//Here’s how health officials in the Carolinas are planning for Johnson & Johnson vaccine

Here’s how health officials in the Carolinas are planning for Johnson & Johnson vaccine

Johnson and Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine could soon gain emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration, making for the third available vaccine in the arsenal against the virus.

On Friday, an independent FDA committee is set to discuss the vaccine, but briefing documents the agency released earlier this week shows the Johnson and Johnson candidate is both safe and effective.

Depending on how Friday’s vote goes, emergency use authorization could be granted by this weekend, but in the Carolinas, health officials are already mapping out how to use the vaccine.

“We’re already planning to think about where can those doses go, how are we going to allocate that, how are we going to use that, working with our vaccine providers to make sure we have the capacity waiting in the wings, so the moment the vaccine becomes available to us, we can hit the ground running,” Dr. Mandy Cohen, North Carolina’s Health and Human Services Secretary, said.

If the approval happens, shipments could go out immediately.

https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/vaccine/johnson-johnson-vaccine-on-deck-for-fda-approval-heres-what-it-means-for-the-carolinas/275-2eeab183-0aaf-4f1b-bb02-41745a9b8400