The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Saturday (Feb. 27), making it the third shot cleared for use in the country.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Saturday (Feb.27), making it the third shot cleared for use in the country. « The authorization of this vaccine expands the availability of vaccines, the best medical prevention method for COVID-19, to help us in the fight against this pandemic, which has claimed over half a million lives in the United States, » Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement. An FDA analysis showed that the single-shot vaccine had a 72% overall efficacy rate in the U.S. and 64% in South Africa, where a highly-transmissible coronavirus variant is causing most new cases, The New York Times reported. The efficacy rate in South Africa is slightly higher than the company had estimated in a recent report, up by seven percentage points. In terms of protecting against severe disease, the vaccine showed 86% efficacy in the U.S. and 82% in South Africa, the Times reported. And the shot was « 100 percent effective in preventing hospitalization and deaths, and that’s really what’s important, » Dr. Nancy M. Bennett, a professor of medicine and public health sciences at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, told The Washington Post. « Those facts are the most important thing to recognize.
