in AZ it’s open to all… Pharmacy was announcing FCFS this PM
AZN clotting issues continue
European Medicines Agency and Britain’s medical regulator acknowledged a possible link between the AstraZeneca vaccine to very rare cases of unusual blood clots with low blood platelets,
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COVID vaccination site closes early after adverse reactions to Johnson & Johnson shot
I received my J&J shot two days ago. So far so good. But I knew there was a chance for trouble and hoped my vaccine did not come from a bad batch. Others might not have enjoyed my (thus far) good fortune:
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I thought long and hard when it turned out my vaccine appointment was for JNJ rather than one of the mRNA ones and eventually cancelled it. Just saw that news 13/1700 adverse reactions on site that day, feeling a bit better about letting someone else take that spot. Just under 1% is a lot when it’s supposed to be 5 per million or so at least for the mRNA ones.
JNJ has had production / quality issues and that was certainly part of my decision. If I was at higher risk or exposure risk, I’d have taken it of course, but there’s gonna be tons of vaccines available in a few weeks and I’ve waited a year already… plus it looks like the mRNA ones fare better against the variants and those are more likely at this point than the original so they tell me (unclear, but very likely prospectively).
My best information on this might not be up to date. It’s a fast moving situation. However:
One of the things about J&J is that it scored lower than the two shot vaccines. However, it’s also true that the mRNA vaccines were tested earlier. J&J was a (relative) latecomer to testing. Hence:
The J&J tests encountered more of the variants, lowering J&J’s score when compared with the two shot vaccines. I had no problem with that. It made sense to me. However:
If there have been much more recent tests of the two shot vaccines, now that the variants have pretty much taken over everywhere, and if they performed as well as previously, then they are surely better than J&J. If this has happened I am unaware, so I went with the vaccine (J&J) which I thought had been evaluated most recently, encountering thereby the most variants.
Regardless seems to me a booster shot is in my future. When? I dunno. Hope it is just a single shot. Two shots for me means too much travel.
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Yes, that’s true but the US side JNJ results allowed a pretty clean comparison before the variants were a big factor here, unlike comparing their UK numbers to older trials before the variants had arisen. See my posts here where I looked into those details. It was 70-75% for JNJ efficacy vs 90-95% for the mRNA ones against the Wuhan Classic. Both expected to be lower of course vs new ones, but it’s looking like the higher ones are still higher against those (ie both maybe -10% vs UK strain).
Duly noted. Hoping for the best.
But not counting on the vaccine alone:
There is sunshine, and modest warmth, now here where I live. Yesterday I went outdoors and stripped down, exposing a large portion of my body to direct sunlight for circa fifteen minutes. There were no worries my nakedness would be seen by neighbors or passers-by. The objective was not exhibitionism, it was Vitamin D . . . you know . . . to ward off the virus.
Plan to execute a repeat exposure today once the sun reaches the correct position in the sky. Vitamin D is a good thing in a pandemic. And with old sol giving it away for free, I am happy to oblige him.
Did try for this earlier indoors when it was colder. But window glass messes up the UV you need to trigger the vitamin. It has to be direct sunlight, outdoors.
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Just checked the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and there are still no deaths listed for a 65+ year old woman in Kansas in March. The most recent death after receiving the vaccine is from February in which a 96 year old woman got the vaccine on 2/3, caught COVID on 2/15, and died on 2/23. I’m no medical professional, but I’d say that wasn’t likely an adverse reaction to the vaccine, just an old lady exposed to COVID after getting the vaccine and it not doing her much good, for whatever reason.
Agreed. I’m sitting here only just commencing to put in my one month waiting period while my body (I hope) gets around to synthesizing the antibodies I will need to achieve a much hoped-for level of resistance to COVID-19 by sixth of May.
Meanwhile nothing has changed and you sit and you wait.
Thank you for sharing this.
I have a tad less than two weeks to go before I get my Pfizer booster, and I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it given the reported second dose side effects. I second guessed myself, thinking I should have waited for the J&J. This seems to confirm my decision.
Aside from some initial apparent allergic reactions to the mRNA shots, I’ve seen little in the way of big problems or issues with the Pfizer and Moderna shots. It’s ironic given the angst around them that they seem to be the safest ones to take given J&J’s manufacturing mishap, and AZN’s complete disaster of a vaccine.
