What We Know About Mixing and Matching COVID Vaccines
What We Know About Mixing and Matching COVID Vaccines Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again. × Search search POPULAR SEARCHES SUGGESTED LINKS Join AARP for just $9 per year when you sign up for a 5-year term. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Leaving AARP.org Website You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.
Meanwhile, people who received an mRNA vaccine the first time around and were boosted with another mRNA product of the opposite brand saw similar spikes in antibody levels after the booster. Entertainment $3 off popcorn and soft drink combos See more Entertainment offers > “There is something that makes sense about it,” says Monica Gandhi, M.D., an infectious disease expert and professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco. And that’s because J&J’s viral vector vaccine and the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna “don't actually code for the exact same part of the spike protein,” she says. Meaning that while the two different vaccine technologies work in a similar way — they direct the body to make a harmless piece of the coronavirus’ s signature spike protein so that the immune system can learn to recognize it as an invader and attack it if ever faced with the real deal — the protein s that they instruct the cells to make vary . “So you're going to get more of a response, that would be the hope, by giving them both because you cover more of the spike protein. You have different antigens [foreign substance s that induce an immune response ] that you see,” Gandhi says.
Keep in mind, too, that the J&J vaccine has never generated as strong an immune response as the mRNA vaccines, says Isaac Weisfuse, M.D., a medical epidemiologist and an adjunct professor at Cornell University Public Health. And “if you boost with something that historically has more efficacy,” you’re going to see a higher antibody level. The vaccines also rely on completely different strategies to elicit that immune response, Weisfuse points out. “The mRNA vaccines are a relatively newer strategy” that work by teaching the body to make an immune-triggering protein. The J&J vaccine, which uses a modified version of a different virus to deliver protein-building instructions , “is a little older; the strategy has been used before,” Weisfuse says. “And one could argue that generating an immune reaction from two different strategies is more beneficial than just one.” AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. — fatigue, headache, chills and muscle aches were among the most common. What’s more, studies conducted in the U.K., along with real-world data, don’t point to any new worries — “another reassuring issue,” Weisfuse says. Mixing up the vaccines for the booster dose could also diminish the risk of rare side effects linked to the vaccines, including in young men given the mRNA vaccines and with low platelets in women under 50 with the J&J or AstraZeneca vaccine. By offering high-risk individuals a booster shot that’s different from the original, “you would hope that you would maybe decrease the rate of both,” Gandhi says.
What We Know About Mixing and Matching COVID Vaccines
Getting a booster of a different brand could raise COVID-19 protection for some
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Millions of vaccinated Americans are now eligible for a COVID-19 booster shot from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson (J&J). And new recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) make it so that individuals can choose the booster they want — even if it’s a different brand or a different technology from their original vaccine. Here’s what we know about so-called “mixing and matching,” and why health officials are giving it a thumbs up. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine.Other countries allow mixing and matching
For months, several countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada, have allowed residents to mix and match primary series shots and booster doses from different vaccine makers, even if one is a viral vector vaccine, like Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca (a two-dose option available outside of the U.S.), and the other is an mRNA vaccine, like the Pfizer and Moderna shots. In fact, because mixing COVID-19 vaccines “is increasingly common in many countries outside of the United States,” the CDC recently updated its international travel guidance to consider people fully vaccinated two weeks after either J&J’s single-shot vaccine or any combination of the authorized two-dose products.New U S study shows favorable mix-and-match results
Preliminary results from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study show that getting a booster shot that’s different from the initial vaccine bolsters antibody levels, particularly among J&J vaccine recipient s. AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. on Oct. 15.Meanwhile, people who received an mRNA vaccine the first time around and were boosted with another mRNA product of the opposite brand saw similar spikes in antibody levels after the booster. Entertainment $3 off popcorn and soft drink combos See more Entertainment offers > “There is something that makes sense about it,” says Monica Gandhi, M.D., an infectious disease expert and professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco. And that’s because J&J’s viral vector vaccine and the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna “don't actually code for the exact same part of the spike protein,” she says. Meaning that while the two different vaccine technologies work in a similar way — they direct the body to make a harmless piece of the coronavirus’ s signature spike protein so that the immune system can learn to recognize it as an invader and attack it if ever faced with the real deal — the protein s that they instruct the cells to make vary . “So you're going to get more of a response, that would be the hope, by giving them both because you cover more of the spike protein. You have different antigens [foreign substance s that induce an immune response ] that you see,” Gandhi says.
Keep in mind, too, that the J&J vaccine has never generated as strong an immune response as the mRNA vaccines, says Isaac Weisfuse, M.D., a medical epidemiologist and an adjunct professor at Cornell University Public Health. And “if you boost with something that historically has more efficacy,” you’re going to see a higher antibody level. The vaccines also rely on completely different strategies to elicit that immune response, Weisfuse points out. “The mRNA vaccines are a relatively newer strategy” that work by teaching the body to make an immune-triggering protein. The J&J vaccine, which uses a modified version of a different virus to deliver protein-building instructions , “is a little older; the strategy has been used before,” Weisfuse says. “And one could argue that generating an immune reaction from two different strategies is more beneficial than just one.” AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. — fatigue, headache, chills and muscle aches were among the most common. What’s more, studies conducted in the U.K., along with real-world data, don’t point to any new worries — “another reassuring issue,” Weisfuse says. Mixing up the vaccines for the booster dose could also diminish the risk of rare side effects linked to the vaccines, including in young men given the mRNA vaccines and with low platelets in women under 50 with the J&J or AstraZeneca vaccine. By offering high-risk individuals a booster shot that’s different from the original, “you would hope that you would maybe decrease the rate of both,” Gandhi says.