President Biden’s chief medical adviser said he expects Johnson & Johnson‘s
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The Covid-19 vaccine is due to be used again in the US on Friday after a break due to concerns about blood clots in several patients.
“I would be very surprised … if we don’t have a resumption in one form or another on Friday,” Dr. Anthony Fauci on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” echoing comments he made on other networks on Sunday.
US health authorities on Tuesday recommended that J & J’s single-dose use should be discontinued out of an abundance of caution as they examine reports of the six women who received the vaccine and then developed serious blood clots. The women were between 18 and 48 years old. One died.
More than 7.2 million doses of the J&J vaccine have been administered in the US; about 1.5 million of those doses went to women between the ages of 18 and 50.
J&J said Friday there was not enough evidence to determine that the company’s Covid-19 vaccine is causing the rare blood clotting condition that prompted U.S. health officials this week to recommend a break in use.
At least the pause will be there until a federal vaccine advisory committee meets Friday to review the matter.
“I would think that we will not go beyond Friday, as an extension of this pause,” said Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on ABC’s “This Week.”
Disease experts said it’s possible that regulators may impose age or gender restrictions on the vaccine or warn doctors about how to avoid or treat any problems associated with the injection.
“I don’t want to get ahead of them, but I think we’ll come back with some kind of indication that’s a little bit different than before the break,” said Dr. Fauci on ABC.
Former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who served in the Trump administration, said that “you could see a situation where the vaccine is reserved for use in older individuals who may be both at a lower risk of this side effect and at a higher risk of a poor outcome. Covid. Another option is to bring back the vaccine with different warnings, he said.
Drs. Fauci and Gottlieb were found to downplay the risk that the US vaccination program would be undermined this summer by new or potent coronavirus variants.
Europe’s top drug regulator approved the AstraZeneca vaccine after it was suspended in several countries over concerns about blood clots. WSJ explains what is at stake for a shot that is widely used around the world and could soon be considered for emergency use in the US Photo: Mykola Tys / SOPA Images
“Even some of those who are more problematic, the vaccine may not fully protect against it, but it almost certainly protects, at least in our current experience, against very serious illness, especially death,” said Dr. Fauci on CNN.
One way to address new variants and / or natural decreases in immunity from current vaccines is through consecutive booster shots, in addition to the normal two shots the Pfizer receives. Inc.
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and Moderna Inc.
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vaccines or the single J&J injection.
Dr. Fauci said on CBS that by late summer or early fall, medical authorities may recommend “an extra shot against the original virus or maybe a vaccination against something very specific to the variant you’re concerned about.”
—Peter Loftus contributed to this article.
Write to William Mauldin at [email protected]
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