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 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 simply a single shot.
” That is the totality of Johnson and Johnson’s inventory,” said Zients. The company said that “the supply will be restricted for the next number of weeks,” he added.
J&J will provide another 16 million doses by the end of March, he stated. That confirms what the company said shortly after Saturday’s FDA authorization.
He included that the company “expects the shipment to be primarily in the back half of the month.”
J&J strategies to provide 100 million doses to the United States by July 1.
The vaccine will be assigned with the very same scheme used for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines– in proportion to a state, area, city or people’s population, stated Zients. This week, for example, New York state will receive 93,700 doses, while the US Virgin Islands will receive 8000 and Washington, DC will get 6000.
Some have speculated that the J&J vaccine may be given just to more marginalized communities because it is does not need ultra-cold storage and will be simpler to administer.
But Zients stated the CDC and the federal government continue to emphasize that vaccines should be dispersed equitably. The CDC will track vaccine circulation by zip code and using the company’s social vulnerability index, said Marcella Nunez-Smith, chair of the administration’s COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force.
” Should certain vaccines go consistently to certain communities, we will have the ability to intervene,” said Nunez-Smith.
Zients also acknowledged that scheduling problems are a restricting consider getting more Americans immunized. “It is too discouraging, and we require to make it better,” he stated. “We need to make certain the systems can handle not just the present need however the projected need.”
The federal government is dealing with states to improve scheduling, which might even imply opening call centers, he said.
On The Other Hand, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD, said she frets 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,” said Walensky at the rundown.
Decreases in cases have “leveled off at a very high number,” she stated, plateauing to around 70,000 per day. Deaths have increased 2%in the most recent week to nearly 2000 per day, Walensky stated.
” Please hear me clearly: At this level of cases, with variants spreading out, we stand to totally lose the hard-earned ground we have gained,” she said. Versions are “a very real hazard to our people and our progress.”
Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergic Reaction and Contagious Diseases (NIAID) and President Biden’s chief medical advisor, stated the increase of another brand-new version, B. 1.526– distributing in New york city City– is concerning.
” We are definitely taking the New york city variation, 526, very seriously,” Fauci said on the call. That alternative, very first found in the Washington Heights community of Manhattan– potentially in an immunocompromised individual– has “gone through numerous boroughs and is now gaining,” he stated.
Research studies are looking into whether the variant may be more infectious, or if it might render monoclonal antibody treatments ineffective, or if it could have an influence on the numerous COVID-19 vaccines, stated Fauci.
But he said immunocompromised people must “absolutely” still be immunized, for their own health, and to avoid the development of anymore versions.
Alicia Ault is a Lutherville, Maryland-based independent journalist whose work has actually 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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