The production of the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine has been taken over by pharmaceutical giant Merck and arrived for public use on March 2.
President Joe Biden announced the arrangement of the two competing companies on March 2. The Biden administration hopes that this partnership will exponentially increase the supply of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The company plans to ship out 3.9 million doses this week and later, distribute another 16 million doses. It is projected that over 130 million people will be vaccinated with the J&J vaccine by the end of the month.
On Feb. 27, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the new vaccine for individuals who are age 18 and older. Now, Americans have the option to choose between the Moderna, Pfizer and J&J vaccine.
Unlike Moderna and Pfizer, J&J vaccinations require a one-time visit to receive the shot, and the vaccine can be stored for months in refrigerator-like temperatures as opposed to the below-freezing temperatures that the other vaccines require.
Some are questioning the utilization of the J&J vaccine because of its low efficacy rate. The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination has a rate of 95% and in a clinical trial Moderna tested to be 94% effective. Johnson & Johnson’s efficacy rate is projected to be an overall 66%.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, encouraged Americans to take the vaccine regardless of its lower efficacy rate on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“If you go to a place and you have J&J, and that’s the one that’s available now, I would take it. I personally would do the same thing. It’s not the weaker vaccine. They are all three really good vaccines,” Fauci said.
The J&J vaccine has not caused any severe allergic reactions in its recipients and has only produced a low-grade fever in 9% of volunteers, just as the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines produced.
Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky expressed in an interview for NBC that he hopes the vaccination will be protecting one billion individuals from the coronavirus by the end of the year.
