An advisory panel to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday (February 26) greenlit Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. Johnson & Johnson said that it was prepared to supply the vaccine immediately if it received emergency use authorisation (EUA). More than 50 million vaccine shots have been administered nationwide, a milestone highlighted by President Joe Biden on Thursday. But the emergence of highly contagious new virus variants has heightened the urgency to get hundreds of millions more people inoculated against the coronavirus. In a 44,000-person trial, the J&J vaccine overall was 66% effective at preventing moderate-to-severe cases of COVID-19 compared with a placebo.

Source: The Nation February 27, 2021 15:10 UTC