Is it Effective—and Safe—to Mix and Match Vaccines?
As the Delta variant spreads, Americans who received the one-dose Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine—which confers immunity by relying on an adenovirus to deliver a viral protein into the body—are wondering whether they should get a second shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna shot, both of which use mRNA technology. My colleague Jamie Ducharme sought out experts to answer the question.
It’s true, as Jamie reports, that the mRNA vaccines offer stronger protection than the J&J shot. And while the official position of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is that the vaccines are not interchangeable, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s unsafe to mix them; there’re just not a lot of data available to say for certain. But that information is on the way.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists are studying what happens when people get a booster of a different vaccine than their original shot. And European research teams have published results suggesting that it’s effective to mix one dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine with one dose of the shot made by AstraZeneca-Oxford University—which, like Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, is adenovirus-based.
Safety aside, a second shot might not even be necessary, since the vast majority of people who end up hospitalized or die from COVID-19 are unvaccinated, which suggests the shots continue to work well as authorized. If you’re concerned, Dr. Vivek Cherian, an internal medicine physician at the University of Maryland, told Jamie that your best bet, at least for now, is returning to precautions like masking and social distancing—not getting a second type of vaccine.
About 383 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this afternoon, of which some 331.7 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 47.6% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
More than 185 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 4 million people have died. On July 7, there were 463,849 new cases and 8,586 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 3 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded more than 33.7 million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 606,000 people have died. On July 7, there were 22,931 new cases and 312 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of July 8, 1 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
A new study in Nature highlights the importance of receiving both shots of two-dose vaccines—in particular, to combat the Delta variant. According to the study, a single shot Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccines—both of which require two doses—offer “barely” any protection against the Delta strain. A report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine reached similar conclusions. In the U.S., both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are two-dose regimens.
Organizers announced earlier today that no spectators will be allowed to attend the Tokyo Olympic games. The move comes in response to the wide spread of the Delta variant in the country, and in conjunction with the government’s declaration of a state of emergency. At a press conference earlier today, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters that the emergency will run from July 12 through August 22, spanning the entire length of the games, which begin July 23 and end August 8. The state of emergency does not affect the Paralympics, which run from August 24 to September 5.
Researchers at Georgetown University have identified the five largest clusters of unvaccinated people in the U.S., as determined by the University’s U.S. COVID-19 Tracking Project and reported by CNN . The trouble spots stretch across parts of 11 states—Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. Those areas are home to 15 million people and have an average vaccination rate of just 27.9%, compared to the overall national rate of 47.6%. The regions are mostly rural, with 92% of counties in the clusters home to fewer than 100,000 people.
The rapid rollout of vaccines in the U.S. has led to a precipitous decline in the spread of COVID-19 and related deaths, and the Commonwealth Fund has just calculated how many cases and fatalities have been averted. Using epidemiological modeling, the foundation’s researchers determined that without any vaccination program, there would have been 279,000 additional deaths and 1.25 million additional hospitalizations in the U.S. by the end of June. If vaccinations had proceeded at only half of their current rate, there would have been 121,000 more fatalities and 450,000 more hospitalizations.
The ongoing reopening of the U.S. economy is leading to a record number of job vacancies as the country heads into the thick of the summer, reports the Wall Street Journal, citing numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.(BLS). With pandemic restrictions lifting, there were more than 9.2 million job openings listed, breaking a record that dates back to 2000. The number almost precisely matches the 9.3 million Americans actively looking for work as of the end of May, according to the BLS . Service industries—especially leisure and hospitality—led other sectors in jobs available, one more indicator that the economy has entered a post-pandemic phase.
Brazil is cracking down on so-called “vaccine sommeliers”—people who decline the vaccines made available to them, holding out for another type, typically the Pfizer BioNTech shot, with its 90% effectiveness rate, reports the Guardian. With nearly 19 million COVID-19 cases, Brazil trails only the U.S. and India, and yet locals continue to be choosy about the shot they’ll take—if they are willing to take one at all—with only 13% of Brazilians fully vaccinated. To combat the trend, officials are imposing sanctions, including requiring people who reject a vaccine to wait 60 days before getting another chance, or forcing them to the back of the line, forbidding them from being vaccinated until all people in the country over 18 have been immunized.
Six of the world’s most-vaccinated countries continue to show high infection rates, and five of them rely on vaccines manufactured in China, according to CNBC. Those five are the United Arab Emirates, Seychelles, Mongolia, Uruguay and Chile. The sixth, high case-rate country, which does not rely on Chinese shots, is the U.K. CNBC relied on figures from Our World in Data to arrive at its findings and reached out to both Sinopharm and Sinovac, the companies that manufacture the vaccines, for comment. Neither company responded.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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