Johnson & Johnson vaccine is delayed by a US factory mix-up – NYT

As per the early Thursday news from the New York Times (NYT), the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine deliveries from Johnson and Johnson will be delayed due to a human error, being investigated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), at a Baltimore plant.

“Workers at a Baltimore plant manufacturing two coronavirus vaccines accidentally conflated the vaccines’ ingredients several weeks ago, ruining about 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and forcing regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines,” said the news.

Although the news mentions this incident as a “major embarrassment for Johnson & Johnson”, it also said that the same does not affect doses that are currently being delivered and used nationwide.

NYT also mentioned, “But all further shipments of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — projected to total tens of millions of doses in the next month — were supposed to come from the massive Baltimore plant.”

FX implications

The news reverses the recent optimism covid vaccine, propelled by Pfizer’s upbeat vaccine results on children, while offering an extra reason for the AUD/USD prices to remain sluggish.

Read: AUD/USD: Sluggish around 0.7600, unimpressed by Biden’s infrastructure plan