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Well, let’s face it, all of the vaccines are a crap shoot . . . with the odds certainly very much in your favor . . . but still a crap shoot.
I read an article yesterday (now lost) about some of the stuff they put into the mRNA vaccines that cause allergic reactions. Those substances are not in the J&J vaccine. I was allowed to leave the premises immediately after receiving my J&J shot, no worries. With the two shot vaccines they keep you around. And for some people the allergic reactions take longer to develop:
Delayed rashes. Rare but severe
I have no problem with isopropyl alcohol . . . . so long as you do not inject me with it!
Same here.
I’ll only allow it if it’s paired up with light bulbs
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JNJ more details
The Colorado Department of Public Health said some patients experienced nausea and dizziness after getting the J&J vaccine, while Centura confirmed that nine individuals were monitored on-site and were sent home and two individuals were taken to nearby hospitals out of an abundance of caution.
Massey told the Denver Post that the number of people who experienced adverse reactions was about 0.8 percent.
Pfizer continued observing its trial participants. I recall reading that Moderna had something similar, but didn’t dig it up.
The further analysis suggested the vaccine worked effectively against a variant first identified in South Africa, Pfizer and BioNTech said. And the companies said they haven’t found serious safety concerns so far.
The further analysis suggested the vaccine worked effectively against a variant first identified in South Africa, Pfizer and BioNTech said. And the companies said they haven’t found serious safety concerns so far.
Some 800 trial subjects were enrolled in South Africa, where a more contagious variant of the virus was first identified. Among those volunteers, there were nine cases of Covid-19, all in people who got a placebo. Sequencing confirmed six of the nine cases were of the variant. The findings, the companies said, support earlier analyses that have shown the vaccine generated a slightly lower immune response against the variant than the more common strain circulating in the U.S., but was still effective at neutralizing the variant virus.
The adenovirus vector is a problem - these who have a strong immune response to the adenovirus may not get the intended vaccination response. See the HIV adenovirus vaccine. That said, J&J did use a different type of adenovirus that is not likely to elicit an immune response in humans for its covid vaccine.
Use of adenovirus type-5 vectored vaccines: a cautionary tale …
(https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)32156-5/fulltext)
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JNJ twice in two days? Eesh. Feeling better about my decision, got an appointment shortly for MRNA with some persistence.
Yeah, I think Janssen has a larger QC problem than J&J has so far let on. I mean, the situation in Baltimore was bad enough. They fessed up to that one only because they caught it in time. You have to wonder how many other batches went out with human errors and all!!
Course I have their mistakes inside me now; it’s too late to change or maybe filter all my blood somehow. But my yesterdays are wildly more numerous than my tomorrows. So I have much less on the line than younger folk. Go ahead and spin that roulette wheel. I’m playing with house money and maybe I’ll still yet come up a winner!! 
Yup. Probably a bad lot or batch - you’re probably in the clear given these reactions seem to be happening right after administration.
Regardless, it’s a bad time to have it happen. I wonder if they are gonna have to roll back general availability.
Please allow me to answer that this way:
U.S. to ship 85% fewer J&J vaccine doses to states next week
From Reuters: Big Uh-Oh for J&J
But wait, there is MORE!:
J&J vaccine problems hamper US military vaccines overseas
From the AP: More J&J vaccine bad news
Personal observation from me:
Were I choosing to site a vaccine manufacturing plant, it would NOT be in Baltimore. You can take that to the bank!
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J&J’s, and AZN’s wounds are quality control type issues, the science is more “traditional”. Hope they get the rollout “bugs” worked out.
I got the mRNA tech vax and hope we don’t find out X years later.
Australia to buy extra 20 million doses of Pfizer vaccine
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia said Friday that it has finalized a deal to buy an extra 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine as it rapidly pivots away from its earlier plan to rely mainly on the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Australia’s pivot came after the European Medicines Agency said this week it had found a “possible link” between the AstraZeneca vaccine and rare blood clots, though regulators in the United Kingdom and the European Union emphasized that the benefits of receiving the vaccine continue to outweigh the risks for most people.
Even before the change, the government was facing criticism for a rollout program that’s lagging behind those in most other developed nations. So far, Australia has administered just over 1 million vaccine doses.
It is interesting. Both Australia and Canada are having a lot of problems getting their vaccination programs off the ground.
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