It was announced on Tuesday morning that Johnson & Johnson will immediately put a halt on the rollout of their one-shot COVID-19 vaccine after the FDA and other federal health agencies called for a pause of the vaccine after 6 women developed a rare brain clot after getting the Johnson & Johnson shot. One woman was hospitalized in critical conditional, and one died.
So far, one-hundred and twenty-one million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose of of the COVID-19 vaccine. Out of that, only 6%, or around a little under seven million people, received the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. While the halt of the shot was out of an abundance of caution and the appearance of blood clots appear to be incredibly rare, experts warn of an even bigger problem arising from the pause in J & J shots: a spike in vaccine hesitancy.
Dr. Arnold Monto, acting chair of an FDA vaccine advisory committee, is fearful less Americans will seek out the vaccine and not understand the different vaccine platforms currently available.
“It’s a low frequency problem but with potentially big consequences for the vaccine program if not put into the proper context. My concern is that people don’t understand there are different vaccine platforms,” stated Monto. “There could be consequences in terms of messaging. We can’t let this be handled by politicians-it’s got to be handled by the scientists.”
Out of three vaccines currently offered in the U.S., two different platforms are used. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are mRNA based, while the Johnson & Johnson is a vector vaccine, which used an alternative version of another virus to spike proteins to cause a response from the body’s immune system. The AstraZeneca vaccine is also a vector vaccine, but is not available in the U.S. and rollout was paused in European countries as blood clotting issues were also reported with that vaccine. So far, there have been zero reports of any blood clotting issues with the mRNA Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
The White House has said they still expect to reach vaccine target numbers in the U.S. despite the pause.
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