I agree, J&J seems to be a wonderful vaccine…single shot, logistically way superior, etc. I can’t see middle aged or younger folks turning this down (minus a few dummy’s). I don't see any issues here wrt vaccine passport.

Big question I have is how much do they have right NOW that can be immediately shipped to the fight. As I understand the company will only say that it’ll meet it’s contractual requirements, which is 100 million doses for U.S. by June.

Edit - per the NYTs they apparently have about 7mil doses now and also reported:
"Federal regulators are also still waiting on data from Johnson & Johnson’s new manufacturing facility in Baltimore that prove it can mass-produce the vaccine. The company is counting on that factory to help reach its contractual pledge to the federal government of 100 million doses by the end of June"

This is how I see it as well. An attempt was made, box checked. Next.

Did I miss news on this? Have they been pulling medicals? How would it get out of the hands of your doctor and into the hands of the FAA? I don't see this being a big deal. Tell you doctor you had it, he/she says okay and asks how you are now and that is the end of it.

Not to mention the Moderna/Pfizer vaccine was not tested against these new variants. No way the Moderna/Pfizer vaccines now have the efficacy they claimed.

I think this thing is a game changer. One shot, easy to produce/transport. Even if it only offers 50% efficacy against the newest variants and it helps cut transmission it will end this thing sooner. And it will help against the virus further mutating.

It might not be that easy. Especially if you received treatment, or ended up with a hospital stay out of it. Those events often trigger extra testing, etc that you now may need to PROVE you are fine.

Having had just a small malignant melanoma back in my early 20’s I had to have multiple tests, chest X-rays, blood draws etc. A hold was placed on my medical till the all clear. Also had to provide these extra tests yearly for 5 years. This malignant melanoma was small, a wide excision performed, no spread no nodal involvement and I still had all that BS to jump through. The point it it might not be as easy as I had COVID and I feel fine. Obviously cases range from false positives, to death so YMMV.

It's not what they "claimed", it's what was verified in controlled trials, performed by medical professionals (not the mfg), and subsequently reviewed in great detail by multiple government agencies in multiple countries. I don't think they faked anything.

Not the point, you are just arguing semantics. No implied ill intent was meant using the word "claimed." The point was the vaccines (Moderna/Pfizer) would not have the same efficacy they published if they did the trials again with the current variants. If you are comparing the numbers published today by J&J to the numbers published last fall by Moderna/Pfizer before the current variants were widespread then it isn't a fair comparison.

Actually, what I've read so far indicates the mRNA vaccines should do pretty well against the current variants. So far.

Ugleeual posted an article above.

A mutation does not automatically help a virus get around a vaccine... especially mutations which occurred before vaccine deployment, that would be sheer random luck on the part of the virus, which is unlikely.

The mutation is on the spike protein around which all vaccines are engineered. And why would mRNA vaccines do better than other vaccine technology? The article and other published data show that it is highly likely both Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine are not as effective against certain variants they just don't know if they are 5% less effective or 25%.

They might still work but Moderna already said the immune response to the South Africa variant isn't as robust. Again, not a valid comparison to use the J&J numbers from today against the mRNA number from last fall.