Cohan: Now is not the time to go vaccine shopping — take the one that is offered to you

Three safe and effective coronavirus vaccines are now available in the United States — an amazing accomplishment — and though opinions of the different shots vary among the public, now is not the time to go “vaccine shopping.”

The best coronavirus vaccine is the one that goes into your arm. Unless a medical condition or allergy prevents you from getting one vaccine over the other, trying to pick and choose your shot of preference is counterproductive to our overall coronavirus response effort.

And in Massachusetts, patients do not currently have a choice of vaccine. You get what you get.

The pandemic is not over and vaccine supply remains constrained, so taking whichever vaccine is offered to you means saving your life and others.

There are certainly pros and cons to each of the three vaccines, but all of them have been proven safe and effective according to data from Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In my recent reporting on vaccines, I’ve heard a lot of questions about the overall 66% efficacy of Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine compared to Moderna and Pfizer’s approximate 95% efficacy.

But the comparison isn’t quite fair. Clinical trials for each vaccine were conducted differently, during varying time periods of the pandemic and in different locations.

For example, Johnson & Johnson’s shot is the only vaccine that was been tested as variants circulated.

In addition, the J&J vaccine is specifically 85% effective in preventing the most severe cases of coronavirus, a key focus in beating back the pandemic and taking COVID-19 from a deadly threat down to the common cold of the future.

If you’re worried about efficacy, just take a look at the flu shot, which millions of people get every year to prevent death and severe illness and is less effective than the coronavirus shots.

Recent studies show that flu vaccination reduces the risk of illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population when most viruses are well-matched to the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez, associate hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, said vaccine shopping was already happening before the J&J vaccine was authorized.

“I think that the overarching message that we’ve been trying since the beginning is to say that these three vaccines will protect you,” Andujar Vazquez said.

She added, “There is no reason to pick one over the other.”

The nation’s top infectious-disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “All three of them are really quite good, and people should take the one that’s most available to them. If you go to a place and you have J&J, and that’s the one that’s available now, I would take it.”

As Americans, we love the freedom to choose. Maybe you like the convenience of the one-shot J&J dose, or the efficacy of the Moderna shot, but as we continue to tackle the pandemic with the best tools available, keep an open mind to receive any vaccine you are offered.

— Alexi Cohan covers health for the Herald.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3kRFxfO