Vials named “COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine” and syringe are shown in front of the Johnson & Johnson logo in this illustration on February 9, 2021.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Johnson & Johnson will reduce the shipment of its single-dose Covid-19 vaccine by 86% next year, as it deals with production issues at a large Baltimore plant.
The government allocated only 700,000 J&J shots to states next week, compared to 4.9 million the previous week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
J&J is awaiting regulatory approval for a Baltimore plant, managed by Emergent BioSolutions Inc, and is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to obtain authorization.
Workers at the Baltimore plant mixed ingredients for the J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines a few weeks ago, resulting in about 15 million destroyed J&J doses. The administration of Biden put J&J in charge of producing vaccines at the factory and stopped production of the AstraZeneca vaccine there.
Once approved, J&J can deliver up to eight million doses each week, White House Covid-19 coordinator Jeff Zients told a news conference Friday. And the company is still on track to deliver 100 million doses by the end of May.
Government Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan has called on the Biden government to detect vaccines in her state, which is battling the worst outbreak in the country. Michigan is expected to receive 17,500 Y & J doses next week, a 88% drop from the previous week.
The government has said it will continue to grant shots based on population, and does not intend to increase doses to countries hard hit, as it cannot predict where infections may rise next.
“There are tens of thousands of millions of people in the country and provinces who have not yet been vaccinated,” Zients said Friday. “And the fair and equitable way of distributing the vaccine is based on the adult population by state, tribe and territory. That’s how it was done, and we will continue to do it.”
“The virus is unpredictable. We do not know where the next increase could occur in cases,” he added.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Friday that the state will receive only 34,900 doses, a 88% drop from the previous week.
“As has been the case since the beginning of our vaccination effort, the X-factor is supply, supply, supply, and like every other state, our allocation of Johnson & Johnson doses next week will be significantly lower,” Cuomo said.
California will drop the J&J award from 572,700 to 67,600; Florida from 313,200 to 37,000; and Texas from 392,100 to 46,300.
Some states have also temporarily halted J&J vaccinations at certain facilities after people had adverse reactions. The Georgia Department of Public Health suspended all shots at one location after eight people experienced reactions, and other locations in North Carolina and Colorado also stopped administering doses due to reactions.
However, the CDC said it found no safety issues or cause for concern regarding the J&J doses, according to a statement from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment also said there is no cause for concern.
“After examining the symptoms of each patient, analyzing other vaccinations of the same vaccine and talking to the CDC to confirm our findings, we are confident that there is no cause for concern,” said Dr. Eric France, chief medical officer of the department. officer, said in a statement.
The J&J vaccine was the third vaccine approved in the US after vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. According to CDC, the company has delivered nearly 15 million doses in the US since Friday night.
The US gives an average of seven days of 3 million doses of vaccination every day. According to the CDC, one in five Americans is now fully vaccinated.
The number of new Covid cases and deaths in the US has dropped dramatically since the winter peak when hundreds of thousands of new infections and thousands of deaths were reported daily.
According to Johns Hopkins University data, the seven-day average of new cases in the United States was 67,000 on Saturday. This is comparable to the boom that swept the country this past summer. The US reports an average of 982 deaths daily.
New infections are on the rise in 23 states as the more contagious variant first identified in the UK becomes the dominant strain in the US president. Joe Biden has called for states to open the vaccines to all adults by April 19th. people as possible if the virus mutates.