Why the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Rollout Has Been So Bumpy

been administered. Some officials believe that states may be holding back some shots to bank enough to reach underserved communities, but some states representatives say they are using all available doses as they come. Aaron Banko, healthcare reporter at Politico, joins us for why the Johnson and Johnson vaccine might not be reaching more people. Thanks for joining us, Aaron, Thanks for having me. I wanted to talk about Johnson and Johnson. The vaccine right now isn't having the best rollout.

We've sent out millions of doses, but we're still seeing large amounts of them not being administered. There's a few reasons, uh that the government thing why they might not be going out something Maybe states are saving some of them up to help reach different populations, but the rollout, like I said, has just not been going according to plan just yet. Aaron, what do we know about why Johnson

and Johnson hasn't been more widely distributed yet? So I think it's a really important question to be asking, particularly because Johnson and Johnson is coming up here at the end of the month is supposed to be delivering sixteen million more doses of its vaccine to the federal government for distribution. So what we wanted to do a politico is look at how the rollout has been going so far in the past couple of weeks, and what we've

seen is that the rollout has been quite bumpy. Now, the administration had warned at the beginning of the J and J announcement that the rollout might not be as smooth as states had hoped, particularly because the number of doses that are coming off the manufacturing lines. The J and J manufacturing lines are sporadic, so the federal government doesn't always have a clear understanding of how many doses

are available for distribution to states of week. Now, some senior administration officials say that they think some states are holding onto those stockpiles of jan J doses until they get another tranche of doses at the end of the month to sort of have a more equal flow of the dozing in the next couple of weeks. Other states we talked to said they're not doing that. They are pushing out all of the J and J doses that

they're getting. So it's a bit confusing right now. It's not exactly clear what is going on, beyond the fact that the vaccination rate around the J and J vaccine is still quite low and this one should be a lot easier to administer. We've heard about it it being that one and done shot. It's only the one shot protocol versus Fiser and madernas. You've got to get two shots separated by what is it, two or three weeks apart.

I think the numbers that we have is that about two point three million of the four point three million doses that have been delivered have been actually administered so far. That's what we're looking at right now. But one of the things you kind of mentioned it is the reporting is tough to keep track of all the states do it differently. And then beyond that, states are allocated shots, but then individual pharmacies can be allocated different things, so

it's hard to keep track of it all too. The thing we know about the way that the federal government tracks well, really all of its COVID nine team data, but particularly the vaccine, is that there's quite a bit of a reporting lag from jurisdictions up to the state level and then from the state level to the federal

government about how many doses have been administered. But some of the senior officials we talked to said they didn't think the reporting lag for the j M J vaccine on the CDC's vaccine track or web page was that delayed. So what we're finding is that the administration is also sort of struggling to understand what's going on across the country.

What we do know is that the j M J vaccine has been administered quite efficiently through the federal retail pharmacy program, so your local CBS that you can walk down the street and grab a j M J vaccine. That's been going really well. And so a lot of the pharmacies that we've spoken to who existed in that program say they're completely out of the j J vaccine

and they don't know when they're getting more. You know, one of the things I was always curious about two is when the Johnson and Johnson vaccine came on board, the efficacy rate was not as high as Maderna or Fightser, So I was curious if there would be some hesitancy of people maybe refusing it, waiting out for some of the other ones. You know, you mentioned how states are

approaching this. West Virginia was initially using that J and J vaccine to inoculate homeless people in Homebown because you didn't have to wait for those follow ups. But do we know anything about that, you know, maybe people's perception of the J and J vaccine. All we know is what we're hearing anecdotally. So I think at the very beginning of the J and J rollout, there was a fear among senior administration officials that Americans would be hesitant to sign up for the J and J vaccine because

of the raw data that existed about its efficacy. But what they found and have been finding over time, is that people really like the Jane J vaccine because it's a one and done situation. You know, there is some concern that portions of the country are not signing up for the shot because of that efficacy rate. But that's

not proven by any stretch of the imagination. I think for the most part, people who we've spoken to on the ground seem to have really enjoyed the J and J process and like that they're sort of immune in a one shot dose definitely, And you know, for those that are are not as high risk as others, you know, let's say you're young and healthy, Johnson and Johnson vaccine is probably maybe the best choice one and done. You're

still going to get protection. You're younger and healthy, so you won't be getting COVID in the most severe forms anyway, So that might be the best option, whereas more high risk people, you know, might want to make that extra effort to get fiser or maderna. So what can we expect You mentioned where that states are going to get another big push, another big delivery of more J and J vaccines. What are we going to be expecting when

we see that. So that's actually, according to some of the new reporting we got today, is a little bit up in the air. We do know that states should be alerted by the federal government tomorrow or the next day about a new set of doses which will be released to states to order against next week. We just don't know how big of a pot that is. We don't know how many doses are going to be included

in that ranche. So again, like I mentioned earlier, we're really waiting on the pharmaceutical company to deliver that promise sixteen million doses by the end of the month for distribution hopefully at the beginning of April. And then of course they have other targets to meet later down the line, a hundred million by June, hopefully by the end of May. So States can expect to receive some additional J and J doses of the next couple of weeks, but I

don't think they are going to be getting that many. Well, hopefully we can increase the rollout of this and just get as many shots into arms as possible. Aaron Bankoh, healthcare reporter at Politico, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm Screw Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget effort today's big news stories. You can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Fridays, so follow us an I Heart radio or wherever you get your podcast.