Experts unfazed by vaccine pause
Withdrawing J&J shots ‘is science in progress’
The pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccinations in Memphis and Shelby County won’t have a huge impact on the number of shots that local officials will be able to give. And, experts say it should affirm people’s trust in science, not lessen it.
The city of Memphis and Shelby County, like states and municipalities nationwide, paused giving the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday.
“This is an example of the system working the way it is designed to work,” David Sweat, the deputy director of the Shelby County Health Department said during a news conference.
Dr. Manoj Jain, a key member of the Memphis and Shelby County COVID-19 task force, said the pause was a sign of science working and being transparent.
“This is science in progress and sometimes you see the inner workings of science. And we need not be afraid of it, but let us allow this to build confidence amongst ourselves [and] use this as an opportunity to develop trust,” Jain said.
He and Sweat noted that the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention release about the pause noted six incidents of blood clotting among 6.8 million people vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson shot.
They both noted that there had been one incident for every 1 million vaccinations and a single death, making it an exceedingly rare event. To give a sense
“Fear is absolutely not warranted. This is science at work. This is transparency at work.”
Dr. Manoj Jain, a key member of the Memphis and Shelby County COVID-19 task force
of scale, Jain noted that car crashes kill about 110 people per 1 million.
“Fear is absolutely not warranted. This is science at work. This is transparency at work. It is learning as we open up the vaccine to a very large population,” Jain said.
Any worry about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should not carry over to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines because they use different technologies, Jain explained. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses what is known as an adenovirus vector — a genetically altered virus cell that has been rendered harmless and causes the body to build an immune response.
The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use MRNA technology, which is not an altered form of the virus, but, instead, a piece of genetic code that helps the body form an immune response to the novel coronavirus.
“They are completely different vaccine platforms,” Jain said.
City will adjust community pods
The city, which runs local vaccination efforts, had relied on Johnson & Johnson vaccine for vaccinating people in communities that may struggle to reach permanent vaccination sites due to a lack of access.
Doug Mcgowen, the city’s chief operating officer, said that while 17,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson are now in storage with labels that say do not use,” he does not expect the city will run into supply problems with vaccines.
In recent weeks, Mcgowen said, the city has seen a higher percentage of people returning for their second shot than it did previously and he is not worried about community vaccination sites seeing people only show up for their first shot but not the second.