Alleged Ineffectiveness of the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine

The coronavirus pandemic has been threatening the entire world since the end of 2019. The danger of COVID-19 is also manifested in the fact that new strains constantly appear, and they can have slightly different symptoms, cause other infections, and spread faster. Although some countries have succeeded in creating and producing several different types of vaccines, the effectiveness of which has been confirmed, the emergence of new variants of coronavirus causes concern among scientists. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a current study that claims that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine can be less effective against the Delta strain of COVID-19.

To begin with, it is important to talk about the variant itself. According to Katella (2021), Delta is the predominant SARS CoV-2 variant that first appeared in India in December 2020. Now it accounts for more than 99% of coronavirus cases (Katella, 2021). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021) state that it is more than twice as contagious and dangerous as previous strains and can cause more severe infections in unvaccinated people. Delta can lead to hyperlocal outbreaks in low-vaccination areas since it has increased transmissibility among all people, notwithstanding vaccination. Finally, scientists say that not everything is known about this variant.

Since different vaccine options have appeared, people have felt more secure. Johnson & Johnson vaccine has become one of the available ways to become protected against coronavirus. However, recent research has suggested that it is much less effective against the Delta strain (Tada et al., 2021). According to the authors, it is recommended that the 13 million persons who received the J.&J. vaccine get a second dose, preferably made by Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech (Tada et al., 2021). Ten blood samples were taken from people with the J.&J. vaccine and put in a dish, and then the researchers introduced the Delta strain. The antibodies were seven times weaker against with variant (Mandavilli, 2021). Therefore, immunity should be boosted with the second dose.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Delta variant: What we know about the science. CDC. Web.

Katella, K. (2021). 5 things to know about the delta variant. Yale Medicine. Web.

Mandavilli, A. (2021). J.&J. vaccine may be less effective against Delta, study suggests. The New York Times. Web.

Tada, T., Zhou, H., Samanovic, M. I., Dcosta, B. M., Cornelius, A., Mulligan, M. J., & Landau, N. R. (2021). Comparison of neutralizing antibody titers elicited by mRNA and adenoviral vector vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 variants. bioRxiv. Web.