Novavax has now been approved for use in New Zealand. Although, I believe, it is not yet available. (Happy to be corrected if you have more up to date information).
Some people have been hanging out for this as an option, and I have been asked about this. So here are some things for you to think about. Please note the NZ data sheet is not available at the time I am writing this so I am using data from Australia and Europe.
Novavax’s Nuvaxovid is a vaccine made from the spike protein, but is a more traditionally made vaccine, no mRNA or viral vector. The spike protein is grown in a cell line derived from an insect (not foetal cells), and it does not contain Aluminium, instead uses an adjuvant that is made from the soapbark tree.
There are a few things still to consider.
Firstly, it is still spike protein in the Novavax. We know now that the spike protein itself is biologically active and has detrimental effects, accumulating in the heart and ovaries particularly, as well as other organs.
To the best of my knowledge and research (and please correct me if I am wrong), it is also using the same spike protein from the original SARS-CoV2 strain. That strain is no longer circulating and there has been changes in the viral envelope with Omicron making vaccines in general less effective. I do not know this is the same with Nuvaxovid because I can’t find data either way, but I suspect because of the changes to the virus that this is likely to be the case.
There is also the problem of Original Antigenic Sin, where the body primarily produces antibodies to the first strain it comes into contact with and then the antibody response gets less effective as viral evolution occurs. So vaccinating with the first strain when we are already on at least number 4 means efficacy is likely to be lower and become less and less effective as time goes on.
Whether there is vaccine immunity waning with Nuvaxovid (like is seen with other Covid vaccines on the market) has not been shown yet.
I still have more questions than answers, and I would like to know more about length of immunity, efficacy against Omicron, long term effects, and comparison against other vaccines. Science is about asking questions and keeping an open mind, so my plan is to watch and see what answers come to my questions before drawing any conclusions.
As always I recommend you do your own research looking at a variety of sources.