Comparing the Covid-19 Vaccines: How Are the Johnson & Johnson and Moderna Vaccines Different From Each Other?

Times have changed and so has the way we fight viruses and diseases. Taking a COVID-19 vaccine puts you in an infinitely better position to combat the virus that causes the Covid effects. Nonetheless, just because these vaccines lend the same protective potential doesn’t mean that they are cut from the same cloth. The same subtleties apply to vaccines, just as a compounding pharmacy makes formulas and medications customizable.

Let’s look together at comparing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine with its Moderna counterpart. We hope you’ll be able to gain invaluable insights from these facts and, if you’re still unvaccinated, aid you in deciding to receive one for good.

The Varying Mechanisms of COVID-19 Vaccines:

The most obvious difference between the two lies in the technology used for either one.

How Moderna’s Vaccine Works

Moderna’s vaccine, like Pfizer’s relies largely on mRNA technology. It uses artificial mRNA that serves as messengers that instruct your body how to protect itself against the virus.

Once injected, it will make its way to your muscle cells then provide the said instructions for making the spike protein associated with the coronavirus causing COVID-19. Once the said protein has been created, the mRNA will automatically be broken down by our cells.

Our immune system will then detect the spike protein and regard it as a threat. It will then start an immune response that involves creating antibodies that will take care of the perceived infection. Since your body has now learned how to fight that particular infection, it will be able to better handle an actual infection in the future.

• Do they affect or tamper with your DNA? No. mRNA vaccines don’t because they’re not designed to enter the cell’s nucleus where all that material is located.
• These novel mRNA vaccines have undergone the same rigorous evaluations as other vaccines created in the past. These vaccines are FDA-regulated.

How Johnson & Johnson’s Vaccine Works

J&J’s vaccine relies on viral vector (adenovector) tech. Unlike mRNA vaccines, this technology has been around for quite a while. It involves altering a virus so as not to make you sick or inflict any harm on your body and its DNA whatsoever.

The Trojan horse analogy fits this vaccine to a tee, especially as far as how it works. It delivers the virus’s DNA to your cells without causing any adverse reactions. By doing so, it also instructs the cell it gets into how to make the required spike protein that will then be “attacked” by your immune system, thereby helping you become more protected in the future.

As you can see, the mechanisms may be different but the results are pretty much the same. We can say the same for many of the different solutions made for Compounding Pharmacy in  Florida. Ultimately, people are given a choice, assuming they’re readily available in the particular country they’re residing in. 

The Overall Efficacy of the Two Vaccines

While vaccine efficacy is rarely a set figure now, especially with the advent of variants of concern like Delta and Omicron, it’s still worthwhile to discuss them to establish the fact they do provide a certain degree of protection. Studies conducted on efficacy only ever set a range and never a static percentage.

• Moderna issued an official statement that its vaccine can be 90 – 95% effective against developing severe COVID-19 cases in the first six months after full vaccination. An independent study by the New England Journal of Medicine comparing Moderna’s vaccine to Pfizer showed that it’s slightly more effective than the latter with 96.3% effectiveness. This is compared to 88.8%.
• As for J&J’s vaccine, the company issued in a press release that it can be 94% effective against severe disease. However, based on a study backed by the FDA, the figure can actually go as low as 72 – 86%. 

Comparing Other Factors

Of course, efficacy and how the vaccine provides protection aren’t the sole concerns people have regarding the said vaccines. We also need to look at dosages, potential side effects, the ages they’re applicable and safe to administer, among others. This table should give you a better overview of the other differences between these two vaccines.

Of course, efficacy and how the vaccine provides protection aren’t the sole concerns people have regarding the said vaccines. We also need to look at dosages, potential side effects, the ages they’re applicable and safe to administer, among others. This table should give you a better overview of the other differences between these two vaccines.

Other Vital Factors

Dosage

• Potential Minor Side Effects (mostly resolves within one or two days)
• Potential Major Side Effects (mostly rare)
• Recommended Age
• Booster Shot Recommendation

J&J Vaccine

• One shot. Considered as fully vaccinated after two weeks.
• Fever, fatigue, pain at the injection site, overall muscle pains
• Blood clots, Guillain-Barre syndrome
• 18 and above
• Anyone who is 18 years old and above should consider getting a booster. It can be received at least 6 months after getting the first dose.
  

Modern Vaccine

• Two shots with an interval of 28 days. Considered as fully vaccinated after two weeks.
• Pain and swelling at the injection site, fatigue, headache, overall body pains, chills and fever
• Severe allergic reactions resulting in anaphylaxis,Myocarditis.
• 18 and above
• Anyone who is 18 years old and above should consider getting a booster. It can be received at least 2 months after the two required doses.

Since these two vaccines rely a lot on the spike protein mechanism, the multiple mutations that the Omicron variant has undergone may make it more capable of eluding the protection that it provides. 

Bay Life Compounding Pharmacy:

We hope that we’ve cleared up any remaining doubts you may have regarding the facts of these two vaccines, especially when they’re juxtaposed to each other. If you’ve worked with a Compounding Pharmacy before, you’re probably already well aware that transparency is very vital when it comes to any medication or treatment you undergo. At the core of it is proper information dispensation, which we hope we managed to deliver in this post.