A major part of the COVID-19 response as of recently has been the rollout of vaccinations to fight the virus nationwide. Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceutical Cos. unit is one of the newest companies to produce a vaccine for the virus. As opposed to the popular Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses DNA (instead of RNA) to tell the body’s immune system which proteins to create. The hope is that this will allow for manufacturing facilities to increase production rates, as the mRNA used in Moderna and Pfizer’s vaccines has been a contributing factor in the decrease in rates of vaccine production in the last few weeks.

Another determining difference between the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine is the required number of doses. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is found to be effective after just one shot, while the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines require two doses to be effective. The newer Johnson & Johnson vaccine can also be kept at more moderate refrigerated temperatures, as opposed to the freezing storage required for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccinations. Health experts anticipate that this will benefit vaccine rollout in reaching communities that may be harder to provide a second dose for. Director of the Institute of Immunology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, John Wherry said, “I think in terms of one shot versus two shots, you can start thinking about underserved communities where it may be harder to follow up and ask people to come back for second shots…populations that are more transient that are harder to track.”

Some concern arose from the general population regarding the effectiveness of the new vaccine as opposed to the Moderna or Pfizer shot, which both are about 95% effective overall. Johnson & Johnson claims that its vaccine is proven to be 85% effective in preventing severe illness in trials, while 66% effective in preventing moderate to serious symptomatic illness from COVID-19. White House Chief Medical Advisor spoke on the effectiveness of the vaccine saying, “Although Johnson & Johnson’s protection is lower, it’s not the weaker vaccine. They are all three really good vaccines.”

Johnson & Johnson is expected to quickly contribute to the vaccine effort towards herd immunity, despite receiving emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration just over a month ago. The company expects to deliver 100 million doses of the vaccine by the end of June, and continue to increase rollout efficiency and vaccine effectiveness, as the year progresses.