Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 Vaccine has Emergency Use Authorization and is available for those who do not have access to other COVID-19 vaccines, cannot receive other COVID-19 vaccines for medical reasons, or would not get vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they could receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. CDC said that receiving any vaccine is better than being unvaccinated, and the public will continue to have access to Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine. Please discuss the risks and benefits with your healthcare provider or the healthcare professional at your vaccination site.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is a single-dose vaccine. It’s different than the Comirnaty (Pfizer) or Spikevax (Moderna) vaccine because it’s a viral vector vaccine. It uses use a modified version of a different virus (the vector) to deliver important instructions to our cells. For COVID-19 viral vector vaccines, the vector (not the virus that causes COVID-19, but a different, harmless virus) will enter a cell in our body and then use the cell’s machinery to produce a harmless piece of the virus that causes COVID-19. Experts began creating viral vectors in the 1970s.