US to allocate 85% fewer vaccines to states next week J&J

(Reuters) – The U.S. government will allocate nearly 85% fewer Johnson & Johnson (NYSE 🙂 COVID-19 vaccines to states next week, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed.

Only 785,500 doses of J&J will be distributed, up from 4.95 million doses this week. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and J&J did not immediately respond to requests made after office hours to comment on the decline.

A New York Times report last week said workers at the Emergent BioSolutions facility in Baltimore, which produced both doses of AstraZeneca (NASDAQ 🙂 Plc and J&J, mixed the ingredients of the two vaccines, spoiling 15 million doses of J&J.

However, the Baltimore facility has not yet been sanctioned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and a federal health official told Reuters last week that none of the doses of vaccine derived from the plant have yet been used in the effort. for vaccination.

J&J confirmed that it expects to deliver 100 million doses to the government by the end of May.

California is the top recipient of the J&J vaccine, followed by Texas and Florida, according to the CDC. Vaccine distribution for California has been cut by about 88%, with the state due to receive a maximum of 67,600 doses next week.

A California health spokesman told Reuters that the number will be even lower in the week of April 18, and the state will receive a total of 22,400 doses of J&J vaccine.

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday raised the target for the acceptability of the COVID-19 vaccine for all American adults to April 19.