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Anita Emde jumped at her chance to get the two doses of Pfizer’s vaccine in April. And now, with another wave of COVID-19 on the rise, the 64-year-old Scripps Ranch resident is calling for a booster shot.
“I wish they would speed up this whole process,” she said. “I would have it in the blink of an eye.”
Some have already done so.
A North County resident received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in late March and the Pfizer vaccine in July at Rite Aid. He has had open heart surgery and is living with diabetes, which both makes him vulnerable to COVID-19, and he has worried about reports that Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine may not offer strong protection against the Delta variant. So he asked his doctor if he should receive a booster.
“He wouldn’t tell me to go ahead and do it. But he didn’t tell me not to do it either, ”said the resident, who asked to remain anonymous. “He said in hindsight, if we had had a choice back then, I probably would have recommended you take Pfizer or (Moderna).”
It is not known how many San Diegans have received boosters, although county spokesperson Sarah Sweeney has confirmed that the area’s vaccination register contains entries for residents who appear to have received additional doses. Sweeney did not provide the exact number, adding that the county is still in the process of determining whether any of those cases are a data entry error.
As France and Germany plan to distribute reminders to elderly residents, and Israel has started to do so, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said those fully vaccinated did not have no need for additional vaccines.
This is also the view of San Diego County, with many vaccine suppliers in the area saying they do not offer recalls, including pharmacies Sharp HealthCare, Scripps Health, Kaiser Permanente, Family Health Centers of San Diego and Albertsons and Ralphs. So while some people clearly manage to escape, other call-back seekers have been turned down after providers checked their immunization records.
But a growing number of researchers say booster shots would be helpful against the rapidly spreading Delta variant. Shane Crotty of the La Jolla Institute of Immunology is one of them. It think it’s time for public health officials to encourage anyone who has received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to receive a dose of Moderna or Pfizer vaccines.
Its main concern is that the Delta variant multiplies faster than other strains. This leaves less time for the immune system to fight off the virus, and one way to do it quickly is to already have a large burst of antibodies – Y-shaped proteins that cling to a virus and block infection. if they attach themselves good enough place.
At least one study by scientists at New York University suggests that antibodies made in response to the Johnson & Johnson single-injection vaccine are not very effective in preventing the Delta variant from infecting cells in the lab. In comparison, a British study showed that giving people one dose of AstraZeneca vaccine followed by an injection of Pfizer was safe and triggered stronger antibody responses than two injections of AstraZeneca.
The vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson both use a harmless virus to slip an extract of genetic material inside cells, which teaches the immune system to respond to the coronavirus. And although no study has directly examined the benefits of combining Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine with another vaccine, Crotty says there’s no time to waste.
“The Delta wave is rising so quickly that you basically have to make a decision now or not make a decision,” he said. “If you make a decision in three months, Delta would have swept the country by now and that’s kind of a moot point.”
While San Francisco public health officials announced Tuesday that they are allowing anyone who has received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to receive a dose of Pfizer or Moderna, San Diego has not followed suit. About 150,000 residents have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, according to national and local data, representing 6.5% of those vaccinated in the region.
One of them is Dr Wilma Wooten, county public health official.
“I have not considered receiving a booster, as there is no evidence yet to do so, if one receives the J&J vaccine,” Wooten said in an email, adding that she would wait. the official recommendations of the FDA and CDC.
While the single-shot vaccine has been offered to everyone in San Diegan, the county has gone the extra mile to deliver it to groups unlikely to return for a second dose, such as farm laborers and the homeless. . The Father Joe’s Villages East Village campus, for example, vaccinated around 260 homeless people, although some received the Moderna vaccine before the Johnson & Johnson vaccine became available. Another 150 people were vaccinated as they lined up for lunch, while others were vaccinated at the Golden Hall shelter, according to chief medical officer Dr Jeffrey Norris.
There are good reasons to ensure these groups have access to vaccine boosters, says Joseph Stramondo, a bioethicist at San Diego State University, citing both emerging data on the Delta variant and disparities in long standing in health.
“Being a migrant worker or being homeless produces a greater risk of the virus in general, as you are more likely to have other types of co-morbidities that make (COVID-19) more dangerous for you,” he said. he declares. “I think that’s one more reason to prioritize them for a recall.”
Despite the growing interest in boosters, the researchers point out that all vaccines still do a great job of preventing serious illness. The results of a South African study announced on Friday show that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is still about 71% effective against hospitalizations caused by the Delta variant.
More than 99% of Californians currently hospitalized with COVID-19 are not fully vaccinated, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And infections among fully immunized people remain relatively rare in the state, with 7 cases per 100,000 people in the last week of July, compared to 33 cases per 100,000 unvaccinated Californians.
“Yes, we have breakthrough infections, but the vaccine really does reduce the severity,” said Sujan Shresta of the La Jolla Institute of Immunology. “As a scientist, I didn’t expect it to be perfect.”
Researchers have always known that immunity to the novel coronavirus won’t last forever. There are four other coronaviruses that can cause the common cold, and a number of studies show that immunity to these viruses typically lasts for about a year. The CEOs of Moderna and Pfizer said they expected people to need regular vaccine boosters, similar to the seasonal flu shot, although both companies also reported that their vaccines offered a strong boost. protection for at least six months after the second dose.
A third dose of these vaccines would count as a booster, just like what the two companies are working on – injections designed to trigger immunity against specific viral variants. And while the companies are still figuring out how much vaccine they’ll pack in boosters, Pfizer recently reported that a third dose of its existing vaccine at the current dose boosted antibody responses, including against the Delta variant.
Shresta agrees that boosters will be needed, but she doesn’t think we’re quite there at this point. There is, however, one group that she says would already benefit: people vulnerable to COVID-19 because of their age or underlying health issues.
These people, who may represent 2 to 3% of American adults, are much less likely to have strong vaccine responses, a University of Pittsburgh study showing that as few as 20% of immune lung transplant recipients have experienced detectable levels of antibodies against the coronavirus.
Federal officials have reported that the United States plans to allow immunocompromised people to receive additional doses of the vaccine within days or weeks. But on Wednesday, World Health Organization director Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pleaded with rich countries not to give boosters until late September or later to give low-income countries a chance to vaccinate a most of their population.
The global imbalance in vaccine deployment has been glaring. Case in point: almost half of Americans have been fully immunized, compared to just 2% of Africans. This has led to outbreaks in low-income countries and created opportunities for new viral variants to appear in areas with low vaccination coverage and spread globally. The Delta variant, first spotted in India, is a perfect example.
But the broader political issues of vaccine distribution, which are beyond the control of the average person, don’t make it unethical to receive a booster if you have one, according to Stramondo.
“The choice is not between someone who receives a recall and someone who goes to another country. The choice is between someone who gets a callback and that blow is thrown, ”he said. “When we ask questions about trade-offs, we have to be realistic about what trade-offs really are. “
There is broad agreement on one point: reaching the unvaccinated remains the key to ending the pandemic. Locally, that includes 500,000 San Diego residents currently eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine.
“This is what the world needs,” said Shresta. “And that’s what this country needs.”
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