The federal government is delivering 3.9 million dosages of Johnson and Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine starting today, simply days after the FDA approved the shot emergency situation usage permission.
Those doses are all that the business has on hand, White House COVID-19 Reaction organizer Jeff Zients stated on a call with reporters today. The shipment will be enough to cover 3.9 million Americans because the vaccine is just a single shot.
” That is the whole of Johnson and Johnson’s stock,” said Zients. The company said that “the supply will be restricted for the next number of weeks,” he added.
J&J will deliver another 16 million dosages by the end of March, he said. That confirms what the company said shortly after Saturday’s FDA authorization.
He added that the business “expects the shipment to be mainly in the back half of the month.”
J&J strategies to provide 100 million dosages to the United States by July 1.
The vaccine will be allocated with the very same scheme utilized for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines– in percentage to a state, area, city or people’s population, said Zients. This week, for instance, New york city state will receive 93,700 dosages, while the United States Virgin Islands will get 8000 and Washington, DC will receive 6000.
Some have speculated that the J&J vaccine might be given only to more marginalized neighborhoods since it is does not require ultra-cold storage and will be easier to administer.
However Zients stated the CDC and the federal government continue to stress that vaccines should be dispersed equitably. The CDC will track vaccine circulation by postal code and using the agency’s social vulnerability index, said Marcella Nunez-Smith, chair of the administration’s COVID-19 Health Equity Job Force.
” Must certain vaccines go regularly to specific neighborhoods, we will have the ability to step in,” said Nunez-Smith.
Zients also acknowledged that scheduling problems are a limiting factor in getting more Americans immunized. “It is too frustrating, and we require to make it much better,” he stated.
The federal government is working with states to improve scheduling, which may even mean opening call centers, he stated.
On The Other Hand, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, said she stresses that Americans are pulling down their guard when the pandemic is far from over. “I stay deeply concerned about a prospective shift in the trajectory of the pandemic,” said Walensky at the briefing.
Declines in cases have “leveled off at a really high number,” she stated, plateauing to around 70,000 each day. Deaths have actually increased 2%in the most current week to nearly 2000 each day, Walensky stated. “Now is not the time to unwind the crucial safeguards,” she cautioned, including that Americans have the ability “to stop the fourth rise” of the pandemic.
” Please hear me clearly: At this level of cases, with versions spreading out, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have actually acquired,” she said. Variants are “an extremely genuine danger to our individuals and our progress.”
Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergic Reaction and Contagious Diseases (NIAID) and President Biden’s primary medical advisor, said the increase of another brand-new variant, B. 1.526– circulating in New york city City– is concerning.
” We are certainly taking the New york city variation, 526, really seriously,” Fauci said on the call. That variant, first found in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan– possibly in an immunocompromised person– has “gone through several boroughs and is now acquiring,” he said.
Research studies are checking out whether the variant might be more contagious, or if it may render monoclonal antibody treatments ineffective, or if it could have an effect on the different COVID-19 vaccines, stated Fauci.
However he stated immunocompromised individuals ought to “definitely” still be vaccinated, for their own health, and to avoid the advancement of any more versions.
Alicia Ault is a Lutherville, Maryland-based freelance journalist whose work has appeared in publications including Smithsonian.com, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. You can discover her on Twitter @aliciaault
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