The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine‘s rollout will be paused after federal officials — specifically the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration — said there were reports of blood clots in people who received the vaccine.
- Now, we know what Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House medical adviser on the coronavirus, thinks about the pause.
Quick details on J&J COVID-19 vaccine pause
- The FDA said women from 18 to 48 years old suffered blood clots after getting the vaccine.
- The blood clots happened 13 days after vaccinated.
- The FDA pointed out six reported cases out of 6.8 million administered doses.
What Fauci said
Fauci said the pause offers the FDA and the CDC a chance to seek out “any clues” and “find some common denominators among the women who were involved” that could be creating the blood clot disorder, CNBC reports.
- “We are totally aware that this is a rare event. We want to get this worked out as quickly as we possibly can and that’s why you see the world pause, in other words, you want to hold off for a bit,” Fauci said. “We want to leave that up to the FDA and the CDC to investigate this carefully. I don’t think it was pulling the trigger too quickly.”
Fauci said at the White House press briefing that the pause will make doctors aware of the problem. He said right now, doctors will treat blood clot patients with heparin, which is a blood thinner. But, Fauci said, that could be a problem in this situation.
- “If someone comes in with this really rather rare syndrome of thrombotic thrombocytopenia where you get thromboses, the most common way to treat that would be with heparin,” Fauci said, according to CNBC. “That would be a mistake in this situation because that could be dangerous and make the situation worse.”
Will this impact the vaccine rollout?
It probably won’t hurt the United States’ vaccine rollout plan. White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said in a statement that the U.S. will still meet its vaccine goal, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
- “Johnson & Johnson vaccine makes up less than 5% of the recorded shots in arms in the United States to date. Based on actions taken by the president earlier this year, the United States has secured enough Pfizer and Moderna doses for 300 million Americans,” he said.