Up to 4m doses of new vaccine in frame for US

Survey finds strong support for joint efforts with China to tackle global crisis

The administration of US President Joe Biden is planning to get up to 4 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine from Johnson & Johnson into communities as early as next week.

The distribution plans are being drawn up as the vaccine awaits an expected approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA on Wednesday released documents showing the one-shot vaccine to be effective and safe, and regulators said there were no identified safety issues that would prevent an approval.

The US drugmaker said its vaccine showed 86 percent efficacy against severe forms of COVID-19 in the US, and 82 percent against severe disease in South Africa, where a highly contagious variant emerged in the fall and is now driving most cases.

The J&J vaccine is the first vaccine to show efficacy given as a single dose. It also doesn’t need to be kept frozen when being shipped, as do the vaccines developed by Moderna and the partnership of Pfizer and BioNTech.

Both of those advantages could have a big impact when it comes to vaccinating as many people as possible to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

On Friday, the FDA will convene a panel of independent experts to debate and vote on whether to recommend J&J’s vaccine for regulatory approval. Experts expect the committee to approve the shot in the following days.

White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters on Wednesday that if the vaccine is authorized by the FDA, “we are ready to roll out this vaccine without delay”.

A number of 3 million to 4 million doses has been floated by the White House, and this represents an increase over what officials told governors on Tuesday, and likely reflects that J&J told Congress it will have 4 million doses ready to ship immediately upon authorization.

The pharmaceutical company said it aims to deliver 20 million doses by the end of March, and 100 million doses by the end of June.

‘Accelerate the pace’

Zients said the administration is working with the company to “accelerate the pace and time frame” for the full 100 million doses. The US government agreed in August to pay $1 billion for those doses, and the healthcare giant has pledged not to sell doses for a profit during the pandemic.

The White House has said it was planning to send the supplies to the states, pharmacies and community health centers.

Moderna is set to launch a clinical trial of a new vaccine designed to combat a variant of the virus, the company announced on Wednesday. It said it has produced enough of its variant-specific candidate vaccine, called mRNA-1273.351, to begin testing it in people.

The company said that “out of an abundance of caution”, it has begun pursuing two possible strategies against the variant: giving people a booster dose of the original vaccine to increase antibody levels, and developing two variant-specific vaccines, which could be given instead of the original one.

US voters have placed a climatecentered partnership at the top of their wish list for potential collaboration with China, and strongly support healthy competition between the countries to develop clean energy technologies, a poll has found.

“Voters overwhelmingly support the United States working with China to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even when presented with a stance against this partnership,” the Asia Society Policy Institute said in a report based on a survey of more than 1,000 voters in early December.

The February report, Understanding American Voter Attitudes Toward US-China Climate Cooperation, found that 56 percent of voters believe that climate change is a global problem, and the US should form a partnership with China to address it. Just over a quarter of voters don’t want such a partnership.

“Though support is strongest among Democrats (71 percent) and independents (59 percent), more than a third of Republicans (35 percent) also express their support, which indicates there is potential for bipartisan consensus on this issue,” the report said.

Partnering with China on addressing climate change garnered support from the voters even more than on a global COVID-19 response, but less than on reducing the number of nuclear weapons, according to the poll.

Given the twin crises of the worldwide economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, voters support President Joe Biden working with China and other countries to create a green global stimulus by a 33-point margin — 59 percent for and 26 percent against.

In addition to cooperation, the survey also found that a mutually reinforcing, healthy cycle of competition could likely unfold between the world’s top two greenhouse gas emitters.

When asked if the US should do the same if China decides to take more actions to address climate change and transition to clean energy, such as ramping up production of solar panels and electric vehicles, an overwhelming majority of voters, 69 percent, said yes.

China has the largest number of new-energy vehicles in the world, and for many years has been a global leader of renewable energy in the number of patents, investment, installed capacity and power generation, according to Xie Zhenhua, China’s special representative on climate change affairs.

Bipartisan divide

The Asia Society poll found that support turned out to be strongly bipartisan: 85 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of independents and slightly more than half of Republicans all think the US should remain competitive with China and scale up production of clean energy technologies if China does so.

The report noted that though Republican voters are “significantly” less supportive than Democrats on working with China on climate change, Biden’s team can be tactful in its messaging to break through to those hesitant Republican voters.

Kevin Rudd, Asia Society president and CEO and Asia Society Policy Institute president, said even amid escalating competition, Washington and Beijing will need to find room for continued strategic cooperation on critical global challenges in a number of defined areas.

“Climate change, combating the pandemic and improving public health ... are examples of where cooperation will be necessary, not just for the world’s interests, but to secure each other’s national interests as well,” said Rudd, a former Australian prime minister.

At a virtual meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Xie said China remains committed to multilateralism and win-win cooperation.

“We humans are in one community with a shared future in face of the climate challenge,” he said.