As of April 19, all adults in the United States are eligible for COVID-19 vaccines, ABC News has reported.
“Folks, I have good news,” President Joe Biden said in a video posted on Twitter Monday. “Everybody is eligible as of today to get the vaccine. We have enough of it, you need to be protected, and you need in turn to protect your neighbors and your family. So please get the vaccine.”
Just over half of all U.S. adults have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, and 84 million adults have been fully vaccinated, according to The Washington Post.
The milestone comes as there’s a nationwide pause of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. But that pause could end later this week, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci.
When will the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine pause end?
Less than a week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration called for a pause on the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, Fauci has said the pause will likely end Friday, April 23.
- “By Friday, we should have an answer as to where we’re going with it,” Fauci said on ABC News’ “This Week,” The Washington Post reported. “I would think that we’re not going to go beyond Friday in the extension of this pause.”
In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, said he doubts the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be canceled, although there may be restrictions in its use.
- “Everything is on the table,” Fauci said, according to USA Today. “My estimate is that we will continue to use it in some form. I doubt very seriously if they just cancel it. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I do think that there will likely be some sort of warning or restriction or risk assessment.”
Why was the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine paused?
On April 13, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration issued a pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine when there were “six reported U.S. cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in individuals after receiving the J&J vaccine,” the Deseret News reported.
The six reported cases — out of 6.8 million administered doses — were from women ages 18 to 48, and the blood clots occurred between six and 13 days after vaccination, the Deseret News reported.
Janet Woodcock, chief of the Food and Drug Administration, said while no definitive cause had been determined, the blood clots seemed to be a rare immune response to the vaccine, according to USA Today.
The rare disorder is treated differently from other blood clots, leading federal officials to be concerned that doctors may not be trained to deal with it, according to The New York Times.
With the vaccine on pause, Fauci said the FDA and the CDC would investigate the cases, searching for “common denominators” among the women who suffered the blood clots, CNBC reported.
Fauci has also said he believes the vaccine pause could actually lead more U.S. citizens to get vaccinated, the Deseret News reported.
- “The very fact that you have … the CDC and the FDA looking so carefully at this, making safety the primary concern, in my mind, confirms or underscores the situation that we take safety very seriously,” he told the “Today” show.