ATLANTA — More than 80,000 of the new one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine will soon be on the way to Georgia. While clinical trials show it’s not quite as effective at preventing illness, medical experts say it’s a viable option to the two dose vaccines already being distributed.
Scientists used different ways of measuring effectiveness in clinical trials, making it difficult to compare how well the new one dose vaccine measures up to the two dose versions.
Moderna and Pfizer measured how well their vaccines prevent any sign of illness, finding them more than 90% effective. Johnson and Johnson looked at how well their vaccine stopped severe illness 28-days after a single shot, finding it 85% effective.
“It does just as good of a job at preventing severe cases that require hospitalization or that may result in death,” says Public Health Microbiologist Dr. Amber Schmidtke.
Administering only one dose will have an obvious impact on distribution.
“That’s appealing from a public health perspective because getting everybody vaccinated once is hard, getting people vaccinated a second time is five or ten times as hard,” says Dr. Mark Tompkins of the University of Georgia Center for Vaccines and Immunology.
Where the two dose vaccines use genetic information from the coronavirus, the Johnson & Johnson one dose vaccine uses a hollowed out version of a virus that can cause the common cold and fills it with information on how to combat COVID-19.
Dr. Tompkins says other vaccines like it tend to be more potent.
“It’s still a very safe vaccine,” says Tompkins. “It can give a strong response where you may only need one vaccination. They’ve shown 85% protection against severe disease after 4 weeks. Maybe that will get better at six weeks.”
Johnson & Johnson is looking at what might happen with a second dose of its vaccine.
“Any of the vaccines, if you are eligible to get one, get the vaccine without a doubt,” says Tompkins.