Anthony Fauci, MD, said Feb. 16 that because the U.S. is getting fewer COVID-19 vaccine doses from Johnson & Johnson than expected, most Americans won't be able to get a vaccine until late May or early June, pushing back his original prediction of April, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, said last week that most Americans would be able to get a vaccine by April.
"We were expecting a greater number of doses from Johnson & Johnson, and it looks like, even though it's a good vaccine, that we're not going to have a substantial amount of doses until we get into April and May," Dr. Fauci told the Los Angeles Times Feb. 16. "So I think it's probably going to be a little bit later than the date that I had originally thought, because I was not anticipating that we would have this much of a problem with the number of doses."
A White House adviser told The New York Times Feb. 17 that Johnson & Johnson will only have "a few million" doses on hand for distribution if it is authorized later this month, as expected. But the drugmaker's vaccine only requires one dose instead of two like Moderna and Pfizer's vaccines.
Dr. Fauci did express optimism that the U.S. will see "a sharp escalation in the number of people that get vaccinated and very little wait for people to get vaccinated," by the spring, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Read the full article here.
More articles on pharmacy:
Bristol Myers Squibb, Sanofi ordered to pay $834M for improper drug marketing
Multiple federal vaccine distribution programs causing confusion for states, governors say
Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine cuts symptomatic cases by 94%, data shows