Pfizer announces increase in delivery of COVID-19 vaccine doses, two weeks early

On the same day the FDA and CDC asked for a nationwide pause on giving the single shot Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer announced they will deliver more vaccines, earlier.

Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla made the announcement on Twitter.

“(Pfizer) can deliver 10% more doses to the US by the end of May than previously agreed (total of 220M) & supply the full 300M agreed on for the end of July two weeks early,” Bourla tweeted. “In the fight against COVID-19, we’re in this together."

Pfizer’s vaccine requires two doses to be fully effective, so 300 million doses will vaccinate 150 million people.

Tuesday morning, health experts issued the caution about the J&J vaccine after six reports of dangerous blood clots. The FDA expects an investigation into the cases to last a few days.

The news caused Europe to reconsider their rollout of the single dose J&J COVID-19 vaccine.

So far, more than 122 million Americans have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine; either the Moderna, Pfizer or J&J vaccine. Nearly 7 million of those vaccinations have been the J&J vaccine.

Meanwhile, the number of active cases continues to increase. The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in this country increased over the last two weeks, from 65,785 on March 29 to 68,959 on April 12.

As a hopeful note, the number of new deaths caused by COVID-19 has slightly decreased over the same two week period, according to Johns Hopkins University.