Towns suspend use of J&J vaccine

Matt Bracksieck received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at the Trumbull teachers’ clinic last month.

He said he “didn’t have any side effects worth mentioning.”

Bracksieck, who is Board of Education liaison for the teachers union, said on Tuesday morning that he was looking to learn more about the announcement that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for an immediate pause on the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine amid reports of six cases of individuals developing rare but severe blood clots.

“I’ll have to look into it more,” he said. “I can tell you that...there’s nothing recent with my health.”

Councilman Matthew McCarthy, a Bridgeport Democrat who received the J&J vaccine, said he got it at Bridgeport’s vaccination clinic at Central High School. He also said he had no bad side effects after receiving the vaccine.

“My choice. One and done,” McCarthy said of his decision to get the one-dose shot.

He said Tuesday he was not worried about the news.

“Six cases out of 6.8 million? Did these people have underlying things?” McCarthy said.

He added he does take blood thinners which are used to prevent blood clotting for a pre-existing issue.

Officials statewide were cautious in their handling of the situation on Tuesday, with some announcing right away that they would listen to the federal agencies’ recommendation and stop offering the J&J vaccine while its connection to possible blood clots is investigated.

It was unclear how many appointments would be impacted.

“Safety and confidence in the vaccine is paramount,” Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim said in a prepared statement. “Unless, or until we are 100 percent confident in the J & J vaccine, we will pause its use.”

The mayor’s statement said the city will be working closely with the state and health officials “while Bridgeport’s DPH Clinics continue to administer the Moderna vaccine.”

Stratford officials will also be offering the Moderna vaccine for a pop-up vaccine clinic scheduled for Tuesday as well as its “Operation Homeward Bound,” which as of Monday had vaccinated 85 homebound town residents unable to get to clinics.

“COVID-19 vaccine safety and the health of our residents are our top priorities,” Stratford Health Director Andrea Boissevain said in a statement. “We will be adhering to the CDC and FDA’s guidance and pausing our use of J&J vaccine in our clinics until it is deemed safe.”

Boissevain said Stratford will await the results of the investigation before proceeding with future use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at additional clinics. She said residents can reach out to the health department with questions at 203-385-4090.

The Westport Weston Health District spent Tuesday shifting gears to offer Moderna in place of Johnson & Johnson.

The district, which serves Westport, Weston and Easton, was supposed to host a smaller Johnson & Johnson clinic on Wednesday with fewer than 100 people scheduled, said Mark Cooper, the district’s director.

He said some of the people they contacted decided to not get the Moderna vaccine, but said so many people are still looking for appointments that it wasn’t hard to fill the slots.

The district has already given about 110 Johnson & Johnson vaccines, a fraction of their overall vaccinations considering the more than 4,000 doses of Moderna they’ve administered.

“We’ve been using J&J mostly for the homebound program,” Cooper said, adding that started a couple of weeks or so ago.

He said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine makes sense for those situations because it only requires one shot. This group will also switch to Moderna in the meantime.

So far, he said they haven’t heard of any complications, just the usual sore arm.

He said he’s not sure if the district will have enough Moderna vaccines to offset the stall because they had recently started shifting to ordering more Johnson & Johnson after reassurances from the state that there would be an “abundance” of Johnson and Johnson this week.

“We were cutting back on our orders of Moderna,” he said.

He said they’re going to use Moderna as long as needed and said the Johnson & Johnson pause might be short as officials investigate why the blood clots could have happened.

“We’ll all have to wait and see,” Cooper said.