Pa. officials extend Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause

Pennsylvania vaccine providers will not administer Johnson & Johnson vaccine until at least April 24, state officials said Thursday, extending the distribution pause by four days.

Federal regulators had recommended a pause in the single-shot vaccine Tuesday, after six women reportedly experienced blood clots and low platelet counts in the two weeks since receiving their doses. One of the six women died. More than 6.8 million people have gotten the Johnson & Johnson vaccine across the United States, most with no severe side effects.

In response to the recommendation, Pennsylvania health officials announced Tuesday the vaccine would not be administered until at least April 20.

The pause was extended during an emergency meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Committee on Immunization Practices on Wednesday. Another meeting is expected within 10 days while an investigation continues.

“The safety procedures built into the vaccination process are working and should instill confidence in the safety and effectiveness of the available covid-19 vaccines,” Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam said. “I urge individuals who have appointments scheduled to receive a Pfizer or Moderna vaccination to keep those appointments.”

During the Wednesday meeting, the CDC acknowledged one of the six cases of blood clots being studied involves a 26-year-old Pennsylvania woman who was treated at a New Jersey hospital.

The extension comes as no surprise, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a Pittsburgh-based infectious disease expert, but the repercussions could be severe.

“I think the longer the pause continues, the more vaccine hesitancy will grow,” said Adalja, who is a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

While Adalja predicted the vaccine will eventually come back in circulation — possibly with some new restrictions on age groups, sex or other conditions — the pause has already undermined the safety of Johnson & Johnson in many people’s minds.

“This is a major setback, and (the Johnson & Johnson vaccine) would be a critical part to controlling covid-19 not only in the U.S., but in the world,” Adalja said, noting that the single-use shot is ideal for inoculating hard-to-reach communities that can be particularly vulnerable to the virus. “I think it will come back, but it will come back damaged, through no fault of its own.”

Dr. Don Yealy, chair of emergency medicine at UPMC, said he fully expects the investigation will find the clots to have been very rare events with “unclear connection to the vaccine.” But it’s easy, he said, for some to feed into existing or fomented vaccine fears, resulting in greater hesitancy.

Yealy disagreed, though, that a longer pause would multiply vaccine hesitancy. A pause that shows a thorough investigation and still results in the vaccine being reintroduced should actually be more comforting, he said.

“The key here is, this is done to make sure everyone feels comfortable about the safety of the vaccine,” he said. “Not because someone has decided the vaccine is unsafe. That’s a big distinction.”

The pause in Johnson & Johnson distribution comes the same week Pennsylvania officially opened vaccine eligibility to all adult residents — a full week sooner than planned. The move was meant to create more demand as vaccine supply increased, officials said.

Beam said Tuesday she is confident that appointment availability will remain high in Pennsylvania even amid the pause, thanks to steady allocations of the two other vaccines.

“If you have a vaccine appointment, keep it,” Yealy added. “Don’t let this news become noise. You can get a safe vaccine. You can get it today.”