On Sunday, it was confirmed by senior White House officials of the Biden government, that the administration of the new Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine might start as early as Tuesday.
The delivery of vaccines may be ‘unevenly’ distributed during March. The vaccine distribution centers in the nation will begin to receive about 3.9 to 4 million doses by this week.
Distribution Of New COVID-19 Vaccine About To Begin
The officials also said that throughout this month, a total of 20 million doses will be sent. Also, more doses are expected to be concentrated toward the latter half of the month. The J&J company has assured distribution of 100 million shots by this summer.
The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine was signed off for emergency use, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration, this weekend.
The director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky endorsed the new vaccine by signing off on the recommendation by an advisory committee.
Dr. Walensky pointed out that the latest data released by CDC showed that the recent deterioration in the number of reported COVID-19 cases could be stalling. It could also be possibly leveling off at still very high numbers. She also added by commenting that these vaccine shots are being made available at a ‘potentially pivotal time’.
In her statement, Dr.Walensky said, “With several different types of COVID-19 vaccines accessible for use, more flexible options may be offered to the vaccine providers, jurisdictions, and the public. This could be advantageous because of the variety in storage and handling requirements and also in the dosing recommendations.”
Dr. Walensky highlighted the importance of people getting vaccinated with the first vaccine available to them, as this would help protect everyone from being infected with COVID-19.
Most communities in the country will have all three kinds of coronavirus vaccine, but not all of them would be available at every vaccination center. Government officials at the White House commended the public to get a dose of whichever vaccine was first available to them.
A senior administration official said that all three vaccines were said to be safe and effective at preventing the much-dreaded COVID-19 and its symptoms – severe illness, hospitalization, and eventually, death.
All three COVID-19 vaccines are considered to be ‘highly efficacious’, according to the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci. He motivated people to receive the vaccine that was offered to them, on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ event on Sunday.
Fauci stated that if he goes to a vaccine center and they only have the one by J&J, he would take it. He felt that the public needed to be vaccinated as swiftly and as expeditiously as possible.
The new J&J COVID-19 vaccine is provided for adults who are more than 18 years old. It has the advantage of needing only one dose, whereas the vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech require two doses. The other benefit is that the vaccine is easier to store and transport as it doesn’t need to be stored in a freezer.
However, the COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech look to be more effective than the one by J&J. The effectiveness was shown to be better than 94% in a few large trials that were run last year.
Johnson & Johnson’s new COVID-19 vaccine seemed to be 72% effective among the trial participants in the USA. It was found to be less effective in Latin America and South Africa, where newer strains of the coronavirus have started to circulate more.
It was observed to be nearly 100% effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths.Despite all this, the three vaccines cannot be compared directly. This is because the trials were conducted at different times.
The new vaccine shots are being disseminated to states in the USA proportionately to their population size, similar to how the other vaccines were distributed. Due to the variation in effectiveness of the vaccine, administration officials declared that jurisdictions are being directed to distribute the three vaccines equitably.