The statement was made after President Biden said his administration is invoking the Defense Production Act to boost production of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration over the weekend.
Johnson & Johnson has begun shipping nearly 4 million doses of its newly authorized COVID-19 vaccine across the US. According to Dr. Mark McClellan, Board member of Johnson & Johnson, there will be a ramp-up period, so 4 million doses can be expected next week, increasing over the month of March with 20 million doses delivered by the end of March.
It is worth mentioning that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine only requires one dose and only needs to be stored in a normal refrigerator. Approximately 10% of all adults in the US have been fully vaccinated. With 3 vaccines in use, an average of 1.7 million doses are being recorded every day. The number of Covid-19 new cases in the country has decreased in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Tuesday it will deliver 237 million doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 shot to 142 countries by the end of May as it steps up the global roll-out of its vaccine supplies.
The timeline for the delivery of doses will be split into separate two-month schedules, with the first in February-March and the second in April-May. Nigeria, Angola, Cambodia all received their first vaccine doses via Covax on Tuesday, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo also scheduled for a delivery. Senegal was set to get its first batch on Wednesday, and some 20 countries in total are due to receive shipments this week. Through the COVAX program, 1.8 billion vaccine doses will be delivered to poorer countries at no cost to their governments.
