral-vect...

For example, famously, one Ad-based HIV vaccine was found to increase the chances of getting HIV. People still theorize that it might be due to the vector itself:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

(that said, these platforms are certainly better validated than the mRNA-based vaccines. There's an approved rabies virus vaccine based on adenovirus.)

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#198

Post by interestica » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:37 AM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #187

interestica wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the optimal vaccination strategy? So far, it just seems like we're following "vaccinate healthcare workers and the most vulnerable" and that, on the surface, seems intuitive. But is there some other sort of algorithm that can determine the best way to reduce overall transmission the fastest? Random vaccinations? Targeted groups in different regions? Double shots for vulnerable before single shots for others?…

well we definitely shouldn't be vaccinating people who've had and recovered from the virus before we vaccinate other who haven't, and we most likely shouldn't be giving out second shots before more people get a first shot. Of course individual risk and exposure plays a role, but the incremental protection conferred by the second shot in the arm of a person who's already recovered from covid is pretty low, even if the…

> we most likely shouldn't be giving out second shots before more people get a first shot.

It's mostly thinking out loud because sometimes the most effective solution is a bit counter-intuitive. There may be some value in getting more people to a guaranteed 100% protection. Right now, in Canada, we seem to be following an intuitive route. But in BC, they've already administered ~4000 second doses. (Likely only in long term care facilities). https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/covid-19-upd...

So it seems like the strategy there may be to get those residents to 2 shots before others.

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#199

Post by interestica » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

matteotom wrote: post #191

interestica wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the optimal vaccination strategy? So far, it just seems like we're following "vaccinate healthcare workers and the most vulnerable" and that, on the surface, seems intuitive. But is there some other sort of algorithm that can determine the best way to reduce overall transmission the fastest? Random vaccinations? Targeted groups in different regions? Double shots for vulnerable before single shots for others?…

One strategy, which wouldn't be applicable to most places in the United States right now, is to target a couple levels of potential contacts of every case. So when a person tests positive, you vaccinate all their contacts, and then all those people's contacts, and you can be pretty sure to have broken that line of transmission.

This is what I was looking for. That seems to make a lot of sense.

> which wouldn't be applicable to most places in the United States right now

Which begs the question: how do you delineate regions for strategies in a pandemic? Political/provincial/municipal borders are useless when you're talking about disease transmission. Does it then make sense to have different strategies for different areas (and to divide areas up based on completely different concepts -- like proximity to major highways, for instance).

Re: Johnson and Johnson single-shot vaccine appears 66% effective in global trial

#200

Post by mchusma » Sat, Jan 30, 2021, 1:41 AM UTC

Moto7451 wrote: post #43

JamesBarney wrote: post #3

66% protection against getting moderate to severe Covid but 100% protection against death and hospitalization. I have no idea how the FDA can hold back these vaccines in good conscience while peoples are dying by the thousands on a daily basis.

Why do you believe that the FDA is holding them back? So far the process appears to be approval after the minimum of safety and effectiveness testing. This means that people won’t waste time or be harmed by a failed vaccine candidate. I don’t work in medicine and am just a bystander like most. Is there something I am missing?

The FDA has banned it I'm the US, it's holding them back.