Ask HN: Moderna vs. Astra vs. J&J vs. etc.

1 points by lsiunsuex 5 years ago | 3 comments

I appreciate the daily press briefings now.

I appreciate J&J being honest with 72% effectiveness and it doesn't require a deep freeze and is only 1 shot.

I don't like the... obscurity of the information?

If / when (i'm 40, male, living in the USA) I can get the vaccine: -- Can I choose which vaccine I get? -- If I got the J&J how do I know if I got lucky and i'm protected vs the 28% that it's not effective in?

We're not making foot cremes or a new weight loss drug or etc... This is a pandemic that is costing the world trillions in dollars. The biggest question I have is - why are we not taking the best drug (sounds like Moderna?) making them share the recipe and Astra and J&J just producing that drug and helping distro it? Not saying the formula should be open source of free (the rest should pay for it 1 way or another) but we should go with the best drug, not 3 choices as it stands?

bluGill 5 years ago |

J&J hasn't released any numbers yet. Any such release would violate their study protocol. The smart money has been on late January or early February (and they have given statements suggesting this is true), but they need to wait for specific semi-random events to happen in their study before they can release results so they don't know when.

Novavac did give results last night. 89% in general, but 50% against the south Africa variation that everyone is worried about. (I'm going from memory on the numbers so they are off a bit, but close enough)

You probably will not be given a choice. Supply is limited so you take what you can get.

For now you can get either Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. They are so close to the same as to not make any difference. The only exception is if your allergist says something in relation to your allergies. (if you don't have an allergist you probably don't have to worry). If your allergist says something, then he can probably get you access to the right one for you - but you probably can't otherwise.

As for manufacturing, basically nobody has the ability to make more vaccine even if allowed to. Pfizer spent most of last year building factories, anyone who want to make their vaccine will need to spend the rest of this year making a factory. Sure a lab could make a few doses by hand, but we are talking about a dozen people making 10 doses a week: not significant to Covid, and it takes away from all the work they were doing before.

lsiunsuex 5 years ago | |

I guess I thought making a vaccine would be like producing a cake. 1 cup of flour, 1 tbs of salt, etc... mix for x seconds and bake for x time.

We're not building cars and need to re-tool an entire factory - they can't just swap out vats of ingredients, punch in new qtys for each piece and go?

bluGill 5 years ago | | |

No, it is whole new machines for everything. None of the processes are similar. There are attempts to make something like the flu shot than others could make, but those are not approved in the US (yet).

Note, since my reply I've discovered the J&J has in fact released results at 72%. too late to edit my post, but I will stand corrected when called out on that. At 72% the mRNA at 95% is much better, but J%J can make a lot more vaccine so I'll take what I can get.