Question about covid/Mrna vaccines

[Stuntdill]

I've had a bunch of vaccines and I always get the flu vaccine and tetanus and what not

The covid vaccine seems to be a lot more significant in terms of side effects (from what I understand all of the fever headache etc is from your immune response to the vaccine)

Just wondering if there's a mechanism by which the immune response is more significant compared to other vaccines

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

The side effects from the various vaccines against COVID seem to actually be less significant with respect to severity and, in many cases, occur less often than with many other vaccines in the current schedule.

A much more important question, did you get the COVID vaccine yet?

[Austin Baraki]

The term for this is "reactogenicity", and I'm not aware of direct comparative data between different vaccine types on this question; it may be more a matter of the amount of attention/discussion around these particular vaccines at the moment.

Regardless, we discussed a lot of this in our podcast on the vaccines several months back.

[Stuntdill]

The side effects from the various vaccines against COVID seem to actually be less significant with respect to severity

A much more important question, did you get the COVID vaccine yet?

Oh, that's surprising to me. I had never heard of other people having such sore arms or any of the other side effects from other vaccines. All my prior ones have been so harmless.

I got both my doses as soon as I could, Moderna.

I figured in my head maybe the spike protein just caused more of a reaction than dead viruses or altered ones like other vaccines.

I'm super ignorant about how any of this works, obviously.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Local reactions are extremely common in nearly all vaccines. It was believed that shorter intervals between certain vaccine doses were associated with increased rates of local reactions, although studies have now shown that this is not the case.

[RVR]

Is there any general consensus as to which vaccine or combination ended up being the best choice based on available evidence? The various opinions of health authorities is a nightmare right now (or at least was); Canada routinely mixed vaccines (many people got AZ/JJ or Pfiser/Moderna) but the US CDC didn't seem to consider this ideal or even necessarily "fully vaccinated", at least according to news reports. Obviously the situation continues to change as mutations do.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Is there any general consensus as to which vaccine or combination ended up being the best choice based on available evidence?

No, outside of the first one you can get.

Obviously the situation continues to change as mutations do.

Not necessarily with respect to vaccine preference.

[quark]

"The researchers found that the Moderna vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalization was 93%, compared with 88% for Pfizer-BioNTech’s and 71% for J&J’s. The effectiveness of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines also seemed to stand up better over time than that of J&J’s vaccine. The Moderna vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalization dropped to 92% after 120 days, while Pfizer-BioNTech’s dropped to 77%. After just 28 days, the J&J vaccine’s effectiveness fell to 68%." https://www.wsj.com/articles/moderna...ys-11631904252

If this is correct, then it would seem Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are preferable if you have the choice, although if J&J is the only one available, then it should be taken.

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

"The researchers found that the Moderna vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalization was 93%, compared with 88% for Pfizer-BioNTech’s and 71% for J&J’s. The effectiveness of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines also seemed to stand up better over time than that of J&J’s vaccine. The Moderna vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalization dropped to 92% after 120 days, while Pfizer-BioNTech’s dropped to 77%. After just 28 days, the J&J vaccine’s effectiveness fell to 68%." https://www.wsj.com/articles/moderna...ys-11631904252

If this is correct, then it would seem Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are preferable if you have the choice, although if J&J is the only one available, then it should be taken.

The populations are a bit different, which clouds the numbers a bit. I would not select a vaccine based on these differences however, as mentioned above.

J/J is a different type of vaccine, which may be more or less preferable for individuals in some cases unrelated to efficacy.

[RVR]

I'm having some trouble following. If someone had (or has, in the case of not being vaccinated) a choice, is the evidence not more in favour of mRNA and getting two doses of the same vaccine? Is there counter evidence to these numbers even though they are not absolute?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

I'm having some trouble following. If someone had (or has, in the case of not being vaccinated) a choice, is the evidence not more in favour of mRNA and getting two doses of the same vaccine? Is there counter evidence to these numbers even though they are not absolute?

We don't really have enough data to confidently say one way or another and in general, it is far more important to get vaccinated than it is to select a particular vaccine.