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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Several inactivated virus vaccines exist for COVID-19. SinoVac/CoronaVac.[1] Sputnik-V.[2] Janssen.[3] (The Johnson and Johnson vaccine.) None are as effective as the messenger RNA vaccines at preventing symptomatic illness, although they're pretty good at preventing death.

All three are easier to store and transport than the mRNA vaccines, as well as being one-shot vaccines. There's a political problem - they're seen as inferior vaccines for poor people, at least in the US.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoronaVac

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_V_COVID-19_vaccine

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janssen_COVID-19_vaccine

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(You should edit to correct that, Animats)

Infographics are available at the British Society for Immunology website, Types of vaccines for COVID-19 page (April 2021):

https://www.immunology.org/coronavirus/connect-coronavirus-p...

Which lists:

-- Viral vector vaccines (OAZ; Jannsen; CanSino; Gamaleya)

-- Genetic vaccines (Pfizer; Moderna; CureVac; Inovio)

-- Inactivated vaccines (Sinovac; Sinopharm; Bharat; Shifa; CAMS)

-- Attenuated vaccines (Codagenix)

-- Protein vaccines (Novavax; Sanofi)

To help making sense of the names, an interpolation follows from a table of article "An overview of current COVID-19 vaccine platforms" (April 2021), at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8076774/ :

-- University of Oxford/ AstraZeneca "ChAdOx1-S; AZD1222" - Deficient chimpanzeeadenovirus

-- Sinovac "CoronaVac" - Inactivated whole virus

-- Inactivated Wuhan Institute of Biological Products/ Sinopharm - Inactivated whole virus

-- Beijing Institute of Biological Products/ Sinopharm "BBIBP-CorV" - Inactivated whole virus

-- CanSino Biological Inc./ Beijing Institute of Biotechnology "Ad5-nCoV" - Deficient adenovirus-5

-- Bharat Biotech "Covaxin" - Inactivated whole virus

-- Gamaleya Research Institute Sputnik V "Gam-COVID-Vac" - Deficient adenovirus-5

-- Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies "Ad26.COV2.S" - Deficient adenovirus-26

-- Novavax "NVX-CoV2373" - Recombinant protein

-- BioNTech/ Fosun Pharma/ Pfizer "BNT162 - Comirnaty" - RNA-based vaccine

-- Moderna/ NIAIDc "mRNA-1273" - RNA-based vaccine

It’s unfortunate that went that way. There were supply problems with J&J, and by the time that cleared up, states had mostly built out infrastructure to handle the storage and transport limitations of the RNA vaccines.

One shot is a miracle for vulnerable populations — my dad was a very vulnerable person with limited mobility; the county sheriffs went out and vaccinated him and others. The two shot regimens are also difficult for workers in swing /night shift and other scenarios.

>There were supply problems with J&J

Supply problems makes it sound like they didn't have enough ingredients to make it. IIRC the labs making it were contaminated. That's less of a supply problem than a competency problem.

Yes, one shot is also good for rural population vaccinated with a mobile unit and maybe for some people are who are at risk getting a very powerful immune response and end up getting stuck with an incomplete vaccination scheme, because they can't take the second dose. I have an acquiantance in that position, she still has an off the scale antibody count after covid and the first Pfizer dose. It's great that we have more options now.

When the French gov't announced that you need a vaccination pass to be admitted into restaurants, more than 600k people registered for vaccination in the folliwing days, most of them for the one shot J&J vaccine. So I guess it's also good for undecided people?

> inferior vaccines for poor people

I thought the vaccines in the US were free, why would the inferior ones be for poor people?

There was a push for offering homeless individuals the Johnson and Johnson vaccine in several places due to it being a single dose vaccine. There was concern about the logistics of scheduling a second dose for the unhoused and adherence rates.

JNJ is adenovirus iirc

Sputnik V and Johnson and Johnson are not live or attenuated virus but adenovirus vaccines. They infect the host with a harmless virus that make your cell produce spike protein. They are a fairly new tech.

Also Sputnik V is a two dose vaccine, like Astra Zeneca’s

They are new tech in humans, slight but important distinction, as mRNA is new everywhere (but amazing tech!).

Sinovac is considered barely effective, even by WHO, who consider it to be 51% effective, vs. 70+% for Western vaccines. (50% is considered to be ineffective.)

Most countries who have an alternative don't use Sinovac.

Japan reported contamination of Moderna, and recalled a million doses:

https://apnews.com/article/business-health-coronavirus-pande...

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