Biden: US Vaccinations Will Be Ahead of Schedule

The Biden administration moved up the US vaccination schedule by 2 months yesterday, promising enough doses to vaccinate all US adults by May’s end, NPR reports.
 
Key Development: The newly greenlit Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine will now go to  around the clock production. Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to enlist J&J rival Merck to help produce J&J’s vaccine, CIDRAP reports.
 
Next week, states will get 15.2 million weekly doses, up from 14.5 million this week. 2.8 million of those will be J&J’s vaccine.  
 
Counterpoint: The US Conference of Catholic Bishops urged devotees to avoid getting the J&J shot because it was developed using an abortion-derived cell lines, The Washington Post reports. 

Global Vaccine Developments

Vaccines are finally reaching low- and middle-income countries through the UN-backed COVAX effort.  
 

• Colombia is the first country in the Americas to receive vaccines from COVAX—117,000 doses of Pfizer’s jab arrived in Bogota Monday. Al Jazeera

• Nigeria, Angola, and Kenya have together received millions of vaccine doses this week; and Ghana and Ivory Coast have already received deliveries. France24