New York to offer Johnson & Johnson vaccine at 3 sites

LI hospital administers one of the first single-dose vaccines

Cities and states are rapidly expanding access to vaccines as the nation races to head off a resurgence in coronavirus infections and reopen schools and businesses battered by the pandemic.

NEW YORK - The U.S. and New York, in particular, could be on the verge of a significant ramping up of COVID-19 vaccine distribution.

President Joe Biden announced Johnson & Johnson will work together with pharmaceutical competitor Merck to quickly manufacture its recently approved one-dose vaccine. It means there may be enough coronavirus vaccines for all adult Americans by the end of May, two months earlier than anticipated, the president said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that the state will be administering Johnson & Johnson's vaccine at all state-run mass vaccination sites eventually, but will first launch a pilot program at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, the Javits Center in Manhattan, and the state fairgrounds in Syracuse. All those places will add appointments and begin operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Yankee Stadium will begin administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Thursday at 8 p.m. The Javits Center will start Friday at 9 p.m. The fairgrounds site will start on Friday at 10 p.m.

Merck to help produce rival J&J's COVID-19 vaccine

New York is supposed to get about 164,800 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week. The Cuomo administration said it decided to distribute this allocation as quickly as possible because the White House COVID-19 Task Force said production will briefly lag after next week's allocation.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is appealing because it can be stored in a refrigerator and only requires one dose. Its listed efficacy rate is lower than the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. But public health officials say that data is somewhat misleading because the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were tested before many of the common variants emerged.

Single-dose vaccine coming to NY

The state-run mass vaccination sites at Yankee Stadium, the Jacob Javits Center, and the state fairgrounds in Syracuse will begin administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week.

Fauci: Don't compare J&J COVID-19 vaccine to others

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Dr. John Whyte, the chief medical officer for WebMD, urges anyone hesitant to take any vaccine offered.

"For severe infections, it's 85% effective. It's 100% effective against hospitalizations and deaths," he said, referring to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. "That's what I am really impressed by. I would encourage people not to delay getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine if they are given the opportunity."

Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Pilot Program

These sites will give the J&J vaccine (one dose) separately from the Pfizer vaccine (two doses) during this pilot program.

A medical worker gives a COVID-19 vaccine shot to a Bronx resident at the mass-vaccination site at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, N.Y., Feb. 5, 2021. (U.S. Air Force Reserve Photo)