Dr. Mark McClellan, Johnson & Johnson board member, says the company expects 20 million doses by the end of March as the US is just one step away from adding a third safe and effective vaccine to its arsenal.
“There is coming a run-in period, so 4 million doses are expected next week, which will be higher in the month of March with 20 million doses delivered by the end of March,” said the former FDA commissioner in a Friday night interview on The News with Shepard Smith. . ‘ “So that’s 20 million people who have been fully vaccinated, since it’s only one dose for the vaccine.”
A panel of advisers from the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously late Friday to recommend Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose injection for emergency authorization. The FDA will decide on Saturday whether the vaccine will be approved. A recommendation from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisers would trigger three to four million doses to be shipped next week.
McClellan told The News with Shepard Smith that the addition of the J&J vaccine will take the US a big step forward in tackling the coronavirus pandemic and protecting millions of people from the virus.
“That’s in addition to some enhancements to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine lineup, they expect nearly 90 million, 100 million doses … it’s a two-dose vaccine, but all of that means we’re a late March. More than 100 million people have been vaccinated here in the United States, ”said McClellan, a health policy expert at Duke University.
Nationally, mean daily cases, hospitalizations and deaths have been declining for weeks, but Rochelle Walensky, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the recent declines may be leveling off.
“We may be done with the virus, but it’s clear the virus isn’t done with us yet,” 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 now that the mass vaccination is so close.”
The CDC director added that we could spread the effects of the new, more contagious Covid variants across the country. McClellan agreed with Walensky, warning that “we should be concerned” about the new variants, but the importance of vaccinations doubled.
“The good news is that the vaccines seem to offer very strong protection against the variants. The best way to contain the variants is to get as many people as possible to get vaccinated as soon as possible,” McClellan said.