Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine.Photo: Alex Gottschalk/DeFodi Images via Getty
One day after the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Controlrecommended a pause on inoculations with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, all 50 states have opted to stop, switching instead toPfizer or Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines.
The federal health agencies advised the pause on Tuesday “out of an abundance of caution,” after they learned thatsix women between the ages of 18 and 48 had developed a rare blood clot conditioncalled cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, or CVST, within two weeks of getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
“I think the important thing to emphasize is that it is very rare,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the CDC,said onGood Morning America. “There was six women, out of the 6.85 million vaccinations of the J&J, which means that it’s less than 1 in a million.”
Schuchat confirmed that there is no evidence yet that the vaccine had caused the cases of CVST, and responded to the criticism that the FDA and CDC are raising alarm about an issue that is unlikely to occur at a time when people are already hesitant about the vaccines. She said that one of the main reasons for the pause was to communicate to physicians that CVST is a potential issue to look out for, and “to report it, because we don’t know if we’ve missed some cases, whether the risk really is 1 in a million or possibly more than that.”
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Speaking withToday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said that he believes the pause on Johnson & Johnson vaccinations could actually reduce vaccine hesitancy.
Fauci also said that people who have already received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine shouldn’t “worry very much, because just as we’ve said, it is a very, very rare event.”
“The bracket of time when this occurs was between 6 and 13 days. It is between one and two weeks,” he told hostSavannah Guthrie. “If you got your vaccine several weeks ago, then it makes it even less likely that you should have any concern at all. If you’ve had it within a few days, just stay heads-up for symptoms, severe headache, abdominal pain, chest pain, things like that.”
“But again, underscoring, Savannah, it is a very, very rare event,” Fauci added. “You don’t want people who have just received the vaccine to be overly worried about this. This is a rare occurrence. The pause is just an abundance of caution to scope out the situation a little bit more closely.”
source: people.com
