State puts J&J vaccine on hold
People with appointments at N.y.-run sites will receive Pfizer instead, Zucker says
New York will follow recommendations from federal health agencies to pause the use of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine while reports of an extremely rare blood clotting disorder in six vaccine recipients are investigated.
State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said on Tuesday that the pause will occur immediately statewide, and that all appointments at state-run mass vaccination sites that use the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be honored with the two-dose Pfizer vaccine.
The directive comes after the Centers for Disease Con- trol and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration issued the recommendation early Tuesday morning. While the clotting disorder has not been directly linked to the vaccine, it occurred within two weeks of the six recipients getting the shot and mirror a rare side effect seen from the Astrazeneca vaccine, which is not yet authorized in the U.S. but which relies on the same technology to stimulate an immune response.
The six cases are out of 7 million Johnson & Johnson shots administered in the U.S. to date. A majority of the nearly 190
President Joe Biden’s COVID -19 vaccination campaign hit a snag Tuesday when federal regulators recommended a “pause” in administering Johnson & Johnson shots. But the White House portrayed the action as important validation of his measured approach throughout the rollout.
Biden declared that even with a temporary loss of J&J’S one-shot vaccine, there is a huge supply of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, enough that “is basically 100% unquestionable, for every single solitary American.”
Maybe more concerning than any supply worries, however, is the potential blow to public confidence in all vaccines, as polls suggest potentially tens of millions of Americans are hesitant to get the shots that public health experts say are necessary for the U.S. to emerge from the pandemic.
The pause actually should have the opposite effect, boosting confidence that the government is putting safety first, Biden and top health officials said at a White House briefing. The advisory by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — citing a need to investigate reports of rare but potentially dangerous blood clots — was “testimony to how seriously we take safety,“said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert.
In the opening months of his presidency, Biden has put top priority on a robust response to the virus that has killed 559,000 Americans, with a vaccine campaign in which nearly 50% of adults have received at least one shot. His actions have received generally strong reviews, and vaccine hesitancy has gradually declined as inoculations have increased.