America’s temporary pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine won’t interfere with President Joe Biden’s goal of making the nation somewhat normal on Independence Day, said the Dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health. Tuesday.
“I think this will be a blip on the calendar in terms of vaccinating Americans,” said Dr. Ashish Jha. “I don’t think it will affect the timeline.”
Federal health authorities on Tuesday advised that the US should temporarily suspend use of J & J’s single-dose vaccine after six of the approximately 6.9 million people who received the injection reported developing serious blood clots. The blood clots occurred in women between the ages of 18 and 48. One woman died and another is in critical condition. They all developed symptoms 6 to 13 days after they received the injection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration
Jha told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” that the warning measures were evidence that “the system is working” and that the government’s swift action could counter vaccine hesitation.
“I hope it will build real confidence in people that we don’t take adverse events lightly, and that we investigate them, and that we really make sure that these vaccines are very, very safe.”
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, reaffirmed that the pause “stems from an abundance of caution” and that it will give health officials time to investigate.
“You want to make sure that security is the most important issue here,” Fauci said at a White House news conference on Tuesday. “We are fully aware that this is a very rare event. We want to work this out as soon as possible.”
Jha told host Shepard Smith that he “expects the break to last for days, not much longer,” and echoed Fauci’s claim about the rarity of the blood clots.
“The main point here is that this is an incredibly rare adverse event,” said Jha. “It’s not going to affect many people at all, and I just think out of an abundance of caution we’ll just pause to see what else we can learn about it.”