The vials labeled “COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine” and the syringe are seen in front of the Johnson & Johnson logo that appears in this February 9, 2021 illustration.
Atès Ruvic | Reuters
Johnson & Johnson will reduce shipments of its single-dose Covid-19 vaccine by 86% next week as it has manufacturing problems at a major Baltimore plant.
The government has allocated only 700,000 J&J shots to states next week, down from 4.9 million the previous week, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
J&J is awaiting regulatory approval for a Baltimore facility, run by Emergent BioSolutions Inc., and is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to obtain the permit.
A few days ago, Baltimore plant workers mixed ingredients for the J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines, resulting in approximately 15 million doses of ruined J&J. The Biden administration has put J&J in charge of vaccine manufacturing at the plant and has left the production of the AstraZeneca vaccine there.
Once authorized, J&J could administer up to eight million doses each week, White House coordinator Jeff Zients said during a press conference Friday. And the company is on track to deliver 100 million doses by the end of May.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has called on the Biden administration to increase vaccines in its state, which is facing the worst outbreak in the country. Michigan is expected to receive 17,500 doses of J&J next week, a 88% drop from the previous week.
The administration said it will continue to allocate shots based on population and has no plans to increase doses to the hardest-hit states, as it cannot predict where infections could increase.
“There are tens of millions of people across the country in every state and county who have not yet been vaccinated,” Zients said Friday. “And the fair and equitable way the vaccine is distributed is based on the adult population by states, tribes and territories. That has been done and we will continue to do so.”
“The virus is unpredictable. We don’t know where the next increase in cases could occur,” he added.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Friday that the state will only receive 34,900 doses, a 88 percent 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 any other state, our Johnson & Johnson dose allocation will be significantly lower next week,” he said. Cuomo.
California will see its J&J allocation fall 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 stopped J&J vaccines at certain facilities after people have suffered adverse reactions. The Georgia Department of Public Health stopped all seizures at one site after eight people experienced reactions and other sites in North Carolina and Colorado also stopped administering doses due to reactions.
However, the CDC said it found no safety concerns or concerns about 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 reviewing each patient’s symptoms, analyzing other vaccines from the same vaccine batch, and talking to the CDC to confirm our findings, we are confident that there is no cause for concern,” said Dr. Eric France, chief physician. of the department. official said in a statement.
The J&J vaccine was the third vaccine authorized in the U.S. after the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. As of Friday evening, the company was administering nearly 15 million doses in the U.S., according to CDC data.
The United States administers a seven-day average of 3 million doses of vaccine each day. One in five Americans is completely vaccinated, according to the CDC.
The rate of new cases and deaths of Covid in the U.S. has dropped dramatically since the winter peak when hundreds of thousands of new infections and thousands of deaths were reported daily.
The seven-day average of new cases in the United States was 67,000 on Saturday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. This is comparable to the rise that swept the nation last summer. The US reports an average of 982 deaths a day.
New infections are rising in 23 states as the most infectious variant first identified in the UK has become the dominant strain in the United States President Joe Biden has called on states to open vaccine appointments to all adults before of April 19 as the nation runs the vaccine of so many people as possible as the virus mutates.