Vaccine providers: ‘Pause’ will have little effect in Danbury area

Many Danbury-area clinics and providers say they will be largely unaffected by the federal “pause” on Johnson & Johnson vaccine administration announced Tuesday morning following six cases of rare but severe blood clots.

Some providers reported small allocation from the state, while others said the vaccine is used minimally at their facilities or they can switch to other vaccines.

Bethel, Redding and Danbury health departments have not been using Johnson & Johnson, while New Milford has used it at its regular clinics. Ridgefield has also used it at its clinics and, specifically, to vaccinate homebound populations, but did not receive any Johnson & Johnson vaccine last week.

The one-shot vaccine has made up less than 1 percent of the shots received by the Community Health Center, Inc., which, as of Tuesday, has distributed 250,000 doses statewide, including at the Danbury Fair mall.

The Johnson & Johnson doses administered by the center make up an “infinitesimally small” portion of total vaccine administered, said Lisa Gianelli, spokeswoman for the health

center.

“We have it on hand, but we haven’t been using it,” she said.

The health center has been focused on vaccinating high school students, who are cleared to receive only the Pfizer vaccine. For now, the doses will stay in the refrigerators.

“We’ll leave them in the inventory until we’re advised otherwise,” Gianelli said.

But the postponement is a wedge in the health center’s plans to administer 2,500 doses of Johnson & Johnson to Western Connecticut State University beginning next Tuesday.

The university is working the state health department and the Connecticut Board of Regents to come up with a new plan, WestConn spokesman Paul Steinmetz said.

Appointments and clinics in other areas are less affected.

Nuvance Health, which includes Danbury and New Milford hospitals, is not administering the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at its clinics, said Jeff Nicastro, chief medical officer and system chairman of surgery at Nuvance Health, due to limited supply.

Brookfield received 240 doses of the vaccine and used them at its clinic Monday. But First Selectman Steve Dunn said the town doesn’t have any more Johnson & Johnson appointments planned because it doesn’t have the supply and is not expecting more deliveries any time soon.

“We anticipate that we will not receive any further allocations of the [Johnson & Johnson] until the FDA, CDC and the state have been able to review this and make a decision on the safety of the [Johnson & Johnson] vaccine,” Dunn wrote in an email Tuesday.

Newtown has primarily distributed the Moderna vaccine, but its health department received a “small” allotment of 50 doses of Johnson & Johnson that were administered last week at its regular clinic, said Donna Culbert, health director. The department had no future Johnson & Johnson clinics planned, she said.

For RVNAhealth, the Ridgefield-based organization running the town’s local clinic, Johnson & Johnson doses have not been abundant, and the group received none of the one-shot vaccine in its state allotment this week, according to Nancy Rowe, spokeswoman.

Meanwhile, New Milford will pivot its Johnson & Johnson appointments quite easily due to a large allocation of Pfizer, according to Mayor Pete Bass.

While providers across the state are altering appointments and leaving the Johnson & Johnson in refrigerators for now, officials are doing their best to deal with concerned residents and provide insight.

Bass said residents have called his office and the health center Tuesday and asked residents to reach out to their primary doctors with questions.

State Rep. Raghib AllieBrennan, D-Bethel, has spent his morning trying to provide information and context to his constituents about the data to mitigate increased vaccine hesitancy.

“There’s already a lot of hesitancy and skepticism, and I think that hesitancy can lead to more deaths,” said Allie-Brennan, who got his Johnson & Johnson vaccine on April 1.

With just six people affected of the nearly 7 million who’ve received this type of vaccine, AllieBrennan said it’s important to understand the statistics.

“That’s less than one in a million,” he said. “The CDC says the odds of being struck by lightening are one in 500,000.”

Allie-Brennan noted that women taking birth control medication are also susceptible to blood clots.

“I think people need to take a breath and let the CDC do its investigation,” he said.

Area residents said they weren’t terribly worried. Summer Hoogenboom, a Brookfield woman who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine last Monday, said while she had a fairly bad reaction to it, she was not overly concerned that the vaccine has been paused.

“My side effects lasted two days,” she said. “It was intense, but I feel like it made sense. I don’t think it was abnormal.”

She said her reactions included fever, serious muscle pain and chills.

Hoogenboom, who said she didn’t feel 100 percent until the end of the following day, had COVID-19 in January.

Kent’s resident Jennifer Willcox, who received Johnson & Johnson April 1, said while the news is “worrisome,” she is still glad she got that vaccine, over the other options.

Prior to receiving the vaccine, she had consulted with family members who are doctors, who specifically told her to get Johnson & Johnson over Moderna or Pfizer because “it's a more proven technology.”

“I was worried about blood clots, but they told me this was very rare. Everything has a risk, and the shot is still safer than driving in a car,” she said.