Johnson & Johnson Coronavirus Vaccine Illustration
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Johnson & Johnson will not have a large inventory of its Covid-19 vaccine ready before regulatory approval is expected this month, President Joe Biden’s Covid Tsar said Wednesday.
Jeff Zients said the government has learned in recent weeks that J&J will only have a few million doses manufactured when the single-vaccine vaccine is likely to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Federal and state health officials expected that the supply of vaccines would increase rapidly after the emergency approval of J & J’s vaccine. The FDA planned a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biological Products on February 26 to discuss the vaccine, and the US could approve the vaccine the very next day.
J&J currently has an agreement with the U.S. government to deliver 100 million doses of its vaccine by the end of June, said Zients, the president’s Covid-19 response coordinator. Assuming the vaccine is approved, the Biden government will work with J&J to sharpen the offer as soon as possible, he said. He added that US officials hope that many of the doses will be available in the first months of their onset.
“We are doing everything in our power to work with the company to speed up the delivery schedule,” Zients told reporters during a White House newsletter on the pandemic.
The news comes as the Biden government is increasing the supply of doses, after states complained that demand for the shots quickly exceeded supply. About 39.7 million of the 331 million Americans received at least their first dose of Pfizer or Moderna’s dual-dose vaccines, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. And 15 million people have already had their second chance.
Biden announced Thursday that the U.S. has secured 100 million more doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 100 million more of the Moderna vaccine, increasing the total U.S. supply to 600 million doses. Because the vaccines require two doses, a total of 600 million doses will be enough to vaccinate 300 million Americans.
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced that Biden’s government would increase the number of doses of Covid-19 sent to countries, sending out 13.5 million doses this week and doubling the number going to retail pharmacies.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that most Americans have access to a Covid-19 vaccine mid to late May or early June, a slight delay compared to earlier forecasts of late March and April.
The White House chief medical adviser said the federal government expects “significantly more” initial doses of J&J.
“I’m a little disappointed that the amount of doses we’ll get from J&J early on is relatively small, but as we get further into the spring, there will be more and more,” Fauci said.
Meanwhile, Pfizer and Moderna are investigating whether their vaccines can prevent the transmission of the virus, he said on Wednesday, pointing to early studies in a ‘favorable direction’.