White House to Distribute 11 Million Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Doses This Week

The U.S. government will send out 11 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) one-shot vaccine this week, according to a White House official, marking a rise in vaccine production after a slow start.

The White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, Jeff Zients, said during a press briefing that J&J has been ramping up its vaccine production and the new shipment will bring the company up to around 20 million doses delivered so far, he said.

J&J had approximately 4 million doses that went out immediately upon the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization and cautioned that it would initially see slow production during March. Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have maintained a steady rate of vaccine production and both look on target to meet their first-quarter commitments, Zients said. The U.S. has secured 300 million doses each of Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines.