Report: NJ man critical with COVID after J&J vaccination — Top News 4/12

A Central Jersey man is in critical condition with complications from COVID-19 even though he was fully vaccinated, according to published reports.

ABC 7 New York and the New York Post report that 52-year-old Franciso Cosme had received the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine on March 6. Five weeks later, well after the time, Cosme would be consider fully protected, his daughter says he started feeling ill.

Michelle Torres told the Post that her father continued to wear a mask and social distance, but on April 1 he started to feel sick.

Cosme's wife, Laura Eugene, told ABC7 New York that her husband is now in critical condition with pneumonia.

Of the three vaccines currently approved for emergency use in the US, the J&J vaccine has the lowest efficacy at 66% globally and 72% in the United States. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have efficacy as high as 95%. Effectiveness against known COVID mutations are much lower.

J&J presented evidence their Janssen-brand vaccine was 68% effective at preventing moderate to severe illness caused by the Brazil variant and 64% against the South African Mutation. Both are present in New Jersey but the dominant mutation here is the one first discovered in the U.K. It is not known if Cosme was infected by one of the variants or the original COVID virus. Gov. Phil Murphy has cited the rise in variant cases in New Jersey as the reason he has "paused" reopening plans.

Federal health officials have been watching for and warning of what are known as "breakthrough infections." These are infections caused after someone has been fully vaccinated. They can also help researchers determine how effective the vaccines are outside of controlled studies, their efficacy against variants and whether and when a booster dose may be needed.

Reports of infections among those who have been fully vaccinated have started to surface in recent weeks, including a 33-year-old woman from Brooklyn.

Reports of those receiving the J&J vaccine getting infected with COVID is the latest blow to what was once believed to be the most promising of all approved vaccines. More easily transported and stored and needing just a single dose to be effective, the J&J shot was hailed as a "game changed" by Murphy. Millions of doses, however, had to be destroyed after quality control issue at a manufacturing plant, and J&J has had to greatly scale back the number of doses they will be able to deliver to the U.S.

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