COLUMBIA, S.C. — Now that Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine has received emergency use authorization (EUA) from the FDA, the company is shipping doses out across the country, and that includes South Carolina.
Johnson & Johnson announced they began sending out shipments of the vaccine on Sunday. According to CBS News, they’re sending out about 4 million shots nationwide.
DHEC confirmed to News19 on Monday that South Carolina is getting about 41,000 doses in its first shipment.
Dr. Edward Simmer, DHEC’s director, says the nice thing about the new vaccine is, "it’s easy to store and it’s a single dose so it’s much easier to use, and so we think that’s going to be a big part of getting vaccine out to areas that are harder to get to or where people can’t come back for a second shot."
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster said Monday that South Carolina can expect its first shipment this week.
"The Johnson & Johnson is supposed to arrive either Friday or Saturday," the governor said. "There won’t be as much of it coming in the beginning as there was when they opened the door for the Pfizer or Moderna. But the good news is we’re going up, up, up with the vaccine and sometime in March we ought to have plenty."
As far as which vaccine providers will get the new shots first, DHEC officials wouldn't share specifics.
However, on a media call Friday, Senior Deputy for Public Health, Nick Davidson, said, "we hope to provide as much choice to individuals as possible. So, we want to distribute this as widely as possible across the state. It won’t be able to be everywhere right away but it is definitely our plan to try to spread it in a diffuse manner so it can be an option for as many people as possible."
DHEC added that they’re onboarding additional vaccine providers to help distribute the Johnson & Johnson shots across the state.
Johnson & Johnson said in their announcement that they, “expect to deliver enough single-shot vaccines by the end of March to enable the full vaccination of more than 20 million people in the U.S.”