Four whale vaccinations

When the EU approved the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson (J&J), in Germany just over 6 million people (7.4%) had already received the first dose of the vaccine and only 2.7 million received both doses. This is only 3.3% of the country's population. But since April, they plan to vaccinate up to 20 million people every month, if family doctors at the place of residence join the vaccination program. At this rate, as the director of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wheeler, said, "by the end of September, within our borders, the pandemic can be considered defeated."

Not everything, of course, depends on the number of approved tools and on the organization of the process. To a great extent, success depends on the volume of production, which is slowly increasing by pharmaceutical concerns, on the number of imported doses, on the consent of people to be vaccinated.

When it comes to consent, being able to choose between vaccines helps reduce fears because not all vaccines are accepted equally favorably. Thus, a series of publications about the "side effects" of the AstraZeneca vaccine (in mid-March, Germany even suspended its use pending the final clarification of the situation by the European Medicines Agency) led suspicious patients to refuse it, waiting to be offered another. Does this make sense? My parents and my husband were vaccinated almost simultaneously. Father and mother (both well over 80) - BioNTech vaccine, husband - "problem" AstraZeneca. All three are doing great. Other family members also agree to the "aster", but the queue, built by the medical authorities, has not yet reached us.

However, the proportion of side effects is normatively low. But vaccines, of course, differ. Than?

The “youngest” one is the one developed by the Belgian subsidiary J&J (hereinafter, the names are not actually vaccines, since they include hard-to-read ciphers, but the ones that have developed and produced pharmaceutical concerns). Three others: German-American BioNTech / Pfizer, American Moderna, British-Swedish Oxford / AstraZeneca. There are, perhaps, two fundamental differences. This is the principle of transporting active substances into the patient's cells and the vaccination scheme.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioNTech

AstraZeneca and J&J are vector vaccines. This is their similarity with the Russian "Sputnik". The carriers (vectors) of active substances are harmless adenoviruses, devoid of the ability to reproduce. In the DNA of viruses are embedded sections of the DNA of coronaviruses, "responsible" for the synthesis of a special protein that makes up the envelope of coronaviruses. The cells of the vaccinated patient, "infected" with vector viruses, begin to synthesize "coronavirus", as a result of which the body produces antibodies that react to the envelope of coronaviruses.

Pfizer and Moderna are even more innovative, RNA vaccines. There are no carrier viruses, and the transmission is carried out by ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules involved in intracellular metabolism. The inoculated RNA contains the genetic program for the synthesis of the protein of the coronavirus envelope. The program is not installed in the DNA of "affected" cells, but is transmitted directly to the cellular mechanism of protein synthesis. Further - as in the above-described scheme: cells produce a "coronary protein", the immune mechanism responds by creating appropriate antibodies.

In both cases, vaccination is carried out without pathogenic viruses, it is more harmless than vaccines of the previous generation, which include pathogens.

The vaccination schedule is the same for Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca: after the first vaccination, a second, fixing one is required. Revaccination times vary from 4 weeks for Pfizer to 9–12 for AstraZeneca. And with J&J, only one vaccination is required.

Is the efficiency high? The numbers are constantly being refined, but it is typical that they increase. Thus, AstraZeneca was approved for use with a declared efficiency of 70%. Currently, the figure has been increased to 82%. The declared efficiency of J&J is 66%, but what will practice show? The Pfizer vaccine still holds the record for efficacy (almost 100%).

https://www.pfizer.ru/

https://www.modernatx.com/

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-benefits-still-outweigh-risks-despite-possible-link-rare-blood-clots