Dr. Mark McClellan, a board member of Johnson & Johnson, says the company expects 20 million doses to be delivered by the end of March as the U.S. becomes one step closer to adding a third safe and effective vaccine to his arsenal.
“There will be a period of growth, so 4 million doses are expected next week, increasing in March by 20 million doses administered by the end of March,” the former FDA commissioner said in an interview Friday night on “Shepard Smith News.” “So there are 20 million people completely vaccinated because it’s just a single dose for the vaccine.”
A group of Food and Drug Administration advisers voted unanimously late Friday to recommend Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccination to authorize emergency use. The FDA will decide on Saturday whether to approve the vaccine. A recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would activate 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 be a big step forward for the United States when it comes to tackling the coronavirus pandemic and protecting millions of people from the virus.
“This comes in addition to some expansion of the supply of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, expect almost 90 million, 100 million doses … it’s a two-dose vaccine, but all this means that we could reach about 100 million people or more vaccinated by the end of March here in the United States, “said McClellan, a health policy expert at Duke University.
Nationwide, average daily cases, hospitalizations and deaths have been falling for weeks, but Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said recent declines could be reduced.
“We may end the virus, but clearly the virus does not end with us,” Walensky said. “We cannot feel comfortable or give in to a false sense of security that the worst of the pandemic is behind us. Not now, not when mass vaccination is so close.”
The CDC director added that we could start to see the effects of the new, more contagious Covid variants, spreading across the country. McClellan agreed with Walensky and warned that “we should be concerned” about the new options, but downplayed the importance of vaccinations.
“The good news is that vaccines seem to provide strong protection against variants, the best way to contain the variants is for as many people as possible to get vaccinated as soon as possible,” McClellan said.