What do we need to know about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine?

On Monday March 1st, the first truckload of Johnson and Johnson (J&J) vaccine arrived at the worldwide distribution center of the UPS in Louisville, Kentucky. This marked the day 1 of the entry of the 3rd American COVID vaccine into the market. In this blog my main goal is to highlight the outstanding features of the J&J vaccine and to compare and contrast it with the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
The Cardinal Contrasts
The J&J vaccine is contrasted with Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in four important respects:
- It is a DNA and not an RNA vaccine. This makes a major part of its interaction with our cellular machinery different from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.
- It is a single-jab and not a two-jab vaccine. This makes the use of it more convenient for the recipients.
- It is more stable in higher temperatures and it can be stored in the refrigerators instead of the freezers. This makes the challenge of transportation and storage of it more convenient and practical.
- It uses a different mechanism of entry into the cells that sets it apart from the other two American vaccines and makes it similar to AstraZeneca vaccine that has been primarily used in the United Kingdom.