Johnson & Johnson vaccine approved for use

Federal regulators granted an emergency use authorization for Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine Saturday afternoon. The approval opens a third vaccine in the fight against a disease, one that can be kept at refrigerator temperatures, potentially simplifying distribution to remote areas.

The approval came after a key panel of medical advisers for the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously Friday to recommend the emergency use authorization. The agency’s approval swiftly followed late Saturday evening, The Washington Post reported.

In anticipation of the vaccine’s approval, Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday the state can expect to receive 30,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson’s product next week.

Because the vaccine requires only a single shot, compared to the two doses spaced several weeks apart for the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines already in use, those additional shots could mean tens of thousands more residents could soon be fully inoculated depending on how quickly the shots are distributed.

In clinical trials, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was shown to be 85 percent effective overall at preventing severe disease and death in recipients 28 days after they received the shot, and 66 percent effective overall at preventing moderate to severe cases of COVID-19. Those numbers, while still far above the 50 percent effectiveness required by the FDA, have led some to express concern the shot is a second-tier vaccine.

But Andrew Heinrich, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health, urged people to get whatever vaccine is available to them after consulting with their doctor.

“In the brilliant words of a colleague, nobody’s at 100 percent efficacy, and no one ever will,” Heinrich said in a phone interview Saturday afternoon.

For those who are already at a low risk, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine puts them at an “infinitesimally” lower risk, he said. Those who are high risk, meanwhile — an elderly person with preexisting conditions for example — would see their risk from the virus reduced by a “substantial” amount, he argued.

But the greater benefit comes when a larger number of people get the vaccine, meaning the people you are likely to interact with on a daily basis are more likely to have antibodies against the virus.

“Pretend a vaccine was only 50 percent efficacious” Heinrich said. “If every individual you encountered over the course of your day is 50 percent less likely to be infected, and every person they interacted with was 50 percent less likely to be infected, then the statistical odds that you will get infected” are dramatically lower, even if the vaccine does not work on you, he pointed out.

While Johnson & Johnson submitted its application for emergency use with one shot of the vaccine, the company is also conducting trials using two doses.

For Heinrich the answer is simple: if your doctor tells you you can get any of the three vaccines, take whichever one is available to you, and encourage those around you to get the shot as well.

That advice comes as Connecticut is set to dramatically open up who is eligible to receive the vaccines on Monday, with those 55 and up as well as educators and child care professionals becoming eligible to register for an appointment.

Johnson & Johnson has said it expects to be able to deliver 20 million doses of the vaccine by the end of March and 100 million by the end of June, the Associated Press reported.

Unlike the two vaccines already in use, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine uses a modified adenovirus to deliver the genetic code from the coronavirus’ spike protein, the spiky outcroppings that help it attach to and infect cells in a person’s body.

The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines meanwhile deliver messenger RNA into the recipients cells— genetic instructions which tell the cells to pump out copies of the spike protein. The person’s immune system then creates antibodies against that spike protein.

Johnson & Johnson’s approach is more tried and true. The same platform was used to develop vaccines against Ebola, for example.

In Connecticut, where distribution of the vaccine is proceeding quickly, Heinrich said people could possibly decide which vaccine to take. That doesn’t mean they should, outside of medical advice from a doctor.

“The best thing we can do is just get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible,” he said.