Human error ruined 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine in US and will delay future shipments

A plant that makes two of the coronavirus vaccines vaccine ingredients accidentally combined several weeks ago, ruining around 15 million Johnson & Johnson doses, and force regulators to delay authorization of plant production lines.

According to an article by The New York Times, the plant is controlled by Emergent BioSolutions, a company associated with both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca in the manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines.

According to the American newspaper, federal authorities attribute what happened to human error. As a result of the error, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has suspended future shipments of the inoculant while it investigates what happened.

However, the episode does not affect the doses of Johnson & Johnson currently administered nationwide, as these were produced in the Netherlands, where operations have been fully approved by federal regulators.

However, all upcoming Johnson & Johnson vaccine shipments, which are expected to total tens of millions of doses by next month, are due to be distributed nationwide from the massive Baltimore plant. These shipments are those that are awaiting a resolution from the health authorities.

Meanwhile, the other two federally approved manufacturers, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna continue to deliver doses as planned.

On Wednesday, it was also learned that covid-19 was the third leading cause of death in the United States in 2020, after heart disease and cancer, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The federal agency indicated that Covid-19 killed 377,000 last year (547,000 in total since the start of the pandemic and so far, according to the CDC), only behind 690,000 deaths from coronary heart disease and 598,000 from cancer. In total, last year there were 3.3 million more deaths in the United States compared to 2019, a 16% increase.

Weeks with more Deaths from covid-19 occurred in early April, with the onset of the pandemic, and in December, during the Christmas holidays 2020, according to the report.

After analyzing the preliminary data from the death certificate, Researchers found that the highest death rates from covid-19 were recorded last year among people over 85., Native Americans, Hispanics and men.

Until yesterday Tuesday, 95 million Americans (28.6% of the population) have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine and 52 million have received both (15.8%), while nearly half of those over 65, who are most at risk, are already vaccinated, according to the CDC.

The United States has dramatically speeded up the vaccination process, and currently administers over 3 million doses per day.

US President Joe Biden has called on state authorities to ensure that all adults in the country can be vaccinated on May 1 and has set a target for the majority, 90%, to have a vaccination center of five miles from your residence before that date, April. 19.

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