69,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines coming to Virginia this week
Locally, ‘the situation is rapidly evolving’
The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) will distribute 69,000 doses of the new Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine this week to providers across the state, beginning with mass vaccination clinics.
The VDH said an additional shipment of the new vaccine will come to Virginia pharmacies like CVS, Walgreens and Walmart through the federal partnership.
Dr. Danny Avula, head of the state’s vaccination program, said that a er the initial delivery of 69,000 Johnson & Johnson doses there may be a two-week lull until manufacturing picks up. The VDH expects a more steady supply of doses to begin near the end of March.
As for the Rappahannock-Rapidan Health District, “the situation is rapidly evolving,” said April Achter, population health coordinator for the RRHD. “All we know is that there’s vaccine coming to the state,” she added.
On Saturday Johnson & Johnson became the third manufacturer to receive an emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food Residential and Drug and Administration (FDA), after Moderna and Pfizer Bio
NTech received theirs at the end of last year.
In Phase 3 clinical trials, the vaccine demonstrated 66% e cacy in preventing moderate to severe COVID-19 disease across all adult age groups worldwide. In the U.S., where more contagious variants of the virus are not as widespread as in other parts of the world, the e cacy rate was 72 percent.
About 20 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be available by the end of March and 100 million doses will be available in the rst half of 2021, according to Dr. Richard Nettles, M.D., the company’s vice president of U.S. Medical A airs.
Unlike the two previously available shots which require two injections, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine can be administered with a single dose.
The Johnson & Johnson jab uses viral vector technology rather than mRNA to deliver protection against the SARSCoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 disease, meaning the formula contains a harmless virus shell carrying instructions for making the spike proteins that are only found on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
On a microscopic level, those spike proteins are what attach to receptors in the lungs, allowing them to infect the body. If you’ve seen an image of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, you’ve noticed that the virus itself is covered in a crown (or “corona”) of spikes — those are the spike proteins the virus tells your cells to make. The spike proteins trigger an immune response in the body, and the antibodies produced from that response will recognize the spikes on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and protect you if you are ever exposed to the real thing.
None of the available vaccines, including the newest one from Johnson & Johnson, can cause COVID-19 because they contain no trace of SARS-CoV-2 virus. They also have no interaction with DNA.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday told Americans that by the end of May, there would be enough COVID-19 vaccines for every adult in the U.S. A rare partnership between Johnson & Johnson and pharmaceutical giant Merck will help the U.S. manufacture enough vaccines to reach that goal, Biden said.
The introduction of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine comes as the rollout in Virginia continues to pick up speed. As of Wednesday, the VDH reported 15-16% of Virginians have received at least one dose of the two-dose vaccine series. A total of more than two million doses of vaccine have been administered statewide, bringing the number of fully-vaccinated residents to nearly 700,000.
During a press brie ng last Friday, Dr. Avula said that this week the state is receiving 180,000 rst doses from both Moderna and P zer and 130,000 second doses. Fi y-two thousand more vaccines will be distributed to pharmacies statewide.
In Rappahannock, 704 people are fully vaccinated and 1,517 county residents have received at least one dose.
Need a vaccine? Learn how to get your shot at the VDH’s new website, vaccinate.virginia.gov. You can also call 1-877-829-4682.