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A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group voted on Sunday to recommend Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine for widespread use, final clearance for shooting after U.S. regulators cleared it on Saturday.
National and local public health authorities will use the Food and Drug Administration and CDC guidelines when administering the first 4 million doses. The federal government, through its distribution partner, McKesson Corp., plans to ship the first pictures Sunday evening or Monday morning.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has played a major role in guiding states on how to allocate rare doses, although states themselves have the final say on how they allocate vaccines.
One of the panelists said in a presentation on Sunday that there had not yet been studies comparing Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine directly to other approved vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Inc., but all vaccines were very effective in reducing hospitalizations and deaths.
The panelist also said there was not enough data to know whether the safety or effectiveness of vaccines could be compromised by pre-existing conditions that weaken a person’s immune system.
Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine will be the only single-dose coronavirus vaccine available in the U.S. It is also the easiest to ship and store because it can be kept in a refrigerator rather than a freezer.
Johnson & Johnson plans to ship 100 million doses by the middle of the year, enough to immunize nearly a third of Americans.
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