High Hopes for Johnson & Johnson’s Covid Vaccine Have Fizzled in the U.S.

Islam News – Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine was supposed to be a game changer — a breakthrough for reaching vulnerable Americans, and a crucial alternative to the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that require fussier storage.
After it was authorized in the U.S., it quickly became popular on college campuses, in door-to-door campaigns and with harder-to-reach communities that often struggle with access to health care.

But since then, as my colleague Noah Weiland reports, the vaccine has fallen flat. Only 11.8 million doses were administered in the United States so far — less than 4 percent of the total. States are having trouble finding recipients for millions of does that will soon expire.

The vaccine took a series of hits: It was linked to a rare but serious blood-clotting disorder, leading to a 10-day pause in April. Then, regulators told the company that it should throw out tens of millions of additional doses produced at a plant in Baltimore because they might be contaminated.

“It was supposed to be the vaccine that could help the country quickly amass tens of millions of fully vaccinated people,” Noah said. Instead, he added, “the vaccine’s appeal has sputtered as the country’s vaccination rates are slowing dramatically.”

Source: The New York Times