US to distribute 4 million J&J Covid vaccines by Tuesday

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WASHINGTON, March 1, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Four million doses of the latest
Covid-19 vaccine to get US approval will be delivered across the country as
early as Tuesday, a senior administration official said.

The United States on Saturday authorized Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine
for emergency use, boosting President Joe Biden’s plan to battle the outbreak
that has killed more than 500,000 Americans.

The single-shot vaccine — the third type to be authorized — is highly
effective in preventing severe Covid-19, including against newer variants,
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said before giving it a green light.

“Starting tonight, 3.9 million doses of J&J will be distributed across all
channels — states, tribes, territories, and pharmacies and community health
centers. Those J&J doses will be delivered as early as this Tuesday morning,”
the administration official said Sunday on a call with reporters.

“That’s the entirety of J&J’s current inventory,” the official added. “J&J
expects to deliver approximately 16 million additional doses by the end of
March. So that’s a cumulative 20 million.” The J&J vaccine is the third to be
greenlighted in the United States after Pfizer’s and Moderna’s were
provisionally approved in December.

Over 65 million people in America have so far received at least one shot
of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines — but unlike those, the J&J vaccine
requires just one dose, and is stored at fridge temperatures, offering
logistical and practical advantages.

The J&J shot appears less protective than Pfizer and Moderna’s two-shot
regimens, which both have an efficacy of around 95 percent against all forms
of Covid-19 from the classic coronavirus strain.

In large clinical trials, the J&J vaccine’s efficacy against severe
disease was 85.9 percent in the United States, 81.7 percent in South Africa,
and 87.6 percent in Brazil.

Overall, among 39,321 participants across all regions, the efficacy
against severe Covid-19 was 85.4 percent, but it fell to 66.1 percent when
including moderate forms of the disease.

All three vaccines have been shown to fully protect against
hospitalizations and death, however.

J&J had earlier announced it aims to deliver 20 million doses by the end
of March, with 100 million by June — though the US is pushing to expedite
that timeline.