Yolo County puts J&J vaccine on hold
The pause comes after six reports of blood clots
Yolo County has paused its distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine following reports of blood clots.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that they were investigating unusual clots that occurred 6 to 13 days after vaccination. The FDA commissioner said she expected the pause to last a matter of days.
As of Monday, more than 6.8 million doses of the J&J COVID-19 vaccine had been distributed in the United States, and the joint statement from the CDC and the FDA noted that only six blood clot cases had been reported. All six cases were reported in women aged 18 to 48. One woman has died, and the rest are under investigation.
Tuesday’s action is not a mandate. Doctors and patients could still use J&J’s vaccine if they decide its benefits outweigh its risks for individual cases, said Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA.
The FDA and CDC recommend that people who were given the J&J vaccine should contact their doctor if they experience severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain, or shortness of breath within three weeks.
Yolo County’s Public Information Officer, Jenny Tan, stated that the county
has not received any information regarding adverse side effects in residents who have received the J&J vaccine. Although she did note that it is possible that side effects are being reported to the CDC as opposed to the county.
Tan noted that the county received 795 doses of the J&J vaccine — which are now being held until the CDC and FDA deem them safe for distribution — a small number compared to the 5,700 doses that she said were expected to be distributed by the county this week during Monday’s biweekly briefing.
The J&J vaccines were extremely helpful in vaccinating homebound residents and the homeless because only one dose is required.
“This will not affect our effort to vaccinate the homeless/homebound,” Tan stated. “We still have some doses of Moderna/ Pfizer, so we will swap out any J&J ones that were in our schedule for the week. It just means more work for us on the back end as we’ll need to do second dose appointments/clinics.”
The J&J vaccine received emergency use authorization from the FDA in late February with great fanfare. Yet the shot only makes up a small fraction of the doses administered in the U.S. J&J has been plagued by production delays and manufacturing errors at the Baltimore plant of a contractor.
Last week, the drugmaker took over the facility to scale up production in hopes of meeting its commitment to the U.S. government of providing about 100 million doses by the end of May.
According to CDC data, only about 9 million of the company’s doses have been delivered to states and are awaiting administration.
Jeff Zients, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said 28 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will be available for states this week, more than enough to keep up the nation’s pace of 3 million shots a day despite the J&J pause.
Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted Tuesday that J&J was only about 4% of California’s vaccine supply and that the state will still be on track to fully open by June 15.
Tan also said it is unlikely that the pause will significantly affect the county’s vaccination effort this week due to the small number of J&J vaccines distributed to Yolo County.
As of April 8, 38% of Yolo County’s population have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 76% of those 65 and older have been vaccinated.
The increase in county vaccinations aligns with continuously low COVID-19 cases and deaths. The county reported just 44 additional cases and zero deaths over the weekend. Since the pandemic began over a year ago, 13,402 Yolo County residents have tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 and 199 have died.