I had a single J&J shot. Which booster should I take?

if ya gotta do now, Moderna. it da best

sorta leaning pfizer for the 0.3 mL action. as it shoots up the dropper's neck.

Just heard Dr. Leana Wen say that everyone who got a the J&J should now get a booster, and it probably should've been a two dose from the start

That's what I got as well, back in April...

J&B

(Sorry)

I'm hoping that a booster cheat sheet is released soon because I'm finding it all pretty confusing. Just tell me what to get and when.

yeah i see now that leana wen wrote an op-ed for the post about this. she followed up J&J with pfizer 'cause she's in the age range for blood clots from J&J.

that makes sense. if you're at risk for any of those side effects, get the one with the least amount of risk to you.

for other healthy individuals that got pfizer or moderna, and i'm lucky enough to fall into this category, what booster are you guys getting? are people sticking with the brand they originally got or mixing it up?

i got a pfizer boost a couple days ago, but that's what i got back in january and that's what was on the menu for the cattle call at work

Everybody I know in this situation is doing Moderna.

moderna

The latest such study, published on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, evaluated the real-world effectiveness of the vaccines at preventing symptomatic illness in about 5,000 health care workers in 25 states. The study found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine had an effectiveness of 88.8 percent, compared with Moderna’s 96.3 percent.

Research published on Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against hospitalization fell from 91 percent to 77 percent after a four-month period following the second shot. The Moderna vaccine showed no decline over the same period.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/health/covid-moderna-pfizer-vaccines.html

I got the Moderna microchip upgrade.

thanks flopson -- one more data point. but the moderna booster is only a half dose, while all those studies are done with full doses. there's no data (as far as i know) about how people would fare with a half-dose booster.

my choice basically comes down to a full dose of the slightly less-effective pfizer or a half dose of the slightly more-effective moderna. still leaning pfizer.

hm yeah that’s changes things. didn’t realize the pfizer booster was a full dose

tbh that may still not change the calculus, since half-doses of moderna in clinica trials were indistinguishable from full doses:

Data from Moderna’s clinical trials demonstrated that people between the ages of 18 and 55 who received two 50-microgram doses showed an “identical immune response” to the standard of two 100-microgram doses, said the official, Dr. Moncef Slaoui.

sorry here’s the link

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/03/world/covid19-coronavirus/us-officials-consider-half-doses-of-modernas-vaccine-to-give-more-people-at-least-some-immunity

https://www.fda.gov/media/144434/download

this argument is more clever than it is convincing, but may be of interest:

since most people in the US have pfizer, it’s better to take moderna. the reason is if a moderna-resistant covid variant emerges, you will be well-protected by all the pfizer-vaccinated people around you. by contrast, if a pfizer-resistant strain emerges, there aren’t as many moderna-vaccinated around to block the chain of spread

thanks flopson -- one more data point. but the moderna booster is only a half dose, while all those studies are done with full doses. there's no data (as far as i know) about how people would fare with a half-dose booster.

― Thus Sang Freud, Saturday, October 23, 2021 1:03 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes, this. which is why i was asking. my first two doses were pfizer. i'm not opposed to moderna but i'd rather get one that is the most effective with least amount of side effects. also, i want to see how dangerous and/or spreadable the new delta plus variant is

spreadable? lol, sorry. transmissible

since most people in the US have pfizer, it’s better to take moderna. the reason is if a moderna-resistant covid variant emerges, you will be well-protected by all the pfizer-vaccinated people around you. by contrast, if a pfizer-resistant strain emerges, there aren’t as many moderna-vaccinated around to block the chain of spread

Following this logic though, wouldn't the safest choice of all be to get a J&J booster?

given that Freud already got a j&j first dose, i think the optimal strategy implied by that logic is to diversify further prioritizing vaccines with the least uptake (modulo effectiveness)

the false positive rate on variants of concern has been high for a while. beta, gamma, lambda, were pretty much all busts

This from a reuters "explainer". seems to indicate that the difference in results between pfizer and moderna could be chalked up to the different intervals between the two initial doses of each, rather than anything inherent to the vaccines.

OPTIONS FOR J&J RECIPIENTS

Although the choices may seem confusing, Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco, tried to break it down as simply as possible.

