A key Food and Drug Administration advisory panel will review and vote on Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot Covid-19 vaccine on Friday, potentially paving the way for an emergency use authorization in the coming days. If authorized, J&J’s shot would be the third to be made available in the U.S. and would be distributed through a comparatively simple supply chain: The one-dose regimen eliminates the need to track return visits, and the drug can be stored at less extreme temperatures than vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna. The influx of supply and simplified logistics would likely mean an immediate boost to national vaccination rates when the vaccine hits the market as early as next week.
The U.S. is recording at least 73,300 new Covid-19 cases and at least 2,160 virus-related deaths each day, based on a seven-day average calculated by CNBC using Johns Hopkins University data.
The following data was compiled by Johns Hopkins University:
- Global cases: More than 113.14 million
- Global deaths: At least 2.51 million
- U.S. cases: More than 28.41 million
- U.S. deaths: At least 508,359