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Megan Jacob is a mother of three who just got her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. She’s also an associate professor in clinical microbiology and director of Diagnostic Laboratories at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM). Now, under her leadership, the college is home to COVID-19 testing labs for the NC State community. With the laboratories capable of completing 8,000 tests per day — and current expectations for campus demand at about 11,000 tests per week — much of the university community’s health is in the hands of her and her lab team. “I’ve hired some really great people in our lab who, in their cover letters, say, ‘I just want to contribute to fighting the pandemic,’” says Jacob. “It has truly brought out some of the best in people.”

Experts now say there’s a simple reason why Nevada’s COVID-19 vaccine allotment has seemed low for months. Fast-growing states have been disadvantaged due to the federal government’s reliance on old population data. Weekly vaccine allocations are proportional to each state’s estimated adult population recorded in the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014-18 American Community Survey. The 2015-19 estimates show Nevada with a 1.9 percent larger adult population, one of the biggest increases in the nation. “We get a smaller share of the vaccines compared to what we should have because we’re using kind of older data, and Nevada has grown since then,” UNLV epidemiologist Brian Labus said. “The farther back you look, the greater the gap is going to be.” White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said Monday the allocation method will continue as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine comes online.

North Carolina went from getting its first COVID-19 case to its first vaccination in less than a year. Vaccine demand has now outweighed supply making appointments difficult to get. Many people are left wondering when it will be their chance to get a COVID-19 vaccine if they don’t fall in the priority groups. Dr. Julie Swann is the head of the N.C. State Industrial and Systems Engineering Department. She models pandemics and said we are still in the early stages of vaccinations. “If we we continued at the same rate, 70 percent of the population would receive a first dose by late summer, early fall so that’s a ways away,” said Swann. She said that timeline could be moved up if vaccine manufacturing speeds up, creating more supply. The introduction of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine could move up the timeline too as it only required a single dose, reaching Americans twice as fast.

On February 27, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued emergency use authorization for the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine in adults 18 years of age and older. The vaccine is now the third approved for use in the United States, adding another tool to help stymie the Covid-19 pandemic. Because Johnson & Johnson's vaccine doesn't use mRNA—as the previously approved vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech do—the vaccine provides several practical benefits. Only one dose is needed instead of two, which means fewer vaccination appointments for patients and reduced production demands. And the new vaccine doesn't require super-cold storage; it remains stable in regular refrigeration for three months.