Vaccine passports: David Cameron says he’s ‘not against’

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Johnson & Johnson’s “game changer” vaccine has been regarded as safe and effective by regulators, meaning the new jab could be authorised within days. Because the vaccine is single dose, it means people don’t need to get another jab to be protected against the virus. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on January 29: “If this jab is approved this could significantly bolster our vaccination programme, especially as a single-dose vaccine.”

When is the Johnson & Johnson vaccine coming to the UK?

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine could be coming to the UK soon, but as it stands, it’s not known exactly when the jab will be here.

While the results are extremely promising, the vaccine is still yet to be approved.

An external committee of experts will meet on Friday, February 26, to recommend whether the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) should authorise the vaccine.

This could possibly be the latest addition to a coming surge in vaccine availability within the US.

A White House official said the administration anticipated distributing at least three million doses of the Johnson & Johnson jab next week, should it receive emergency authorisation on Friday.

The company says it plans to deliver 20million doses worldwide by late March.

This is in line with an agreement to supply the US with 100million doses by the end of June 2021.

Not only will the vaccine need fewer doses than its two-shot counterparts, it will also require fewer vaccine appointments and medical staff as a result.

How many doses has the UK ordered?

The UK has already secured a deal to import 30million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

This number could cover roughly half of Britain’s population.

But supplies of the vaccine, which is made from a weakened version of a common cold virus, isn’t expected to come into the UK until July at least.

This provisional date is subject to approval from the UK’s own Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

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This vaccine costs as little as £7 to produce per dose, making it much cheaper than some of the other vaccines, but about the same as two doses of the Oxford jab.

Professor Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases physician and scientist at the University of Toronto, described the fact the vaccine is more than 85 percent effective at preventing serious illness “terrific”.

The Professor wrote: “Single shot, only requires conventional refrigeration, and look at that beautiful divergence in moderate to severe cases following vaccination, starting at 14 days. Game. Changer.”

Nancy Bennett, a professor of medicine and public health sciences at Rochester University’s School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York, told the Washington Post: “We know this vaccine prevents 85 percent of the severe disease.

“It was 100 percent effective in preventing hospitalisation and deaths, and that is really what is important.”

The FDA provided confirmation of the initial results announced by Johnson & Johnson late last month following its trip involving 45,000 people.

The Belgian firm Janssen, which is owned by the pharmaceutical giant, revealed the vaccine would work differently depending on which country it’s being administered in.

Trials in the US found the jab was 72 percent effective overall, while those in South Africa found it worked only 57 percent of the time.

But the jab was still found to protect against severe disease in South Africa, and more so than the other vaccines approved so far.

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