He didn't really answer--can that one be scaled since it has more standard dependencies? If so, isn't the "naive" question perfectly valid in that case?
That said, I'd prefer to get the mRNA vaccines as they seem much more effective, so any scaling up done there is still useful even if J&J alone could get rid of Covid in the US in a few months. (pending need to vaccinate kids for herd immunity, Pfizer is the farthest along that path, but not close to mass vaccination)
I am still unsure which route seems best.
Don’t mRNA vaccines target the spike protein?
The spike is a topic of debate currently as mutations/changes to the spike (South African variant etc) may affect mRNA vaccines more?
Moderna themselves are developing a booster shot targeting the SA variant & a separate booster for all the other variants (U.K. et al) for this very reason (read: you’ll need 2 doses of vaccine & 2 booster shots for full protection against all current forms of COVID/virus)
So the mRNA route might well be 4 shots for just the variants we know about.
That isn’t to say non mRNA vaccines (AstraZeneca, J&J) won’t also have the same issues (decreased effectiveness against the mutated virus ) but from what I’ve read it seems more likely to affect mRNA
You are correct. That being said, the targeting of the spike protein for the adenovirus vaccines is different to mRNA vaccines[0]
I have done some more reading & have seen the recent news of AZ & J&J having less effectiveness against the South African variant. With one positive for J&J being that their trial ran later than the other current crop of vaccines & part of the trial was done in South Africa - so more data is available[1].
Additionally, mRNA vaccines have been associated with instances of anaphylaxis[1], which has yet to be observed with the adenovirus vaccines (which could be due to mechanism, or that they have been used on less of the global populous to date). Furthermore, there is a strange "benign" rash appearing on peoples arms after being administered the mRNA vaccine - we are being told it's harmless, but also that nobody knows what it is precisely. You can look up "COVID arm" for details.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/health/johnson-john...
[1] https://www.kqed.org/science/1972627/the-differences-between...
> J&J doesn't really need to be scaled up because they alone have the ability to produce so much of it.
I'd bet 100 dollars that J&J ships less than a billion doses before July.
Are you willing to take the other side of the bet? If I'm right, that means that they could have "used help" even though they "have the ability to produce so much of it."
Edit: Before you take my bet, which I'm happy if you do, you may want to read this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/health/covid-vaccine-john....