Johnson & Johnson vaccine to debut locally March 8

The newly approved Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is beginning to arrive in Virginia this week, and locally, Henrico and Richmond seniors will have their first opportunity March 8 to receive the only one-dose vaccine available.

Richmond and Henrico Health Districts officials announced Wednesday that the second of their three planned mass vaccination events (the others will be March 6 and 10) will feature the new vaccine. The other two events will feature Pfizer’s vaccine.

But because there is skepticism among some people who don’t want to take the Johnson & Johnson vaccine – which has a slightly lower efficacy than the Pfizer and Moderna versions but is still considered highly effective against the virus and serious health effects that could otherwise result from it – officials statewide are publicizing in advance which events will offer it. That way, anyone who wants to wait for the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines instead may opt to skip the Johnson & Johnson events without losing their spot in the state’s pre-registration line, state vaccination coordinator Danny Avula said during a press briefing Wednesday.

Virginia is expecting about 69,000 doses of the new vaccine this week, while its partner pharmacies statewide will receive another 22,000, Avula said. Those doses are in addition to about 188,000 first doses of Pfizer and Moderna that the state will receive and more than 52,000 first-doses that partner pharmacies will get, he said. Virginia’s allocation of second doses of the Pfizer and Moderna shots also are increasing quickly, he said.

Virginia quickly is entering a phase during which the concern won’t be a limited supply of vaccine, Avula said, but rather “‘How do we make sure that we’re getting it out to all the channels possible so that people know how to get access to the vaccine?’

“As I look toward the rest of the month, this is a very different scenario than we’ve been in up until this point”

Initially, the state intends to use all of its Johnson & Johnson doses at mass vaccination events (at which between 1,000 and 5,000 people per day receive them), Avula said. That was an intentional decision by state officials, as a way to preemptively combat the notion that it would be offered to higher-risk or underserved communities only, he said.

But by the end of the month, when Virginia could be receiving 100,000 doses or more of the new vaccine, it will be incorporated into the mix with Pfizer and Moderna at various large and small events, he said.

“This is extremely effective and absolutely preventive against the health outcomes that matter the most,” Avula said, citing data from the vaccine’s trials that showed it prevented 100% of deaths and 86% of all cases of serious illness from COVID-19. (Overall, the Johnson & Johnson has an efficacy of about 72%, compared with 95% rates for Moderna and Pfizer, though Avula pointed out that the former was tested worldwide in studies that involved new variants of the virus, whereas studies of the latter two did not involve the new variants.)

While most of the state continues to vaccinate people in Phase 1A and the first portion of Phase 1B (educators, public safety officials and other frontline workers), some portions of the state may already be offering vaccines to people in the remaining portions of Phase 1B, he said – and others are expected to follow soon.

Avula implied that the prioritization of those people in the rest of 1B will vary statewide – based partially upon state guidance and partially upon specific needs within each local health district. For instance, he said, some communities with larger populations of manufacturing or food and agriculture workers could begin vaccinating them sooner than other localities with smaller such populations do.

A large group of people fall into the category of those 16 to 64 with pre-existing conditions, but there’s a significant difference between a 30-year-old with asthma and a 63-year-old with diabetes who is on dialysis, Avula said.

State officials are prioritizing those in that group who are on dialysis, he said, and expect to do the same for others at higher risk, such as cancer patients, for example.

“We’re actively thinking through, ‘How do we make sure those most at high-risk get access to the vaccine?’” he said.

Avula expects everyone in Phase 1B statewide who wants to be vaccinated to have received shots by the end of April and everyone in general statewide who wants to be vaccinated to have received at least their first doses by the end of May.

In the coming weeks, more pharmacies and medical offices will begin receiving doses of vaccine to administer as the state continues to receive more from the federal government, Avula said.