"Fundamentally, you can get whatever you want for your booster, except for something very particular: Johnson & Johnson should be followed by an mRNA, period."

The FDA cleared a second J&J shot based on data showing it increased vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 disease to 94%, up from 72% as a single-dose vaccine.

But a U.S.-government study of mixed booster shots found that people who followed a J&J shot with an mRNA booster had significantly higher levels of protective neutralizing antibodies.

MAKE IT EASY

The CDC's recommendations reflect the agency's desire to make it easy to administer the shots. It gives physicians more leeway to advise patients who are at risk for certain side effects to try a different vaccine.

For example, younger men, particularly those aged 12-29 who have a higher risk of rare heart inflammation side effects linked with mRNA vaccines, now have the option of receiving a J&J booster.

Likewise, younger women, who are at higher risk of rare but life-threatening blood clots from the J&J vaccine, can now choose an mRNA booster.

It also allows for the possibility that not every pharmacy or doctor's office will carry all three types of boosters.

PFIZER OR MODERNA?

For those who got mRNA vaccines, the evidence suggesting a need for a booster is strongest for older adults who got the Pfizer/BioNTech shots, said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the FDA's vaccine advisory panel.

For younger individuals initially vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine, the decision is more nuanced. Protection from the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine appears to wane more quickly than the Moderna shots, but both still do a good job at preventing hospitalization and death.

Pfizer's initial two-dose regimen was administered three weeks apart, and Moderna's was given with a four-week gap. That longer spacing may be contributing to that difference rather than any inherent strength of the vaccine, experts said.

Pfizer's shot contains 30 micrograms of vaccine and so does its booster. Moderna's original shots were 100-microgram doses, but the booster is approved as a half dose. It is not yet known whether Moderna's lower-dose booster will have the same durability as the original shots.

Kathryn Edwards, a vaccine researcher at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said the lower dose may reduce the short-term side effects such as fever and body aches associated with the higher-dose Moderna shot.

Gandhi recommends that people over 65 who got the Pfizer vaccine spaced three weeks apart should get a third shot of either one. Anyone else should consult with their doctor for a more personalized discussion of risks and benefits.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/americans-wonder-which-covid-19-booster-is-best-2021-10-22/

hmm but even the half dose of moderna is 20 micrograms larger than the full dose of pfizer. this is all very confusing.

Pfizer's initial two-dose regimen was administered three weeks apart, and Moderna's was given with a four-week gap. That longer spacing may be contributing to that difference rather than any inherent strength of the vaccine, experts said.

i find it hard to believe that a one week difference of spacing between the two doses causes a 14pp difference in effectiveness 4 months after the second dose

it seems unlikely to me that any choice you could make would be significantly worse than any other. all good options

yes ultimately that is true of course. it's just a crazy situation where i have all this choice, it's kind of important, and there's so little guidance. i was sort of expecting the CDC to strongly recommend getting the same type as my original dose, which would have made things easy. as it is, i made an appointment for a pfizer shot this coming saturday and all things being equal i will just do that and get it over with.

significantly worse, no, but definitely by more than just a couple percentage points, especially taking into account the 5-6 month interval

i received my second pfizer jab 7 weeks after my first, and i'm happy it was delayed, because that means protection against severe effects in the 90s (92% as opposed to 85% for a 4 week interval), which, sure, may change as more data is received, but a couple studies (one in BC another in QC) seem to indicate protection does increase if it's delayed a certain amount of time

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canada-vaccine-effectiveness-data-delayed-doses-mixing-matching-covid-19-vaccines-1.6205993

i do agree that we may be splitting hairs, but, personally, it's a little more satisfying to make a decision based on current data, instead of randomly just getting whatever is available

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/well/live/covid-booster-shot-mix-and-match.html

I keep reading this thread title as "I had a single J&B shot."

https://media.scotchwhisky.com/images/media/34f95a6cda37c40cb0f367eb12c75f82.jpg

In which case, I'd stick with scotch instead of mixing and matching, but a single malt would be OK.

crapshoot, per that nytimes article. it almost argues for the "Wait for the T-cell info" option.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

No hydroxychloroquine, no credibility.