The weekly supply of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine sent to states will be limited into March, according to senior Biden administration officials.
Johnson & Johnson told the Biden administration that the weekly supplies sent to states will be limited for the next couple of weeks, according to a senior administration official, who added that deliveries are expected to be uneven through most of March.
They added that the Biden administration does not expect additional deliveries this week on top of the roughly 4 million doses procured by the federal government already, making up the entirety of Johnson & Johnson’s inventory.
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Governors have been alerted to the expected delays, an issue that outraged blue state governors at the tail end of the Trump administration.
The Food and Drug Administration granted the emergency use authorization to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Saturday after a panel of vaccine experts voted unanimously on Friday to recommend it. The vaccine takes a single shot to provide the full measure of protection from illness due to COVID-19. It is also easier than the two other authorized COVID-19 vaccines to transport and store, making it a sensible option for providers who don’t have the necessary ultra-cold freezers.
The Biden administration has launched a massive vaccination campaign since January. Winter storms over the past few weeks caused vaccine shipment delays, the Washington Post reported. Still, the daily vaccination rate has remained steady at about 1.7 million shots, according to the White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients.
Former President Donald Trump attacked the Biden administration’s vaccine rollout during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday, where he said President Biden is “implementing the plan we put in place.”
Johnson & Johnson said earlier this month that the company could initially ship out 20 million vaccines by the end of March. The Biden administration is working with the company to ramp up production in order to meet its commitment to provide 100 million vaccines by the end of June.
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Over 75 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States so far. At the current vaccination rate, a Bloomberg analysis said it will take an estimated eight months to vaccinate 75% of the U.S. population.
