Johnson & Johnson board member Dr. Mark McClellan says the company expects 20 million doses to be delivered by the end of March, as the United States moves on to one step of adding a safe and effective third vaccine to its arsenal.
“There will be a period of rise, so 4 million doses are expected next week, which will increase during the month of March with 20 million doses delivered by the end of March,” the former FDA commissioner said. in an interview Friday night on “The News with Shepard Smith.” “So they’re 20 million people completely vaccinated, because that’s just one dose for the vaccine.”
On Friday afternoon, a group of advisers from the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously to recommend Johnson & Johnson’s single shot for emergency use authorization. The FDA will decide on Saturday whether to approve the vaccine. A recommendation from advisers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would trigger three to four million doses to be sent next week.
McClellan told The News with Shepard Smith that the addition of the J&J vaccine will take the United States a step further in tackling the coronavirus pandemic and protecting millions of people from the virus.
“This is close to some expansions in the supply of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, expect about 90 million, 100 million doses … it’s a two-dose vaccine, but that means we could reach up to 100 million people or more vaccinated in late March here in the United States, “said McClellan, a health policy expert at Duke University.
Nationally, the daily average of cases, hospitalizations and deaths has been declining for weeks, but director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Rochelle Walensky said recent falls could be declining.
“We may end up with the virus, but it’s obviously not done with us,” Walensky said. “We can’t feel comfortable or give in to a false sense of security that the worst of the pandemic is behind us. Not now, not even when mass vaccination is so close.”
The CDC director added that we could begin to see the effects of the new, more contagious Covid variants that are spreading across the country. McClellan agreed with Walensky and warned that “we should be concerned” when it comes to new variants, but he doubled the importance of vaccinations.
“The good news is that vaccines seem to provide very strong protection against variants, the best way to contain them is for so many people to get vaccinated as quickly as possible,” McClellan said.