COVID-19 Updates: Johnson & Johnson could provide 100M more vaccine doses

U.S. President Joe Biden is likely to announce a deal on Wednesday regarding an additional 100 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine, anonymous said.

Biden is anticipated to discuss the plan in a meeting at the White House with executives from Johnson & Johnson and Merck.  Merck, the pharmaceutical giant tasked with helping Johnson & Johnson make its newly approved single-dose vaccine.

The president said earlier this month after the Food and Drug Administration cleared Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, the U.S. was on track to produce enough vaccine doses for every American adult by the end of May.

The drugmaker had pledged to produce 100 million doses to the U.S. by the end of June. However, the time frame for when the additional 100 million doses would be ready is unclear. The Johnson & Johnson doses come in addition to the 200 million doses Pfizer and Moderna pledged to deliver by late May of their two-shot vaccines.

This puts the country in more supply than needed to vaccinate those eligible for the vaccine in America.

Biden and White House officials have alerted that having enough supply does not mean that every American will be vaccinated. This is because the logistics and reluctance to the vaccines are hurdles to getting shots into people’s arms.