Coronavirus update: California expecting quick delivery of J&J vaccine, when approved for use
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on Friday recommended the single-shot Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine be approved for emergency use — so how fast can it get to California and into the arms of its 40 million residents?
The FDA must still approve an emergency use authorization, but Gov. Gavin Newsom said before the FDA announcement that the federal government plans to send 380,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to California next week and more than 1.1 million doses over the next three weeks.
The vaccine would be the third authorized for emergency use by the FDA, and the first that requires only one shot. The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines both require two shots, 28 and 21 days apart. It also has fewer handling restrictions than the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, and Johnson & Johnson has said it will ship the vaccine using the same cold chain technologies already in use with other medicines.
Johnson & Johnson submitted its application to the FDA for an emergency use authorization on Feb. 4, based on efficacy and safety data.
The vaccine appeared to be 66% effective at preventing moderate to severe cases of COVID-19 in clinical trials, and 85% effective at preventing severe illness. The two-dose Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines have both shown about 95% efficacy at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 after both doses are administered.
There have been 11.2 million vaccine doses shipped to California, according to the California Department of Public Health, 10.9 million delivered to counties, pharmacies and medical providers and 8.2 million administered.
The percentage of the state’s doses used is the lowest of any state went of the Rocky Mountains, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker.
The COVID-19 Vaccination Program in the U.S. started on Dec. 14, 2020, and as of Thursday, 68.3 million doses have been administered, according to a weekly update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 46.1 million people have received at least one dose of vaccine, about 13.9% of the country. About 21.6 million people have been fully vaccinated, about 6.5% of the population.
The 7-day average of doses administered per day was 1.5 million, a 7.1% decrease from the previous week, which likely was due to the winter weather conditions nearly nationwide that impacted vaccine delivery.
Case updates from the central San Joaquin Valley
One day after reporting its fewest new confirmed COVID-19 cases since October, Fresno County public health officials said there were 221 new cases on Friday, higher than the 7-day and 14-day averages of 183 and 203, and pushing the total since the start of the pandemic to 95,015.
There also were 21 new coronavirus-related deaths and a total of 1,443.
The 21 deaths were more than double the 7-day and 14-day averages of nine, according to the California Department of Public Health.
Elsewhere in the central San Joaquin Valley …
Kings County
- 52 new cases; 22,003 total
- 0 new deaths; 218 total
Madera County
- 17 new cases; 15,356 total
- 0 new deaths; 209 total
Mariposa County
- 1 new case; 395 total
- 0 new deaths; 7 total
Merced County
- 56 new cases; 28,971 total
- 2 new deaths; 397 total
Tulare County
- 85 new cases; 47,869 total
- 12 new deaths; 758 total
The new deaths pushed the total for the six-county region past 3,000 to 3,031. There have been 603 deaths in February, the second-most of any month behind January with 821.
Across the state, there were 5,400 new confirmed COVID-19 cases. The total is up to 3,465,726. There also were 391 new coronavirus-related deaths, the total now 51,382.
CDC updates
The weekly COVID-19 update from the CDC also included data on testing, the number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths …
Testing: The 7-day average of test positivity from RT-PCR tests is now 5.2%, though the rates in Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and New Hampshire remain between 11% and 20%. The 7-day average test volume for Feb. 12 to Feb. 18 was 1,066,213, down 20.2% from 1,335,763 the prior seven days.
Total cases: The highest 7-day average of 249,303 occurred on Jan. 11, 2021 and the current 7-day average is 66,348 cases, a 73.4% decline. The 13.5% decrease in the 7-day average number of daily cases reported compared with the prior week provides an encouraging sign of recent progress. But, even with these declines, the 74,806 cases reported on Feb. 24 remains much higher than during the first peak in the pandemic.
Hospitalizations: The number of patients with confirmed COVID-19 decreased to 6,431 admissions on Feb. 23, 61% from the national 7-day average peak of 16,536 on Jan. 9. The average number of daily admissions fell by 11.3%, compared to the previous week.
COVID-19 deaths: The U.S. passed 500,000 coronavirus-related deaths this week and the numbers continue to fluctuate. The 7-day average is 2,047, a 23.8% decrease from the previous week.