It makes a lot of difference to me. The JNJ is based on more proven technology than the mRNA vaccines. Particularly for longer-term side effects. Also JNJ seems to have fewer allergic side effects. I am allergic to sulfa antibiotics and also to insect bites. One shot versus two shots also is a pretty big deal for me.
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No, they were already producing and ramping up capacity as fast as possible, before the approval. A tiny trickle of doses earlier would not have had any significant effect…
Could more of the early doses from pfizer been locked in? Probably. Could the DPA or other means been used to further encourage cooperation and speed up the ramp-up? Maybe.
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You’re right, I didn’t mean to omit such circumstances. My apologies. I just meant that there are probably not too many people in the same boat as you, so overall we’d probably get very close to the same vaccination level with or without J&J.
It does have fewer side effects, but it also seems less effective. >90% vs 72% (?) is kinda huge.
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When will you allow yourself to be vaccinated?
In the next few days, now that I’m finally eligible!
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Injecting oneself with bleach as the previous president idiot suggested is always an option for those who feel that rigorous testing of experimental vaccines is too slow. An alarming percentage of the country already thinks the vaccine is the government putting a tracker in people to track them and take their guns or implanting 5G antennas in them. If only trump had managed to destroy the CDC and FDA, we’d all be running around with a mix of bleach and hydroxychloroquine instead but no trackers or 5G antennas at least. 
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UK says take it and like it.
“People turning down the AZN vaccine will go to the “back of the queue”.”
Some really bad news here for our country. I wrote about this yesterday (vaccine hesitancy):
Unused Vaccines Are Piling Up Across U.S. as Some Regions Resist
In my opinion this is President Biden’s #1 problem. If we’re unable to promote vaccine acceptance by a GREAT many more people, this pandemic is gonna go on much longer. The following lifts are alarming:
Many U.S. states and cities have a growing surplus of Covid-19 vaccines, a sign that in some places demand is slowing before a large percentage of the population has been inoculated, according to an analysis by Bloomberg News.
The data indicate as many as one in three doses are [sic] unused in some states. Appointments for shots often go untaken, with few people signing up.
Overall, demand remains strong. In the U.S., 37% of people have gotten at least one dose, and the country is one of the world leaders in vaccinations. Now there are warning signs that vaccines are going unused. That’s a concern for epidemiologists who maintain that at least 75% of the nation’s population must be protected before the virus can be truly contained.
“At first we didn’t have enough vaccine, and now that we have a pretty good supply, the demand isn’t there,” said Kerry Gateley, health director for the Central Virginia Health District that Lynchburg falls under.
Unvaccinated pockets around the country give the virus room to spread and, perhaps worse, the ability to evolve. Experts worry that’s a perfect recipe for virus variants
JNJ 21 year old student dead one day after their shot.
There is no evidence that his death is related to the Johnson & Johnson shot
of course he’s still dead and there’s no evidence for anything else yet either. investigations proceeding.
Don’t be so alarmist. The article just says “there are warning signs” and singles out some areas in Virginia. It’s not “really bad” yet and not for the whole country.
I don’t care, scripta keeps saying only warning signs.
CA is still lacking in certain areas, rural, central/northern. Our small town has a vac/station going Thur, Fri, & Sat 8am-8pm. But my son is still waiting for an appt.
Quite simply, you’re too smart to be sanguine about this. America is not really safe until the entire world is safe (reference: COVAX).
As a corollary to that, Americans certainly are not safe until we all are safe. It’s not OK to have such a large portion of our people remain unvaccinated. Even if it’s only pockets (it’s not), such vulnerabilities right here at home are surely even more dangerous to us all than ones abroad.
The rural area where I live is today alive with virus and with a growing number of new cases. I still remember my own false sense of safety over a year ago when this virus was just commencing to rampage in the State of Washington. I wrongly (and stupidly) felt unthreatened because virtually nobody here was impacted. Live and learn.
This is the virus from hell. People need to be vaccinated for America to have a chance. To much too large an extent, that is not happening.
This is the wrong place to preach your gospel, most of us here (~90-98% according to your poll?) understand. You need to post on websites that cater to evangelical Protestants, blacks, and conspiracy idiots. And maybe the one person out of 40 here who voted “There is no chance I ever would risk vaccination.”
I disagree. As recently as yesterday there were posters right here who thought it was just fine for government loudly to proclaim a “pause” to the J&J vaccine based on a single death in seven million shots. That stupid announcement surely had a confirming impact on the (albeit erroneous) beliefs of millions of Americans already hesitant to receive the vaccine.
That death that happened supposedly right after anaphylaxis in Kansas still isn’t showing up in the VAERS. There is only one death of a 65+ year old woman in Kansas in March after receiving a vaccine and the details of that death do not match the story of the woman in the news article.
an anecdote: a friend ordered groceries for delivery and went out to talk to the driver. The driver blurted out “have you heard about the deaths with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine?”
I’ve been doing a lot of complaining about CA slowness with vaccines. So DS has an appointment today. Location is at Sikh Temple, not a member, but what ever works. lol…
And I’ve been telling you that there is no slowness in CA. You keep saying it but never provided any proof other than circumstantial personal evidence in your own county. In San Diego County, for example, > 50% of residents have already received at least one shot. California as a state is doing about average in terms of vaccination rates, maybe even a little better than average. Not all counties within the state are the same though.
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An approach to develop a vaccine that can protect against variants.
The team’s candidate vaccines take an unusual approach in that it targets a part of the spike protein of the virus, the “viral fusion peptide,” that is highly universal among coronaviruses. The fusion peptide has not been observed to differ at all in the many genetic sequences of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that have been obtained from thousands of patients around the world during the course of the pandemic.
“With the emergence of various SARS-CoV-2 variants, a vaccine targeting a conserved region of all coronaviruses, such as the fusion peptide, may potentially lead to a broadly protective candidate vaccine. Such a vaccine, if successful, would be of significant value against variant virus strains,” said Meng,
virologists develop broadly protective vaccines
edit: a possible problem is that this coronavirus peptide is also found in human body cells. As Donald Rumsfeld said you go to war with the army (and the vaccines) you have.
In California:
Newsom said the pause in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine affects only 4% of California’s vaccine supplies, with most residents receiving two-dose vaccine regimens from Pfizer and Moderna. But some community members have raised concerns about the effect it could have on the public’s overall willingness to get the shot.
Debra Schade, director of the California School Boards Association, said the rare but serious blood clot problems being investigated are spurring questions from parents concerned whether the shots bring the potential of long-term reproductive health issues for their daughters, now that those age 16 and up are eligible.
“I think there’s a level of hesitancy that you’re not aware of,” she told top state health officials Wednesday during a meeting of the Community Vaccine Advisory Committee.
" I’m shocked ! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here." 