The federal government is delivering 3.9 million dosages of Johnson and Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine beginning today, just days after the FDA approved the shot emergency use permission.
Those dosages are all that the company has on hand, White Home COVID-19 Response planner Jeff Zients said on a call with reporters today. The shipment will suffice to cover 3.9 million Americans given that the vaccine is just a single shot.
” That is the whole of Johnson and Johnson’s stock,” stated Zients. The business said that “the supply will be restricted for the next number of weeks,” he included.
J&J will provide another 16 million dosages by the end of March, he said. That validates what the company said soon after Saturday’s FDA permission. However, stated Zients, “we understand that J&J circulation and shipment will be irregular throughout these early weeks in March.”
He added that the business “anticipates the shipment to be primarily in the back half of the month.”
J&J strategies to provide 100 million doses to the US by July 1.
The vaccine will be assigned with the same scheme utilized for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines– in proportion to a state, area, city or people’s population, stated Zients. Today, for instance, New york city state will receive 93,700 dosages, while the United States Virgin Islands will get 8000 and Washington, DC will get 6000.
Some have hypothesized that the J&J vaccine might be provided only to more marginalized communities since it is does not need ultra-cold storage and will be simpler to administer.
But Zients said the CDC and the federal government continue to stress that vaccines need to be dispersed equitably. The CDC will track vaccine circulation by postal code and using the company’s social vulnerability index, stated Marcella Nunez-Smith, chair of the administration’s COVID-19 Health Equity Job Force.
” Ought to certain vaccines go consistently to certain communities, we will have the ability to intervene,” said Nunez-Smith.
Zients likewise acknowledged that scheduling issues are a limiting element in getting more Americans immunized. “It is too discouraging, and we require to make it better,” he said.
The federal government is dealing with states to improve scheduling, which may even indicate opening call centers, he stated.
Meanwhile, 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 worried about a prospective shift in the trajectory of the pandemic,” stated Walensky at the rundown.
Declines in cases have “leveled off at a very high number,” she said, plateauing to around 70,000 per day. Deaths have increased 2%in the most current week to almost 2000 per day, Walensky said.
” Please hear me clearly: At this level of cases, with versions spreading out, we stand to entirely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained,” she said. Variations are “an extremely genuine hazard to our individuals and our progress.”
Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergic Reaction and Transmittable Diseases (NIAID) and President Biden’s chief medical advisor, said the increase of another new version, B. 1.526– circulating in New York City– is worrying.
” We are definitely taking the New york city variant, 526, extremely seriously,” Fauci said on the call. That alternative, very first found in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan– potentially in an immunocompromised person– has “gone through multiple boroughs and is now gaining,” he said.
Research studies are looking into whether the variation may be more contagious, or if it might render monoclonal antibody treatments worthless, or if it could have an effect on the numerous COVID-19 vaccines, said Fauci.
But he said immunocompromised people ought to “absolutely” still be vaccinated, for their own health, and to prevent the development of anymore variations.
Alicia Ault is a Lutherville, Maryland-based self-employed reporter whose work has actually appeared in publications including Smithsonian.com, the New York City Times, and the Washington Post. You can find her on Twitter @aliciaault
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