[kach22i]

Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine appears to fare better against worrisome COVID-19 variants than first reported
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/02/24/nation/jj-one-shot-vaccine-appears-fare-better-against-worrisome-covid-19-strains-than-first-reported/

Overall, the vaccine that Johnson & Johnson developed with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was 72 percent effective at preventing moderate to severe disease in the United States and 66 percent of such cases globally, according to the latest data. Across all regions, it was 85 percent effective at preventing severe illness and 100 percent effective at preventing coronavirus-related hospitalization and death.................

When Johnson & Johnson announced interim results of its study on 43,783 participants on Jan. 29, it said the vaccine was 66 percent effective against the Brazilian variant and 57 percent effective against the South African variant. The pharmaceutical company tested the vaccine at multiple trial sites in both countries, where the variants cause most cases...........

But the trial results improved over the past month as more data were analyzed. The vaccine is now 68 percent effective at preventing moderate to severe disease caused by the dominant variant in Brazil and 64 percent effective against the dominant variant in South Africa.

Although Johnson & Johnson’s trial results indicate robust protection overall, they fell short of the stellar performances of two-dose vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Cambridge-based Moderna that were cleared for use in December.

Those vaccines prevented about 95 percent of coronavirus cases in large studies. But the trials were held before resistant variants emerged, and federal health officials and vaccine experts say the percentages would likely be lower if those studies were conducted now...........

The briefing documents posted on the FDA website also provided a tantalizing early finding that could have major consequences if more evidence confirms it. A single shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine not only protected recipients against illness, it also appeared to prevent some asymptomatic infections, which many experts believe have fueled the epidemic.

I thought that I heard on NPR yesterday that the J&J looked to do better against the UK variant now taking over America, but perhaps I misheard.

January 29, 2021
A Look At The Latest Data On Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 Vaccine
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/29/962190210/a-look-at-the-latest-data-on-johnson-johnsons-covid-19-vaccine

STOFFELS: If you dive deeper into the data, then we get to what is really important. It's 66% overall on the globe, but what is happening at the moment is there is a very challenging time of huge number of infections, as well as different variants running through the world. You have U.K. variant, the Brazil, the South African variant. And what we learn is that some of that has significant effects on efficacy.

But when we look to the severe disease in the study, then we showed that there was an 85% efficacy against severe disease and a complete protection against hospitalization and complete protection against death. And that's across all the regions, including in South Africa. And when we looked into South Africa, then we sequenced all the strains, and we saw that 90% of the strains were the South African variant, but there we also saw a very high efficacy of protecting for severe disease, death and hospitalization.

February 22, 2021
Why The Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Has Gotten A Bad Rap — And Why That's Not Fair
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/02/22/970235986/why-the-johnson-johnson-vaccine-has-gotten-a-bad-rap-and-why-thats-not-fair

Jha notes that among the vaccines that have reported results, almost all of them — including the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — have shown to be close to 100% effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths.

February 21, 2021
U.K. Moves To Speed Up Vaccinations, With Goal Of 1st Dose For All Adults By July 31
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/02/21/969920948/u-k-moves-to-speed-up-vaccinations-with-goal-of-1st-dose-for-all-adults-by-july-

The U.K. uses both Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines.