Biden to announce additional buy of 100M J&J COVID-19 vaccine doses

President Joe Biden is expected to announce today that he is directing the Department of Health and Human Services to purchase an additional 100 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, a White House official confirmed to CNN.

The administration and J&J still need to negotiate when these 100 million doses will be available, another person familiar with the matter told CNN. This source predicted it will likely happen later this year as J&J works to ramp up production.

The New York Times first reported the expected announcement.

The White House told governors on Tuesday to expect fewer than 400,000 doses of the J&J vaccine next week, far below what they initially said they expected would be available, according to the CNN report.

Biden met Wednesday afternoon with executives from J&J and Merck, which is helping to manufacture the vaccine under a deal brokered by the White House.