It’s J&J day with new vax ready to roll

3.9M doses out this week

The feds will begin delivering the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to states as early as Tuesday — releasing their entire current cache of 3.9 million doses by week’s end, the White House said Monday.

But another major rollout of the highly anticipated single-dose immunizations — 16 million shots — won’t come until later in the month, said White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients at a briefing.

The doses will be shipped to states, tribes and US territories based on population, as the Biden administration has done with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Zients said.

“For example, if a state represents 2 percent of the US population, it receives approximately 2 percent of the Pfizer allocation, 2 percent of the Moderna allocation and will now receive 2 percent of the J&J allocation,” Zients said.

The feds estimate that New York state would receive nearly 165,000 doses of the J&J shot in the first round of deliveries, with the Big Apple netting about 71,000 immunizations from that allotment.

Zients said the 3.9 million doses are the drugmaker’s entire current stock.

The shot is considered a potential game-changer because it involves a single dose as opposed to the two for Pfizer’s and Moderna’s, and needs only normal refrigeration instead of a deep freeze.

An additional 16 million doses will be available by the end of March, Zients said, “predominantly . . . in the back half of the month.”

Mayor de Blasio was asked Monday about the fact that the J&J shot’s general efficacy is around 66 percent compared with the more than 92 percent for the other two vaccines — and whether the city has any concerns with the optics of its plan to distribute it to underserved communities and homebound seniors.

His health officials noted that studies show the shot is just as effective as the others when it comes to preventing serious illness and death.

The city’s latest seven-day rolling average for positive COVID-19 results continues a gradual trend downward at 6.13 percent, de Blasio said.