States are only getting 700,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses next week, down from almost 5 million this week

• Just 700,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be distributed in the US next week.
• Distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been varied for weeks.
• About 4.9 million doses were distributed across the United States this week.

States will only receive 700,000 doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine next week, after weeks of varied distribution.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4.9 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine were distributed across the United States this week. Last week, about 1.9 million doses were distributed.

The slowdown in distribution comes after a plant in Baltimore mistakenly mixed up vaccine ingredients and ruined 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The factory now has to check 62 million other doses for possible contamination and has yet to be cleared to distribute by federal regulators.

The Dutch plant that delivered the initial supply of Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses to the US also distributed doses on a varied schedule, causing a further slowdown across states, according to the New York Times.

As of Friday morning, at least 112 million people in the US, or 33.7% of the population, had received their first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. More than 66 million people have been fully vaccinated, CDC data shows.