J&J and Merck to partner for COVID vaccine production to boost supply
02 March 2021
President Biden will announce Tuesday that pharmaceutical giant Merck will help Johnson & Johnson manufacture its newly authorized coronavirus vaccine to boost supply, a senior administration official tells Axios.
The big picture: The development has the potential to vastly increase supply, possibly doubling what the J&J could make on its own, the official said. The company has run into challenges while trying to expand its vaccine production to a global scale.
- Jeff Zients, the White House's COVID-19 response coordinator, said at a briefing Monday that 3.9 million doses of the J&J vaccine will be distributed to states, tribes, territories, pharmacies and community health centers this week, starting as early as Tuesday.
The state of play: Merck will dedicate two U.S. facilities for J&J shots, one to help place vaccine in vials and package and the other to make the vaccine itself. The Washington Post first reported the partnership.
- Merck's experience in vaccine production is vast, despite its discontinuation in developing its own vaccine against the coronavirus in January. It's the only supplier for the vaccine which protects children from measles, mumps and rubella.
- It developed Gardasil, which protects against the human papillomavirus and also received FDA approval for an Ebola vaccine in 2019.
Background: J&J’s vector-based COVID-19 shot, which received the FDA’s emergency use authorization on Saturday, was also recommended by the CDC a day later for people ages 18 years and older.
- Both Johnson & Johnson and Merck did yet not respond to a request for comment.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.