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Comment by ketamine__ | Hacker News Reader

> My view is that it would be good if the J&J vaccine was followed by a booster–perhaps of some other vaccine–but that it’s individually fine and in fact socially beneficial to get more people protected quickly by delaying the booster for at least 12 weeks to when vaccines are less scarce. I don’t currently see a reason for thinking differently about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Not an expert, not a researcher, but an economist...

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Regardless of his qualifications, his point is interesting: J&J seems to be about as effective as a single dose of Pfizer. There was a whole bunch of worry about what would happen if people got only one of their two Pfizer doses.

Was that worry all for nothing? Was it backed up by any science? If there was legitimate reason for concern, why do we not have the same concern around the j&j vaccine?

(I'm not trying to advocate any of these points. I'm even less qualified than an economist. But they seem like legitimate questions)

> Was that worry all for nothing? Was it backed up by any science? If there was legitimate reason for concern.

I believe it was because of a lack of evidence either way. The Pfizer trials were two doses. So we didn't know for sure how well one would work. The decision to only do one was made on the basis that this works well for most (but not all) vaccines. It is now known that it indeed works for the Pfizer vaccine, and so it seems to have been a good decision. The concern was that it would not and would set the vaccination programme back by months.

> Why do we not have the same concern around the j&j vaccine?

I'm not sure, but I suspect the J&J vaccine was trialed as one dose from the outset.

That makes sense to me. Thanks for explaining

> Regardless of his qualifications, his point is interesting: J&J seems to be about as effective as a single dose of Pfizer.

The most compelling J&J number is, IMHO, the 100% efficacy at preventing hospitalizations and deaths. Is a single shot of the double-shot vaccines that effective? AFAIK that study was never run..

The trouble with all of these 100% numbers is that very few people (in either group of trial participants) were hospitalised.

We have a small sample for the estimate of this efficacy. That being said, all the vaccines have shown this in small samples, so my current working theory is that the hospitalisation rates post vaccine will be very, very low (but almost certainly not 0%).

Other related posts including quotes from supporting experts: https://marginalrevolution.com/?s=first+doses+first

This is more about looking at the ability of our systems to change their response in emergencies; why are obvious things so hard to do, when they both fully make sense, and are supported by an interested group of experts, against a larger but less interested group of conventional, rule-following experts?

What is the relationship of his credentials to his logical argument? By arguing from credentials you implicitly take the side of the status quo in history; you'd have been arguing against every overturning of conventional wisdom.

I'm not saying all rejection of convention is correct, obviously - but if you look at the specifics of the argument, not the status or credentials of the arguer, it seems more likely to come to a correct judgement.

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