Vaccine supply strain continues as new effort launched to find and track COVID-19 variants
Only a "few million" doses of J&J vaccine will be ready if FDA grants an EUA soon, according to the White House; Fauci says vaccines may reduce transmission.
Only a “few million” doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine will be available right away, if the FDA grants an emergency use authorization after its advisors review the vaccine’s safety and efficacy on February 26, according to White House COVID-19 Response Team Coordinator Jeffrey Zients. He said J&J would meet its commitment of 100 million doses by the end of June but the delivery is “more back-end loaded.”
The White House and CDC announced a new $200 million program to test for and track variant strains. CDC Director Dr. Rachel Walensky said more variant COVID strains and more cases of the known variants are being detected across the USA, jeopardizing the downward trend in new cases, deaths and hospitalizations.
Other news from today’s White House COVID-19 briefing:
NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said data is starting to strongly suggest that the vaccines currently in use may reduce viral load and prevent transmission even in people who get COVID-19 after being vaccinated. More research is needed on this, however.
CDC Director Walensky says evidence shows that masks and other prevention guidelines protect well against the new strains. “There is little evidence that, when worn properly, well-fitting medical and cloth masks fail,” she said.
700 federal “vaccinators” have been deployed, in addition to 1,000 other federal workers, 1,000 military personnel and 1,200 members of the National Guard, primarily at federally run sites that can provide 30,000 shots per week, according to Jeff Zients, coordinator of the White House COVID-19 Response Team.
The administration is supporting more treatment options that serve minority communities, said Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, who heads the COVID-19 Equity Task Force. Data has indicated that Black and Latino communities, although hard hit by COVID-19, have had less access to new treatments.
The USA has averaged 1.7 million shots per day in the past week.
A paper in JAMAadds to the debate on whether Vitamin D is effective at treating COVID-19. The study evaluated whether high-dose Vitamin D has any clinical impact and found none. However, an accompanying editorial says the study excluded severely ill patients and had other methodological flaws that render its conclusions ambiguous.
The folks at Hip Hop Public Health are out with videos to promote vaccine confidence, especially among urban minority groups. If you aren’t familiar with the work started by rapper Doug E. Fresh and physician Olajide Williams, you can find them on YouTube. They’ve created impactful videos to teach kids and others about stroke, handwashing, nutrition, diabetes and other important topics.