I handled this past pandemic year worse than most people I
know. Not because I had it harder, obviously; my family was insulated by all
sorts of privilege. But emotionally, I more or less fell apart.
اضافة اعلان
Unlike my friends and acquaintances, I developed no new
domestic skills or hobbies. If there were silver linings, I was too mired in
hysterical grief for my old life to appreciate them. Knowing how little I’d
lost compared to others didn’t lessen my misery, it just added a slimy coating
of shame to it.
Frantic for an escape hatch, I started applying to vaccine
trials last year, and was accepted into the Johnson & Johnson (J&J)
one. Sometimes when I mention this, people have thanked me, but there was
nothing really altruistic about it. I’m delighted to have played a minuscule
part in the development of a vaccine, but to me, any risk involved paled beside
the possibility of getting immunity early.
When I got a shot at my first appointment in December, I
felt something close to ecstasy, but the next day it curdled into despair. In a
sort of reverse hypochondria, I scanned my body hoping to feel any ghostly
twinge of a side effect, but there was nothing. I was pretty sure I’d gotten a
placebo.
Since then, of course, J&J’s single-shot vaccine has
received emergency authorization. Like the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna
vaccines, it appears to be highly protective against hospitalization and death
from COVID-19. But because the J&J trial showed lower efficacy in
preventing symptomatic COVID, there’s a fairly widespread perception that it’s
inferior to the other vaccines.
In its trial, the Pfizer vaccine’s efficacy was about 95
percent. Moderna’s was more than 94 percent. J&J measured its results
differently, but its efficacy was 85 percent against severe disease and 66
percent when factoring in more moderate cases. Public health experts are
telling most people to take whatever shot is offered, but the vaccines are
clearly not all the same.
Detroit’s mayor initially rejected a shipment of the J&J
vaccine, saying residents of his city deserve “the best.” (He later reversed
course.) In February survey data cited by the Centers for Disease Control, 58
percent of respondents said they wanted one of the two-dose vaccines, and only
7 percent the one-dose. Of the 58 percent, only a little more than a quarter
would take a one-dose vaccine now rather than wait a month for a two-dose
version.
Thanks to the vaccine trial, I had a similar choice. This
month, in a process known as unblinding, the researchers told me that, as I
suspected, I’d gotten the placebo. Then I was offered the real thing. For me,
it was an easy call. Not knowing when I’ll be eligible in New York, I begged
the people conducting the study to let me come in as soon as possible, and got
my J&J shot last week.
I’m thrilled and grateful, but I still couldn’t help
wondering if I’ll be more vulnerable than those who got two-shot inoculations.
Dr Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, convinced
me I shouldn’t be anxious about the vaccine’s effectiveness. “If there is a
difference, it’s so trivial and irrelevant that I certainly wouldn’t worry
about it,” he said.
The gap between 95 percent and 66 percent doesn’t sound that
trivial to me, but Jha argued it’s partly an artifact of where and when the
vaccines were tested. The J&J trial had arms in South Africa and Brazil,
each beset by variants of the virus that can decrease vaccine efficacy. It took
place later than the other trials, when more variants were circulating. Even
so, there were no hospitalizations or deaths among any vaccinated trial
participant.
“If you actually want to say where do we have the best
evidence about the South African variant, and which vaccines do we have the
best evidence that it protects you from severe outcomes against the South
African variant, it’s J&J,” he said.
Jha expects that Moderna and Pfizer would also perform well
against the coronavirus mutations — he’s not arguing that J&J is better
than the others, only that each has advantages. I’d read Jha saying that,
thanks to the vaccines, he hopes to have around 20 people over for a July 4
barbecue. I asked him whether he’d consider what vaccines they got. He insisted
he wouldn’t.
“If you show up with any of those three vaccines, and a
little bit of time to let the vaccines work, I’d be comfortable sitting down
inside my house and having a meal with you,” he said.
It’s something I’ve been aching for: dinner with friends,
our kids playing in the background. As people around me get vaccinated, that
vision is finally in sight. My small personal hell has an expiration date.
According to the CDC, you’re fully vaccinated two weeks after the J&J shot.
Jha said it’s really more like four. It already feels as if it’s saving my
life.